World Fiction/1922-12/The Apple Tree

by Svatopluk Čech

The Apple Tree

By

Svatopluk Cech

From the Czech by Sarka B. Hrbkova

 

Though best known as a poet and a writer of novels of epic character, Svatopluk Cech was also among the most prominent of Czechoslovakia’s modern short story writers.

He was a man who had travelled extensively, and had wide literary and journalistic training. His writing is characterized by keenness of observation, a kindly philosophy, and a mild, chuckling humor. He had a deep national feeling, and one of his books, “The Blacksmith of Lesetin,” was confiscated three times by the Austrian government. He died in 1918 at the age of sixty-two.

 

IN the roster of legal cases tried by Dr. X, the rural district is very poorly represented. But to make up for the lack of many cases, there is one which presents a picture of pastoral life with all its characteristics.

I am of the opinion that every attorney’s office in the city has at least one such typical rural figure which refreshes now and then with its zephyrs of old-fashioned simplicity the heavy air poisoned by the newfangled maladies of society.

Such cases are for the lawyer himself, no doubt, a necessary mental diversion. He has disposed of a long line of hardened, distrustful, city clients who, like the possessed animal in Goethe’s simile, whirl about perpetually in the empty circle of their own dryasdust affairs. His head is full of figures, merchandise, drafts, pensions, mortgages and similar things. Just then the door opens again and with a respectful “May God grant you good afternoon!” there enters a bulky figure squeezing a shaggy cap between his hands in great embarrassment.

The face of the lawyer brightens.

“A right good welcome to you, my good man! Sit down, sit down! Well, have you had rain out your way, too? And what are you bringing us?”

And the “good man” tells his story in his simple “home grown” manner, interspersing his remarks with pithy phrases and many gestures. The lawyer smiles. He is amused by the history of the dispute which has as its stage a village green in the center of thatched roofs covered with moss and a mass of rustling golden sheaves, a wide, free region which he probably does not long for in his comfortable city room, but to which at times he likes to fly in fancy, leaving behind him the piles of dusty documents and law books. He is amused by his country client’s naive confidence in his all powerfulness and utterly diabolical shrewdness. Finally, there is a pleasant fascination in the silent readiness with which a rustic of that sort before each interview draws out, of his own accord, an advance payment from some tattered little book or from the knotted corner of a handkerchief, and in the readiness with which he later pays legal fees of whatever size.

This country clientage has, to be sure, its shady sides. Not among the least of these is the fact that such an individual usually smells of fur and in winter likes to sit close to the office stove where, like a snow man, he gradually thaws out into pools of dirty water.

In the case I refer to, this rustic affair was inscribed in the register of Dr. X under the modest title of Matthew Prochazka. The matter first came to the office some three years before, and in a short time won all hearts. It began with a dispute whose subject was far more suited to a pastoral idyl or as material for a poem than as the object of a legal controversy.

It was an apple tree. An apple tree—of poetic association—as charming in May when thousands of buzzing bees flit about its fraggrant rose and white crown as in the fall when its green branches bend beneath the sweet burden of blushing apples.

The thing happened this way. On the boundary line which divided the Prochazka farm from the field belonging to Barbara Vrchcabova stood a lone apple-tree in whose shade in former years the owners of the two neighboring properties used often to sit at harvest time beside each other in perfect harmony. But one year Mrs. Vrchcabova had the tree, which was now quite old, garnered of its fruit—although, as later the alternate conflicting documents verified, this act produced her not quite a basketful of sourish apples—and a few days later Matthew Prochazka preferred through his legal representative a two-page charge against her for trespassing.

Since that time a great many other quarrels between the two neighbors had been added to the dispute over the apple tree. They included controversies about the boundary line, the overhanging eaves, an obstructed window, a protruding rafter and other illegal trespasses vi clam precario; but the apple tree still held the foreground and became for the office an inseparable symbol of the personality of Matthew Prochazka.

“Well, what about the apple-tree?” was the first question of the clerks, whenever they magnanimously opened a conversation with him, and the chief began each relation of the events in a new quarrel of his country client with his rapacious neighbor by jabbing a dot in the center of a sheet of paper with the words: “Here, then, stands the apple tree—and here to the right, etc——”

Many of the later altercations had long since concluded, but the strife over the apple-tree dragged along endlessly. I don’t know the cause of its unnatural length, whether the contest slid over from the firm ground of possessed property to the slippery arena of the question of ownership, or whether the progress of the law suit was held back by some probatio diabolica—for I do not understand such things. But certain it is that Prochazka continued to ask at each visit, “And how far along are we, please, with the apple-tree?”

“It won’t be long now till the preliminary evidence is all in,” answered the lawyer.

“I don’t care what I have to pay—just see to it, Mr. Lawyer, that she has a lot of expense!”

