Translated from the original of R.K. Terzky.
by Mary Howitt.
Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William Lovett) vol.2 #29 (17 Jul 1847).
No. II—The Lion of the Village.
(Concluded.)
In a few days, however, Janko was compelled to think the words of the constable graver than he had been willing to deem them. His old mother came crying home one day from a neighbour's, and told her son that his gay course of life had determined the public to put his name in the wheel of fortune, and that there was no doubt of its being drawn, as the whole of the magistrates had their eye upon him in particular.
Unwilling to comprehend the mutter, he would only give credit to it when his sweetheart came weeping in directly afterwards, bringing to him the same tidings; Janko both by the magistrates and by fate was doomed to be a soldier. When the old woman heard her own tidings thus confirmed she was driven almost to desperation, and uttering loud lamentations, hastened out of the house, in order to convince herself of the truth of these words, and to make remonstrance, and obtain intercession against her last support being thus taken from her. It was true that her property was next to nothing, and the payments therefrom were so small, that, according to this scale, her son could hardly be reckoned as a regular tax-paying householder; still some regard ought to be had to her, and to the age of her son.
Janko, on the contrary, could hardly bring out a word for rage and astonishment, at the thought of any magistrate placing him in the ranks When he was already turned of thirty. Three several times did he throw his broad hat upon the unswept floor, and swear rather to die than go to Leutshau: Had he ever broken an oath he had sworn for the last ten years! and how he would split the skull of the very first man with his axe, who ventured to lay hands upon him! People might play what lottery-pranks they pleased with other young folks, but he was not going be fooled with.
"Go home, Suze," said he to the girl, who, still weeping, kept at a distance from the enraged man; and then, swinging her up at once, in no very amiable manner, he put her out of the house, bolted himself in, and took the axe in his hand.
Soon after this, one of the jurymen tapped at the Window, and asked Janko to open it as he had something to say to him in a friendly spirit.
As Janko saw that he was alone, and without any visible means compulsion, and willing to believe his apparently friendly words, he opened the door, hoping to hear some messages of amity.
"Look now, Janko," said the man, "you are a sensible fellow, now be reasonable, and don't make needless opposition, for the whole thing is over."
"I! but I am not going! no power in heaven or earth shall make a soldier of me! At my time of life I am not going to be made a fool of!--there, take care of the axe! The first man who lays hands on me shall so lie down as never to rise again."
"But brother dear, don't make a fool of yourself! Think, our young king has only stipulated for a ten years' service from his young soldiers."
"And if it were only for one year, I would not go! and as to the stipulation, it is not true. As to the old soldiers, they have kept them on service, spite of having agreed to their dismissal, even on the continuance of war."
"Ah, well, come come, Janko! They will not keep you in Leutshau when they get you there, because you are too old!"
At this moment Janko struck the man such a blow in the face with his fist as sent him backwards against the door; recovering himself, he shook his head, and exclaimed,
"Wait only, thou lazy, good-for-nothing drunkard; the armed patrol will soon be bodily upon thee; and they will be a match for thee, with their loaded muskets!"
Scarcely was this man gone, when Janko barricaded the door, and in the moment's desperation bethought himself of committing suicide. This state of feeling bordered on insanity. He dashed about among the venerable goods and chattles of his old mother; it was a strange surprise to him. If he had only known a day or two earlier what was intended against him, he would have absconded; but now, where could he go? The whole village seemed to be on the alert; the whole neighbourhood was out in the streets to watch his steps, and, if needful, to pursue him. In the state of fierce desperation he at length came to the resolve which so many a young man takes in order to escape the bitter yoke of military service—he would disable himself. But thanks to his dread of suffering, he could not, even in his great rage, overcome this. He attempted to knock out his front teeth, but stopped short; and when he determined to cut off his forefinger, the same difficulties met him; his state of mind was that of a strange combat. Already had he laid his hand on the table; already raised the axe with his right hand, and wrought his feelings purposely to the highest state of excitement and resolution, and yet he dashed the axe upon the floor, and lamented that he had not a gun wherewith to shatter his head to pieces. But neither would he have done this, for poor Janko was by nature a coward. Many a strong, silent nature, on the contrary, who wishes to avoid the military yoke, goes to work with the greatest, the calmest determination, and without a cry indicative of pain, cuts off the finger which is needful in the use of the musket. Many hundreds of the finest youths of this country may, therefore, be seen with some damage done to their bodies, in order that they may escape military service, and also—even if they live in poverty—may escape the various bodily sufferings which it involves.
