I.
In June, 1878, I went to Paris, during the great Exhibition. I had
been invited by Monsieur Edmond About to attend as a delegate the
Congres Internationale Litteraire, which was about to be held in the
great city. How we assembled, how M. About distinguished himself as one
of the most practical and common-sensible of men of genius, and how we
were all finally harangued by M. Victor Hugo with the most
extraordinary display of oratorical sky-rockets, Catherine-wheels,
blue-lights, fire-crackers, and pin-wheels by which it was ever my luck
to be amused, is matter of history. But this chapter is only
autobiographical, and we will pass over the history. As an
Anglo-American delegate, I was introduced to several great men gratis;
to the greatest of all I introduced myself at the expense of half a
franc. This was to the Chinese giant, Chang, who was on exhibition at a
small cafe garden near the Trocadero. There were no other visitors in
his pavilion when I entered. He received me with politeness, and we
began to converse in fourth-story English, but gradually went
down-stairs into Pidgin, until we found ourselves fairly in the kitchen
of that humble but entertaining dialect. It is a remarkable sensation
to sit alone with a mild monster, and feel like a little boy. I do not
distinctly remember whether Chang is eight, or ten or twelve feet high;
I only know that, though I am, as he said, “one velly big piecee man,”
I sat and lifted my eyes from time to time at the usual level,
forgetfully expecting to meet his eyes, and beheld instead the buttons
on his breast. Then I looked up—like Daruma to Buddha—and up, and saw
far above me his “lights of the soul” gleaming down on me as it were
from the top of a lofty beacon.
I soon found that Chang, regarding all things from a giant's point
of view, esteemed mankind by their size and looks. Therefore, as he had
complimented me according to his lights, I replied that he was a “numpa
one too muchee glanti handsome man, first chop big.”
Then he added, “You belongy Inklis man?”
“No. My one piecee fa-ke-kwok; {69} my Melican, galaw. You
dlinkee ale some-tim?”
The giant replied that pay-wine, which is Pidgin for beer,
was not ungrateful to his palate or foreign to his habits. So we had a
quart of Alsopp between us, and drank to better acquaintance. I found
that the giant had exhibited himself in many lands, and taken great
pains to learn the language of each, so that he spoke German, Italian,
and Spanish well enough. He had been at a mission-school when he used
to “stop China-side,” or was in his native land. I assured him that I
had perceived it from the first, because he evidently “talked ink,” as
his countrymen say of words which are uttered by a scholar, and I
greatly gratified him by citing some of my own “beautiful verses,”
which are reversed from a Chinese original:—
“One man who never leadee {69a}
Like one dly {69b} inkstan be:
You turn he up-side downy,
No ink lun {69c} outside he.”
So we parted with mutual esteem. This was the second man by the name
of Chang whom I had known, and singularly enough they were both
exhibited as curiosities. The other made a living as a Siamese twin,
and his brother was named Eng. They wrote their autographs for me, and
put them wisely at the very top of the page, lest I should write a
promise to pay an immense sum of money, or forge a free pass to come
into the exhibition gratis over their signatures.
Having seen Chang, I returned to the Hotel de Louvre, dined, and
then went forth with friends to the Orangerie. This immense garden,
devoted to concerts, beer, and cigars, is said to be capable of
containing three thousand people; before I left it it held about five
thousand. I knew not why this unwonted crowd had assembled; when I
found the cause I was astonished, with reason. At the gate was a bill,
on which I read “Les Bohemiennes de Moscow.”
“Some small musical comedy, I suppose,” I said to myself. “But let
us see it.” We pressed on.
“Look there!” said my companion. “Those are certainly gypsies.”
Sure enough, a procession of men and women, strangely dressed in
gayly colored Oriental garments, was entering the gates. But I replied,
“Impossible. Not here in Paris. Probably they are performers.”
“But see. They notice you. That girl certainly knows you. She's
turning her head. There,—I heard her say O Romany rye!”
I was bewildered. The crowd was dense, but as the procession passed
me at a second turn I saw they were indeed gypsies, and I was grasped
by the hand by more than one. They were my old friends from Moscow.
