A Tale Without a Name Page 3

  “And yet time is precious,” replied Knowledge. “With what things do you busy yourself all day?”

  “With no things! What can I busy myself with? Everyone lives for himself and is busy with himself alone; and I have need of nothing.”

  “And yet your country has need of you.”

  “Pah! Everyone looks after themselves, and manages in some way or other, lives any old how.”

  “You have put it well that everyone manages in some way or other, lives any old how,” replied Knowledge, with sadness. Your country too manages in some way or other, any old how. And yet, will you allow yourself to be content with such a state of things?”

  “What can I do?”

  “If everyone thought less of his own individual self and worked more for the general good, they would see one day that they had still worked for themselves, and that instead of living any old how, they had managed in fact to live well.”

  “I do not understand,” muttered the Prince.

  Knowledge laughed.

  “Have I clouded your heart?” she said. “Yet if you were to go back and live amongst your people, talk with them and listen to what they have to say, you would then understand infinitely better.”

  “I will go, as you say!” said the Prince earnestly.

  The two siblings entered the back kitchen to bid farewell to Mistress Wise; they found her braising meat in a large pot.

  “What? Will you not stay and taste my stew?” the old woman asked.

  “Thank you kindly, but no,” said the Prince. “I am in a hurry to go back.”

  The old woman cut them a thick slice of bread each, and thrust it affectionately into their pockets.

  “The way is long,” she said. “Godspeed to you, my children.”

  They bid goodbye to Knowledge, and then the siblings picked up once more the way back to the palace.

  Every now and then Little Irene would turn her head to look at the small, hospitable white cottage, which was still visible through the leafy trees. And when that was lost from sight, she sighed heavily and looked at her brother who was walking straight ahead, with steady step, his head held high.

  IV

  On the Way Back

  THEY WALKED for many hours across the dry, boundless valley. Eventually they came to a desolate hamlet, where barely two or three dwellings still stood erect.

  They stopped in front of the first and knocked at the door.

  A middle-aged man with a crotchety face and unkempt clothes opened the door.

  “What do you want?” he snapped.

  “Just a place to sit down for a while. We are exhausted,” replied the Prince.

  “This is not an inn,” said the man.

  And he shut the door.

  The siblings sat on the doorstep, and took out their bread to eat.

  Before long, they heard the window open cautiously. They turned around, and saw the same man.

  “What’s the idea of sitting in front of my house like this?” he snapped again.

  “Are we disturbing you?” asked the Prince, without rising.

  “You most certainly are! Away with you!” retorted the man. “I don’t like beggars.”

  “We ask you for nothing,” said the Prince quietly.

  The man became irascible.

  “The doorstep is mine!” he yelled. “Be gone with you, or I shall give you a thrashing you’ll never forget!”

  The two siblings got up and went farther down the road. The spring sun, however, was strong and hot; seeking to find some shade, they returned to the back of the house, where amidst some rubble and ruins they lay down in a shady corner and fell asleep.

  A light tapping noise awoke the Prince. It seemed to him that he could hear voices.

  He rose carefully, peered through the stones without being seen, and saw the same inhospitable man: he was now speaking from his window to a child laden with a sack; his voice was hushed and secretive.

  “Did anyone see you?” asked the man lowering his voice to a whisper.

  “No, of course not! What am I, a fool to get caught?” answered the child. “But come, unload my burden, the sack is heavy!”

  “What’s in it?” asked the man, leaning out of the window to catch hold of it.

  “A flask of wine, three apples, a shoe, two pies and a woolly hat.”

  “You found these things all together in one place?”

  “No. Bittersuffering was at home when I went there. I snatched the wine and the apples, which he kept on the windowsill so they might stay fresh and cool, and took to my heels. The rest comes from Badluck. He was away to town where he was to be a witness at Miserlix’s trial; so I took care of his house at my leisure.” And with that the child broke into a guffaw. “Yet you have not seen the real booty,” he went on, taking out of his pocket a silver watch. “I got this one last night, out of Miserlix’s pocket. Ain’t it a beauty?”

  “Is that so? And where did you come across Miserlix?”

  “Hah! I was there when the palace courtier with the chain thrust him down the mountain in order to take his haversack from him. So then down I scrambled myself as well, and, finding him unconscious, I groped about in his pockets and took his watch and two silver five-crown coins. Do I get no praise from you?”

  “Come in,” said the man delightedly. “Give me the silver coins, and you shall receive the very best praise! You have earned it!”

  The window was then pulled shut and the child disappeared to the back of the house.

  The Prince woke up his sister. His face was dark and clouded.

  “Come,” he said. “We must leave this place.”

  Little Irene got up and followed him.

  “Who is chasing us away this time?” she asked.

  “Little Irene,” said the Prince, his eyebrows furrowing. “Do you know why the man did not want us on his doorstep just now?”

  “No!”

  “Because he is a fence, a receiver of stolen goods, and he was afraid we might see the boy who was bringing him the things he had stolen. And do you know what the dinner was that Cunningson brought to the palace last night? He stole it himself from some poor soul by the name of Miserlix, whom he even thrust down the mountainside so he might not talk. This is what goes on in our kingdom!”

