And again the tone of her voice rose to a high plaint: Cold, cold, it is becoming colder than before. I knew it when I longed for this house.
And when he had wiped the tears she was no longer there. He heard stumbling and whispering on the stairs; he quickly opened the door and he saw the two maids going up slowly, pinafores held up to their faces. Reaching the window he drew the curtain aside. There was nothing to be seen outside but the lantern through the branches, a cloud, a star. And that it was cold, this he felt too, colder than at other times on such spring evenings. He sat down again and pondered, but all that he thought was sorrow without end.
Next evening, at the window, he saw the thinnest crescent of the new moon floating in a vapour, its light already yellow however. When the young moon gleams clearly, he thought, fine weather is in the offing. He looked at the houses beyond the branches, all their doors closed and a lamp lit here and there. He noticed he was lonely, he sighed and drew the curtains. A servant knocked; she asked whether he had called, was there anything he wanted. Sir's so quiet, she said, it's upsetting us. No matter how softly you speak to yourself it can be heard downstairs. No, he said, your ears deceive you, I'm not talking with the books.
Silent, she lit the lamp and he went and sat down with the book and waited. The page turned over slowly.
And when the white woman was sitting there on the floor with her head raised up to him he looked straight into her eyes; there was something there deep down, something with a blue glow. About her face and hands there was something that moved.
Why cry and wait? she asked. After all, I have heard it ages ago, I have been driven here a long time. I know it because I wake up and notice how far the darkness is from the light, how much night differs from day. Of yesterday's event I know about sitting here and how much time has passed between then and now. Something has gone away, something has slipped down and I clearly remember that yesterday there were cries and I myself cried too. Today I have understood that there has been a moment, now past. And today it was full of rumours, many voices, many sobs, and weeping, more than I could hear. I don't know whether the waiting is here or there; I don't know whether it is I who waits or someone else. That is new and strange, the thought of another; it makes me soft, small, cold. It has hurt in my eyes and within me there is something: that tomorrow I shall know the great fear, darkness gaping open.
She laid down her head on the floor and wailed with a feeble sound, monotonously. Bending over her, he listened as his tears fell; he heard her softly asking each time: Why is it so dark? Why here? Why here? Why so dark?
He rose upright for he could not bear it; he covered his ears. But she had gone: there was only the crepuscular light and the floor was empty.
There was a knock on the door; he went and saw the two servants, each with a tip of her pinafore in her hand. Did Sir call? asked the one and she trembled. Did Sir know how late the hour is? asked the other pleadingly; we're so afraid. He did not know what to say. But when they continued to stand there he said: Now just you go to bed.
The following evening rain was falling silently, the cobbles shone near the bridge, the sky was drab. Behind a window, beyond the lantern a reddish light gleamed. Past that house it was dark with trees and a dog began to howl there, high and long. Occasionally, when the howling grew fainter, it had the deep sound of a big dog, then it began afresh, helpless, intolerable. A figure, slowly mounting the bridge, halted and then descended into the dark of the trees. There was a sigh. He wondered why he stood here so often, watching, always in the direction of the bridge, watching the dark passage beneath the arch and its twin reflection on the canal water. The dog suddenly ceased howling; not a soul to be seen.
He drew the curtains, lit the lamp and took up the book. While reading he looked round repeatedly but there was no one. And he read, page after page, until he noticed he had been sitting there a long time. He thought: Has it been a delusion of the senses? He thought even more, about this and other lives, about near and far, about now and tomorrow. And when he looked up she was sitting on the floor. She kept her white hands clenched tight together. Her voice sounded feeble and indistinct, tired, without hope: I do not know why I come here; I do not know where I must go and what I must think. I want to but I dare not. I have had peace here; it has been a moment and now another must come. Forget me; I shall forget you too.
Her head fell forwards; she sobbed noiselessly. And he did too, hands in front of his mouth.
Then he heard different sobs; he looked and saw the open book on the table, the floor without the whiteness that had been there. There was loud urgent knocking on the door; he answered hastily. The two maid servants were standing there holding on to one another. Sir, Sir, oh merciful heavens, Sir! cried the one, and the other hid her face. But they touched him and became quiet. The one said: we heard Sir talking with something worse than we are capable of thinking. Quiet yourselves, he replied, go to bed and good night. They went up the stairs, slowly, dabbing their eyes.
He drew back the curtains and looked out into the night again. It was quiet. But beyond the bridge there was the small sound of a child just beginning to bawl. The branches moved in the wind. He mused as to what it was: something worse than one was capable of thinking; he mused whether truly he had seen anything at all.
Willem Schurmann
It was a cheerful summer's day but the king felt in sombre mood.