This explained the immense multitude. There was during the Exhibition a
great furor as regarded les zigains. The gypsy orchestra
which performed in the Hungarian cafe was so beset by visitors that a
comic paper represented them as covering the roofs of the adjacent
houses so as to hear something. This evening the Russian gypsies were
to make their debut in the Orangerie, and they were frightened at their
own success. They sang, but their voices were inaudible to two thirds
of the audience, and those who could not hear roared, “Louder!” Then
they adjourned to the open air, where the voices were lost altogether
on a crowd calling, “Garcon—vite—une tasse cafe!” or applauding. In the intervals scores of young Russian gentlemen,
golden swells, who had known the girls of old, gathered round the fair
ones like moths around tapers. The singing was not the same as it had
been; the voices were the same, but the sweet wild charm of the Romany
caroling, bird-like, for pleasure was gone.
But I found by themselves and unnoticed two of the troupe, whom I
shall not soon forget. They were two very handsome youths,—one of
sixteen years, the other twenty. And with the first words in Romany
they fairly jumped for joy; and the artist who could have caught their
picture then would have made a brave one. They were clad in blouses of
colored silk, which, with their fine dark complexions and great black
eyes, gave them a very picturesque air. These had not seen me in
Russia, nor had they heard of me; they were probably from Novogorod.
Like the girls they were children, but in a greater degree, for they
had not been flattered, and kind words delighted them so that they
clapped their hands. They began to hum gypsy songs, and had I not
prevented it they would have run at once and brought a guitar, and
improvised a small concert for me al fresco. I objected to this,
not wishing to take part any longer in such a very public exhibition.
For the gobe-mouches and starers, noticing a stranger talking
with ces zigains, had begun to gather in a dense crowd around
us, and the two ladies and the gentleman who were with us were
seriously inconvenienced. We endeavored to step aside, but the
multitude stepped aside also, and would not let us alone. They were
French, but they might have been polite. As it was, they broke our
merry conference up effectively, and put us to flight.
“Do let us come and see you, rya,” said the younger boy. “We
will sing, for I can really sing beautifully, and we like you so much.
Where do you live?”
I could not invite them, for I was about to leave Paris, as I then
supposed. I have never seen them since, and there was no adventure and
no strange scenery beyond the thousands of lights and guests and trees
and voices speaking French. Yet to this day the gay boyishness, the
merry laughter, and the child-like naivete of the
promptly-formed liking of those gypsy youths remains impressed on my
mind with all the color and warmth of an adventure or a living poem.
Can you recall no child by any wayside of life to whom you have given a
chance smile or a kind word, and been repaid with artless sudden
attraction? For to all of us,—yes, to the coldest and worst,—there
are such memories of young people, of children, and I pity him who,
remembering them, does not feel the touch of a vanished hand and hear a
chord which is still. There are adventures which we can tell to others
as stories, but the best have no story; they may be only the memory of
a strange dog which followed us, and I have one such of a cat who,
without any introduction, leaped wildly towards me, “and would not
thence away.” It is a good life which has many such memories.
I was walking a day or two after with an English friend, who was
also a delegate to the International Literary Congress, in the
Exhibition, when we approached the side gate, or rear entrance of the
Hungarian cafe. Six or seven dark and strange-looking men stood about,
dressed in the uniform of a military band. I caught their glances, and
saw that they were Romany.
“Now you shall see something queer,” I said to my friend.
So advancing to the first dark man I greeted him in gypsy.
“I do not understand you,” he promptly replied—or lied.
I turned to a second.
“You have more sense, and you do understand. Adro miro tem penena
mande o baro rai.” (In my country the gypsies call me the great
gentleman.)
This phrase may be translated to mean either the “tall gentleman” or
the “great lord.” It was apparently taken in the latter sense, for at
once all the party bowed very low, raising their hands to their
foreheads, in Oriental fashion.
“Hallo!” exclaimed my English friend, who had not understood what I
had said. “What game is this you are playing on these fellows?”
Up to the front came a superior, the leader of the band.
“Great God!” he exclaimed, “what is this I hear? This is wonderful.
