SHAKESPEARE AND I

It was in 1897, and I was fifteen years old, when I met Shakespeare for the first time. It was one of the greatest events of my life. I was studying then at a Greek gymnasium. Though an Albanian by descent, I had to go to a Greek school in Adrianople because Albanian schools were not allowed by the Turkish government.

One morning I went to the dining-room to get my microscopic breakfast consisting of a tiny cup of black coffee without sugar. It was just a few sips, and nothing else. At the long table where I was sitting I noticed four strangers, two men and two women, who were having that same breakfast. The ladies were conspicuous for their extravagant hats, whose feathers almost reached the ceiling. They were noisily discussing the problems involved in staging Hamlet, which they expected to play at the local theatre. I knew immediately that they were actors and actresses of an itinerant Greek theatrical company. From their conversation I gathered that the two young actors could read and write Greek, but the two handsome actresses were illiterate. They could not even sign their names.

After that frugal breakfast of a demi-tasse of Turkish coffee, the two boys left. Before doing so they said: ‘Now, you girls study your parts’. They replied: ‘How can we do it? We cannot read’. Then the actors said: ‘You ask that boy’ (meaning me) ‘to help you. He is studying at the gymnasium and he can read Greek’. The actresses answered: ‘We have no money. How can we pay him?’ The actors said: ‘We have no money either, but we can fix that. We can give the boy free tickets to all our performances’. Looking at me they said: ‘Would you be satisfied with that?’ I jumped at the offer without any hesitation.

The actresses handed me their parts and we started immediately. One of them was playing Ophelia and the other Hamlet’s mother, the Queen. The procedure was this: I would read the part, sentence by sentence, and the actresses would repeat them.

Soon afterwards I got my second job with the same company. The prompter fell sick and there was no one to replace him. Very few of the actors could read the catharevousa Greek (an artificial pseudo-classical dialect). The two actresses I was training suggested to the director: ‘We know a boy who could do it’. It was me again, and once more I jumped at the job without any hesitation. That gave me an opportunity to prompt Shakespeare’s Othello, and I could prompt it almost without looking at the stage version at all. I could recite all the monologues in Hamlet and Othello in Greek in a few days.

One night something happened that horrified me. Costas Tavularis, who was playing Othello, almost strangled Desdemona in order to give a realistic performance. I heard his wife, Mrs Tavularis, who was playing the unlucky Desdemona, scream for help and beg her husband: ‘Don’t press so hard! You are going to kill me!’ I gave the signal to pull down the curtain and prevented murder.

After I graduated from the gymnasium, I went to Constantinople and took the boat to Athens to look for a job. One of the first things I did in Athens was to go to the office of the Tavularis troupe and ask them to give me work in their theatrical company. They were glad to do it. They gave me a job right away, copying parts.

The way Shakespeare’s plays were presented to the Greek public in the year 1898 was rather curious. For instance, after the third act, Hamlet and Ophelia would come out on the stage without changing costume and sing some commonplace duet which happened to be popular, something like Frank Sinatra’s crooning. And what happened after the last act of Hamlet? A worthless, one-act modern comedy was played. The director of the company gave this explanation: ‘The public could not stand the terrible tragedy of Hamlet without some light music between acts and a refreshing comedy at the end’. After all, that was what the ancient Greeks used to do: a short comedy always followed a tragedy.

There was no fixed salary paid to the actors. They received a certain percentage of the profits, and the profits were not sufficient to enable the actors to make a living. The end of each season in every city was always the same. Most actors were stranded in whatever city they happened to be. They had to wait there penniless and starving until they got a new job and the price of a ticket from some theatrical manager. I was always among those stranded.

The worst of all our theatrical adventures was that of Ponto-Iraklia in Anatolia. The receipts of the first performance showed that the whole thing would be a ghastly failure. Two weeks later the company director ran away in the night with the receipts. The actors had to shift for themselves and give performances in a dingy hall to keep alive. It was in the midst of that misery that I realized the dearest dream of every actor. Both Hamlet and Ophelia were sick in bed from starvation and exhaustion. The problem was whether to postpone the performance or to go ahead with it and get a few pennies with which to buy food and keep alive as long as possible. I was asked whether or not I could take the place of the star and play Hamlet. I jumped at the offer before they could change their minds. After all, I knew the part better than any star I had ever prompted.

The trouble came when we tried to find someone to play Ophelia. There was only one person who was still on her feet. Her name was Caliroe. She was lame and had never in her life appeared before the footlights, not even in a minor role. She served as maid to her sister, who was the leading lady. Nobody imagined that the poor creature had ever entertained the ambition of playing Ophelia, The unexpected happened. When the lame girl was offered the part of Ophelia she could hardly believe her ears. She confessed that she had secretly been preparing to play Ophelia all her life.

So the tragedy of Hamlet was performed the very next evening in this improvised fashion and had an enormous success. No one in the audience suspected that Ophelia was lame. She was placed on a chair and played the part sitting. I, as Hamlet, did my best to prevent the audience from noticing that something was wrong with Ophelia. Since Hamlet is supposed to be half mad, I made all kinds of pirouettes around the chair to emphasize that point.

Ophelia was expected to follow my movements with her eyes in utter amazement. Years later, I was reminded of the lame Caliroe when I saw the aging Sarah Bernhardt give a marvellous performance with her voice, her face, and her arms, though she could hardly stand on her feet.

About two weeks later a freighter carrying bones for fertilizer was forced by a storm to take refuge in the port of Ponto-Iraklia. Its merciful captain was touched by the misery of those Shakespearean actors, some of whom had been reduced to skin and bones. He offered them free meals and free transportation for the two-day journey to Constantinople. Most of them were so weak that they had to lie down during the voyage, until the kindly sailors revived them with food. That was what was needed to cure them and put them on their feet again.

The final catastrophe came in Alexandria: stranded again; starving again. The terrified actors and actresses left for Athens one after another on the first ship they could get. I concluded that this was the end of my theatrical career. There was no sense in sticking to a profession thattook me from one end of the Mediterranean to the other with starvation threatening me in every port. So I took leave of the theatre, but not of Shakespeare.

Rescue came for me in the offer of a teaching position in Shibin-el-Kom, a few hours from Alexandria. I jumped at the chance, and took the first train for Shibin-el-Kom. Up to that date I had read Shakespeare in a worthless Greek translation. It was time for me to read him in his own language. I found an English missionary who helped me with free English lessons. I owe it to him that when I came to the United States in 1906 I could pass the language examination with the immigration officers in a few minutes.

I landed in New York and went to Buffalo, and from Buffalo to Boston. And there I met my old friend Shakespeare again in the Castle Square Theatre, presented by two excelllent performers, E. H. Sothern and his wife, Julia Marlowe. I shall always be grateful to those two great artists. Until then I had read Shakespeare in Greek and seen him on the Greek stage, but Sothern and Marlowe gave me the unforgettable experience of seeing Shakespeare on the stage in English.

My first years in America were devoted to obtaining my education. Then one day a friend of mine, the late Faik Konitza, who had a Master’s degree from Harvard, made a suggestion that we two should divide all Shakespeare’s plays between us and translate him into Albanian. He made only one reservation, that Romeo and Juliet belonged to him. I accepted at once on the condition that Hamlet should belong to me. So we both started. I began with Othello, which was published in Albanian in 1916, and ten years later my translations of Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and Macbeth were published in Belgium. As I read my Albanian versions now, I think that Macbeth was my best, because it was the last, and by that time I had really learned the tough job a little better. I am glad to say that some of our young Albanians are continuing the work of translating Shakespeare.

So far as I am concerned, I have deserted my old friend Shakespeare for the last thirty-eight years, owing to several pressures, one of which was the Second World War. I hope to go back to him and make good by giving some more of his masterpieces to the Albanians. I can do it. I am still young. I am only eight-two years old.

[Shakespeare and I, published in The Listener, 15 October 1964.]

Man is a living guitar on which a fervent hand transforms the vibration of strings into melodies… tragic or comic?
Man is a living guitar by which Good and Evil have revealed tragedies or comedies of their own.
Man is a living guitar, by which God, in long, never-ending melodies, has expressed the majesty of His… tragedy or comedy? Who knows…?
Ding, dang, dong… are the sounds of the guitar, or rather of the heart, which create melodies – perhaps sad, perhaps bitter, as acrid as our world (Earth) on the tip of the tongue of the Cosmos. Ding, dang, dong… ding, dang, dong. It is perhaps pleasure, perhaps a friendly smile, a wild rejoicing like the grinning of a madman at the crossroads. Perhaps. Who knows?… The ardent hand plucks the strings of the guitar, slowly at first, then faster and faster. Lustful fingernails wound the guitar, no, the breast, the heart… blood drips and flows… the string breaks… the melody dies – and so does man!
An individual, of an unsavoury sort, revealed his pain at the corpse of what was once man, while in the corner of his eye a crocodile tear glistened, reflecting the tragedy of the corpse. Another individual, of a better sort, laughed, guffawed so much that the features of his face became distorted and turned ugly. It was the mirth of a man in the face of comic fatality. Through man, Good, Evil, and God emerged from the dark into the light, and through man, they will recede into the darkness once again. Behind them the vaguest of impressions will subsist, planted in the lap of life, and will plunge into complete oblivion. But for the moment, all man is a stage on which Good, Evil, and God perform dramas of hatred and love, of contempt and affection, of desire and apathy, of adoration and condemnation… And while they are playing out their martial dramas of artistic refinement and theatrical majesty, they jab the sharp knives and poison arrows and pour molten lead into man, emitting cries of victory. When the battle is won, the tragedy concludes with a majestic Te Deum, with a Te Deum Laudamus full of perfidious sincerity. The Te Deum is the key to a comic opera called Peace: tragedy, comedy, and so it goes on and on. Where tragedy is born, comedy is present as a guest of honour – a godfather – and conversely, where comedy is born, tragedy attends as the guest of honour and godfather. They call it a tragicomedy, or is it a comic tragedy or a tragic comedy? Do you understand? If not, remember: “Laugh, Pagliaccio, at your shattered love,” and you shall understand.
“Laugh, Pagliaccio, at your shattered love!” The figure of Pagliaccio was created by the Absurd to entertain the shadows of the night, the light of day, and the creatures of the other world. All of them are waiting for him to laugh, and this will give rise to a universal laugh, a burst of laughter, a roar which will cause the Cosmos with all its planets and spheres to shudder. And all the time, man’s heart is breaking. His heart is breaking because his life depends on that laugh, depends on the mercy of the merciless planets, depends on the hearts of the heartless spheres, depends on the Absurd which created him. It is a difficult and far from comforting condition for the fragile reed which is man in the face of the Cosmos. The tragedy of man is to be found in his illusion of grandeur, and the comedy is in his sense of insignificance. Thus: “Laugh, Pagliaccio, at your shattered love!”
It is a tragicomedy!… or, the tale of human feelings, whichever you prefer.

[Tragedi apo komedi?, first published in Illyria on 1 July 1934. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 115-117 Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 129-131.]

REFRAIN OF MY TOWN

“Sir, sir, please sir, please give me something!” This is the refrain, the fair refrain of my town. When morning awakens in the streets, when the sun’s rays begin to shine between the legs of passersby, and the shadows of cars and carriages begin to glide along the ground, the chorus starts up on the sidewalks, the fair refrain of my town: “Sir, sir, please sir, please give me something!” Who could put the beauty of this refrain to music? Mozart? Beethoven? Ha, ha, ha! Only the sidewalks of my town know how to sing this melody and only its inhabitants hear it. And they love it, for the people here are very fond of music. From morning to night they hear the same litany and are never bored with it. They’ve never chased away (or given a penny to) a singer yet. No! They are great fans of music. The refrain sounds especially beautiful in the twilight. The streets of the town then have a romantic allure (like the one you see in coloured photographs). Citizens, satisfied with their day’s work, are out for a bit of nightlife. The sky smiles down on them like a virgin and the lips of each of them are ready to respond with a sensuous kiss… and in the midst of it all, the fair refrain of my town. Can you imagine such joy?

***

I don’t know if what I’m now going to tell you is a dream or a nightmare.
“Sir, sir, please sir, please give me something!” A boy, some ten or twelve years old, like a pretty little puppy (white, black, or reddish-brown) leaping up and down to lick its master’s hand, limps along behind a gentleman. He gives a gentle tug to the seam of his coat, a very gentle tug, for he is afraid of waking the wrath of the gentleman, of a god, of a devil, the wrath of this gentleman/human being, I mean. He thus gives an exceedingly subtle tug and implores, “Sir, sir, please sir, please give me something!” But the gentleman/human being is lost in thought: the new season has begun! The season! The season! Always the season and, as the season changes, so does his wife, his children and so does he himself – with whatever the season calls for. Preoccupied with such matters, he pays no attention to the little beggar who, wasting no thoughts on the season, reflects on how well the gentleman must have dined, how warm his coat must be, how fine his shoes are… Lost in such thoughts, he pulls more strongly at the gentleman and implores in a louder voice, “Sir, sir, please sir, please give me something!” Suddenly, the gentleman turns and slugs the little beggar in the face. “You good-for-nothing,” he snarls and departs without giving him anything. Or rather, he did give the pallid face a slug. A groan from the child’s breast attracts the attention of passersby. “Hey, look,” someone cries out, “that little beggar is trying to steal something!” The people think that the boy has attempted to pick the gentleman’s pocket. That’s why he was struck. The blood from the little beggar’s heart flushes in his face and, like a stalked bird, he gathers all his infant force to flee. He spurts off, relentlessly pursued by fear, and only comes to a halt when his face and back are bathed in sweat. A hole, a tiny hole that I could crawl into somewhere far away and die of hunger – that was his only thought. Another boy, a bit older, sees the urchin running and cries out in a fit of mocking, “Hey, you little twirp, where do you think you’re you off to? Hang on! Don’t you remember what we decided on the other day? I get to throw a handful of coins into your face and you get to keep them… Aren’t you going to keep your promise?”
“Alright, but don’t throw them hard. I get to cover my eyes with my hands so you don’t blind me.”
“OK, let’s do it now. Hey, what are you trembling for? You’re not chicken, are you?”
“No… but I’m hungry.”
“So, you’re not chicken, eh…” and suddenly hurls the money in the younger boy’s face, the coins scattering with a jingle. The little beggar, poor lad, stands there unmoved, but then, almost robbed of his strength, gets down on his knees and, with a grin on his face, begins to pick up the pennies. A scarlet drop on his forehead sparkles in the sun. It is blood.
No, no. It was no dream, but a nightmare, when a singer, inspired to this refrain by these fictitious events, sang by mistake:

On the mercy of the merciless
The little beggar survived.
His life ran its course
In dirty streets,
In dark corners,
In cold doorways,
Among fallacious faiths.
But one day, when the world’s pity dried up
He felt in his breast the stab
Of a new pain, which contempt
Fosters in the hearts
Of the poor.
And – though yesterday a little beggar,
He now became something new.
An avenger of the past,
He conceived an imprecation
To pronounce to the world,
His throat strained
To bring out the word
Which his rage had gripped
And smothered on his lips.

Speechless he sat
At the crossroads,
When the wheels of a passing car
Quickly crushed
And… silenced him.

[Një refren i qytetit t’em, first published in Illyria on 15 July 1934. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 122-126. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 132-135.]

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

A man of thirty years. He stands in front of the movie theatre billboard, unemployed, on a work day. Pfff. He spits, turning away from the billboard. He has the impression that someone has called him, but no, no one has. No one needs a manual labourer. And so he continues his daily routine. He stares at the posters in front of the movie theatre. Pfff. They know how to live, he says, and approaches the posters to have a good look. It’s the same film every day: an attractive girl standing beside a good-looking young man. The worker gazes at them in envy. He takes a dislike to the leading man and gives him a nasty stare. He spits and looks down at his own shoes. He does not really know what they are, his old, worn-out shoes, an incarnation of real shoes. He bends over to tie the laces, uttering a groan as he straightens up. He saunters off, along the sidewalk of course. You can even go barefoot on the sidewalk if you want. Why not?
He paces slowly, taking it easy. Like a man without a job. Others come by, too, not at ease, but more in a hurry. How good it is to be able to take it slow, to stroll like a gentleman. But, what am I saying? Is it really a good thing to stroll and take it easy? Yes and no! No and yes! It depends. For a gentleman, it’s a proper thing to saunter at one’s leisure, it’s good for the digestion. For a working man, it’s not. Why? You know why. But our worker strolls and takes it easy. Like a gentleman. That’s the way the times and the world are nowadays. If you want to be a gentleman, you can. Yet our worker doesn’t want to be or imitate a gentleman, just the times… No interest. He doesn’t like their pompous ways. Not that they bother him, it’s just… well, you know.
Bong, bong, bong, bong. Four o’clock in the afternoon! How cruelly the bells resound in a worker’s guts. The bell tower of the church strikes four and resonates hollow in a worker’s damn guts. Four! Four! Four! Four everywhere! And why four? Why? An argument, a revolt. Almost a revolution. A revolution in miniature. The roar of a cannon… No! the sound of starving, rumbling guts.
Our worker continues to loiter in the streets of the town. He is looking for work. Like his fellow-workers in Berlin and London. Nowhere is there a laden truck for him to unload. Nowhere is there a traveller with suitcase in hand in need of a porter. Nowhere! Nowhere! No one wants the sweat of his brow. Nowhere are there a couple of leks to be made.
The worker stops in front of some shops and stares into the window. He observes and savours our romantic era. He stands in front of the store display of a stationery shop. Behind the glass are postcards of movie stars. He grits his teeth. In anger he raises his fist to… But there are laws! And police! The consequences flash through his mind. He turns from the stars in disdain and spits. He continues on his way and spits again. He looks to the left and to the right. And spits again. Starving and in rags he saunters past shops full of “forbidden fruit” (a tale from the Bible).
His instincts yearn to express themselves. Our worker gets control of himself once again! The law! Police! To play it safe, he folds his hands behind his back. His hands are strong, powerful. They could seize the devil by the throat and strangle him. But the law protects the devil, too.
Bong, bong, bong, bong! How long will it last?

[Moll’ e ndalueme, first published in Jeta dhe kultura on 20 July 1935. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 132-135. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 136-137.]

DO YOU NEED ANY COAL, SIR?

Two sacks of coal loaded onto a packhorse. At its flank, a highland woman. The sidewalk with its line of shops to the left and right. The horse and the highland woman are passing by. Coal for sale. An artist would be alarmed at the disharmony of the scene. Appalling disharmony. The highland woman blows her nose using her fingers. The result falls onto the ground and she wipes her fingers on her jubleta. A simple gesture, but a select motif for a painter. The stick in the woman’s hand drags along the road, leaving a kilometre-long trail behind it. It is the residue of the mountain dweller’s thoughts.
“Do you need any coal, sir?”
“How much are you charging?”
“Twelve leks – or better, you say your price. Hey, don’t go away.”
“Twelve leks in this heat?” someone else asks her with a grin.
“Well, how much will you give me?”
“No, I don’t need any coal.”
True, it is hot outside. Who needs coal? Alright, ten leks, thinks the highland woman to herself, walking down the shady side of the road. The horse paces onwards with its eyes closed. Perhaps it is dreaming. Now in old age, it is musing on its love for a long-forgotten mare. The woman leaves the horse alone to relish its memories. She is patient. Back in the sunlight now, a shadow follows them, or rather two shadows. Two shadows entwined and merged with one another – the shadow of the horse and the shadow of the highland woman. You cannot tell which is which, or separate them. One is nothing without the other; each is of no value. Only together do they form a whole. A living whole. Krk, krk, krk, the coal crunches on the horse’s back. Krk, krk, krk, the monotonous clicking of the horseshoes over the cobblestones.
The highland woman lifts her head to see where the sun is. It’s time to head back, to return to the mountains. And the coal has not been sold. She resolves to sell it more cheaply.
“Hey, young man, what time is it?”
The lad is attracted by the good-looking mountain lass. He approaches politely and tells her the time. He asks how much she wants for the coal and starts to barter with her, although he has no intention of buying. She is young and attractive. Why shouldn’t he talk to her? “Oh, she’s filthy,” the lad realizes. “The mountain peasants are so stupid. They don’t understand anything. You have to tell them everything, even what cannot be said in words.” This is what the young man is thinking to himself as he musters the young highlander, as would a nobleman his young servant. “What a fool she is. She doesn’t understand a thing!” And the lad goes on his way. The highland woman has begun to worry about the homeward journey. She looks at the sun sinking in the west. How can she return to the mountains in the dark? She is not afraid of vampires and demons, and if she were an old woman, she would not be frightened at all, but, she cannot forget that people once or twice approached and at first she had not known what they wanted… She certainly has no fear of vampires in town, but she is wary of these people. Why? Because she is young and not bad-looking.
Ardour penetrates her breast.
“How much is the coal, my good woman?”
The highlander turns around. She recognizes the fellow speaking to her. She had once sold coal to him. She replies:
“Eight leks?”
“No, that’s too much. I was mad about you last time,” says the man, looking left and right.
The highland woman smiles, somewhat embarrassed. She covers her face, blushing, and looks away from him. Timidly she asks:
“Well, how much will you pay?”
“Five.”
“Give me seven.”
“Alright, six and it’s a deal.”
The mountain lass hesitates. She reflects for a moment, turning her gaze towards the sun. “May fortune be with me,” she murmurs, and follows her customer. The fellow walking in front of her wallows heavily in the memory of the highland woman, who blushes – red with shame.

[A do qymyr, zotni?, first published in Illyria on 28 September 1935. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 136-140. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 138-140.]

THE SUICIDE OF THE SPARROW

The sparrow was suffering from depression. It was born in a very barren land. Instead of grass, there were boar bristles, and instead of trees, there were the horns of prehistoric beasts. Who would not be depressed in such an environment, if one could call it nature? A sparrow does not need much to live on, but an environment devoid of nature, did not provide anything.
Do not ask how the sparrow happened to be born in that land, or how man ended up in this part of the universe. We don’t know much about it. There are hypotheses and there are dreams. Millions of years and then a word is uttered, for example: “Let there be light. And there was light.” Do you see? It’s all magic. Hocus pocus. Applause!
I already explained that the sparrow was destined to live in a land where instead of grass there were boar bristles, and instead of trees, there were the horns of prehistoric beasts.
Once, the sparrow was perched on a horn. It was demoralized at seeing nothing but boar bristles. It was glum at having to fly from horn to horn. It closed its eyes out of frustration and sorrow, and fell into a sombre mood. A person with a melancholic disposition is intelligent, and the sparrow with a melancholic disposition was intelligent, too. Intelligence, in the broadest sense of the term, has rarely been a blessing to anyone.
The sparrow, perched on a horn and in the depths of depression decided to commit suicide. It looked about in philosophical irony and took the irrevocable decision which glimmered in its despairing eyes. It chirped once, it chirped twice, it chirped three times. Then there followed a long and poignant cry, its last will, the testament of its suffering. Without spreading its wings, it jumped off the horn and plunged into a boar bristle as long and sharp as a knife, and was impaled.
A sparrow, impaled on a boar bristle. Its tail and wings fluttered, causing it to rotate around the bristle, as metal weather vanes turn on the top of our chimneys when the North Wind begins to blow.
What is the logical connection here? Do I detect complaints?
Indeed, my dear and far from superficial reader, are there not enough logical, moral, and dogmatic inconsistencies in the realities of this world? Why get angry and accuse me of a few logical inconsistencies which are doing harm to no one?

