Bosnian Chronicle

by Ivo Andrić

  The Vizier stopped beside the coach and muttered something that sounded like a prayer, then turned to Daville. “On the eve of my departure from this sad country, I leave you this, so that you too may depart as soon as possible . . .”

  Then they brought the steed and the Vizier again addressed Daville: “. . . and this noble animal as well, to carry you on to every kind of good fortune.”

  Touched, Daville was on the point of saying something, but the Vizier went on, gravely and scrupulously, to conclude the prearranged ceremonial. “The carriage is a symbol of peace and the horse of good luck. These are my wishes for you and your family.”

  Only then did Daville manage to express his gratitude and convey his good wishes for the Vizier’s journey and for his future.

  And while they were still on the premises, D’Avenat learned from one of the minor functionaries that the Vizier had given no presents to von Paulich and had taken his leave of him coolly and rather curtly.

  At the foot of the Residency, a whole caravan of pack horses and drivers had struck camp, and they were loading and weighing the packs, calling one another and standing around. The empty house was echoing to footfalls, loud orders, and dickering, and above it all Baki’s shrill voice could be heard.

  Baki felt wretched and ill at the very thought of having to travel in such cold weather (there was still snow in the mountains) and over such appalling roads, while the expense of it and the damage and the sheer impossibility of taking every last thing along drove him to distraction. He kept dashing from room to room for fear that something might be left behind, warning the men not to toss things around and break them, imploring and threatening in turn. He was angry with Bekhdjet, who never stopped grinning throughout the upheaval. (“With that bird brain of his, naturally, I’d be grinning myself!”) The reckless and carefree ways of Tahir Beg offended him. (“He’s ruined himself, so why shouldn’t he ruin all the rest!”) The gifts the Vizier had earmarked for Daville had upset him so much that he forgot the baskets and the pack drivers. He had expostulated with everyone and finally gone to the Vizier, begging and demanding that at least the horse be withheld. When that didn’t help him, he had flopped down on a coverless sofa, choking with tears, and told everyone how Rotta had once confided to him, on the very best authority, that at the time of his transfer from Travnik von Mitterer took with him fifty thousand thalers which he had saved in just under four years.

  “Fifty thousand thalers! Fi-f-t-y thou-sand! That Austrian swine! And in four years!” shouted Baki and asked himself aloud how much more the Frenchman was likely to save in that case. He beat the palm of his hand against his silken jacket, where the pocket was.

  At the end of the week, in a cold rain that turned to snow in the mountains, Ibrahim Pasha and his retinue set out on their journey. He was escorted out of town by the two consuls and their kavasses. They were joined by a fair number of mounted Travnik begs and town worthies on foot who went part of the way, for Ibrahim Pasha’s departure was not a clandestine affair and he left no hatred behind him, as had been the case with Mehmed Pasha.

  In the first two years he too, like the majority of his predecessors, had had to contend with intrigue and rebellion among the local notables, but these had calmed down with time. The Vizier’s unbending rigidity, his honesty in money matters, and then Tahir Beg’s skill, moderation, and generous, forward-looking administration of the land had in time produced a climate of tolerance and cool but peaceable relations between the Residency and the landowning begs. They had held it against the Vizier that he did nothing for the country and had no master strategy against Serbia, but this was a kind of faultfinding that the begs had felt they must keep up more for the sake of their conscience and the public image of their zeal than from any real desire to ruffle the barren but pleasant “silence” that had become a feature of Ibrahim Pasha’s long vizierate. (While, in his turn, the Vizier had complained, and with good reason, that the only thing which prevented his mounting an armed expedition agains the Serbs was the sluggish, disorderly, and quarreling Bosnians themselves.) And as the years had gone by and the Vizier had begun to resemble a dead man more and more, the public judgment of him had softened and the opinion of his rule grown more and more favorable.

