Chapter III - Page 2

morning, Haggart!"

MARIET--Good morning, Mariet.

HAGGART--I will call you Haggart. Isn't that a good idea?

MARIET--And I will call you Mariet.

HAGGART--Yes--no. You had better call me Haggart, too.

"You don't want me to call you Mariet?" asks Mariet sadly.

The abbot and old Dan appear. The abbot says in a loud, deep voice:

"Here I am. Here I am bringing you a prayer, children. I have just composed it; it has even made me feel hot. Dan, why doesn't the boy ring the bell? Oh, yes, he is ringing. The fool--he isn't swinging the right rope, but that doesn't matter; that's good enough, too. Isn't it, Mariet?"

Two thin but merry bells are ringing.

Mariet is silent and Haggart answers for her:

"That's good enough. But what are the bells saying, abbot?"

The fishermen who have gathered about them are already prepared to laugh--the same undying jest is always repeated.

"Will you tell no one about it?" says the abbot, in a deep voice, slily winking his eye. "Pope's a rogue! Pope's a rogue!"

The fishermen laugh merrily.

"This man," roars the abbot, pointing at Haggart, "is my favourite man! He has given me a grandson, and I wrote the Pope about it in Latin. But that wasn't so hard; isn't that true, Mariet? But he knows how to look at the water. He foretells a storm as if he himself caused it. Gart, do you produce the storm yourself? Where does the wind come from? You are the wind yourself."

All laugh approval. An old fisherman says:

"That's true, father. Ever since he has been here, we have never been caught in a storm."

"Of course it is true, if I say it. 'Pope's a rogue! Pope's a rogue!'"

Old Dan walks over to Khorre and says something to him. Khorre nods his head negatively. The abbot, singing "Pope's a rogue," goes around the crowd, throws out brief remarks, and claps some people on the shoulder in a friendly manner.

"Hello, Katerina, you are getting stout. Oho! Are you all ready? And Thomas is missing again--this is the second time he has stayed away from prayer. Anna, you are rather sad--that isn't good. One must live merrily, one must live merrily! I think that it is jolly even in hell, but in a different way. It is two years since you have stopped growing, Philipp. That isn't good."

Philipp answers gruffly:

"Grass also stops growing if a stone falls upon it."

"What is still worse than that--worms begin to breed under the rock."

Mariet says softly, sadly and entreatingly:

"Don't you want me to call you Mariet?"

Haggart answers obstinately and sternly:

"I don't. If my name will be Mariet, I shall never kill that man. He