Bosnian Chronicle

by Ivo Andrić

  “There will be a flag!” the Christians whispered to one another; and their eyes were bright with defiance, almost as if the flag would be their own. In reality no one had any idea of what kind of flag it was supposed to be, or what was likely to happen once it appeared, but the very thought that beside the green Turkish flag other colors would be unfurled and allowed to flutter with impunity brought a joyous new luster to people’s eyes and aroused such hope as only the oppressed can know and entertain.

  Those five bare words—“There will be a flag”—brightened many a poor devil’s home for a few moments, made his empty stomach easier to bear, his threadbare suit of clothes warmer; the sound of those five plain unassuming words caused many a peasant’s heart to skip a beat, bemused his vision with flaming colors and gilded crosses, filled his ears, like a gust of irresistible wind, with the victorious flapping of all the standards of all the emperors and kings of Christendom. For man can live on a single word, as long as he has the will to fight and by fighting to keep himself alive.

  Apart from all this, there was yet another reason why many a shopkeeper in the bazaar thought hopefully of the change. The advent of these unknown but almost certainly well-to-do newcomers held out prospects of new income, for they were bound to shop and spend money. In the last few years, trade had declined and the bazaar had gone into a slump, particularly since the Serb rebellion. Mounting taxes, forced labor, and frequent requisitions had driven the peasant away from the city, and now he had little to sell and bought only the barest necessities. Government purchases were spotty and payments irregular. Slavonia was shut off, while the landing of French troops in Dalmatia made that market insecure and problematical. In these circumstances the business community at Travnik clutched at every straw and looked in every direction for some sign of change for the better.

  At last, the thing of which everybody had been talking for months became a reality. The first of the consuls to arrive was the French Consul-General. It was the end of February, the last day of the Moslem fast of Ramadan. An hour before the evening prayer, as the chilly February sun was setting, the people in the lower bazaar were able to observe the arrival of the Consul. The storekeepers had already begun to move their merchandise indoors and to lower the shutters when a scramble of inquisitive gypsy urchins announced his coming.

  The procession was a short one. At the head of it rode the Vizier’s envoys, two courtiers of the highest rank, escorted by half a dozen horse soldiers. They had gone down to Lashva to meet him. They were smartly got out and their mounts were good. On either side and in the rear rode the guards of the mayor of Livno, who had accompanied the Consul all the way; frozen and tired out, they cut a rather poor figure on their shaggy, small ponies. In the middle of the procession, riding a sturdy and elderly gray, was the French Consul-General—M. Jean Daville, a tall, pink-cheeked man with blue eyes and a light-colored mustache. He had a co-traveler beside him, a M. Pouqueville, who was on his way to Janina, where his brother was also a consul. Bringing up the rear, several paces behind them, was Pardo, the Jew from Split, and two strapping big Dalmatians from Sinj, who were in the French service. All three were bundled up to their eyes in black tunics and scarlet peasant shawls, and there were traces of straw on their riding boots.

  The procession, it will be evident, was not especially large or brilliant, and the winter weather conspired to rob it of the little glamour and pageantry it might otherwise have had, as cold makes bulky clothing unavoidable and cramps one’s posture and lends the whole thing an air of unseemly haste.

  And so, except for a handful of shivering gypsy children, the little cavalcade passed through the town arousing little or no interest among the Travnichani. The Moslems pretended not to see it, while the Christians dared not show undue attention. And even those who saw everything, whether out of the corner of their eye or from some hidden place, were disappointed that Bonaparte’s Consul should make so colorless and prosaic an entry, for most of them had visions of the consuls as exalted dignitaries who wore splendid uniforms decked with gold braid and decorations, riding spirited thoroughbreds or else reclining in glittering carriages.