[Vetvrasja e trumcakut, first published in Illyria on 4 January 1936. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 147-150.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 141-142.]

LITTLE LULI

No one knows Luli. Even the friends playing with him don’t know him. Or rather, they know him, but play among themselves, and Luli watches them. Everyone has his own problems and difficulties nowadays, even children. So does Luli. Oh Luli, how early you learned to stand on your own two feet.
When Luli enters the schoolyard, with a slight grin on his face, he speaks to no one. He walks slowly, glancing to the left and to the right, advancing all the time until he reaches the school door. This is his favourite spot. There he stands in the golden rays of the sun in these autumn days. Luli leans against the wall, little fists clenched in his pockets, and his snubby nose, red from the morning frost, turned in the direction of the sun, and… looks around. What attracts his attention most are the boots which the other schoolboys are wearing. “How splendid they are! Look how they shine!” thinks Luli to himself and then stares down at his own beat-up shoes, with five bare toes protruding from each. Out of curiosity, he approaches one of the boys who is wearing brand-new boots. “Look how they’re shining!” But the lad with the boots runs off, and Luli returns to his spot in the sun to warm his feet. What is poor Luli supposed to do when the sun is not shining? Perhaps the apostles of love and mercy will bear some of his suffering.
Perhaps, perhaps…
From time to time the teacher comes over to Luli. And when Luli’s face is clean and he has no pimples, the teacher strokes his cheeks and the nape of his neck. Luli cuddles up and takes the teacher’s hand, looking fondly at it and wishing he had something to give to the teacher as a present. But he doesn’t have any violets. And what else could little Luli give to the teacher? Only his shoes with their mouths gaping wide open as if they would devour the teacher. Yes, yes, little Luli’s shoes are going to devour the teacher.

[Luli i vocërr, first published in Illyria on 18 January 1936. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 151-152. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 143-144.]

IN THE FLY SEASON

He is grown now and cannot chase flies through the house and squash them as he used to do because people would otherwise say he’d lost his mind. The neighbours, the gossiping neighbours, are only waiting for a chance to pounce on him. Hylli remembers as if it were yesterday how the teacher told the third grade pupils that if they swatted a fly in the springtime, it was like swatting the thousands of flies which would have been born of it in the summer. And when the oldest of the children asked whether they ought to swat the female or male flies, the teacher stammered and only with difficulty was able to reply “all of them have to be swatted.” In accord with the teacher’s suggestion, the tables, walls, wooden chests and chairs echoed that spring to the swatting of flies. Encouraged by their teacher, the children had declared war. The following day, each child at school would recount how many enemies he had exterminated, how the battle had taken place, and what weapons had been used. Hylli had not been any better or worse than the others as a warrior in the bloody battle. He had accomplished as much as any other boy. In fact, he had caught one fly, but had thereby broken a vase and been given a beating by his mother.
Hylli is now sitting in an armchair with a book in his hand, staring at a fly making circles under the ceiling. He can hardly control his impulse to leap up and nab it. Soon though, surprised by his fratricidal instincts, he calms down. He now reflects on the fly in a more amicable fashion and sees it as a harbinger of summer – although not even one harbinger of spring had made its appearance yet. Such things do not interest him anymore. Swallows, who cares? But where did the fly come from? There must be a dunghill somewhere around. Then he remembers the dung piled in the yard of the beautiful lady next door. Hylli now observes the fly with admiration. He admires its loops under the ceiling. The fly, the dung, and the beautiful lady next door all combine to form a rhapsody on this spring afternoon, a rhapsody of urban life on an afternoon in May.

***

But the fly did not remain at its usual altitude. It began its slow descent to the lower spheres of the room. Hylli was afraid it might drown in the coffee cup which he had just been handed. A shiver ran down his spine when he considered how he might swallow a dead fly when gulping down his coffee. His pessimistic nature found the thought revolting. In reality, when considered as part of the divine plan, this fly was quite superfluous, he reflected. Unemployed apprentice boys and students sitting around at home would have found something to do, if it were not for these flies.
But as Schopenhauer once remarked, pleasure is nothing but a temporary interruption of ever-recurring pain. If it were not for driving nervous people crazy, there would be no need for flies at all. And there are certainly enough other flies in life. And what flies there are! Think of the horseflies which you cannot get rid of when they are drawing blood without giving them a swat, or rather, a big slap.
It is the nature of flies to interfere in other people’s business and to take things into their own hands. It flew over his cup of coffee like a reconnaissance aircraft. Where the hell are the people responsible for getting rid of them? The people being paid to do the job? What are the members of parliament doing about this? The flies are the only decorations we have in this town. Finally something for visitors to see here… he thought. Unwillingly, Hylli got nervous and, with a swift move of his arm, swiped at the fly. He opened the palm of his hand, but there was nothing in it. Almost got it. Suddenly, a former ally in the fly-war and now a fellow student stood in the doorway.
“What are you doing, Hylli? Catching flies?”
“Nothing… I was just thinking how futile life is,” responded Hylli, as usual.

[Në sezonën e mizave, written in Puka in May 1936. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 192-194.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 145-147.]

THE PLATFORM OF A MAGAZINE

No politics!
“No! We agree. Politics have no healthy basis, no law, no rules, no framework. Not even morals,” added a moralizing editor, observing his colleagues from over the rim of his glasses. This same editor had bitten off a chunk of the book “Religious morality” for lunch instead of his sandwich and had spat the bite out again when he discovered he could not swallow it. But the gentleman had children at home, and children, according to the principles of modern education, are monkeys. This is why, when they saw their father spitting, they began to imitate him with a “Pff, pff, pff.”
Politics are like a chameleon which, as is known, takes on the colour of its environment. If a chameleon happens to be sitting on a cliff, it will take on the colour of the cliff. Even if someone points it out to you, you will have trouble distinguishing it from the cliff. If you rush headlong to catch it, the trophy you have on your return – when you get back from this Trojan War – will be found on your forehead. It will have swollen as thick as the cliff you bumped into. The moment you think you have caught a chameleon, it is gone.
“That is the definition of politics, if there is one,” said another editor.
“Our magazine has nothing to do with politics!”
“No! not at all,” repeated all the editors, remembering the story about trying to catch a chameleon! Politics are dangerous!” they repeated to one another, nodding.
“Let us not forget, gentlemen, our magazine must be idealistic.”
“Bravo! Idealistic!”
“It will devote itself to the education and defence of those who have no defence! It will open the eyes of the blind!!
“Yes…”
“It will awaken pride in our nation.”
“Yes, bravo! National awareness is sleeping and needs to be awakened with a forty-two…”
“Shshsh!” they turned on the uncouth speaker, who happened to be the one who sorted the mail.
In the end, they drafted a platform for an idealistic magazine.
Supernatural posters were put up throughout the town, many of which were glued onto the front windows of people’s ground-floor homes, so that they now sat in the dark.
In a little alley where, in one day, four cats, three people, and perhaps a rooster with its hens pass by, a cow stopped in front of the red poster and speared it with its horns. It must have been related to the Spanish toreros.
“War! war!” cried the people as they gathered in front of the poster on the main street (the population was caught up in a war psychosis because of the Italian-Abyssinian conflict). Finally they found someone with a modicum of education who was able to read out loud: “Idealistic magazine!”
“What nonsense!” muttered a lady with bobbed hair who set off down the road at a martial pace.
The magazine remained unsold, for the population happened to be illiterate. There was no money left over for the second number. “What we need is a subsidy!” resolved the editors.

[Programi i një reviste, first published in Bota e re on 16 June 1936. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 156-158.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 148-149.]

THE HEADLESS IDOLS

A terrible tempest toppled the idols. Some crumbled to dust, others lost their heads. The heartless storm did not arise on the horizon or appear from out of the skies, but from the bowels of the earth. And whatever emerges from the interior of the earth is either tender, like the most intimate of pleasures, or is terrible, like the tempest which toppled the idols.
The remains of the pulverized idols’ heads blew away. Nothing was left behind them, and the headless gods stood there as awkward witnesses to an age gone by.
Decapitated idols. Disfigured nature. And the people who lived among them wandered about aimlessly. Those who had been born before the destruction of the idols and who had seen them in all their ceremonial splendour, now grieved and longed for the age of the former glory. They still hoped that the deities would save them when they died. Those who were born in the age of headless idols did not know what to make of them. They wanted to worship them, but what was there to worship? Faceless forms? They wanted to believe in them, but what was there to believe in? Brainless bodies? How could such abominations be worshipped? Who could believe in a headless god? Anything without a head is a corpse, and corpses have no place among the living. Corpses are for burying. Any other contact with them could prove fatal. A catastrophe. The whole nation could be destroyed.
(Our nation was not destroyed. But the only reason for this is that our direct neighbours suffered more or less the same fate as we did.)
Headless deities! Victims of time which devours everything, victims of fatality. There they stand, mutilated, only because no one can be found to build new ones. But one day, someone will be found. And the new idols he builds will be worshipped by the masses. The material they are made of will be the morals of the age, and the form they are modelled after – modern man.
Headless gods! At their burial, the tolling bells will crack, the minarets will bend over backwards, and chanting jaws will spring out of joint. Then there will be silence, for every cry begins and ends in silence. Only then will work begin.

[Idhujt pa krena, first published in Bota e re on 30 July 1936. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 164-165.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 150-151.]

THE LEGEND OF CORN

Corn! Corn!
Gods are not glorified in the twentieth century. Corn is. Our mountain pastures, temples to the greater glory of god, have now become temples to the glory of corn.
A grain of corn is a seed of suffering, in which there is much hunger and little corn.
The word ‘corn’ is the stuff of legends born of the will to survive. The will to survive is as great and wondrous as our mountains which open their bosoms to bury the starving people. On our mighty peaks, the legend told is one of birth, of life, and of death. And this bitter legend, full of ago-old pain and agony, is so heartrending that it would move you to tears.
Corn! Corn!
A cry for help. Glorification of the twentieth century! It is not the names of gods which are heard in the mouths of babes when they begin to speak, but the word corn. Corn! It is the symbol of our age; it is synonymous with survival for the legendary inhabitants of these wild and savage mountains.
The alpine valleys echo the words of starving highlanders who plod along in a line, one after the other, each bearing half a sack of corn. It is a long, endlessly long line, as long and endless as their suffering. Each of them bears half a sack of corn on his back, bears his life, bears his god. The true god – long-desired corn.
Corn! Corn!
The news that corn was to be distributed emerged from the bowels of the earth and flowed through deep veins into the stiff limbs of the land called the State. And it caused the breathing masses, who hardly have enough to keep themselves alive, to quiver with delight.
Like ants gathering around grains of corn, the highlanders assemble around the depot in the district capital. Corn is to be distributed to the surrounding villages. The savage peaks with their fog and snow had tried to prevent the mountain dwellers from getting there, as did the skies which poured rain to drench them to the bone. But who can stop them when they set out in search of corn? Corn for their children, marked by misery, who when they stretch out their arms, resemble pale little ghosts. These tykes are the real testament of human tragedy. The tragic witnesses in this part of the globe which, for foreigners, calls to mind legends of the past. Legends of the past with legendary glory, for real glory is to be found nowhere near the aeries of the Mountain Eagles.
The highlander makes his way down through the mountain valleys with nothing but the shirt on his back and his legendary trousers to so as to reach the district capital in search of corn. His breast is a slab of granite broken off from a cliff and stuck on two legs as strong and straight as tree trunks. This chunk of mountain advances without making a sound. In front of the corn depot his real nature comes to the fore and he turns chicken, becomes servile, frightened, because – in his thinking – that is the way the law and the authorities want him to be, otherwise he gets no corn. “As you wish, sir,” he repeats from time to time in the most ridiculous fashion, with the voice of a madman and the gestures of a monkey, hoping desperately not to awaken the disfavour of the angels distributing corn.
And when they secure the corn, they set off one by one along the narrow path through the mountains and through their lives. It happens on occasion that grains of corn fall onto the ground through a little hole in one man’s sack. The fellow behind him takes no notice and treads on them. The third man curses him savagely: “Don’t step on them, or the wicked fairies will get you!” For the twentieth century is ten decades for the glorification of corn in the aeries of the Mountain Eagles.

[Legjenda e misrit, first published in Bota e re on 15 October 1936. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 167-170.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 152-154.]

LETHAL BEAUTY

The moon stares down from the vaults of heaven with a face as pale as death. It stares at the mountain world powdered in sugary crystals. It stares at the sparkling, snow-covered huts of the village, with hardly a trace of life. All are covered in a white blanket of snow. And this wan beauty can kill you. It snuffs out the soul of the highlanders just as the cold, pallid figure of a naked woman snuffs out the soul of an artist.
In a hut groaning under the weight of the snow, there are but two colours: red and black. Red is the glow of the hearth in the middle, and black is the colour all around it. Veiled in the black of night are the recesses of the hut, from which the faint bleating of a lamb or the bell of a cow can be heard. The steam rising from their mouths falls onto their fell in frosty flakes. Silence. Everything is crystallized. An arm stretches out and grasps a piece of wood, poking it in the fire. Sparks fly about and flames lick the darkness. Up to the beams and around the faces at the hearth soar the sparks. Bodies shiver. The cold air from the dark corners of the hut claws into their backs. Brrrr. The chill gapes behind them.
“Go and make sure that Laro is not freezing.”
They rise and give their cow Laro a place by the fire. These family members need warmth, too, in the crystal-cold hut. Laro knows how to position herself next to the fireplace, but with her huge body, she almost squeezes two of the children to death, who are sleeping at the hearth.
The animals become uneasy as the temperature drops to its lowest around midnight. Yes, there is a commotion. One after the other they approach the humans with pleading eyes: “Give us a place beside the fire so that we can warm ourselves, too. We are freezing…” Humans may show no pity on humans, but they do take pity on animals. Thus they make way and give the animals a place by the fire, receding themselves into the gaping darkness.
Dawn breaks with its white and lethal beauty. The humans awaken with stiff, near-frozen limbs, stinging from the horrors of the night. They rise, but one little child does not move. Its mother stretches out to touch it and a terrible scream rends the hearts in the hut. The agony of the mother melts these hearts, but revives not the frozen heart of the little child.
Yes, the mother’s favourite child froze to death. Its red and purple blood congealed in its veins and heart, turned into crystal like the glasses in the tea service of a millionaire. No, its blood has transformed into rubies for the necklace of a lady. The body of the little child, his mother’s favourite, was as stiff as a stone statue. A stone statue plucked from his mother’s breast.
Get rid of the statue, take it into town. Set it up in some square. Let it serve as a monument to someone. Dedicate it to the worthiest person in the land! To a minister, a member of parliament, or another… And if you don’t find anyone of sufficient merit, then dedicate it to a less-worthy figure: to some traditional god.

[Bukuria që vret, first published in Bota e re on 15 December 1936. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 171-173.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 155-156.]

THE HARVEST

The sun rose day after day, larger and more splendid, only to sink in radiant satisfaction with the people far below.
Early up on these crystal-clear mornings were the farmers who thanked the rising sun and, when the rosy rays of evening came, they begged it, entreated it, not to come back the next day, but to send rain, because their newly-sown fields in the verdant valley needed two days of rain a week.
The sun heard their prayers, as would a beaming mother those of her beloved child. It smiled blithely and went down in a glorious magenta. The next morning it did not rise. Instead, accompanied by all the hues of a rainbow, there came a soft and priceless rain shower which tenderly moistened the earth and gently watered the plants, not even hurting the poppies.
The same happened on the second day.
On the third day, a splendid sun appeared again. Its golden rays quivered as if they were the limbs of some profound and delicate spirit.
How the people were looking forward to the coming harvest! From the hillside over the village they observed the fields of grain, like a green sea, as it was caressed by a gentle breeze from the west. The farmers could not only see it; they could feel the grain growing, and with the grain, they, too, were growing, reaching to the heavens, becoming titans. At last! rose the satisfaction from their breasts as they dreamt of the coming harvest.
The children, seeing their parents satisfied, were all the happier. They wove garlands of flowers in the meadows and set them on their little heads, took one another’s hands, sang and danced. Ah! Ah! Cries of joy rose from their little breasts, inspired by a blithe future.
And the day of the harvest arrived.
The farmers got up early on that crystal-clear morning. They seized their sickles, sharpened them, and set off down the valley. The sun ascended large and splendid, causing the farmers to squint. The sickles in their hands shone and glittered. Once again the farmers thanked the sun from the bottom of their hearts and proceeded, hand in hand, down to the fields.
When the farmers got there, they rubbed their eyes. They looked at the fields in front of them and rubbed their eyes again in disbelief. Cannon barrels threatened to devour them. They were positioned in the direction of the village. For the farmers, these cannons were like monsters from the fairy tales they had heard from their forefathers. They shook in their boots.
“What are those?” they asked, approaching in confusion. When they placed their hands on the cannons, the coldness of the metal penetrated their hearts. They looked at the wheels planted firmly in the soil and felt as if those wheels had been planted in their bodies. They were in pain.
“What are they? We never sowed this kind of seed.” Doesn’t the saying go: ‘As ye sow, so ye shall reap?’ We planted grain and now we’ve got plants of iron.”
“What are they?” the poor farmers asked one another. But no one replied. They stood there shaking, their fingers stroking the cannons and the cannonballs, as if to appease some apocalyptic beast. But the cannons were built of cold iron and the beast was not to be appeased.
“What are they?” each of them asked himself, all with tears of frustration in their eyes. They frowned. Wrinkles appeared on their foreheads. They did not even notice the sun shining above them. The poor farmers, their hopes dashed, returned to their village in undescribable sorrow. When they got home, half-crazed with worry and pain, they exclaimed to the children who were singing and dancing:
“You will have to learn to eat iron!”
“Ho! ho! ho! we’re going to eat iron!” sang and danced the unsuspecting children.

[Të korrunat, first published in Përpjekja shqiptare on 16 April 1938. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 179-181.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 157-159.]

ZENEL

Zenel was like the fertile soil in which seed, wherever it is cast, sprouts, grows, and bears more fruit than one would expect.
I said to him:
“Zenel, tell me something that the other children don’t know.”
His large chestnut eyes stared pensively at mine as he stood up with his white teeth, his tanned face, his smooth and well-shaped brow, and his oblong skull. He gave his reply, quite confident in himself. It was confidence which had often been put to the test, for he was always the one to reply when the others did not know the answer. He spoke, with a frown between his eyebrows.
Sometimes when he talked, Zenel was overcome by childish fantasy. He would mount the winged horse of his imagination and soar from one cloud to the next, but when he noticed me smiling, he realized his mistake, fell into an embarrassed silence, sat down without asking permission, and, out of shame, hid his face in his hands. I laughed, and the children laughed, too, looking back and forth at Zenel and at me.
Very occasionally, Zenel would get bored and reply:
“I don’t know, teacher.”
I knew then that something in the lesson had gone wrong. He was not interested.
Equally rare are the moments in which Zenel bubbled with childish mirth. He laughed out loud for no reason at all, jumped up and down, could not sit still, and disturbed the other children. Neither a warning nor an interesting lesson would help. It even happened that Zenel began to complain and make fun of me, saying: “Come on, teacher. Enough is enough. You’ve taught us how to live. Fine. You’ve taught us all things bright and beautiful. But we are subsisting in the same life our forefathers did, with the same joys and the same sorrows they had in these isolated mountain valleys. Look for yourself. You can see that boy’s pale shoulder through his torn shirt, and the other boy’s bloated belly. He’s dying of hunger, and this boy cannot even keep his teeth from clattering with fever.”
I noticed an ironic reproach in Zenel’s features when he laughed, as if he were to say: “Let’s laugh and have some fun as long as we are at school. Long live school! Long live education! How often have we sung songs although there is neither joy nor laughter here. Long live school! Long live education, which teaches us to read and write, although this will not help us much in our lives, but at least we will have found a stick, if nothing more, and can write in the sky with it: Long live school! Long live education!”
Letting the children have their fun, I went over to the window and looked out at the mountain pastures, above which stretched a seemingly endless forest. We had hiked up there once and it was indescribably majestic. I studied the slopes and mountains, the meadows in the distance, the trees, the red earth, and the green and yellow leaves. Closer were the cottages stamped into the earth and covered with nothing but straw. I fell into morose contemplation and sensed my lips talking to themselves automatically. I soon realized that the children were looking in my direction. Turning around, I saw Zenel:
“Teacher, are we not having a lesson today?”
“Alright, geography then.” I got out the globe and addressed them.
“Where is Albania?” two or three of them inquired, leaning forward to get a better look.
I showed them the spot, a little red dot among the other colours, and could sense their displeasure, hear their disconcerted reactions:
“That small?”
“Look how tiny it is! You can hardly see it.”
“Is Albania really that small, teacher?” asked one of the boys, gesticulating angrily.
They murmured among themselves in a disillusioned manner, as if Albania had recently shrunk and they would have to fight to preserve the rest. Zenel, for his part, said nothing. He looked up at me with his sparkling eyes as if to say, “Teacher, do something. You’ve saved us in many other situations. Remember when you taught us about agricultural equipment and why we don’t have any, and when we talked about all the commodities of modern life, all the things we don’t have, and when we talked about rich countries, which we are not? You always saved the situation. Save us this time, too.”
I noticed the little souls worrying about the country which had seemed so big to them, but now appeared as a little dot on the globe. They thought there was some mistake. I had a feeling that by the next day one of the little sons of the eagle would redraw the country on the globe as much larger.
To raise their spirits, I said to them:
“What? Albania is not small! It is large. If you divide the country up by all the people living in it, there is more space per person here than in the other countries of Europe.”
“Well, why did they draw it so small, then?” asked one little advocate of the rights of his nation indignantly, supporting his intervention with a gesture of his hand.
I could hardly resist laughing, and replied:
“Because we are smaller than the other countries. But that doesn’t mean anything. To live happy lives, all we need is the land that we have. We just need to work, and…” At this moment, the bell rang and the children lost interest in the theory of happiness which I was projecting. Irritated, they stomped out of the classroom, one by one, still discussing the matter with one another. Zenel remained behind, unnoticed by the others. When they had all left, he said to me with a bitter smile:
“We have nothing at all, teacher, neither new equipment to work the land, nor clean, modern houses like they do in other countries. We are small…”
I interrupted. Zenel’s conclusion was both depressing and true. I talked to him and endeavoured to pacify him. I don’t know if he believed me.
I had often thought about Zenel’s future. But what could I do? Good will on my part was not enough to allow Zenel to climb the lofty peaks in order to glimpse the light shining on the horizon. There was something fatalistic within me which said: Let Zenel grow up to live the primitive life his parents did. It is better for him. There is no sense in my dragging him up the dizzying aeries where he will only despair and break his neck when he looks down at his loved ones and realizes he cannot help them.
Thus, when the time came, I handed Zenel his graduation certificate and wished him well. When he departed, I was disconsolate, knowing we would never see one another again.

