Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

had been established, he became deputy to the national assembly: but the active part he took in the political troubles of 1886 resulted in his banishment; and it was at Odessa, in 1889, that he completed his masterpiece, whose title, 'Pod Igoto,' is the exact equivalent for the phrase Under the Yoke.'

Recalled to Sofia in the same year, he has made it his home ever since; and has poured out poems, novels, idyls, historical sketches and several dramas, one or two of which were performed with signal success. After visiting the antique monastery of the Rilo, far up in the Balkan and hemmed in by the forest, he wrote an admirable work in prose called 'The Vast Solitude of the Rilo.' The site of the monastery is significant. On the borderland between Thrace and Macedonia, and in the centre of the Balkanic peninsula, it reminds the student of Oriental affairs that at one period the province of Macedonia formed half of the realm of Bulgaria. Even now it is said that you cannot go shopping or marketing in Macedonia without a knowledge of Bulgarian. But owing to the indecision of the Powers, instead of sharing in 1878 the good fortune secured to Bulgaria by the treaty of Berlin, Macedonia remained a Turkish province; and bleeding and helpless, awaits the wave of emancipation that of late years has lifted so many classes and communities out of intolerable serfdom.

Crowded with incidents, episodes, and types of humanity, the rich mosaic called 'Pod Igoto' has been pronounced by an English critic the most brilliant romance that the East of Europe has given to the Occident. The rollicking humor and home-bred sense pervading the book, and tempering not a little the barbarities that must enter into any narrative of life in a Turkish dependency; the high sense of honor shown by the hero Ognianoff; the descriptions of dainty villages, trim rose-fields, and foaming torrents; the strong love story, and the vigorous treatment of minor characters,- make a unique impression, and render the tale equally absorbing to old and young. The idiot Mouncho, in his devotion to Ognianoff, contributes some of the most telling strokes in the story; and there is other evidence that the author had read Shakespeare and Scott to some purpose.

Another episode puts the insurgents vividly before the reader. Not being allowed to carry arms, and consequently pitifully lacking in ammunition, the villagers are seized with the idea of constructing cannon from the hard wood of the cherry-tree. Several of these hollow trunks that were turned so confidently against the Turks, but cracked ignominiously when the first spark was applied to them, are still to be seen in the national museum at Sofia.

On the second day of October, 1895 — exactly a quarter of a century having elapsed since the boy of twenty published his poem

The Pine-Tree,'. a jubilee was held at Sofia: the poet receiving in the building of the National Assembly the thanks and acclamations of his fellow-countrymen, as well as letters and greetings in verse from authors in other parts of Europe. At this writing, a portion of his latest work, 'New Ground,' has been translated into French.

Lucy Catlin Bull

THE PINE-TREE

ALLEGORY OF THE ANCIENT KINGDOM OF BULGARIA

B

ELOW the great Balkan, a stone's-throw from Thrace,
Where the mountain, majestic and straight as a wall,
Lifts his terrible back-in a bird-haunted place

Where green boughs are waving, white torrents appall.

With yellowing marbles, with moldering eaves,

Mute rises the cloister, girt round with the hills
And mingling its gloom with the glimmer of leaves,
The newness of blossoms, the freshness of rills.
Without the high walls what commotion and whirr!
Within them how solemn, how startling the hush!
All is steeped in a slumber that nothing can stir-
Not the waterfall shattered to foam in its rush.

In that hallowed inclosure, above the quaint shrine,
With angel and martyr in halo and shroud,
Looms a giant-limbed tree- a magnificent pine,

Whose black summit is plunged in the soft summer cloud.

As the wings of an eagle are opened for flight,

As a cedar of Lebanon shields from the heat,
So he shoots out his branches to left and to right,
Till they shade every tomb in that tranquil retreat.
The monk with white beard saw him ever the same,-
Unaltered in grandeur, in height or in girth;

Nor can any one living declare when that frame

Was first lifted in air, or the root pierced the earth. That mysterious root that has long ceased to grow, Sunken deep in the soil,-who can tell where it ends? That inscrutable summit what mortal can know?

Like a cloud, with the limitless azure it blends.

15270

And perchance the old landmark, by ages unbent,
Is sole witness to valor and virtue long past.
Peradventure he broods o'er each mighty event

That once moved him to rapture or made him aghast.
And 'tis thus he lives on, meeting storm after storm
With contempt and defiance - a stranger to dread.
Nor can summer or winter, that all things transform,
Steal the plumes from his shaggy and resolute head.

From the crotches and tufts of those wide-waving boughs,
Blithe birds by the hundred are pouring their lays;
There in utter seclusion their nestlings they house,
Far from envy and hate passing halcyon days.

Last of all save the mountain, the Balkan's own son
Takes the tinge of the sunset. A crown as of fire

First of all he receives from the new-risen one,

And salutes his dear guest with the small feathered choir.