"Now, Janko, will you go, or will you not?" cried a voice through the window, whilst a bayonet was dashed through it, and the mouth of a musket was protruded into the room. "Once more, I ask, Janko, are you inclined to go?" That same moment, also, the door was broken open, and several bayonets were pointed behind him.
"If I must, I must!" said Janko, fiercely; "but wait, constable, and see what will happen—I will come back on furlough! I will burn the whole village!"
Poor Janko! he saw the seriousness of the moment, the impossibility of opposition, and he submitted to the bayonets. He was bound, kept for several hours in the village, and then, with eight other young fellows, thrust into a sledge, and driven for enrolment at Leutshau.
In the town of Leutshau there is a large building which becomes more dilapidated every year, and which, through the curse of a mistaken economical policy, cannot be saved from total ruin either by the state or the town. It is the great military barracks, with its damp yellow walls, with its filth inside, and the most wretched of pavements in its court. Here, in the month of January, all the peasant youths who had been drawn by lot were brought for examination, and afterwards for full incorporation into the military body. They were brought hither on low sledges, some bound, and others not; some singing, and others weeping and lamenting; some drunk, others sober; with horses decorated with ribbons, and always in such numbers that it was impossible for them to do more than stand in the straw-filled sledges.
Already had the twelve sledges arrived with their human tribute from the twelve districts, and were congregated in the court of the barracks, when the commissioners assembled in the great hall, which had been especially prepared for this purpose. A large table stood in the centre, upon which lay the protocol and the necessary materials for writing, for comfortable smoking, together with a bottle of spirits for the refreshment of the gentlemen. Around the table stood the civil and military commissioners to the number of six persons, who appeared impatient to begin their operations. Directly opposite the table stood the ancient banner, damaged by time and by bullet-shot, which reminded the spectator of the hot days of Grätz and Bar sur Aube. Weapons of infantry service, somewhat in disorder, leaned near the banner; and these, with the opposite iron stove, and two long benches at the further end, formed the entire furniture of the whole room.
The people round the table spoke in single words, or short, abrupt sentences; their whole mind seemed to be too much absorbed by the approaching moment for them to be disposed for conversation, except on this subject. The greatest uneasiness, however, was betrayed by a young officer and commander of recruits, who was continually glancing, and often without any aim, to the paper which he held in his hand, and then again at the door.
At length the door opened, and a crowd of from eight to ten young peasants were thrust in. Poor fellows! they were in such general confusion of mind, that they allowed themselves to be pushed into the middle of the room, trod upon one another's feet, and uttered all those sounds of folly and stupidity which people can only utter when in the utmost embarrassment. With these presented themselves the magistrates of their respective villages, who advanced in corpore towards the authorities at the table. Several old-accustomed men, who in particular attended to this service, now put the poor fellows into the greatest perplexity that they ever had been in before through their whole lives; they commanded that they should at once proceed to unclothing, and appear in the full undress of innocence, without even the fig-leaf apron.
What humiliation! what a melancholy spectacle was presented before all were ready for medical examination! The first came forward, and the usual words followed—"A fine young man; fair; healthy; strong," etc.
The officer looked into his list; the physician examined him, and he was pronounced, "accepted." Next came forward a red-haired, slender youth, and stood trembling before the examiner. He turned his eyes in an extraordinary manner, as if he would fain say something. The physician examined him with great attention, because he is answerable for every accepted recruit, and, in case of any mistake on his part, must find a substitute at his own cost.
"This young man has an inward complaint," reported the military physician, The next moment, however, the physician appointed by the civil authorities came forward, and looking sternly at the youth, commanded him, in a loud tone, to open his clenched fist; and on that, out fell the cause of the inward complaint, in the form of a bank note. Fatal discovery! The young man was declared of sound health, and accepted accordingly.
