The Path of Life | Page 6

half-withered autumn fruits and on the dark fretwork of the trees. Great drops dripped from the boughs.
From under the peak of his cap, the fellow peered into the distance with his one eye, and he saw a church and houses. They went that way.
'Twas low-roofed cottages they saw, all covered with hoar-frost; here and there stood one alone and then a whole little row, crowded close together: a street.
They were in the village.
It was lone and still, like a cloister, with here a little woman who, tucked into her hooded cloak, crept along the houses to the church; there a smith who hammered ... and the little church-bell, which tinkled over the house-tops.
They stopped. The dog sat down to look. The little fellow threw off his shoulder-strap, pulled his cap down lower and felt under the red-brown organ-cloth for the handle. He gave a look at the houses that stood before him, pinched his sunken mouth, wiped the seam of his sleeve over his face and started grinding. Half-numbed sounds came trickling into the chill street from under the organ-cloth: a sad--once, perhaps, dance-provoking--tune, which now, false, dragging and twisted out of shape, was like a muddled crawling of sounds all jumbled up together; some came too soon, the others too late, as in a weariful dream; and, in between, a sighing and creaking which came from very deep down, at each third or fourth turn, and was deadened again at once in those ever-recurring rough organ-sounds or dragged on and deafened in a mad dance. 'Twas like a poor little huddled soul uttering its plaint amid the hullabaloo of rude men shouting aloud in the street.
The dog also had begun to howl when the tune started.
The little wife had settled her kerchief above her sharp-featured old-wife's face; and, with one hand in her apron-pocket and the other holding a little tin can, she now went from door to door:
"For the poor blind man.... God reward you."
And this through the whole street and farther, to the farmhouses, from the one to the other, all day long, till evening fell again and that same thick mist came to wrap everything in its grey, dark breath.
And again they wandered, through a drove, to a homestead and into the hay.
"The dog has pupped," said the little old woman; and she shook her man.
"Pupped?..."
And he turned in the nest which he had made for himself, pushed his head deeper in the hay and drowsed on. He dreamt of dogs and of pups and of organs and of ear-splitting yelps and howls.
The dog lay in a fine, round little nest of his own, rolled into a ball and moaning. And he[1] looked so sadly and kindly into the little old woman's eyes; and he licked, never stopped licking his puppies. They were like three red-brown moles, each with a fat head; they wriggled their thick little bodies together and sought about and squeaked.
[1] The West-Fleming talks of dogs of either sex invariably as "he."
When the tramps had swallowed their slice of rye-bread and their dish of porridge, they went on, elsewhither. The little fellow tugged, the little old woman pushed and the dogs hung swinging between the wheels, in a fig-basket. So they went begging, from hamlet to hamlet, the wide world through: an old man and woman, with their organ; and a dog with his three young pups.
* * * * *
Much later....
The thick mist had changed into bright, glittering dewdrops and the sun shone high in the heaven. Now four dogs lay harnessed to the cart, four red-brown dogs. And, when the handle turned and the organ played, all those four dogs lifted their noses on high and howled uglily.
Inside, deep-hidden under the organ-cloth, sat the little soul, the mysterious, shabby little organ-soul, grown quite hoarse now and almost dumb.
* * * * *
CHRISTMAS NIGHT
* * * * *
III
CHRISTMAS NIGHT
Over there, high up among the pines, stood the house where he lived alone with the trees and the birds; and there, every morning, he saw the sun rise and, in the evening, sink away again. And for how many years!
In summer, the white clouds floated high over his head; the blackbirds sang in the wood around his door; and before him, in a blue vista, lay the whole world.
When his harvest was gathered and the days drew in, when the sky closed up, when the dry pines shook and rocked in the sad wind and the crows dropped like black flakes and came cawing over the fields, he closed his windows and sat down in the dark to brood.
He must go down yonder now, to the village below.
He fetched his Christmas star from the loft, restuck the gold flowers and paper strips and fastened them in the cleft of the long wand. Then