by Ivo Andrić
schoolchildrentalkaboutit?'the hodja interruptedangrily.'Whathasthebridge
todowiththeirwar?'
'It has, Alihodja; it has very much to do with it,' said Branković, once again
smiling.
AndheexplainedtoAlihodjaamiablybutalittlecondescendingly,asifspeaking
toachild,thatallthiswasprovidedforintherulesoftheservice,thatthiswas
the duty of engineers and bridge-builders, and that in the Imperial Army
everyone knew only his own job and did not concern himself in the affairs of
someotherbranch.
The hodja listened to him, listened and watched, but did not understand very much.Finally,hecouldnolongerholdhimselfin.
'All that is very fine, my fine fellow, but do they know that this is a Vezir's bequest,builtforthegoodofhissoulandthegloryofGodandthatitisasinto
takeevenastonefromit?'
The sergeant-major only waved his hands, shrugged his shoulders, pursed his
lipsandclosedhiseyes,sothathiswholefaceassumedacraftyandobsequious
expression,unmoving,blind,deaf,suchasmencanonlyachievebylongyears
ofpracticeinold-fashionedanddecayingadministrationsinwhichdiscretionhas
long degenerated into insensibility and obedience into cowardice. A page of
white unsullied paper is eloquent compared with the dumb caution of such a
face. A moment later, the Emperor's man opened his eyes, let fall his hands,
composedhisfaceandonceagainresumedhisusualappearanceofconfidence
and serenity in which Viennese good-humour and Turkish courtesy met and
mingled like two waters. Changing the subject and praising with well-chosen
words the hodja's health and youthful appearance, he took his leave with the same inexhaustible amiability with which he had come. The hodja remained
confusedanduncertaininhimselfbutinnowaylesstroubledthanhehadbeen
before.Lostinhisthoughtshelookedoutfromhisshopattheshiningloveliness of that first day of March. Opposite him, a little to the side, stood the eternal bridge,everlastinglythesame;throughitswhitearchescouldbeseenthegreen,
sparkling,tumultouswatersoftheDrina,sothattheyseemedlikesomestrange
diademintwocolourswhichsparkledinthesun.
XVIII
The tension known to the outside world as 'the annexation crisis', which had
thrown its ill-omened shadow over the bridge and the town beside it, rapidly
subsided. Somewhere out there, by diplomacy and discussions between the
interestedparties,apeacefulsolutionhadbeenfound.
Thefrontier,alwayssoinflammable,foroncedidnotflareup.Thearmywhich
hadfilledthetownandthefrontiervillagesinthefirstdaysofspringbeganto
withdraw.Butasalwaysthechangeswhichthecrisishadbroughtremainedafter
ithadpassed.Thepermanentgarrisoninthetownwasmuchlargerthanithad
been before. The bridge remained mined. But no one gave it a thought except
AlihodjaMutevelić.Thepieceoflandontheleftflankofthebridgeabovethe
ancient retaining wall, which had been the town park, was taken over by the
militaryauthorities.Thefruittreesinthecentreoftheparkwerecutdownanda
fine building erected. That was the new officers' mess, for the former mess, a
small one-storied building up at Bikavac, was now too small for the increased
numberofofficers.Sothatnow,ontherightofthebridgewasLotte'shoteland
onthelefttheofficers'mess,twowhitealmostidenticalbuildingsandbetween
themthesquare,surroundedbyshopsand,onasmallriseabovethesquare,the
great barracks which the people still called the Stone Han in memory of
Mehmed Pasha's caravanserai which had once been there but had now
disappearedwithouttrace.
Prices,whichhadleaptupthepreviousautumnbecauseofthelargenumberof
soldiers,remainedunchanged,withmuchgreaterlikelihoodoffurtherrisesthan
ofreturningtotheirformerlevel.ThatyearaSerbianandaMoslembankwere
opened.Thepeoplemadeuseofmoney-orderslikemedicines.Noweverybody
incurreddebtsmorefreely.Butthemoremoneyamanhadthemoreheneeded.
Onlytothosewhospentmorethantheygaineddidlifeseemeasyandgood.But
the merchants and business men were worried. Terms of payment become
shorterthanever.Goodandreliableeus-
tomers were fewer and fewer. The number of articles
whose price was higher than the people could afford to
paywasevergreater.Businesswasonasmallscale,and
cheaper and cheaper types of goods were in demand.
Only bad payers bought freely. The only sure and safe
business was army contracting or work for some
government institution, but not everyone could get it.
State taxes and municipal dues became larger and more
numerous; the strictness of the collectors increased. One
could feel from afar the unhealthy fluctuations of the
exchanges.Theprofitswhicharosefromthemwentinto
unseen hands, while the losses reached even the most
remote corners of the monarchy and struck the retail
traders,bothassellersandconsumers.