A young Jew was now brought forward; his old father came a few steps behind him, and both trembled. The old man cast a significant glance at the physician, but the two practitioners seemed to be at variance, and the fate of the young man depended upon them both.
"A fine young fellow, this Jew," was the universal opinion. He was most strictly examined, and it was not till they came to the teeth, that any demur arose. The colour of his teeth gave rise to the question,—were they good or bad?
"Good teeth," said the civil physician, and the Jew was "accepted."
And so the examination went on, through the whole number; but we will not fatigue the reader with further particulars, but now proceed to that division of the recruits in which our poor Janko is to be found. It was afternoon when this was brought up for examination, but any one entering the room shortly before him, would have found all parties in a state of the most active negotiation. In particular was this the case with the recruiting officer who had the management of the incorporation-protocol. The father of that red-haired youth, who, in the forenoon, had been declared fit for service, had now found a substitute in the street, and besought the officer, for the sake of many considerations, and for the sake of two hundred gulden, to allow of an exchange. The officer demanded three hundred gulden, and the peasant swore to the impossibility of obtaining this sum by any means. At length the business was settled, and the two hundred gulden were accepted. The father of the red-haired youth counted out the money in bank notes, and retired apparently satisfied. Immediately afterwards, the substitute came forward: a ragged journeyman bricklayer, without a character, and without a baptismal register, received one hundred gulden, and then the protocol was made out in his name.
After this, the old Jew stepped in, and made a very agreeable proposal to the officer, and concluded by saying that he had himself been looking about for a substitute for his son, and he prayed that the gentleman officer would permit it. But he must beg him to wait to the morrow, as the substitute would be found from among those who were released from the prison to serve in this capacity.
Whilst this transaction was going forward, an old gentleman with a moustache, the civil commissioner, walked up and down the hall. He might have made some objection to what went forward, but he wished to keep well with the military; and besides this, he had not the highest opinion of humanity.
Again the door opened, and the division in which was Janko entered. He trembled, and had lost all courage; and when he saw, poor fellow, that the judge fixed his eye upon him in particular, and spoke at the same time to the Commisar, he lost also the last ray of hope. Like the rest of his associates, he was subjected to the same humiliating examination, and then he turned himself beseechingly to the physician. He intimated to him that at certain times he suffered from inflammation of the chest, and considering this, and his age, he should be more expense than service to the state, and moreover that he thought he should not live long. After, however, he had been made to take deep inspirations, and to cough in every variety of tone, both doctors, in one breath, pronounced him sound, and at once he gave up all prospect and hope of ever living gaily again among his companions, as the Lion of the turf, or of leading home his beloved as a bride. Like all the rest of the "accepted," Janko was led out under a guard to dress. Completely broken in spirit, he now crept at the side of the old myrmidons through the crowd, and to the place where his hair, as his first sacrifice to a stern law enjoining equality and cleanliness, must be shorn off.
"Sit thee down there, thou old recruit," said a gloomy looking old soldier to him, as he immediately began to clip off Janko's wild locks with a pair of wool shears. "Thou must, methinks, be a fine fellow, for them to take thee in thy old age," continued he, and threw the long locks upon his knee. Janko, however, sate so silent and immoveable upon the three-legged stool, staring at the falling locks, that he scarcely perceived the order for him to turn himself round.
Even in the coarsest natures there are moments in which feeling and anguish melt the stony covering of the breast, and a silent tear of melancholy rolls down the cheek. And how great and how well founded was the anguish which Janko endured! He had seen so many, even of the friends of his youth, return from a soldier's life as cripples both morally and physically; uncared for, and with none to aid them; in the greatest want, given up a prey to beggary and drunkenness! Besides this, he founded his idea of a military life only from the elements of it, the lash, the drum, and the exercises. He saw, in every instance, flogging administered for the slightest offence; and ah! when he remembered the case of one soldier, who, for stealing a half loaf of bread, was sentenced to run the gauntlet—and which he had himself seen—no wonder that he should shed a tear over his hair, and his approaching fate! Oh, if he had only been possessed of an hundred gulden, how easily he might have been released! But heaven willed it otherwise, and, therefore, Janko, be resigned to thy fate; rouse up thy heart to bear its sorrows manfully, lest it seduce thee to desert in a moment of weakness—in a moment in which thou art tempted to flee away from the close, walled court of the barracks, into the green, budding freedom of nature, and to breathe the air of thy favourite woods and pastures,—in a moment in which the inhuman behaviour of thy superiors, and the necessities of thy life, will make thee envy every beast of burden,—in a moment when thou, as the victim of another's passion, wilt sigh under the lash, and curse thy existence.