It was no wonder that good old Prochazka wished that every evil might befall his neighbor. A childless widower and proprietor of a fine estate, he might have enjoyed complete earthly bliss if an envious fate had not destined Mrs. Vrchcabova of all people to be his neighbor. It was she who most effectually embittered his life. On three sides her property encompassed his, not with the friendly embrace of neighborly love, but like a ferocious beast thrusting out its claws to seize its prey. The property line separating the two estates was not a peaceful insensible marking, but it gave evidence on every hand of being a boundary of furious attack and fierce defense. Every corner was a sharp tooth fastening itself into the neighboring land. Every landmark on the two estates aroused the suspicion that year by year it was advancing, and not by pin-head lengths as did the petrified shepherds in the old folk tales. Indeed, even the house belonging to Mrs. Vrchcabova, with the attractive inn adjoining it, seemed to be gradually moving forward into Matthew Prochazka’s lot, blinking more and more greedily through its several windows from day to day. The upper dormer appeared to grin mockingly and the shameless pumpkins in their impatience climbed over the fence into their neighbor’s property.

To be sure I don’t know which was the lamb and which the wolf or if, after all, both were not wolves, but certain it is that a faction in our office accepted Prochazka’s version of the situation with a non-committal smile. That smile did not vanish even when Prochazka, under solemn oath, vowed that his restless neighbor would finally drive him to sell his estate and emigrate somewhere into Russia or America, and then he swore that he had his fill of law suits, and that the woman was a fiend incarnate, that she had the premature death of her husband on her conscience, and that he could tell things about her that would make his listeners’ hair stand on end.

In the meantime, one law suit followed on the heels of another. Only a short time before a certain impertinent rafter, projecting a good nine inches over into the aerial property of Matthew Prochazka, had been, by the court’s findings, happily driven back into Barbara Vrchcabova’s roof. Already Prochazka’s legal representative was making preparations for a new action for trespass through the wilful pulling out of two stakes from a certain fence, beginning the species facti with the customary digging in of a point into the middle of the sheet of paper accompanied by the words, “Here, then, stands the apple tree——”

“Stood,” Matthew Prochazka corrected him, just as he had done several times before.

I must, without delay, add the information that the unfortunate apple tree did not survive the end of the argument. One stormy night it passed from this earth, after having been shattered and set afire by lightning, thus concluding its career gloriously and beautifully like a splendid meteor. This, however, did not have the slightest effect on the law-suit, which pursued its calm, regular way over the charred remains of the apple tree. For the purposes of the court-action it still existed, flourished, bloomed, bore sourish apples—quod non est in actis, non est in mundo!

A few days after the drawing up of the documents in the new action involving the fence, Prochazka again visited the office.

“The complaint is already lodged,” his legal friend greeted him. “Have you seen to it that nothing was removed?”

“Both the stakes lie just where they fell on the ground.”

“The point is that the commission at its local investigation must find an undisturbed picture of the act of trespass.”

“But there’s another snag to it, Mr. Attorney.’

“What sort of snag?”

“Through that opening in the fence—you understand—her chickens are flocking into my garden and are causing all kinds of damage. My poor dead wife used to like to keep chickens and I myself enjoy seeing a brood of fine golden goslings or speckled chicks cheeping around a bustling mother-hen. But Mrs. Vrchcabova even in that line passes all limits. Her yard is a regular poultry barracks. It fairly swarms with roosters, hens, ducks, turkeys and geese. She doesn’t keep them for profit or for pleasure, God knows; only to torment me from morning till night with their crowing, clucking, peeping and chattering, and to fly over the fence into my garden and cause destruction until my heart fairly aches. Even before this, it kept me busy driving them away, but since those two stakes in the fence are missing, they stay in my garden as if they were at home. But I’m going to put an end to that sort of thing. I’m going to buy myself, you understand, a double barrelled shot-gun, and I’ll shoot anything that comes through the fence, even if it’s her finest turkey.”

“You’d certainly not do yourself any good by that. I advise a different method. Just help yourself to several of her hens and other poultry as security for the damage you have suffered. It is a special kind of security—or pledge-right—that the law in this instance allows.”

A few days after this advice Prochazka again entered the office in very apparent excitement.

“Well, did you catch the poultry?” asked the attorney.

“Yes, I did.”

“And what was the result?”

“This!” Prochazka brushed away the dry yellow hair from his forehead, and showed a black bruise and several good sized bumps.

“A fight?”

“And what a fight! She came over with her hired man and poultry girl. She called me robber, thief, scoundrel. She snatched the chickens from my possession by force and when I rushed after her she picked up one of those loose stakes and hit me on the head. I picked up the other stake and we would undoubtedly have broken them over each other’s heads if the neighbors hadn’t come between us.”

“Well, we’ll teach her some manners. We will prefer a court charge against her tomorrow for an offense against the security of honor. You will go personally to the county court to attend the trial. I will give you complete instructions as to your procedure. I would go with you but I have some things I simply can’t put off.”

After that interview Prochazka did not appear in the office for so long a time that it seemed strange to all of us. A week passed by, two, three, and the office missed the bulky figure of the sturdy countryman.

In the meantime the long anticipated end came to pass: the suit over the apple tree was ended by a decision in favor of Matthew Prochazka on every point at issue.

When, after a considerable length of time, the successful litigant again stepped into the office, the attorney triumphantly waved the decree before his eyes.

“We’ve won, friend, won, friend, we’ve won!”