To think that there should be anybody here to talk with! I can only
talk Magyar and Romanes.”
“And what do you talk?” I inquired of the first violin.
“Ich spreche nur Deutsch!” he exclaimed, with a strong Vienna
accent and a roar of laughter. “I only talk German.”
This worthy man, I found, was as much delighted with my German as
the leader with my gypsy; and in all my experience I never met two
beings so charmed at being able to converse. That I should have met
with them was of itself wonderful. Only there was this difference: that
the Viennese burst into a laugh every time he spoke, while the gypsy
grew more sternly solemn and awfully impressive. There are people to
whom mere talking is a pleasure,—never mind the ideas,—and here I had
struck two at once. I once knew a gentleman named Stewart. He was the
mayor, first physician, and postmaster of St. Paul, Minnesota. While
camping out, en route, and in a tent with him, it chanced that
among the other gentlemen who had tented with us there were two
terrible snorers. Now Mr. Stewart had heard that you may stop a man's
snoring by whistling. And here was a wonderful opportunity. “So I
waited,” he said, “until one man was coming down with his snore,
diminuendo, while the other was rising, crescendo, and at
the exact point of intersection, moderato, I blew my
car-whistle, and so got both birds at one shot. I stopped them both.”
Even as Mayor Stewart had winged his two birds with one ball had I hit
my two peregrines.
“We are now going to perform,” said the gypsy captain. “Will you not
take seats on the platform, and hear us play?”
I did not know it at the time, but I heard afterwards that this was
a great compliment, and one rarely bestowed. The platform was small,
and we were very near our new friends. Scarcely had the performance
begun ere I perceived that, just as the gypsies in Russia had sung
their best in my honor, these artists were exerting themselves to the
utmost, and, all unheeding the audience, playing directly at me and
into me. When any tour was deftly made the dark master nodded to
me with gleaming eyes, as if saying, “What do you think of that,
now?” The Viennese laughed for joy every time his glance met mine, and
as I looked at the various Lajoshes and Joshkas of the band, they blew,
beat, or scraped with redoubled fury, or sank into thrilling
tenderness. Hurrah! here was somebody to play to who knew gypsy and all
the games thereof; for a very little, even a word, reveals a great
deal, and I must be a virtuoso, at least by Romany, if not by art. It
was with all the joy of success that the first piece ended amid
thunders of applause.
“That was not the racoczy,” I said. “Yet it sounded like it.”
“No,” said the captain. “But now you shall hear the
racoczy and the czardas as you never heard them before. For
we can play that better than any orchestra in Vienna. Truly, you will
never forget us after hearing it.”
And then they played the racoczy, the national Hungarian
favorite, of gypsy composition, with heart and soul. As these men
played for me, inspired with their own music, feeling and enjoying it
far more than the audience, and all because they had got a gypsy
gentleman to play to, I appreciated what a life that was to
them, and what it should be; not cold-blooded skill, aiming only at
excellence or preexcellence and at setting up the artist, but a fire
and a joy, a self-forgetfulness which whirls the soul away as the soul
of the Moenad went with the stream adown the mountains,—Evoe
Bacchus! This feeling is deep in the heart of the Hungarian gypsy;
he plays it, he feels it in every air, he knows the rush of the stream
as it bounds onwards,—knows that it expresses his deepest desire; and
so he has given it words in a song which, to him who has the key, is
one of the most touching ever written:—
“Dyal o pani repedishis,
M'ro pirano hegedishis;
“Dyal o pani tale vatra,
M'ro pirano klanetaha.
“Dyal o pani pe kishai
M'ro pirano tsino rai.”
“The stream runs on with rushing din
As I hear my true love's violin;
“And the river rolls o'er rock and stone
As he plays the flute so sweet alone.
“Runs o'er the sand as it began,
Then my true love lives a gentleman.”
Yes, music whirling the soul away as on a rushing river, the violin
notes falling like ripples, the flute tones all aflow among the rocks;
and when it sweeps adagio on the sandy bed, then the gypsy
player is at heart equal to a lord, then he feels a gentleman. The only
true republic is art. There all earthly distinctions pass away; there
he is best who lives and feels best, and makes others feel, not that he
is cleverer than they, but that he can awaken sympathy and joy.
