Grandfather's Eyes
Christowe, Stoyan
November 6, I929 THE COMMONWEAL x4 These are some names which suggest the advent of man in the University of Toronto, Mr. Barker Fairley, a new spirit in Canadian fiction, and others might be an...
...newer ones are not provincial in outlook...
...Professor MacMechan's re-creation literature...
...Marius Barbeau (witness the older writers were in touch with the modern mind, the latter's recent Downfall of Temlaham) and others...
...He had a dislike for me and said, "Splendid, Bogomir" (I was named after my grandfather) in the same breath he asked, "Now, tell me something about this man's soull" except his shoes and his calpac, the latter of genuine Still Grandfather Bogomir had never been so franti- black astrakhan...
...He does this by lifting two by the motley peasantry, i clutched Grandfather's hand...
...All my life I have wished to see one...
...From west to east, from south to north, Pillar of cloud, lead me forth...
...Grandfather then their simple lives...
...so many gems and diamonds that the very sun is Holding in his hand the magnificent holiday cane on dimmed by the brilliance that radiates from them...
...All the people of the village except the beadle, who But the more I tried to please Grandfather Bogomir stayed in the cupola to ring the bell, went far out to the more exacting he became...
...In which he had carved whole episodes from the New his left hand the bishop carries a resplendent crozier Testament, he looked sublime, like a living saint pre- much bigger than your holiday cane and with its handle pared for the sanctifying rites to be performed by the visiting emissary of God...
...God bless you, Bogomir," he said gratefully, "now I have seen the bishop l" Pillar of Cloud Here the land, there the sea, And a white cloud over...
...No, COMMONWEAL THE November 6, I929 . - - , carded so carefully that it had become light and soft like silk before it was spun into thread and woven into the velvet-textured cloth...
...The bishop's hair is plaited and the braids est affection and gratitude...
...Months before the arrival of that dig- everything modern...
...When I had clone so and Speechless, I stood there on the balcony next my made ready to lead him down the steps from the balgrandfather, unable to believe that this insignificant cony, he stretched his unsteady hands, in one of which man could be the bishop whom the village had awaited he held the soft astrakhan and in the other his holiday with such eagerness for so long, and to whose visit cane, and pressed me to his bosom with the profoundGrandfather had looked with such childish enthusiasm...
...plays...
...the excellent Thus creative and critical work has quickened its use made of Indian and French-Canadian material by pace in the last few years...
...I have waited for this moment all my life and thank the Lord I can see if you would only help me !" Something stirred in my soul and suddenly I found myself speaking" "The bishop is tall and stout, Grandfather...
...Away from city in sooty shroud That pulls a man under--A man whose eyes ache day and night For vagrant sail or cloud of white...
...He never wore pantaloons, "French cally eager and excited as on the day the bishop came to the village...
...When could see the bishop as plainly as I could see Grand- one foot is lowered, it is stayed there until the other father...
...I have dream that his eyesight had come back to him...
...This rich garment, embroidered with an inch of black lace at the borders, was are tucked under the mitre which looms on his head sleeveless, so that Grandfather's linen shirt flapped like the cupola above the church and is studded with about his arms like the white wings of a giant bird...
...Below it, on the stomach, dangles a large silver cross, larger than I5 the one Pope Risto makes us kiss when he smacks us on the forehead with the bunch of hyssop soaked in holy water...
...Grandfather himself was quaking with emotion, expecting me at any moment to start describing the bishop to him...
...of romantic episodes in Canadian history...
...When I grew into a boy he and I became constant companions...
...The beard which frames his full, round face reaches to his breast...
...Then came the bishop...
...Lead me away, pillar of cloud, While the great seas thunder...
...A white sail is a little thing In the sky's vast measure...
...They were shaped like gonwould ask me to describe this to him, just how would dolas and had pompons of multicolored yarn blooming I do it so he can see it as I see it ?" And I would then like sunflowers upon their pointed toes...
...They are born from mothers, same as we, were still inarticulate I had acquired a vocabulary and but there is something divine, unearthly, about them I" a fluent diction that became the envy of grown-ups...
...It was made of choice white wool which had been washed at the stream and when the bishop comes 1" I asked him once if he had ever seen a bishop...
...I asked...
...Are they worshiping the ground hallowed by his foot-track...
...Are they big, Grandfather...
...The old man stared with his empty eyes toward the little wooden bridge over which the procession was passing...
...There was nothing re- the wind so that the benediction spilling from the splendent or magnificent about this man of heaven bishop's uplifted fingers may fall directly on their who, like a real apostle, had traveled on muleback and heads I" on foot over muddy mountain paths to find our village By this time the bishop had walked through the and refill the image-lamps in the souls of the peasants arched entrance of the church and the bell had ceased so that the light of God might continue to illumine its triumphant song of welcome...
...Everything about Grandfather was white, clothes," as he called them...
