Day's End and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

She did not understand this.
    To Israel all her efforts were only sounds in the darkness. His head sang with echoes. He began presently to murmur: ‘Leave me alone, leave me alone!’
    The echoes became more insistent.
    â€˜Leave me alone! I am all right!’ He coughed.
    But in his heart he was thinking: ‘She will find out about the brandy bottle. She’ll know everything.’
    Now she directed her murmurs to him, aloud:
    â€˜I told you how it would be. I told you, I told you.’
    Had she told him? He could not remember because of the darkness, the damp and cold, because he was more wretched than he had ever been. Tears came into his eyes. He longed desperately for the days when he had had no such wretchedness. He longed for those days more and more. Outside birds were in song, the sun lit up the blossom, but he felt for a long time cold and unhappy. And as time went past he longed simply to do something to make Henrietta happy again.
    And just before evening he conceived the idea of going to the copse and bringing back the fir-tree. Henrietta struggled with him, said, ‘You can’t go, you can’t go!’ and began to cry. But he only shouted:
    â€˜The fir-tree, the fir-tree! You want it, don’t you?’
    She had to seize his shoulders and force him into a chair. ‘You’re not well,’ she whispered. ‘Stay here.’
    He understood what this meant. Yet all that night and all the next day he thought only of where to find the lost axe, of going to the copse again, and bringing home the fir-tree.
    IX
    Each day, now, Israel was conscious of Henrietta observing him with troubled eyes. But more than anything he was conscious of two things which now he never separated – illness and the approaching sale. The thought of the sale would bring on a feeling of faintness, and if he felt ill without thinking of it, not a minute would pass before it began to trouble him.
    Now he passed through long periods of inactivity through sheer weakness of body and spirit. He complained of the sun on his head. When showers came he stood at the door, watched them and did not go out again until the sky cleared. He played with the cat, stared moodily at the river, and walked to and from the orchard endlessly, carrying a log of wood under each arm. And everywhere he was conscious of dreading these two afflictions – illness and the surrender of his land.
    And whenever she saw him go out Henrietta asked:
    â€˜Where are you off to?’
    If he said ‘To the stable’ or ‘To fetch some straw’ it was all right, but if he said ‘Down to saw a little more off that tree’ or ‘To draw water’ she would clutch his coat and beg him not to go. This would produce a feeling of irritation, and he would be angry. And irritation and anger began to upset him.
    The day of the sale arrived. The sale was to be heldat the offices of some auctioneers ten miles off. It was a fine morning, distance was sharp and bright and the sky a soft transparent blue. In the orchard the trees were rosy now and others shed petals in little gusts, as if they shook with laughter.
    Israel wished to harness his oldest nag, drive the ten miles and be present at the sale. He even got the horse ready and sat polishing the harness with oil in the sunshine. Then Henrietta happened to catch sight of him and came to ask:
    â€˜What are you cleaning harness for? Where are you going?’
    He felt irritated at once and said: ‘Never do you mind.’
    Then, catching sight of her worried expression, he repented and said simply:
    â€˜I thought of driving over to that sale.’
    She picked up the oil.
    â€˜But you can’t go, it’s too far,’ she said. ‘Besides, whatever happens at the sale we shall hear all about. It’ll be in the papers,’ she impressed on him.
    She spoke plaintively, so that he felt older and yet like a child; and at once he understood an