TO THE DREGS
"And now—I'll drink it to the dregs!
"Why not? I've tasted the rarest wine in cups of purest crystal—why not swallow the lees of a baser drink from a tavern stoup? 'Tis the last that drowns regret. Others have done so—why not I?
"Once we have tasted, we must drink—we must dip down into the murky depths of life if we are to know it to the full—ay, drink with a laugh, and go on our way with lifted head!
"Drink to the dregs—and laugh at life! Life does not waste tears over us!"
Olof strode briskly out toward a certain quarter of the town, a complex of narrow streets and little houses with stuffy rooms, where glasses are filled and emptied freely, and men sit with half-intoxicated women on their knees, sacrificing to insatiable idols.
It was a summer evening, bright and clear. The noise of day had ceased, and few were abroad. It seemed like a Sunday, just before evening service, when all were preparing for devotion, and he alone walked with workaday thoughts in his mind.
A narrow door with a grating in the centre. Olof stood a moment, evidently in doubt, and walked on—his heart was thumping in his breast. The consciousness of it irritated him, and turning back impatiently, he knocked loudly at the door.
No sound from within. He felt as if thousands of eyes were watching him scornfully, and for a moment he thought of flight. He knocked again, hurriedly, nervously.
A pause, that seemed unendurably long, then a sound of movement and steps approaching the door—the panel was moved aside.
"What's all the noise about?" cried a woman's shrill voice. "In a hurry, aren't you? Get along, and that quick—off with you!" The panel closed with a slam.
The blood rushed to Olof's cheeks; for a moment he felt like breaking down the door and flinging it into the street—he would gladly have pulled the house down in his fury.
Wondering faces appeared here and there at the windows. They were looking at him as if he were a criminal—a burglar trying to force an entry in broad daylight. Half-running, he hastened back to the main streets of the town. Then the fury seized him again—a passion of wounded pride and defiance. "Am I to be taken for a boy?" he said to himself angrily.
He passed a row of waiting cabs. One of the men touched his cap inquiringly, but Olof shook his head—the fellow had an honest face. The last in the row gave him what he sought—a sly red face with shifty eyes.
"Eh? Take you?… That's easy enough! I know the very house. First-rate girls, all of them, and no trouble. 'Tis the best sort you'll be wanting, I take it?"
"Yes."
"That's the style. Just step in, now, and we'll be there…."
The cab rumbles away; Olof leans back, feeling himself again.
* * * * *
Through a gateway into a cobbled yard. The driver gets down, and Olof follows suit. The man knocks with the handle of his whip at a door.
"'Tis no good coming at this time—the girls aren't here yet." And the door is slammed in his face.
"Drive on, then! Drive to the devil, only let's get out of this," cries Olof.
"Nay, nay, no call to give up now we're on the way." The driver swings out into the street again, and tries another entrance of the same sort farther on.
Olof stood half-dazed, waiting.
This time the knock was answered by a girl's voice, bright and pleasant. The driver and the girl exchanged whispers through the door. "Sober? Ay, he's sober enough. Young chap, and plenty of money—wants the best sort."
Olof's blood boiled. Was he to be bargained for like a beast in the cattle market? He was on the point of calling the man away, when the door opened a little. "Right you are, then," said the man, with a knowing gleam in his eyes.
"Good evening—won't you come in?" A young girl, neatly dressed, held the door open for Olof with a smile.
He went through the passage into a little parlour. The heavy-scented air of the place was at once soothing and exciting to his senses.
"Sit down, won't you? But what are you looking so serious about? Has your girl thrown you over—or what?"
"Now, how on earth did you guess that?" cried Olof in sudden relief, thankful that the girl was so bright and talkative. He felt all at once that he too must talk—of anything, nothing, or he could not stay in the place a minute.
"Guess? Why, that's easy enough. They always come here when there's anything wrong with—the others. And there's always something wrong with some of them. Was she pretty?" The girl looked at him with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
"Pretty?—yes, that she was, pretty as you, nearly."
"Puh!" laughed the girl. "And she kissed you, I suppose?"
"No. Wouldn't even kiss me."
"Aha. So you made love to another girl, and then she threw you over—that was it, I'm sure."
"Right again! Yes—made love to another girl—that was it. And quite enough too."
"Oh, it's always the way with—well, that sort of girls. They don't understand how to make love a bit. There's heaps of love to be had, if you only know where to look for it."