  2

  The Consul’s retinue lodged at the state inn, the Consul and M. Pouqueville at the home of Joseph Baruch, the wealthiest and most respected Jew in Travnik, as the large house that was being fitted out for the French consulate would not be ready for another few weeks. Thus, on the first day of the festival of Bairam—which marked the end of the fast of Ramadan—the unusual guest woke up in the small but cozy house of Joseph Baruch. The entire ground floor was placed at his and M. Pouqueville’s disposal. Daville was given a large corner room, with two windows overlooking the river and another two with wooden grilles, facing the garden, which was frozen and desolate under a coating of white frost that did not thaw the whole day long.

  On the floor above one could hear the patter, scuffling, and cries of Joseph Baruch’s many children and the shrill voice of their mother, vainly trying to keep them quiet with threats and shouts. From the town there came the boom of firing cannon, the crackle of children’s popguns, and the ear-rending wail of gypsy music. A couple of drums beat out a dull rhythm and over their somber resonance a reed pipe gamboled and pranced, improvising strange melodies full of unexpected trills and pauses. It was one of those rare days in the year when Travnik emerged from its silence.

  As it would not be fitting for the Consul to show himself in the streets before he had paid an official call on the Vizier, Daville remained in his big room during the three days of the feast of Bairam, with the same little river and frozen garden constantly in front of his eyes; but if the view was bleak, the unusual sounds of the house and the town gave him an earful. The rich, abundant Jewish food, a mixture of oriental and Spanish cooking, spread a heady aroma of oil, burnt sugar, onions, and powerful spices through the house.

  Daville passed the time in conversation with his compatriot, Pouqueville, in issuing orders, and in being briefed on the ceremonial aspects of his first visit to the Vizier, which was to take place on Friday, immediately after the conclusion of the three-day feast of Bairam. From the Residency, meanwhile, he received a gift of two large tallow candles and a basket of almonds and raisins.

  Liaison between the Residency and the new Consul was performed by the Vizier’s physician and interpreter, César D’Avenat, whom both the Turks and the local people called “Davna.” He had called himself by this name the better part of his life. Actually his family came from Piedmont, though he was born in Savoy and was French by adoption. As a young man he had studied medicine at Montpellier and had called himself Cesare Avenato at the time; it was there that he had chosen his present name and opted for French nationality. From there, in circumstances that had never been satisfactorily explained, he had somehow made his way to Istanbul and there entered the service of the redoubtable Kutchuk Hussein, Chief Admiral of the Navy, as surgeon and medical adviser. The Admiral had passed him on to Mehmed Pasha, who was then Vizier of Egypt, and who later brought him to Travnik as his personal doctor, interpreter, and a general factotum of many talents, useful in any kind of exigency.

  He was a tall, sinewy, and thickset man of swarthy complexion and dark hair that was always carefully powdered and braided in an impeccable queue. There were a few deep pockmarks on his broad, clean-shaven face; he had a large, sensual mouth and burning eyes. He was neatly groomed and wore French clothes of a prerevolutionary cut.

  D’Avenat brought genuine good will to his task and tried to be as helpful as possible to his distinguished compatriot.

  To Daville, everything was new and strange and took up all of his time; but it couldn’t shut out the thoughts which, especially in the slow hours of the night, flashed through his mind uninvited, leaping swiftly from the present to the past and then again to the future, as if straining to divine its shape and visage.

  The nights were oppressive and seemed endless.

  He couldn’t get used to lying on the low mattress
on the floor, which made his head feel heavy, or to the smell of wool in the hard-packed and newly refilled pillows. He woke up often from the stuffy warmth of too many eiderdowns and blankets, feeling soured and bilious from the overspiced oriental food which makes heavy eating and which the body takes and assimilates with the utmost reluctance. He rose several times and drank ice-cold water that shocked his gullet and painfully cooled his stomach.

  During the day, as he talked with Pouqueville or D’Avenat, he gave the impression of a calm and decisive man, one who had a well-ordered profession, rank, and name, a man of clear purpose, carrying out palpable tasks that happened to bring him to this God-forsaken Turkish province, just as they might have to any other part of the world. But at night he was not only his present self but also his past selves and the self he hoped to be in the future. And this man lying in the darkness of the long February nights appeared a stranger to himself, a person of many sides who at times was not to be recognized.

