V. SPRING (continued 2)

“Father, we’ve been out with cousin,” said Bertje.

They had to take their coffee and their cakebread-and-butter in a hurry: it was time to put the dogs in, said uncle.

Doorke said they were put in.

Frazie helped her sister on with her things:

“You’ll find the looking-glass hanging in the window, Stanse. I must go and put on another skirt too and come a bit of the way with you.”

The boys were to stay at home; they got the rest of the sweets and were ordered to bed at once. Horieneke was told to take off her best clothes; it was evening and the goats had still to be fed. She went to her little room reluctantly and could have cried because it was all over now and because it was so melancholy in the dark. She felt ashamed when she came down again and glanced askance at Doorke, who would think her so plain in her week-day clothes. The boy looked at her and said nothing; then he jumped into the cart and drove off slowly. Mother with Stanse and father with uncle came walking behind.

It was still light; the evening was falling slowly, slowly, as though the daylight would never end. In the west the sky was hung with white and gold tapestry against an orange background. On the other side, the moon, very wan still, floated in the pale-blue all around it. Beside the bluey trees long purple stripes of shadow now lay, with fallen clusters of branches, on the plain. You could hardly tell if day or night were at hand.

Uncle and aunt were extremely pleased with their visit; uncle looked contentedly into the distance and boasted that he had never seen such an evening nor such fine weather so early in the year, while Frazie at each step flung her arms into the air and stopped to say things to Stanse, whose good-natured laugh rang out over the plain and along the road. In front of them, Doorke, like a little black shadow, danced up and down in his cart to the jolting of the wheels as he jogged quietly along. The crickets chirped in the ditch; and from high up in the trees came the dying twitter of birds about to go to sleep.

Father wanted to drink a parting glass of beer in the Swan; Doorke could drive along slowly.

“Just five minutes then,” said Petrus.

There were many people in the inn and much loud merriment. The new arrivals were soon sitting among the others, staying on and listening to all the jolly songs; and, when this had gone on for some time, they forgot the hour and the parting. Aunt Stanse held her stomach with laughing; she was not behindhand when the glasses had to be emptied or when her turn came to sing a song. Amid the turmoil, the rent-farmer came up to Frazie, took her impudently by the arm, laughingly wished her proficiat with her pretty daughter and, after slyly looking about him for confirmation, said, half in earnest:

“We’re planting potatoes to-morrow at the Rent Farm, we shall want lots of hands; missie may as well come too.”

And with that he went back to his game of cards.

This time, the leave-taking was genuine. Petrus got up; and it was good-bye till next year, when Doorke would make his first communion.

The cart was waiting outside the door; they stepped in, uncle took the reins.

“A safe ride home!”

“Thanks for the pleasant visit! And to our next merry meeting!”

“God speed!... Good-night!”

“Gee up!”

The dogs sprang forward, the cart rumbled along and soon the whole thing had become a shapeless black patch among the black trees. In the still night they could just hear the wheels rattling over the cobbles; and then Ivo and Frazie went home again.

A breeze came playing through the garden, sighing now and again with a sound as soft as silk; the moon shone upon the dark trees and its light played like golden snow-flakes dancing and fluttering down upon the gleaming crests of the green bushes and the milk-white plain. The air was heavy and stifling, full of warm damp; and strong-scented gusts of fresh, rain-laden perfumes blew across the road.

They stepped hurriedly on the legs of their long shadows and did not speak. There came a new rustling in the trees and a few big, cool drops of rain pattered on the sand, one here, one there and gradually quicker.

Ivo and Frazie hastened their pace; but, when the great drops began to fall on them thick as hail and around them in the sand, till the rain streaked through the air and rattled tremendously over their heads, mother held her body with both hands to prevent its shaking, Ivo tied his red handkerchief over his silk cap and they started running.

“It was main hot for the time of year.”

“And the flowers smelt too strong and the thrush sang so loud.”

It went on raining: a wholesome, cleansing downpour, a slow descent in slanting lines that glittered in the moonlight, bringing health to the earth. The air was fragrant with the wet grass and the white flowers: it was like a rich garden. At home, everything was put away, the table cleared and wiped; the lamp was alight and all the doors open. The boys were in bed. Horieneke had read evening prayers to them and then hurried to her little room, to be alone; and there she had lain thinking of all that had happened during that long day: her jaws ached from the constant smiling; and she felt dead-tired and sad.

Father took off his wet blouse and mother stirred up the fire: they would have one more cup of coffee, with a drop of something, and then go to bed. Ivo lit his pipe and stretched out his legs to dry beside the stove.

They drank their coffee and listened to the steady breathing of the boys and the dripping of the gutters on the cobbles outside. Father made a remark or two about uncle and aunt and about their village, but got only half-answers from his wife. Then, all of a sudden, he asked:

“What did the farmer come and say to you?”

Frazie sighed:

“They’re planting potatoes to-morrow and we were to go and work; and Horieneke was to come too.”

“Ay.”

“But she’ll stay here!”

“What do you mean, stay here?”

“Yes, she’s got her work to do at home.”

“All right; but if she has to go?”

“Don’t care.”

And mother stood with her arms akimbo, looking at her husband, waiting for his answer.

“And if he turns us out and leaves us without work!”

“And suppose our child comes home with a present ... from that beast of a farmer!”

Ivo knocked out his pipe:

“Pooh, that could happen to her anywhere; and, after all, she won’t be tied to her mother’s apron-strings all her life long!... When you live in a man’s house and eat his bread, you’ve got to work for it and do his will: the master is the master. Come, let’s go to bed; we’ve a lot to do tomorrow.”

Suppressed sobs came from the little bedroom. Mother looked in. Horieneke lay with her hands before her eyes, crying convulsively.

“Well, what’s the matter?”

The child pressed her head to the wall and wept harder than ever.

“Come along, wife, damn it! It’s time that all this foolery was over, or she’ll lose her senses altogether.”

Mother grew impatient, bit her teeth:

“Oh, you blessed cry-baby!”

And angrily she thumped the child on the hip with her clenched fist and left her lying there.

“A nice thing, getting children: one’d rather bring up puppies any day!”

She turned out the light and it was now dark and still; outside, the thin rain dripped and the white blossoms blew from the trees and the whole air smelt wonderfully good. In the distance, the nightingale hidden in the wood jugged and gurgled without stopping; and it was like the pealing of a church-organ all night long.

The weather had broken up and the day dawned with a melancholy drizzle and a cold wind. The sky remained grey, discharging misty raindrops which soaked into everything and hung trembling like strung pearls on the leaves of the beech-hedge and on the grass and on the cornstalks in the fields. It was suddenly winter again. On the hilly field the people stood black, wrapped up, with their caps drawn over their ears and their red handkerchiefs round their necks. The hoes went up in the air one after the other and struck the moist earth, which opened into straight furrows from one end to the other of the field. Here wives walked barefoot, bent, with baskets on their arm from which they kept taking potatoes and laying them, at a foot’s distance, in the open trench. In a corner of the field stood the farmer, his big body leaning on a stick; and his dark eyes watched his labourers.

There, in the midst of them, was Horieneke, bent also like the others, in her coarse workaday clothes, with a basket of seed-potatoes on her arm; and her red-gold curls now hung, like long corkscrews, wet against her face; and every now and then she would draw herself up, tossing her head back to keep them out of her eyes.