But alas! in old age, though with confident heart

He yet springs toward the zenith, majestic and tall

Since he too of a world full of peril is part,

The same fate hath found him that overtakes all.

On a sinister night came the thunder's long roll;
No cave of the mountain but echoed that groan.
All at once fell the storm upon upland and knoll
With implacable fury aforetime unknown.

The fields were deserted, the valleys complained;
The heavens grew lurid with flash after flash;
In the track of the tempest no creature remained--
Only terror and gloom and the thunderbolt's crash.

As of old, the huge tree his assailant repays

With intense indignation, with thrust after thrust;
Till uprooted, confounded, his whole length he lays,
With a heart-rending cry of despair, in the dust.

As a warrior attacked without warning rebounds
Undismayed from each stroke of his deadliest foe—
Then staggers and languishes, covered with wounds,
Knowing well that his footing he soon must forego;

As he still struggles on in the enemy's grasp,
Falling only in death, yielding only to fate

With a final convulsion, a single deep gasp,

That at least he survive not his fallen estate,

So the pine-tree, perceiving the end of his reign,
Yet unsplintered, uncleft in that desperate strife,
Vouchsafed not to witness the victor's disdain,

But with dignity straightway relinquished his life.

He is fallen! he lies there immobile, august;

Full of years, full of scars, on the greensward he lies.
Till last evening how proudly his summit he thrust,
To the wonder of all men, far into the skies.

And behold, as a conqueror closes the fray

With one mortal stroke more to his down-trodden foe,
Then ignoring the conquest, all honors would pay,

Shedding tears for the hero his hand hath brought low,

Thus the whirlwind, forgetting his fury, grew dumb,
Now that prone on the turf his antagonist lay;
And revering the victim his stroke had o'ercome,
To profound lamentation and weeping gave way.

Translation of Lucy C. Bull.

O

THE SEWING-PARTY AT ALTINOVO

From Under the Yoke'

GNIANOFF now turned back towards Altinovo, a village which lay in the western corner of the valley. It was a twohours' journey; but his horse was exhausted and the road was bad, so that he only just reached the village before dark, pursued right up to the outskirts by the famished howls of the wolves.

He entered by the Bulgarian quarter (the village was a mixed one, containing both Turks and Bulgarians), and soon stopped before old Tsanko's door.

Tsanko was a native of Klissoura, but had long ago taken up his abode in the village. He was a simple, kindly peasant, and a warm patriot. The apostles often slept at his house. He received Ognianoff with open arms.

"It is a piece of luck, your coming to me. We've got a sewing-party on to-night-you can have a good look at our girls.

[ocr errors]

You won't find the time heavy on your hands, I'll be bound,” said Tsanko with a smile, as he showed the way in.

Ognianoff hastened to tell him that he was being pursued, and for what reason.

"Yes, yes, I know all about it," said Tsanko: "you don't suppose just because our village is a bit out of the way, that we know nothing of what goes on outside?"

"But shan't I be putting you out?"

"Don't you mind, I tell you. You must look out among the girls to-night for one to carry the flag," laughed Tsanko; "there you can see them all from this window, like a king."

Ognianoff was in a small dark closet, the window of which, covered with wooden trellis-work, looked on to the large common room: here the sewing-party was already assembling. It was a meeting of the principal girls of the village; the object being to assist in making the trousseau for Tsanko's daughter Donka. The fire burned brightly and lighted up the walls, which boasted no ornament save a print of St. Ivan of Rilo, and the bright glazed dishes on the shelves. The furniture-as in most wellto-do villagers' houses- consisted of a water-butt, a wardrobe, a shelf, and the great cupboard which contained all Tsanko's household goods. All the guests, both male and female, were seated on the floor, which was covered with skins and carpets. Besides the light of the fire there were also two petroleum lamps burning a special luxury in honor of the occasion.

It was long since Ognianoff had been present at a gathering of this kind,-a curious custom sanctioned by antiquity. From his dark recess he watched with interest the simple scenes of the still primitive village life. The door opened, and Tsanko's wife came to him: she was a buxom and talkative dame, also from Klissoura. She sat down by Ognianoff's side, and began to point out to him the most remarkable girls present, with the necessary details.

"Do you see that fat rosy-cheeked girl there? That's Staïka Chonina. See what a sad, sad look Ivan Kill-the-Bear gives her now and again. He barks for her like a sheep-dog when he wants to make her laugh. She's very industrious, quick-witted, and cleanly. Only she ought to marry at once, poor girl,- she's getting so fat: she'll be thinner after marriage. It's just the opposite of your town girls. The girl to the left of her is Tsvéta Prodanova: she is in love with the lad over there with his

« VorigeDoorgaan »