by Marie Nizet
As they turned into the Strada Tarieri, Ioam suddenly stopped. “Where are you going, Sperantza my darling?” he said.
“Home, my friend. Strada Hagielor, No. 8,” the little girl replied, trying to drag Ioan onwards. “Jesus Christ! How pale you are! Are you ill?”
“No. But, Sperantza, your father and mother aren’t the only people who live in that house...”
“Certainly not, my friend. There’s Mariora Slobozianu, who...”
“Mariora Slobozianu!”
“Do you know her? She’s my grown-up friend! She’s very beautiful. Come on, I’ll show her to you.”
Profoundly disturbed by the effect that Sperantza’s words had had on him, Ioan understood that his old love was not yet extinct in his heart, and that it would only require Mariora to look at him to dissipate is anger.
“No, Sperantza,” he said, in a barely-intelligible voice. “I won’t see her!”
“Why not?” the little girl persisted. “She’ll like you just as much I do. Besides, didn’t you say that wherever I was going, you...”
“That’s true!” Ioan said, interrupting her. Sperantza had rendered him as fatalistic as a Muslim. Let’s go! he thought, as he walked slowly beside the little girl, who led him along the Strada Hagielor. What must be, must be!
Sperantza’s house was a Byzantine construction, of a sort still found in the quainter quarters of Bucharest. Ioan and his guide went through a narrow passageway, which ended in a square courtyard planted with box-trees and holly bushes.
“Wait!” said Ioan to Sperantza, as she was about to run to her mother to announce the arrival of a new guest. “Take me to...your grown-up friend.”
Sperantza obeyed, and Ioan climbed the frail spiral staircase that led to Mariora’s room, with a firm tread.
“She’s in here,” said the child, pointing to a door painted rose-pink. “Shhh! She’s talking–listen!”
“No, Baba Sophia,” said a voice that reminded the dorobantz of an era of lost happiness, “I’ll only go back there when Ioan comes back.”
“Ioan,” whispered Sperantza, “is the name of a soldier she loves and who’ll marry her when the war is over.”
Ioan dated sideways glance at the child. “She loves this soldier, you say?”
“And how! She never wants to talk about anything but him.”
“You know, little one,” he said, with an ironic smile, “This Ioan–it’s me.”
“You!” Sperantza bounded towards the rose-pink door.
Ioan held her back. “Leave me alone, now,” he said to her. “I’ve a great many things to say to Mariora.”
Sperantza, who was neither obstinate nor curious, ran down the stairs, letting out little cries of joy.
Ioan did not want to give himself time to reflect. The key turned in the lock; he went in.
“Isacescu!” said Baba Sophia.
“Ionitza!” cried Mariora.
Two bare arms slid around his neck; a flood of blonde hair inundated his shoulders and ardent kisses were showered upon his forehead. In the middle of the room, Baba Sophia was kneeling down, praying fervently.
She embraced Liatoukine thus! Ioan said to himself. That thought brought all his hatred flooding back.
“Get away!” he said. “Get away, vile creature!” And, seizing a handful of Mariora’s loose hair, he forced her to look him in the face. “Vile creature!” he repeated. Then he threw the poor stupefied girl across the room.
Baba Sophia leapt to her feet like a tigress. “Wretch!” she yelped. “How dare you...?”
Mariora clapped her hand over the old woman’s furiously-pursed lips. “Be quiet, godmother,” she begged. “Ioan is mad!”
“Mad!” he murmured, taking a step towards her “Yes, I was, when I believed your words and your sworn promises, which were nothing but perjury–when I allowed myself to be abused by your caresses, which only served to better hide your perfidies! I was mad when I loved you, Mariora! Now...I know...I’ve seen...!”
“Oh, my God!” sobbed the young woman. “But what have I done?”
Baba Sophia, her patience exhausted, put her arms behind her back and said to Ioan, with false calmness: “Listen, Corporal Isacescu–if you’ve only come here to reel off pleasantries of that sort. my opinion is that it’s a great pity that you didn’t stay where you were, like so many brave boys of greater worth than you!”
“Then you’re a worthy accomplice of the other one,” retorted Ioan, paying no heed to the gorgon’s invective. “He too asked me what he had done. Do you know how I replied to him, Mariora?”