Thegeneralfeelinginthetownwasneithermoreserene
normorecalm.Thatsuddenslackeningoftensiondidnot
resultinarealappeasementeitheramongtheSerbsorthe
Moslems; it left to the first a concealed disillusionment,
to the second distrust and fear of the future. The
expectation of great events began to grow once more,
withoutvisiblereasonordirectcause.Thepeoplehoped
forsomethingorwereafraidofsomething(inactualfact
some hoped while others feared) and looked on
everything in the light of those hopes and fears. In a
word, men's hearts were disturbed, even among the
simple and illiterate, especially among the younger
people, and no one was any longer satisfied with the
monotonoussortoflifewhichhaddraggedonforyears.
Everyone wanted more, asked for better or trembled in
fearofworse.Theolderpeoplestillregrettedthat'sweet
tranquillity'whichinTurkishtimeshadbeenregardedas
themainaimofexistenceandthemostperfectexpression
of public and private life, and which had still existed in
thefirstdecadesoftheAustrianadministration.Butthere
werefewofthese.Alltheothersdemandedananimated,
noisy and exciting life. They wanted sensations or the
echo of sensations or at least variety, noise and
excitement which would give the illusion of sensation.
Thatdesirechangednotonlythestateofmen'smindsbut
eventheexternalappearanceofthetown.Eventhattime-
honoured and established life on the kapia, that life of
quietconversationandpeacefulmeditations,simplejokes
and lovesick songs between the wa
ters, the sky and the
mountains,begantochange.
The coffee merchant obtained a gramophone, a clumsy
wooden box with a big tin trumpet in the shape of a
bright blue flower. His son changed the records and the
needles and was continually winding this raucous
contraption which echoed from both banks and made
the kapia quiver.Hehadbeenforcedtogetitinordernot
to be left behind by his competitors, for now
gramophonescouldbe
heard not only at meetings and in the reading rooms but even in the humblest
cafés where the guests sat under a lime tree, on the grass or on brightly-lit
balconies, and talked with few words and in low voices. Everywhere the
gramophonegroundandchurnedoutTurkishmarches,Serbianpatrioticsongsor
ariasfromVienneseoperettas,accordingtothetastesoftheguestsforwhomit
played. For men would no longer go where there was neither noise, glitter nor
movement.
Newspapers were read avidly, but superficially and hastily; everyone looked onlyforthesensationalnewsprintedinlargetypeonthefrontpage.Therewere
few who read the articles or the news in small type. All that took place was
accompanied by clamour and the brilliance of big words. The younger people
did not think that they had lived that day if by the evening their ears were not singingortheireyeshadnotbeendazzledbywhattheyhadheardorseeninthe
courseoftheday.
The agas and eSendis of the town came to the kapia, serious and outwardly indifferent, to listen to the latest news about the Turco-Italian war in Tripoli.
Theylistenedavidlytoallthatwaswritteninthepapersabouttheheroicyoung
Turkishmajor,EnverBey,whobeattheItaliansanddefendedtheSultan'slands
likeadescendantoftheSokollisortheKuprulus.Theyfrownedattheraucous
musicofthegramophone,whichpreventedtheirthinking,and,withoutshowing
it, trembled deeply and sincerely for the fate of the distant Turkish province in
Africa.
It chanced that just then Pietro the Italian, Maistor-Pero, returning from work
clothed in his linen overall, white with stone-dust and stained with paint and
turpentine, crossed the bridge. He had grown old and bent and even more
humble and timid. As at the time when Lucchieni assassinated the Empress, it
seemed, by some logic incomprehensible to him, that he was again guilty of
something which his Italian fellow-countrymen, with whom for many years he
hadhadnocontact,haddonesomewhereintheouterworld.OneoftheTurkish
youthsshouted:
'So you want Tripoli, you bastard! You there, I mean!' and made obscene
gesturesathim.
ButMaistor-Pero,bentandtired,withhistoolsunderhisarm,onlypulledhishat
furtheroverhiseyes,feverishlybitonhispipestemandhurriedhometoMejdan.
TherehisStanawaswaitingforhim.Shetoohadgrownolderandhadlostsome
of her physical strength, but she was still a formidable and outspoken woman.
HecomplainedbitterlytoherabouttheyoungTurkswhosaidthingstheyshould
not have said and had asked him about Tripoli, which until a few days ago he
hadnotevenknownexisted.ButStana,asalways,wouldnotunderstandhimor
consolehim,butwentonsayingthatitwashehimselfwhowasatfaultandeven
deservedtohaveinsultsshoutedathim.
'Ifyouwerearealman,whichyouarenot,youwouldhavehittheiruglyphizzes
withyourchiseloryourhammer.Thenthoseragamuffinswouldnoteventhink
ofjeeringatyoubutwouldgettotheirfeetwhenyoucrossthebridge.'
'Eh, Stana, Stana,' said Maistor-Pero good-humouredly and a little sadly, 'how
couldamanhitanotherinthefacewithahammer?'
