Chelkash and Other Stories (5 page)

A COLD wet wind blew from the sea, wafting over the steppes the pensive melody of the splashing surf and the rustle of shrubbery on the beach. Now and then its gusts brought shrivelled yellow leaves and whirled them into the flickering flames of the campfire. The gloom of autumnal night around us quivered and receded apprehensively, disclosing for a brief moment the endless steppe on the left, the boundless sea on the right, and opposite me the figure of Makar Chudra, the old Gypsy, who was looking after the horses of his Gypsy camp pitched within fifty paces of where we sat.

Heedless of the cold blasts that blew open his Caucasian coat and mercilessly buffeted his bared hairy chest, he reclined in a graceful vigorous pose with his face towards me, drawing methodically at his huge pipe, emitting thick puffs of smoke through his mouth and nose, staring out over my head into the deathly hushed darkness of the steppes, talking incessantly and making not a single movement to shield himself from the cruel gusts of wind.

“So you're on the tramp? That's fine! You've made a splendid choice, my lad. That's the way: trot around and see things, and when you've seen all you want, lie down and die—that's all!

“Life? Other people?” he went on, having lent a sceptical ear to my protest about his “that's all.” “H'm. Why should that worry you? Aren't you Life? Other people live without you and'll live their lives without you. Do you imagine anybody needs you? You're neither bread nor a stick, and nobody wants you.

“To learn and teach, you say? But can you learn how to make people happy? No, you cannot. You get grey hairs first before talking about teaching. Teach what? Every one knows what he wants. Those that are cleverer take what there is to take, the sillier ones get nothing, but every man learns himself.

“They're a curious lot, those people of yours. All herded together and treading on each other's toes when there's so much room in the world,” he waved a sweeping hand towards the steppes. “And toiling away all the time. What for? Whom for? Nobody knows. You see a fellow ploughing, and think—there he is sweating out his strength drop by drop on that land, then he'll lie down in it and rot away. He leaves nothing after him, he sees nothing from that field of his and dies as he was born—a fool.

“D'you mean to say he was born to dig the earth and die without having managed to dig a grave for himself? Does he know what freedom is? Has he any idea of the vast and glorious steppe? Does the music of the steppe gladden his heart? He's a slave, from the moment he is born, a slave all his life long, and that's all! What can he do for himself? All he can do is to hang himself, if he learned a little sense.

“Now look at me; at fifty-eight I've seen so much that if you'd write it down on paper it would fill a thousand bags like the one you've got there. You just ask me what places I haven't been to? There aren't such places. You've got no idea of the places I've been to. That's the way to live—gad about the world, and that's all! Don't stay long in one place—it's not worth it! Like day and night that chase each other around the world, you keep chasing yourself away from thoughts of life, so as not to grow sick of it. Once you stop to think you'll get sick of life—that's how it always happens. It happened to me too. Humph! So it did, my lad.

“I was in prison, in Galicia. What am I living on this earth for?—I started to mope, feeling sort of dreary—it's dreary in prison, my lad, ever so dreary! And I felt sick at heart when I looked out of the window at the fields, so sick as though some one were gripping and wrenching my heart. Who can say what he lives for? No one can say it, my lad! And it's no use asking yourself about it. Live, and that's all. Go about and look around, and you'll never be bored. I very nearly hung myself by my belt that time that's a fact!

“Huh! I spoke to a man once. He was a serious man, one of yours, a Russian. You must live, he says, not the way you want, but according to the word of God. Obey the Lord and he will give you everything you ask for. He himself was all in rags and holes. I told him to ask God for a new suit of clothes. He fell into a rage and drove me away, cursing. And he'd just been telling me that one should forgive and love his fellow creatures. He might have forgiven me if what I said offended his lordship. There's a teacher for you! They teach you to eat less, while they themselves eat ten times a day.”

He spat into the fire and fell silent, while refilling his pipe. The wind moaned plaintively and softly, the horses whinnied in the darkness, and the tender passionate strains of the
dumka
melody floated up from the Gypsy camp. The beautiful Nonka, Makar's daughter, was singing. I knew that deep throaty-toned voice of hers, that always sounded so strange, discontented and imperious, whether she sang a song or said “good day.” The warm pallor of her dark-skinned face was fixed in a look of queenly hauteur, and the deep pools of her dark brown eyes shone with a realization of her own irresistible loveliness and disdain for everything that was not she.

