Evening fell, a melancholy September evening; Eero brought the
beer from Routio and Timo sent word that the bath was ready; and the
men's sullen temper revived a little. They set out to their bath, and
Timo threw water on the heated stove until the blackened stones
heaped over it cracked with a noise like rifle-fire and a cloud of
hot steam was wafted round the bath-house. Each plied now with all
his strength the supple bunches of leafy birch-twigs, so grateful to
the skin; they bathed and washed their wounds, and the furious
beating of the twigs was heard afar outside the building.
Juhani: Our wounds are getting a real Turkish polka. Hot
steam in the sauna, that's the best medicine for soul and body. But
my eye stings like Satan. Well, itch away and sting, all the hotter
will I make it for thee. How is thy muzzle, Aapo?
Aapo: It's beginning to melt.
Juhani: Wipe away at it and beat it like a Russian hammers
his nag, and it'll soon be softer. But more steam, Timo, seeing it is
thy job tonight to wait on us. That's it, my boy! Let it come. Oh,
but it's hot there, it's hot there! That's the way, my broth of a
brother!
Lauri: It fair bites at my finger-nails.
Juhani: Let our nails get a basting, too.
Aapo: Stop throwing water now, boy; or we'll soon have to
climb down from here, every man of us.
Eero: Go on praising him and we shall soon be roasted to
cinders.
Juhani: That's enough, Timo. Don't throw any more. For
Hell's sake, stop throwing water on that stove! Art ye coming down
from the platform, Simeoni?
Simeoni: I'm coming, wretch that I am. And ah, if ye only
knew why!
Juhani: Tell us.
Simeoni: Man, remember the furnace of the lost and pray
night and day.
Juhani: Stuff! Let the body have it if it wants; for the
hotter the sauna, the greater its healing-power. That ye knowest.
Simeoni: Whose hot water is this in the bucket near the
stove?
Juhani: It's mine, as the smith said of his house. Don't
touch it.
Simeoni: I'm going to take a drop of it, anyway.
Juhani: Don't do it, brother mine, or there'll be trouble.
Why didst thou not warm some for thyself?
Tuomas: Why be so snappy without cause? Take a little from
my tub, Simeoni.
Timo: Or from mine, under the platform steps there.
Juhani: Have some of mine then, too, but see thou leavest
me at least half.
Lauri: Eero! Thou imp, take care I don't throw thee off the
platform.
Aapo: What trick are you two up to in the corner?
Juhani: What's the sqabbling about? Eh?
Lauri: Blowing on a fellow's back.
Aapo: Softly, Eero!
Juhani: Hey, troublemonger.
Simeoni: Eero, Eero, can't even the stewing heat of the
bath remind thee of the fires of Hell? Remember Juho Hemmola,
remember him!
Juhani: He saw when he was stretched on a sickbed the fiery
lake, from which he was saved that time, and all because, as it was
then said to him, he had always thought of Hell when he was on the
sauna platform. But can that be daylight shining through your corner?
Lauri: Bright daylight.
Juhani: Oh the beast! The sauna sings its last note. So let
the first aim of my mastership be a new sauna.
Aapo: A new one's needed, it's true.
Juhani: Ay, no gainsaying that. A farm without a sauna is
no good either from the standpoint of baths or the babies a wife or
the farm-hands' women might have. Ay, a smoking sauna, a barking
hound, a crowing cock and a mewing kitty, these are the signs of a
good farm. Ay, there's plenty to do for the one who takes over our
home. A little more steam, Timo.
Timo: It shall be given thee.
Simeoni: Don't let us forget that it is Saturday night.
Juhani: And let us take care our skins aren't soon hanging
from the rafters, like the former maid servant's.
Simeoni: That was the maid who never had time to take her
bath with the others, but dillied and dallied in the sauna long after
all the others had gone to bed. Then one Saturday night she stayed
longer than usual. And what did they find when they went to look for
her? Only a skin hanging from the rafters. But it was a master-hand
had done the flaying, for the hair, eyes, ears and even the nails had
been left in the skin.
Juhani: Let this be a warning... He-he, how skittishly this
back of mine takes its steam! As though thou hadst not tasted a
birchtwig since New Year's Day.
Lauri: But who had skinned her?
Timo: Who, thou askest. Who else but the...
Juhani: Old 'Un himself.
Timo: Ay, he who goes around like a roaring lion. A
horrible story!
Juhani: Timo-lad, stick that shirt of mine from the rafters
there into this fist.
Timo: What, this one?
Juhani: Ho! 'Tis Eero's little rag he offers to a
full-grown man. Ah thee! That middle one there.
Timo: What, this one?
Juhani: That's a man's shirt. Ta, brother. A horrible
story, say I too, to go back to what we were speaking of. Let it be a
reminder to us that "the eve is the height of a feast-day." Now let's
wash ourselves as clean as though we had just come from the midwife's
nimble paws; and then shirt under arm to the house, so that our
over-heated bodies can get a skinful of cool air on the way. But I do
believe this beloved eye of mine is getting better.
Naked and hot, they went from the sauna to the livingroom, their
bodies glowing like the sunlit stem of a birch-tree. Arrived within,
they sat down to rest a while, sweating copiously. Then little by
little they dressed themselves. And now Juhani began concocting an
ointment for the whole wounded brotherhood.