The intense reality of musical art as a comforter to these gypsies
of Eastern Europe is wonderful. Among certain inedited songs of the
Transylvanian gypsies, in the Kolosvarer dialect, I find the
following:—
“Na janav ko dad m'ro as,
Niko mallen mange as,
Miro gule dai merdyas
Pirani me pregelyas.
Uva tu o hegedive
Tu sal mindik pash mange.”
“I've known no father since my birth,
I have no friend alive on earth;
My mother's dead this many day,
The girl I loved has gone her way;
Thou violin with music free
Alone art ever true to me.”
It is very wonderful that the charm of the Russian gypsy girls'
singing was destroyed by the atmosphere or applause of a Paris
concert-room, while the Hungarian Romanys conquered it as it were by
sheer force, and by conquering gave their music the charm of intensity.
I do not deny that in this music, be it of voice or instruments, there
is much which is perhaps imagined, which depends on association, which
is plain to John but not to Jack; but you have only to advance or
retreat a few steps to find the same in the highest art. This, at
least, we know: that no performer at any concert in London can awake
the feeling of intense enjoyment which these wild minstrels excite in
themselves and in others by sympathy. Now it is a question in many
forms as to whether art for enjoyment is to die, and art for the sake
of art alone survive. Is joyous and healthy nature to vanish step by
step from the heart of man, and morbid, egoistic pessimism to take its
place? Are over-culture, excessive sentiment, constant self-criticism,
and all the brood of nervous curses to monopolize and inspire art? A
fine alliance this they are making, the ascetic monk and the atheistic
pessimist, to kill Nature! They will never effect it. It may die in
many forms. It may lose its charm, as the singing of Sarsha and of
Liubasha was lost among the rustling and noise of thousands of Parisian
badauds in the Orangerie. But there will be stronger forms of art,
which will make themselves heard, as the Hungarian Romanys heeded no
din, and bore all away with their music.
“Latcho divvus miri pralia!—miduvel atch pa tumende!”
(Good-day, my brothers. God rest on you) I said, and they rose and
bowed, and I went forth into the Exhibition. It was a brave show, that
of all the fine things from all parts of the world which man can make,
but to me the most interesting of all were the men themselves. Will not
the managers of the next world show give us a living ethnological
department?
Of these Hungarian gypsies who played in Paris during the Exhibition
much was said in the newspapers, and from the following, which appeared
in an American journal, written by some one to me unknown, the reader
may learn that there were many others to whom their music was deeply
thrilling or wildly exciting:—
“The Hungarian Tziganes (Zigeuner) are the rage just now at
Paris.
The story is that Liszt picked out the individuals composing
the band
one by one from among the gypsy performers in Hungary and
Bohemia.
Half-civilized in appearance, dressed in an unbecoming
half-military
costume, they are nothing while playing Strauss' waltzes or
their
own; but when they play the Radetsky Defile, the Racoksky
March, or
their marvelous czardas, one sees and hears the battle, and it
is
easy to understand the influence of their music in fomenting
Hungarian revolutions; why for so long it was made treasonable
to
play or listen to these czardas; and why, as they heard them,
men
rose to their feet, gathered together, and with tears rolling
down
their faces, and throats swelling with emotion, departed to do
or
die.”
And when I remember that they played for me as they said they had
played for no other man in Paris, “into the ear,”—and when I think of
the gleam in their eyes, I verily believe they told the
truth,—I feel glad that I chanced that morning on those dark men and
spoke to them in Romany.
* * * * *
Since the above was written I have met in an entertaining work
called “Unknown Hungary,” by Victor Tissot, with certain remarks on the
Hungarian gypsy musicians which are so appropriate that I cite them in
full:—
“The gypsy artists in Hungary play by inspiration, with
inimitable
verve and spirit, without even knowing their notes, and
nothing
whatever of the rhymes and rules of the masters. Liszt, who has
closely studied them, says, The art of music being for them a
sublime
language, a song, mystic in itself, though dear to the
initiated,
they use it according to the wants of the moment which they
wish to
express. They have invented their music for their own use, to
sing
about themselves to themselves, to express themselves in the
most
heartfelt and touching monologues.
