Some of the Saxon customs are peculiarly interesting, as being obviously remnants of paganism, and offer curious proof of the force of verbal tradition, which in this case has not only borne transmigration from a distant country, but likewise weathered the storm of two successive changes of religion.
It speaks strongly for the tenacity of pagan habits and trains of thought, that although at the time these Saxon colonists appeared in Transylvania they had already belonged to the Christian Church for over three hundred years, yet many points of the landscape in their new country received from them pagan appellations. Thus we find the Götzenberg, or mountain of the gods,[61] which rises above the village of Heltau; and the Wodesch and Wolenk applied to woods and plains, both evidently derived from Woden.
Another remnant of paganism is the feurix or feuriswolf, which yet lingers in the minds of these people. According to ancient German mythology, the feuriswolf is a monster which on the last day is to open his mouth so wide that the upper jaw will touch the sky and the lower one the earth; and not long ago a Saxon woman bitterly complained in a court of justice that her husband had cursed her over-strongly in saying, “Der Wärlthangd saul dich frieszen!”—literally, “May the world-dog swallow thee!”
Many old pagan ceremonies are likewise still clearly to be distinguished through the flimsy shrouding of a later period—their origin piercing unmistakably through the surface-varnish of Christianity, thought necessary to adapt them to newer circumstances, and, like a clumsily remodelled garment, the original cut asserting itself despite the fashionable trimmings now adorning it. Thus, for instance, in many popular rhymes and dialogues it has been clearly proved that those parts now assigned to the Saviour and St. Peter originally belonged to the old gods Thor and Loki, while the faithless apostle Judas has had thrust upon him the personification of a whole horde of German demons. As to St. Elias, who in some parts of Hungary, as well as in Roumania, Serbia, and Croatia, is supposed to have the working of the thunder-bolts, there can be little doubt that he is verily no other than the old thunder-god Thor under a Christian mask.
One of the most striking of the aforementioned Christianized dramas is the Tod-Austragen, or throwing out the Death—a custom still extant in several Transylvanian villages, and which may likewise still be found existing in some remote parts of Germany.
The Feast of the Ascension is the day on which this ceremony takes place in a village near Hermanstadt, and it is conducted in the following manner:
After forenoon church on that day all the school-girls repair to the house of one of their companions, and there proceed to dress up the “Death.” This is done by tying up a thrashed-out corn-sheaf into the rough semblance of a head and body, while the arms are simulated by a broomstick stuck horizontally. This being done, the figure is dressed in the Sunday clothes of a young village matron, and the head adorned with the customary cap and veil, fastened by silver pins. Two large black beads or black-headed pins represent the eyes; and thus equipped the figure is displayed at the open window, in order that all people may see it on their way to afternoon church. The conclusion of the vespers is the signal for the girls to seize on the figure and open the procession round the village. Two of the eldest school-girls hold the “Death” between them; the others follow in regular order, two and two, singing a Church hymn. The boys are excluded from the procession, and must content themselves with admiring the Schöner Tod (beautiful Death) from a distance. When the whole village has been traversed in this manner from end to end, the girls repair to another house, whose door is locked against the besieging troop of boys. The figure of Death is here stripped of its gaudy attire, and the naked straw bundle thrown out of the window, whereupon it is seized by the boys and carried off in triumph, to be thrown into the nearest stream or river.
This is the first part of the drama; while the second consists in one of the girls being solemnly invested with the clothes and ornaments previously worn by the figure, and, like it, being led in procession round the village to the singing of the same hymns as before. The ceremony terminates by a feast at the house of the parents whose daughter has acted the principal part, and from which, as before, the boys are excluded.
According to popular belief, it is allowed to eat fruit only after this day, as now the “Death”—that is, the unwholesomeness—has been expelled from them. Also, the river in which the Death has been drowned may now be considered fit for public bathing.
If this ceremony be ever neglected in the village where it is customary, such neglect is supposed to entail death to one of the young people, or loss of virtue to a girl.