So those years passed in a succession of greater or lesser sensations, or in the
constant need of them. So it came to the autumn of 1912; then 1913 with the
BalkanwarsandtheSerbianvictories.Byastrangeexception,justthesethings
whichwereofsuchgreatimportancetothefateofthebridgeandthetownand
allwholivedinitcamesilentlyandalmostunnoticed.
Flushed with red at sunrise and sunset, golden at midday, the October days
passed over the town, which was waiting for the maize crop and the new
season'splumbrandy.Itwasstillpleasanttositonthe kapia inthenoondaysun.
Time, it seemed, was holding its breath over the town. It was just then that it
happened.
Even before the literates in the town could find their way through the
contradictory newspaper reports, the war between Turkey and the four Balkan
States had already broken out and followed the well-worn paths across the
Balkans.Beforethepeoplehadfullygraspedthesenseandimportofthiswarit
was practically over as a result of the victories of the Serbian and Christian
armies;allwasendedfarfromVišegrad,withoutfiresonthefrontiers,without
the grumble of the guns and without heads on the kapia. As it had been with trade and money, so it was with those more important things also; everything
happenedfarawayandunbelievablyquickly.Somewherefarawayintheworld
thedicehadbeenthrown,thebattlesfought,anditwastherethatthefateofeach
oneofthetownsfolkwasdecided.
But if the outward appearance of the town remained peaceful and unchanged,
these events stirred up in the minds of men whole tempests of the greatest
enthusiasmandthedeepestdepression.Asinthecaseofeverythingelsethathad
happened in the world m recent years, they were looked on in the town with
diametrically opposed feelings by the Serbs and the Moslems; only in their
intensity and depth were they perhaps equal. These events surpassed all the
hopes of the one; all the fears of the others appeared justified. Those desires
which for hundreds of years had flown before the slow pace of history could
now no longer keep pace with it but outdistanced it by some fantastic flight
alongtheroadtothemostdaringrealization.
Everythingthatthetowncouldseeorfeeldirectlyofthatfatefulwartookplace incrediblysimplyandwiththeswiftnessofanarrow.
At Uvce where the frontier between Austro-Hungary and Turkey followed the
littleriverUvac,andwhereawoodenbridgeseparatedtheAustriangendarmerie
barracksfromtheTurkishblockhouse,theTurkishofficerwithhissmallguard
crossedtotheAustrianside.There,hebrokehisswordwithatheatricalgesture
ontheparapetofthebridgeandsurrenderedtotheAustriangendarmes.Atthat
momentthegrey-cladSerbianinfantrycamedownfromthehills.Theyreplaced
the old-fashioned askers along the whole frontier between Bosnia and the
Sanjak. The triangle between Austria, Turkey and Serbia disappeared. The
Turkishfrontierwhi
chonlythedaybeforehadbeenaboutninemilesfromthe
town was suddenly withdrawn more than 600 miles, somewhere far beyond
Jedrene(Adrianople).
Somanyandsuchimportantchanges,carriedoutinsoshortatime,shookthe
towntoitsfoundations.
For the bridge on the Drina this change was fateful. The railway link with
Sarajevohad,aswehaveseen,reduceditsconnectionwiththeWestandnow,in
amoment,itsconnectionwiththeEastalsoceased.InfacttheEast,whichhad
createditandwhichhaduptothedaybeforestillbeenthere,greatlyshakenand
weakened no doubt, but still as permanent and real as sky and land, had now
vanishedlikeanapparition.Nowthebridgeinrealitynolongerlinkedanything
savethetwopartsofthetownandthosedozenorsovillagesononeortheother
sideoftheDrina.
Thegreatstonebridgewhich,accordingtotheideasandthepiousintentionsof
theGrandVezirfromSokolovići,wasmeanttolinkthetwopartsoftheEmpire,
and 'for the love of God' make easier the passage from West to East and from
East to West, was now in fact cut off from both East and West and abandoned
likeastrandedshiporadesertedshrine.Forthreewholecenturiesithadendured
and experienced everything and, unchanging, had truly served its purpose, but
human needs had altered and world conditions changed; now its task had
betrayedit.Byitssize,itssolidityanditsbeauty,armiesmightpassacrossitand
caravansfollowoneanotherforcenturiestocome,butthus,bytheeternaland
unforeseen play of human relations, the Vezir's bequest suddenly found itself
abandonedand,asifbysomemagicspell,outsidethemainstreamoflife.The
present role of the bridge in no way corresponded to its eternally young
appearance and its gigantic but harmonious proportions. But it still stood the
same as when the Grand Vezir had seen it in his inward vision behind closed eyes and as when his masons had built it; powerful, beautiful and enduring,
beyondallpossibilityofchange.
Itneededtime,itneededeffort,beforethetownspeopleunderstoodallthathas