  And even as the dawn startled him awake with its drums and pipes of Bairam, or with a scuttling of children’s feet on the floor above, Daville had trouble rousing himself and realizing where he was. For a while he would nod between sleeping and waking, since his dreams were bound up with the reality of his life thus far, whereas the reality of the moment was more like the sort of dream in which a man suddenly finds himself cast into a far and weird landscape and facing a most fantastic situation. So his waking was like a dream that failed to end, from which one passed slowly and with an effort to the unwanted reality of being a consul in the distant Turkish town of Travnik.

  And in this welter of exotic new impressions, memories of the past came to haunt him irresistibly, mingling with the tasks and cares of the present. Incidents from his past life swam to the surface of his mind, often abruptly and disconnectedly, only to take on a new light and strange new dimension. For the life he had left behind had been a full and restless one.

  Jean-Baptiste-Etienne Daville was in his late thirties, tall, of light hair, with an erect carriage and a firm walk. He had been seventeen when he left his native town on the north coast of France and went to Paris, like so many before him, to seek a life for himself and make a reputation. After his early quests and experiences, he was soon drawn to the Revolution, together with millions of other people; and the Revolution became his private, all-exclusive destiny. A volume of his verse and two or three ambitious flings at historical and social plays remained tucked in a drawer; he gave up his modest job of apprentice clerk in the government. Jean Daville became a journalist. He still published verses and literary articles, but now his main interest was the Constituent Assembly; he poured his youth and all the enthusiasm of which he was capable into exhaustive reports of its proceedings. But under the grindstone of the Revolution all things crumbled, changed their substance, and vanished, swiftly and without leaving a trace. It was like a dream. Men passed rapidly and directly from position to position, from honor to honor, from infamy to death, from poverty to fame, some moving in one direction, others in the opposite.

  In those extraordinary times and circumstances Daville had been in turn a journalist, then a volunteer in the war against Spain, then an official in the hastily improvised Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which sent him on various missions to Germany, Italy, the Cisalpine Republic, and the Knights of Malta. Then, back in Paris once more, he resumed journalism and became literary critic at Le Moniteur. And now finally he was Consul-General at Travnik, with orders to establish a consulate and initiate and develop trade relations with this Turkish province, while assisting the French occupation forces in Dalmatia and watching the pulse and temper of the Christian rayah in Bosnia and Serbia.

  Such, in a few words, was the biography of this guest in the house of Joseph Baruch. Yet now, looking at it from the strange perspective of his unexpected three days’ confinement, Daville often had to make an effort to remember exactly who he was and where he came from, what his earlier life had been, why he had come to this place, and how it happened that he was now pacing this red Bosnian rug all day long.

  So long as a man leads a normal, ordered life among his own kind, such details of his career represent important phases and significant turning points in his life; but as soon as chance, illness, or an assignment separate and isolate him, these highlights begin suddenly to fade and gutter, to wither and shrivel like so many papier-mâché masks that one has no use for any more. And from underneath there begins to emerge our other life, known to only ourselves, the “true” story of our spirit and body, one that has not been set down anywhere and which no other person can begin to guess at, a story that has no visible connection with our successes in society but which, in the final tally of good and evil in our existence, is the only concrete and decisive one.

  Lost in these wilds, in the long nights when every last sound petered away in darkness, Daville looked back on his life as a long succession of bold endeavors and fainthearted backsliding, known only to himself; an erratic patchwork of quest, bravery, lucky turns, triumphs, sudden wrenches, setbacks, contradictions, useless sacrifices, and vain compromises.