  “Heaven help us!” muttered Little Irene with tears in her eyes.

  They walked through a small town with misshapen and squalid roads, the houses half in ruin.

  Above a doorway they noticed some black letters. But neither knew how to read.

  “Let us knock here and ask what this place is,” said the Prince.

  They knocked, and a pale, scrawny man opened the door to them, holding a book in his hand.

  “What do you want, my children?” he said kindly.

  “We wish to learn what this house is,” said the Prince apologetically.

  “This house? But it is written all up there, my children!” the man said, baffled, pointing to the letters above his door.

  “We do not know how to read,” said Little Irene with embarrassment.

  “Aaah?…” said the man. “And yet it is the same sorry state everywhere in the realm; no one knows how to read any more.”

  And he explained to them that outside it was written “School of the State”.

  “A school!” exclaimed the Prince joyfully. “I have never seen a school, and I have always wanted to know what one is like! But… where are the pupils?”

  The man scratched his ear, hesitated, and finally said:

  “They are… they are away at present.”

  “And at what time will they be back for their lessons? I should like to see them,” said the Prince.

  “But… But they do not have lessons…” answered the man hesitantly.

  And seeing the puzzlement in the boy’s eyes:

  “Well, so be it… Yes, that’s right, I do not give them lessons!” he burst out bitterly. “As if it were easy to do the proper thing in this place! The State appointed m
e as teacher, and entrusted the children to me so I might teach them their letters. Only the State forgets to pay me, forgets that I too have needs, that I must eat and clothe myself! The children come but I do not give them lessons. I take them to my kitchen garden to work the soil, so I might have my bread, and I send them to the woods to pick strawberries, or arbutus berries, or other seasonal fruit. I am a man too, you know! I too must live!”

  All this the schoolmaster said with great grief, his eyes brimming with tears.

  The Prince gazed at him, lost in thought. His face was grave.

  “And who forces you to stay on as schoolmaster?” he asked finally.

  “What else could I do? I would die out in the cold. Here at least I have a house!”

  “So then you do accept the house,” said the Prince, his eyes flaring, “even though you do not fulfil your duty!”

  The schoolmaster smiled.

  “As if that were easy now!” he said quietly. “You are but a child! You do not know what life is like, and you think it is simple and easy to do your duty, to work unrewarded for the benefit of others! Only, in order to do your duty, my boy, you need sometimes to make a heroic sacrifice of yourself. And not everyone is a hero in this world.”

  The Prince went out, without giving an answer.

  Many thoughts, and ever more thoughts, stumbled and tripped in his mind. It seemed to him that his eyes were looking at new worlds.

  There was a long moment of silence, while he held his sister’s hand.

  “Self-sacrifice!” he murmured. “You heard that, Little Irene? It takes, he said, a heroic act of self-sacrifice, and not everyone is a hero… Do you recall the words of Knowledge, that by labouring for the common good, we benefit ourselves in the end? I am afraid that in our country no one ever learnt that. Each of us seeks to profit for himself alone, or, at the very least, to be left in peace…”

  “Why do you say this, brother?”

  “Because we too are no different. Neither you nor I nor anyone else from the palace ever did anything for the common good… Yes, Little Irene, this is how the State was brought to its ruin…”

  Brother and sister continued their way without speaking, each lost in thought.

  They reached another hamlet, as impoverished and deserted as the first.

  In a small garden, unkempt, overgrown, untilled, there sat, next to some half-parched furrow weeds, a poorly dressed little old man; he was busy wool-gathering and playing with a rosary to pass the time.

  “A very good day to you,” he said as brother and sister went past.

  “Good afternoon to you, grandfather,” replied the Prince. “Would you let us sit a little in your garden, to rest?”

  “You most certainly may, my children. Why don’t you come in indeed, share a word or two with old Penniless here, so I may forget my troubles?” answered the old man.

  They entered the garden, and sat on the bench next to him.

  “It distresses me deeply that I have nothing left to offer you,” said the old man. “Only they stole from me the one thing that I had, wretch that I am, some few fresh raspberries, which were my pride and joy! Where are you headed, my young lord and lady?”

  “To the capital,” replied Little Irene.

  “Is that so? You travel far. And what will you do in the capital?”

  “We go to find work,” said the Prince.

  The old man barely suppressed a smile:

  “You will only be wasting your time, my children. There is no work to be found in the capital any more.”

  “Why?”

  “Because no one is so foolish as to work so that he may earn the bread that his neighbour will eat in his stead.”

  And he pointed all around him to the thorny thistles and the weeds that covered the earth.

  “The entire country prospers in this same way, like my little garden here,” he went on. Once upon a while, this tiny corner of the earth was blessed by God. Yet who would know it now? My boy is gone away, I am left alone, and I am tired of working for the benefit of others.”

  “Why did your son go away?” asked the Prince.