  Now, little by little, the cavalcade that was seeing the Vizier off dwindled and scattered. The first to fall away were those on foot, then the horsemen, one by one. Finally only the Moslem religious leaders were left, a few town notables, and the two consuls with their escorts. The consuls took their leave at the same little coffeehouse where Daville had once said good-bye to Mehmed Pasha. The tumble-down arbor was still there, black from the rain, lying in a puddle of water. Here the Vizier halted the train and bade farewell to the consuls in a few mumbled words which no one translated. D’Avenat loudly repeated his Consul’s greetings and good wishes, while von Paulich replied in Turkish for himself.

  A cold drizzle was coming down steadily. The Vizier sat on his big, placid, broad-rumped horse, which had been nicknamed “Cow” back at the Residency. He wore a cloak of dark red cloth and heavy fur and its bright color contrasted strangely with the glum and sodden surroundings. Behind the Vizier one could see the sallow face of Tahir Beg, with its burning eyes, the long hunter’s figure of Eshref Effendi, the doctor, and a stuffed, almost round bundle of clothing out of which peered Baki’s blue eyes, wrathful and ready to burst into tears.

  They were all in a hurry to get out of the rain-soaked hollow, almost as if they were at an official funeral.

  Daville rode back with von Paulich. It was past noon. The rain stopped and a diffused sunlight filled the air intermittently, wan and lacking any warmth. Their casual small talk was pregnant with unspoken memories and thoughts. The closer they came to the town, the narrower and tighter became the gorge. On the steep slopes young grass was pushing up, crisscrossed by wet, dark blue shadows. At one spot along the way Daville noticed several half-opened flowers of yellow primrose and all at once the gloom of his seventh Bosnian spring broke over him with such force that he could just barely manage to make a few suitable, monosyllabic noises in reply to some quiet remark from von Paulich.

  Daville was surprised when, ten days after the Vizier’s departure, he received the first news of him. At Novi Pazar, Ibrahim Pasha had met Silikhtar Ali Pasha, his successor to the Bosnian vizierate, and they had spent a few days together. As the French courier from Istanbul happened to pass through at the same time, Ibrahim Pasha had used the opportunity to send his friend the first greetings from the journey. The letter was full of friendly memories and good wishes. By way of a postscript, Ibrahim Pasha had added a few lines about the new Vizier: “I should like, my esteemed friend, to describe my successor to you, but that is quite out of the question. I can only say: May God have mercy on the poor and on those who have no protection. Now the Bosnians will see!”

  What Daville learned from the courier, and later from Freycinet’s letters, fully bore out Ibrahim Pasha’s impressions.

  The new Vizier arrived without any official staff, without pages or a harem, “lone and naked as a bandit in the woods,” but with one thousand and two hundred well-armed Albanians of “sinister appearance” and two large pieces of field artillery—preceded by his reputation as the most unpredictable butcher and the meanest Vizier in all the Empire.

  Somewhere on the open road between Plevlye and Priboy one of the Vizier’s field guns had got mired down, as the roads were barely passable at the best of times, let alone at this time of the year. As soon as he got to Priboy, the Vizier cut off the heads of all the government officials there, without exception (fortunately there were only three), and those of another couple of leading citizens.

  Then he sent a herald ahead with strict orders that the roads be mended and surfaced. But the order was superfluous: the example of Priboy had produced its terrible effect. Along the entire road from Priboy to Sarajevo there were swarms of workmen and overseers, the deep ruts and potholes were filled up, the wooden bri
dges were repaired. Terror had paved the way for the Vizier, literally.

  Ali Pasha traveled slowly, spent considerable time in each town, and promptly introduced his kind of rule. He collected taxes, executed insubordinate Turks, threw local notables into jail, and all Jews without exception.

  At Sarajevo, according to the lengthy and graphic report from Freycinet, the terror was so great that the most powerful begs and bazaar elders went all the way up to the Goats’ Bridge to greet the Vizier and offer the first gifts. Knowing the reputation of the Sarajevo begs for being cool and haughty to the viziers who passed that way from Istanbul to Travnik, Ali Pasha gruffly refused to see the delegation, shouting loudly from his tent that they were to get out of his sight immediately. As for those he might need, he said, he would find them in their homes.

