by R.K. Terzky, translated by Mary Howitt.
Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William Lovett) vol.1 #4 (23 Jan 1847).
No. I.—The Tax-Gatherer's Visit.
At about the distance of a mile from Remete, in a valley lying high among the hills, stands the Rusniak village of H—. The most superficial glance over the surrounding country would suffice to make the observer acquainted with the occupation and means of subsistence of its inhabitants, and that by such unmistakeable evidences as not even the uniform winter garment of nature can conceal. Upon the snow-covered ascents of both sides of the valley, and above the leafless branches of the underwood, fresh heaps of refuse or rubbish from the mines elevate themselves like molehills; and amidst this very rubbish, and especially in the more extensive and older growth of wood which covers some portion of the hills, may be seen ascending, to the very horizon, immense columns of smoke, which indicate the kilns of the charcoal-burner. Among these, and in direct lines down the descent, run the hollow roads; along which, by locking all the four wheels, the copper ore and the charcoal are conveyed to the smelting-houses. All these roads merge in the high-road, which is cut up with ruts a foot deep, and which, running along the valley parallel with the river, conducts us at once into the village of H—.
It was approaching the hour of noon, when a sledge, drawn by four horses, was seen advancing along this road towards the village. The extraordinary mode by which the driver contrived to keep his horses in a continued trot, might excite the mind of the spectator either to merriment or pity: according to his own temper. This driver was seated upon a wooden saddle, totally uncovered, and of a most simple construction, which, with scarcely anything under it, was set upon the bare ribs of one-of the hinder horses; and with his whip-handle he made such violent exertions that all his limbs were kept in perpetual movement, and his body was thus preserved from freezing. The cold was intense; and not only was the man's neck bare, but his ancles also, as the trousers did not reach to the botskori, or shoes, worn by the peasant.
Scarcely had this sledge reached the middle of the village and drawn up before the public-house, when all the dogs were in a great state of activity; and not the dogs only, but the inhabitants also of all the little low wooden houses of which the village was composed. Barefooted girls and boys were soon seen hurrying along the street; and the speed with-which they moved, as well as the peculiar expression of their countenances, indicated that the person who had just now arrived in the sledge had the power of exercising some formidable influence on the inhabitants. This sentiment was still further proved when, somewhat later, the elder people began to assemble before the constable's house, casting, from time to time, looks of serious anxiety towards the inn. And there must have been reason why all should be thus anxiously uneasy; even upon the constable, the head man in the village, this visit seemed to have produced the most disagreeable effect. Scarcely was he aware of the arrival, when he sprang up from his noon-day repast, over which he had been engaged, and, snatching up his walking-stick, the badge of his dignity, he hurried off to a cottage at four doors distance from his own house.
Arrived here, he entered the room with a bowed head, and found the whole peagant family, consisting of seven persons, sitting at edinner. His salutation to them was in the bitter words of a curse. Now, although the constable was reckoned a bold, determined sort of man, and although it was by no means his custom to bend before his equals, yet he was compelled in this instance, as he was in entering most peasants' houses, to assume a position of humility, because the lofty domineering air of office would have placed his head in the clouds of smoke which filled the upper part of the room, and which could not find ready vent through the hole which was made in the wall between the windows for its exit. Below the height of this hole the peasants' houses are free from smoke; but as, singularly enough, it is made lower than the height of a grown man, every one who has reached this size, and who cannot inhale smoke readily, is compelled to keep his head in the lower region of the purer air.
"Now, you fellow, you!" began the constable, in his bent position, and in the greatest rage; "how have you kept your word with me? Do you mean to give me the three gulden or not? you gipsey![1] Now, here is Mr. B— come here himself about the taxes, and I have not yet had one single kreutzer from you! Am I to be flogged on your account? you rascal! Will you give me, or will you not, the three gulden? If you will not, I will carry away your door and windows!"
The impression which this speech made upon the party sitting round the table was very various. At the first sound of the constable's voice, the two youngest children, greatly terrified, raised a shrill cry; this set the next two eldest crying likewise; and then, as if invited by this quartett to join in chorus, the calf, which was tied at the foot of the stove, began to bleat; and this roused the whole brood of chickens under the stove, which struck in with its many-voiced staccato.
