The Crushed Flower and Other Stories Part 6

But he was a man.

According to the calendar, it was Friday or Sat.u.r.day, when Max awakened as from a prolonged sleep. With the pleasant sensation of an owner to whom his property has been restored which had wrongly been taken from him, Max realised that he was once more in possession of all his five senses.

His sight reported to him that he was all alone, in a place which might in justice be called either a room or a chimney. Each wall of the room was about a metre and a half wide and about ten metres high. The walls were straight, white, smooth, with no openings, except one through which food was brought to Max. An electric lamp was burning brightly on the ceiling. It was burning all the time, so that Max did not know now what darkness was. There was no furniture in the room, and Max had to lie on the stone floor. He lay curled together, as the narrowness of the room did not permit him to stretch himself.

His sense of hearing reported to him that until the day of his death he would not leave this room.... Having reported this, his hearing sank into inactivity, for not the slightest sound came from without, except the sounds which Max himself produced, tossing about, or shouting until he was hoa.r.s.e, until he lost his voice.

Max looked into himself. In contrast to the outward light which never went out he saw within himself impenetrable, heavy, and motionless darkness. In that darkness his love and faith were buried.

Max did not know whether time was moving or whether it stood motionless.

The same even, white light poured down on him--the same silence and quiet. Only by the beating of his heart Max could judge that Chronos had not left his chariot. His body was aching ever more from the unnatural position in which it lay, and the constant light and silence were growing ever more tormenting. How happy are they for whom night exists, near whom people are shouting, making noise, beating drums; who may sit on a chair, with their feet hanging down, or lie with their feet outstretched, placing the head in a corner and covering it with the hands in order to create the illusion of darkness.

Max made an effort to recall and to picture to himself what there is in life; human faces, voices, the stars.... He knew that his eyes would never in life see that again. He knew it, and yet he lived. He could have destroyed himself, for there is no position in which a man can not do that, but instead Max worried about his health, trying to eat, although he had no appet.i.te, solving mathematical problems to occupy his mind so as not to lose his reason. He struggled against death as if it were not his deliverer, but his enemy; and as if life were to him not the worst of infernal tortures--but love, faith, and happiness. Gloom in the Past, the grave in the Future, and infernal tortures in the Present--and yet he lived. Tell me, John N., where did he get the strength for that?

He hoped.

THE OCEAN

CHAPTER I

A misty February twilight is descending over the ocean. The newly fallen snow has melted and the warm air is heavy and damp. The northwestern wind from the sea is driving it silently toward the mainland, bringing in its wake a sharply fragrant mixture of brine, of boundless s.p.a.ce, of undisturbed, free and mysterious distances.

In the sky, where the sun is setting, a noiseless destruction of an unknown city, of an unknown land, is taking place; structures, magnificent palaces with towers, are crumbling; mountains are silently splitting asunder and, bending slowly, are tumbling down. But no cry, no moan, no crash of the fall reaches the earth--the monstrous play of shadows is noiseless; and the great surface of the ocean, as though ready for something, as though waiting for something, reflecting it faintly, listens to it in silence.

Silence reigns also in the fishermen's settlement. The fishermen have gone fis.h.i.+ng; the children are sleeping and only the restless women, gathered in front of the houses, are talking softly, lingering before going to sleep, beyond which there is always the unknown.

The light of the sea and the sky behind the houses, and the houses and their bark roofs are black and sharp, and there is no perspective: the houses that are far and those that are near seem to stand side by side as if attached to one another, the roofs and the walls embracing one another, pressing close to one another, seized with the same uneasiness before the eternal unknown.

Right here there is also a little church, its side wall formed crudely of rough granite, with a deep window which seems to be concealing itself.

A cautious sound of women's voices is heard, softened by uneasiness and by the approaching night.

"We can sleep peacefully to-night. The sea is calm and the rollers are breaking like the clock in the steeple of old Dan."

"They will come back with the morning tide. My husband told me that they will come back with the morning tide."

"Perhaps they will come back with the evening tide. It is better for us to think they will come back in the evening, so that our waiting will not be in vain.

"But I must build a fire in the stove."

"When the men are away from home, one does not feel like starting a fire. I never build a fire, even when I am awake; it seems to me that fire brings a storm. It is better to be quiet and silent."

"And listen to the wind? No, that is terrible."

"I love the fire. I should like to sleep near the fire, but my husband does not allow it."

"Why doesn't old Dan come here? It is time to strike the hour."

"Old Dan will play in the church to-night; he cannot bear such silence as this. When the sea is roaring, old Dan hides himself and is silent--he is afraid of the sea. But, as soon as the waves calm down, Dan crawls out quietly and sits down to play his organ."

The women laugh softly.

"He reproaches the sea."

"He is complaining to G.o.d against it. He knows how to complain well.

One feels like crying when he tells G.o.d about those who have perished at sea. Mariet, have you seen Dan to-day? Why are you silent, Mariet?"

Mariet is the adopted daughter of the abbot, in whose house old Dan, the organist, lives. Absorbed in thought, she does not hear the question.

"Mariet, do you hear? Anna is asking you whether you have seen Dan to-day."

"Yes, I think I have. I don't remember. He is in his room. He does not like to leave his room when father goes fis.h.i.+ng."

"Dan is fond of the city priests. He cannot get used to the idea of a priest who goes fis.h.i.+ng, like an ordinary fisherman, and who goes to sea with our husbands."

"He is simply afraid of the sea."

"You may say what you like, but I believe we have the very best priest in the world."

"That's true. I fear him, but I love him as a father."

"May G.o.d forgive me, but I would have been proud and always happy, if I were his adopted daughter. Do you hear, Mariet?"

The women laugh softly and tenderly.

"Do you hear, Mariet?"

"I do. But aren't you tired of always laughing at the same thing? Yes, I am his daughter--Is it so funny that you will laugh all your life at it?"

The women commence to justify themselves confusedly.

"But he laughs at it himself."

"The abbot is fond of jesting. He says so comically: 'My adopted daughter,' and then he strikes himself with his fist and shouts: 'She's my real daughter, not my adopted daughter. She's my real daughter.'"

"I have never known my mother, but this laughter would have been unpleasant to her. I feel it," says Mariet.

The women grow silent. The breakers strike against the sh.o.r.e dully with the regularity of a great pendulum. The unknown city, wrapped with fire and smoke, is still being destroyed in the sky; yet it does not fall down completely; and the sea is waiting. Mariet lifts her lowered head.

"What were you going to say, Mariet?"