Slowly he passed along wide fields, far from the city, without accounting to himself for the fact that he had been roaming for hours already. He saw toiling labourers in the fields, and something like self-reproach for never having worked rose up in him. How wonderful it must be to rest after a day of intense toil, he thought, but he realised that he would never be capable of such heavy physical work for his head reeled even when he only bent down for a moment.
Used to haughtily making his way upright, he could not imagine a hunched posture without a feeling of humiliation and effort.
He had never humiliated himself nor ever made an effort.
His parents had never demanded anything from him that even smacked of subservience and the wise teachers who had provided his upbringing had themselves solved all the difficult problems they had set him.
Only for the results of their investigations had the wise ones requested his attention; he knew the solutions to all the sums, but how these were done he did not know.
He was said to be a wise king and he did not trouble himself about the question as to why he had earned that name, but one day, when he was sitting at a window in his palace, bored, he had suddenly become restless in the silence that none of his courtiers dared disturb.
He looked at the turrets of distant castles and attempted to laugh off his restlessness. Why am I restless? he thought.
Yonder live my subjects who do everything I order them to. They would gladly sacrifice their lives for I am their king.
But why am I their king and why are they loyal to me?
It's perfectly possible that they hate me .. .
The sun went to its slumbers, the gold slipped from the sky and still he sat there peering out ahead of him, lost in thought.
Then, without having himself announced, he made his way to the queen's apartments who, surprised at his unexpected arrival, received him with suspicion.
'Ma'am,' he asked, 'can'st thou tell me why I am king?'
The queen, mindful of a trick question, replied hesitantly: 'Thou art king to command.'
The king went and sat down in an armchair and let his head rest in his hands.
Finally, he had a minister called in.
'Your excellency, why am I king?' he asked.
'Thou art king by the grace of God, by birth and by the love of thy people, Your Majesty,' was the immediate reply.
'And why do the people love me?'
'Because thou art wise, Your Majesty.'
'How do they know I'm wise?'
'Your Majesty, when thou show'st thyself to the people even the sm
allest child, at once,
'My people always see me from a great distance.'
Without pausing for thought the minister then said: 'Regal is thy presence, Your Majesty, for thou art regal both in bearing and deportment. The impression thou makest upon thy people is of an almost divine eminence. By thy movements all feel how far above them thou art through refinement of thought.'
'So I am different from others?'
'Your Majesty, thou art a king.'
This answer, too, could not satisfy the king.
He spent sleepless nights and dozed his days away in musing.
And now, too, while slowly making his progress along the wide fields, he was engrossed in questions without finding a solution to a single one of these.
As nightfall approached, he set himself down, exhausted, on a rock by the side of the road.
The labourers passing by saluted him politely but not with uncommon reverence. Nobody cheered. One or two said: 'G'day to you, Sir.'
They do not see I am king because I'm wearing neither crown nor robes of so the minister has deceived me, the king thought, and he fell asleep from fatigue.
Suddenly, he woke with a start because of the rattling approach of a cart.
It was morning.
Shaken, the king got up, attempted to walk, but the cold of night had so stiffened his legs that he decided to ask the driver of the cart to run him back to the city.
Whoa there, my good man!' he cried.
Well?' the coachman asked, as he brought two bony horses unwillingly pulling a green, covered wagon, to a halt.
'Drive me to the city!' said the king.
'I've just come from there and I have no time to lose,' was the reply.
The king was about to make himself known when, painted in bright letters on the torn hood of the wagon, he saw: Karel de Man's Theatrical Company.
The coachman was already applying the whip to the horses when he restrained him, saying: 'My I would dearly like to make your company's might I ride along with I will reward you handsomely for it.'
'We can do with rich people, we can,' the coachman laughed. 'Get up on to the box but don't wake the artistes, for we have to perform tonight. And because you're rich, you can start by giving me something up front.'
The king, amused by this unusual familiarity, handed him a gold coin at once, stepped on to a wheel, heaved himself up next to the wagoner and a moment later the cart rattled on.
As they went along, the coachman told of how the company had performed in the court capital, where receipts had been paltry. And that's the king's fault, he said, for he knows nothing of art.
What plays does your company perform?'
'Royal Tragedies of course! Don't you know Karel de Man is the finest king in the country? Every child knows him!'
'I see,' said the king.
He had thought of going to the mayor in the next town in order to return to the capital in the mayor's coach, but during the ride he changed his plans.
This adventure was one of rare enchantment to him, the wagoner telling him tales never heard before, and strange smells, of paint, old cloths and sharp scent, arising from the wagon. The fields seemed wider to him than ever he had seen them before. The sun shone more cheerfully and the king would certainly have sung out loud had he known an ordinary song.
Impatiently, he awaited making Karel de Man's acquaintance. In him he would see that he was not the only regal human being!
With gold coins, he urged the coachman into noisy song, hoping the actor would wake up, but the latter continued to sleep peacefully in the jolting cart.