This same custom may, as I have said, be found still lingering in various other parts, everywhere with slight variations. Thus there are places where the figure is burned instead of drowned; and Passion Sunday (often called the Dead Sunday), or else the 25th of March, is the day sometimes fixed for its accomplishment.
In some places it was usual for the figure to be attired in the shirt of the last person who had died, and with the veil of the most recent bride on its head. Also, the figure is occasionally pelted with stones by the youths of both sexes—those who succeed in hitting it being secured against death for the coming year.
At Nuremberg little girls dressed in white used to go in procession through the town, carrying a small open coffin in which a doll was laid out in state, or sometimes only a stick dressed up, and with an apple to represent the head.
In most of these places the rhymes sung apply to the departure of winter and the advent of summer, such as the following:
Or else:
And there is no doubt that similar rhymes used also to be sung in Transylvania, until they were replaced by Lutheran hymns after the Reformation.
Some German archæologists have attempted to prove the Death in these games to be of more recent introduction, and to have replaced the winter of former times, so as to give the ceremony a more Christian coloring by the allusion to the triumph of Christ over death on his resurrection and ascension into heaven. Without presuming to contradict the many well-known authorities who have taken this view of the question, I cannot help thinking that it hardly requires such explanation to account for the presence of Death in these dramas. Nowadays, when civilization and luxury have done so much towards equalizing all seasons, so that we can never be deprived of flowers in winter nor want for ice in summer, it is difficult to realize the enormous gulf which in olden times separated winter from summer. In winter not only were all means of communication cut off for a large proportion of people, but their very existence was, so to say, frozen up; and when the granaries were scantily filled, or the inclement season prolonged by some weeks, death was literally standing at the door of millions of poor wretches. No wonder, then, that winter and death became identical in their minds, and that they hailed the advent of spring with delirious joy, dancing round the first violet, and following about the first cockchafer in solemn procession. It was the feast of Nature which they celebrated then as now—Nature mighty and eternal, always essentially the same, whether decked out in pagan or in Christian garb.
Another drama of somewhat more precise form is the Königslied, or Todtentanz (King’s Song, or Dance of Death), a rhymed dialogue still often represented in Saxon villages all over Transylvania.
Dramatic representations of the Dance of Death were first introduced into Germany before the fifteenth century by the Dominican order, but do not seem there to have taken any very firm root, since we hear no more mention of such performance existing after the middle of the fifteenth century. It is therefore probable that this drama was transmitted, as long as five hundred years ago at least, to the Transylvanian Saxons, who thus have retained it intact long after it had elsewhere fallen into disuse.
The personages consist of an Angel, robed in white, and with a golden wand; the King, attired in purple or scarlet cloak, crown, and sceptre, and followed by a train of courtiers; then Death, who is sometimes clothed in black, sometimes in a white sheet, and who either bears a scythe or a bow and arrows in his hand. On either side of him, by way of adjutants, stand two mute personages, a doctor and an apothecary—the first with powdered head, hanging plait, tricorn hat, and snuffbox in his hand; the latter bearing a basket containing medicine phials. The whole is sung, and the Angel opens the performance with these lines:
[The King sinks down lifeless, and Death disappears. The soldiers raise up the dead body and lay it on a bier, singing—
[The Angel touches the King’s breast, who, waking apparently from a deep slumber, sits up and sings—
[The King, now standing up, takes the crown from his head, and accompanied by the chorus, sings—
Grimm is of opinion that this drama is also allegorical of the triumph of spring over winter, which opinion he chiefly supports by the incident of the King’s resurrection, and of the allusion to the garden. This view has, however, been strongly combated by other authorities, who remind us that in many old pictures Death is often represented as a gardener, and armed with bow and arrows.
