by Marie Nizet
Mitica Slobozianu loved Zamfira, not as the young men of Bucharest were habituated to loving gypsy girls, but in the manner that a brave and worthy girl–which is what she was–deserved to be loved.
Zamfira was not a beauty–her complexion, of a very pronounced bronze color, immediately revealed her suspect origin; her hair was as coarse as horsehair (Mariora called it prickly); she was short and two years older than Mitica–but such serene generosity was readable in her large black eyes that, on seeing her beside Mariora, people asked themselves whether the less pretty of the two might not be the more beautiful. Those eyes did not know how to lie.
“Why do you love Zamfira?” the young women said to Mitica. “She’s neither pretty nor rich–and besides, she has pagan blood beneath her dark skin. A gypsy! They’re old at 20!”
“I love her, first of all, because she loves me,” he replied, simply, “and then because she’s good–which can’t be said of all of you, who have sharp tongues and empty heads.”
Unfortunately, the tender affection that Mitica bore for Zamfira had not in the least diminished the young man’s hearty appetite for raki and dancing.
Mariora’s question regarding the Russian’s eyes had caused her companions to shrug their shoulders.
“I thought it was only cats and owls that have yellow eyes,” said Katinka the farmer’s wife.
“Well, so much the better for you, my dear,” said the priest’s daughter, dryly. “There are things that it’s better not to know.”
“What do you mean?” cried the assembly, with one voice.
“I mean... I mean that I don’t feel disposed to endure your aggravations this evening, and that you should have let me rest.”
“Oh, I get it,” said Ralitza, in a mocking tone. “The handsome Ioan Isacescu.”
“It’s Ioan all right!” Mariora murmured, ill-temperedly. Then, after a pause, she added: “Ioan! It’s true–he’ll come.”
Something was evidently troubling her; her nervous fingers were twisting a sprig of box-wood from the hedge, and she was staring at the tips of her feet, presumably in order that her friends would not see the tears poised to escape from her eyes.
Florica, the raspberry-seller, begin to sing:
“The yellow bird takes flight,
“Cleaving space with its beating wing;
“One might think it a golden arrow
“Flying overhead!”
“The Yellow Bird–what a stupid song!” said Mariora. Who has ever seen a yellow bird cleaving space?”
This abrupt observation was exciting hilarity among the young women when Zamira, who had been searching the horizon with her eyes for some moments, put a hand on Mariora’s shoulder and pointed to the Bucharest road, saying: “Ioan!”
Mariora shivered, and darted an anxious glance at the gypsy, while the playful group took flight, snatches of The Yellow Bird mingling with their bursts of laughter.
“Zamfira,” Mariora said, suddenly, “I’ve told you nothing!”
Zamfira opened her mouth to reply, but Mariora was in her fiancé’s arms and Cinderella slowly and reluctantly stole away.
As lithe as a cat, Mariora stood on tiptoe to match the dorobantz’s height and cover him with kisses. “You’re very late!” she said to him, in a tone of gentle reproach, and drew him into the house.
Night was falling slowly, filling the corners of the room with shadows. “Baba Sophia!” the young woman shouted–but Baba Sophia was gossiping with some neighbor or other. Mariora had to light the enormous brass lamp–which was almost an object of luxury–herself.
While loading the table with eggs, fruits and a jug of braga,16 which would comprise the couple’s supper, Mariora babbled incessantly about God knows what. There were things that made no sense and meant anything at all, things that had been repeated since the world began and that people would never tire of hearing–except that the young woman did not seem to want to give Ioan time to reply. An attentive observer would have remarked that she was even seeking to avoid his gaze, which never left her.
Suddenly, she released a cry and seized Ioan’s right hand. “What’s that?” she exclaimed. “Blood! Are you hurt?” She lifted his blood-stained hand to her lips, while her eyes, full of anxiety, interrogated the dorobantz.
Ioan hesitated; he hated lying to her.
“It’s a gunshot,” he said, with an effort. “My rifle went off in my hands.”
