The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 17, 1926, Page 10

q ' The CRIER TRANSLATED BY LYDIA GIBSON. (Second Installment) STRANGE man lived in a little village in France. He had a mania for telling the truth _to everyone. It burst out of liim in spite of him- self, and all his neighbors feared him because of this, it was such an unnatural and embarrass- ing habit. Some hated him, some pitied him, but he seemed to them all half mad. His brother was dying of consumption, and all the neighbors -hid the truth out of pity. But the “Crier,” as he was nicknamed because of his habit of shouting the truth at all times, told his sick brother point- blanki'that he was going to die. The Crier’s wife left him with another man, and he took up for awhile’ swith: another »woman. |» Long afterward they met; arid he broke down the woman’s senti- mental illusion that they had loved, by. telling | ‘her ‘that ‘they had .merely: used each other out j lof necessity. On a holiday, an American mil- { lionaire ud his wife came in their automobile to | | ding ae inn of the village, and all tie people leapt ly crowded around, while the mayor made a servile speech ; before’ it was finished, a guffaw of sardonic laughter echoed thru the square. It vas the crier showing-up the hypoc- risy of the occasion. He did all this brutally, but quite simply, as tho the truth were as neces- sary and as evident as the air. And his neigh- bors never knew who he would show up next, and feared him accordingly, and wondered how he would end. ¢ * HE was tireless. He rushed off, where? Even here, at’ six o’clock, while Sunday was ripe and we loafed and. argued. He approached a reader installed with a newspaper at a table. The reader was a village man, with the difference that in honor of this fine holiday, he was dressed in black cloth. What he was reading in the news- paper wasn’t political news, but a fiction story. This romance, written by a Parisian author as famous as a general, was named “The Widower and the Cow.” A prodigious detective traced a crime, saying: “I notice that people always carry ) anu relia. when it doesn’t rain. Well, that méf *it.didn’t rain. Therefore, I say tha so-and-so carried his umbrella.” The left forefinger of the reader followed this carefully; (in his right fist he had a chunk of bread), and his mouth loosened and gaped. He forgot to chew while he goggled his eyes at the story. “How true it is!” he said. * Our friend, coming up behind the reader, struck the paper a blow with his fist, and while the reader, cringing on the table like a rabbit, lifted a timid eye, the Crier pronounced judgment on the seribbler: “That Jean Dupont” (supposing this was the author’s name—) “is an idiot!” And while the forefinger of the reader trem- bled over the demolished ant-heap of the news- paper, he held it down with his hand on the spot. This time it happened to fall upon the continued story that was just ending—the other one was just beginning, on the next page. The socialist deputy, from crime to crime, had finally reached the scaffold. But his charming daughter, who despised him, and, you may be sure, did not share his political ideas, married the young noble- man.—-Phe-reader-read this. with a hiceup and. “He is. the limit!” said the other gentlemen who were sitting around talking about the Good ' and the Best, frowning at the disturber. “Literally insupportable!” said a young gentle- man, pencil in air, interrupting his literary note- taking. One of them just smoked. While the others thot, while the others talked, he smoked. The smoke filled his head, clouding: his memory, and built in him a solid catarrh—good strong ma- sonry. So instead of talking, he drooled a little, and you could hear the bubbling of his pipe. There was also a lawyer present, one of those talkers who are, by accident, either the defenders of the innoeent or the accomplices of the guilty. bred terary. gentleman again began his artis- tie ruminations. The gentleman who was an official and educated (two or three degrees more ‘ civilized than those around him) took up his grand argument, and chirped triumphantly ; “Suppress the pest? Yes... but what will _ you replace it with?” | On whose head ‘was this immensity now to | fall? coughed it up with another hiccup. | And he, what was he to become? Was his life to darken there, as his reason seemed. to be darkening, he who heard his voices as others heard those of Saint Gabriel or Saint Michael? That limitless sincerity—what could. that do here, not only in this village, but in France or in the whole world?” His cry was the Truth— but, what was he? When they thot it over, they said: “He is much more than we are.” ‘When they thot it over, they pitied him as a little child, and thot of his poor mother who had put him into this hell, but above other men. “AE it’s she, it’s she!” whispered everyone. The accursed. His wife, who had left him not so long ago. You must admit that she did it in a devilishly ‘dishonest fashion. She went off arm in arm with the other ‘man, and left everything topsy-turvy, not even supper ready (for the husband—well, you wouldn’t say anything; nor for the old peo- ple—but for the two. children!) ’ Naturally everyone had it in for her now. She came from the station, along the road and then along the street, like the wind blowing the doors shut. And since Saturday evening, which is more populous than other evenings, she had hidden her- self in the cottage of an old woman who wasn’t so particular. And he? There were two or three neighbors who came that night to peer into his window that seemed as black as coal, to see what he was doing all alone in his house. They saw him striding up and down and star- ing at the fireplace. It was the same room that they shared before—their little household where the most newly bought thing always seemed to make a clean spot. And it was the fireplace that hed never been lighted since tiieir last