“Herodes” is the name of a Christmas drama acted by the Transylvanian Saxons; but as, though undoubtedly ancient, it is totally wanting in humor and originality, I do not here reproduce it. Most probably such qualities as this drama may once have possessed have been pruned away by the over-vigorous knife of some ruthless reformer.
The Song of the Three Kings, beginning,
is sung by little boys, who at Christmas-time go about from house to house with tinsel crowns on their heads, one of them having his face blackened to represent the negro king, and who expect a few coins and some victuals as reward for their performance.
At Hermanstadt these three kings threatened to become somewhat of a nuisance in Christmas-week, there being several sets of them who were continually walking uninvited into our rooms. At last one day when we had already received the visit of several such royal parties, our footman opened the door and inquired in a tone of mild exasperation, “Please, madam, the holy three kings are there again; had I not better kick them down-stairs?”
Few things possess such powerful attraction as the thought of buried treasures which may be lying unsuspected around us. To think that the golden buttercups which dot a meadow are, perchance, but the reflections of other golden pieces lying beneath the surface; to suppose the crumbling gray walls of some ancient tower to be the dingy casket enshrouding priceless gems, there secreted by long-vanished hands—is surely enough to set imagination on fire, and engender the wild, delirious hope that to you alone, favored among ten thousand other mortals who have passed by the spot unknowing, may be destined the triumph of finding that golden key.
Vain and futile as such researches mostly are, yet they have in Transylvania a somewhat greater semblance of reason than in most other countries, for nowhere else, perhaps, have so many successive nations been forced to secrete their riches in flying from an enemy, to say nothing of the numerous, yet undiscovered, veins of gold and silver which must be seaming the country in all directions. Not a year passes without bringing to light some earthen jar containing old Dacian coins, or golden ornaments of Roman origin—which discoveries all serve to feed and keep up the national superstitions connected with treasures and treasure-finders.
The night of St. George, the 24th of April (corresponding to our 6th of May), is of all others the most favorable in the year for such researches, and many Roumanian peasants spend these hours in wandering about the hills, trying to probe the earth for the gold it contains; for in this night (so say the legends) all these treasures begin to burn, or, to speak in technical, mystic language, “to bloom,” in the bosom of the earth, and the light they give forth, described as a bluish flame, resembling the color of burning spirits of wine, serves to guide favored mortals to their place of concealment.
The conditions to the successful raising of a treasure are manifold and difficult of accomplishment. In the first place, it is by no means easy for a common mortal who has not been born on a Sunday, nor even at mid-day when the bells are ringing, to hit upon a treasure at all. If he does, however, chance to catch sight of a flame such as I have described, he must quickly pierce through the swaddling rags of his right foot with a knife, and then throw it in the direction of the flame seen. If two people are together during this discovery, they must on no account break silence till the treasure is raised; neither is it allowed to fill up the hole from which anything has been taken, for that would entail the death of one of the finders. Another important feature to be noted is that the lights seen before midnight on St. George’s Day denote treasures kept by good spirits, while those which appear at a later hour are unquestionably of a pernicious nature.
For the comfort of less favored mortals who do not happen to have been born either on a Sunday nor to the sound of bells, I must here mention that these deficiencies may to some extent be condoned for and the mental vision sharpened by the consumption of mouldy bread; so that whoever has, during the preceding year, been careful to feed upon decayed loaves only, may (if he survive this trying diet) become the fortunate discoverer of hidden treasures.
Sometimes the power of finding a particular treasure is supposed only to be possessed by members of some particular family. A curious instance of this was lately recorded in Roumania, relating to an old ruined convent, where, according to a popular legend, a large sum of gold is concealed. A deputation of peasants, at considerable trouble and expense, found out the last surviving member of the family supposed to possess the mystic power, and offered him unconditionally a very handsome sum merely for the benefit of his personal attendance on the spot. The gentleman in question being old, and probably sceptical, declined the offer, to the peasants’ great disappointment.