“Their music is as free as their lives; no intermediate
modulation,
no chords, no transition, it goes from one key to another. From
ethereal heights they precipitate you into the howling depths
of
hell; from the plaint, barely heard, they pass brusquely to the
warrior's song, which bursts loudly forth, passionate and
tender, at
once burning and calm. Their melodies plunge you into a
melancholy
reverie, or carry you away into a stormy whirlwind; they are a
faithful expression of the Hungarian character, sometimes
quick,
brilliant, and lively, sometimes sad and apathetic.
“The gypsies, when they arrived in Hungary, had no music of
their
own; they appropriated the Magyar music, and made from it an
original
art which now belongs to them.”
I here break in upon Messieurs Tissot and Liszt to remark that,
while it is very probable that the Roms reformed Hungarian music, it is
rather boldly assumed that they had no music of their own. It was,
among other callings, as dancers and musicians that they left India and
entered Europe, and among them were doubtless many descendants of the
ten thousand Indo-Persian Luris or Nuris. But to resume quotation:—
“They made from it an art full of life, passion, laughter, and
tears.
The instrument which the gypsies prefer is the violin, which
they
call bas' alja, 'the king of instruments.' They also
play the
viola, the cymbal, and the clarionet.
“There was a pause. The gypsies, who had perceived at a table a
comfortable-looking man, evidently wealthy, and on a pleasure
excursion in the town, came down from their platform, and
ranged
themselves round him to give him a serenade all to himself, as
is
their custom. They call this 'playing into the ear.'
“They first asked the gentleman his favorite air, and then
played it
with such spirit and enthusiasm and overflowing richness of
variation
and ornament, and with so much emotion, that it drew forth the
applause of the whole company. After this they executed a
czardas,
one of the wildest, most feverish, harshest, and, one may say,
tormenting, as if to pour intoxication into the soul of their
listener. They watched his countenance to note the impression
produced by the passionate rhythm of their instruments; then,
breaking off suddenly, they played a hushed, soft, caressing
measure;
and again, almost breaking the trembling cords of their bows,
they
produced such an intensity of effect that the listener was
almost
beside himself with delight and astonishment. He sat as if
bewitched; he shut his eyes, hung his head in melancholy, or
raised
it with a start, as the music varied; then jumped up and struck
the
back of his head with his hands. He positively laughed and
cried at
once; then, drawing a roll of bank-notes from his pocket-book,
he
threw it to the gypsies, and fell back in his chair, as if
exhausted
with so much enjoyment. And in this lies the triumph of
the gypsy
music; it is like that of Orpheus, which moved the rocks and
trees.
The soul of the Hungarian plunges, with a refinement of
sensation
that we can understand, but cannot follow, into this music,
which,
like the unrestrained indulgence of the imagination in fantasy
and
caprice, gives to the initiated all the intoxicating sensations
experienced by opium smokers.”
The Austrian gypsies have many songs which perfectly reflect their
character. Most of them are only single verses of a few lines, such as
are sung everywhere in Spain; others, which are longer, seem to have
grown from the connection of these verses. The following translation
from the Roumanian Romany (Vassile Alexandri) gives an idea of their
style and spirit:—
GYPSY SONG.
The wind whistles over the heath,
The moonlight flits over the flood;
And the gypsy lights up his fire,
In the darkness of the wood.
Hurrah!
In the darkness of the wood.
Free is the bird in the air,
And the fish where the river flows;
Free is the deer in the forest,
And the gypsy wherever he goes.
Hurrah!
And the gypsy wherever he goes.
A GORGIO GENTLEMAN SPEAKS.
Girl, wilt thou live in my home?
I will give thee a sable gown,
And golden coins for a necklace,
If thou wilt be my own.
GYPSY GIRL.