[Zeneli, first published in Përpjekja shqiptare in December 1938. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 183-187.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 160-164.]

THE ROBBER’S KISS

Another spring has come. It is the seventeenth spring for Dila who is lying in the grass and feels exactly as if seventeen springs have passed, no more and no less.
“Mother, how old am I?” she had inquired at home.
“You have just turned seventeen, daughter!” responded the mother, resting on one arm and holding the other arm over her eyes to protect herself against the rays of the sun.
And Dila, stretched out in the grass, feels exactly seventeen years old. There she lies, looking up at the blue sky and listening to the bells of the herd. The bell with the higher tone belongs to the bellwether, whereas the louder bell belongs to the cow. She gets up from time to time to take a look at the herd and then lies down again, with an undefined longing in her breast. How strongly Dila senses the seventeen years within her! A prisoner of desire, she folds her hands behind her head and lies back, feeling the blood beating hard in her temples. Now the longing within her has become all the stronger. Dila closes her eyes and waits for something to happen. A warm breath of air passes over her moist, half-open lips.

***

A hard winter had preceded that spring. The snow, which was now confined to the high mountain ridges, had covered all the land. A violent storm had driven the drifts right into the mountain caves and hollows of the tree trunks. In the course of that frosty winter, the wild animals had come down into the valley, to the humans who had not made them welcome. Together with the animals arrived a robber, the terror of all those who had heard of him but had never seen him. Having received a promise of good conduct, Dila’s father took the robber in and gave him bread and salt. During the month he stayed with them, Dila realized that this robber could not possibly be the person accused of murder, theft, and rape. That was the reputation he had, but he was not really like that. Her mother smiled at their twenty-four-year-old guest, and so did Prenda, her brother’s young wife. He conversed with her father, and he sang songs with her brother. Their robber guest was a good man and they all thought highly of him. Dila, willingly or unwillingly, stared at him from time to time and blushed, willingly or unwillingly. On occasion, willingly or unwillingly, she touched his arm while passing, to do her household chores. The contact made her breasts swell.
Dila was not even afraid of his weapons – his cartridge belt, his rifle, his revolver. A long-suppressed sensation blossomed in Dila’s heart and burgeoned from day to day. The feeling turned into a yearning which left her awake at night.
But one morning, when the sun rose like a gold coin in the sky, the robber was gone. Dila was left alone with her love for him.

***

Dila’s desire had transformed into passion on that bright spring day as she lay in the grass. She could feel the blood throbbing in her veins. Her passion increased all the more when she closed her eyes and dreamed of what she had never had. She had never known … She never saw the robber again. Her seventeen springs were seventeen silent, but passionate calls to this man.
There she lay dreaming and refused to look even when she felt a weight on her body, when she heard the heavy breathing of a man, and when she tasted the moisture of his lips. She would not open her eyes. Perhaps she was afraid of destroying the moment of rapture which had taken possession of her… Only when the weight was gone from her body did she open her eyes. She stood up, but there was no one there. She looked around and saw only the traces of footsteps in the grass to her left. Dila quivered. “It was him,” she cried, ” the robber!” and set off after him, following the footprints. She ran in her ecstasy, as if intoxicated, and did not even notice the smirk on the face of a nearby shepherd. Dila hastened down the hillside, still in rapture, though no more traces of his steps were to be found. She had left the herd behind her, not even realizing why she was following the robber, and ran until she reached the edge of a cliff. She called out his name. Her footsteps echoed from stone to stone, but her call went unanswered.
In the twilight, agonized voices could be heard on the high mountain pastures and in the ravines: “Dila!, Dila!, Dila!”

[Puthja e cubit, first published in Tirana in 1954. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 188-191.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 164-166.]

In one of the cities of Central Europe, Nushi was reading the letter which the postman had just delivered. He recognized that it was from home the moment he received it. Yes, the white, rectangular envelope conjured up visions of the one-storey house with the little yard full of flowers. He then saw his father, who had written the letter, returning home at dusk and bringing nighttime with him. Comings and goings were extremely uncommon the moment he closed the door behind him. Patriarchal custom was violated only rarely when someone would come to announce a birth, a death or the arrival of an unexpected guest. A law, and what a law it was! Whoever violated it would spend the whole night with the sensation of having tread on something cold and slimy like a snake. This was exactly the feeling Nushi had whenever his father looked at him. It was as if he had trod on a snake. This was one of the reasons why he was in no hurry to return home. He had been studying at the university for over three years now and could still not bring himself to return home for Christmas or Easter. “What will I do there?” he would say to himself.
But the letter he received now gave him a definite deadline. “Your sister is going to get married in a month and, as her brother, you must not fail to be there.” Such was his father’s command. At the beginning, Nushi felt quite pleased about the matter and was happy at the prospect of returning, but when he thought about it at length, his enthusiasm dissipated. He was the type of person ruled more by intellect than by emotion.

***

“Is this really the same yard I left three years ago? I could have sworn it was bigger,” Nushi thought to himself as he glanced about to see if anything had been built in it which might have made the yard look smaller. There was nothing new. The same trees: the fig, the plum, the vine trellis and the same flowers. The roses were in their usual place, and just beyond them was the honeysuckle bush. When he entered the house, the rooms seemed so tiny. The furniture looked as if it had never been touched by human hand. Everything was exactly where it had been, as if it were destined to rot on the spot. At the same time, everything seemed smaller. Nushi then discovered the cause of this optical illusion. His mind was still on the large buildings and broad squares of the city he lived in. Yes, everything now seemed smaller to Nushi, everything except his brothers and sisters who had grown. They were bigger than he had imagined them while abroad. He noticed that his mother had lost a tooth and that his father’s forehead was wrinkled and his moustache now grey.
“You finally made it,” said his father, seeing him. Nushi was touched to see his father and wished to express his feelings, but his father simply shook his son’s hand. Nushi found no adequate response. When he gave his sisters a hug, they seemed to be unsure as to whether to kiss him or not. Only his mother embraced him without hesitation, the smack of her kisses resounding in the room.
One evening, in the midst of a conversation with his engaged sister Agia, she exclaimed “Mother!” and rushed off to the kitchen. “Mother, Nushi says that girls like me, even the married ones, go to school.” She broke into convulsions of laughter at seeing the expression on her mother’s face. “Don’t laugh like that, the neighbours will hear you. It is not in good taste.” The daughter gave no reply. She was so absorbed at the stories her brother was telling her that she could think only of those marvellous lands where girls were not kept indoors, where they could go out for a walk with the boys without shame, where they could dance. Oh, how beautifully they must dance!
“Nushi!” she called out from the kitchen, “will you teach me to dance? One of my girlfriends has been driving me mad, boasting that she knows how to dance.” (Just you wait until Nushi teaches me how to dance! she thought as she dried a plate). The brother took his sister by the hand and began to show her some steps, and it was dancing arm in arm that their father caught them.
“Are you not ashamed of yourself? You’re going to get married tomorrow! And you, “he said, turning to Nushi, “you are no longer a little boy. It is a good thing that you got back early tonight!” added his father with a scowl on his face.
His sister went back into the kitchen and Nushi excused himself, saying he was tired.
“Tired in your own home? No, nothing like that ever happened to me. That seems to be why you had such difficulty finding your way back home.”
Nushi did not know what to say. He did not know how to talk to his father. When he was a child, he understood him far better. There had been a time when his father was more than just a father in his imagination. He was an ideal, an ideal of childhood dreams. But that time had passed. Nushi now realized that his father was one of a thousand fathers like him in town, one of the many who are busy transforming their children into living anachronisms, into images of themselves, worthy heirs of a sombre past.
“I’ve been told that you were out walking with some boys who are not of our faith.”
“But they are my friends.”
“Your friends, are they? Haven’t you been able to find better friends? Are there no boys of our faith here?”
“I simply happened to meet them and couldn’t just leave them like that, dad. But all right, from now on I will only go out with the boys you approve of,” Nushi replied in an attempt to appease his father.
“Very well. Listen to your father and you will not regret it. You should keep the company of people you can learn from. What can you possibly learn from the company you are keeping now? Boys of that faith will never become good men, whatever school they may attend. Listen to your father.”
And Nushi listened. He wanted to be an obedient son. How could be not listen to the father who had given life to him, who had raised him and done so much for him? Anyway, what choice did he have? Nushi listened, though against his own will. He paid attention to his father’s words and endeavoured not to frown. His brothers and sisters sitting around them paid attention to everything that was said, too. They were all ears. How could they fail to listen? His mother was also listening from the kitchen, filled with a sense of awe at the learned words of her spouse. A whole family, enclosed within the walls of the house and within a patriarchal environment, was now preparing to face the future. “I hope they don’t put me to shame,” thought the head of the family to himself, casting a glance at the members of his household. “They must never put me to shame. I must hold them back, tighten the screws as much as possible, retain them until they suffocate and burst. How difficult it is to raise children nowadays! How hard it is to keep control of the girls! In the old days… Do you realize, children, that when I was your age… when I first began to earn a living… so that, thanks be to God, you would have enough to fill your bellies…”
Nushi listened. Everyone listened. Who would dare not to listen? Nushi did so and thought to himself, “Perhaps experience in life has made this man so strict.”
One evening, Nushi began to miss those distant lands, that city where he was studying. He loved his home, or to put it more exactly, he loved to see his family sitting around the fire: his parents, his brothers and sisters, but there was a strong sentiment which tied him to those distant lands – those lands where you could live and enjoy life to the full, however you wished, young or old, philosopher or simpleton. Nushi was aware of the appalling contrast between those lands and his own home. Being young, he was captivated by their marvellous and he meditated upon the reasons why his country was so backward. He began to hate those reasons with all the passion of his youth. He hated the past which was yet so close to him, as was his father. As a parent, his father was close, but as a representative of society and as an individual, he was a long way off. All the disagreements and misunderstandings arose from there being so many individuals under one roof, so many beloved and at the same time, detested beings. Living with them was like being faced with the dilemma of an operation. To amputate the leg and live, or not to amputate and die. A tragic alternative. Nushi was aware that it was not his father’s fault for being the way he was. He was the product of his environment, of the society in which he grew up. It was for this reason, too, that he still cherished a paternal affection for Nushi, although he could never put it into words. But did his brothers and sisters love their father? He recalled the feelings he had had for his father as a little boy. The feelings were inspired more by fear than by love. His sisters now trembled at the sight of him, and his brothers showed absolutely no desire to spend time with him. They disappeared whenever he arrived.
“What would you be doing now, Nushi, if you were still abroad?” said Agia, interrupting his thoughts as she entered the room in her lively manner.
“It is the time of day for a walk, so I would probably be out walking with one of the guys or with…”
“Or maybe with a girl, ha ha,” countered his sister with a giggle.
“Yeah, why not? It doesn’t matter there whether you are out with a boy or a girl. Here everyone goes crazy if they see a girl walking with a boy. There, no one pays any attention whatsoever. Everyone minds his own business.”
He was filled with nostalgia for those distant lands as he described to his sister all the beautiful things he had seen and the way people lived there. He told her about important public events and of the little scandals which had occurred. Agia listened attentively. From time to time, she interrupted with a question. The expression on her face changed constantly during the course of her brother’s tales. She would let out a cry of astonishment without even realizing it. Nushi spoke with all the power of his emotions so that his sister would understand everything, unaware that his words were gradually giving birth within her to a dream which would surely never be realized, which would torture her young heart. She would sigh and lament, “What good is it to be alive here?” – a lamentation heard more and more often in our country. Nushi grew silent and reflected on the fact that his sister was now engaged and would soon be married off to some good-for-nothing.
Linked by memories of a common childhood, Nushi was extremely fond of his older sister. They had grown up together. On cold winter evenings, shivering under the blankets, they used to cuddle up and listen to one another’s hearts beating. Their bodies warmed to the murmur of a long fairy tale and they sensed the presence of something new and foreign, something as yet unknown to their bodies which now, in the warmth of the bed, was coming to be, was growing and rocking them to sleep. When their mother came in and saw them sound asleep in one another’s arms, she felt a sense of joy, but also an ever so slight sense of jealousy which clouded her bliss for a moment.
Nushi knew his sister well. She was still the same Agia she had been as a little girl. Vivacious and full of joy, but not as inclined as her girlfriends to romantic daydreams. She had no time for dreaming, as she had to help her mother with household chores: washing the dishes, sweeping and polishing the floors, and looking after the constant needs of half a dozen brothers and sisters with whom God, as they say here, had blessed her parents. Agia had no time for reveries. Nushi was aware of this fact, as he was of his sister’s beauty. What he did not know, but wished to find out, was what his sister thought of her coming marriage, of her marriage to a good-for-nothing. Nushi had spoken to his future brother-in-law on several occasions. All that he could recollect of him was the banal smile of a swollen, pallid face, the utter boredom of his mutterings, his bad teeth and his apish snobbery. Such was his future in-law. “He comes from a good family and is a competent businessman,” his father had remarked. That was enough for his wife. By the next day, everything had been settled. And Agia? Agia is a good and clever girl and listens to her parents (which amounts to the same thing). When she first caught sight of her fiancé in the living room, or rather through the keyhole, she paled slightly, but no doubt out of emotion – nothing else. “He’s a bit on the short side,” noted her aunt, “but he’s loaded with money. What a lucky girl you are!” Agia was doubtful of her luck and grew morose. It was only when Nushi arrived that she recovered some of her liveliness and that her laugh could once again be heard throughout the house.
Nushi still did not know what she thought of the marriage. One night, when their father happened to mention the up and approaching marriage, Nushi and his sister exchanged glances. She then got up and went into the kitchen. Nushi remained silent as his father talked, and thought about his sister’s glance. She had given him such a startled look that he now understood. Nushi understood everything from one glance. It was a much-used means of communication in such families in which no one had the right to speak freely.
The next day, Nushi happened to return home to look for a book. He was not expecting anyone to be there. In his room he found Agia with her hands over her eyes to try to cover them. He approached.
“What is the matter, Agia? Why are your eyes all red?”
“From the smoke…”
Nushi was suspicious and went into the kitchen, but there was no fire on.
“Why have you been crying, Agia?”
“I wasn’t crying,” said his sister, endeavouring to smile.
“Yes, you were.”
“I was not,” she countered, rushing out of the room as if she had work to do.
From a distance, Nushi tried to elicit some reaction from her by giving her a smile, but it was to no avail. On leaving the house, he realized why Agia had been crying. He recalled the look she had given him the day before. He wanted to go back into the house, but he knew that Agia would be too ashamed to say anything. Shame, and especially shame on the part of engaged girls, is yet another link in the chains which constrain life here. How should an engaged girl not be ashamed when she knows that she is being sent to her husband for the sole purpose of going to bed with him? She can imagine no other possible relations with the man she is going to marry, since she had never even exchanged a word with him. Shame? How can she be anything but ashamed? They say that only dishonourable girls have no sense of shame. Shame is therefore a necessity, and it is one which impedes them from raising their voices to defend themselves against those who decide on their happiness. “I don’t want to!” No, such an utterance has never been heard up until now in our family from an engaged girl. Any husband, whoever he may be, is at least a man.
Nushi was resolved to tell his father that he did not approve of Agia’s marriage. It was a difficult decision and he had to wait for the best opportunity to speak to him. One evening, when his father was in a particularly good mood and seemed willing to talk, Nushi endeavoured to express his opinion on the marriage.
“Well, who else do you think we could find for her? Indeed, where will your other sisters ever find a husband like him? He is from a good family, is wealthy and is the most industrious young man in the bazaar.”
“Yes, but nowadays, father, girls like to take a good look at their future husbands.”
“You don’t mean that we should have asked her for her opinion, do you? What could she possibly know?”
“She is not happy about it.”
“Only at the start. With time, she will be happy with him.”
That is all I have been able to accomplish for Agia, thought Nushi to himself and was enraged at not having been able to do more for her. He lost confidence in himself. “It was your only opportunity to show the strength of your character, of your mind and of your love to save someone precious from the clutches of such fatal customs. But what chance did you have? How could anyone lead a sane life in such an atmosphere? You have striven in vain to make your own contribution to society, to do a noble deed. At the very first attempt, you have failed.” Such were the thoughts that kept him awake through the night until he finally fell asleep towards dawn.
Agia stopped asking him questions about the marvels of those distant lands. Her mind was on the good-for-nothing husband she was to marry. The more she thought about him, the worse he seemed. “A guileless individual.” she overheard her girlfriends saying. Agia felt a sense of revolt taking possession of her, a revolt which had become apparent in her attitude to her brothers and sisters, and occasionally to her mother. From time to time, she would fly into a rage, drop a cup, a plate or a glass, or break something she happened to have in her hand. When her mother complained about the broken dishes, she countered sharply, “I didn’t do it on purpose,” and ran off to hide in a corner and weep.
Nor did Nushi tell her any more about the marvels of those distant lands. He only spent the time at home that he had to. His father reprimanded him for coming home late at night, but he simply gave no reply, and the sermon was thus brought to an abrupt end. When he noticed the preparations being made here and there for the wedding, he was reminded of a film he had once seen. It was called ‘Ecstasy,’ the story of an unsuccessful marriage.
“We mustn’t allow anything to put us to shame,” said his father. “Everything must be made ready for the wedding. Everything must be in order. Take care not to forget a thing,” said his father to his mother.
The wedding went off well. Everyone had a good time. There was raki and wine galore. Weddings are not an everyday happening. They must therefore be occasions of joy. To the health of the beautiful bride! To the health of the host. Many a toast followed to a clinking of glasses and a ‘down the hatch,’ from which songs now resounded, like the unoiled, squeaking wheels of an ox cart.
God knows the singers themselves were well enough oiled. The women were busy singing a song about stuffed vine leaves. They all talked at the same time, each of them listening to no one but themselves, and giggling about. In the corners were the children, munching on something or other for the most part and amazed to see their mothers in a state of excitement such as they had never been in before.
“Why is Agia getting married?” asked her younger, seven-year-old brother.
“Daddy told her to.”
“I know that daddy told her to, you idiot, but why is she getting married?”
“My mommy is married, too, and so is yours.”
“That’s true. But why do they get married?”
“So that they can go to bed with their husbands,” intervened a older boy of nine.
“How do you know anyway?” asked Agia’s brother.
“It’s true. My mommy goes to bed with my daddy,” replied the precocious lad.
“Don’t say wicked things or I’ll tell on you at school,” said the nine-year-old, before departing in search of something sweet.
All during the wedding celebrations, Nushi felt sick to his stomach. He could not get into the spirit of things, with all the noise and to-do. He needed to help arrange things and deal with the guests. He was obliged to greet and talk at length with cousins he had never seen before and tell them all about his stay abroad. His eldest cousins inspected him with great curiosity and wished him well. The younger cousins smiled and showed their unbound admiration for him. Nushi felt nauseated. He did his best to get into the spirit of things, to drink with the guests and even to sing with the women, but all the time he had the impression he was making a fool of himself. He did not even reply to the congratulations of the women guests when he happened to enter the bride’s room. Agia stood there, as erect and pale as a candle. “Come in. Don’t be ashamed,” the women said to him as they arranged the bride’s veil. Nushi wished only that the whole ceremony would be over with as soon as possible. Let Agia depart whither fate, or more exactly her father, had consigned her. Perhaps she will come to love her new husband, as his father had said, he thought to himself.
“No, I have never seen a bride weep so much on her wedding day,” said one of the women when, as custom decreed, they came to escort her to the house of her new husband.
“Well, there is no reason why she should not weep. After all, she is leaving her parents, and her brothers and sisters.”
“I heard that Agia did not even want the boy,” said a third woman with a sigh, turning away from her companions.
“Indeed. But what better husband could she possibly find? They say the lad is wealthy enough and is from a good family.”
“Yes, he is.”
“You probably heard that from what’s-her-name trying to get the lad for her own daughter.”
“No, on the contrary. I, too, have heard that Agia did not want the boy,” said a fourth woman who could not help herself from breaking into the enigmatic gossip and who had her eyes fixed upon the doorway all the time.
“It was strange. She wept the most when she said farewell to her brother. Poor Nushi. The tears were welling his eyes, too.”
“Yes, it is a pity. You can see that they’ve married her off by force.”
“Well, after all, what does it matter? We were all married off by force. Where had we ever met our husbands beforehand? They married us off to the first man who asked. If a Gypsy had been the first one to ask, they would have given us to him. That is our destiny,” exclaimed a woman with a masculine face.
“I feel sorry for Agia. She is a good girl,” said the youngest among them.
“Well, were we any worse?” countered the woman with the masculine face, and scowled at her companions.
Two days after the wedding, Nushi went to visit Agia at her new home in order to say good-bye, since he was soon to leave the country. When he announced his departure, she began to weep and did not stop crying until after he left. At the gate, she threw her arms around him and hugged and kissed him so warmly and tenderly that he never forgot that the moment.