... Be pious, poor Janko! Lift up thy shorn head towards heaven! ... Alas! that one might almost believe Heaven itself at this moment had given thee up to the powers of darkness! No prayer, no tear, only curses and blasphemy resound from the sea of bayonets towards heaven as a hymn of praise. ...
The door again opened, and the whole crowd of from twenty to thirty of such as were declared fit for service, and of those who were shorn, stood on the threshold. They pushed one against another, like sheep by the river. None will enter, till at length an old ram, under the effect of the cudgel, gives a bound, and away the flock go in his footsteps.
Janko seems to have become at once taller and slenderer. He has already stuck his person, like the greater number of them, into the Hungarian blue trousers, and resembles a doll. One of the most important regimental regulations is even carried out in his case; he is compelled to wear a shirt that opens behind.
And now the solemnity begins with a most impressive exhortation from the officers on this important moment; their hands are then arranged for taking the oath, which is slowly read to them in the Sclavonian and German languages, by a sergeant, and repeated again by them in all their bewilderment and anxiety. The following is the oath:—
"We swear to be faithful and obedient to God, etc.; to his majesty, etc.; but above all, to be faithful and obedient to their generals; to obey all other superiors who are set over us; to honour and to defend them; to perform all their commands and wishes in any service whatever, against whatever enemy soever, and wherever the will of his majesty may require, by water and on land, by day and night, in battle and storm, fights and undertakings of any kind; in a word, in every place, at all times and on all occasions, boldly and manfully to combat; never in any case to abandon our troop, standard, or colours; always to conduct ourselves as the laws of war require, and as beseems brave soldiers, and in this manner to live and die with honour.
"So help us God!"
Any Jew or Jews, however, instead of the concluding words, said the following:
"So help us God, through the promise of the true Messiah and the prophets sent to our fathers."
With tearful eyes they heard the funeral oration of their former happiness, of the joy of their youth, and even of their parents.
The brazen partition wall between parents, sweethearts and relations, between their future and their former life, was planted with these words, and woe unto him who would dare to break through it!
In the outer court they found their lamenting mothers, from whom one moment has for ever robbed them of
their sons; and, as if from instinctive feeling, they now impress upon their lips those kisses which, since the time of their childhood, have not been given.
Several days have now passed, and we see, in the square of the town, the newly enrolled recruits drawn up in three rows, ready to be marched to the capital. Assembled around them, but yet at some distance, stand the acquaintance and kindred of the young soldiers, and wave to them the last farewell with hands that may not approach them. Immediately before them stands the major, who gives them into the hands of a tall, handsome officer who is to conduct them to the capital. Before the major, however, parts from them, he puts to them this general question: "Is there any one amongst them who has any request to make, or has he anything of which to complain?"
On this a young lad came forward with trembling steps, from the second division of the company, and besought, in the humblest and most inoffensive terms, that that piece of linen, and those five gulden, which his mother had given to the doctors in order that he might be excused, might be restored to her, The major fiercely ordered him back, and gave the word to march.
Insanity!—the poor lad has raved!—Ah, yes! he lost his mind in the very thought of how his mother for one whole year had spun that piece of linen, wove it, and bleached it; in the remembrance of how she had suffered want, and how she must yet suffer, for that five gulden. Ah! that this insanity might become the curse which clung to Dejanira's last gift! Away, away, poor youth! The unaccustomed sound of the drum will stifle thy suffering, and harden thy excited feelings against the contempt and the injustice of man. Away, away, my poor lad; thy old mother will again sow flax, and spin, and perhaps weave. With the tears which thy fate will call forth, will she moisten the long threads which she spins, and which she will destine to be woven into a wedding shirt for thee. In the twilight of the long winter evenings will she sit spinning by feeble fire-light during the ten years of thy absence, in the hope of clasping thee at last to her maternal bosom. Oh youth, thou must indeed come back. Let the predictions of the mighty god of war be verified in thy case, and come thou back uninjured in body, and uninjured in heart, to the arms of thy old mother! For her withered hands will only be able to spin so long as she can cherish the hope of one day seeing thee put on this wedding shirt; and only so long will her heart beat either for thee or for this world, as she knows that thou hast not married the maiden of Kamorn[1].