Mariora, who could not distinguish a wound made by a firearm from one made by a bladed weapon, did not perceive Isacescu’s embarrassment. “Oh!” she cried, bathing the festering wound liberally. “Gunshots are dangerous! Almost as dangerous as going to war, no?”
“Not exactly,” he said, forcing a smile that he tried in vain to make cheerful.
“War!” Mariora continued, pensively. Suddenly fearful, she added: “But there’s war here. You’ll never go to war, will you?”
“No,” said Ioan. It was the second time he had lied.
“Because I wouldn’t want that!” she cried, shaking her head in a mutinous fashion. “I need you, whatever this villainous Tsar that we don’t know has done to us. Let him fight against the Padishah by himself, all alone. We have other things to do! Getting married, for example. When? Oh, the sooner the better, for I warn you that I’m getting tired of waiting. Aren’t you?”
“Mariora!” he exclaimed. That was all he was able to say. There was both tenderness and reproach in his voice.
A few words from the innocent girl had reawakened the bitter thoughts that her caresses had lulled. Isacescu was thinking about the future, and about the insult he had suffered on the road–and a strange intermittent hallucination showed him his new enemy standing between himself and his fiancée. For a moment, he thought about telling her everything–his fateful encounter on the sunken road and his departure for Giurgiu–but they both had a secret, and Mariora said to him, in that slightly sulky fashion that she knew how to render charming:
“My handsome dorobantz, nothing can cheer you up today. Have you run into a zmeu 17 in the woods?”
“Yes,” said Ioan, shuddering.
Mariora thought that he was joking. “What? Tell me about it, then,” she said, smiling. “What does a zmeu look like? Does it have horns and wings, as Baba Sophia assures me?”
“No,” said Ioan. “This one had yellow eyes and...”
“Yellow eyes!” Mariora interrupted, anxiously. “You’ve seen the man with yellow eyes?”
“Yes,” Ioan replied, calmly. “And you’ve seen him too, apparently?”
“Me!” she cried, blushing. “Holy Mother of God, no! Are there really men with yellow eyes?” She plunged her hand into the soldier’s thick hair and continued, murmuring like a turtle-dove: “I’ve never seen hair as fine as yours, Ionitza. It’s so soft! It’s lovely.”
But Ioan remained insensible to these caresses; his apparent calm concealed a violent internal agitation.
Mariora saw Ioan’s eyebrows quiver. “Oh, don’t look at me like that!” she said, trying to pull away. “It makes me feel ill; there’s too much black in your eyes.”
“It’s true that there’s a great deal of black,” he repeated, mechanically. There was a pause. Then he went on, coldly: “Mariora, has someone been here?”
“No one, my love, no one... except for the boyar Relia Comanescu.” She added: “He was very boring; he talked about nothing but wine and maize.”
“No one? Are you quite sure about that, Mariora?” The dorobantz’s features were contorted; his words, stamped with an unaccustomed hardness, frightened the priest’s daughter.
“How you say that!” she cried. “Who do you think came?”
“A man with yellow eyes,” Ioan said.
Mariora attempted a burst of laughter, which sounded so false even to her that she was terrified. She was about to reply when a voice sounded gravely in her ear, murmuring: “Mariora, it isn’t right for you to hide something from your future husband.”
I
t was Zamfira, who had just come in. Without taking any notice of her friend’s angry start, she went to sit down on the other side of the room and silently set about weaving her rushes.
Mariora, red with shame, dissolved into tears.
“All right–yes, I’ll tell you everything!” she sobbed. “Everything–on condition that you don’t look at me while I speak!”
Ioan Isacescu would have accepted other conditions as well; he did not understand and made every effort not to want to understand. He was very pale, but he made an affirmative nod.
Mariora wiped her tears, sat down beside the dorobantz and put her arm around his neck. Then she looked at him timidly, as if she wanted to borrow a little courage from his loving eyes.
“This is what happened,” she began, in a very low voice. “This morning, Zamfira and Baba Sophia went to Bucharest, leaving me alone here. All the men were in the fields. I wasn’t doing anything–I was thinking about you!–when I heard the gallop of an approaching horse.