  “What else might he do here? Together we cultivated our fields, which stretched as far as there yonder, and we sold our yield to the neighbouring villages. We even grew oranges, apples and grapes. The choicest greens and fruit ripened here, before they did so anywhere else. The palace would send here for its provisions of all the fine things it wanted. But things changed, our good King died, and his son is having forty winks. That is why we are all going to the devil.”

  “Why do you say he is having forty winks?” asked Little Irene, flushing red, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Well, he may not be really asleep and dead to the world, but it amounts to much the same thing, since he only knew how to command evening balls, and great feasts; and he never cared about work of any sort, till he consumed all he had, and more that he did not—”

  “This does not tell us why your son went away,” interrupted the Prince, who did not wish to hear more about his father.

  “How does it not? Back then, in the good times, when Prudentius I was still alive, the palace paid for what it received. And it paid well. Afterwards, it no longer paid, but it still received. So, hurriedly and furtively, we would harvest and send away the choicest things in the land, so we might earn some money at least. Yet the roads, with no one to care for them, fell to ruin, our carts would smash in the ditches. Before long, not even our beasts of burden could get through. Our grain would rot in the storehouses, or the palace would feed on it, without paying. Poverty and misery fell upon the land, commerce was ruined, the storehouses crumbled and collapsed, the young men left, the best went to foreign lands, others went to the capital, to become, they said, scientists, and are still there now, starving. The worst stayed behind and are scraping a living by making themselves a burden to their fellow men. He got fed up, my son, he sold our fields for a pittance, left me the money and he too then went abroad. I used to cultivate my garden, growing my own vegetables, buying my own bread. But no one is safe any longer!”

  “What do they do to you?” asked Little Irene.

  “What don’t they do to us, you might well ask, my girl! The village has been deserted, there is no man left to protect us, they steal whatever is in our gardens, and out of spite they destroy our trees and our vegetables. Just to show you, only last night they stole the few raspberries that were ripening slowly on my bramble hedge. And that’s not all! They also hacked the entire plant to pieces and pulled it out of its roots! I am fed up, I have given up, and I too live on just any old how, till my days are spent and I may find peace from the troubles of this world. Such is my lot.”

  “And the money that your son left you?” asked Little Irene.

  “Stolen, my girl, gone, never to be seen again! You think there will be money left, when they do not even leave us our bread?”

  “How come you do not go to court?” asked the Prince outraged. “Why then do we have judges?”

  Penniless laughed.

  “The judges are not for our sort,” he said. “They are for the rich, who fill their pockets. From us, the have-nots, they can make no profit. Go, if you want, to the trial of Miserlix, as you are headed to the capital and are curious to know. There you shall hear justice being pronounced.”

  “I shall go indeed,” said the Prince. “I wish to see with my own eyes what you have said.”

  “Do go, my boy, and witness with your eyes, hear with your own ears. The trials take place in the square, under the great plane tree.”

  The two siblings bid farewell to the old man, and took the road to the capital.

  They arrived late. The sun had descended behind the mountain, the trial, at this hour, was over.

  The Judge, wrapped in his frayed red coat, which had lost its original colour with the passing of time, was getting up to go home, while two scruffy policemen were trailing behind them a shabbily dressed, pale man, hands in shackles, leading him
away to prison. His head was bandaged with a scarf, and, full of grief, he held tightly in his arms his daughter, who was crying with heavy sobs.

  “Who is this man?” asked the Prince.

  “It is Miserlix, the blacksmith,” answered one of the bystanders.

  “Why are they taking him to prison?”

  “Bless me if I know! He stole, so they say, some hens. I did not understand very well, they did not say much, but they have sentenced him to two years in prison. Yet he was a fool, if ever there was one! He claimed that some palace courtier stole chickens, wine and I know not what else from him, then sent him rolling down the mountain slope where he split his head. Someone also stole from him, he says, his watch and two silver five-crown coins. You may be sure that His Excellency, Judge Faintheart, ticked him off all right, called him a liar and a thief. He then told us that not only was it not true that his chickens had been stolen, but that it was Miserlix himself who had stolen them, I know not where from. The Judge gave orders for him to be beaten till he confessed the truth. Miserlix then took fright, and asked them not to beat him; he would agree to go to prison, and they could say what they liked, even that it was he who had stolen the hens. Couldn’t he have stayed quietly in his corner, the fool, instead of seeking courts and justice?!”

  “But this is shameful! It is downright sinful!” the Prince cried, furious.

  “Shameful or not, sinful or not, that’s the court of justice for you,” answered the other.

  “No, this is not what the court of justice should be!” said the Prince. “Where does the Judge live?”

  They pointed out the house to him, and he ran and knocked at the door, pulling Little Irene by the hand.

  The Judge was already back by then, and was sitting at his table eating mackerels with relish, and drinking brandy made from mastic.

  “Who goes there?” he shouted with his mouth full, not bothering to get up.

  “Open up!” ordered the Prince. “I have things to say to you concerning Miserlix.”

  “Oh, go away, leave me alone!” replied the Judge, biting into another crunchy mackerel.