  The following day, in Sarajevo, all wealthier Jews and some of the most respected begs were taken into custody. If one of them as much as dared to ask why he was being held, he was at once tied up and lashed in the Vizier’s presence.

  All of this was carried to Travnik and bruited about town in advance, and popular rumor was already building the new Vizier into a monster. But his actual arrival in Travnik, the way he received the town notables and gave them the first audience, surpassed even the reputation that had preceded him.

  On that spring day, the first to enter Travnik was a detachment of three hundred of the Vizier’s Albanians. Marching in wide regular ranks, they were all as like as beads on a thread and as easy on the eye as girls. They carried short muskets and advanced in a short parade step, looking straight ahead. Then came the Vizier with a small escort and a detachment of cavalry. They too rode at a short funeral pace, with no sound or talking. In front of the Vizier, at the head of the escort, marched a great big giant of a man carrying a long naked sword before him in both hands. Not even the most wanton mercenaries, not a horde of wild Circassians, yelling and firing their guns, could have terrified the people as much as this slow and voiceless procession.

  That same evening Ali Pasha carried out his usual arrests of the Jews and leading citizens, on the principle that “a man talks differently after spending a night in jail.” If any relative or friend of the arrested man cried or wailed or wanted to give him something or help him in any way, he was whipped on the spot. All the heads of Jewish households were taken in, as Ali Pasha had an exact list and operated on the premise that no one paid as much ransom as the Jews and that they spread the bad news through the town much faster than anyone else. And the people of Travnik, who had long memories, witnessed, among other portents and ill-omens, the spectacle of the Atias family being led away on a single chain.

  The same night the parish priest of Dolats, Fra Ivo Yankovich, Brother Guardian of the Gucha Gora monastery, and the monk Pakhomi were also taken in custody, fettered, and thrown into the citadel.

  Early the following morning, all those who had previously been jailed for murder and major thefts and had been awaiting sentence under Ibrahim Pasha’s court of justice, which had been slow and considerate, were led out from the fortress and tried. By sunrise they had already been hanged on the town’s crossroads. And at noon the arrested notables purchased their freedom at the first divan held in the Residency.

  The Hall of Audience could remember many stormy and fateful assemblies, it had heard many grave words, important decisions and sentences of death, but it could not remember this kind of silence—a silence that caught a man’s breath and turned his innards to jelly.

  Ali Pasha’s art of government rested on his skill of creating, maintaining, and spreading such an atmosphere of terror that even men who were not afraid of anything, even death, were crushed and broken.

  The first thing the Vizier told the assembled notables after he had read the Sultan’s firman of appointment, was that the Mayor of Travnik, Ressim Beg, had been sentenced to death. Ali Pasha’s surprises were the more frightful for being unexpected and incredible.

  When Ibrahim Pasha had left Travnik three weeks before, Suleiman Pasha Skoplyak was somewhere on the Drina with his army and he declined, on some pretext or other, to come back and deputize until the arrival of the new Vizier. So the old Mayor, Ressim Beg, had been left in supreme command at Travnik.

  The man had already been arrested, the Vizier said, and would be executed on Friday, because during the time he had acted for the Vizier he ran the affairs of the government in such a feeble and slipshod manner that he deserved to die, not once but twice over. And that was only the beginning. After him it would be the turn of all those others who’d agreed to work for the Empire and look after the business of state but had done their duty inadequately or had publicly and secretly shirked it.

  After the pronouncement, coffee, pipes, and sherbet were served.

  Following the coffee, Hamdi Beg Teskeredjich, the senior beg among the assembled, spoke a few words in defense of the hapless Mayor. While he was still speaking, one of the servants attending the Vizier backed away toward the door on the right and there collided with one of the pipe bearers, knocking over a lighted clay chibouk. As if this were the last straw, the Vizier’s eyes blazed up, he jerked himself up to his full height and, drawing a knife, threw himself on the stunned boy. There was a frantic scuffle among the servants as they carried out the poor bloodied wretch, and a wave of shock passed over the begs and dignitaries, who forgot the smoking pipes in front of them and dropped their eyes, each staring into his own coffee cup.

