by Ivo Andrić
littlemoredirtthanhehimselfhadfound.
Dauthodjadidallthathecouldtosavethe han andkeepitgoing.Firsthespent
his own money and then he began to borrow from his relatives. So he patched
thingsupfromyeartoyearandkeptthepreciousbuildinginitsformerbeauty.
Tothosewhoreproachedhimforruininghimselftryingtopreservewhatcould
notbepreserved,herepliedthathewasinvestingthemoneywellforhegaveit
as a loan to God and that he, the mutevelia, should be the last to desert this bequestwhichitseemedallothershaddesertedandabandoned.
This wise and godfearing, stubborn and obstinate man, whom the town long
remembered, allowed no one to turn him from his vain effort. Working
devotedly, he had long become reconciled to the idea that our destiny on this
earthliesinthestruggleagainstdecay,deathanddissolutionandthatmanmust
persevere in this struggle, even if it were completely in vain. Sitting before
the han whichwasfallingintodissolutionbeforehiseyes,herepliedtoallthose
whotriedtodissuadehimorpitiedhim:
'Thereisnoneedtofeelsorryforme.Forallofusdieonlyonce,whereasgreat
men die twice, once when they leave this world and a second time when their
lifeworkdisappears.'
When he was no longer able to pay day-labourers, he himself, old as he was,
rooted up the weeds around the han with his own hands and carried out minor repairstothebuilding.Soitwasthatdeathovertookhimonedaywhenhehad
climbed up to repair a cracked slate on the roof. It was natural that a small
town hodja could not maintain what a Grand Vezir had founded and which
historicaleventshadsentencedtodisaster.
AfterDauthodja'sdeaththe han rapidlybegantofallintoruins.Signsofdecay
appearedeverywhere.Theguttersbegantocrackandtosmellnasty,theroofto
letintherains,thedoorsandwindowsthewinds,andthestablestobechoked with manure and weeds. But from without the perfect building still looked
unchanged,calmandindestructibleinitsbeauty.Thosegreatarchedwindowson
the ground floor, with grilles as delicate as lace cut in soft stone from a single block, looked peacefully out upon the world, but the simpler windows on the
floorabovealreadyshowedsignsofpoverty,neglectandinternaldisorder.Little
bylittletravellersbegantoavoidspendingthenightinthetownor,iftheydid,
stayedatUstamujić'sinnandpaidfortheirnight'slodging.Theycamemoreand
morerarelytothecaravanserai,eventhoughtheyhadnottopaybutonlytowish
peace to the Vezir's soul. At last, when it become clear that the money would
nevercome,everyoneabandonedanypretencetocareforthebuilding,eventhe
new mutevelia, andthecaravanseraistayedmuteanddesertedandfellintoruin
anddisrepairasdoallbuildingsinwhichnoonelivesandwhichnoonelooks
after.Wildgrasses,weedsandthistlesgrewaroundit.Ravensnestedontheroof
andcrowsgatheredthereindenseblackflocks.
Thusbeforeitstimeandunexpectedlyforsaken(allsuchthingsseentohappen
unexpectedly)theVezir'sStoneHanbegantodisintegrateandfalltopieces.
But if the caravanserai, due to unusual circumstances, was forced to betray its
mission and fall into ruin before its time, the bridge, which needed neither
supervisionnormaintenance,remaineduprightandunchanged,linkingthetwo
banksandbearingacrosstheriverburdensdeadandalive,asithadinthefirst
daysofitsexistence.
Initswallsthebirdsnestedandintheinvisiblecracksopenedbytimegrewlittle
tufts of grass. The yellowish porous stone of which the bridge was built
hardened and contracted under the alternate influence of moisture and of heat.
Eternallybeatenbythewindswhichblewupanddowntherivervalley,washed
by the rains and dried by the fierce heats of summer, that stone in time turned
whitewiththedullwhitenessofparchmentandshoneinthetwilightasiflighted
from within. The great and frequent floods, which were a heavy and continual
menace to the town, were unable to do anything against it. They came every
year, in spring and autumn, but all were not dangerous and fateful to the town
beside the bridge. Every year, once or perhaps twice, the Drina rose in tumult
and its muddied waters roared down, bearing through the arches of the bridge
torn-upfencesfromthefields,uprootedstumpsoftrees,anddarkearthywaters
filled with leaves and branches from the riverside forests. The courtyards,
gardensandstoreroomsofthehousesnearesttheriversuffered.Buteverything
endedthere.Atirregularintervalsofbetweentwentyandthirtyyearscamegreat
floods which were afterwards remembered as one remembers insurrections or wars and were long used as a date from which to reckon time, to calculate the
ages of citizens or the term of men's lives ('Five or six years before the great flood....''Duringthegreatflood....').
