The Crushed Flower and Other Stories eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 324 pages of information about The Crushed Flower and Other Stories.

The Crushed Flower and Other Stories eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 324 pages of information about The Crushed Flower and Other Stories.

One voice answers for all: 

“Yes.”

Desfoso—­Well, sailor, where is the money?

Khorre—­Captain?

Haggart—­Give it to them.

Khorre (rudely)—­Then give me back my knife and my pipe first!  Who is the eldest among you—­you?  Listen, then:  Take crowbars and shovels and go to the castle.  Do you know the tower, the accursed tower that fell?  Go over there—­”

He bends down and draws a map on the floor with his crooked finger.  All bend down and look attentively; only the abbot gazes sternly out of the window, behind which the heavy fog is still grey.  Haggart whispers in a fit of rage: 

“Mariet, it would have been better if you had killed me as I killed Philipp.  And now my father is calling me.  Where will be the end of my sorrow, Mariet?  Where the end of the world is.  And where is the end of the world?  Do you want to take my sorrow, Mariet?”

“I do, Haggart.”

“No, you are a woman.”

“Why do you torture me, Gart?  What have I done that you should torture me so?  I love you.”

“You lied.”

“My tongue lied.  I love you.”

“A serpent has a double tongue, but ask the serpent what it wants—­ and it will tell you the truth.  It is your heart that lied.  Was it not you, girl, that I met that time on the road?  And you said:  ‘Good evening.’  How you have deceived me!”

Desfoso asks loudly: 

“Well, abbot?  You are coming along with us, aren’t you, father.  Otherwise something wrong might come out of it.  Do I speak properly?”

The abbot replies merrily: 

“Of course, of course, children.  I am going with you.  Without me, you will think of the church.  I have just been thinking of the church—­of the kind of church you need.  Oh, it’s hard to get along with you, people!”

The fishermen go out very slowly—­they are purposely lingering.

“The sea is coming,” says one.  “I can hear it.”

“Yes, yes, the sea is coming!  Did you understand what he said?”

The few who remained are more hasty in their movements.  Some of them politely bid Haggart farewell.

“Good-bye, Gart.”

“I am thinking, Haggart, what kind of a church we need.  This one will not do, it seems.  They prayed here a hundred years; now it is no good, they say.  Well, then, it is necessary to have a new one, a better one.  But what shall it be?”

“‘Pope’s a rogue, Pope’s a rogue.’  But, then, I am a rogue, too.  Don’t you think, Gart, that I am also something of a rogue?  One moment, children, I am with you.”

There is some crowding in the doorway.  The abbot follows the last man with his eyes and roars angrily: 

“Eh, you, Haggart, murderer!  What are you smiling at?  You have no right to despise them like that.  They are my children.  They have worked—­have you seen their hands, their backs?  If you haven’t noticed that, you are a fool!  They are tired.  They want to rest.  Let them rest, even at the cost of the blood of the one you killed.  I’ll give them each a little, and the rest I will throw out into the sea.  Do you hear, Haggart?”

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Project Gutenberg
The Crushed Flower and Other Stories from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.