...Grandfather and I waited on the such a fine word sketch of a stranger that he embraced balcony of the schoolhouse, both of us eagerly looking in the direction from which the holy ambassador was to come...
...But to the land-locked prisoner A white cloud is deliverer...
...On this sole occasion he put on the one he was saving "for his coffin...
...Everybody was dressed in especially after I had been told of his dream on the Easter clothes...
...He is here...
...A white sail, a curlew's wing, Infinitesimal treasure...
...in my early youth, and while most age-mates of mine "Oh, yes...
...French things had devils in them, nitary, Grandfather talked about the event...
...a pipe-like black hat with people bow in waves like the wheat in the fields before a flat top stood on his head...
...He wore a black robe spotted now in that direction to spill the heavenly grace...
...Barker Fairley, a new spirit in Canadian fiction, and others might be an Englishman long domiciled in Canada, and there added, such as Major Acland, whose novel of the war, is the illuminating Henry James of Professor Pelham All Else Is Folly, has just appeared with an appreci- Edgar, who, incidentally, has done more than any other ative preface by Mr...
...But what does the bishop wear ?" he squeaked impatiently...
...November 6, I929 THE COMMONWEAL x4 These are some names which suggest the advent of man in the University of Toronto, Mr...
...Even when everybody "How foolish you talk, Bogomir, you never heard from the house went to the fields to labor under the of a small bishopl" scorching sun, I was allowed to stay home with Grand- "Are they much like human beings, Grandfather, father Bogomir...
...Yes, Grandfather," I replied absently and mechanically, "the people bow and cross themselves...
...yet they are There is no need to speak of scholarly and critical in general dealing more and more with the material work, ranging from Virgilian exegesis to constitutional they know, which is as it should be...
...But a bishop, Bogomir, you In the morning when he was told that the family had don't always see a bishop...
...and other precious stones...
...a frizzy beard straggling from his chin like a withered And meantime the right hand waves now in this and tassel from a corn ear...
...seen an archimandrite...
...wholly unfounded...
...There are only a few grown with a male child, he interpreted his dream as bishops in the world...
...rehearse several descriptions...
...He walks very slowly, Grandplaza in front of the church and the schoolhouse...
...Bishops are so rare, BogoNor was this hope on the part of my grandfather mir, the very earth where they set foot is consecrated...
...the first study of chial to the local and universal, and it can increasingly Charles Doughty has come from a professor of Get- be judged by other than domestic standards...
...The with mud from the journey...
...D. C. Scott, Mr...
...He was a shrunken man with a pale dry face...
...He towers above the peasants like the belltower above the houses...
...Ford Madox Ford...
...The cloud is given to vagrancy, And I am a fleet rover...
...which advances is set solid and firm on the ground...
...His robes are When the bishop appeared, escorted and acclaimed so large that both hems and sleeves reach to the ground, and they are covered with gold and silver braids...
...While only a few of the Mr...
...BE~JAMI~ MVSSER...
...But when several minutes passed and I had not spoken, he became restless and nervously shouted at me, "You are not telling me, BogomirI Where is the bishop ? Tell, me child, are the people kissing the hem of his robe...
...asked me to cross myself...
...They carry silver-capped staffs, meaning that the new-born was his recovered vision, and wear vestments and robes of gold and silver and the medium through which henceforth he would look mitres studded with beads of onyx, opal, turquoise at the world...
...GRANDFATHER'S EYES By STOYAN CHRISTOWE T HE night I was born, Grandfather Bogomir, my child," he replied sadly, "I have never seen a who had been blind for several years, had a bishop...
...How does he look, how big is he ? Describe him to me...
...There is no individual in unwearying encouragement of promising space for discussion of other departments of literature writers and in intelligent criticism of Canadian ---poetry...
...All his life he wore the gabardine-like woolen mir," he would exclaim, "it will be a glorious sight glurdia...
...He taught me the art of expression are they born just as we are...
...not crooked and of wood like the one on your cane, but of silver and shaped like a large pear...
...Don't be so selfish, Bogomir, don't see only for yourself...
...I said in a hushed voice...
...Bogo- he said...
...Once when I gave him meet the bishop...
...The old man's zeal for a graphic description of the picture before him was not quieted by these few words uttered indifferently...
...I father, the bishop does, and very proudly too...
...The best Cahistory, except to say that such permanent contribu- nadian writing is moving away from the local and parotions are increasing in quantity...
...The bishop walks slowly toward the church and blesses the people...
...It was the first time a bishop Such was my anxiety to help my grandfather see things, had set foot on our soil...
...fingers of his right hand and shaking them slightly The pageant crossed the bridge and flooded the small against the people...
...My mother let me wear the pair of night of my birth, that if I viewed an unusual scene, red leather shoes which my father had brought to me I would say to myself, "Now, suppose Grandfather as a gift from Albania...
Vol. 11 • November 1929 • No. 1