***

Social conventions are inviolable. Woe to those who try to contravene them. At least, they seem that way. May the aura of decency in our city shine forth untouched. May the light of our day-to-day social relations shine forth like polished shoes in the mud. And if a woman suffers in anguish from having to sleep with her elderly or ignorant husband, and loves another, what does it matter? It is of no importance. Marital relations are sacrosanct. That is what the church says at any rate. There is only one catch. No scandals are allowed. Do anything to avoid scandal. Scandal is as lethal a danger to one’s honour as a 42 degree temperature is to one’s body. Society begins to languish at a certain temperature, and if you wish to maintain your honour and your immaculate reputation, take care that the temperature does not surpass a certain threshold.
At the market in our city, when people sing the praises of a young man, they use various attributes, as they would elsewhere. Among the most usual of these attributes is ‘son of the devil.’ Any apprentice in the market whom they call thus will do well. It means that he will be someone of importance. Not that he will become a millionaire, but that he is skilled enough to learn his profession well and to satisfy the demands of his master. One of these young men was Luli, an apprentice of Agia’s husband. And what a ‘son of the devil’ he was. Without Luli, Agia’s husband would never have had much success in his trade. That was the opinion held by the other members of his guild who were all interested in getting Luli to work for them. But in vain. Although Luli was only twenty years old, he refused to leave his master who had no reason to be unsatisfied with him.
When Luli first saw his master’s wife dressed as a bride, he was overwhelmed by her beauty, and by the ugliness of her husband-to-be. Up until the wedding he had looked upon the man simply as his boss, as the storekeeper who paid his wages regularly and generously. He found it difficult to imagine that this man was the husband of a woman as beautiful as Agia. In his mind, Luli had formed an opinion of him. His master sat behind the counter and watched how his apprentice was handling the sales, weighing goods, receiving payment and bringing the money to him. Seated at his desk, he would give a toothless smile to those under his command. Luli was by no means afraid of him. He felt as little fear as one might feel for a slightly older colleague. But now that his master was married to such a beautiful woman, there was an unconscious pang of dissatisfaction in the depths of his soul. This instinctive discontent, which Luli, the simple apprentice of a merchant, was unable to analyse, expressed itself from time to time in anger and jealousy. “What a fool. And what a beautiful wife he got for himself!” Luli once confided to a close friend. This opinion of his master crossed Luli’s mind again and again. The friend, smiling and pulling Luli’s arm, had only made things worse by agreeing with him.

***

Three years later, Nushi returned home, having finished his studies in medicine. The optimism which had given him the strength to complete his degree as a doctor was still with him when he arrived in town. The whole world now revolved around him; his friends, cousins and acquaintances all revolved around him like the planets around the sun. He was the epicentre. At least, that was the way it seemed to him. And a fact it was. Nushi wondered why, but he had no time to reflect on the matter. He was too caught up in a series of greetings, visits, luncheons and dinner parties, and in new, select acquaintances.
Even at home, things had now changed for Nushi. His brothers and sisters behaved differently in his presence. The word ‘doctor’ seemed to exude an odour of drugs which evoked a fear of illness. His brothers and sisters lost their fraternal love and now looked up to him and admired him. Nushi noticed that even his father behaved differently in his presence. If Nushi happened to return home late at night, his father made no remark. On the contrary, his father spoke to him cordially, asking him whom he had seen that day and whom he had just been out with. His questions, now devoid of the bitterness and irony of the past, evinced an objective interest. He also began talking to Nushi of the career which the latter would soon being embarking upon.
“The time has come that I will need your assistance because my business is not doing well. Up to now, I have managed to keep it going, but things are getting worse. What a relief it is that you have finished your studies. Your sisters are grown up now and you will have to give a bit of thought to them, too.”
Nushi smoked his cigarette, observing the fumes rising, and through the smoke, saw the face of his father speaking gently, especially when he mentioned Nushi’s imminent work as a doctor. Whenever another member of the family showed up, he changed his tone and became somewhat more severe.
Nushi of course, being a doctor, was also something of a psychologist. He studied his father’s behaviour attentively both in his presence and in the presence of the others. A new thought took violent possession of his brain. He shook his head as if trying to rid himself of it. He had come to the conclusion that the so-called family spirit was nothing other than egoism. Nushi remembered having read something about this in a book. It was true. If his father’s attitude towards him had changed, it was due to the fact that Nushi was about to start making a living. One might consider it quite normal for a father to expect assistance from his son to support the family, as his father was no longer in a position to do so. But Nushi’s reasoning was more radical, more left wing, as they say nowadays. Three years ago, although Nushi was already grown up, his father behaved like a tyrant, whereas now, though still no angel, he was striving to be Nushi’s best friend. Three years ago, you were not even allowed to open your mouth. You were nothing in your father’s eyes because you had no earnings. But now, with prospects of a fat income looming, it was “I salute you and I tip my hat, or rather my black fez to you.” It was thus, in the form of a dialogue, that Nushi studied the situation, although with little pleasure. He refused to subscribe to the new material doctrines or to admit that there was no ideal family and that the love which we regard as sincere, only reflected material or physical interests. Nushi shook his head, wishing to rid himself of the thought which was destroying all his sacred ideals which had been wrapped in a veil of mystery. Like a drowning man clinging to a raft, Nushi clung to that mystery to preserve his illusions. But the values he held sacred were in vain because he was beginning to realize that the mystery in them, like a lifesaver on the high seas, was nothing but deception. And yet it was a deception which he clung to because he needed it, even though he knew it was a lie.
After three years of marriage, Nushi had seen Agia change considerably. She had not had any children as yet, but her waist and thighs had expanded and she looked pregnant. The blossom in her cheeks was no longer what it had been, and her eyes which could once look deep into his soul meandered and only crossed his from time to time, just enough to remind him that she was talking or listening to him. Nushi was surprised at the change, considering the fact that married sisters usually show even greater affection for their brothers. On leaving her house, he had the impression of not having visited his sister Agia at all. Perhaps she was just being bashful, he said to himself. That evening, Nushi told his family that he had visited Agia and that she had changed a lot. On hearing him, his father turned to his mother and noted: “What a fool her husband is. Is he waiting for me to go and tell him to fire his employee?”
“But he cannot run his business without him. You know what a clever worker Luli is,” replied his mother gently, giving Nushi a furtive glance. “If he doesn’t mind, why should you be bothered?”
“Are you serious? Haven’t you heard what people have been saying?” countered his father, raising his voice and looking at Nushi.
Nushi said nothing but the conversation almost took his breath away. The blood rose to his head. He soon regained his composure though and began thinking about what his parents had been saying.
Perfect harmony reigned at Agia’s house. No disputes, fights or ugly scenes, as they say. Perfect harmony reigned. For example, when her husband got home from shopping or from work in the evening, Agia did her best to see that everything in the house was in order so that he could rest after a hard day’s work. They even asked one another how the day had been, if there had been any problems or if anything new had taken place. Agia carried through with these family rituals in a cool though sincere manner. Her husband, more emotional, went further. He would approach Agia and pinch her cheek with his two fingers smelling of fat, as one would pinch a little child. He would stroke her hair or the nape of her neck and look longingly at her figure. Then, relishing in conjugal bliss, he would light a cigarette, have a glass of raki and begin to talk about his day at work. Agia would shuffle back and forth in the living room, doing this and that, listening to her husband and answering now and then.
“Did Luli bring you everything you wanted?” asked her husband raising his glass.
“Yes,” she replied briefly. “But you forgot to give him the pepper,” she added with a slight blush, and turned away.
“Did he bring you this? Did he bring you that?” When Agia said yes, he continued: “Yes, Luli is an honest fellow. Up to now I’ve had no cause for complaint whatsoever,” and made a zero in the air with his fingers. “In the store, I trust him more than I do myself because he’s clever. Of course, I know there are people trying to make me get rid of him by spreading all sorts of rumours, because they want him for themselves.”
Hearing this, Agia blushed right to the temples, her heart began to pound and she replied in a more than usually brusque manner: “But why do you send Luli to me during the day when you could bring what we need home yourself in the evening?”
“Well, where would I get the meat for our lunch? Why shouldn’t he come? People do talk, but I know why…” Agia wondered if there were any reasons why he should not come when she was alone at home. It was the perfect time for him to come, whispered an emotion from the depths of her being – though, as the respected wife of a merchant, she tried to resist it. But the emotion took hold of her young body and she replied to her husband:
“Don’t forget to send me the pepper tomorrow.” She wondered, too, if there was anything else she might need to order.
“All right, I’ll send it along, with some fresh meat. The butcher said they would be slaughtering tomorrow. Anything else?”
“No…”

***

Nushi knocked once or twice at the door leading to the courtyard and, seeing that no one had come out to open it, he entered and walked up towards the house, wondering why Agia had not come out. At that moment he met Luli on the steps who murmured, in a somewhat agitated manner, that he was sorry for the delay in coming out to open the door. Nushi was surprised at first, thinking that something might have happened, and then had a doubt. Hesitantly but instinctively, he ran up the staircase. He found Agia with her back to the door, one hand in her hair and the other one fiddling mechanically with some ingredients in a bowl. Turning around, she saw her brother and smiled at him, but her face was pallid.
“What’s wrong, Agia?” Nushi asked, taking her hand.
“Nothing at all, Nushi. Why?” she replied somewhat confused.
“You’re pale.”
“Yes, I have a bit of a headache, or rather, I had a headache this morning, but I’m all right now,” stammered Agia, her voice and her expression giving way to her brother’s piercing glance. Her heart began to pound in fright and her knees quivered. She would have fallen if Nushi had not been there to prop her up.
“Agia, you shouldn’t really be working so much anymore,” said Nushi, turning his head towards the window and trying to speak as calmly as possible. She tried to get a peek at the expression on his face but could only see his ear and part of his chin as he looked out of the window onto the road, gritting his teeth.
“Look, Agia,” he turned to her suddenly, “don’t work so much. The less you work, the better off you will be. You won’t have breakdowns like that. And it’s not good for you to work while you’re pregnant.”
Agia looked into her brother’s eyes and saw that he meant nothing more than what he had said, and Nushi was relieved to see that he had succeeded in deceiving his sister, in convincing her that he suspected nothing of her relations with Luli. He went on to talk about various matters, asking his sister about this and that, and she inquired about their father, mother, brothers and sisters, laughing all the time.
Nushi left his sister’s place with a smile on his face. And he was happy and relieved. Indeed, he was surprised at the joy and tranquility he felt. But an hour earlier, something might have happened. Yes, Nushi thought to himself, just like it would have up in the primitive mountains. The rifle would have spoken, so that people large and small would know what respect is, so that honour could be cleansed. Someone would have died and society would have been satisfied. Not that society is malevolent – it is just that people in our town get bored, and cleansing one’s honour with the rifle is a great sensation. It may keep you up for several nights on end, but at least it gets rid of the boredom. After all – honour, my friends – honour is not water. It may be champagne, but it’s certainly not water. Smiling still, Nushi remembered that an hour earlier, he had been on the verge of committing an act which would have been quite spectacular and theatrical. Yet he had managed to check his emotions immediately. He now smiled at the thought of himself with a fez over one eyebrow, with a long moustache and with a rifle in his hand, standing over the body of his sister and her lover, the two of them slaughtered for having tasted of the forbidden fruit.
This manly act is what ennobles our people, say the moralists. This barbarous act only serves to reveal how primitive and ignorant our country really is, countered Nushi to himself. I may be amoral, but my way of thinking, my ideology if you will, is incompatible with what society tries to impose upon me. I make use of its morals as a screen, and make fun of them behind its back. I’m playing society’s game, just like hundreds of other people do. So, society, if you don’t want everyone to make fun of you behind your back, change your style. Get rid of all the stuffiness.

[Studenti në shtëpi, 1936, from the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 201-224, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]

THE STORY OF ONE OF THEM

Who couldn’t remember her? Come on, guys, who couldn’t remember her? Who? Which one? That one! One of those women. But which one? There are a lot of them. Which young (or old) man doesn’t know at least ten of them? There are a lot of them. There are so many men out there, and so much money, so there has to be a corresponding number of them who sell their bodies… So, who is the one I mean?
Lukja, Lukja! Don’t you remember Lukja? I find that hard to believe. But maybe you are just pretending. Maybe you even deny having known her. Sorry, but you can’t fool me. Come on, a bit of courage! You can tell your stories elsewhere. You still deny ever having known Lukja? You pretend you’re too virtuous? Don’t worry, I’m not going to start preaching. But at least you admit to having known one of Lukja’s many “sisters,” don’t you? They’re just as good. All their lives are the same. They are all alike and they all give you whatever you desire – cash up front.
Sweet Lukja. Merciful Lukja – she was almost a saint. She never said no to anyone who really wanted her. The students sometimes went to have a look at her, not with any bad intentions, but simply to accompany a fellow student. When she finished with the first one, she would say to the next student, “So, how much money have you got in your pocket?” “Four.” “Come on, then,” she would say to the second, third and fourth fellows and take them into her room. Her price was three francs. But Lukja was a good soul, more benevolent than many who pretended to be so.
On their first visits, the students would blush, but when they came back for the second time, they would take a furtive glance left and right to see that no one was watching, and then dart in at the speed of a bullet. Lukja would sometimes make fun of them and shout:
“What are you guys doing around here? Who are you looking for? The person you are trying to find is not here.”
The students, disconcerted, would begin to stammer and stare at one another, turning red, and on the retreat. Lukja would then burst into laughter and take them by the hand to her room. On occasion she would chastise them, especially if they kissed her bare arm or stroked her cheek as men have the right to do with their wives, when they are officially married by priests or hodjas. Lukja would say to them:
“Hey, no touching, you vagabond. Be good now,” and would give them a slap on the face. The lads, not giving up, would laugh and try to seize her hand.
When they came late, having been delayed by long discussions in a café, she would tell them all: “Off with you now, or your parents will be out looking for you.” Sometimes she would say to the youngest one: “Look, it’s getting late… this is the time of night when your father usually drops by.”
The room then echoed with hilarity. On occasion, one of the lads would be irritated and protest, saying:
“My father is a man of virtue, he’s not like me…” Lukja and her companions would then laugh all the louder at the lad’s naivety and ignorance.
Sometimes a customer would make fun of Lukja and ask:
“Hey, Lukja, where did you leave that native costume of yours, the one the peasant women wear up in the mountains?”
“Come on and have a look in my room.”
“Alright.”
“But have you got any money with you?”
“I’ve got three leks…”
“Get out of here. Three leks in your pocket and you want to see America?”
I mentioned that Lukja was more benevolent than many who pretended to be so. On occasion she would accept a young lad with no money at all, if she was in the right mood.
Lukja’s name, and especially her body, had something of an aura about them, like the haloes around the heads of saints. Some disliked it when they heard her being called a whore. They preferred more euphemistic words like ‘prostitute,’ ‘lady of the night,’ ‘courtesan,’ terms they had come across in newspapers. There was one fellow in particular, who never swore and who was particularly disturbed when he heard Lukja being called a whore. He never used the term himself, and if anyone else did in his presence, he winced as if to the sound of a fork scratching out the bottom of a saucepan. The word whore was in crude dissonance to the harmonious pleasures that Lukja offered. Calling Lukja a whore was like calling a priest a woman because he wears a cassock. They popularized the use of the word ‘prostitute’ among their friends. The sentimental attachment to Lukja went so far among the young men that they would get into fist fights with one another over her.

***

Mother Earth reproduces. Beings with souls and without souls reproduce, too. They reproduce and create over millions of years and within the space of a second. They reproduce forms which exchange warmth with one another to create other, new forms and to perpetuate life. Within a worm and a man there is the very same impulse. Reproduction. Only, the worm doesn’t know it’s reproducing, has no idea what reproduction is. Man, on the other hand, knows full well what reproduction is; he senses it as he consumes the energy which is there for consumption. And it is here, only here, not in any other sphere of the imagination, but in the awareness of his reproductive faculties that the difference between worms and men becomes apparent. The worm reproduces and goes its way doing what worms do (gnawing away at wood) and perpetuating its race. Man creates and produces technology, architecture, art, literature and, at the same time, perpetuates his race. He has energy which must be consumed according to his abilities, energy which emanates from one source.
This mounting energy, when accumulated, gives rise to melancholy and nervous agitation if it has no other way out. The fantasies of young men fashion a halo around the body of any woman who sells herself and whose reproductive instincts are bound to material interests because society, rightly or wrongly, forces her to do so.
The energies of the young men were consumed in Lukja’s room. If they had not been consumed there, they would have been consumed elsewhere, in an unnatural, more refined and artificial manner, mixing the intellectual with the physical.
“Lukja, yes, that’s the way. How beautiful your eyes are…” murmured one of the lads.
She remained silent.
“How beautiful your… your… your…”
“Shut up, little vagabond. Come on, get a move on. That’s why you came here.”
The intimacy of their physical embrace, the heavy breathing, a little bite here and there, a quiver of lust, and a slap on naked flesh…
Sometimes, Lukja was depressed by it all. She suffered from time to time, but only in what we call the soul. Had these emotional crises been more frequent, the proprietor would have thrown her out because Lukja was wont, on those rare occasions, to break anything that got into her hands: glasses, dishware, mirrors, and whatever else she could find. On such days, she even refused to receive visitors. Perhaps she was depressed by the idea that all that energy in the lads was being consumed senselessly. Perhaps she, too, had a desire to reproduce, like Mother Earth and all other creatures. What sorrow she must have felt, almost physical pain, at being reminded that she was a woman who was not allowed to reproduce. She was a puppet, a mere toy to be played with in a moment of debauchery, and then to be forgotten.

***

One clear winter’s day when the north wind was blowing and the frost had turned the dewdrops to ice crystals, Lukja went into town. The story of her life had been simple up to that point, though full of suffering, like the existence of all women from the mountains. Life in the big city looked so attractive from a distance. You could at least make money if you were young and healthy. But when Lukja had her first miscarriage, she realized that life was the same everywhere for those living in misery, and wanted to get out of the trade. But the others insisted:
“Keep at it, you fool. You’re still young… you can make a lot of money, and with the money you’ll easily find a husband who’ll love you when you’re old.”
And Lukja was intelligent enough to appreciate the philosophy of the town in which she had settled.
It wasn’t long before Lukja had made two hundred napoleons. Three leks each time from the students, and three francs from the merchants. She amassed a good amount of cash, and counted it avidly as it grew. With all the money she was making, Lukja hoped to find some lost soul like herself to live with in old age. She wasn’t asking for much. She did not need to be seen on the main thoroughfare, arm in arm with the man of her choice, nor did she want any of the other pleasures which virtuous, married women enjoy. She just wanted a little home to spend her old age in, and someone to sit with her beside the fire and exchange a few words on those long and cold nights of winter to dispel the sorrow of existence. Such were Lukja’s modest ambitions.

***

Two hundred napoleons are two hundred banners of triumph over a life of backwardness and misery. They are two hundred cries of victory in the struggle for survival, two hundred “hurrahs.”
And with her two hundred napoleons, Lukja hoped to build herself a castle and live in it with some suffering soul like herself. There in silence beside the fireplace she would let pass in review all the epic and sentimental struggles of her past. Finally she would have peace and quiet, like a ship tossed and turned in a heavy sea which finally reaches its port of call.
And one day, Lukja found a home of her own, away from the brothel. And a husband. He was no romantic knight in shining armour, no great thinker poised to rid the world of suffering. He was simply a tinsmith who had gone bankrupt.
“There’s no future for our profession. Tin utensils are out of fashion. Only the older households keep copper pots and pans, and even the homes that have them, don’t use them. They hang them on the walls like antiques,” said the tinsmith, raising his pale glass of raki.
“A bit of fresh capital might revive the profession, but where can you get funds like that nowadays?” he continued, chewing on his hors d’oeuvres.
“If you could help me, you’d be doing a good deed,” he said to the owner of the café where Lukja worked, as he paid for his drink.
And the deal was made. He married Lukja who was supposed to help him in his business with her money. “Work, work, nothing but work. And so much money, you won’t know what to do with it all,” dreamed the tinsmith. Lukja, for her part, had reached her port of call. She now had a home and a family as she had always wanted, and was looking forward to old age. After all, why shouldn’t she think a bit about the pleasures of her own life now that she and her husband were in their thirties and forties, mused Lukja.
But her dreams were torn apart like a blouse sewn together with the threads of a spider’s web only to reveal the sordid nudity of reality. No use trying to make true your dreams. Leave them as is and make do with what you have (if you are satisfied with dreaming). Otherwise you will despair, like the couple in this short and undated story.
Lukja’s two hundred napoleons were soon reduced to one hundred. They were swept away by the high tide like the fruits of the fields during a flood.
“Easy come, easy go,” said the husband bitterly to his wife.
“Easy go because you are incompetent. You’re being taken in and deceived because you don’t know what you’re doing!” replied his wife in a voice betraying both anguish and anger.
“Shut up!” he shouted furiously.
“Alright, alright!” replied Lukja and went off to the living room, almost in tears for having thrown her two hundred napoleons out the window.
“All for nothing,” she sobbed as she stirred the embers in the fireplace with her tongs to make her husband a cup of coffee.
She thought about the future and saw herself once again at the mercy of the faceless masses. But the masses, whom she had taken advantage of while she was young by getting her claws into all that young flesh, would not want anything to do with her anymore. They would not even give her the time of day. Who would take pity on an aging whore? And then, there would follow starvation and a slow death. Not a swift end, but a slow and steadily increasing debility, day afer day, just the way her sisters and brothers in the mountains had perished.
When she brought the coffee to her husband, she found him staring out the window, his glance lost in the twilight of the evening. He then turned to her.
“Give me a napoleon. I need it for something I’ve got to do.”
“You must be joking,” she replied, making an obscene gesture and giving him a furious look.
“Just look at yourself, who you are and where you’ve come from…” he said to his wife. He was not in the mood for a big fight, and spit in her direction.
Rare were the fights which stopped at that. The two often began by pushing one another around. He would slap her first, and she would give him back the same. When the disputes became more frequent, Lukja began to use all of her physical strength. Having lived in the mountains as a shepherd and having learned to use her forces to defend herself against the other girls and boys, she was stronger than her short and weak husband who only had a man’s courage.
He soon forgot his household responsibilities and Lukja watched as her other hundred napoleons seeped through her hands, day after day. Strangely enough, she did not despair any longer. She was like a person coming to terms with an infirmity. Sometimes, her husband would come home drunk and would inevitably turn violent. He would beat her, throwing her to the ground. Whenever he succeeded in getting on top of her, he would tear her clothes off and have his way with her. She would just close her eyes, horrified by the memories of the past, and look at the faces of all the men who had lain on her, right down to her backward and disgusting husband. His was the only face she now saw when she opened her eyes. The neighbours confirmed that she always preserved her husband’s honour and had nothing to do with other men. She could have served as a good example for the other women of the neighbourhood.
“How dare she! Comparing herself to us, as if only yesterday she hadn’t been a …” cursed the other women in fury.
Lukja did not work anymore. She spent her time preserving her husband’s honour, though he never brought home a cent… Lukja’s money quickly vanished. Even her husband could see that. Increasingly, when he got home, he found nothing on the table to eat. On his wife’s face he could observe the bitter traces of deprivation and starvation, a life of suffering. And one day, he declared:
“I’m leaving.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to look for a job in the countryside. I’ll send you some money when I get there. You won’t get very much from me though,” he wanted to add, but didn’t know why, so he didn’t say it. He was filled with a sense of insecurity and stared at the ground, not daring to look Lukja in the eyes. She replied:
“I’ll come with you.”
“What else can I do? Who else can I live with, and how will I survive?” she reflected, terrified by the thought of ending up on the street once again at the mercy of the masses.