“Ioan,” cried the priest’s daughter, grabbing the dorobantz’s hand.
“Get away, I tell you,” he repeated. With insulting sarcasm, he added: “Do you take me for Boris Liatoukine?”
“Boris Liatoukine!” Mariora repeated, slowly. “I don’t know him.”
“Oh? You don’t know Boris Liatoukine–the man with the yellow eyes from the Baniasa Woods?”
Mariora shuddered. “Indeed, my Ionitza,” she replied, tremulously. “I dream about him, I...”
Ioan interrupted her in a thunderous voice. “Your hand! Show me your hand!”
Mariora mechanically exposed both hands to the pitiless gaze of the dorobantz.
“And the ring?” he said.
“The ring?” Mariora stammered, quite beside herself. “Yes...that’s true. He took it, my love–he took it!”
“Ah! You finally admit it!” he cried, with a bitter laugh. “He took it!”
“I couldn’t...Ionitza!” Her tears were choking her; she covered her head with her apron. “All this because the ring is lost!” she groaned.
“It was only copper anyway, your ring!” the terrible godmother resumed. “We’re only talking about your peddler’s trinkets! Leave my god-daughter be. She’s much too beautiful for a cripple like you. If you no longer want her, just tell her straight out, without such jeremiads! We’ll have suitors flocking round, of better quality than the son of your father!”
Baba Sophia paused to draw breath.
“Me, marry Boris Liatoukine’s mistress!” Ioan cried, indignantly. “You’re dreaming, old woman!”
At these words Mariora raised her head again; her tears drying up, she advanced towards Ioan and stood before her fiancé, cold and pale. “I don’t understand,” she said, softly.
“You’re the mistress of Boris Liatoukine,” Ioan repeated, harshly. “Do you dare to deny that it’s true, wretch?”
“The mistress...” Mariora stammered, astounded. She leaned on the back of a chair for support; her lips were pale, her eyes lit up. “Who told you that?” she demanded, quivering.
“Liatoukine himself.”
“He lied!” she cried, in a voice vibrant with anger. “He lied!” she repeated, going to the gilded frame that enclosed a richly-illuminated representation of the Virgin. “I swear before these holy images.”
“Which tells you that he lied!” Baba Sophia added, having recovered her breath. “Where do you get these fine notions, eh? To set about slandering the honor of honest women! It’ll be a fine day when a beardless adolescent can come preaching morality to old Sophia! Haven’t I always set the little one the strictest example of virtue? There’s plenty in the village can remind you of that if you’ve forgotten.”
“I don’t believe you, Mariora Slobozianu,” Ioan murmured, without raising his eyes.
Mariora made an effort to hold back her tears. Meekly, she presented her forehead for the dorobantz to kiss. In a voice stifled by sorrow, she said: “Goodbye, then, my beloved–and may the Supreme Lord pardon you, as I do!”
Ioan did not budge. If Liatoukine lied! he thought. Oh, that would be Heaven! “I want to believe you, Mariora,” he said, “but...I saw that ring on Liatoukine’s finger.
“It was in the Baniassa Woods,” Mariora replied, simply. “We were alone: he took my ring.”
“And afterwards?”
“That’s all!”
“That
man would not have spared you!” he said, shaking his head.
“Listen,” she said, lowering her voice mysteriously. “That man is not a man: he’s a vampire. He has two pupils in each eye. His gaze puts you into a strange sleep that ends in death. The saints were protecting me from the heights of Heaven: midnight chimed, a cock crew in the distance... What could he do to me then?”
Although belief in vampirism and the evil eye did not appear to him to be indisputable articles of faith, Ioan considered Mariora’s bizarre explanation as the sole ray of light that might dissipate the grey shadows among which his hope was lost. Mariora innocent–that was the future clarified, happiness restored, life with all the joys that make all sorrows supportable.
The dignified attitude and limpid gaze of his fiancée succeeded in convincing him. “Then...it isn’t true?” he said.
“It isn’t true,” Mariora repeated, forcefully.
While they stood there side by side, embarrassed and hesitant, Baba Sophia cried: “There we go! It’s all over! Corporal Isacescu, should we send for the priest? Yes or no?”
