Day's End and Other Stories Read Free Page A

before.
    Israel never connected one of these attacks with either advancing age, infirmity or strain. But during the attacks themselves he would, every time, find himself recalling Henrietta’s words: ‘Give it up, don’t slave any more.’ But when they had passed the thought of giving up his land never returned to him.
    This time, however, the letter, Henrietta’s anxious insistence on the previous day and the loss of the tree brought on the trouble afresh. Some detail such as a bad deal or the death of a cow would make him think, ‘She is right, we get no profit, we’ve slaved long enough and it will have to come.’ Yet though he thought this, he felt that whatever decision he made must unfold gradually, like summer or a flower. So his thoughts were dull, half-hearted and came to nothing.
    And as he lay in bed that night, rain began to fall, desultorily at first, then with a steady splashingsound. And while listening to it he thought of the fallen tree, Henrietta’s soft face and her appeal to him, the attack at his heart that morning, and what he should do with all the sawdust lying under the tree. When he went to sleep he had intermittent dreams of the letter and repeated phrases of it, and the names of the solicitors who had sent it. But on waking up he did not consider it at all.
    V
    One Sunday morning, when only three days remained in which to act, he fed his pigs and then, telling Henrietta where he was going, walked down through the village to the river. Larks were singing in the pale, tranquil light of spring, and over everything, from one green edge of the horizon to another, a fresher loveliness seemed to have fallen.
    In the village people were on their way to church, the bright hats of the women peeping out like flower-buds at unexpected places. As the street turned down to the river and the houses became older, more huddled and slanting, the bells for church began ringing. Sometimes gay, sometimes solemn, the sound followed him all the way to the river, on the banks of which the willows were masses of silvery blossom, and grew softer as he drew farther and farther away.
    Then as he stood on the bridge it seemed to him the bells ceased altogether. Then in the silence hefancied he heard them again, thinking how high and soft they were. But suddenly he became aware that the sound he heard was not of the bells but of a strange singing inside his head.
    All the things at which he had gazed with such satisfaction and joy, the larks, the green meadows and the reflections in the water of the satin willows, the hawthorn bushes, the young reeds and the sky and the slow-gliding river itself, became suddenly unsteady and dim.
    In a moment his breath became stifled, his brow clammy, and swaying forward in a tumbling stagger, it seemed to him that he was falling endlessly downwards, never stopping. For what seemed a long time with white features and strained lungs he hung over his own ghastly reflection in the water.
    Struggling back up the long slope to the village, regaining his strength in frequent pauses and then losing it all in a second or two, he saw everything as in a sickly dream.
    And when the figure of a man approached, took his hand and spoke to him, it too was blurred and its voice remote.
    â€˜What’s the matter with you? You look like death – what you been doing?’
    â€˜I’m all right,’ he tried to protest.
    â€˜Look as if you’d been scared. What’s amiss? This won’t do, you’ll go wrong way.’
    The figure took his arm and began leading him up towards the village. Still it seemed to Israel that itwas a strange and ephemeral figure belonging not to life but half to sickness, half to death.
    â€˜Don’t you know me?’ he was asked.
    He only shook his head.
    â€˜It’s Sam Houghton. You know Sam!’
    Again he shook his head and then murmured faintly:
    â€˜Sam, is it? Sam Houghton? Take me and get some