***

It was in a village which called itself a town that the bus made its final stop. There was no more road towards the east, only a horse track. Anyone who came down from that direction did so out of great need (There were also a few foreign tourists from time to time).
One day, when the post bus set off for the regional capital from the village which called itself a town, it did so bearing a woman sitting between two policemen, her hands in shackles.
“Hey, Lukja,” shouted one of the people who had gathered around the vehicle.
“Where did they find her?”
“Where has she been?”
“What are the police there for?”
“Look, they’ve tied her up!”
Lukja stared at the people and grinned.
“Why have they tied me up, eh?”
“She’s gone mad,” murmured someone in the crowd.
“Poor thing,” said one of the mountain women, carrying a load of wood on her back.
The people began to taunt her about her sinful past. She just stared at them with a smile on her face.
One lad, who had a job somewhere, handed her a bouquet of withered flowers, whether to make fun of her or not, who knows? She nodded to thank him for the gesture and beamed:
“Thank you, young man. Ha ha ha,” she giggled, trying to hold the flowers up between the shackles.
The vehicle set off. And Lukja, her countenance sombre from the pain and suffering, with her eyes of a madwoman and her absurd tittering, was dispatched to an insane asylum. There, amidst all the giggles, she began to tell her story. But few were the people around her who understood the giggling.
Her husband, the vagrant tinsmith (merchant), ended up in some isolated mountain village from where he had arranged for Lukja to be sent to the asylum. He chuckled at the fate of the whore who had been his wife.
“Thank God I got rid of that one!”

[Historia e njenës nga ato, from the collection Novelat e Qytetit të Veriut. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 96-106.]

I

Xheladin Bey did not know why he felt such a void in his heart on that November morning. It was an emptiness like the core of a worm-gnawed chestnut, a gorge in the mountains, an uneasiness, and an infinite and ubiquitous feeling of disgust…
Surprisingly enough, it was not that bad of a morning. The final, fading poplar leaves were spiralling downwards outside his barred window, and the sky was clear and placid. The birds, whom we humans imagine not to feel pain or sorrow, were chirping merrily around the bey’s mansion, in the fields and orchards, and up in the sky. He, however, Xheladin Bey, the son of Shemsheddin Bey and grandson of Xheladin Pasha, or the “Great Bey” as everyone called him, the absolute lord over lands and people, felt a void in his heart. There was a bitter taste in his mouth as if he had been eating saffron, his palate was dry, and his tongue was as raw as a buffalo hide. Now and then, a sharp pain would jolt through his skull.
The Great Bey had never paid much attention to his health or to his emotions up to then. He was of a hearty, robust disposition, and a husky fellow with enough physical strength to make mincemeat out of any of his opponents. Xheladin Bey was the wealthy heir of an estate so great that he had never even bothered to measure it. The tenant farmers, the peasants and the rabble saluted him with hand on heart, as did the infidel women, and no one dared to call him by name or to look him in the eye. Even if he were to order them to lie in the mud so that he could walk over them, as one stamps on clay to make bricks, many of them would not hesitate to do so. Xheladin Bey held both the carrot stick and the whip in his hand, enough to make the inhabitants of the plains as submissive as sheep. They did not fear so much for their own lives as for those of their young children, and strove to avoid worse treatment by him. How could they complain? To whom could they turn? Who would deign to listen to them? Would they gather their few possessions and take flight? Let them flee, but where would they go? The same miserable fate awaited them everywhere. The other beys and pashas possessed whips, too, and stewards to use them. All the fertile land belonged to the nobles. There was a saying: all pigs have the same snout. Those who had gathered their belongings and fled in the dark of night, bearing their infants in baskets and lugging their old people on stretchers, vanished like a drop of water in the ocean. Nothing more was heard of them. Those who remained behind stayed put where they were. They grew wheat, but ate only cornmeal themselves. When there was no more good corn left, they ate rotten cornmeal and arum which they cooked over a slow fire until it was soft and mushy, as if they were cooking the brains and legs of farm animals in their own grease in an earthen pot. They heard neither the throbbing of the heart nor the chirping of the birds. From time to time, the plague would spread, reaping old and young. Whole homes and villages were left empty. But once the plague receded, they would sprout again and multiply, like so many mustard seeds.
It is evident that among the peasants and rabble, there were hotheads who would not accept their lot and would try to cast off the yoke. But Xheladin Bey, who was the third generation of rulers in that backwater of the Father Sultan’s great empire, had taken measures to ensure that nothing got out of hand and to see to it that they were minus their heads before they could raise temperatures in other heads. For such deeds, there were his stewards, “my braves,” as the bey called them, flunkies and bootlickers as they were secretly known to the rest of the population.
Such was the situation!
Being a bey or landowner involved a certain amount of wheeling and dealing. Proceeds grew and were passed on from one generation to the next, from father to son. Xheladin Bey, for his part, knew well how to use and dole out privileges, one by one or altogether, as the case might warrant. He had, in addition to this, covered all his bases. He could warm himself in the sun, body and soul being devoted solely to that “Light of God on Earth,” Father Sultan, to whom he would on occasion send tokens of his loyalty in the form of gold coins and fair-cheeked maidens, i.e. samplings of the choice produce of his land. Nor did he forget Kapu Aga, the Grand Vizier, the Sultan’s mother, the great adëm, the zealous keeper of the Sultan’s harem, so that they might look the other way whenever he chose to expand his estates along the coast, occupying some craggy bit of land, a forest clearing or some abandoned plot. He did not get involved in the squabblings of the mighty, but whenever a messenger arrived to inform him that Father Sultan was at war somewhere or other, be it in Kurdistan, Arabia or in never-never-land, the bey would dutifully second a caravan of recruits and armed fighters who would lose their heads in the battles in question. More than anything else, the bey relied upon his father-in-law, the son of a minister, and on his other in-laws who were all gentlemen of high standing.
Despite all of the above and many facets of his life not mentioned, kettles and cauldrons were filled with gold mahmudiyes from the time of the late Sultan Mahmud, with the gold and silver medjidijes from the time of the late Sultan Medjid, with napoleons, sterling and other gold pieces from the realms of Christendom (no matter that they came from the lands of the infidel: they were made of gold and would not rust). His assets grew and increased every year. Despite all the whiskered warriors on his payroll who would let not a bird pass without leaving a feather behind and who had to be nourished on fat meat and white bread, Xheladin Bey felt a great void in his heart (yes, right in his heart) on that mild autumn morning.
The bey was alone in the large hall of his sumptuous manor with its thick, fortress-like walls, and windows protected each by two bars of wrought iron curling like the horns of a ram, and a latticework through which the sunlight penetrated as through a bramble bush. He was dazed. His surroundings hurtled around him like horses on a threshing floor. But no, they were not his surroundings, it was Xheladin Bey’s brain that was spinning. He did not understand what was wrong with him. He was not ill, for he had a good appetite, and those who are well nourished, it is said, never get ill. When he was younger, he had once, it must be admitted, caught the French disease, as they say, a token from a certain portly gypsy woman, a singer in Manastir, which he had been visiting at the invitation of the Vali. But it was nothing serious. An old, and now forgotten ailment. An elderly physician had cured it with a salve made of mercury, cloves of garlic ground in a mortar, and other ointments. Some time later, however, his whole body was covered in red blisters. These, too, were cured by an ointment and his skin once again returned to its smooth and clean state. His hair then fell out but, thanks to a red fez with a tassel on it, he was able to hide his bald skull. Someone told him that if you had an illness of this kind, you could get rid of it by passing it on to someone else. You got it as a present and gave it as a present. Everyone knew that. A certain wealthy bey had got rid of his consumption by secretly spitting into the food he offered to his guests, and they relate that he recovered entirely and lived a long life. With the passing of time, many of the bey’s guests and friends happened to fall ill, but what could he do about it? Everyone’s fate was written by the hand of Allah. Was it fair for them to enjoy good health while he, a famous and noble bey, was to be ill and get weaker by the day? Were they to live and he to die? Xheladin Bey therefore chose the same path. He sent for a young maiden. The younger, the better, they said. Young girls have thin and warm blood, and this thin and warm blood would dilute, heat and cleanse his thick, old blood. So the bey had his way with the maiden and subsequently gave orders that she be taken away somewhere where no one would ever see or hear of her again. He then spread his French disease around as much as he could, to women and young male lovers, and was cured of his ailment for good.
And look at him now in the great hall of his sumptuous manor, his surroundings hurtling around him like horses on a threshing floor. He felt his skull throbbing and lit himself a cigarette to get rid of the spinning and to help himself concentrate. He drew long puffs, but the tobacco, which was normally savoury and aromatic, now tasted bitter. He bit into the cigarette and cast it into the fireplace.
What was happening? Was the bey ill? No, he had been in the best of health the previous day. It is true that he had overdone it a bit the night before with some strong raki and various tidbits, meat from the hunt doused with vinegar and garlic. All very tasty. It was fresh, lean meat which he had torn to pieces with his own hands and devoured, throwing the bones away and thereafter sucking clean each one of his five fingers. He had been in merry company and there had been much singing and dancing. Some of the gypsy maidens, with skirts rising like banners in the wind and with gold coins stuck to each of their foreheads, had swirled and swayed their hips to set the bey on fire. In short he had rather overdone it, but this was nothing new. Ever since his youth, Xheladin Bey had been a man given to the pleasures of life. He had often spent the whole night out, either in villas near and far or in the huts and hovels of the poor where the air was stale and it smelled of many purulent odours. Indeed, even at home, in the wing of the manor reserved for his male guests, the bey had rooms of his own for personal use, in other words for orgy upon orgy. When he had had enough of the white flesh from the harem, and when his wife, the Xhixhi Hanem, was away visiting the palace of her father, the pasha, he would wander through the night, bedding whomever he pleased. The drums beat outside his door until the bey had finished the deed. The bey called it a divine deed, but everyone else called it the devil’s doing. When he had finished and was satisfied, he would throw a handful of coins out to make sure that the poor people understood he had a heart of gold.
Everyone knew his ways, especially those who had under-aged girls in their homes. This is why families endeavoured to marry their daughters off as young as possible, to absolve themselves of the danger and to preserve the family’s honour. But even if they sought refuge in a buffalo horn, as the old people said, Xheladin Bey would find them, for the fragrance of a fair maid is like that of an apple. It spreads throughout the orchard. Whenever he found a trace of them, he would snort like a stallion feeding on oats. His lust was to be fulfilled, for better or worse. For the better, too, of course, because if the situation warranted it, the bey could be as sweet as honey. We all know what charm a bey possesses when he smiles. His teeth sparkle, his eyes flash, the skin of his rosy cheeks shines, and the tassel on his fez bounces about merrily. Folk forget their tribulations and say: “What a fine fellow the bey is in his old age! He radiates like the sun in the month of May.” So spoke the naive, but those who were less naive knew very well that Xheladin Bey, that fine fellow, was more like a savage beast snarling and attacking from behind and could wipe you off the face of the earth.
He had a saying which his grandfather had taught him: “Every living thing which is born and raised on your land is yours. Take it and do whatever you wish with it.”
Whenever it was necessary to sow the seeds of terror, the bey would order his warriors to begin cleansing. People would disappear without a trace, just as birds leave no mark in the sky. He did not forget what his grandfather, the pasha, had told him, “Keep and increase what you have. Chop off the head of anyone who endeavours to rise above you. Do not let anyone trespass upon your lands and domains who is more clever than you. Keep on good terms with those who are greater than you. Always take note of which way the wind is blowing and where best to warm yourself in the sun! Otherwise, do whatever you wish. You are second only to God!”
From time to time, some poor peasant at the end of his rope or some brigand would rise and load his rifle, but the earth could not hide him for long and grass was soon growing over his tomb. Xheladin Bey made sure of that.
Now, after the pleasures of the previous night, Xheladin Bey felt a void in his heart. The room seemed to be revolving around him, his head throbbed and his cigarette tasted bitter.
He lay down on the divan, folded the palms of his hands behind his head on the pillow, crossed his legs and tried to find some peace and calm.
Suddenly, the brittle boards out on the veranda cracked and the handle of the outside door turned, as then did the handle of the second door. The hinges creaked and four or five servants entered the hall, bringing with them a bowls of warm and cold water, soap and towels. They were led by a dark-skinned, heavy-set woman wearing a thin scarf. She addressed him gently: “Good morning, my lord. How are… How is my lord? Your Sheqere wishes you well. We are all at your service,” adding other effusive complements. The servants repeated her words timidly, but in an inaudible murmur. Xheladin Bey got to his knees and began to wash, splashing water copiously about him and drying himself with the towel to “ohs” and “ahs” of satisfaction. He still had a bitter taste in his mouth although he had rinsed it in cold water.
When the attendants and their superior had left the room, the youngest servant in the household entered, a little girl with cheeks like a freshly plucked peach and wire-thin eyebrows. Her eyes, veiled in long lashes, could not be seen because she kept them fixed to the ground. She was wearing a flowered dress, neither too long nor too short, and a pair of embroidered sandals from Istanbul. She was the most recent of his acquisitions, an orphan brought to his household as a gift by a village chieftain wishing to get into his good graces. The bey was delighted by this young creature and deflowered her the night of her arrival. He had huffed and snorted like a water buffalo in the marshes and she had whimpered like a lamb being sent to slaughter. The same thing happened for many nights in a row. Her companions, the other servants, were jealous of his attentions, but in vain. The wretched girl, bereft of her soul, lived through nights of terror. If she could have, she would have fled that abominable bey and house of torment – naked, barefoot and starving. But there was no escape. The windows were barred, high walls surrounded the courtyard and her every move was being watched. She thus submitted, as her companions had done, and shared the bey’s bed whenever Sheqere ordered her to do so.
She entered the hall bearing a golden platter on which there was a yellow coffee pot and a large cup without a handle, decorated with stars and the moon. The bey observed her with lust in his eyes, and smiled for the first time that day. Then he collected himself. The servant was still attractive, with her long white neck and her breasts, neither too small nor too large, concealed within her embroidered bodice. The bey was a keen observer and saw everything. But the girl had changed somehow. Her face was paler and her belly and thighs had grown. Could it be?…
He addressed her.
“Guria (as they called her, though no one knew her real name), go and open the window.”
The servant obeyed immediately. She put down the platter with the coffee pot and cup, and supporting herself on the windowsill, opened the shutters. Light flooded into the room, and with it, a brisk autumnal breeze.
“That one, too,” ordered the bey, his eyes fixed on Guria’s body.
The girl stretched to open the second window, the trimming of her dress rising to reveal her lily-white calves. More light and fresh air penetrated the room. The bey felt better. He gave a shiver and jumped to his feet.
“Open the other one, too, Guria!”
She stretched once again to reach the shutters, revealing the veins in the back of her knees. When she turned to recover the platter, she found herself in the strong embrace of the bey, who was pressing her against his hairy chest. The great bey stank of raki and burped several times, emitting a stench. Guria trembled and turned away from him as best she could, but the bey, a man of great strength, gripped her all the more tightly and kissed her neck. His lips were burning, dry, and his whiskers as rough as the mane of a boar. He dragged her towards the divan, groping at her breasts despite her cries of pain. Guria waited in terror and disgust for what was to happen. If there were only a deep well or high cliff to throw herself from, to put an end to her suffering! If she were only away from that soft divan, far from the repugnant Xheladin Bey who was squeezing and biting her.
Suddenly, the ardour within his swollen veins failed. He turned pale and dizzy, and pushed her away, staring at her with his bloodshot, protruding eyes.
“Are you going to have a …?” asked Xheladin Bey.
“Yes, that’s what the lady told me,” she stammered.
“Who told you?”
“Mistress Sheqere.”
Sheqere supervised the work of all the servants and was known as the mistress of the house, though she was sterile and the bey had never had any children with her.
Initially, Sheqere had satisfied all of Xheladin Bey’s precocious desires and this for many years, even when other inclinations had arisen in him. After his marriage to the Hanem Bey, he continued to lust after young girls and handsome fair-skinned boys. Later, when her complexion had begun to show its age and not even quicksilver could cover up her wrinkles (she was several years older than the bey), he bestowed upon her a sumptuous dowry and married her off to a blacksmith living on his estates. The blacksmith was much younger than the bey, but this was no impediment because the mistress was well versed in the art of love from experience she had gained at the time of Shemseddin Beu, the father of Xheladin Bey. Always of a gentle disposition, she kept the keys to the cellars and a rod with which to beat the servants. The blacksmith was satisfied with the arrangement because he was now virtually a relative of the bey, an attribute which carried with it distinct advantages. He had got hold of the “silk thread in the carpet,” as an old folk song put it.
On the subject of in-laws, it must be noted that Xheladin Bey had quite a number of such relatives. He was wont to send them the household servants he was “finished” with, once he had acquired fresh ones. In this, the bey followed the example of the sultan, the “light of the world,” who bestowed on his viziers, pashas, courtiers, aides-de-camp and other officials of the realm, far and near, fair odalisques who had shared his bed and to whom he had given liberal dowries. The great statesmen of the empire, the viziers, pashas, courtiers, aides-de-camp and beys of all sorts were honoured to consider themselves brothers-in-law of the “light of the world” and to have children with such beautiful species as had left their girlhood in the sultan’s bed, and were happy to prop up their own little realms in the shadow of the great sultan. As to virgins, there was no lack of young maidens on their estates. They simply took whomever they wanted.
It was Sheqere who recruited the girls, mostly minors, orphans and other children without support, to satisfy the carnal desires of Xheladin Bey. She did her utmost to make them presentable and to teach them what to do and how to satisfy their lord and master. She herself was content with her blacksmith, who was strong enough to break a horseshoe in two with his bare hands, who worked all day with hammer and anvil and who smelled of the beast.
The bey approached Guria, toying with her pearl necklace, and asked her, exhaling an unbearable stench which arose from his guts, “Do you know if the Hanem Bey knows?”
“No.”
The bey did not understand whether she was referring to herself or to the Hanem Bey, and added whimsically, “I shall take my kahva out on the balcony.” This was what the bey called his coffee, having heard the word pronounced as such by his brother-in-law and the latter’s wife.
The servant carried the platter out onto the balcony, poured some now cold kahva into the cup, without cream, and returned to the hall.
“Very well. You may go.” said the bey.
With tears in her eyes, Guria bowed and retired, tripping over the thick carpet in her embroidered sandals. She knew from hearsay that the servants in the bey’s household who got pregnant would be put to… She had reason to weep. Who should she be most afraid of: the Hanem Bey, her rivals or the bey himself? For a moment, she forgot the deep wells and high cliffs which had obsessed her earlier and thought of returning to the hall to prostrate herself and beg: “Have mercy, my lord, do not kill me! Let me go somewhere far away.” But she did not come back.
Xheladin Bey remained in the hall all by himself. He had changed his mind about the coffee out on the balcony and paced around the room. At one point, he stopped in front of the mirror in one of the doors. In it was another man staring at him with protruding, swollen eyes, folds of wobbly skin hanging from his neck like the wattle of a turkey, and deep wrinkles on his forehead. Here and there in his bristly whiskers were grey hairs. Under his nostrils, at the point where his moustache divided into two halves, were hairs tarnished and yellow from tobacco, those of an old man.
Was the mirror at fault?
No, the shining mirror, embellished with stars and crescents in one corner, was not at fault. The change in his appearance was the result of years and years of orgies and debauchery which Sheqere had imposed upon him, making him drink gin and clove-scented spirits. Now, for the first time, Xheladin Bey noticed how those years had altered his face. He went over to another mirror, but the result was the same. It revealed a flabby-skinned fellow with wrinkles and swollen eyes. He adjusted his fez, pushing it to the top of his head, and then pulled it back down over his brow, as he was used to wearing it. How he now envied those wretched peasants who lived on nothing but cornmeal and buttermilk, and whose skin was as smooth as a raven’s feathers.
“You are getting old, Xheladin Bey.”
Who spoke out? He turned and looked around, yet there was no one else in the room. The bey had been talking to himself. It was a habit he had got into some time ago. He would often talk to himself and answer his own questions. Those around him knew about this and pretended not to hear him, feigned that they had not noticed him mumbling in his moustache as it rose and fell to the movement of his lips. They knew the old adage: “Even if a bey turns into a harmless donkey, take care not to ride him.”
Again the echo: “You are getting old, you are getting old.”
A cold shudder went down his spine. He was not so distressed by the years past as he was by the prospect of the years to come. In the towns and villages, a new generation of young maidens was growing up. He used to see them on their doorsteps or in country lanes, full of lice and covered in dust and filth. Now, there was nothing more to be seen. They were locked away in their homes. They would certainly be attractive by now, but who would get them? Who would be first to taste the delicious honey, to pluck the sweet grapes and fruit of his estates? Xheladin Bey was getting old, Xheladin Bey was getting old.
The bey began to quiver and almost fainted on the Persian carpet. He took several steps forwards and sat himself down on the edge of the divan.
“And after old age?” he wondered.
“After old age?” he replied to himself, “You know very well what comes then… the grave.”
A cold sweat broke out on his forehead, moistening the edge of his fez. He was as pale as a corpse. He had seen many dead bodies and heard daily of people who had passed away, but such people, he said to himself, were fools. Only fools died – those who have nothing to eat, those who spend all their lives driving their oxen or bent over a plough. He, after all, was a bey, Xheladin Bey, the son of Shemseddin Bey, the grandson of Xheladin Pasha, robed in silken garments and rocked in a cradle of gold. He was not like the others, the chattel, whose wives gave birth out in the fields, who wrapped their infants in rags and lulled them in wicker baskets instead of in cradles. There was only one Xheladin Bey in that part of the empire, only one of such fine lineage.
Suddenly, his convictions faltered.
“Yet,” he murmured, “my father died and my grandfather died. Were they fools?”
Answering his own question, he replied this time with a Turkish word which Xhixhi Hanem was wont to use: “Afedersin, Afedersin!”
Then in spite of himself, he began to wonder – does not Xheladin Bey have two arms and two legs like everyone else? Should he not work like everyone else to feed himself?
At this point, he could retain himself no longer, and began guffawing. “Who has ever seen a bey, the son of a pasha, out in the fields driving oxen? Just imagine!”
He was amazed that he could even have conceived of such a terrible idea. How could he, a wealthy bey, a temiz, i.e. a ‘clean’ man, although in fact he stank from internal putrescence, possibly lower himself to the level of the rabble on his estates, the unwashed and hungry masses whom God, greater than he, had appointed to grow wheat and raise herds? Certainly, there were fair maidens among them…
“No, no,” he declared to himself in Turkish, as the Hanem Bey was accustomed to do.
The bey shouted so loudly that the whole room echoed. He went out onto the balcony and sat down cross-legged on the low divan. There, he lit himself a cigarette, from one of the ones which Sheqere had rolled for him and licked with her own spit. The balcony was enclosed like a cage with twisted spheres of wrought-iron the size of the rings of a barrel which rose up the stone wall above him. From here the bey could look out, but no one could peer in. This cigarette was more agreeable than the last. He stretched over towards the cup, raised it to his lips, but then put it down again. The coffee was cold. He frowned and clapped his hands twice.
A young, barefooted servant entered, whom the bey no longer bedded because she was too old. She had reached the age of eighteen and would soon be dispatched to tend the geese. The servant wanted to ask him what he wished, but she dared not speak. Petrified, she stood there with her arms folded over her well-developed breasts, too large for the size of the rest of her. The sun coming in through the latticework cast stripes of light and shade over the bey’s face and body. He looked terrifying, like a vampire. She held her tongue.
“Girl, whatever your name is…” said the bey, “my coffee is cold. Let the other girl bring me another one.”
The ‘other girl’ was Guria.
The servant left the room as silently as she had entered it. Neither her voice nor her steps were to be heard.
The bey turned to one side. People were coming and going in the courtyard below. They knew that the bey was out on the balcony. They could not see him, but were aware of his presence from the cigarette smoke rising through the iron bars, and from his muttering.
The bey’s manor had been constructed on a hill, almost at the end of town. The settlement, or kasaba, as he preferred to call it, was fair to behold. It consisted of a few two-storey houses, quite a number of huts, white minarets and grey bell towers, all enveloped in the mellow light of that sunny autumn day. Most of the shops and all the inns catering to the market; some of the homes; the vegetable gardens; fallow lands now covered in thorns, thistles and weeds; and all the corn mills belonged to the bey. Zylfo collected the rent from the tenants and delivered it to the bey at the end of every month.
Nothing in the bey’s kasaba ever happened without him being involved. Every morning, notables from the surrounding countryside would arrive to pay him homage or, as they were wont to say, to “have coffee with the bey.” They brought with them news of recent events: who had been killed, who had died of natural causes, who had arrived and who had departed, who had been punished and why, who was buying and who was selling, what caravans had been plundered, who had got married, who else was to get married, and other such gossip. They would take their orders and set off without delay, each returning to his own chores and duties. On rare occasions, when something important happened or the arrival of some high dignitary was announced – a governor, a circuit judge, a military commander or an emissary from the imperial palace – the bey would come out to greet his guests himself, but more often, it was his deputies, Zyko and Zylfo who acted on his behalf. The bey would rest on the balcony or go up to the small room in the tower with its four windows from which he could observe events on all sides. On other occasions, he would sit on a cushion behind the curtains, as the sultan in Istanbul was wont to do. People would hear only his cough or the clap of his hands, which caused all hearts to freeze on the spot. The bey clapped his hands!
Of course, the village agas and muftis also visited the bey’s manor to tell him of their concerns and, as one can imagine, none of them ever arrived empty-handed.
But on this particular day, Xheladin Bey had no desire to deal with such details. He felt a great void in his heart.
He turned from the town and looked out towards the fields. The closest ones were yellow. Others were brown, and some, in the shade of the cypress trees, were still green. Where the cypresses stood, were the graves of the dead, lots of dead because the peasants were “accustomed” to kicking the bucket all at once in great numbers, in particular their children. Out in the fields there were many empty, abandoned homes. But let us leave the peasants to their concerns and embark upon a more agreeable subject – the estate.
Virtually all the land stretching out to the horizon was his, including all the graveyards and the hills to the left and right. It was all his, but to what avail? The bey was indisposed that autumn morning. Why? He was getting old… Just last night they had brought him a tender ‘quince for the plucking’ like Guria. No, younger than she had been. Guria was fifteen, whereas the ‘quince,’ whose name he could not remember, had been only thirteen. They had sung and revelled all night with a “Yarnana, yarnani” and then a:

    “Yarnana, yarnani,
Fair that maiden to a tee,
Let me have her with raki…”

But this time, Xheladin Bey, absolute lord over lands and people, was not able to rise to the occasion. This time, neither the gin nor the clove-scented spirits, nor the raki did the trick. Xheladin Bey was getting old. The maiden arrived as a virgin and left as a virgin. And yet she was a good-looker: eyebrows made up with oak gall, fingers painted in henna, fair eyes and dimples.
The bey felt frustrated and ashamed. He, the grand bey…
At that moment, something else occurred to him. On whom would he bestow all the property he had amassed and all the money he had collected? All the kasabas, all the farmland? Of course, his wife, Xhixhe Hanem, was of a noble family, the daughter of a pasha and the granddaughter of a minister of the court, but she was sterile – a barren womb. The minister had been a friend of the sultan and was a pasha himself. Through her, the bey had made his way into high society and had substantially improved his lot. He was on the point of being appointed pasha. But now, to whom would he leave all his lofty titles? There was only one thing he could do. He would have to take a second and a third wife, women who could have children. All the courts on earth and in heaven would give him the right to do so, but Xheladin Bey, the great Xheladin Bey, was afraid of angering his father-in-law, his brothers-in-law and all the rest of his wife’s family, right up to the Sublime Porte. He was particularly afraid of Xhixhe Hanem herself, that stubborn old camel of skin and bones who seemed to have been raised not on milk and honey, but on grasshoppers roasted in ashes. When she walked around the balcony or across the room, all the skin and bones seemed to crack, like the bones of the old judge of Libohova, whom they called the devil himself because he hobbled and took bribes. The judge’s bones even cracked when he sat down on cushions and went to bed. But hers were the skin and bones of the daughter of a pasha and the granddaughter of a minister of the court, and she covered them up with dresses made of fine pink silk and with a green vest embroidered with gold and diamonds. Other precious gems adorned her headpiece, her hair, her neck and her knuckles, and her fingers which were painted with henna.
She and her brothers were waiting for Xheladin Bey to pack his bags – one way or the other – for they were after his money. They knew, of course, that the bey prowled about the village and countryside like a cur in rut, but that was the way men were, so they left him to his habits. There was only one thing they did not want to see, and that was a second marriage – a new wife and new relatives.
Xheladin Bey looked out and found no solution. It was as if he had been blindfolded. His mind was obsessed by the matter. To whom would he leave his good name, his titles and his wealth? To a second wife? No, he couldn’t. But then to whom? He should have solved the problem long ago. It was autumn now, and the bey was getting…
He came to, muttered, answered himself, and then cried out: “Damn the pasha’s daughter and damn the pasha, too! I will do just as my grandfather did! If she gives birth to a son (the “she” in this case was Guria), I will wed her and take her as my second wife. And then, let the chips fall where they may!”

* * *

The first wife of Xheladin Pasha, his grandfather, had been infertile, too. She was attractive, a good woman, but barren. The pasha loved her deeply and did not want to hurt her feelings by taking a second wife. But how was he to live without children? One fine summer’s day, as he was standing at the barred window, he saw a peasant enter the courtyard with a little girl, who was following him like a tiny lamb. The peasant was wearing leather sandals and the girl was barefoot. He approached the pasha’s fountain, drank some water, splashed a few drops in his eyes and then, moving over to make room for the girl, he took a red handkerchief from his belt and wiped off his face and neck. The child imitated her uncle. She drank some water, splashed a bit in her eyes, but did not wipe her face off because she had no handkerchief. She let it dry by itself. Her cheeks were rosier than ever. There was no one else in the yard. The tiny girl glanced around and then raised her skirt a little to wash her leg under the tap, to rid it of the dust of the road. When she finished the one leg, she did the same to the other, rubbing it hard. The lower part of her legs contrasted with her thighs, which were as white as starch in the sun. She took another sip and again splashed water into her face two or three times. The pasha observed her from behind the barred window and found her attractive. He was a man of war, no real womanizer, but the girl pleased him, and he sent his steward down to get her. “Come along, the pasha wants to see you!” The peasant was terrified, but had no choice but to follow. It was an order from the pasha. He entered the palace, leaving the child at the doorway. “Bring the girl in, too,” ordered the pasha. She followed, wetting the carpet with her feet. The pasha looked at her and was even more attracted to her. “Let her wait outside.” The steward and the girl withdrew. The pasha turned to the peasant and asked him who he was, where he came from, what relation he was to the girl, and where he was off to. The peasant told him his name and that of his village, which belonged to the pasha. The little girl was his niece, the daughter of his late brother. She was twelve years old. He was on his way to market and intended to marry her off to a man who had promised him one hundred piastres, three sheep, a suit of clothes, a kerchief and some other things. The prospective husband was, he noted, a wealthy man, the son of someone or other. He had three additional wives and many sons and daughters by all of them. Some of these children had already left to get married and had children of their own who were older than the girl whom he now wanted to marry. She was to serve him in his old age. The pasha listened and then said, “Enough, I understand. You may depart, but you will leave the girl here because she belongs to me. She was born on my land. I will decide whom she marries!”
“Please, my lord, I beg you! She is an orphan, and I have already accepted a down payment from the man.” But his protests were in vain. The pasha was not to be swayed. “She belongs to me and I will wed her myself.” He took a purse out of his pocket, counted out five hundred piastres and gave them to him with three silver medjidijes, promising him, in addition, a pair of oxen, five sheep and other things. The steward then entered the room, tugged at the peasant’s sleeve and accompanied him to the door. The peasant was satisfied. He had got over five hundred piastres, a pair of oxen and five sheep. But he was also frightened. “Please,” he said to the steward, “don’t let anything happen to me! I have children of my own and my brother’s children at home, too. I am afraid that the fellow who gave me the down payment will take revenge.” “Don’t be afraid,” replied the steward. “Tell him that the pasha has the girl. If he wants to take revenge, let him come here!”
The pasha bedded the girl that very night, and on the following ones, too. When she was with child, he sent her to a distant village to give birth. She had a boy. The pasha was over forty at the time and kept the matter a secret. At least, so he thought. Sooner or later, however, word reached the ear of his wife. She was not angered, but rather delighted, and said to the pasha, “My lord, why have you concealed such good tidings from me? Your happiness is my happiness. I am the way I am. I can bear you no children. You have done no wrong, my lord. It is God’s will. Marry the maid and bring her here with the boy. I will love him as if he were my own. I will rock him in a golden cradle, and I will wrap him in silken swaddling clothes that he may grow and ensure the continuity of your lineage.”
The pasha was surprised, but realised that his wife was speaking from the heart. Tears welled in her eyes and her voice betrayed deep emotion. He thus sent for the peasant girl with her little son, and married her. His first wife kept her promise. She wrapped the lad in silken swaddling clothes and rocked him in a golden cradle. Never was she impatient with the younger wife, who was as fair as the moon but who had no more children. The boy grew up and became Shemseddin Bey. The pasha died several years thereafter, but not without having made his son promise to marry young and have lots of children. Shemseddin Bey lived up to his promise. He had numerous sons, of whom only one survived, Xheladin Bey. The others died in warfare to gain high office and land. Shemseddin Bey increased his wealth many times over, filling kettles and cauldrons with gold coins, for he was a greedy fellow and took unfair advantage of everyone under his command. He heaped his great storage bins with grain and corn, opening them only in March or April when famines raged. He kept retainers for the sole purpose of plundering caravans. He pretended to send his officers out to chase the thieves whereas, in reality, all the mules, horses and goods from the caravans were already in his stables. At a price, he would restore some of the goods to their owners, only to rob them again. He would visit villages and farms as an unwanted guest, eating and drinking to his fill. When he was finished, he would demand “tooth money” for the suffering of his teeth as he ripped through piles of roasted meat. Often, his men would pilfer whole herds of sheep and goats. The shepherds and shepherdesses would weep and implore him, but to no avail. Shemseddin Bey was deaf to their appeals. On one occasion, however, an enraged shepherd whose herd had been stolen, raised his long rifle, shot at the bey, and took flight. The bey was not killed, but was wounded in the buttocks. Poor Shemseddin Bey could no longer ride his horse or walk on his own two legs. The wound became infected and was treated by drainage. He suffered from the injury for many years, lying on his stomach in bed, until he died, to the joy and satisfaction of the peasants and rabble.
All the wealth which he had inherited from his father, the pasha, and everything he had amassed himself was passed on to his son, Xheladin Bey, who was more interested in wine, women and song. To ensure his lineage, Xheladin Bey, as noted, had then married the daughter of a pasha, granddaughter of a minister of the sultan’s court – that old camel, all skin and bones, known as Xhixhi Hanem…

* * *

“Yes,” cried Xheladin Bey after having considered the matter, “I will do just as my grandfather did!”
When he raised his head, he saw Sheqere standing in front of him, holding the platter with the coffee pot and cup.
“Who are… what are you doing here?” he muttered and rose to his feet.
Sheqere gave him a broad smile. She bent over and poured him a cup of hot, steaming coffee. The bey sat down again.
Xheladin Bey had been a good-looking fellow – tall and husky, whereas Sheqere was shorter and more portly. Despite this, she knew that if she stood on the stoop of the veranda she would have to look down at the bey and he would have to look up at her. This was out of the question, so she quickly sat down cross-legged and spread her pleated bloomers out over the floor. Then she looked up at the bey, who was slurping his creamy coffee. Sheqere embarked upon the conversation.
“The poor thing is petrified, my lord. Who knows what the wretched servants have been saying to her? They are all so envious, both ours and the servants of the others,” she uttered, pointing in the direction of the apartments of Xhixhi Hanem.
“Do they know that she is with…?”
Sheqere nodded. “Yes, my lord. They have terrifed her, pretending that my lord is going to slay both her and the infant. She has been in tears constantly, which is perhaps normal when one is pregnant for the first time, but she has begun raving, too. She claims that they are going to throw her down a well or seal her in behind a brick wall. She wants to flee to the mountains and says she would rather live among the wolves.” Sheqere laughed.
Xheladin Bey lit a cigarette and blew a pall of smoke over the cup which Sheqere had filled with coffee once again.
“What nonsense! I am not going to kill her.”
“She is afraid of the favourites in your retinue, of everyone.”
“No, no, there is no reason for her to be afraid.”
The bey then pulled Sheqere towards him and whispered in her ear: “Do you understand? If she gives birth to a boy, I will do as my grandfather did.” Sheqere listened attentively and nodded.
“Wonderful, my lord! What a brilliant idea! Just leave it to me. I will deal with everything. I’ll find her a place to stay and will raise the child myself. You are a handsome man and she is a good girl. The child will be my little dove! They will all be so envious!” she continued, nodding and making clucking sounds with the tip of her tongue on her palate. When she was finished, the bey placed his hand on her fleshy shoulder and squeezed it so tightly that Sheqere winced with pain.
“Do you understand, Sheqere? Do exactly as you have said. When you bring me the good tidings that she has given birth to a son, I will give you a water mill as a present.”
“May it be, my lord.”
“You can go now.”
Sheqere rose with a sigh of relief because the bey’s brutal grasp had caused her shoulder to ache. Her bloomers flew in all directions like chaff on a hayrack when torn into by a famished water buffalo. She smoothed her pleats and was about to retired. The bey gave her a lecherous look, and the desire of old now rekindled within him. He put his cup down and said:
“No, Sheqere, don’t go yet. Lock the door and come over here.”
Sheqere was overwhelmed. “Oh, my lord, and to think that your heart still beats for your Sheqere!”
She bolted the door and returned to him, her hips swaying as they once had. The large sequinned embroidery on her blouse shone in gold as she coyly undid the buttons, one by one.
On that October morning, Xheladin Bey, son of Shemseddin Bey, grandson of Xheladin Pasha, regained his virility and became an “associate” of his brother-in-law, the blacksmith, Sheqere’s husband.
Outside, one could hear the clang of the blacksmith’s hammer as he shod the horses. Inside, Sheqere’s bloomers lay spread out over the floor of the hall.
“That you still have a passion for your Sheqere, my lord!…”
“It is only you, Sheqere, only you that I want,” responded the bey, wheezing like an asthmatic stud.
Sheqere put her clothes on, buttoned up her blouse and was about to depart, when she remembered something.
“My lord, there are some people waiting outside to see you.”
“Who are they?”
“No one of importance. Townspeople and peasants come to tell you their tales of woe.”
“Their tales of woe? Let them tell their woes to Zyko. I am indisposed today.”
Zyko, the bey’s principal steward, was a short and devious fellow who hobbled and made life a living hell for anyone who came to see the bey.
“I am indisposed. Tell Riza to get the horses ready and to saddle the sorrel mare for me. I think I’ll go hunting,” ordered the bey, pointing vaguely to the plains outside, “and out for a picnic. I will take seven men with me. Get out my riding garments, Sheqere.”
“As you wish, my lord. Are you satisfied?” she asked with a smile on her face.
“I am fine, Sheqere.”
“I am the one you love, my lord.”
The bey put on his green velvet jacket with the silver trim and buttons, which he always wore for the hunt. Sheqere sat down in front of him and buttoned up the lower part of the jacket, down to his knees. Then she tied his boots, feeding the long laces through the eyes, one by one. She was about to gird the cartridge belt around him when there was a knock at the door. Sheqere opened it. A group of young servants flooded in, bringing breakfast with them. Xheladin Bey sat down at the low table, taking off his fez. He began with the fat chicken broth with balls of grease floating on it, slurping and munching loudly, as was his wont. It tasted sour from the slices of lemon in it (Sheqere knew what was needed to get rid of the stench of his belching). He then proceeded with white chicken and turkey meat, and with a roast of lamb. For dessert, there was sweet cake drenched in treacle and sprinkled with ginger, cinnamon powder and cloves. Stuffed to the hilt, he undid his jacket and smacked his lips to sighs of “oh” and “ah.” Satisfied, he licked his fingers and went over to wash his hands. He then returned to stretch out on the divan, leaning on his pillow. His glance lingered upon the bones on the floor and the leftovers of meat and cake crumbs spread over the table.
“You know, the Lord Almighty thought of everything, but there is one thing he did wrong. He gave the same stomach to everyone, both to the rich and to the poor, who have nothing to eat. That was a mistake. I have just had my fill of breakfast, in fact a bit too much. But who is going to eat all the leftovers? No, no, that was a big mistake.”
This was a bon mot which the bey often used in front of his guests when they were feasting. Now he had no guests to entertain, and repeated the thought to himself, staring gluttonously at the table covered in leftovers.
For a moment, he forgot the hunt, Riza and the sorrel mare which was waiting for him in the courtyard, as it stamped on the cobblestones with horseshoes fashioned by the blacksmith. He forgot the hounds and the stewards, too, as his eyelids grew heavy. But soon thereafter, he got a grip on himself, stood up and girded the cartridge belt around his protruding belly. Seizing his rifle, he departed. His ‘braves’ were lined up waiting for him, with their hands over their hearts in a sign of respect. They hastened to help him mount the mare, some holding the stirrup and others folding their hands under his foot to heave him up. It was not an easy task, for the bey was by no means light. Finally he wrestled himself onto the sorrel mare and set off through the gate out in the direction of the plains. He led the way, with his ‘braves’ behind him. Scurrying around them at the front and back were the hounds.
It was a fine, sunny day. The fields and woods were bathed in light. The road was excellent, dusty in some parts, but humid in the shadier sections from the dew of the night. Migrant birds in v-formations were flying high above them, beating their wings. The hounds, with their snouts to the ground, sniffed at the roadside and bushes.
At a turn in the road, a group of peasants appeared with their carts, horses, mules and donkeys heavily laden with grain, onions, leeks, squashes, fruit and firewood which they were transporting to the bey’s manor. When they saw the bey and his party, they brought their animals to a halt and froze at the edge of the ditch with their hands over their hearts. The bey did not even deign to look at them. He was now in a spirited mood, glancing around with his bloodshot eyes. The previous night of debauchery with his boon companions was now far behind him in the mist. It was a forgotten memory, or rather the fading nightmare of a long winter’s night.
He had envisaged himself being chased by a pack of wolves and, however fast he advanced, they were constantly closing in on him. He had screamed, but no sound was to be heard. Xhixhi Hanem had also faded in the winter night with the wolves.
Xheladin Bey was now in an excellent mood and sang to himself. The riders behind him could hear his voice, but could not make out what he was singing.
Suddenly, a stench filled the air. The bey and his braves rode past the corpse of a dead donkey, all blood and gore and with its legs in the air. As they passed, they disturbed a group of feeding jackdaws. The birds rose into the air, casting their black shadows over the riders. They cawed bitterly, settled upon a ploughed field, rose again and then returned to their feeding.
The bey lit himself a cigarette to overcome the smell of the carcass. In the fields of standing corn bobbed white, red and yellow headscarves here and there. Then they were gone. Xheladin Bey had a reputation, so the women and girls took cover immediately in the cornstalks.
Further on, the air was fresher and brisk as it is in autumn. For a moment, he thought of poor, terrified Guria with child.
“To hell with her!” he stammered, throwing away the rest of his cigarette.
There was one thing he could not forget though: the failure of his virility the night before. It remained embedded in his mind like a nail, though Sheqere had satisfied him that morning, as she used to. He seemed to hear her suave, cooing voice: “I am the one you love, my lord. Go and do whatever you want, but remember that I am the one you really love.” And Sheqere was right. Xheladin Bey did love her. Somehow, he even regretted having given her to the blacksmith. Then he said to himself, “She still belongs to me… I can have her whenever I want…” The bey spurred his sorrel mare on and set off like an arrow.
He later sent one of his stewards forth to inform the elders of a certain village that he would be honouring them with his presence for lunch, and then spurted into the woods in search of game.
The hunt went well that day: turtledoves, partridges and pigeons. He shot the fowl, and the hounds and stewards brought the game back to him.

