Ludmila by Paul Gallico. Part 5.
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One evening, when the herds had been grazing in the lower Samina Valley and were returning to Malbun for the night, Father Polda came forth from his little chapel and joined leathery old Alois, the chief herdsman, for his evening walk, and side by side they marched up the path alongside the mountain torrent, conversing to the peaceful rushing of the water that mingled with the musical jangling and tonkling of the deep-toned bells around the necks of the cattle.
They discussed the forthcoming descent, the bounty of the year, the prices that would be fetched in the market by the season’s yield of butter and cheese, which would mean prosperity for all the valley, all except poor farmer Vospelt whose weakling cow had yielded so little.
Thus the subject of the Weakling was revived, and Father Polda noted that they had already passed the shrine of Saint Ludmila in her niche in the rock. He had meant in passing to say another prayer for the little cow, to ask the holy Notburga to intercede not only for the unfortunate animal, but also for farmer Vospelt, who needed the money so much for his family.
He realized that it was too late for such intercession to do much good unless by a miracle, but he also believed there was no harm in trying.
They heard a sharp barking, and as they looked back they saw that Alois work dog was yapping at the heels of the poor Weakling, who as usual had fallen behind the others in the ascent, and was making no attempt to continue, nor was she paying the slightest attention to the animal baying at her heels.
Instead, as the two men gazed they could see that she had turned broadside to the path and was standing staring across the white-frothed torrent to the figure of Saint Ludmila, or rather the doll-like image of her that had been created by Anton the woodcarver of Steg, many, many years ago.
Since there were no pictures extant of die heilige Notburga, the woodcarver had taken the expression he had carved on her face from his own heart, one that had likewise loved the gentle members of the Creator’s animal kingdom to whom He had assigned the task of extending the bounty of their motherhood to man.
Thus her smile was warm, tender, loving and yet infinitely pitying too, and invited a similar expression to the lips of all those who passed and paused, and many, seeing her, would murmur: “Dear Saint Ludmila, holy Notburga, give the sweetness and warmth of your protection to me likewise.” And so the two men saw Saint Ludmila smiling down at the little Weakling, and the Weakling standing there, unmindful of the dog that other times would have terrified her, and gazing up at the holy Notburga, her eyes filled with hopeless and gentle pleading as well as the infinite longing and love that filled her being. Alois said to Father Polda: “Your little Weakling has grown impatient, waiting for your prayers.” He laughed good-hu-moredly. “It looks as though she has decided to ask Saint Ludmila to intercede for her herself. She’s gone one ahead of you, Father.”
But Father Polda was not amused, for the saints and prayer were something he took seriously, and he rebuked Alois angrily for levity verging on blasphemy.
“The Heavenly Father takes all animals both great and small under His shelter,” he said, “but He did not give them the capacity to pray. That is for us to do for them, else He would have bestowed upon them the power of speech. You should not joke about such matters.”
Alois, who for all of his hardheadedness was a believer and who also was a little afraid of Father Polda, mumbled in his square brown beard that he had not meant to give offense, whistled to his dog, and they turned up the mountain path again and soon the little Weakling came trotting after.
But this time it was perhaps Father Polda who was wrong, and the herdsman who could have been right.
For a prayer need not be a rhetorical address, or an itemized petition, or lips moved soundlessly inside a cathedral, or even words spoken into the air. A prayer may be a wordless inner longing, a sudden outpouring of love, a yearning within the soul to be for a moment united with the infinite and the good, a humbleness that needs no abasement or speech to express it, a cry in the darkness for help when all seems lost, a song, a poem, a kind deed, a reaching for beauty, or the strong, quiet inner reaffirmation of faith.
A prayer in fact can be anything that is created of God that turns to God.
The little Weakling did not know that she was praying when she paused on the path, her eyes caught by the bright object shining from the niche in the rock. She was aware of nothing but the sadness in her being and unutterable longing to pour forth her love in the shape of milk and thereafter to satisfy her yearning for the beribboned milking stool to be given her.
There is no way she could express or articulate this hunger, but it was particularly strong that evening as she returned with her udders almost flat. The figure in the rocks caught her gentle eyes. She turned to it in the moment when it seemed as though her unhappiness and shame would overwhelm her, and she stood there trembling with the intensity of her desire to be as all the others and know the joy of giving as well as receiving.
And so, in a sense she made a prayer, and having done so, it existed; it was loosed. It was directed at the figure of the one whose love and duty called for her to intercede at the throne; and as with all prayers that arise from the sincere and loving heart, it was both heard and felt, in the far corners of the universe. For whereas evil has no power to extend beyond its own radius, the loving trust of a child, or the whispered confession of a sincere and tender heart can alter the stars in their courses. The gentle plea of a maid, asking for a bit of ribbon or cambric for her hair rings as loudly as the Cardinal’s Latin in the outer spaces of time or thought, whence destiny is directed.
Surely you do not think that God is angry at the desires of his creatures to win affection and appear beautiful and desirable in the eyes of others. For He Himself loves beauty since He created so much of it on the face of the earth in both man and beast. And who but He caused the peasants of Liechtenstein to think of something so gay, innocent, and charming as the wreathing of their beasts with laurel and garlands when the year’s harvest was garnered, and erowning them with the insignia of their gentle serviture, the milking stool?