Notwithstanding all this cursing, and crying, and commotion, the master of the house, who sat at the table, maintained the most perfect composure, and kept eating his linseed oil and potatoes as if he heard nothing of all that went forward. The mother alone seemed to feel every word which the man had spoken, as so many daggers, and trembled through her whole frame, the while she busied herself in pacifying her two youngest children.
"Now, Oetko, how much longer shall I wait here? Do you mean to give me the three gulden or not?" again inquired the constable, in the utmost state of wrath.
"Begone to the devil with you! I cannot carve you the money out of my soul! I have not a single heller in the house!" returned the man, at once thrown off his guard. He was again about to resume his pretended indifference, when it so happened that he dropped a hot potato into the burning fat, which at once confused him, and he reddened. After this the storm burst forth on his side; and only the tables between them, and the smoke above them, prevented the two angry men from coming to close quarters. At length the constable elevated his stick, and reared himself up to the full height of his dignity, in order to represent to the negligent payer of taxes the certain consequences that awaited him; but, as he lifted his head, he happened to get his mouth into the stratum of smoke, and thus brought his lungs into such a conflicting state, that they would no longer serve him for any purposes of speech. With his body still more bowed than when he entered, he now withdrew from the room, not omitting, however, in passing, to lift the door off its hinges, and carry it away with him to his own house.
In less time than it will take to read this, two under-constables, or vice-constables, forced the two frozen windows out of their frames, and carried them away also in the same direction as the door had already taken. These windows, let us remark, in passing; were, like all, in the village, neither of glass nor of paper, but formed from the inner integument of the cow's stomach, prepared for the purpose.
The misery in the house was now great. With tears and abjurations, the poor mother sought to defend her four half-naked children from the bitter cold. With the self-sacrificing love of a mother she threw her own fur cloak over them, and tried to wrap them in the bed-covering, even as the mother-bird shields her young under her wings.
The keen winds of an unusually severe winter soon were blowing from every point of the compass through the wretched room. Driven almost to despair, and bending over her children, the mother sate with her bare feet on the earthen floor, and had compassion on the little calf near the stove. With a heart agitated by intensest anguish, she directed her prayers above for help and for pity. Simple as she was, she knew that man's greatest enemy is man; that a more icy wind swept through the gulf between two human hearts, than that which now penetrated her room; and she knew that the nursling at her breast now drew in with the bitter milk the seed of that cold inhumanity which would make it, in after life, repel its old mother.
Ah, Almighty Father! in what way have these creatures, called men, sinned, that they should deserve punishment such as this for so many thousands of years? I cannot believe that this beautiful world is solely and eternally destined for a place of oppression and of suffering to the bad: I cannot believe it—no! Thou art too wise for that!
The cries of the children having now been, in some degree, appeased by the mother, she herself, in the excess of her suffering, and, perhaps, also in the excitement of despair, burst forth into a loud lamentation, which resounded to her neighbours in the street. But, as we before remarked, help was not to be looked for from others. Fairly bewildered by all this, and greatly excited also, the father paced backwards and forwards in the cold room, kept continually knocking the empty pipe in his empty hand, and sought for his tobacco-bag, which he commonly had about him. At length he remained standing before his wife, and said to her in a kind and almost beseeching voice,—
"Go, wife, and bring me that piece of linen, that I may carry it to the host of the public-house; perhaps he will give me three schein gulden for it."
"No!" returned his wife, fiercely; "No! I will give nothing! And even if I and my children must perish of cold, I will give nothing! What reason had you to spend all the money in liquor, you drunkard! Why did you not pay the tax out of that last money you received for carriage?—Oh,unfortunate woman that I am!"
"What is the use of talking thus? As if I were the only person in the village who had not paid the tax! There are more than one half of the peasants who are in my case," remarked he, in the conciliatory tone of one who would excuse himself; and then added deprecatingly, "then I will take the calf and carry it to the host."
"No! no! Nothing at all!" exclaimed the woman, raising herself up from the bed. "They may cudgel you, before I will let you carry anything out of the house to sell."
"Woman! don't enrage me! You now me!" said the husband, sternly.
"And I would rather that you should strike me down dead, than that you should carry anything out of the house!" said she, in violent passion, and placed herself exactly before him as he advanced towards the calf. He, however, pushed her roughly aside; seized the calf, threw it on his shoulder, and went with it out of the door in the direction of the public-house.
The wife, in a state of desperation, ran after him: the renewed cries of her children, however, and the deep snow, prevented her, and sent her back to the cold room, where she at length was compelled to stop up the windows with such portions of the bedding as could best be spared.