No wild horse will leave the prairie
For a harness with silver stars;
Nor an eagle the crags of the mountain,
For a cage with golden bars;
Nor the gypsy girl the forest,
Or the meadow, though gray and cold,
For garments made of sable,
Or necklaces of gold.
THE GORGIO.
Girl, wilt thou live in my dwelling,
For pearls and diamonds true? {82}
I will give thee a bed of scarlet,
And a royal palace, too.
GYPSY GIRL.
My white teeth are my pearlins,
My diamonds my own black eyes;
My bed is the soft green meadow,
My palace the world as it lies.
Free is the bird in the air,
And the fish where the river flows;
Free is the deer in the forest,
And the gypsy wherever he goes.
Hurrah!
And the gypsy wherever he goes.
There is a deep, strange element in the gypsy character, which finds
no sympathy or knowledge in the German, and very little in other
Europeans, but which is so much in accord with the Slavonian and
Hungarian that he who truly feels it with love is often disposed to
mingle them together. It is a dreamy mysticism; an indefinite
semi-supernaturalism, often passing into gloom; a feeling as of
Buddhism which has glided into Northern snows, and taken a new and
darker life in winter-lands. It is strong in the Czech or Bohemian,
whose nature is the worst understood in the civilized world. That he
should hate the German with all his heart and soul is in the order of
things. We talk about the mystical Germans, but German self-conscious
mysticism is like a problem of Euclid beside the natural, unexpressed
dreaminess of the Czech. The German mystic goes to work at once to
expound his “system” in categories, dressing it up in a technology
which in the end proves to be the only mystery in it. The Bohemian and
gypsy, each in their degrees of culture, form no system and make no
technology, but they feel all the more. Now the difference between true
and imitative mysticism is that the former takes no form; it is even
narrowed by religious creeds, and wing-clipt by pious “illumination.”
Nature, and nature alone, is its real life. It was from the Southern
Slavonian lands that all real mysticism, and all that higher
illumination which means freedom, came into Germany and Europe; and
after all, Germany's first and best mystic, Jacob Bohme, was Bohemian
by name, as he was by nature. When the world shall have discovered who
the as yet unknown Slavonian German was who wrote all the best part of
“Consuelo,” and who helped himself in so doing from “Der letzte
Taborit,” by Herlossohn, we shall find one of the few men who
understood the Bohemian.
Once in a while, as in Fanny Janauschek, the Czech bursts out into
art, and achieves a great triumph. I have seen Rachel and Ristori many
a time, but their best acting was shallow compared to Janauschek's, as
I have seen it in by-gone years, when she played Iphigenia and Medea in
German. No one save a Bohemian could ever so intuit the gloomy
profundity and unearthly fire of the Colchian sorceress. These are the
things required to perfect every artist,—above all, the tragic
artist,—that the tree of his or her genius shall not only soar to
heaven among the angels, but also have roots in the depths of darkness
and fire; and that he or she shall play not only to the audience, and
in sympathy with them, but also unto one's self and down to one's
deepest dreams.
No one will accuse me of wide discussion or padding who understands
my drift in this chapter. I am speaking of the gypsy, and I cannot
explain him more clearly than by showing his affinities with the
Slavonian and Magyar, and how, through music and probably in many other
ways, he has influenced them. As the Spaniard perfectly understands the
objective vagabond side of the Gitano, so the Southeastern European
understands the musical and wild-forest yearnings of the Tsigane. Both
to gypsy and Slavonian there is that which makes them dream so that
even debauchery has for them at times an unearthly inspiration; and as
smoking was inexpressibly sacred to the red Indians of old, so that
when the Guatemalan Christ harried hell, the demons offered him cigars;
in like manner tipsiness is often to the gypsy and Servian, or Czech,
or Croat, something so serious and impressive that it is a thing not to
be lightly thought of, but to be undertaken with intense deliberation
and under due appreciation of its benefits.
Many years ago, when I had begun to feel this strange element I gave
it expression in a poem which I called “The Bohemian,” as expressive of
both gypsy and Slavonian nature:—
THE BOHEMIAN.
Chces li tajnou vec aneb pravdu vyzvedeti
Blazen, dite opily clovek o tom umeji povodeti.