Makar held out his pipe.

“Take a smoke! She sings well, that lass, eh? I should say so! Would you like a girl like that to love you? No? That's right! Never believe girls, and keep away from them. Girls find kissing better and more pleasant than I do smoking a pipe, but once you've kissed her say good-bye to your liberty. She'll bind you to her by invisible strings which you'll never be able to break, and you'll lay your soul at her feet. That's a fact! Beware of the girls! They're all liars! She'll say she loves you more'n anything in the world, but you just prick her with a pin and she'll break your heart. I know a lot about their kind, I do! Well, my lad, d'you want me to tell you a story, a true story? Try to remember it if you can, and it's a free bird you'll be all your life.

“Once upon a time there was a young Gypsy, a young Gypsy named Loiko Zobar. All Hungary and Bohemia and Slavonia and all around the sea everybody knew him—he was a fine lad! There wasn't a village in those parts, but where a half-dozen or so of the inhabitants didn't swear to God they'd kill him. But Loiko went on living, and if he took a fancy to a horse, Zobar'd be curvetting about on that horse even if you was to put a regiment of soldiers to guard it! Ah! He wasn't afraid of anybody, not likely! Why, if the prince of devils with all his pack came to him, he'd as likely as not stick a knife in him, and he'd certainly curse him roundly and send the whole pack off with a flea in its ear—you can take that from me!

“And all the Gypsy camps knew him or had heard of him. All he loved was horses, and nothing more, and even then not for long—he'd ride ‘em a bit then sell 'em, and the money was anybody's for the asking. He had nothing that he cherished—if you wanted his heart he'd tear it out of his breast and give it to you, as long as it made you happy. That's the kind he was, my lad!

“Our caravan was wandering at the time through Bukowina—that was about ten years ago. Once, on a night in spring, we were sitting around—myself, the old soldier Danilo who fought under Kossuth, and old Noor and all the others and Radda, Danilo's daughter.

“You know my girl Nonka, don't you? A beautiful maid she is! Well, you couldn't compare her to Radda—too great an honour! There aren't any words to describe that girl Radda. Maybe her beauty could be played on the violin, and even then only by a person who knew that violin as well as he did his own soul.

“She seared the hearts of many a fine lad she did, aye, many a fine lad! In Morava a magnate, an old, shock-headed man saw her and was struck all of a heap. Sat on his horse and stared, shivering as with the ague. He was pranked out like the devil on a holiday, in a rich Ukrainian coat embroidered with gold, and the sword at his side all set in precious stones flashed like lightning whenever his horse stamped its foot, and the blue velvet of his cap was like a bit of sky—he was a big lord, that old gent! He stared and stared, then he says to Radda: ‘Hi, give me a kiss, I'll give you my purse!' She just turned away without a word! ‘Forgive me if I've offended you, can't you look at me more kindly?' said the old magnate, immediately coming down a peg, and he threw a purse at her feet—a fat purse, brother! And she spurned it in the dust, casual like, with her foot, and that's all.

“‘Ah, what a maid!' he groaned, and flicked his horse with his riding crop and was gone in a cloud of dust.

“The next day he came again. ‘Who's her father?' he went thundering about the camp. Danilo stepped out. ‘Sell me your daughter, take whatever you want!' And Danilo, he says: ‘Only the nobility sell everything from their pigs to their conscience, but I fought under Kossuth, and don't traffic in anything!' The other became furious, made a snatch for his sword, but one of the boys stuck a lighted tinder in the horse's ear and he made off with his rider in a flash. We struck tents and moved off. We hadn't been travelling two days when up he dashes again! ‘Hi, you,' he says, ‘before God and you my conscience is clear, give that maid to me in marriage. I'll share all I have with you, I'm mighty rich!' He was all on fire and swaying in the saddle like feathergrass in the wind. That set us all thinking.

“‘Well, daughter, what do you say?' Danilo muttered under his moustache.

“‘What would the eagle be if she went into the crow's nest of her own free will?' Radda asked us.

“Danilo laughed, and so did we all.

“‘Well said, daughter! Hear that, Sir? Nothing doing! Look among the doves—they're more docile.' And we moved on.

“That gentleman seized his cap, threw it to the ground and galloped away so furiously that the very earth shook. That's the kind of girl Radda was, my lad!