“I ran to the door, expecting to see the boyar Comanescu, whom we were expecting. It wasn’t him; it was a Russian officer. He dismounted. I thought he wanted to speak to me and I went towards him. Oh, I shouldn’t have gone towards him–but how could I know? Eventually, he pointed to his horse, which was panting, and said two words: ‘water, horse.’ The way he spoke, which was anything but polite, shocked me; nevertheless, I went to fetch water, assuming that he couldn’t speak Rumanian very well. I was mistaken, Ioan–that man expresses himself better than an Oltu riverman! While the horse was drinking, I observed its master. Jesus Christ!”
Mariora went on: “If I live to be a hundred, I won’t forget him! He was tall, so pale and thin that he could have been taken for a dead man. It seemed that I could hear his bones rattling–but what frightened me most of all was the yellow gleam in his round eyes. When the horse had finished, I turned to go back in; to my great astonishment, the man followed me. I told him that the house wasn’t an inn. He replied that it was all the same to him and continued following me. I didn’t dare say anything; there was a sepulchral tone in his voice that made me shudder. He sat down at the table as if he owned the place and ordered me abruptly to sit down in the chair opposite. I was terrified; I no longer knew what I was doing; I obeyed.
“He stared at me fixedly for about ten minutes. I had an urgent desire to run away, but I felt my strength diminishing–and I had noticed, besides, that he had set himself between me and the door. Finally, he got up. I got up too. His eyes never left me. He came towards me. I drew back, and kept going backwards–but the wall was there. I closed my eyes, for I had just felt a cold hand grip my arm–which had the same effect as if a snake had touched me.
“He picked me up, effortlessly, went back to his seat at the table, and sat me down on his knee, rudely. I was afraid of irritating him by futile resistance. ‘Look at me,’ he said.
“His will seemed to have become mine. I looked at him, just as he instructed–but, as his back as to the window, I could see men sowing barley in the distance, far away in the fields. It was to them that I looked for my salvation, but my screams wouldn’t have been able to reach them. I told myself that the only thing that I could do was to put myself in God’s hands and I prayed. The man didn’t budge. But I couldn’t pray for long; a strange numbness overwhelmed me by degrees. It seemed to me that I was falling asleep. I mustered the residue of my will-power to resist that drowsiness, which was bound to be my ruination, but I couldn’t do it, and my dazed head soon lapsed on to the man’s shoulder. Then...”
“Then?” Ioan broke in, in a strangled voice–and his fingers gripped Mariora’s wrist with so much force that his nails sank into her flesh.
“Then,” she said, “Relia Comanescu came in–I was saved!”
Laughing and crying at the same time, she buried her head in Ioan’s bosom. “Ionitza, Ionitza!” she said.
He let her go. He looked at her with a strange smile. It was as if he had not seen her for some time, and was astonished to discover her in his arms. “Relia Comanescu!” he murmured. “Whatever danger he finds himself in, and whatever service he demands, that man may count on me!” He went on, immediately: “And Mitica? Where was he while this outrage was perpetrated upon his sister?”
A soft voice, which was more regretful than accusatory, sighed: “In Bucharest.”
“In Bucharest? When his presence was required here?”
“He was dancing the batuta with his comrades,” Zamfira went on, in utter confusion. “They had been drinking raki... perhaps a little too freely.”
Ioan shrugged his shoulders and addressed Mariora. “Do you know this man’s name?” he said.
“No. Comanescu appeared to know him; he pronounced his name two or three times, but they were speaking in a foreign language–and besides, I was so distressed that I couldn’t take it in. Ine... It ended with ine, I think.”
Ioan knew that one Russian name in four terminated thus. He made Mariora give him a detailed description of the Russian officer; the more she said, the more certain he became that his adversary of the sunken path and Mariora’s insulter were one and the same.
“This man will bring disaster upon us!” said Mariora. As if frightened by her own words, she drew closer to Ioan, who repeated her words in a dull tone: “This man will bring disaster upon us.”
“Heaven preserve us!” said Zamfira, moved by her superstitious pity to get up and light a candle in front of the sacred images.