Afterthesegreatfloodslittlemovablepropertyremainedinthatlargerpartofthe
townwhichlayonthelowsandystripbetweentheDrinaandtheRzav.Sucha
floodthrewthewholetownseveralyearsback.Thatgenerationspenttherestof
itslifeinrepairingthedamageandthemisfortuneleftbythe'greatflood'.Tothe
end of their lives men, talking amongst themselves, recalled the terror of that
autumn night when, in the chill rain and hellish wind, to the light of an
occasionallantern,theywouldtakeouttheirgoods,eachfromhisownshop,and
carry them to higher ground at Mejdan and there store them in the shops and
warehousesofothers.Whenthenextday,inthecloudydawn,theylookeddown
fromthehillsideonthetownthattheylovedasstronglyandasunconsciouslyas
their own blood, and saw the darkened muddied waters rushing through the
streetsatrooflevel,theywouldtrytoguesswhosehouseitwasfromwhichthe
foaming waters were noisily tearing the roof plank by plank and whose house
stillremainedupright.
On feast days and festivals and during the nights of Ramazan the grey-haired
toilworn and anxious fathers of families would grow lively and talkative when
the conversation turned to the greatest and hardest event of their lives, to the
'greatflood'.Aftertheintervaloffifteenortwentyyearsinwhichtheyhadonce
more restored their fortunes and their homes, the flood was recalled as
something great and terrible, near and dear to them; it was an intimate bond
betweenthemenofthatgenerationwhowerestillliving,fornothingbringsmen
closer together than a common misfortune happily overcome. They felt
themselvescloselyboundbythememoryofthatbygonedisaster.Theylovedto
recallmemoriesofthehardestblowdealtthemintheirlives.Theirrecollections
were inexhaustible and they
repeated them continually, amplified by memory
andrepetition;theylookedintooneanother'seyes,sceleroticandwithyellowing
whites,andsawtherewhattheyoungermencouldnotevensuspect.Theywere
carriedawaybytheirownwordsanddrownedalltheirpresenteverydaytroubles
intherecollectionofthosegreateroneswhichtheyhadexperiencedsolongago.
Sitting in the warm rooms of their homes through which that flood had at one
time passed, they recounted for the hundredth time with special enjoyment
movingandtragicscenes.Andthemoreharrowingandpainfultherecollection
thegreaterpleasurewasthereinrecollectingit.Seenthroughtobaccosmokeora
glass of plum brandy, such scenes were often transformed by distance and imagination, magnified and embellished, but not one of them ever noticed that
this was so and would have sworn that it had in fact so happened, for they all
sharedinthisunconsciousexaggeration.
Thustherestilllivedafewoldmenwhorememberedthelast'greatflood',about
which they could still speak among themselves, repeating to the younger men
thattherewerenolongersuchdisastersasintimepast,butnosuchblessingsand
goodlivingeither.
Oneoftheverygreatestofallthesefloods,whichoccurredinthesecondhalfof
theeighteenthcentury,wasespeciallylongrememberedandbecamethesubject
ofcountlesstales.
Inthatgeneration,astheoldermenlatersaid,therewaspracticallynoonewho
rememberedthelastgreatfloodwell.Nonetheless,onthoserainyautumndays
all were on the alert, knowing that 'the waters were hostile'. They emptied the
warehousesclosesttotheriverandwanderedbynight,bythelightoflanterns,
alongthebankstolistentotheroarofthewaters,fortheoldermenaffirmedthat
theycouldtellbysomespecialmoaningofthewaterswhetherthefloodtocome
would be one of those ordinary ones which visited the town every year and
causedminordamage,orwhetheritwouldbeoneofthose,happilyrare,which
floodedboththebridgeandthetownandcarriedawayeverythingthatwasnot
onfirmfoundations.NextdaytheDrinadidnotriseandthetownthatnightslept
soundly, for men were tired out from lack of sleep and the excitement of the
nightbefore.Soitwasthatthewatersdeceivedthem.ThatnighttheRzavrose
suddenlyinamannerneverbeforerememberedand,redwithmud,piledupat
itsconfluencewiththeDrina.Thusthetworiversoverwhelmedthewholetown.
Suljaga Osmanagić, one of the richest Turks in the town, then owned a
thoroughbred Arab horse, a chestnut of great value and beauty. As soon as the
reinforced Drina began to rise, two hours before it overflowed into the streets,
this chestnut began to neigh and did not calm down until it had awakened the
stable-boys and its owner and until they had taken it out of its stall which was besidetheriver.Sothegreaterpartoftheinhabitantswereawakened.Underthe
chill rain and the raging wind of the dark October night began a flight and a
saving of all that could be saved. Half-dressed, the people waded up to their
knees,carryingontheirbackstheirwakenedandcomplainingchildren.Atevery
moment dull crashes could be heard when the tree stumps which the Drina
washed down from the flooded forests struck against the piers of the stone
bridge.
Up at Mejdan, which the waters had never in any circumstances been able to
reach, windows were all alight and flickering lanterns danced and quivered in
thedarkness.Allthehouseswereopentowelcomethosewhohadsufferedand
who came drenched and despondent with their children or their most precious
belongings in their arms. In the stables burned fires by which those unable to
findaplaceinthehousescoulddrythemselves.