II

The bey had lunch outdoors in the countryside, near the fountain of the old pear tree, a site he had chosen himself. He was exhausted from the hunt and so the bottle of raki, chilled in the fountain, and the tidbits did the trick to quell his appetite. Indeed he ate enough to still four appetites, though he had only one stomach, now stuffed to the hilt.
His braves were sitting a short distance away from him on a hillock, and were eating, too. The bey stretched himself out to one side on a rug, supporting his head in the palm of his right hand. The men of the village, almost all of whom were the bey’s tenant farmers, had abandoned their daily chores and disputes to come and pay their respects to him, as custom dictated. They huddled in a group about ten paces from him. Some were standing, others sitting or kneeling, all waiting for some sign or order from their lord. Others continued to serve the bey’s braves who were feasting on bread and meat and throwing the bones to the hounds. Near the bey were only a few nobles, with heavy silver chains and medals on their chests and a constant “yes, my lord” on their lips. He threw to each of them one of the cigarettes Sheqere had rolled and licked with her own spit.
The sunlight was pale and gentle, as if it had been filtered by a sieve. The bey was expounding on the affairs, great and small, of the empire, and on the sultan, the “light of the world,” who had stuffed all of Europe into his pocket. He had drawn a ring through its nostrils and would make it dance like a bear. Soon Father Sultan would take out his long sabre and make mincemeat of all the European kings, great and small, and would spirit their women and girls off to his harem in Istanbul. The leftover females would, of course, be distributed among the leaders of the Empire. He added that Father Sultan was recruiting solders, showering them with clinking pieces of gold and silver. At this point, he noticed that very few men had come to pay him homage, and inquired:
“Is that all the men they have in this village? Where are all the others?”
“A little boy has just died, my lord, and they have all gone to cremate the body,” said one of them.
“And some woman has died, too, sir, a young bride.”
“A burial, you say? Two deaths in one day? There have not been any cases of the plague, have there?” he asked with a laugh, but also with a hint of trepidation in his voice.
“The plague? No, sir, but there is fever about. Even yesterday…”
The bey was no longer interested. He never inquired about deaths. “These damn peasants multiply like mustard seed… They die in droves and the next day there are even more of them around if they get enough cornbread to eat. Their sows are virtual breeding grounds.”
Without waiting for a reaction, he changed the subject. “By the way, you owe me wheat and corn, and more firewood, too. I want oak this time. And you haven’t delivered any honey. Have you forgotten who you are? Otherwise I will send Zylfo and Zyko to get the job done.” The villagers listened, with their eyes fixed to the ground. “We have already sent you the wheat and corn, and delivered the firewood, too, my lord. The last delivery was made yesterday.” One then mumbled hesitantly, “Perhaps Zylfo has kept it for himself,” but the bey did not hear him, for no one ever dared to speak out loud in his presence. The bey carried on.
“Off to the storehouse with you,” he ordered, pointing in one direction. “Fill the sacks and pay off your debts. The government needs great funds. I will give you letters of recommendation for my father-in-law, the pasha. He has sent word that he is in need of soldiers. The Empire is at war, and war brings money. There will be booty galore for the having!”
Stretched out there with an extinguished cigarette butt between his fingers, he fell into a slumber, lulled by the gurgling of the fountain and the rustle of the fading leaves floating down around him. As soon as he was sound asleep, the notables with chains hanging from their chests peered at one another and tiptoed backwards in retreat.
The ‘braves,’ having eaten their fill, stretched out on the grass, too, picking at their teeth with toothpicks they had made for themselves. Near them were the hounds with their fleshy, red tongues hanging out.
When he woke up, Xheladin Bey noticed that he was enveloped in a woollen blanket which Riza had covered him with. He threw it off, sat up and rubbed his eyes, saying:
“I fell asleep!”
He sat there for moment and then added:
“Shall we be off, Riza?”
“As you wish, my lord.”
They got up, but did not return home. The good weather and the pleasures of the hunt kept them in the countryside until sunset. There rifles and guns ravaged the bushes for some time.
To their misfortune, they came upon no human game – no women or fair maids in any of the villages they passed through. Word had already spread that the bey was out hunting. “Damn peasants, they keep their sows locked indoors.” From time to time, they saw some old hags loaded down with firewood, but what use were they to him? They were like salted goat meat. The bey did not want old goat meat, he wanted the flesh of young partridges.
He climbed a hill covered with wild almond trees. Riza followed, with the baskets full of game. The horses were waiting in the distance at the other side of the road. A whistle would have sufficed to call them, but no one whistled. Below him there was a grove of acacia trees and a water mill which creaked every time the bucket turned and poured out its water. They heard some high-pitched voices, those of young girls in the distance, giggling and calling to one another. The bey came to a stop and gave a sign to Riza not to move. Two fat turtledoves had just settled on the branch of the almond tree above him, but the bey was no longer interested. His rifle was loaded, yet he did not use it. The twilight was now to give him possession of choicer game. The young girls from the village thought he was gone and they had come out to fetch water.
Xheladin Bey advanced slowly down the hill and approached the water mill. Around it were seven or eight girls giggling and gossiping. Some had filled their jugs and others were waiting in line to do so. In a flash, Xheladin Bey appeared before them. The girls screamed as if they had seen a wolf. They dropped their jugs and scattered in all directions. They were gone in a wink. Some leapt over the embankments, some into the brambles and others fled down towards the ravine. Many a thorn penetrated their tender flesh, but thorns were preferable to being snared in the clutches of the bey. All of them but one had dropped their jugs. The one girl who remained behind stared at the bey as a bird would at a venomous snake approaching to devour it. Her feet were heavy, as if she were riveted to the ground. A shard of the broken jug had injured one of her legs, but this was not the reason she did not move. It was naked fear that nailed her to the spot. “What a tender little dove I have here, a gift from the Almighty,” drooled Xheladin Bey to himself as he approached. The maiden looked divine. She was dressed in a white blouse, and a white scarf covered her blond hair. She had a slender body and eyes as green as the reeds of the marshes. The bey scrutinised her from her slender thighs down to her calves, from one of which flowed a trickle of blood. Then he eyed her slender waistline, and upwards, her tiny breasts, the nape of her neck, her little mouth, her fleshy protruding lips, her nose as straight as a candle, the green eyes, and her white, flat forehead. “What a tender bouquet is growing in my almond grove! I did not even know about this. A goddess come from the heavens. If I sent her to the sultan, he would immediately accord me the title of pasha. But why do I need to become a pasha if I can have such a tender bud for myself? She is one hundred times more precious than Guria and all the others. I will have her now, this very night, in my bed…” The maiden trembled as he neared and touched her. Her lower lip quivered. Her breasts were heaving under the blouse which was embroidered in red and black, and tears were welling in her eyes. But the bey was not to be put off by signs of distress. He was used to such scenes. Lambs bleat when the butcher thrusts his knife into their throats, and young girls weep when they are attacked by the bey. A lamb is even more savoury when roasted on a spit, and girls are all the more delicious when enjoyed for the second and third times.
Xheladin Bey stretched out his hand. He stroked her cheek and felt a pleasant sensation, as if the prime of his youth had returned to him.
“Don’t weep, my princess. The bey loves you. I will do you no harm. I will make a woman of you.”
The maid trembled all the more and tried to get away, but the bey held her arm as if in a vice. Then she began to scream.
“Mommy!…”
The bey was angered, but replied in a gentle tone:
“Don’t do that, my princess. Don’t shout. What is your name? You are the daughter of a farmhand and the farm belongs to me, so you belong to me, too. I am going to take you back to my manor and…”
“Mommy!…”
Very soon, the branches in the grove began to crack as if some wild boar were making its way through them. But it was no boar. It was a tall woman, as swarthy as the trunk of an oak tree struck by lightning. The woman stormed towards the bey and, seizing the child from him, shouted:
“If you touch her, not even hell fire will cremate you, Xheladin Bey! Even after death you will find no rest!”
“Who is this mad woman in front of me?” Xheladin Bey wondered incredulously, stepping back. He had a loaded rifle in his hand, but did not shoot. Instead he retreated even further. Now it was the bey’s turn to play the role of the bird hypnotised by the approach of a venomous snake. The woman turned and shouted to her daughter, “Run away as fast as you can!”
The girl was off in a flash, up over the embankment and away.
Xheladin Bey stared at the woman and said nothing. She was tall and meagre, but different from Xhixhi Hanem. From her features he could see that she had once been a beauty, whereas his wife had always been skin and bones, like the dead donkey lying at the wayside. She was a strong woman, too, with a fist to be feared.
“Off with you, you son of a bitch,” cried the woman once her daughter was gone. “If you ever touch her, worms will devour your putrid flesh and the crows will pick your eyes out! No, not the crows! I will scratch them out myself with my fingernails. You have sullied so many maidens, and now you intend to sully your own flesh and blood?”
“What are you talking about, woman? I have no daughter, no children at all.”
The woman flew at the bey and struck him in the belly with her mighty fist. She shook him back and forth until his bloodshot eyes were reeling.
“Don’t you recognise me? Don’t you remember who Maro, Kovi’s daughter, is, whom you raped when she was young? You had a whip in your hand, and were strong back then. That little girl you just saw is your daughter. And be aware, I will crush you like the head of a snake if you ever do to her what you did to me! You son of a bitch from Istanbul! You are depraved, the plague!”
She shoved him away, pulled him towards her, and shook him back and forth like a rug. He, Xheladin Bey, absolute lord over towns and villages, stared at her with owl eyes and was unable to escape her blows, unable to shoot the woman with his rifle or with the pistol in his belt.
“You robbed me of my honour! May God drive you mad! You left me in shame and misery. May the Almighty pluck your eyes out!. You blackened my life. May the plague take you!”
She continued to shake him and jolt him around so brutally that he fell to the ground. Then she gathered the shards of pottery and hurled them at him – at his feet, his knees and his hands, cursing him all the time.
“May I see you in a thousand pieces, like these broken jugs! May you rot alive, just as your father rotted and was eaten by worms! May you croak at the edge of some torrent like a mangy dog! May your name and lineage vanish from the face of the earth! When has a father ever raped his own daughter?”
A hail of shards covered the bey, who lay frozen on the ground, petrified, powerless to move.
The woman seized a bucket of water and pour it over his head, cursing and insulting him. He was drenched and dazed. A clang of drums resounded in his ears: dum-dum, jing-jing. Amidst the din, he heard Dife’s strident song:

    “How I love you, how I do,
All my thoughts are now with you,
Your two breasts – sherbet to me,
Bring me food and more raki.”

But Dife was somewhere far away. It was Maro who was standing in front of him, throwing buckets of water into his face and cursing him.
“May the wolf snatch you and devour your entrails! May you be roasted alive on a spit! May you vanish forever! May nothing evermore be seen or heard of you!”
The bey heard every word she said but gave no reply, not even a cough or a gasp as was his wont.
“May the whites of your eyes burst! May you burn alive in your grave! May the vampires consume you!”
The threats and curses continued and, what is worse, he feared that his ‘braves’ might hear them. Perhaps Riza was listening.
Xheladin Bey stood up in silence. He scrambled around the back of the hill and managed to reach the road where the horses were waiting. Clambering onto the back of his sorrel mare, he spurred the horse on and raised his whip.
“Get out of here and never come back! Go! May you turn mad! May you never reach home alive!” she shouted from the water mill behind him.
The mare was off in a gallop, its white hooves flashing. It was dark by now, but there was still a ray of light on the horizon separating the earth from the sky. A cold wind began to blow, raising the dust along the roadside.
“What a demon! What a fury!”, exclaimed the bey.
The braves, preceded by Riza on his grey stallion, were behind him. They could hardly keep up with the mare which was tearing along at full speed. The trees and bushes whizzed by like fleeting shadows on both sides of the road.
A bitter wind whistled around his ears.
Wagons laden with ears of corn were crossing the wooden bridge in the opposite direction, the cartwheels squeaking, followed by a group of peasants. He sped by like a furious gust before they even noticed him, galloping and galloping like a madman.
Some time later he came to himself, “What am I doing? I am killing the poor beast!”
He released the spurs from her flanks and pulled back the reins. The horse slowed its pace, coming to a trot. Now the braves caught up with him.
“Who was that woman?” he asked them.
As the shades of night embraced the world, Xheladin Bey caught sight of a shaft of light before him. What was the vision he saw in it?

* * *

It was springtime. The grass was fresh and the apple trees were in bloom. The bey saw himself walking over the fields. His house was in the distance. What a beautiful day! His blood was seething. Sheqere and all the other women were of no more interest to him. There was something else he had in mind, but he did not know exactly what it was. Wandering over the fields with lust in his thoughts, he came upon a young peasant girl, as fresh as a rose, the spitting image of the girl he had encountered that afternoon at the water mill. The girl tried to flee, but the bey caught up with her. She resisted ferociously, pushed him away and escaped from his grasp. She gave a scream, but he caught up with her, struck her with his whip and forced her to the ground. But she would not give up. She beat him and bit into his flesh until he was covered with blood. Such resistance excited Xheladin Bey all the more, as he used his whip upon her. The young girl had big, green eyes, like the reeds of the marshes, and sharp, white teeth. Gradually her strength gave way. The whip decided the outcome of the struggle. The bey threw himself upon her like a wolf at a lamb. She screamed once more. The women in the surrounding villages heard her desperate cries, but who would have dared to oppose the bey? When he was finished, the girl, still in tears, rose to her feet, her dress shredded to pieces and her virginity gone. Continuing to panic, she took cover under the branches of a tree and whined and whined. The whip had left bloody traces all over her body. The bey’s ear was bitten and bloodied. He asked her what her name was. Trembling, she watched him like a she-wolf and gave no reply. Then suddenly, she vanished into the foliage of the grove. But the bey later discovered who she was. Her name was Maro, the daughter of Kovi. Her father had tuberculosis and lay ill on a mat in his cottage. The bey did his utmost to find the girl and take her as a servant for his manor, just as he had done by seizing so many others, but she was not for the taking. Using various means, he tried force, but failed again. The bey’s bodyguards beat Kovi with their whips. He resisted for several days and then died. The bey later learned that Maro was with child. Without delay, he ordered one of his tenant farmers to marry her, and promised him a pair of oxen and other presents. The farmer, however, disappeared on the spot. He did not want to be the relative or ‘cousin’ of Xheladin Bey, as were the viziers and pashas of the sultan in Istanbul. Subsequently, the bey devoted himself to other pleasures, and married Xhixhi Hanem to improve his status. He had lost all trace of Maro with her green eyes. The wretched creature was now an orphan, with no one to support her. She gave birth to a daughter, worked the land and, after the death of her mother, lived alone in a distant quarter, despised and impoverished. With time, her beauty faded. Wrinkles covered her brow, but she did not abandon her daughter. Now, after so many years, she had turned up again. But the daughter was of rare beauty, and she claimed that she was his. The bey believed her… But what if she were lying? It could not possibly be his daughter! “Those damn peasants lie all the time!”

* * *

“She is lying,” exclaimed the bey, and spurred his horse on.
What curses that mad woman had hurled at him! “You son of a bitch from Istanbul. You are depraved, the plague! May God drive you mad! May the Almighty pluck your eyes out! May you croak at the edge of some torrent like a mangy dog!” The bey remembered them all. She had threatened to crush him like the head of a snake. She had shoved him and spit at him. He wondered how he had put up with it all. Had be been afraid? No, no, he was the bey.
The braves listened to him muttering. It was night by now. The crickets were singing in the bushes. Above him twinkled the Pleiades. The fields and meadows were silent. Suddenly the strident cry of a jay rang in the air. The bey took fright, but remembered that he had his braves with him.
“I am going to go back and whip that mad woman. She is lying. I’ll get my hands on the daughter and take her back to the manor. That is what I will do!”
He then thought of his exhausted mare and changed his mind. “No problem. I will send the braves tomorrow to deal with the matter. It is late now and the horse is worn out. I will order my men to bring the girl back to me at the crack of dawn. Riza will look after the matter. Is she really my daughter? No! The woman is lying!”
A stench filled the night air. He was passing the spot on the road where the dead donkey lay. He had the impression someone had seized him by the throat and was strangling him. “A carcass, worms? Is that what I will be tomorrow?”
Riding on, he thought he saw Riza in front of him with the girl, wrapped in a white sheet. He was delighted. He would have her, not like Maro on the ground, but in his bed. He would beat her if necessary. But he would caress her, too. Like that…
Suddenly his vision crumbled like a cottage razed and borne off by a flooding river. “But, who is Riza anyway? A simple peasant. Who were his parents? What was his mother called again? Yes, I remember, he is the son of Xhemile. A fine woman she, and Riza was an adorable lad, a real Adonis. I made him my page. Did he have a father?” The bey had seized Riza from his home and had taken the beautiful boy to live with him. He later made him his steward when the former one had grown old. Riza’s father, who was not really his father since Xhemile had brought him home “before the horse” as they say, had been an old man when he married Xhemile. The bey had forced him.
The bey’s thoughts continued to meander and he seemed to hear an old song he had not heard for many years:

    “Oh my lad, oh boy divine,
Like a dove for you I pine,
Take care not to sip that raki,
It will only make you dizzy.”

A reddish crescent moon came out, but it cast sufficient light. As the first rays caught the corner of his eye, Xheladin Bey thought he heard someone speaking: “Your boy of the past has arrived and brought with him a girl for your bed. A brother had brought his sister to their father.” Come on now, Xheladin Bey. How depraved can you get? You are becoming like the dogs and the swine.
Who spoke out? No one. There was not a soul around him. Who had spoken then?
He heard horses approaching and turned. The first was that of Riza, who seemed to be carrying something white with him. He was bringing the girl back to her father. The brother was offering his sister. “I have her, father. Take my sister, your daughter.”
Where did all the jackdaws come from? They blocked his route with their shadows and then disappeared. Further on, they swarmed again, cawing above his head. Among them was the black crow he had shot that morning, thinking it to have been a pigeon. It grew in size, and seemed to be almost human, singing:

    “Yarnana, yarnani!”

You never know. Crows have three souls in them and can live three hundred years. They feed off carcasses, and then they return as vampires. No, it is not a crow, it is a vampire!
Xheladin Bey began to shake. Along the roadside were tombs covered in brambles. He thought he saw a light and heard a voice:
“Come, we are waiting for you, Xheladin Bey. We are waiting for you with a golden coffin and a silken shroud – gold and silk, like your cradle.”
The jackdaws flew around his head, led by the black crow: “Caw, caw, caw.”
No, they cannot be jackdaws. Jackdaws don’t fly at night. They are swamp owls.
The moon disappeared behind the clouds. Darkness reigned.
Xheladin Bey spurred his mare on, raised his whip, striking the beast. The mare sped off in a flash, causing the bey to lose his whip. Suddenly a shadow blocked his path. Xheladin Bey seized the pistol from his belt and shot, but the shadow loomed once again before him further down the road.
The mare was bathed in sweat, on the point of collapsing.

* * *

Xheladin Bey, son of Shemseddin Bey, grandson of Xheladin Pasha, a nobleman who was devoted to the hunt, who loved wine, women and song, and who was suffering badly from syphilis, had gone mad. He galloped over the countryside in the dark of night, and the fields, the trees, the shadows, every object dead and alive, sang out to him:

    “Yarnana, Yarnani
Bring me food and more raki,

    Yarnana, Yarnani…”

III

Xheladin Bey was found the next morning lying in a ditch. He was still alive but recognised no one. They took him back to the manor on a stretcher, where Sheqere tended to him. But how does one tend to a madman? How? Tied up, of course. He howled and bit anyone who approached him.
Someone informed Xhixhi Hanem who turned up without delay with her brother. Three days later, they cremated Xheladin Bey in his grave. Xhixhi Hanem gathered whatever valuables she could and returned to the palace of her father, followed by a caravan and several horsemen. She later sold off the estate.
And what became of Guria?
Who knows…?

[Apasionata from the volume Vepra letrare 6, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1972, p. 222-249, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]

The General Appearance of the Country

Those who prefer to spend their lives daydreaming are often afraid of waking up. Their desire for the advancement of their country slowly transforms itself into a starling dream. A long stay abroad puts you into an even deeper sleep and catapults you, body and soul, into a fairer world that has no physical dimension and that is to be found only in your mind. The moment you awaken from your dream, you are startled to find yourself surrounded by ugliness. Your one and only desire is to get back to sleep and to the vivid world you left behind. But it is impossible. When a dream has faded, it can never be brought back.

This is exactly how I felt sixteen years ago. I had done a few things for Albania and was aware that my services to the country were well known, and even held in some esteem. I decided to set off for Albania, convinced that I would find a fairer, more dignified world than the one I had found abroad. My awakening was rude – and ridiculous at the same time. After a few months of erring among sour and unshaven faces, one morning in November 1913, I was handed an “official” ticket in Durrës, surprising in itself because it was still written in Turkish and in the police prose of the day. They ordered me to “shove off and move my ass onto the steamer heading for Brindisi that day because they had no need of my sort there.” (The police would have been surprised if I had told them that I agreed entirely and that they were completely right in stating that there was no need for my sort there). Since we lived in two completely different worlds, with myriad of mountains and oceans between us, what use could they have of me or I of them?

Such wounds never heal entirely and, if they close, they leave behind an eternal mark in the soul. But there is one positive aspect. They serve as a good lesson for later. And such lessons make one stronger and more able to confront the throes of fate.

I was not inebriated last autumn, fifteen years after that ridiculous encounter with the police in Durrës, when I happened to be on my way to Albania again. I was sober, very sober. While waiting in the fair town of Bari, I envisaged the following: that I might be attacked by some unkempt idealist appearing before me or behind me with a pistol in his hand, or that I would be accosted by some student who had taken a big leap straight from kindergarten to university, springing over elementary or secondary school and who, after spending a few years in a café to catch his breath, had learned a basic, few letters of the alphabet. The unnamed upstart lost a rare opportunity to save the motherland, or both worlds, and make himself immortal in annals of history. I made my way onto the steamer and, having said goodbye to the consul general, Mr Mark Kodheli, a lively and competent official of rare humanity who was kind enough to accompany me, and having conveyed my greetings to Mr Kosturi, the son of the national hero Spiro Kosturi, who was third secretary at the legation in Paris and who had come down to Bari with his wife with some goods for the palace, I took up my spacious quarters, got cleaned up and went down for some curious-tasting spaghetti alla marinara.

On the steamer was the secretary of our consulate in Bari. Before making his acquaintance, I had endeavoured to look somewhat sullen and aloof because it occurred to me that he might be one of those “students or “idealists,” but when I observed that he actually knew how to read and write, and more than that, I realised that he was not “idealist” or “student.” What distinguishes an Albanian “student” or “idealist” is either that he is illiterate or that he knows only some of the alphabet, usually about up to the letter G and no further. The letter G seems to be hard to master. It is like a brick wall and you need heavy artillery to break through and proceed beyond it.

