Day's End and Other Stories Read Free

helpless, as if cheated of something.
    He went back to the table, shook his head and said: ‘It’s a pity,’ in a slow, meditative voice.
    Then suddenly he began to think of the letter and the tree together. It seemed to him that if the fall of a tree filled him with a sense of sadness and loss, such a sensation could only be multiplied endlessly if he were to give up his land. And immediately he longed desperately to pour into Henrietta’s face appeals for her help and understanding. But he did not do so, did not even look at her. The room grew silent and as he sat there snow began to melt in soft, shining rivers of silver on the window. Beyond this in the sky soft-edged limpid pools of light were beginning to come.
    Henrietta began clearing the table. But he did not move and felt only a desire to sit still, to watch thesnow and consider calmly how to act and to gather the courage to act.
    But as she cleared away the cups and saucers, Henrietta said:
    â€˜The roof of the hen-house has fallen in. It’s the snow. You might get a pole and prop it up. Only mind, be careful what you’re doing.’
    â€˜I’ll see to it,’ he said.
    But he spoke with faint weariness, with the habitual reluctance of a man accustomed to put off things from day to day.
    IV
    A thaw set in and within two days the meadows were blank sheets of water, the trees drenched and black and Israel’s fields drab patches of green and brown again. When this happened Henrietta said to him:
    â€˜Soon you ought to begin sawing the smaller arms of that tree. We could do with that.’
    But she looked at him as if she meant: ‘We could do without it. Give it up – remember you’re seventy.’
    But he said nothing.
    After a few delays, however, he went to a barn, found a saw and chopper and walked down to the orchard. Now only patches of snow remained, shining here and there like big mushrooms in the sheltered spots. Blue lakes of changing shape swam about the sky. The wind smelt of a soft dampnessand, though the sun was not shining, there was a pale tranquil light, and everything, the grass, the hedges, the trees, and especially as it seemed, the fallen tree, glistened faintly with moisture.
    Israel stood still and looked at the tree. Among the branches a pigeon’s nest was interwoven and he remembered that in summer leaves had concealed this but that the murmur of the pigeons had not been hushed at all.
    He stood still for a long time. At last, when he took off his coat, he felt himself shiver. Sawing did not warm him either. And gradually the sawdust he made began to flutter down intermittently and feebly. The drone of the saw lessened as well. Then suddenly the sawdust, the saw itself and his whole body ceased moving.
    For a minute he held himself arrested. His heart seemed as if gripped by a large, freezing hand. His forehead paled and gave out big drops of wet moisture. A haze floated before his eyes.
    He tried to resist all these things with an odd sort of determination, biting his lips and shaking his head like a dog. And it seemed that after a moment or two the freezing at his heart retreated. The mist cleared and even far-off objects like copses, the floods in the meadows, the church and the clouds became normally clear, and only peculiar, alternate fits of shivering and warmth seized him.
    For the past five or six years of his life Israel had suffered from something which could be calledneither a sickness nor a disease. And this was that, as now, the surrounding tissues of his heart would suddenly contract, sap his strength and leave him exhausted. On previous occasions Israel had drunk brandy for these fits and relief had come. Now he walked slowly to the house, waited till Henrietta was out of sight and moving furtively drank brandy again. As before the pain vanished, the cold hand was withdrawn completely from his heart. The only difference was that to do this needed a little more brandy than