There is hardly a ruin, mountain, or forest in Transylvania which has not got some legend of a hidden treasure attached to it. These are often supposed to be guarded by some animal, as a serpent, turkey, dog, or pig; or sometimes the devil himself, in the shape of a black buffalo, haunts the place at night and carries off those who attempt to raise the treasure. Out of the many such tales there afloat I shall here quote only a few, which have been collected and written down from the words of old villagers in different places:
THE TREASURE OF DARIUS
is one of the principal treasures supposed to be somewhere concealed on Transylvanian ground. It is said to be of immense value, and is believed to have been secreted when the Persian king was compelled to fly before the Scythian forces; but opinions are divided as to the exact locality where it lies. One version, which places the treasure in a forest in the neighborhood of Hamlesch, relates of it that fifty years ago a poor German workman, sleeping in the forest one night, discovered the treasure, and being versed in the formalities to be observed on such occasions, laid upon it some article of clothing marked with his name in token of taking possession. Then, as he did not trust the country people, he went off to Germany to fetch his relations to assist him in raising the treasure. But, hardly arrived at his house, he fell ill and died; and though on his death-bed he exactly described the place where he had seen the gold, and gave directions for finding it, his relations were never able to hit upon the place.
Another story declares the treasure to have been hidden in the Sacsorer Burg, an old ruined fortress, where some centuries ago it was discovered by six Hungarian burghers, who swore to keep the secret among themselves; and once in each year they went and carried off a sack of gold and silver pieces, which they divided. Only after five of them had died did the last survivor in his testament leave directions how to reach the place. To approach the treasure (so runs the legend), one must pass through a strong iron door lying towards the west. This door can be opened from the outside, but whoever is not in possession of the secret is sure to fall down through a trap-door into a terrible abyss, where he will be cut to pieces by a thousand swords set in motion by machinery; therefore it is necessary to bridge over the trap-door with several stout planks before entering. After this a second iron door is reached, in front of which are lying two life-sized lions of massive silver. This second door leads into a large hall, where round a long table are sitting the figures of King Darius, and of twelve other kings whom he had vanquished in battle. King Darius himself, who sits at the head of the table, is formed of purest gold, while the other monarchs, six on either side, are of silver. This hall leads into a cellar, where are ranged twenty-four barrels bound with hoops of silver; half of these barrels contain gold, the other half silver pieces.
It is likewise asserted that towards the end of the last century a Wallachian hermit was known to reside in those same ruins, in whose possession were often seen gold and silver coins stamped with the image of King Darius, but that when questioned on the subject he would never reveal how he had come by them.
Finally, it is said that within the memory of people still living there came hither from Switzerland three men with an ancient parchment document, out of which they professed to have deciphered the directions for finding the treasure of Darius, but after spending several days in digging about the place they had to go empty-handed away.
After writing those lines I have unexpectedly come across a new version of the treasure of Darius, as I read in a current newspaper, dated November 24, 1886, that only a few weeks ago an old Roumanian peasant woman formally applied to the Government at Klausenburg for leave to dig for the treasure of Darius, which, as a sorcerer had revealed to her, lay buried at Hideg Szamos.
The directions she had received were to dig, at the spot indicated, as deep as the height of the Klausenburg church steeple, when stone steps and an iron door would be disclosed. The latter can be opened by a blow from an axe which had been dipped in holy-water. A large stone vault with twelve more iron doors will then appear. Twelve golden keys hang on the wall, and each door being opened will lead to a chamber filled to overflowing with solid gold-pieces. Three people only were permitted to dig simultaneously for the treasure, the sorcerer himself disinterestedly disclaiming any part in the matter, as he professes to have renounced all earthly goods.
The prosaic Klausenburg officials could not, however, be induced to share the woman’s enthusiasm, and tried to convince her of the folly of such search; but all in vain, for, dispensing with the permission she had failed to obtain, she has now engaged three day-laborers, who since the 15th of November, 1886, are said to be engaged on this stupendous task.
Perhaps we shall some day hear the result of their labors.