I went for a stroll on deck with the secretary of the consulate and the brisk wind of the Adriatic reminded me of the breeze when it rises in Albania. What a difference to my first journey fifteen years ago! In 1913, when the steamer took me across the sea to Albania, my heart was beating fast and my blood was boiling with joy. Now, sober as never before, I journeyed to Albania with neither enthusiasm nor trepidation. I was prepared for anything. I went to bed and fell asleep immediately, a peaceful sleep that lasted until dawn, unperturbed by dreams. I got up, washed, shaved, got dressed and hastened out to enjoy the romantic coastline of Durrës from a distance and the mediaeval towers that embellish the town like jewels on a golden belt. But the towers, where were the towers? Approaching the town, the ship entered the harbour and dropped anchor, but there was no sign of the towers. I questioned one of the officers on board: “What town is this?” “Durrës,” he replied. “Durrës?” I said. “Are you sure? Are you joking?” “No, I’m serious, this is Durrës,” the officer repeated with a smile. I realized that I had indeed arrived in Albania, a country blessed with a thousand beautiful things to see, but trampled on by a mass of people who hate beauty. I later learned that of the eight wondrous towers that gave Durrës a grandeur of its own, two of them had been destroyed in the war (not the fault of the Albanians), and three others had been demolished and carried off at the orders of the mayor of the town. The remaining three are now hidden behind some new buildings constructed around them. Sic transit gloria Durrhachi!

Disturbed but not at all surprised, I went back to my cabin and packed my worldly goods in the one open suitcase I had with me and lit a cigarette. There was a knock at the door which caused me to rise and open it. Before me stood a group of men, among whom I recognized the beaming faces of two or three of my oldest friends who had come to welcome me back.

With a few choice words, Hiqmet bey Delvina, the Minister of Justice, and Colonel Zef Sereggi, the king’s main aide-de-camp, welcomed me on behalf of His Majesty. Thus, even before I got to the stern of the boat, the King had given proof of his fame, and the foreigners on board understood that he was still the grand seigneur. His indeed royal bearing revealed itself in one choice detail: of all the cabinet ministers, it was my first cousin whom he had to come and welcome me. Thus, even though beauty may be despised and trodden upon in Albania, there is certainly nobility, one of the oldest virtues of the Albanian race. And here was a living example of it from the man who is known to be the a mirror of goodness and kind behaviour. A porter, loaded down with meat and vinegar, who had once been minister of finance muttered: why do they meet representatives of the diplomatic corps so ceremoniously and not other representatives of Albania when they return to the country. Alas, the poor fellow did not realize that the impromptu welcome was given not to the Plenipotentiary Minister in Washington, but to me.

After exchanging a few words and compliments, we got into the barque that was waiting beside the ship to take us ashore. It was raining heavily but, despite this, all the porters continued with their work, a good sign of vivacity. Another sign of positive development in Albania were the well dressed and well fed sailors and policemen. My austere companions accompanied me to a building with the odd name of “Civic Assembly,” which I took to be the town hall. Here, the Chairman of the Civic Assembly, whom one would normally simply call the mayor, had arranged for a table with coffee and food to be laid out for me. As head of one of the oldest cities in the world, built some two thousand six hundred years ago, the Mayor of Durrës seemed like a polite and pleasant fellow despite the ridiculous title that those out to destroy our language had given him. We raised our glasses to one another’s health and, having warmed ourselves with the last of the French raki, we left the town hall and set off for Tirana.

On the way, I felt the same pleasant anticipation I had felt on the steamer when we were approaching Durrës and was hoping to make out the ancient towers of the town. On the road to Tirana, I had a vision of a grove of willow trees full of birds, like an oasis in the middle of the desert. I described such a grove on one of the pages of my book, “Doctor Needle”:

“Near Shijak, he was surprised to see a small grove of birds, a whole swarm of them chirping and singing together so sweetly that they were like a symphony composed by nature amidst the willows. What hope they stirred in him! Long after the vehicle had passed the grove, Dr Needle could still hear the music in his heart.”

Quoting these words I published five years ago, I must admit that the feelings I had for that grove had little to do with its actual state. They thrived on memories of the distant past. But you will understand my despair when I discovered that the grove with the divine music was gone! Disappeared, felled, stacked and forgotten. Only a couple of people even remembered it and its rare beauty.

After this disappointment, I prepared to face the inevitable fact that everything of beauty which Albania once possessed had now disappeared. Who knows what I would find in Tirana which, if you will allow me once again to quote from Dr Needle, I described in the following terms:

“A glade of lofty poplar trees marked our arrival in Tirana, a garden city, where all the houses seemed to be hidden behind trees and flowers, a quiet little town which only appears when you arrive at its doorstep.”

But the poplars with their tips in the clouds had long been felled, and most of the gardens had been disrobed by winter or had been sold to make way for new buildings.

Despite this, life in this town has numerous facets. The beauty of the country may have been assaulted here and there, yet it was a pleasure to see a nation finally awakening and setting to work. Many foreigners write nonsense about Albania because they did not see the country in the past and cannot measure the progress it has made from then to now. There is order instead of chaos, exemplary peace and quiet, no more killings, good roads, trade where there was previously nothing but hovels and unemployment, trained soldiers instead of bashibouzouks. All this is indelible proof of progress. It is more than evident from the first day. And the unyielding force that brought about these changes so quickly is a young man in the shadow of the crown. Only sick minds, scarecrow brains, could fail to understand the grandeur of this historic change.

The best hotel in Tirana is the Continental. It is situated right across from the American Legation and is run by an honest and capable Italian. Two rooms had been reserved for me on orders from the palace. When my belongings were brought up, I washed, changed my shirt and opened the windows. Although it was drizzling out, I was moved by the incomparable beauty of the mountains around Tirana. Mount Dajti, loomed majestically on one side, Petrela on another, and the mountains of Kruja and other chains of hills rose beyond the chilly bluish mist in the other direction with their cliffs and forests. They were in various hues and colours, but violet seemed to predominate and unite them. Musing on the visions before me, I wondered how it was possible for the Albanians to leave their country and go and work in distant, foreign lands, in the din and smoke of ugly factories. Suddenly, I was awakened from my daydream by a knock at the door. A gentleman from the palace entered and informed me that the King wished to receive me immediately. I begged him to give me half an hour to get dressed, but His Majesty had foreseen my reaction and his emissary countered that the King would receive me in street clothes. This noble gesture enabled me to meet him without further delay and not to have to fuss about the proper clothes. With no further ado, I set off for the palace to see the face of the most historic person Albania had seen since the times of Scanderbeg.

The King

Since it was raining and the day was drawing to a close, I was not able to see and enjoy the new palace gardens that had been laid out with many types of flowers. Later on, I had no mind to visit the gardens as I was full of thought and questions as to what changes the new age had brought with the appearance of the king. We had met in Rome in 1919 and then in 1921, but only briefly. We had spent two terrible years in Vienna amidst the confusion and suffering of the Great War, but with one consolation: music. I don’t think I missed any of the concerts of classical music performed by the two great symphony orchestras in Vienna. We went to all of Beethoven’s symphonies several times, and I remember how moved I was by an amazing performance of The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) by Mozart at the Court Opera House.

At that time, the Bey of Mat was but a twenty-two-year-old lad, yet even then, his intellectual capacities were apparent in that he spoke little, listened a lot and attentively, and offered succinct and thoughtful comments that threw new light on any subject discussed. These were characteristics that surprised me. Our common friend, Fazlli Bey Frashëri, one of the profoundest and most rational-thinking men of Albania, reminded me in Tirana this time of something I had once said in Vienna: “We have a quite exceptional fellow here. I have the impression that Ahmet Bey is destined to play a great role in Albanian history.” “These were your words, or something to the sort,” said Fazlli, reminding me of his prophetic pronouncement.

That young lad, in the conflagration of the war, surrounded by treachery and countless perils, managed a few years later to unite Albania, to place it under the laws of the Kanun, to overcome all armed opposition and to put the country to the plough. And now he is on the Throne of Scanderbeg. I was startled from my thought by the opening of a door. One of the officers of the court mentioned my name, the door closed behind me, and I found myself in front of the King.

Had I inherited any problems or shyness from earlier years, I would certainly have been dizzy in his presence and have lost my balance. But the King of the Albanians, with the bearing of a philosopher, was the very same person I had known in Vienna, agreeable in his conversation, profound, yet reserved where needs be. He smiled, had a good sense of humour where appropriate, and was quick to engage in conversation, capable of seizing the positive and the negative on any given subject.

The only change that the throne had brought to him was a positive one. His tastes had become more refined and noble. When he was head of the Republic as a young man, he had a passion for ostentatious colours in his clothing and surroundings, whereas now he had come to appreciate the greater beauty of the unpretentious. He gave up the flashing uniforms and used only a simply dark uniform and gave his officers and guards clothes that did not draw attention to them. He only wore medals on exceptional occasions when duties of State obliged him to do so. The palace furniture was of aristocratic modesty with no superfluous sparkle or gaudiness in the furniture or wallpaper.

As to his physical appearance, I was surprised to find the King the same as I had known him in the past. He was quick-minded but not unappealing. His eyes sparkled and his cheeks were rosy – a very picture of health that anyone would desire to enjoy. I had heard rumours abroad that he was ailing and would not be around for long. His rivals, in the pay of foreign governments out to destroy Albania, had expressed their hopes from time to time that the life of this new Scanderbeg would not last long. Honourable Albanians were anxious at these rumours. From the start, I regarded the allegations of these traitors and the anxiousness of my countrymen as completely unfounded. Any man who works from dawn to dusk and spends all his evenings with his friends, and then manages to get up the next day fresh and full of energy cannot be ailing. I informed my friends of my impression. When two physicians arrived from Vienna and found that he was suffering from nothing other than a surfeit of tobacco, all the rumours subsided. It seems that the ancient Gods of Illyria were watching over the health of the man who only recently managed to unite the Albanians and allow them to live in peace. He is the last sprout of the great Illyrian oak that once covered ten times more territory than the present Albania.

A man of average ability who had attained the highest position in his country would have put any further ambitions aside. He would have lain back and enjoyed the rest of his life without further effort. But for a magnanimous soul like King Zog, it is the word Duty that reigns supreme. He does not regard the crown as an embellishment on his brow, but as a heavy responsibility to ensure that the Albanian nation flourishes. Without exaggeration, it can be stated that, now that Albania has been united and blessed, all that remains to be done is to give the nation a new spirit of life and progress. This is an imposing task. If Zog succeeds in this, his image will radiate higher than that of Scanderbeg.

[extract from Faik bey Konitza: Shqipëria si m’u duk, originally published in the Boston newspaper Dielli (The Sun) from 1929, Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie.]

Shuk Dija set off slowly in the direction of Arra e Madhe. A light breeze from the hills across the Kir river had begun to give relief from the heat of that July afternoon. The alleys and the walls were still broiling even though the sun was now low. He had no problem with the heat for he had just gotten up from an afternoon nap. He washed and refreshed himself at the well. So much time had passed since he had been able to enjoy the well water of Shkodra, water so sweet that it was the source of many a legend. He dressed carefully, aware that many people would be observing him from behind doorways and through the slats of Venetian blinds.
Shuk Dija was on his way to Arra e Madhe to pay someone a return visit.
Upon his arrival in Shkodra, after many years of absence, numerous relatives, friends and well-wishers had dropped by. Returning such visits had always been a nuisance to him, yet this time, it was a pleasure to visit his distant relative Shaqe, because he had spent so much time with her as a child. They had had a lot of fun at her house, out in the yard. The longer one is away from the sites of childhood games, the more these sites are wrapped in reverie and the greater is the desire to see them again. From the very first days of Shuk’s return, every corner and every object, from the smallest nooks and crannies of the house itself to the farthest streets and alley, evoked in him long-forgotten memories, and filled him with dreams and impressions, some pleasant and others nostalgic, yet all of them somehow new and strange to him.
Strolling with the lazy steps of a passerby who has plenty of time on his hands, he observed everything with particular interest. The walls and gardens of the neighbouring houses were all familiar. Yes, he could remember them, but in his memory they had all been vague and enveloped in a golden mist, like some legend, and this had made them all the more enticing. Even now, seeing objects with his very own eyes as he passed among them after so many years of absence, he discovered their new and unexpected charms: the slanting facade behind the leafy mulberry tree, the garden wall with heavy clusters of fragrant honeysuckle, and the alleys full of shade and mystery. Everything evoked in him recollections of fine verdant parks and landscapes, and made him want to run barefoot over the grass.
He fell into a daydream, oblivious to the curious glances of those watching him from the doorways.
While he was abroad, sitting alone at a table in a café amidst the din of a big city, he used to think about Shkodra, his thoughts flying home on the wings of his imagination. He would find himself roaming the streets, entering a reclusive garden and stepping on the green grass. “Imaginary journeys,” he called them, those visionary walks through the distant town of his birth. Now, after several years of absence and longing, reality proved to be just as beautiful as his dreams.
All of a sudden, he awoke from his thoughts and said to himself:
“Have I lost my way?”
He looked to the left and right to get his directions, trying to find the way as he had remembered it as a child.
“Oh, it’s back there, behind me…”
And indeed, he had passed by the little side alley. He hurried back, found the passageway, and arrived at a gate, dark and scarred by the weather. The cobblestones in front of it were worn, too, with weeds growing thick among them.
He knocked at the gate, as if he were knocking at the magic entrance to the lost world of his childhood.
He could hear the echo of clogs coming across the courtyard. A ruddy, oval-faced housemaid then opened the door. She blushed awkwardly for a moment, as she had never met him before and scurried off in the direction of the house. Abandoning her clogs at the foot of the stairs, she scuttled up the steps to inform the lady of the house of his arrival.
Amused by the maid’s insipid behaviour, Shuk closed the door behind him and headed slowly towards the staircase. With what delight he looked around him! The yard was exactly as it had been the last time, except for a stone wall which now partitioned it from the neighbouring yard, where a fence had once been. The house was freshly painted and remodelled somehow, but he could see no other changes. The same open veranda with the wooden stairs, the window frames with iron bars. Everything was as it had been in the past.
Shuk’s eyes fixed on the little gate leading to the garden around the back of the house, when a woman’s voice echoed from the veranda:
“Oh, Shuk! Come on up!”
There, at the top of the stairs, was Shaqe with her hands behind her back, trying hurriedly to undo the white apron she was wearing. He went up, embraced her, and entered the living room.
Here, too, everything was as it had been.
Shaqe, sitting across from him, began to speak:
“You wouldn’t believe it. I swear to God, I did not recognize you a few days ago when I went over to see you. It’s amazing how the years pass! I remember how tiny you were. I can still see you playing in the garden. My God, you gave me a hard time when you were little! Do you remember why? You would bring all the kids from the neighbourhood over here… Do you remember when you used to come and spend the night here? Lush, may his soul rest in peace, used to talk about you a lot when you were abroad.”
Lush was her late husband.
Shuk was delighted and had a smirk on his face, but gave no reply. The sound of Shaqe’s voice had stirred something at the bottom of his heart, reviving memories of the past and of long-forgotten joys. He closed his eyes and plunged into the memories, all of his years away from Shkodra vanishing as if they had never existed. Once again he was that restless little child eagerly hopping around in fun and games.
Shaqe continued:
“Oh, Shuk, poor Lush was so attached to you! As I said, not a day went by without his mentioning your name… Lin was still at school… and when Lush passed away, I had to take him out and send him to work at the market.”
Lin was her son.
“How I wish that you could have been at Lin’s wedding last year! I kept saying to everybody: ‘What a shame that Shuk won’t be attending the wedding.’ It was a marvellous reception. And he couldn’t have found himself a better bride! But, where… where is she? Come on in now! Shuk is a good friend of ours. You don’t have to get all dressed up.”
Shaqe rose to see if the young woman would enter. From where he was sitting, Shuk attempted to have a look at the garden, through the window. Its view was not obscured, but from where he was sitting he could see only part of it, and the giant fig tree, whose branches now reached up to the windowsill.
Oh, that garden… the verdant playground of our childhood…! Shuk had not seen it for ten years, but he remembered every corner of it – all the trees and shrubs, every bit of grass. Even the tiniest things bore memories.
While he was abroad, it was this garden which grew green every spring in his heart.
“Here, this is Lin’s bride.”
Shaqe interrupted his thoughts when she returned with the young woman.
They all sat down and talked. Shuk said a few words here and there, just enough to cover over silence and nostalgia, so that his absent-minded behaviour should not be misunderstood. All the while, as they stared he looked at the bride out of the corner of his eye.
She was not unusually pretty, but there was a warmth which emanated from her face and which made her immediately attractive.
She was dressed in a native costume: shiny, black breeches, a silken blouse, a red apron, a necklace of medallions on her breast, and a string of small gold coins in her hair. She kept her eyes to the ground, looking at the white handkerchief she was holding in her hands which were adorned with many shining rings. From time to time, she would look up, but when her eyes met his, she would lower her head at once, batting her eyelashes.
Shuk felt as though he had always known her, and his initial curiosity vanished when he saw the soft features of her face, a characteristic of many of the women of Shkodra.
“I was unable to take Vida with me when I went to see you after you got back because she was spending a few days with her relatives,” said Shaqe.
Vida was the bride’s name.
With this, she began praising her virtues: she was a good worker, didn’t talk much, was neat, and was just the perfect match for Lin.
The young woman blushed and lowered her head even more. Shuk kept his eyes on her, but he was not really interested for he had plunged once again into a daydream.
“Where would all those girls who played with me in the garden be now, I wonder? Of course, they’re all grown up and many of them are married now. Perhaps I have already seen them on the street, and did not recognize them. Some of them may even have died…”
He cast his mind back to Dusha, who had been his closest friend as a child. He had carried the memories of her with him when he left Shkodra and had guarded them carefully through his years of wanderings abroad. Dusha, that pale and skinny little girl. Of her delicate features, only her big black eyes showed any vitality. He had taken her under his protection, and none of the other children would dare to have harmed her. He used to give her walnuts, paper for making kites, spools of thread, knucklebones for playing jacks, and little figurines. Once, he remembered, he wanted to give her a beautiful box with a pen holder, a pencil, an inkwell, and an eraser in it. His uncle had brought it from him from Trieste. She wouldn’t take it. He begged and cajoled to no avail. Nothing in the world would convince her to accept the present.
Where would Dusha be now?
Except for her name, he know nothing about her; neither who her parents were, nor where she lived at that time. He had met her down in the garden, and only now did he understand why he had always wanted to come and play here. It was his desire to see and spend time with Dusha. He had heard nothing more of her in ten years of absence, and a strange feeling now caused him to believe that she might not have survived the years, skinny and fragile as she had been. He imagined her somehow lying in the Fusha e Rmajit cemetery, and grieved at the thought, seeing her dead before his eyes, his little sister.
Shaqe then spoke:
“Lin will be back from market soon. He would be very disappointed if he missed you. Can you wait for him, Shuk? I am going to put a bottle of raki out to chill in the well and make you some nice appetizers. Do wait until he gets back! He won’t be very long…”
Shuk answered:
“Alright, but in the meantime I’m going to go and have a look at the garden, if I may.”
“Why, of course,” uttered Shaqe. “Get up, girl! Take him and show him the garden.”
The young woman stood up, blushing.
When they got downstairs, she opened the little gate for him and said in a faint voice: “Go on in.”
Shuk entered and began tiptoeing over the soft, green grass.
It was like a dream. Nothing had changed, except that, now that he was grown up, the garden seemed smaller, the walls were lower, and the trees less tall than he had imagined.
The sun could not be seen any longer. It had vanished behind the wall. A pale afternoon light devoid of vibrancy spread through the garden, the light which precedes the last moments of dusk and brings with it a certain sadness and longing for something which is about to disappear forever. Everything was still: the large, rough foliage of the fig tree, the delicate leaves of the plums which rose in a circle in the middle of the garden, the dark ivy, the honeysuckle blooming on the high walls, even the tent-shaped boxwood under the windows of the house stood quiet. No movement, as if they had gathered in silence to wait for the shadows of the night to descend upon them.
The air, motionless within the garden, was replete with smells: the smell of ripe fruit, the scent of fresh grass, the fragrances of flowers, herbs, and plants hidden in various cool corners. All these scents, contained within the garden walls, joined to form a single fragrance as exquisite as an aromatic potion.
Twilight, with its pale shadows, was spreading and blotting out the colours, but had also set alight a myriad of stars in that part of the sky which stretched like a silver veil over the walls. In Shuk’s dreamy eyes, the garden was slowly taking on another form, an image of dawn.
For a few moments, everything was miraculously transformed. The fresh light of springtime flooded into the garden and revived the plants, which began to grow. The silence which had covered the garden like a veil was suddenly supplanted by voices, shouts, and merriment. Among the sounds, he recognized a girl’s soft voice, and his heart skipped. He was a child once again. He rolled in the grass, climbed the trees, stretched his hands out to reach the sweet figs, and hid behind the dense boxwood. At once, he stopped running and looked, in amazement, towards the little gate which was opening. Dusha, his tiny girlfriend, the playmate of his early years, entered the garden with a piece of red candy in her fingers. She walked towards him, sucking on the confection as she approached.
“We’ve got a beautiful garden behind the house, don’t we?”
Shuk was awakened from his daydream by the young woman’s voice. It upset him at first because her words had dispersed and destroyed his dream, but then, feeling uncomfortable because of his protracted silence, he felt obliged to reply:
“Yes, it’s wonderful. I love it because it reminds me of my childhood. You know, I often used to come here to play. Memories of the past, however fond they are, always make me uneasy. That’s what happened to me the moment I entered the garden.”
He spoke and looked at her.
The young woman, whose body radiated health and youth, smiled as she listened to him. Her eyes expressed joy and serenity. The shy expression on her face was now gone.
Shuk thought to himself:
“How lucky you are not to know what depression is! It is an illness which has often gnawed at my soul. If I were to tell you everything I was thinking, you would probably find me strange, perhaps even ridiculous. How lucky you are!”
Speaking up, he then said:
“I haven’t been in Shkodra for over ten years now. You know, when you have been away for a long time, you notice even the smallest details on the first days when you get back.”
Her lips moved. Shuk waited for a moment, but she did not speak.
The light faded and vanished. Night had now fallen over the garden. He could not see her face well because it was now dark and she was standing at a distance from him. Yet he sensed the trembling of her body, as if she were on the verge of saying something and was holding herself back.
He thought that he might have been boring her with his talk so he walked towards the gate.
“Shall we go back upstairs?”
She gave no reply, but followed in his footsteps. Suddenly, in the middle of the garden, Shuk could no longer swallow the question which had risen to his lips several times.
“Do you know anything about a little girl called Dusha who used to live somewhere around here?”
The bride walked on behind him. As he received no reply, he continued, without turning:
“She was not in good health and had an emaciated, drawn-out face. I don’t know why, but I have the impression she may have died… These plum trees were the witness of my happy childhood. I wish they, at least, could tell me what happened. I was exuberant a moment ago thinking of that girl I once loved, and now I see her in her grave.”
At that moment, he spun around as if struck by lightning.
With a smile on her lips, the young woman replied:
“Don’t you recognize me, Shuk?”

[Kopshti, from the volume Hija e maleve, Shkodra 1929. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie.]