evening together (he had not suspected then that it was the last) and that fire had been the beginning of cold. He walked all night in the room crowded with higvinembdries;( with hundreds of dmages of her “past hws the chardtter of ‘not existing any more, but to make up for that it is innumerable.) There we were, drawn there by curiosity. ‘We kept watch or we said “I’m sleepy” or we drows- ed. But whenever we opened our eyes or our ears, there he was, walking and walking. This is what passes for presence or absence; if people are there, all the reasons against them crowd in on us. If they are not there, all the reasons for them come from afar. Once he wavered—we saw him. It was as tho we all wavered, because the woman had really remained everywhere. He went out on the balcony, and tho he didn’t notice us, we were frightened by this man who saw what we didn’t see, and we took t6é our heels. The next day, of course, was Sunday, and she was out in the square. He also. He had his blue jacket on and a_ thick red woolen waistcoat. But it was hard to see any- thing except her gray dress. Soon there was only a little space between them,, more noticeable because the people drew away and went to the sides of the square, where they could keep an eye on whatever happened. Ah, it was serious! She didn’t even cry any more. Nothing. Like at the circus when the music stops. There they were, in plain sight: she, and he. And all the neighbors made 'themselves small, and there wasn’t any one but her and him. - went straight to her and held out his arms to her. That was what he was building all during the long night; that straight, line. And during how many other long ae, for such actions are the end of long th “May I come back" “Ves, ” Yes. The last magnificent spear-thrust in the light: yes. They came back to the house as before. Sud- denly the weather had changed with the sunset, and a north wind shook out blue-black clouds. It blew the blackbirds into the' cherry tree, and even the big house-dog was jumpy. The wind was loaded with rain, and’ ire gnawing. On a dry tree a Dike bent ung Mike something on a gibbet. ane 94 But joy stood ‘up in-people, of good weather, °°. and took tthe place | more assurance, being etnies By Henri | In the house it happened. very simply; when a good heart sets itself to create, it doesn’t stop, it | a goes on to familiarity and gayety. 8 col The two old people laughed out of the corners of their eyes. The striking of the clock didn’t hit them in the back of the head now, as it did only | do yesterday. The fire felt good, burning so brightly. : # Now they would be able to.be comfortable on| their death bed. They were happy. How teal} la it was! We mustn’t forget to say that she had given Bi an explanation of her return; it was because in a nightmare she had seen him dead. Like this; she dreamed that she was going to bed in her room, and turning round while undressing, she saw the bed. She explained that it was cold,|, foggy, shivery, in her dream. Then she saw there was someone lying in the hed, and that it was he, yellow and cold as.a fone, his ee It’s true that the bed is the dead. mou! > and |, she saw like a flash that what’s. iat Pees 8 i i More important than. all the foo oh takes you make, even the ones that bring most, trouble. 3 And you talk nonsense when you say, between living people: “irreparable.” She said nothing more. The silence was apeeed over them. She said nothing. “Wife, what happiness would there be left without all the anguish that is in our flesh ?” He said that, bless him! In a corner the face of the clock shone like a halo. And he, who usually talked so loud and strong, now used a voice that was quiet (more than that, timid, a little modest), to say: “In heaven everything will be somes “ond if] be a little bit stupid, eh?” Like the’ politeness of-an ‘angel’ to, say that? Not entirely. It tied up with all the rest: “To have all your desire, then what? Be’ too happy? But then that would be the end!’ He murmered something to himself. This’ is what he murmured: 9. “Happy are those who weep for they Stiall: comforted.” From the window where a little while ago the wind had clattered the shutters, came crumbs of |s light, and the village at the end of the street look- ed like a toy. A fly walking on the pane covered the steeple with his body. Well! This isn’t a man who’s going crazy; it’s more like a god who will be sane. no [THE church at the end of an avenue of trees: the dying, reborn, eternal pilgrimage of the |: procession of trees toward the church. He was like a beggar at the church door when |i the people came to mass, and his.look was like a demand. So different from each other, the people entered together and disappeared. He seemed to be wait- ing for someone. He was waiting for everybody. But he wouldn’t dare do anything: this: public place, this sacred door way . He had untangled it in his ‘head, that God is's an answer, fabricated from head to ‘foot, to what}! has no answer. God is an idea having no reality in the world, except what other ideas Jend it; God is a product for the use of those who have} ¢: produced nothing: and that the 403 is nothing é but the worshipper. His eyes turned inward on “the truth. He wanted to uncover it and to say to the first comer: “It is all made in the shape of man. Tt is you, it is you, it is you.” But the first one who came out said“to him, before he could speak: i “Phew! I’m glad it’s‘ over; a Jet of hocus- pocus, these masses!” And ‘another one agreed; “Nothing else.” “Aren’t you ashamed to go it you feel that way about it?” The two men stiffened with surprise, but > repeated, winking at him; “That’s the way it is.” Another one added; ‘ “T say the same thing about mass, and 2 £0, 00. Was he ashamed to talk like that? Not a bit; he was proud to take: ‘part inthe common obedi- ence. ‘s “T don’t say so,” they explained with more and in a group. “But you have to do like other people.”