With the exception of a Russian military guard-room, there can scarcely be a more simply furnished apartment, consisting of four walls, than the public-house of this village; or even, we may say, than any public-house in Hungary. A long table, and two benches of the same length, each formed of a beam sawn in two, with props of the most natural construction, represent exactly the necessary and the only furniture of such places. If to this be added the large, round stove of clay which stands within a railing in one corner of the room, whilst the other corner is partitioned off with boards, within which the sale of the liquors takes place; and furthermore, add to these the walls grown yellow with damp and thaw, and the floor composed only of earth, the reader may then form a very correct idea of the interior of that village beer-house to which we would conduct him.
Having entered it, let us now discover something of the parties who breathe its atmosphere.
"He seems to-day to be very much out of sorts. How he scolds the driver!" said one peasant to another, as he scraped off the frost from the window-pane with his finger nail.
"Certainly! There will be something up in the village to-day," returned the one addressed, who at the same time attempted to peep through the frozen window, and continued, "Oh! what a great fur cloak Mr. B. has got!"
"1t is of wolf!" said the first speaker.
"How like a fool you talk! Can't you see that it is made of bear-skin!"
"Look ye, look; Oetko is bringing his calf to sell," exclaimed one.
"And there the petty constable is bringing all the forfeited goods!" remarked the other.
"Now, God have pity on all those who at this season have not paid their tax! It is cold enough to freeze them to death!"
"Look! look! There comes the priest! Most likely he would pay a visit to Mr. B. to inquire after the poor, and to make entreaties for the constable."
"Now, I wonder whether it is true that he received from the city authorities of St. Petersburg a golden breviary as a new year's gift?" asked a peasant who stood to the right of the window from his neighbour.
"Certainly, he has had it from there. Don't you remember some years ago, how gracious the Emperor Alexander was to our parish? If he had not travelled through this place, our church would not have been finished yet."
"What is that there? what is it?" cried the voice of a drunken guest behind them, as he raised himself with a half-filled flask of brandy from the table and tumbled against the window. "Who is it that's outside?" cried he, striking his hard fist at once through the window- pane, and staring out at the empty sledge. The host, who in the meantime hid become aware of the damage done to the window, hastened forward and said to the man,
"You must pay for that window, Gaidass."
"Don't make such a bawling, you rascal!" returned the drunken man, and then broke forth into curses and abuse.
In the meantime the servant of the newly arrived official came into the room, and the angry man was obliged to restrain himself. The calm, however, could not be of long continuance. The drunken fellow felt a delight in letting loose his spite on the servant in his white travelling cloak, and boots, and spurs.
"You are a rogue," exclaimed he, "as well as your master. Are you come here to suck our blood, you rascal!"
Scarcely, however, had he uttered these words, when the host and a young man named Janko, who had that moment entered, stepped up to him and conjured him, in God's name, to keep silent, and to retract what he had already said, if he did not wish to taste the cudgel.
"I was fourteen years a soldier," returned the man, "and I have tasted more cudgel blows than you all together; and I am not a bit afraid of them. But such a beggarly tax-gatherer as that I would shoot down," screamed he, in the greatest rage, making an attempt to fall upon the servant, from doing which he was withheld by Janko. The servant, however, returning the curses with which he was assailed, hastened out of the house in order to make known the assertions of the old soldier.
Before long, therefore, the whole magistracy of the village entered the room, laid hands on the disturber, bound him, and hurried him instantly out of the beer-house, across the street into durance.
Whilst this was going on, the possessor of the calf entered, and endeavoured to drive a bargain with the host. The latter, however, being well aware of the advantage which he had over the peasant, made use of every means, and of every obstacle and impediment he could devise, to beat down the price of the calf to about one-half of its worth.
"Five gulden will I give you for it, if you like; and two of them you must leave against your debt;" said the host, and with these words he closed the long bargaining.
"But at all events, Mr. Host, you will give me a pound of salt into the bargain," said the peasant; "I have not had a single grain of salt in my house for fourteen days."
"Not a kreutzer above five gulden," returned the host; "but I will trust you a few pounds, if you will only promise me to keep the day of payment punctually."
The poor man at length consented to the proposal in silence, and the bargain was closed.
"Mr. Host, trust me three kreutzers'-worth of brandy, and I will certainly pay you at Easter," said Janko, in a beseeching tone, whilst he was at the trouble of drawing the slip of wood, on-which his debts were scored, out of his sleeve.