The leading merchants of the town, after they had placed the people in the
houses,TurkishinTurkishhomesandChristianandJewishinChristianhomes,
gathered in the great ground-floor room of Hadji Ristić's house. There were
the mukhtars(theMoslemleaders)andthe kmets(theChristianheadmen)ofall
thequarters,exhaustedandwettotheskin,afterhavingwakenedandmovedto
safe quarters all their fellow citizens. Turks, Christians and Jews mingled
together. The force of the elements and the weight of common misfortune
broughtallthesementogetherandbridged,atleastforthisoneevening,thegulf
thatdividedonefaithfromtheotherand,especially,the rayah from the Turks:
SuljagaOsmanagić,PetarBogdanović,MordoPapo,thebig,taciturnandwitty
parish priest Pop Mihailo, the fat and serious Mula Ismet, the
Višegrad hodja, and Elias Levi, known as Hadji Liacho, the Jewish rabbi well knownevenfarbeyondthetownforhissoundjudgmentandopennature.There
were about ten others, from all three faiths. All were wet, pale, with clenched
jaws,butoutwardlycalm;theysatandsmokedandtalkedofwhathadbeendone
tosavethepeopleandofwhatstillremainedtobedone.Everymomentyounger
people entered, streaming with water, who reported that everything living had
been taken to Mejdan and to the fortress and put in houses there, Turkish and
Christian, and that the waters down in the valley were still rising and invading
streetafterstreet.
As the night passed—and it passed slowly and seemed enormous, growing
greaterandgreaterlikethewatersinthevalley—theleadersandrichmenof
thetownbegantowarmthemselvesovercoffeeandplumbrandy.Awarmand
close circle formed, like a new existence, created out of realities and yet itself unreal,whichwasnotwhatithadbeenthedaybeforenorwhatitwouldbethe
dayafter,butlikeatransientislandinthefloodoftime.Theconversationrose
and strengthened and changed subject. They avoided speaking of past floods
known only in tales, but spoke of other things that had no connection with the
watersandwiththedisasterwhichwasatthatmomenttakingplace.
Desperate men make desperate efforts to appear calm and indifferent, almost casual. By some tacit superstitious agreement and by the unwritten but sacred
laws of patronal dignity and business order which have existed since olden
times,eachconsideredithisdutytomakeaneffortandatthatmomentatleast
externallytoconcealhisfearandhisanxietiesinfaceofadisasteragainstwhich
hecoulddonothingandtotalkinalighttoneaboutunrelatedthings.
But just as they began to grow calm in this conversation and to find in it a
momentofforgetfulness,andtherebytherestandenergythattheywouldneed
sogreatlyinthedaytocome,amanentered,bringingwithhimKostaBaranac.
That young merchant was wet through, muddied to the knees and dishevelled.
Dazzledbythelightandconfusedbythenumberspresent,helookedatthemas
roomforhimandofferedhimplumbrandy,whichhewasunabletoraisetohis
lips.Hiswholebodyshivered.Awhisperranthroughtheroomthathehadtried
to leap into the dark current that now flowed in a sandy torrent immediately
abovethespotwherehisbarnsandgranarieshadbeen.
Hewasayoungman,arecentsettler,whohadbeenbroughttothetowntwenty
years before as an apprentice, but had later married into a good family and
become a merchant. A peasant's son, he had in the last few years by daring
speculation and ruthless exploitation become rich, richer than many of the
leading families of the town. But he was not used to loss and was unable to
support disaster. That autumn he had bought large quantities of plums and
walnuts,farbeyondhisrealresources,reckoningthatinwinterhewouldbeable
tocontrolthepriceofbothdriedplumsandwalnutsandsoclearhisdebtsand
makeagoodprofit,ashehaddoneinpreviousyears.Nowhewasruined.
Sometimewastopassbeforetheimpressionmadeonthembythesightofthis
ruinedmancouldbedispelled,sinceallofthem,somemoresomeless,hadbeen
hit by this flood and only by inborn dignity had they been able to control
themselvesbetterthanthisupstart.
The oldest and most prominent amongst them once again turned the
conversationtocasualmatters.Theybegantotelllongstoriesofformertimes,
whichhadnosortofconnectionwiththedisasterthathaddrawnthemhitherand
surroundedthemonallsides.
They drank hot plum brandy and embarked on recollections of earlier days,
abouttheeccentriccharactersofthetownandeverykindofstrangeandunusual
event.PopMihailoandHadjiLiachosettheexample.Whenthetalkinevitably
returnedtoearlierfloods,theyrecalledonlywhatwaspleasantorcomical,orat least seemed so after so many years, as if they wanted to cast a spell upon the watersandtodefytheflood.
They talked of Pop Jovan, who had once been parish priest here, who his
parishioners had said was a good man but did not have 'a lucky hand' and that