“Yes! Well, one night as we sat around we heard music floating over the steppe. Fine music! It set your blood on fire and lured you into the unknown. That music, we all felt, made one yearn for something after which, if you got it, life would no longer be worth living, unless it was, as kings over all the earth, my lad!

“Well, a horse loomed out of the darkness, and on the horse a man sat and played as he approached us. He drew up at the campfire, ceased playing and smiled down at us.

“‘Ah, why, that's you, Zobar!' Danilo cried out to him joyfully. Yes, that was Loiko Zobar!

“His moustaches lay on his shoulders and mingled with his locks, his eyes were as bright as stars and his smile was like the sun so help me God! He and his horse might have been forged of a single piece of iron. There he stood red as blood in the firelight, his teeth flashing in a smile! Damned if I didn't love him then more than I loved myself, even before he had spoken a word to me or had as much as noticed my existence!

“Yes, my lad, that's the kind of man he was! He'd look into your eyes and captivate your soul, and you wouldn't be the least bit ashamed of it, only feel proud about it. With a man like that you feel nobler yourself. Such men are rare, my friend! Perhaps that's better so. If there'd be too much of a good thing in this world it wouldn't be looked on as a good thing. Aye! Well, let's get on with the story.

“Radda she says: ‘You play well, Loiko! Who made you such a sweet-toned delicate fiddle?' He laughed—‘I made it myself! And I made it not of wood, but from the breast of a young girl whom I loved dearly, and the strings I play on are her heartstrings. The fiddle plays a little false, but I know how to handle the bow!'

“Our breed, you know, tries straight away to befog a girl's eyes, so they be dimmed with sad yearning for a fellow without kindling his own heart. That was Loiko's way too. But Radda was not to be caught that way. She turned away with a yawn and said: ‘And people said Zobar was clever and adroit—what liars!' With that she walked away.

“‘Oho, pretty maid, you've got sharp teeth!' said Loiko with a flashing eye, getting off his horse. ‘How do you do, brothers! Well, here I am come to you!'

“‘Welcome, guest!' said Danilo in reply. We kissed, had a talk and went to bed.... We slept soundly. In the morning we saw that Zobar's head was tied up with a rag. What's that? Oh, his horse accidentally hurt him with its hoof while he was asleep.

“Ha-a! We guessed who that horse was and smiled into our moustaches, and Danilo smiled too. Well, wasn't Loiko worthy of Radda? I should think so! However fair a maid may be, she has a narrow, petty soul, and though you'd hang a pood of gold round her neck she'd never be any better than she was. Well, anyway!

“We lived a pretty long time on that spot, things were going well with us and Zobar was with us. That was a comrade for you! Wise like an old man, informed on everything and knew how to read and write Russian and Magyar. When he'd start speaking you'd forget about sleep and could listen to him for ages! As for playing—well salt my hide if there's another man in the world could play like that! He'd draw his bow across the strings and your heart'd begin to flutter, then he'd draw it again and it'd stop beating while you listened, and he just played and smiled. You felt like crying and laughing one and the same time when listening to him. Now you'd hear some one moaning bitterly, pleading for help and lacerating your heart as with a knife; now the steppe telling the heavens a fairy tale, a sad tale; now a maid weeping, bidding farewell to her beloved! And now a valiant youth calling his beloved to the steppe. Then suddenly—heigh-ho! A brave merry tune fills the air, and the very sun, it seems, bids fair to start a jig up in the sky! Yes, my lad, that's how it was!

“Every fibre in your body understood that song, and you became its slave, body and soul. If Loiko had then cried out: ‘To knives, comrades!' we'd have snatched up our knives as one man and followed him blindly. He could do anything he wanted with a man, and everybody loved him, loved him mightily—only Radda had no eyes for the lad. That wouldn't have been so bad, worse was she mocked him. She smote that lad's heart sorely, aye sorely! He'd gnash his teeth, Loiko would, pulling at his moustache. Eyes darker than an abyss, and sometimes with a gleam of something fit to harrow up the soul. At night he'd go far out into the steppe, would Loiko, and his fiddle would weep till morning, weep over the death of Loiko's liberty. And we lay listening and thinking: what's to be done? We knew that if two stones are rolling down on each other it's no use getting between them—they'd crush you. That's how things were.