Wouldst thou know a truth or mystery,
A drunkard, fool, or child may tell it thee
BOHEMIAN PROVERB.
And now I'll wrap my blanket o'er me,
And on the tavern floor I'll lie,
A double spirit-flask before me,
And watch my pipe clouds, melting, die.
They melt and die, but ever darken
As night comes on and hides the day,
Till all is black; then, brothers, hearken,
And if ye can write down my lay.
In yon long loaf my knife is gleaming,
Like one black sail above the boat;
As once at Pesth I saw it beaming,
Half through a dark Croatian throat.
Now faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder, turns my brain;
And still I'll drink, till, past all feeling,
My soul leaps forth to light again.
Whence come these white girls wreathing round me?
Barushka!—long I thought thee dead;
Katchenka!—when these arms last bound thee
Thou laid'st by Rajrad, cold as lead.
And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder, turns my brain;
And from afar a star comes stealing
Straight at me o'er the death-black plain.
Alas! I sink. My spirits miss me.
I swim, I shoot from shore to shore!
Klara! thou golden sister—kiss me!
I rise—I'm safe—I'm strong once more.
And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder, whirls my brain;
The star!—it strikes my soul, revealing
All life and light to me again.
* * * * *
Against the waves fresh waves are dashing,
Above the breeze fresh breezes blow;
Through seas of light new light is flashing,
And with them all I float and flow.
Yet round me rings of fire are gleaning,—
Pale rings of fire, wild eyes of death!
Why haunt me thus, awake or dreaming?
Methought I left ye with my breath!
Ay, glare and stare, with life increasing,
And leech-like eyebrows, arching in;
Be, if ye must, my fate unceasing,
But never hope a fear to win.
He who knows all may haunt the haunter,
He who fears naught hath conquered fate;
Who bears in silence quells the daunter,
And makes his spoiler desolate.
O wondrous eyes, of star-like lustre,
How have ye changed to guardian love!
Alas! where stars in myriads cluster,
Ye vanish in the heaven above.
* * * * *
I hear two bells so softly ringing;
How sweet their silver voices roll!
The one on distant hills is ringing,
The other peals within my soul.
I hear two maidens gently talking,
Bohemian maids, and fair to see:
The one on distant hills is walking,
The other maiden,—where is she?
Where is she? When the moonlight glistens
O'er silent lake or murmuring stream,
I hear her call my soul, which listens,
“Oh, wake no more! Come, love, and dream!”
She came to earth, earth's loveliest creature;
She died, and then was born once more;
Changed was her race, and changed each feature,
But yet I loved her as before.
We live, but still, when night has bound me
In golden dreams too sweet to last,
A wondrous light-blue world around me,
She comes,—the loved one of the past.
I know not which I love the dearest,
For both the loves are still the same:
The living to my life is nearest,
The dead one feeds the living flame.
And when the sun, its rose-wine quaffing,
Which flows across the Eastern deep,
Awakes us, Klara chides me, laughing,
And says we love too well in sleep.
And though no more a Voivode's daughter,
As when she lived on earth before,
The love is still the same which sought her,
And I am true, and ask no more.
* * * * *
Bright moonbeams on the sea are playing,
And starlight shines upon the hill,
And I should wake, but still delaying
In our old life I linger still.
For as the wind clouds flit above me,
And as the stars above them shine,
My higher life's in those who love me,
And higher still, our life's divine.
And thus I raise my soul by drinking,
As on the tavern floor I lie;
It heeds not whence begins our thinking
If to the end its flight is high.
E'en outcasts may have heart and feeling,
The blackest wild Tsigan be true,
And love, like light in dungeons stealing,
Though bars be there, will still burst through.
It is the reecho of more than one song of those strange lands, of
more than one voice, and of many a melody; and those who have heard
them, though not more distinctly than Francois Villon when he spoke of
flinging the question back by silent lake and streamlet lone, will
understand me, and say it is true to nature.