“Get on with it, Baba Sophia!” Ioan replied, gaily, taking Mariora in his arms. “If your legs are as agile as your tongue, it’ll soon be done!”
“Corporal Isacescu,” Baba Sophia replied, putting her stiff hand on the dorobantz’s shoulder, “I forgive you for all the villainous things you said to me.” And, abandoning herself unreservedly to exuberant joy, the old godmother began capering around the room like a mad goat, while Mariora, kneeling before the holy images, gave thanks to the Lord.
Happy people have no history. The happiness of the two fiancés was not quite complete. The memory of Mitica soared like a black bird above their dovecote. Ioan made several trips to the Ministry of War, but when the officials learned that Mitica Slobozianu was only a simple soldier, they replied: “Ah, then we don’t know,” like the medical orderly at Pleven.
Ioan persuaded Zamfira that Mitica was a prisoner in Constantinople and that he would come back as soon as the peace treaty was signed. People easily believe what they wish to believe, and every night, as she went to sleep, Zamfira told herself that the following day would bring him back.
How many times had Ioan to start the story of his adventures all over again? Mariora never tired of hearing him relate the moving scenes of the taking of Gravitza; the sad demise of the boyar Relia, “who only talked about wine and maize,” brought tears to her eyes, and when it was a question of Liatoukine’s death, she kissed the hand that had embedded the dagger in the breast of the man with yellow eyes.
Now that Captain Vampire was no more, the thickets of the Baniassa Woods had lost the ability to terrify the priest’s daughter, and the proposal that she should return to the village was accepted unanimously.
The month of January was taken up with preparations of every sort. It was decided that the newlyweds would live in he Slobozianus’ house, and Mariora sent to Bucharest for a quantity of useless items of furniture that were necessary to her, and which cluttered very corner. Baba Sophia complained of the abomination. Enough wardrobes to contain the linen of 20 families! Enough chairs to seat the entire National Assembly! In her day people had thought themselves lucky to be able to squat on a smooth floor!–and so on. To which Mariora replied that the past was the past, that one could stuff drawers full of fine linen and invite the mayor to dinner.
The marriage date was irrevocably fixed as February 15.
On the evening before, while Ioan was waiting in the office of an advocate in the city, to whom Old Mani had entrusted his money, Zamfira and Mariora were busy arranging the latter’s trousseau: aprons with multicolored stripes, richly-embroidered bodices and gold-spangled waistbands all dazzled the eyes of the enraptured Baba Sophia. “Princess Elisabeth would look like a bourgeois next to you, my girl,” she said to the future Madame Isacescu–who, bustling about and scuttling like a mouse, replied to her godmother’s admiring comments with loud peals of laughter.
Three curt raps on the entrance-door caused a scalloped skirt to fall from Mariora’s hands. Who could it be at this late hour? Mariora, whose particular memories rendered her less than valiant, took refuge in the thin arms of the worthy Sophia, who was rooted to the spot. Zamfira took it upon herself, as usual, to act.
The frail staircase groaned beneath a heavy and measured tread. The door of the room opened noisily and the gypsy reappeared, leading a man of tall stature and stern features, wearing a Cossack uniform.
It did not require much to reawaken Mademoiselle Slobozianu’s old terrors. The young woman’s fear reached its peak when the Russian came towards her and, greeting her by name, presented her with a large oblong box studded with iron nails and carefully sealed. Mariora, pale with fright, backed up against the wall.
“What is it?” asked Zamfira, bravely taking the box from the hands of the singular messenger.
The Cossack made a gesture to signify that he did not understand; the gypsy translated the question into Russian.
“A wedding gift,” replied the Cossack, heading for the door.
“And from whom does it come?” Zamfira persisted.
“Forbidden to say!” the incorruptible courier said, laconically, as he disappeared down the stairs.
“There’s some devilment in there!” said Baba Sophia, shaking her head. “That box has a suspicious appearance. If you’ll take my advice, little one, you’ll only open it in the presence of your husband.”