  In the darkness and silence of this town, which he had scarcely seen as yet but where trouble and worries surely awaited him, the truism that the world would never know peace and order acquired a stark new meaning for Daville. At times it seemed to him that life demanded unconscionable efforts and each effort a disproportionate amount of courage. In the darkness that surrounded him, he could not see the end of these efforts. Terrified of faltering and remaining still, a man deceived himself by burying his unfinished business under new tasks, which he would never finish either, and in these fresh enterprises and endeavors sought new strength and a new lease of courage. And so he cheated himself and as time went on piled up an ever greater and more hopeless debt to himself and to everyone around him.

  Still, as the day of his first official reception drew near, these memories and reflections gave way increasingly to new impressions and to the practical cares and work of the moment. Daville pulled himself together. Remembrance and brooding thoughts receded to the back of his mind, from where, in days to come, they would often reappear to give an odd and surprising dimension to daily events or to the strange experiences of his new life in Travnik.

  At last the three long days, with their three nights of soul searching, came to an end. With a premonition that is usually not far wrong in people who have received many hard knocks in their lives, Daville thought that morning: “It is quite possible that these three days were the best and quietest I’m ever going to spend in this cramped little valley.”

  In the early morning of that day there was the sound of neighing and stamping horses under his windows. Strapped in his gala official uniform, the Consul awaited the captain of the Vizier’s Mameluke Guard, who came accompanied by D’Avenat. Everything went off as arranged and discussed beforehand. There were twelve Mamelukes, from the detachment which the Vizier Melmed Pasha had brought from Egypt as his personal bodyguard and of whom he was particularly proud. Their smartly rolled turbans of finely woven silk and gold, their curving scimitars dangling picturesquely from their horses’ flanks, their ample cherry-colored greatcoats attracted everyone’s attention. The mounts of Daville and his escort were caparisoned from head to tail with choicest cloth; the men were smart and showed good discipline. Daville tried to mount his horse as naturally as possible; the animal was a quiet old black, rather broad-crouped. The Consul’s dark blue cloak was generously parted at the chest to show the gilded buttons, the silver sash, the medals and service decorations. Sitting straight as a ramrod, his handsome virile head held up high, the Consul cut a fine figure.

  Up to the point where they turned into the main street, everything went well and the Consul had reason to be satisfied. But as soon as they reached the first Turkish houses, suspicious calls began to be heard and there was a sudden banging of courtyard gates and a closing of window shutters. Already at the first gate a little girl opened one wing of th
e door and, muttering something unintelligible, began to spit thinly into the street, as if casting a spell. A moment later other doors flew open and shutters were raised, one after another, revealing faces that were full of hate and fanatical zeal. Veiled women spat and cursed, and small boys shouted abuse, accompanied by obscene gestures and unmistakable threats, as they smacked their bottoms or drew their fingers across the throats in a vicious slitting movement.

  As the street was narrow and shut in by jutting balconies on both sides, the procession ran a double gamut of abuse and threats. At first, taken aback, the Consul tightened his reins and slowed down, but D’Avenat spurred his horse nearer and, without turning in the saddle or moving a single facial muscle, began to urge in an agitated whisper: “I beg Your Excellency to ride on quietly and pay no attention. They are wild ignorant people. They hate everything foreign and greet everyone in this way. It is best to ignore them. That’s what the Vizier does, ignore them. It’s their barbarian way. Please ride on, Your Excellency.”

  Baffled and outraged, although trying his best to hide it, the Consul rode on, realizing that none of the Vizier’s guards did in fact pay any attention to what was happening; but he felt a rush of blood to his head. Confused, rash, and contradictory thoughts raced through his mind. His first thought was whether, as a representative of the great Napoleon, he ought to tolerate this or whether he should return to his house right away and create a scandal. It was a hard decision to make, for as much as he wanted to stand up for the honor of France, he was equally anxious to avoid any impetuous action that would lead to a clash and so ruin his relations with the Vizier and the Turks right on his very first day. Failing to summon up enough resolution to act quickly, he felt humiliated and bitter toward himself; and he was disgusted with the Levantine D’Avenat who kept repeating behind him: “I beg Your Excellency to ride on and pay no attention. These are just loutish Bosnian customs and ways. Let us proceed quietly.”