They both laughed—the girl in easy, teasing gaiety, Olof still thankful at finding it so easy to suit himself to his company.
"What'll you have to drink? Sherry, madeira, or stout, perhaps? I like sherry best."
"Let's have all three!" cried Olof.
"That'll be twenty, please." He gave her the money and she slipped from the room.
Olof looked round. How was this going to end? He was thankful at any rate that the room was neatly, almost tastefully furnished, and that the girl was so easy to talk to.
The bottles and glasses were brought in. "Here's to us both!" cried the girl, lifting her glass with an enticing glance.
They drank—it was the first time Olof had ever tasted wine. And all the bitterness and unrest in his soul seemed drowned at once.
"I say—is this your first time?" The girl explained her question with a meaning glance.
"Yes." The word stuck in his throat. "Have some more to drink," he added hastily.
"That's right!" The glasses rang. "Got any cigarettes?"
Each lit a cigarette. The girl leaned back in a careless posture, throwing one leg over the other, and watched the smoke curling up in the air.
"First-rate institution, isn't it?" she said, with a laugh. "Sort of public sanatorium—though the fools of police or Government or whatever you call it won't make it free. All you men come here when you're tired and worried and ill, and we cure you—isn't that it?"
"I dare say…."
"But it is, though, take my word for it. How'd you ever get on without us, d'you think? Like fish out of water! And yet we're reckoned as outcasts and all that. Devil take all your society women, I say. There's one I see pass by every day, a judge's wife, haughty and stuck up as a weathercock on a church spire. Think she'd look at one of us? But her husband, bless you, he…."
"For Heaven's sake talk of something else," cried Olof. He swallowed a glass of sherry to cover his disgust.
"Eh? Oh, all right, anything you please. Sing you a song if you like.
What d'you say to that."
"Yes, but nothing…."
"Not a word. Dainty little song. Here you are:
"'Here's a corner for you and me,
Room for two—but not for three!
A glass for each within easy reach…
Just the place for a spree!'"
"How's that? Quite nice, isn't it?"
"Go on." Olof settled down more comfortably there was something pleasantly fascinating in the dance-like rhythm of the song.
"Cushions are soft, and curtains hide,—
What would somebody say if they spied?
Kisses and laughter—and what comes after…?
Ah…. You never know till you've tried!"
Olof could not help laughing.
They sat laughing and talking and telling stories—the girl was never silent for a moment. The glasses were filled and emptied, the smoke grew thicker.
"Oh … it's too hot. I'm stifling with all these things on!" The girl rose to her feet, her eyes glittered, her cheeks were flushed with wine. "I'll be back in a second." And she slipped through into the adjoining room.
"Do, if you like." Olof sank back idly on the sofa, watching the smoke from his cigarette thoughtfully. Still he was not quite at home in the place.
The girl came in like a vision, tripping daintily in light slippers, her arms bare to the shoulder, her body scarcely veiled by the thinnest, transparent wrap.
"Oh!" Olof could not repress an exclamation.
"Aha…!" The girl laughed mischievously. Watching his face with a coquettish smile, she lifted one foot gracefully on to the sofa, and leaned towards him, her eyes boldly questioning.
Olof felt his senses in a whirl. He saw in her a mingling of human being, beast and angel, of slave and mistress—a creature fascinating and enticing, bewitching, ensnaring. But only for a moment. His mood changed to one of fury at his own susceptibility; the burning thirst in the girl's eyes, the fumes of wine in her breath, repelled him.
"Sit down and drink—and let that be enough!" He snatched a bottle hastily and filled the glasses to the brim.
"Ho!" said the girl, with a stare. "Drink—is that all you've come for?"
"Yes!"
She stepped down from the sofa, her features quivering with scorn.
"Well, you're a nice one, you are. If they were all like that—drink and pay the bill and off again—and not so much as a … well, you're the first I've met of that sort—hope you'll enjoy it!"
She drank, and set down the glass, a sneer still quivering about the corners of her mouth.
Then, leaning her elbows on the table, she gazed at him thoughtfully under her lowered lashes. Olof smoked furiously, till his cigarette looked like a streak of fire.
The girl sat down on the sofa, at the farther end, and went on with a maudlin tenderness in her voice:
"Why are you like that—a man like you? I wouldn't now for money, whatever you offered me. Can't you see I'm in love with you? Or d'you suppose perhaps a girl—a girl in a place like this—can't love? Ah, but she can, and more than any of the other sort, maybe. I'd like to love a real man just for once—I've had enough of beasts. Stay with me to-night—won't you…?"