But to the attorney’s great amazement, Prochazka’s eyes glistened only for an instant and then immediately the expression of embarrassment which he had worn on entering again overspread his face.

“You don’t seem pleased? What has happened to you? Did you lose the case at the county court for insult to your honor?”

“No!”

“Well, what then? Just read this splendid decision. Mrs. Vrchcabova must have turned every color of the rainbow when she read it. Just look at the huge costs and damages which she will have to pay.”

“It’s too late now,” stammered Prochazka.

“Late? Why—late?” asked the lawyer in astonishment.

Because we’re about half each other’s already.”

“You—and Mrs. Vrchcabova?”

“Yesterday we had the first banns read.”

“You don’t mean to say that you intend to marry Mrs. Vrchcabova? For heaven’s sake, tell me how it happened.”

“Well, it began at the county court during the proceedings against her for assault upon my honor. When they called us into the court-room, the Judge was sitting at his desk writing with his back turned to us. You probably know him, Mr. Attorney, don’t you?”

“I’ve seen him a good many times. He would serve himself and others best if he’d retire to his well-earned rest.”

“To be sure, he is a very old man. His head is as white as snow. But his cheeks still glow with health. Well, then, he was sitting with his back to us and kept on writing. At the other desk sat a clerk with pen in hand arranging some papers in front of him. We sat silent for a while. Then Mrs. Vrchcabova began. She opened all her flood-gates. But I know how to do a little talking, myself. She never in her life heard so much peppery truth as she listened to in that short space of time. I told her everything that was on my heart. She flew at me, wept, stamped her feet—in short we created such a disturbance that the assistants in the adjoining rooms began to open the doors, and the clerk looked anxiously in the direction of the judge. The judge nodded his head and smiled, but kept on writing. After I had eased my feelings and Mrs. Vrchcabova had become hoarse from shouting, he put his pen behind his ear, took a pinch of snuff and then turned to me.”

“Well, did you tell each other everything?” he asked. “I think it would be best now if you’d shake hands and go home. And it would be best if hereafter you’d live in harmony and neighborly love, and quit running here to us with every little matter. By this perpetual squabbling you don’t help either your honor or your pocketbooks.”

“That’s the way with those old men,” bitterly commented the attorney. “They like to transform the judge’s chair into a pulpit. Well, and how did the affair end? Did you do as instructed?”

“What was I to do?” answered Prochazka in a depressed voice. “The judge scolded us so thoroughly and yet in such a funny fashion that at last we couldn’t help shaking hands half in laughter.”

“So! Well, you messed things up beautifully! cried the attorney, striding violently back and forth in the room. “If that’s the way you follow my advice, why do you come back to ask it at all? Why do you lodge complaints? What was the use of all those expenditures? To be sure, I forgot that now you belong to each other. No doubt the Judge immediately performed the marriage ceremony, too?”

“Yes, more than halfway. When we offered our hands to each other, he suggested with a smile that we ought to clasp hands in a different place and in that way all the conflict over the fences and boundaries would be swept away forever. He insisted that we were just made for each other, anyway. After that each of us rode home by a different route. route. But the following Sunday I went to Mokrin to high mass and the priest talked so beautifully about friendly harmony and neighborly love; and all the time the sun shone so cheerily through the high windows, down on the golden pulpit, on the pictures and altar roses, on the schoolgirls at the railing and on the assembled parish that it all made my heart melt. And when later I made my way homeward through the field path, and looked around over God’s golden blessings, waving all about me, I couldn’t help thinking of the old judge’s advice. And the further I walked the more the thought kept pressing in upon me that by marrying Mrs. Vrchcabova I could best end the tiresome lawsuits and secure the blessed peace for which I’ve yearned so long. I realized that after all she wasn’t a bad looking woman, a good housekeeper, and that our lands adjoin. In this mood I walked as far as the inn on her place. I stopped there perspiring and tired, and looked at the inviting house with its walls covered with grapevines, and at her garden with its thicket of sunflowers and the yard filled with poultry. That’s the way my place used to look when my wife was alive. Just then I saw my neighbor right before me in the open window watering the flowers. When I caught sight of her so suddenly I reached for my cap without even thinking, and she at once called out with a pleasant smile “God’s greetings to you, neighbor! Won’t you come in and have a glass of ale?” Without thinking I entered the inn and—and—”

“Well, and what are you coming to me for? Do you expect me to write up your marriage agreement?”

“Oh, I’ll come here with my intended bride some day to settle all those matters. But today I have something different on my heart.”

“Well, then—what is it?”

“We’ve been talking over certain things relating to our future combined property. Her land—you know—borders on the other side with the property of the cottager, Mares. That fellow is as slick as an eel—you know—and he has a bed of poppies extending into her land and you know—he is wearing a path right over the field—”

The face of his legal adviser broadened.

“Slower—old man,” he said. “We’ll have to write it down in regular order. Just wait, we’ll sharpen up a new pencil for that rascal, Mares. There! Well, then, here stands—stood—the apple tree and here—”

 

If the Cubists had to use the things they draw

(Kasper, Stockholm)