The Philosopher’s Stone

Anker Larsen

In the Hay, page 14

“Yes,” he said. “That was what I saw. I saw heaven open. I was not asleep, because I was thinking all the time about what was happening. And sleeping won’t make you as I am still, so blue, I mean, so happy and good. I’m sure I can never be wicked again.”

“This was a thing a good boy ought to tell his mother, for she would be glad to hear it. Christian Barnes went home and said to his mother that he had seen into heaven.” 

“Don’t talk such nonsense,” said she. It was close on dinner¬ time and the joint might get burnt.”

“Well, but Stephen,” he began, “he did too—” 

“Don’t let your father hear any of that,” she said. “Go in now and wash your hands, it’s dinner-time.”

“Was not the thing he had experienced far more important than a joint of beef? And she would not so much as ask what he meant when he said he had seen into heaven. But he was so good that he could not be angry; he honoured his father and his mother, obeyed and washed his hands, sat down to the table and looked out through the window, up to the blue heavens, promised to honour his father and his mother all his life, and got a nudge from his mother and a severe look from his father, who started over again with: “For what we are about to receive.” His tone was harsh and gloomy, because his son had not clasped his hands; it recalled the funeral oration of the day before. Christian bent over his plate, looking at the helping of beef his mother had given him, and it occurred to him that the ox was dead. It was a corpse he had to eat. That was impossible. He asked to be excused.—Why?—Well, why?—After that about the heavens’ being opened, he would be careful not to speak the truth. “It is so fat,” he said.

“Rubbish,” admonished Pastor Barnes. “No daintiness! If you don’t like the fat, eat it quickly. Look at me, I don’t like fat either.

“Pastor Barnes bent down over his plate, took a piece of fat, put it in his mouth, threw his head back, as he had done in the funeral oration, and swallowed it.”

“Then Christian in turn bent over his plate and was sick over the beef.”

It cost him a thrashing, and he ran out into the garden and cried. Soon after Pastor Barnes came out, feeling sorry he had thrashed the boy if he was really ill.

“Are you ill?” he asked. “Is it your stomach, or what is it?” Meanwhile, feeling foolish at having forgotten himself im¬ mediately after saying grace, and uncertain whether the boy was really ill or only shamming, he had a look of empty professional sympathy, and his voice was thick, as though the fat still stuck in his throat. 

“Christian looked up at his father and was sick once more.”

“Then he was put to bed. “He’s feverish,” said his mother.”

“I could tell that by the way he was talking before he came in to dinner.”

“They took his temperature, but it was quite normal, and they looked at each other with a puzzled expression on their wise, grown-up faces.”