Primeval and Other Times

THE TIME OF THE PARISH PRIEST

Late spring was the most loathsome time of year for the parish priest. Around Saint John’s Day, the Black River brazenly flooded his meadows.

The priest was by nature impetuous and touchy about his dignity, so when he saw something of so little substance, so sluggish, so non-descript and vacuous, so elusive and cowardly taking away his meadows, he was filled with rage.

With the water, shameless frogs immediately appeared, naked and revolting, always climbing on top of one another and mindlessly copulating, emitting hideous noises as they did so. The devil must have had a voice like that: screeching, wet, hoarse with lust, and trembling with insatiable desire. And with the frogs, water snakes appeared in the priest’s meadows, slithering and writhing in such a vile way that the priest instantly felt unwell. At the very thought that such a long, slimy body might touch his boot he felt a shudder of disgust and a stab of cramp in his stomach. The image of the snake would sink into his memory for a long time after, ravaging his dreams. There were also fish in the flooded areas, and to these the priest had a better attitude. The fish could be eaten, so they were good, God’s gift.

The river flooded the meadows for at most three short nights. After the invasion it rested, reflecting the sky in itself. It went on lolling about like that for a month. Under the water, all month long the lush grass rotted, and if it was a hot summer, a smell of rot and decay floated over the meadows.

From Saint John’s Day, every day the priest came to see the black river water flooding Saint Margaret’s daisies, Saint Roch’s bluebells, and Saint Clare’s herbs. Sometimes it seemed to him as if the innocent blue and white heads of the flowers, up to their necks in water, were calling out to him for help. He could hear their reedy little voices, like the tinkling of the hand bells during the Elevation. There was nothing he could do for them. His face went red as he clenched his fists helplessly.

He prayed. He began with Saint John, patron saint of all waters. But in this prayer the priest often felt that Saint John was not listening to him, that he was more concerned about the equation of day and night and the bonfires lit by the young, about vodka, about the conduct of garlands tossed into the water, and nocturnal rustling in the bushes. He even had a grudge against Saint John, who every year, regularly allowed the Black River to flood his meadows. He was even quite offended by Saint John because of it. So he started praying to God Himself.

The next year, after the biggest flood, God said to the parish priest: “Separate the river from the meadows. Bring in lots of earth and build a protective embankment to keep the river in its channel.” The priest thanked the Lord and started organising the construction of an embankment. For two weeks he thundered from the pulpit that the river was destroying God’s gifts, and called for a concerted fight against the element in the following order: one man from each homestead would carry earth and build the embankment two days a week. Thursday and Friday were assigned to Primeval, Monday and Tuesday to Jeszkotle, and Wednesday and Saturday to Kotuszów.

On the first day appointed for Primeval, only two peasants turned up for work, Malak and Cherubin. The enraged priest got in his sprung chaise and drove round all the cottages in Primeval. It turned out Serafin had a broken finger, the young Florian had been conscripted, the Chlipalas had just had a baby, and Âwiatosz had a hernia.

So the priest achieved nothing. Feeling discouraged, he went back to the presbytery.

That evening at prayer he sought God’s advice again. And God replied: “Pay them.” The priest was slightly confused by this answer. As however the parish priest’s God was sometimes very like him, He immediately added: “Give at most ten groszy for a day’s work, because otherwise the game won’t be worth the candle. The entire hay crop isn’t worth more than fifteen zlotys.”

So once again the priest drove his chaise to Primeval and hired several brawny peasants to build the embankment. He took on Józek Chlipala, whose son had just been born, Serafin with his broken finger, and two more farmhands.

They only had one cart, so the work went slowly. The priest was worried the spring weather would foil his plans. He urged the peasants on as much as he could. He, too, rolled up his cassock but, mindful of his good leather boots, he just ran among the peasants, prodding the sacks and whipping the horse. Next day only Serafin with his broken finger came to work. Once again the angry priest drove his chaise round the entire village, but it turned out the workmen either weren’t at home, or had been laid low by illness.

That was a day when the priest hated all the peasants from Primeval – they were lazy, indolent, and greedy for money. He ardently excused himself before the Lord for this feeling unworthy of His servant. Again he asked God for advice. “Raise their wages,” God told him, “give them fifteen groszy for a day’s work, and even though you won’t have any profit from this year’s hay, you will make up the loss next year.” This was wise council. The work went ahead.

First of all, sand was brought on carts from beyond Górka, then the sand was loaded into jute sacks and the river was lined with them like a dressing, as if it were wounded. Only then was it all covered in earth, and grass was sown on top.

The parish priest joyfully examined his own work. Now the river was completely separated from the meadow. The river could not see the meadow. The meadow could not see the river.

The river no longer tried to tear free of its appointed place. It flowed along peaceful and pensive, impenetrable to the human gaze. Along its banks the meadows went green, and then flowered with dandelions.

In the priest’s meadows the flowers never stop praying. All those Saint Margaret’s daisies and Saint Roch’s bluebells pray, and so do the common yellow dandelions. Constant prayer makes the bodies of the dandelions become less and less material, less and less yellow, less and less solid, until in June they change into subtle seed clocks. Then God, moved by their piety, sends warm winds that take the seed-clock souls of the dandelions up to heaven.

The same warm winds brought the rains on Saint John’s Day. The river swelled centimetre by centimetre. The parish priest could not sleep or eat. He ran along the weir and the meadows by the river and watched. He measured the water level with a stick and muttered curses and prayers. The river took no notice of him. It flowed in a broad channel, whirled in eddies and washed up against the insecure banks. On the twenty-seventh of June the priest’s meadows started soaking up water. The parish priest ran along the new embankment with his stick and watched in despair as the water easily got into the chinks, rose along paths known only to itself, and penetrated the embankment. The next night the waters of the Black River destroyed the sand dyke and flooded the meadows, as every year.

On Sunday from the pulpit the priest compared the river’s exploits to the work of Satan, saying that every day, hour by hour, just like the water, Satan puts pressure on a man’s soul. That in this way a man is forced to make a constant effort to put up barriers. That the slightest neglect of daily religious duties weakens the barrier and that the tenacity of the tempter is comparable with the tenacity of the water. That sin trickles, flows and drips onto the wings of the soul, and the enormity of evil keeps flooding a man until he falls into its whirlpools and goes to the bottom.

After this sermon the priest went on feeling agitated for a long time, and could not sleep. He could not sleep for hatred of the Black River. He told himself it is impossible to hate a river, a stream of turbid water, not even a plant, not an animal, just a geographical feature. How was it possible for him, a priest, to feel something so absurd? To hate a river.

And yet it was hatred. The priest wasn’t even bothered about the sodden hay, but he was bothered by the mindlessness and blunt obstinacy of the Black River, its impalpability, selfishness and limitless vacuity. When he thought about it like that, hot blood pulsed in his temples and ran round his body faster. It began to carry him away. He would get up and dress, regardless of the time of night, and then leave the presbytery and go into the meadows. The cold wind sobered him up. He smiled to himself and said: “How can I get angry at a river, a common dip in the ground? A river is just a river, nothing more.” But once he was standing on its bank, it all came back. He was filled with disgust, revulsion, and rage. He would gladly have buried it in earth, from its source to its mouth. And he looked around to make sure no one could see him, then tore off an alder branch and lashed the shameless, rounded hulk of the river.