Olof shuddered in disgust.
"Drink!" he cried. "Drink, and don't sit there talking nonsense."
Then again a revulsion seized him, and with a feeling of despair and weakness, he went on:
"I can't stay here, I must go—I must go in a minute. Never mind.
Drink."
"Oh, let's drink, then," said the girl bitterly, and, rising, emptied her glass. "Drink—yes, and drink and drink—'tis the only thing when once you're—here." She sank down into a seat. "Night and day, morning and night—there's none of us could stand it if it wasn't for that stuff there. Ho, the world's a mad place—what a fool I am!"
She burst into tears, and fell forward with her arms on the table.
Olof felt more miserable than before. The blood was pulsing in his temples, and something choking in his throat, as he looked at the sobbing figure.
"I'll tell you what this place is," she said, looking up between sobs. "'Tis hell—and in hell you're always wanting something to wet the tip of your tongue—I've read that somewhere, haven't I? Oh, oh…!" She fell to sobbing again.
Olof felt he could bear it no longer. He would have liked to comfort her, but his tongue was dry, he could not speak.
Then suddenly the girl jumped up and struck the table with her fist, shaking the things on the tray. "What the hell am I snivelling about—'twon't make it any better." She took the bottle of beer, filled a tumbler and drank it off at a draught, then flung the glass crashing against the wall behind the stove.
"Puh! Now I've got that wretched fit again." She stood in the middle of the room, looking round. "I can't help it, I get like that every now and then. Wait a bit, and I'll bring you better company. A real good girl—she's younger than me, and only just beginning, but she's lovely, lovely as an angel. Only don't go and fall in love with her, or I'll be jealous."
"No! Stay where you are!" Olof would have stopped her, but she was out of the door in a moment. He rose to his feet, his head was throbbing, and he could hardly stand.
"Here you are—here's the beauty!"
A bright-eyed girl, young and slightly built, stood in the doorway smiling.
Olof started as if he had seen a ghost, the blood seemed to stand still in his veins; a cold weight seemed crushing him like an iceberg.
"You—Gazelle!" he cried in horror.
"Olof!"
"Oho, so you're old friends, it seems? Well, then, shake hands nicely.
Come along, man, give her a kiss…."
Olof felt the room growing dark before his eyes.
The girl turned deathly pale. She stood a moment, trembling from head to foot, then turned and fled. There was the sound of a key drawn from a lock, a door was slammed, and then silence.
Olof stood as if rooted to the spot, seeing nothing but a vague glimmer of light through a rent in blackness. Then at last he pulled himself together, snatched up his hat, and rushed out of the place as if pursued by demons.
* * * * *
Morning found him seated on a chair by the window, looking out. The night had been cold. Before him lay a group of housetops, the dark roofs covered with a thin white coating of rime; beyond, a glimpse of a grey, cold sky.
He had been sitting thus all night, deep in thought. His road seemed ending here in a blank wall—or he was grown suddenly old, and could go no farther—or was trying vainly to rise from a bed of sickness. His eyes burned, his head was heavy as lead, and his heart seemed dead and cold, as hands and feet may do in winter when on the point of freezing.
He rose to his feet, and bathed his face again and again with cold water. Then he straightened his hair, put on his clothes, and went out.
He took his way direct to a certain street, reached the house he was seeking, and knocked. There were people moving in the yard, and some children about; but he felt no shame, and knocked as easily as if it had been a church door.
The panel opened, and the harsh voice of an old woman asked:
"What d'you want here at this hour? The girls are not up yet."
"When will they be up?"
"In a couple of hours or so."
He looked at his watch, and went out into the street. For a while he wandered up and down, then took the road out from the town, and went straight on.
When he came back his face was pale; his feet were so weary he could hardly drag himself along.
He knocked again; the panel was thrust aside, and a face peeped through, then the door was opened.
"Hallo!" It was the girl of the night before. She was half-dressed, her eyes dull, her face tired and haggard. Olof felt as if he were breathing in the fumes of beer and wine and all unspeakable nastiness.
"Your friend—is she up yet? I want to see her," he stammered.
"Up—ay, she's up long ago; you can see for yourself."
She vanished down the passage, and returned in a moment with a crumpled sheet of notepaper, which she handed him.
Olof glanced at it, and read, hastily scribbled in pencil, these words:
"When you get this I shall be far away. I am going and not coming back. I can't stay here.—ELLI."