Not far from a village through which the little band of recruits had to pass, a female figure stands upon a low ascent by the roadside, waiting for the passing of the train. From under the dazzlingly white head-dress looked forth like two roses a pair of youthful cheeks, glowing with the breath of winter; her eye dwelt anxiously on the snow-covered plain beyond her, that she might obtain, if possible, one moment's consolation for her throbbing, wounded heart. The nearer the little troop advanced, the more quickly and violently heaved her bosom. A ray of light shot forth once more through the tempested night of her feelings. She trembled both in body and soul, and had neither hearing nor sight for the officer's equivocal words and glances, nor for the deafening sound of the drum; she only looked from face to face as they marched by, till her eye at length found him—and then she rushed towards him for his last embrace.
"Back, you hussy!" resounded the annihilating words of the tall officer, who hastened forward, and who thrust back the recruit into his line, with the threat of the symbolical number "twenty-five." "The rascal of a recruit, what business had he to transgress orders, and step out of the ranks!"
A very prosaic interruption—very distressing—but ... And thou, poor girl! Ah! she felt not the derision of the passers-by. As if stupified, she laid her face in her hands, and stared for some moments on the frozen earth. When she looked up again, the train was advancing along the valley, and among them her beloved, her poor Janko. The thousands of crystals on the snow-covered ground swam all into one in her tears, and she heard from the near wood the reverberating echo of the dizzying drum.
Similar attempted leave-takings occurred between parents, relations, beloved ones, and the poor recruits in all the villages through which they marched; but the command and the enforcer of the command was severe, and tears flowed at a distance from the severing objects of affection.
We have not space here to analyse some of the important moments of military life, with which we ourselves are acquainted, but we can assure the reader that these partings have a deeper cause of sorrow in this country than in almost any other. It may be, that in the former time of war many of "the never-returning sons" have been given back to our generation; whilst the latter years of peace have shown sufficient cause for those who entered its service to be regarded as "the lost, as the dead."
The difference of climate in Italy, where most of them are sent; the extreme hardships, the renunciation, the constraint and the drudgery of their new condition, as well as the sudden change and the moral slavery of their new mode of life, operate most destructively on the recruit. How many a healthy child of nature is unfit for the Procrustes-bed of a despotic tyranny, the administration of whose severe martial law is often entrusted to inhuman satraps, whose paszions and whose arbitrary will border on madness!
And nowhere does the despotic humour, ungovernable passion, and especially personal revenge of tyranny find so irresponsible a field for its operation as under the shield of subordination. Every year despair, madness, and suicide take their per centage from the ranks, and that too probably out of the noblest natures. These martyrs often struggle with the demon which has selected them as its prey, for many years, amid their more volatile companions, in silent endurance of their wrongs and their woes, bearing the greatest, the deepest sorrow impressed upon their pale countenances, without complaint and without sympathy, till they at length succumb beneath it. Hence, during the first months of service, such frequent desertion among these wild sons of nature; and neither a shorter period of service, nor the threat, nor yet the execution of the most horrible punishment can deter many of them from a step which can only lead to every degree of suffering.
The mother, therefore, acts with good reason when she clings to the son on whom military service has laid its hands, and when with tears she gives him her last counsel. And however much any one may be disposed to explain the dying off of these recruits by natural causes, still an incredulous and a melancholy feeling is excited when we take a comparative view of the able-bodied men in the Hungarian regiments during only one ten years of peace. It is a fact, that out of several regiments, scarcely one-third part have ever again seen their homes.
1. There stands, in an attitude of defiance, upon the bastion of the invincible fortress of Kamorn, the stone figure of a maiden, and reminds the spectator of the fruitless endeavours of the Turks to storm this island-fortress, which was built by Mathias Corvinus. It is now used, like most of the Austrian strongholds, for a military prison.