Mariora’s apprehension overcame her curiosity; she praised her godmother’s foresight, and the three women spend the rest of the evening formulating and tearing apart the most improbable conjectures. The mysterious box, which was quite heavy, was weighed up, turned round and sounded out. At the least agitation a clinking noise could be heard, as if a metal object were clinking against the walls of the coffer; then the ear perceived another, fainter noise, like a coin brushing against the wood. The box evidently contained two objects.
Mariora slept badly; she dreamed all night of serpents escaping from a half-open casket, hissing as they did so. When Ioan came, before dawn, to visit his future spouse in private, Baba Sophia gave him a voluble account of the previous evening’s incident, not without spicing her recitation with dramatic details that were very stimulating to the imagination.
Ioan had the box brought to him, and introduced a hook into the lock. In response to the instrument’s efforts, the cover sprang open.
A quadruple cry of amazement went up. The box contained Mariora’s copper ring and Old Mani’s yataghan. The ring was completely oxidized and a thick layer of rust covered the knife’s blade, but the name of its owner–Mani Isacescu–was still legible, crudely engraved on the horn handle.
“There!” said Baba Sophia, triumphantly. “Didn’t I tell you that the Devil was inside!”
The entire village was present at the wedding feast, which went admirably well, thanks to the culinary talents of Baba Sophia, who surpassed herself.
Sperantza’s mother had taken charge of Mariora’s dress, and the latter, who doted on western fashions, had replaced the crown of boxwood that traditionally adorns the heads of Walachian winter brides with a magnificent garland of orange-blossom–which she wore proudly, as she had the right to do.
Little Ralitza made the whispered observation that the married couple did not seem very joyful.
“Hold your malicious tongue,” said one of her neighbors. “The grass hasn’t yet grown over his father’s grave and her brother is probably in the arms of the world’s bride.”56
Even so, Ralitza’s observation was not without justice. Mariora kept her eyes perpetually lowered, and scarcely made any reply to the conventional pleasantries addressed to her from all sides of the table. Ioan contemplated the Greek wine in his glass with a bleak expression; through the gilded liquid he could distinctly see Liatoukine stretched out on the ground, white-faced, with a dagger stuck in his breast.
“Well?” said Madame Isacescu, interrogatively, when the tw
o spouses finally found themselves alone.
“Listen, darling,” said the ex-dorobantz. “One of the man’s friends must have read our name on the dagger’s hilt and sent it back to me.”
“That’s possible,” Mariora said. “But what about the ring?” she added, shaking her head.
“Ah, the ring...that’s true!” Ioan murmured, disconcerted. Then, embracing his wife affectionately, he said, suggestively: “Tell me, Mariora, whether we really have to think about this today?”
Mariora smiled, and they gave it no further thought.
The days went by uniformly and rapidly for the two newlyweds. Ioan, for the sake of his peace of mind, had given up trying to find the key to the enigma represented by the ring and the dagger, but Mariora, who was fearful that the presence of the accursed objects might bring them bad luck, confided her anxieties to Baba Sophia.
“We should throw this rubbish in the Dimbovitza,” the duenna said to Ioan.
He refused. Putting the things carefully away in a drawer, he said: “It’s important to keep them.”
The repeated insistences of the godmother were reinforced by the supplications of he god-daughter, who declared that she would only feel perfectly happy when the ring and the yataghan were gone. Ioan was even more fearful of Baba Sophia’s nagging than his wife’s tears; he consented to bury the box, the ring and the dagger in a deserted spot in the Baniassa woods. Baba Sophia shut up, Mariora recovered her smile, and everyone thought that they would be liberated forever from the odious memory of Captain Vampire.
Mitica’s absence being indefinitely prolonged, Ioan resolved to approach the Minister of War directly. An audience was immediately granted, and Mariora asked her husband for permission to accompany him. While putting on her best clothes, Madame Isacescu delighted herself with the thought of being able to repeat to her astounded neighbors: “The minister asked us...the minister replied to us...” and so on. And when Baba Sophia had cast a final eye over Mariora’s costume, the two young spouses took the road to the city.
A spring breeze was floating in the air. April had reddened the chilly buds peeping timidly outside their envelopes. Storks and swallows were flying overhead, and violets embalmed the silken grass, in which the eye searched vainly for the humblest of flowers: the white daisy, which is not common in Rumania.