"There—what's the meaning of that, if you please?" cried the girl.
Olof made no answer. He held the paper in a trembling hand, and read it again and again; a weight seemed lifted from his shoulders.
"May I—may I keep this?" he asked, with flushing cheeks.
"Keep it—ay, eat it, if you like."
"Good-bye—and—and…." He pressed the girl's hand, as if unconscious of what he was doing.
The girl watched him as he hurried away.
"Queer lot," she murmured. "Something wrong somewhere…."
BY THE ROADSIDE
A man came walking down the sandy, grass-bordered road.
He walked mechanically, like a machine set to go, and going without consciousness or effort—without a question or a thought, without a glance to either side—on and on.
He reached the top of a rise from which the road sloped down to the valley. And here he stopped, as if set to go no farther.
Before him spread the landscape of the valley; green woods encircled it on every hand, like a protecting fence about a pleasure-garden. Within the area enclosed were mounds and hilly fields, stretches of meadow, farmsteads, rows of corn-sheaves and haystacks, patches of stubble, a tiny stream with a bridge and a fall, and mills on either bank.
A thrill of emotion seized the wanderer at sight of it all; one glance let loose a flood of memories and thoughts of things long since forgotten.
All seemed as before. He looked at the stream, and followed the line of its course with his eye. The mills stared at one another from bank to bank, as they had always done since the beginning of time. But the mills themselves had changed. The old wooden structures were gone, and in place of them stood modern stone-walled buildings.
A lightning thought came into his mind: was there anything that was unchanged, though the setting seemed as it had been? What might not have happened in the little place during those years?
The wanderer felt uneasy at the thought. Here he was—but who could say what he would find here, now he had come?
Slowly, with heavy steps, he took his way down towards the village.
And ever as he neared it, his uneasiness increased.
* * * * *
He came to a turn in the way. From just beyond came the tinkle of a bell, and, as he rounded the bend, he saw a flock of sheep grazing, and a fair-haired lad watching the flock.
The sight gladdened his heart—the sheep and the shepherd lad at least were as he had hoped to find them.
"Good-day!" he said heartily. "And whose lad are you, little man?"
"Just Stina's boy," answered the young herdsman easily, from his seat by the wayside.
"Ho, are you? … yes." The wanderer stepped across the ditch, sat down by the wayside, and lit his pipe.
"And what's the news in the place? I've been here before, d'ye see, and used to know it well. But 'tis long since I heard anything from these parts."
"News?… H'm." The lad felt a pleasant sense of importance at being thus asked, and stepped down from his seat. "Well, you've heard, maybe, 'twas Mattila's Tytto won the first prize at the cattle show?"
"You don't say so? Mattila's Tytto?" echoed the stranger, with a laugh. "And what else?"
"Why, there's no more that I know of—let me see…." The wise little eyes grew thoughtful. "Oh, I forgot. Yes, Maya, she's married, and they're building a bit of a place over by the clearing there. Shoemaker, he was, and a good match, they say."
"I see. That'll be the place. Looks as good as could be."
"'Tis a fine place. Going to have a real stove, with a baking oven and all…. Then there's been another wedding besides, at Niemi—Annikki's it was. Only just married—though there's been plenty that asked her these years past, and rich men some of them too."
"Yes…." The wanderer felt as if something had struck him in the breast. Impatiently he went on:
"And how's things at Koskela?"
"Koskela—well, old man there he died last spring, and they say…."
"Died?" A heavier stroke this; it seemed to paralyse him.
"Yes—and two horses to the funeral, with white covers and all. And silver stars all over the coffin—like the sky it was."
The wanderer felt himself gazing helplessly into a darkness where hosts of silver stars danced before his eyes.
"You knew him, maybe?" asked the lad, watching the man's face.
"Ay, I knew him," came the answer in a stifled voice.
"And his wife's like to follow him soon," went on the boy. "She's at the last gasp now, they say."
The wanderer felt as if something were tightening about his heart.
"So there's neither man nor wife, so to speak, at Koskela now."
The wanderer would have risen, but his limbs seemed numbed.
"There was a son, they say, was to have taken over the place, but he went away somewhere long ago, and never came back."
The wanderer rose to his feet. "Thanks, little man." And he strode off.
The lad stared wonderingly at the retreating figure, whose heavy steps sounded like sighs of pain from the breast of the trodden road.