In a late work on Magyarland, by a lady Fellow of the Carpathian
Society, I find more on Hungarian gypsy music, which is so well written
that I quote fully from it, being of the opinion that one ought, when
setting forth any subject, to give quite as good an opportunity to
others who are in our business as to ourselves. And truly this lady has
felt the charm of the Tsigan music and describes it so well that one
wishes she were a Romany in language and by adoption, like unto a dozen
dames and damsels whom I know.
“The Magyars have a perfect passion for this gypsy music, and
there
is nothing that appeals so powerfully to their emotions,
whether of
joy or sorrow. These singular musicians are, as a rule, well
taught,
and can play almost any music, greatly preferring, however,
their own
compositions. Their music, consequently, is highly
characteristic.
It is the language of their lives and strange surroundings, a
wild,
weird banshee music: now all joy and sparkle, like sunshine on
the
plains; now sullen, sad, and pathetic by turns, like the wail
of a
crushed and oppressed people,—an echo, it is said, of the
minstrelsy
of the hegedosok or Hungarian bards, but sounding to our
ears like
the more distant echo of that exceeding bitter cry, uttered
long
centuries ago by their forefathers under Egyptian bondage, and
borne
over the time-waves of thousands of years, breaking forth in
their
music of to-day.”
Here I interrupt the lady—with all due courtesy—to remark that I
cannot agree with her, nor with her probable authority, Walter Simson,
in believing that the gypsies are the descendants of the mixed races
who followed Moses out of Egypt. The Rom in Egypt is a Hindoo stranger
now, as he ever was. But that the echo of centuries of outlawry and
wretchedness and wildness rises and falls, like the ineffable discord
in a wind-harp, in Romany airs is true enough, whatever its origin may
have been. But I beg pardon, madam,—I interrupted you.
“The soul-stirring, madly exciting, and martial strains of the
Racoczys—one of the Revolutionary airs—has just died upon the
ear.
A brief interval of rest has passed. Now listen with bated
breath to
that recitative in the minor key,—that passionate wail, that
touching story, the gypsies' own music, which rises and falls
on the
air. Knives and forks are set down, hands and arms hang
listless,
all the seeming necessities of the moment being either
suspended or
forgotten,—merged in the memories which those vibrations, so
akin to
human language, reawaken in each heart. Eyes involuntarily fill
with
tears, as those pathetic strains echo back and make present
some
sorrow of long ago, or rouse from slumber that of recent time.
. . .
“And now, the recitative being ended, and the last chord struck,
the
melody begins, of which the former was the prelude. Watch the
movements of the supple figure of the first violin, standing in
the
centre of the other musicians, who accompany him softly. How
every
nerve is en rapport with his instrument, and how his
very soul is
speaking through it! See how gently he draws the bow across the
trembling strings, and how lovingly he lays his cheek upon it,
as if
listening to some responsive echo of his heart's inmost
feeling, for
it is his mystic language! How the instrument lives and answers
to
his every touch, sending forth in turn utterances tender, sad,
wild,
and joyous! The audience once more hold their breath to catch
the
dying tones, as the melody, so rich, so beautiful, so full of
pathos,
is drawing to a close. The tension is absolutely painful as the
gypsy dwells on the last lingering note, and it is a relief
when,
with a loud and general burst of sound, every performer starts
into
life and motion. Then what crude and wild dissonances
are made to
resolve themselves into delicious harmony! What rapturous and
fervid
phrases, and what energy and impetuosity, are there in every
motion
of the gypsies' figures, as their dark eyes glisten and emit
flashes
in unison with the tones!”
The writer is gifted in giving words to gypsy music. One cannot say,
as the inexhaustible Cad writes of Niagara ten times on a page in the
Visitors' Book, that it is indescribable. I think that if language
means anything this music has been very well described by the writers
whom I have cited. When I am told that the gypsies' impetuous and
passionate natures make them enter into musical action with heart and
soul, I feel not only the strains played long ago, but also hear
therein the horns of Elfland blowing,—which he who has not heard, of
summer days, in the drone of the bee, by reedy rustling stream, will
never know on earth in any wise. But once heard it comes ever, as I,
though in the city, heard it last night in the winter wind, with Romany
words mingled in wild refrain:—
“Kamava tute, miri chelladi!”