| When I got on the coach, the driver had not taken... 281 |
[Jan. 29th, 2010|07:19 am] |
When I got on the coach, the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw him talking to the landlady
They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the door--came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityinglyI could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd, so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out
I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were "Ordog"--Satan, "Pokol"--hell, "stregoica"--witch, "vrolok" and "vlkoslak"--both mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either werewolf or vampire I must ask the Count about these superstitions
When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers towards me
With some difficulty, I got a fellow passenger to tell me what they meantHe would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye
This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown manBut everyone seemed so kind-hearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched
I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard
Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the boxseat,--"gotza" they call them--cracked his big whip over his four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey
I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easilyBefore us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the roadThere was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom--apple, plum, pear, cherryAnd as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petalsIn and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flameThe road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish hasteI could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo PrundI was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after the winter snowsIn this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good orderOf old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point
Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselvesRight and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandlyHere and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling waterOne of my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us
"Look! Isten szek!"--"God's seat!"--and he crossed himself reverently
As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round usThis was emphasized by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pinkHere and there we passed Cszeks and slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalentBy the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselvesHere and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling before a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in the self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer worldThere were many things new to meFor instance, hay-ricks in the trees, and here and there very beautiful masses of weeping birch, their white stems shining like silver through the delicate green of the leaves
Now and again we passed a leiter-wagon--the ordinary peasants's cart--with its long, snakelike vertebra, calculated to suit the inequalities of the roadOn this were sure to be seated quite a group of homecoming peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks with their coloured sheepskins, the latter carrying lance-fashion their long staves, with axe at endAs the evening fell it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there against the background of late-lying snowSometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleysSometimes the hills were so steep that, despite our driver's haste, the horses could only go slowlyI wished to get down and walk up them, as we do at home, but the driver would not hear of |
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