THE TREASURE OF DECEBALUS
is also among those to which Transylvania lays claim. When Trajan went forth for the second time against the Dacian king, Decebalus, vanquished in the fight near his capital, Zarmiszegthusa, retired to a stronghold in the mountains, where he was again pursued by the conqueror, and, after a second defeat, perished by his own hand, in order to escape the ignominy of captivity. But before these reverses Decebalus had taken care to secure his immense riches. For this purpose he caused the river Sargetia,[63] which flowed past his residence, to be diverted from its course at great toil and expense; in the dry river-bed strong vaulted cellars were constructed, in which all the gold, silver, and precious stones were stowed away, the whole being then covered up with earth and gravel, and the river brought back to its original course.
The work had been executed by prisoners, who were all either massacred or deprived of their eyesight to avoid betrayal. But a confidant of the Dacian king, Bicilis, or Biculus, who afterwards fell into Roman captivity, revealed to the Emperor what he knew of it, and Trajan thus succeeded in appropriating a considerable portion of the secreted treasure, but not the whole, it is said.
In the year 1543 some Wallachian fishermen, when mooring their boat on the banks of the river Strell, became aware of something shining in the water at the place where a tree had lately been uprooted. Pursuing the search, they brought to light more than forty thousand gold-pieces, each of them as heavy as three ducats, and stamped with the image of King Decebalus on one side, and that of the Goddess of Victory on the other. This treasure was delivered up to the monk Martinuzzi, the counsellor of Queen Isabella, and the most powerful man in Transylvania of that time. Part of the money was sent to the Roman emperor, Ferdinand I.; but many people declare the treasure of Decebalus not to be exhausted even now, and prophesy that we have not yet heard the last of it.
THE TREASURE ON THE KOND.
The Kond is a gloomy wooded plain near to the town of Regen. Great riches are said to be here concealed, but they are difficult to obtain, for the place is haunted by coal-black buffaloes, which may be seen running backward and forward at night, especially about the time of St. George and St. Thomas. A citizen named Simon Hill, who once caught sight of the subterraneous fire, marked the place, resolving to raise the treasure the following night. But distrusting his own strength and courage, he confided his purpose to a neighbor called Martin Rosenau, asking him to come to the place that night at twelve o’clock.
This neighbor, however, was faithless, being one of those who pray against the Catechism; so he resolved to cheat his friend. Instead, therefore, of waking his neighbor, as had been agreed, at ten o’clock, he repaired alone to the spot, where, digging, he found nothing but a horse’s skull filled with dead frogs. Full of anger at his bad-luck, he took the skull and flung it along with the frogs in at the open window of his sleeping friend. But what was the surprise of this latter when, waking in the morning, he found the whole room strewn with golden ducats, and in the midst the horse’s skull, likewise half full of gold. Happy beyond measure, Simon Hill ran to his neighbor to tell him the joyful news how God had sent him the gold in his sleep; but the faithless Martin, on hearing the tale, was so seized with grief and anger that a stroke of apoplexy put an end to his life.
GOLD-DUST.
An old man at Nadesch relates how in his youth he missed a chance of becoming a rich man for life. Going once to the forest, he saw on the steep bank near a stream the handle of some sort of earthen-ware jar peeping out of the soil. Curious to investigate it, he climbed up the steep bank; but hardly had he seized the handle and drawn the heavy jar out of the earth, when, the ground giving way under his feet, he rolled to the bottom of the incline still holding the jar in his hand. But finding that it contained nothing but a dull yellow dust, which had partly been spilled in falling, he threw it as worthless into the stream. Often in later days did he regret this rash act, for, as he was told by others, this yellow powder could have been nothing else but gold-dust.
Other ancient vessels which have been sometimes discovered filled with ashes[64] are believed by the people to have contained golden treasures, thus changed by the devil to ashes.