Ioan Isacescu had scant faith in the power of candles, though. “Mariora,” he said, suddenly, “Why did you want to conceal what had happened from me?”
The young woman had not been expecting such a question. She seemed to be embarrassed, and twisted the corner of her apron between her fingers.
“I don’t know,” she said, eventually. She was not lying this time. She did not know–but her reply did not satisfy Isacescu, whose features took on the painfully ironic expression that caused the girls of the neighborhood to say that the handsome dorobantz was not unfamiliar with the kind of zmeine 18 that are manifest as lovely female demons.
Mariora guessed what Ioan was thinking. “My love,” she said, with dignity, “did you think my intention was to deceive you?”
Ioan’s only reply was to take her by the hand.
“To deceive you!” she went on. “I shall be a long time dead before that shameful notion crosses my mind. To deceive you! If I were ever unfaithful, my handsome dorobantz”–she shook her head in a melancholy fashion–“would it hurt you very much?”
“Yes,” said Ioan.
“Would you die of sorrow?”
“No,” he said, firmly. “I’m stronger than sorrow.”
“Ah!” Mariora formed a slight pout of disappointment, which might have had Ioan laugh on another occasion. “But you would surely kill me with your big sword–me, and the other!”
“You, no–the other, certainly.”
“But what must you think of me, and the silly things I say!” she cried, all of a sudden. “Oh, pardon me! My poor head’s aching and I no longer know what I’m saying from one moment to the next. There’s one thing that terrifies me: that man, as he left, told me that I would see him again! I don’t want to see him again!” She was speaking forcefully. “I’m frightened! You’re coming back tomorrow, aren’t you, Ionitza? You won’t leave me again?” She added, in a murmur: “I think he’ll come back!”
She clutched Ioan’s clothing and fear was readable in her haggard eyes, which were staring into the void. “What will I do when you’re not here?” she said.
“Not give any more water to strangers’ horses,” he replied, with a smile that calmed her.
“I won’t leave you alone again,” said Zamfira, making every effort to appear cheerful. “This terrible Cossack won’t get the better of both of us!”
“Do you think so?” said Mariora, timorously.
Baba Sophia came in. Darkness had fallen. Ioan Isacescu said farewell to the two y
oung women–and, while Mariora was pledging eternal amity to Zamfira for the thousandth time, the dorobantz walked away into the moonlight.
Instead of taking the path that led to Old Mani’s hut, though, he took the road to Bucharest.
IV. A Tragic Ball
The boyar Androcles Comanescu had supported every cause, belonged to all political parties and served every government. He was reputed to be one of the richest landowners in the country, and Domna Rosanda–a Serb who had brought a marvelous beauty, which was fortunate, as well as a considerable dowry, which was even better, to their marriage–had taken it into her head to make him a Senator. Comanescu, carefree by nature, let his ambitious wife have her way; she, with a view to the approaching elections, was already busy sending cartloads of braga to the neighboring villages, intended to make certain of the peasant vote.
Domna Rosanda was a masterful woman, to whose subtle influence the poor boyar was–so to speak–unconsciously submissive. Her maternal dream was to see her daughters shine at the Court in St Petersburg one day, and the noblewoman’s avowed desire became, by degrees, the secret desire of her feeble spouse. Besides, it was not without a vague sentiment of pleasure that the boyar saw rough-mannered Cossacks circulating in the streets of Bucharest, and handsome Hussars laced up like maidens. Androcles–who, like others less naïve,19 was readily led astray by seductive appearances–sincerely believed that he was acting patriotically in welcoming the Russians as liberators.
An opportunity to be agreeable to these new allies soon presented itself, and Comanescu was not prepared to let it escape him. A certain statesman, of short stature but immeasurable ambition, had given him to understand that it would be appropriate for some noble inhabitant of Bucharest to organize a party, to which the principal Russian officers passing through the capital would be invited. Androcles had understood; under the pretext of following a suggestion, which was actually a disguised order, he yielded his palace to German upholsterers and decorators. A week later, high society, the staff of various embassies and the Russian officers passing through the city were crowded into the huge reception-rooms in the Strada Mogosai; Comanescu was giving a ball.