At last some movement commenced under the hood and suddenly the leather covers fell down with a thud.
It was a peculiar spectacle the king then beheld. In the wagon, beneath faded rugs, heads resting on torn pillows, men and women were sleeping closely packed together.
A young chap, having jumped down on to the road, ordered the coachman to halt, uttering many strange-sounding words in so doing, words the pithy insults for which, in angry mood, he had often impotently sought in vain.
Who's that sitting up there?' asked the young man.
The wagoner jumped down from the box, whispered something into the questioner's ear, and then spoke loudly: 'A proper tleman! Might I present to our young
Just in time, the king read a name on a billboard in front of which the wagon had halted.
'And where are you going7' the actor asked.
'I'd like to join the company.'
'Ever acted before?'
'Royal parts,' replied the king.
'Which company?'
'Freelance.'
'Don't let the old'un hear that you do his livelihood,' the young man said, 'in that case he's sure not to take you on. You don t know what actors are like.'
The royal artiste who, at the collapse of the hood, had raised himself up a moment, stretching, was lying there snoring peacefully again, but the eldest of the ladies had smoothed down her rumpled clothing and she approached, smiling amiably. The young lead introduced her as the mere noble.
Following her, a slight young girl arrived, ingenue, so the young lead said, and it struck the king that the old woman who had to play the mother-parts behaved like an innocent slip of a thing while the girl busied herself with appearing to be a woman worldly wise.
He, however, had no time reflect on this curious matter for the player of father-parts approached him genially, a tremendously fat man in peculiar clothes.
He had a red face with heavy double-chins that trembled at every word he spoke; his lips were thick and dark, the comers of his mouth black, and his teeth had the colour of old ivory. He was wearing a green velvet smock and his crooked fat legs, in yellow stockings that reached up to his thighs, seemed to bear his heavy torso with difficulty. His podgy left hand in which he held a small cap with long feathers, he moved elegantly to his heart.
I am well-known,' he said, 'but who art thou, noble stranger in silks who honours our terribly poor company with thy respectable presence? Dost thou come out of love for the lovable young girl standing next to me?'
Demurely, the mother-part lowered her eyes.
'Dost thou bring us subsidy out of love for art, or art thou a rich merchant who, in his spare time, has written an ugly play?'
'I seek to join your company,' the king replied.
'Hast thou money?'
The king nodded.
'Then there are no objections! Art is a beauteous young damosel. To every man seeking her company she is a credit ... but ... possessing her bears a heavy price ... From the poet she demands his lifeblood ... from the merchant his rolls of gold! We are her representatives and hope ye be a prosperous merchant, for we cannot live on lifeblood.'
Thereupon, the king proposed to celebrate their acquaintance with splendid wines and precious fare in the nearest town.
They invited him in to the wagon and the coachman applied the whip to the horses.
It was a cosy, jolly ride.
The mother-part, who had powdered herself with dexterity, pressed her plump body warmly against that of the king; the youth told risky jokes which the slight young girl listened to with gleaming eyes; and the father-part recited the names of the many dishes he was mad about.
The star of the company continued to sleep.
Toddlers by the side of the road who recognised the wagon cheered the players, and as they drew nearer to the gates of the town, more and more children came pouring out towards them followed by callow youths, girls, old men and old women who surged around the company in groups.
The young lead banged the drum with glee, the fat father sang a cheerful song and the mother-part flirted seductively.
The king feared that people would recognise him but there was nobody who took any notice.
The people demanded the appearance of the star and he, woken from his stupor by the cries of 'huzzah', roused himself, searched hastily for the torn, red satin sandals he had put away beneath his pillow, put
his hand with a flourish through his stubborn, auburn locks and beamed at the people.
His laugh was cheerful and sad, all at once; his lips laughed but he kept his eyes cast soulfully up to heaven. With a broad gesture he swept a dark-red cloak round his shoulders and his auburn beard fluttered in the wind.
The king thought him a preposterous king, but he made a great impression upon the people. He opened his mouth and a suffocating waft of brandy struck the king in the face. With pathos he spoke of 'beloved citizens', 'noble patrons of the arts' and 'loyal paladins' while his lips laughed and his eyes looked soulfully up at the heavenly expanse as if he was seeking his significant words in the clouds.
The bass drum emphasised each of his sentences with a heavy stroke.
The people were elated and more admirers arrived from all sides.
Only when they were sitting at table in a little hotel did the artiste seem to notice his new travelling companion.
A few times, it had seemed to the king that the actor had seen him much earlier on, but the latter, once he had been told that the stranger would be treating them to precious fare, professed his regret not to have been able to welcome him sooner. When I feel inspired I do not see the people, he said by way of an apology.
B007P4V3G4 EBOK Page 34