"No, fellow!" returned the host.
"Nay, do, I pray you: see, here is my rowasch[2]; there is just room upon it for a groschen."
"No, no!" again repeated the host.
"Now may you be burnt, you and your whole concern! you—!" cried Janko, greatly excited; concealed again his record of debt, and seated himself close to his former neighbour, who was lucky enough to get a half-pint of brandy on trust.
"Drink, Janko," said this one, and offered him the bottle, in return for which he received a "God bless you!"
"Ha; folks! the constable is going to be flogged!" exclaimed a fellow, rushing into the room.
"And why so?" asked Janko, astonished.
"Why so!" observed his neighbour; " how can you ask such a foolish question? for what do constables get beaten?—because he has not got the whole amount of tax for the new year. That's the reason why."
"Poor wretch!" said the host, who stood within his wooden partition; "poor fellow! his wife cried when he was chosen to the office, knowing beforehand that he was too good a man for a constable, and that, on that account, he never would do for constable."
"Let's go and see, however; let's go and see!" cried a voice in the room, and the greater number of those present, among whom was Janko, hastencd out to enjoy the spectacle of their chief man being beaten in the presence of the stern receiver of taxes, and surrounded by his lamenting family.
All this took place in the year of our Lord, 1830.
"And wherefore all this poverty? this extreme degree of inhuman oppression? What is the cause of this slavish treatment?" may, perhaps, be inquired by the sympathising but differently instructed reader.
It is difficult to give the answer to these questions. It would lead to a political discussion, and, therefore, overstep the limit of these sketches; and besides this, might bring these harmless pages under the eye of some one or other political party, which Heaven forbid! These pictures, however, will indicate some of the reasons for the miserable condition of the peasants, as well as of the whole country; and we will now leave it to the reader's own mind to form his own judgment of these things, according to the degree of humanity and of general cultivation in himself.
The greater part of all classes in Hungary, not even excepting that of the peasant himself, would remark, on reading these representations of human misery, "Yes, but it is natural for all that. It cannot be otherwise; the peasant is born for it—he is doomed both by God and the world to this earthly wretchedness. This condition is in accordance with his own humble nature, and the constitution of the country. To this subjection he must, therefore, by right submit." And under favourable circumstances the following verdict might also be obtained: that if the condition of the whole country were raised, the reaction, from the nobles downward, would operate upon it beneficially. Nothing can be opposed to this; for we are clearly in the condition of the middle ages. But what then becomes of human rights? They cannot long be subjected where such opinions exist. As to the eight-centuries-old constitution of the nobles, it is a fact that it will neither purify opinion, nor educate the peasant to place him by the side of his ennobled brother; and, indeed, in every country where there does not exist a sense of the true destination of the human race, be they of what class they may—where the nobles will not forego those old privileges, which cause men to look down upon the inferior classes;—in a word, where serfdom, although abolished in form, yet still exists in the feeling and conduct of the lord of the soil,—what can be expected from the independent development of such a country in one century? Sadly too little for it to be helpful in the approaching world-reform. The rights of man, from the lower Danube to the Ural Mountains, must of necessity be written down in blood; and for the obtaining of these rights their descendants will have rather to thank the Golden Bull than the Double Eagle.
"Phantasies!" exclaims the incredulous.
Of a certainty; but in such phantasies the fire-sparks are concealed from which the wings of the double-eagle shall be singed, and the parchment rolls of St. Stephen's be turned to ashes. And let him who would form an idea of these phantasies, go, during some spring midnight, to the field of Rakos, and listen to the gipsies playing the Rakotsy;—in that melody alone, lies a presentiment of the free, independent future existence which is advancing for Hungary.
1. To call a man a gipsey, in this country, is equivalent to calling him a liar.—Translator.
2. (1) By rowasch is understood those two well-known tallies which serve as debtor and creditor accounts among the peasants of this country, and of the whole of Russia, who can neither write nor read. The master of the beer-house; the huckster; nay, even the under-bailiff carries his ledger in a-ring or an iron wire, and only adds to the amount on the wooden score, which the peasant presents to him beseechingly, and with assurances of certain and speedy payment, when there is space upon the tally which is to be found on the iron wire, to add either a 10, 5, or even a 1. When the debtor pays his score the former figures are all planed off, and a new account begins.