There is a plant which is believed by both Saxons and Roumanians to possess the virtue of opening every lock and breaking iron fetters, as well as helping to the discovery of hidden treasures. The Roumanians call it jarbe cherului (iron grass or herb), and it is only efficacious when it has sprouted at the spot where a rainbow has touched the earth. The rainbow is the bridge on which the angels go backward and forward between earth and heaven, and the flower grows there where an angel has dropped his golden key of Paradise on to the earth. The Germans call the flower schlüssel blume (key-flower), and it may be recognized by having a heart-shaped leaf on which is a spot like a drop of gold or blood. There are several places in Transylvania where the plant is supposed to grow, but he who walks over it unheeding will be sure to lose his way. In order to find it, it is recommended to go out at daybreak and creep on all fours over the grass. Who finds it should cut open the ball of his left hand and let the leaf grow into the wound; he will then have power to break fetters and open locks. The celebrated robber F—— is said to have been in possession of such a leaf, till the police destroyed his powers by cutting it out of his hand. Horses whose fore-legs are tethered together by chains are sometimes set free when they happen to tread on the jarbe cherului; and in the village of Heltau a Saxon peasant once hit upon the device of putting his wife in chains and thus driving her over the fields, expecting to find the flower where the fetters should fall off.
Whoever sells land in certain parts of the country where gold is supposed to be buried is always careful to indorse the reservation of eventual treasures to be found on the spot.
But the people say that it is rarely good to seek for hidden treasures, for much of the gold buried in the country has been secured by a heavy curse, so that he who raises it will be pursued by illness or misfortune to himself and his family, unless he is descended in direct line from the man who buried the treasure. Only such treasures as lie above-ground exposed to the light of day may be appropriated without misgiving. Many men have lost their reason, or have become crippled or blind, but few indeed were ever made happy by gold dug out of the earth.
Among the many writers who have made of this singular race their special study, none, to my thinking, has succeeded in understanding them so perfectly as Liszt. Other authors have analyzed and described the gypsies with scientific accuracy, but their opinions are mostly tinged by prejudice or enthusiasm; for while Grellman approaches the subject with evident repugnance, like a naturalist dissecting some nauseous reptile in the interest of science, Borrow, on the contrary, idealizes his figures almost beyond recognition. Perhaps it needed a Hungarian to do justice to this subject, for the Hungarian is the only man who, to some extent, is united by sympathetic bonds to the Tzigane; he alone has succeeded in identifying himself with the gypsy mind, and comprehending all the strange contradictions of this living paradox.
I cannot, therefore, do better than quote (in somewhat free translation) some passages from Liszt’s valuable work on gypsy music, which, far more vividly than any words of mine, will serve to sketch the portrait of the Hungarian Tzigane.
“There started up one day betwixt the European nations an unknown tribe, a strange people of whom none was able to say who they were nor whence they had come. They spread themselves over our continent, manifesting, however, neither desire of conquest nor ambition to acquire the right of a fixed domicile; not attempting to lay claim to so much as an inch of land, but not suffering themselves to be deprived of a single hour of their time: not caring to command, they neither chose to obey. They had nothing to give of their own, and were content to owe nothing to others. They never spoke of their native land, and gave no clew as to from which Asiatic or African plains they had wandered, nor what troubles or persecutions had necessitated their expatriation. Strangers alike to memory as to hope, they kept aloof from the benefits of colonization; and too proud of their melancholy race to suffer admixture with other nations, they lived on, satisfied with the rejection of every foreign element. Deriving no advantage from the Christian civilization around them, they regarded with equal repugnance every other form of religion.
“This singular race, so strange as to resemble no other—possessing neither country, history, religion, nor any sort of codex—seems only to continue to exist because it does not choose to cease to be, and only cares to exist such as it has always been.
GYPSY TYPE.
“Instruction, authority, persuasion, and persecution have alike been powerless to reform, modify, or exterminate the gypsies. Broken up into wandering tribes and hordes, roving hither and thither as chance or fancy directs, without means of communication, and mostly ignoring one another’s existence, they nevertheless betray their common relationship by unmistakable signs—the self-same type of feature, the same language, the identical habits and customs.
