Chapter Chapter 16 · THE VOICE OF DEATH

Once upon a time there lived a man whose one wish and prayer was to get

rich. Day and night he thought of nothing else, and at last his prayers

were granted, and he became very wealthy. Now being so rich, and having

so much to lose, he felt that it would be a terrible thing to die and

leave all his possessions behind; so he made up his mind to set out in

search of a land where there was no death. He got ready for his

journey, took leave of his wife, and started. Whenever he came to a new

country the first question that he asked was whether people died in

that land, and when he heard that they did, he set out again on his

quest. At last he reached a country where he was told that the people

did not even know the meaning of the word death. Our traveller was

delighted when he heard this, and said:

‘But surely there are great numbers of people in your land, if no one

ever dies?’

‘No,’ they replied, ‘there are not great numbers, for you see from time

to time a voice is heard calling first one and then another, and

whoever hears that voice gets up and goes away, and never comes back.’

‘And do they see the person who calls them,’ he asked, ‘or do they only

hear his voice?’

‘They both see and hear him,’ was the answer.

Well, the man was amazed when he heard that the people were stupid

enough to follow the voice, though they knew that if they went when it

called them they would never return. And he went back to his own home

and got all his possessions together, and, taking his wife and family,

he set out resolved to go and live in that country where the people did

not die, but where instead they heard a voice calling them, which they

followed into a land from which they never returned. For he had made up

his own mind that when he or any of his family heard that voice they

would pay no heed to it, however loudly it called.

After he had settled down in his new home, and had got everything in

order about him, he warned his wife and family that, unless they wanted

to die, they must on no account listen to a voice which they might some

day hear calling them.

For some years everything went well with them, and they lived happily

in their new home. But one day, while they were all sitting together

round the table, his wife suddenly started up, exclaiming in a loud

voice:

‘I am coming! I am coming!’

And she began to look round the room for her fur coat, but her husband

jumped up, and taking firm hold of her by the hand, held her fast, and

reproached her, saying:

‘Don’t you remember what I told you? Stay where you are unless you wish

to die.’

‘But don’t you hear that voice calling me?’ she answered. ‘I am merely

going to see why I am wanted. I shall come back directly.’

So she fought and struggled to get away from her husband, and to go

where the voice summoned. But he would not let her go, and had all the

doors of the house shut and bolted. When she saw that he had done this,

she said:

‘Very well, dear husband, I shall do what you wish, and remain where I

am.’

So her husband believed that it was all right, and that she had thought

better of it, and had got over her mad impulse to obey the voice. But a

few minutes later she made a sudden dash for one of the doors, opened

it and darted out, followed by her husband. He caught her by the fur

coat, and begged and implored her not to go, for if she did she would

certainly never return. She said nothing, but let her arms fall

backwards, and suddenly bending herself forward, she slipped out of the

coat, leaving it in her husband’s hands. He, poor man, seemed turned to

stone as he gazed after her hurrying away from him, and calling at the

top of her voice, as she ran:

‘I am coming! I am coming!’

When she was quite out of sight her husband recovered his wits and went

back into his house, murmuring:

‘If she is so foolish as to wish to die, I can’t help it. I warned and

implored her to pay no heed to that voice, however loudly it might

call.’

Well, days and weeks and months and years passed, and nothing happened

to disturb the peace of the household. But one day the man was at the

barber’s as usual, being shaved. The shop was full of people, and his

chin had just been covered with a lather of soap, when, suddenly

starting up from the chair, he called out in a loud voice:

‘I won’t come, do you hear? I won’t come!’

The barber and the other people in the shop listened to him with

amazement. But again looking towards the door, he exclaimed:

‘I tell you, once and for all, I do not mean to come, so go away.’

And a few minutes later he called out again:

‘Go away, I tell you, or it will be the worse for you. You may call as

much as you like but you will never get me to come.’

And he got so angry that you might have thought that some one was

actually standing at the door, tormenting him. At last he jumped up,

and caught the razor out of the barber’s hand, exclaiming:

‘Give me that razor, and I’ll teach him to let people alone for the

future.’

And he rushed out of the house as if he were running after some one,

whom no one else saw. The barber, determined not to lose his razor,

pursued the man, and they both continued running at full speed till

they had got well out of the town, when all of a sudden the man fell

head foremost down a precipice, and never was seen again. So he too,

like the others, had been forced against his will to follow the voice

that called him.

The barber, who went home whistling and congratulating himself on the

escape he had made, described what had happened, and it was noised

abroad in the country that the people who had gone away, and had never

returned, had all fallen into that pit; for till then they had never

known what had happened to those who had heard the voice and obeyed its

call.

But when crowds of people went out from the town to examine the

ill-fated pit that had swallowed up such numbers, and yet never seemed

to be full, they could discover nothing. All that they could see was a

vast plain, that looked as if it had been there since the beginning of

the world. And from that time the people of the country began to die

like ordinary mortals all the world over.[13]

[13] Roumanian Tales from the German of Mite Thremnitz.

Story 17.