to avert a breakdown of food supplies, but apparently it was even then too late. The only result was that each department produced daily from fifteen to fifty-three thousand bills and enactments, which by decree of the Inter-Ministerial Commission were carted away daily on motor lorries to the Vltava River.
The food situation assuredly offered the most terrible problem. Luckily, however, there remained (I am, of course, describing conditions only in our own country) Our Jolly Farmers. And here, gentlemen, you must learn that from time immemorial we have had the saying: “With all due respect to anyone else, our countryfolk are the backbone of the nation.” In fact, there’s an old rhyme about it, something like this: “Who is the man so strong and tall, Whose daily labour feeds us all? The farmer!”
Who was the man with whom the feverish prodigality of the Absolute came to a halt; who was the man who stood unmoved amid the panic of the markets of the world; who was the man who did not fold his hands in his lap, who did not let himself be carried off his feet, but “remained faithful to the law of his being”? Who was the man so strong and tall whose daily labour fed us all? The farmer!
Yes, it was the farmer (and the same thing happened elsewhere), who by his conduct saved the world from starvation. Just imagine the consequences if he had been seized, like the townsfolk, with the mania for giving everything away to the poor and needy; if he had given away all his corn, his cows and calves, his chickens and geese and potatoes. Within a fortnight famine would have stalked through the cities, and the countryfolk themselves would have been sucked dry, starved out, left stripped of all their supplies. Thanks to our sturdy farmer, this was not to be. Whether you explain it after the event, as being due to the marvellous instinct of the country-dweller, or to his steadfast, pure, deep-rooted tradition, or finally to the fact that in the rural districts the Absolute was less potent, because in the small agricultural holdings the Karburator was not so widely used as in industry—in short, explain it as you please, the fact remains that amid the general collapse of the economic and financial structure, and of the whole market, the farmer gave nothing away. He did not give away even a wisp of straw or a grain of oats. Calm and unmoved amid the ruins of the old industrial and commercial order, our farmer went on selling what he had. And he sold it dear. He sensed through some mysterious instinct the calamitous significance of over-production, and so he put on the brakes in time. He did this by raising his prices, however crammed his granaries might be. And it is a testimony to the amazing soundness of the core of our countryfolk that without saying a word to each other, without any organization, led only by the redeeming inward voice, they raised their prices everywhere and for everything. By thus putting up the price of everything, the farmer saved it from destruction. In the midst of insensate profusion he preserved an island of scarcity and costliness. He foresaw, of a surety, that thereby he was saving the world.
For while other goods, being made valueless by being given away gratis, vanished from the market at once as a natural result, foodstuffs continued to be sold. Of course you had to go out into the country to fetch them. The baker and butcher and retailer had nothing they could give you except brotherly love and pious words. So you took up your knapsack and went a hundred and twenty kilometres out. You went from farm to farm, and in one place you bought a kilo of potatoes in exchange for a gold watch, in another an egg for a pair of opera-glasses, in another a kilo of bran for a harmonium or a typewriter. And so you had something to eat. You see, if the farmer had given it all away, you would have been done for long ago. But the farmer saved even a pound of butter for you—of course only in order to dispose of it for a Persian rug or a costly national costume.
Well, who brought the mad communistic experiments of the Absolute to a halt? Who did not lose his head amid the epidemic of righteousness? Who withstood the disastrous tide of superabundance and saved us from destruction without sparing our persons or our purses?
Who is the man so strong and tall
Whose daily labour feeds us all?
The farmer!
XVI
IN THE MOUNTAINS
It was noon at the Hut in Bear Valley. Rudolf Marek sat curled up on the veranda; he looked at a newspaper, but he soon folded it up again, and gazed out over the far-stretching chain of the Giant Mountains. Stillness, a vast and crystalline stillness, lay upon the mountains, and the man curled up in the chair straightened himself and took a deep breath.
Then the tiny figure of a man appeared from below, making towards the Hut.
“How pure the air is here!” thought Marek on his veranda. “Here, Heaven be praised, the Absolute is still latent, it still lies under a spell, hidden in everything, in these mountains and forests, in the sweet grass and the blue sky. Here it does not rush about all over the place, waking terror or working magic; it simply dwells in all matter, a God deeply and quietly present, not even breathing, only in silence watching over all . . .” Marek clasped his hands in a mute prayer of thankfulness. “Dear God, how pure the air is here!”
The man who had come up from below stopped under the veranda.
“Well, Marek, so I’ve found you at last!”
Marek looked up, not greatly pleased. The man who stood before him was G. H. Bondy.
“So I’ve found you at last!” Bondy said again.
“Come along up, then,” said Marek, with obvious reluctance. “What the deuce has brought you here? Heavens, man, you do look queer!”
G. H. Bondy did indeed look sunken and yellow; he had gone very grey about the temples, and lines of weariness made dark shadows around his eyes. He seated himself without a word beside Marek and squeezed his hands together between his knees.
“Come now, what’s wrong with you?” Marek pressed him after a painful silence.
Bondy raised his arms.
“I’m going to retire, old man. You see, it’s got me too . . . me!”
“What, religion?” shouted Marek, recoiling as though from a leper.
Bondy nodded. Was it not a tear of shame that trembled on his lashes? Marek whistled softly. “What—it’s got you now? My poor old fellow!”
“No,” cried Bondy quickly, wiping his eyes. “Don’t think I’m not all right at present; I’ve got it under, you might say, Rudy, I’ve beaten it. But, do you know, when it came over me, it was the very happiest moment of my life. You have no idea, Rudy, what tremendous will-power it takes to shake that off.”
“I can well believe it,” said Marek gravely. “And tell me, what sort of . . . er . . . symptoms did you have?”
“Love for my neighbour,” Bondy whispered. “Man, I was frantic with love. I would never have believed it possible to feel anything like it.”
There was silence for a moment.
“So, then, you’ve . . .” Marek began.
“I’ve thrown it off. Rather like a fox that gnaws its own leg off when it’s caught in a trap. But I’m still confoundedly weak after the struggle. An utter wreck, Rudy. As if I’d had typhoid. That’s why I’ve come here, to pick up again, you see. . . . Is it all clear up here?”
“Quite clear; not a single trace of it so far. You can only sense it . . . in Nature and everything; but then one could do that before—one always