“With a senseless or sublime contempt for whatever binds or hampers, the Tziganes ask nothing from the earth but life, and preserve their individuality from constant intercourse with nature, as well as by absolute indifference to all those not belonging to their race, with whom they commune only as far as requisite for obtaining the common necessities of life.
“Like the Jews they have natural taste and ability for fraud; but, unlike them, it is without systematic hatred or malice. Hatred and revenge are with them only personal and accidental feelings, never premeditated ones. Harmless when their immediate wants are satisfied, they are incapable of preconceived intention of injuring, only wishing to preserve a freedom akin to that of the wild horse of the plains, and not comprehending how any one can prefer a roof, be it ever so fine, to the shelter of the forest canopy.
“Authority, rules, laws, principles, duties, and obligations are alike incomprehensible ideas to this singular race—partly from indolence of spirit, partly from indifference to the evils engendered by their irregular mode of life.
“Such only as it is, the Tzigane loves his life, and would exchange it for no other. He loves his life when slumbering in a copse of young birch-trees: he fancies himself surrounded by a group of slender maidens, their long floating hair bestrewed with shining sapphire stones, their graceful figures swayed by the breeze into voluptuous and coquettish gestures, as though each were trembling and thrilling under the kiss of an invisible lover. The Tzigane loves his life when for hours together his eyes idly follow the geometrical figures described in the sky overhead by the strategical evolutions of a flight of rooks; when he gauges his cunning against that of the wary bustard, or overcomes the silvery trout in a trial of lightning-like agility. He loves his life when, shaking the wild crab-apple-tree, he causes a hail-storm of ruddy fruit to come pouring down upon him; when he picks the unripe berries from off a thorny branch, leaving the sandy earth flecked with drops of gory red, like a deserted battle-field; when bending over a murmuring woodland spring, whose grateful coolness refreshes his parched throat as its gurgling music delights his ear; when he hears the woodpecker tapping a hollow stem, or can distinguish the faint sound of a distant mill-wheel. He loves his life when, gazing on the gray-green waters of some lonely mountain lake, its surface spellbound in the dawning presentiment of approaching frost, he lets his vagrant fancy float hither and thither unchecked; when reclining high up on the branch of some lofty forest-tree, hammock-like he is rocked to and fro, while each leaf around him seems quivering with ecstasy at the song of the nightingale. He loves his life when, out of the myriads of ever-twinkling stars in the illimitable space overhead, he chooses out one to be his own particular sweetheart; when he falls in love, to-day with a gorgeous lilac-bush of overwhelming perfume, to-morrow with a slender hawthorn or graceful eglantine, to be as quickly forgotten at sight of a brilliant peacock-feather, with which, as with a victorious war-trophy, he adorns his cap; when he sits by the smouldering camp-fire under ancient oaks or massive beeches; when, lying awake at night, he hears the call of the stag and the lowing of the respondent doe; when he has no other society but the forest animals, with whom he forms friendships and enmities—caressing or tormenting them, depriving them of liberty or setting them free, revelling in the treasures of Nature like a wanton child despoiling his parent’s riches, but well knowing their wealth to be inexhaustible.
“What he calls life is to inhale the breath of Nature with every pore of his body; to surfeit his eye with all her forms and colors; with his ear greedily to absorb all her chords and harmonics. Life for him is to multiply the possession of all these things by the kaleidoscopic and phantasmagorial effects of alcohol, then to sing and play, shout, laugh, and dance, till utter exhaustion.
“Having neither Bible nor Gospels to go by, the Tziganes do not see the necessity of fatiguing their brain by the contemplation of abstract ideas; and obeying their instincts only, their intelligence naturally grows rusty. Conscious of their harmlessness they bask in the rays of the sun, content in the satisfaction of a few primitive and elementary passions—the sans-gêne of their soul fettered by no conventional virtues.