  Only Hamdi Beg kept his calm and presence of mind and wound up his defense of the old Mayor, requesting the Vizier to consider his age and previous services rather than his recent mistakes and failings.

  To this the Vizier replied in a clear, lashing voice that was like a sharp thunderclap. Under his government every man would get what he deserved: rewards and recognition for those who were obedient and worked for it, death and whipping for the shirkers and insubordinates. “I was not sent here to have wool pulled over my eyes, or to smoke chibouks with you, or lounge around on these cushions,” concluded the Vizier, “but to make order in this country which is famed all the way to Istanbul for taking pride in its disorder. There’s an axe for every head, even the hardest. Now you still have your heads, I have the axe in my hand, and the Sultan’s firman is under my cushion here. Let each man who wants to eat his bread and see the sun, behave and act accordingly. Make a note of this and then tell your people, so that together we can begin to do things which the Sultan wants us to do.”

  The begs and the dignitaries got up and took their leave with silent greetings, happy to be alive and as dazed as if they had watched a magician’s performance.

  The very next day the new Vizier received Daville in a solemn audience.

  Daville was given an escort of his Albanians, in full dress and well mounted. They rode through deserted streets and a bazaar that was almost dead. Not a door opened, not a window shutter was raised, there was not a head to be seen.

  The reception went according to protocol. The Vizier presented Daville and his interpreter with furs. The rooms and corridors of the Residency were conspicuously empty, devoid of furniture and decoration. And the number of courtiers and servants was unusually small. After the throb and bustle of Ibrahim Pasha’s tenure at the Residency, the place now looked naked and desolate.

  Curious and excited as he was, Daville was quite taken aback at his first sight of the new Vizier. He was a strong and high-set man, but small-boned, and he moved with a springy brisk step, with none of that ponderous dignity which so many high Turkish personages affected. His face was swarthy, the color of his skin dull, his eyes were large and green, while his beard and mustaches where completely white and trimmed very short.

  He was relaxed and talked freely and laughed often, though perhaps too loudly for a Turkish dignitary. Daville asked himself if this was the same man of whom he had heard all those dreadful things, who only yesterday, in the course of a single audience, had condemned the old Mayor to die and had stabbed one of the servants.


  The Vizier laughed and told Daville of his plans to set the country to rights and lead a serious and energetic military expedition against Serbia; then enjoined the Consul to keep up his good work as heretofore, assuring him of his good will, his attention and protection.

  On his part Daville too was unstinting with compliments and assurances, but he could see right away that the Vizier’s stock of fine phrases and amiable grimaces was rather limited, because the moment he stopped talking and the smile died on his lips, his face darkened and hardened and his eyes grew restive, as if looking for a spot to strike. The cold flame of these eyes was hard to bear and it was in strange contrast to his loud laughter.

  “These Bosnian begs have probably told you about me and my methods of government. Don’t let that bother you. I can well believe they are not enamored of me. But I didn’t come here to be liked. They are fools who want to live on empty gentility and talk big and loud. But that cannot be. The time has come for them to use their brains. Only you can’t make them see that by appealing to their heads, but by appealing to the other end, the soles of their feet. I’ve never yet seen a man who forgot a good bastinado, but I’ve seen a hundred times how men forget the best advice and lesson.” The Vizier laughed out loud and there was a youthful, devilish expression around his mouth and the trim mustaches and beard. “They can say what they like,” he continued, “but I intend to strike discipline and order into these people’s marrow. Don’t pay any attention to it, but if ever you need anything, come straight to me. It is my wish that you should be content and quiet in your heart.”

  It was the first time Daville was confronted with one of those unlearned, coarse, and bloody Turkish governors about whom he had so far known only from books and popular tales.

  There followed then one of those intervals of time during which everyone tried to make himself small and inconspicuous, when everyone sought cover and shelter, and the saying went around the bazaar that “even a mouse hole was worth a thousand ducats.” Fear spread over Travnik like a bank of fog, pressing down on everything that breathed and thought.