“What strength of indolence! what utter want of all social instinct must these people possess in order to live as they have done for centuries, like that strange plant, native of the sandy desert, so aptly termed the wind’s bride, which, by nature devoid of root, and blown from side to side by every breeze, yet bears flower and fruit wherever it goes, continuing to put out shoots under the most unlikely conditions!
“And whenever the Tziganes have endeavored to bring themselves to a settled mode of life and to adopt domestic habits, have they not invariably sooner or later returned to their hard couch on the cold ground, to their miserable rags, to their rough comrades, and the brown beauty of their women?—to the sombre shades of the virgin forests, to the murmur of unknown fountains, to their glowing camp-fires and their improvised concerts under a starlit sky?—to their intoxicating dances in the lighting of a forest glade, to the merry knavery of their thievish pranks—in a word, to the hundred excitements they cannot do without?
“Nature, when once indulged in to the extent of becoming a necessity, becomes tyrannical like any other passion; and the charms of such an existence can neither be explained nor coldly analyzed—only he who has tasted of them can value their power aright. He must needs have slumbered often beneath the canopy of the starry heavens; have been oft awakened by the darts of the rising sun shooting like fiery arrows between his eyelids; have felt, without horror, the glossy serpent coil itself caressingly round a naked limb; must have spent full many a long summer day reclining immovable on the sward, overlapped by billowy waves of flowery grasses which have never felt the mower’s scythe; he must often have listened to the rich orchestral effects and tempestuous melodies which the hurricane loves to draw from vibrating pine-stems, or slender quaking reeds; he must be able to recognize each tree by its perfume, be initiated into all the varied languages of the feathered tribes, of merry finches, and of chattering grasshoppers; full often must he have ridden at close of day over the barren wold, when the rays of the setting sun cast a golden glamour over the atmosphere, and all around is plunged in a bath of living fire; he must have watched the red-hot moon rise out of the sable night over lonely plains whence all life seems to have fled away; he must, in short, have lived like the Tzigane in order to comprehend that it is impossible to exist without the balmy perfumes exhaled by the forests; that one cannot find rest within stone-built prisons; that a breast accustomed to draw full draughts of the purest ozone feels weighed down and crushed beneath a sheltering roof; that the eye which has daily looked on the rising sun breaking out through pearly clouds must weep, forsooth, when met on all sides by dull, opaque walls; that the ear hungers when deprived of the loud modulations, of the exquisite harmonies, of which the mountain breeze alone has the secret.
“What have our cities to offer to senses surfeited with such ever-varied effects and emotions? What in such eyes can ever equal the bloody drama of a dying sun? What can rival in voluptuous sweetness the rosy halo of early dawn? What other voice can equal in majesty the thunder-roll of a midsummer storm, to which the woodland echoes respond as the voice of a mighty chorus? What elegy so exquisite as the autumn wind stripping the foliage from the blighted forest? What power can equal the frigid majesty of the cruel frost, like an implacable tyrant bidding the sap of trees to stand still, and rendering silent the voices of singing birds and babbling streams? To those accustomed to quaff of this bottomless tankard, must not all other pleasures by comparison appear empty and meaningless?
“Indifferent to the minute and complicated passions by which educated mankind is swayed, callous to the panting, gasping effects of such microscopic and supercultured vices as vanity, ambition, intrigue, and avarice, the Tzigane only comprehends the simplest requirements of a primitive nature. Music, dancing, drinking, and love, diversified by a childish and humorous delight in petty thieving and cheating, constitute his whole répertoire of passions, beyond whose limited horizon he does not care to look.”
Having begun this chapter with the words of Liszt, let me finish it with those of the German poet Lenau, who, in his short poem, “Die Drei Zigeuner” (“The Three Gypsies”), traces a perfect picture of the indolent enjoyment of the gypsy’s existence: