The Dedalus Book of Slovak Literature, page 3
The clerk looked at the men waiting in the hall to see whether they were impressed by his wisdom. But they were too stupid; they didn’t understand him.
When Andor saw that Ďurko wasn’t going to give up, he let him in the office without any further obstructions. There sat a very esteemed man who had become fatter during his loyal service for the great municipality. In other countries civil servants grow older and turn grey while serving their nation and their motherland. Only in Hungary do they get younger and fatter, until they end up incapable of working. The Slúžny sat on a sofa, his chubby hands resting on the arms. The room smelled of good cigars, which no one aside from the Slúžny could afford.
‘What do you want, my son, are you here to sue someone?’
Ďurko’s hopes rose after he heard those kind and sympathetic words.
‘They took my boy. He is still very small, only a couple of feet tall, and they sent him to Dolniaky with the orphans. I beg you, honourable…’
The Slúžny waved his hand to stop him.
‘What’s your name and where are you from?’
‘I am from Riečany, my name is Ďurko Loboda, and I am a tinker.’
The Slúžny waddled to the desk, which was covered with papers, and kept murmuring: ‘Loboda, Loboda…’ Finally, he took out a sheet of paper. He unfolded it and pointed his finger at one of the lines. Ďurko noticed his golden ring.
‘Ondrej Loboda – here it says he is an orphan.’
‘That’s not true. The mayor admitted to me, and apparently he said it to the honourable Slúžny as well, that he made a mistake.’
‘Well now it’s too late, my dear Ďurko: here it is written in black ink. What I wrote down, I wrote down: even a cat couldn’t lick it off. Your Ondrej is an orphan, no one provided for him: we had sent him over there so that good people would take care of him and bring him up in order for him to turn into a proper citizen. He won’t have to wander around the world like you, minding every piece of bread. When he is older, he will bless that family that took him away from this land of beggars and brought him up in the promised land. And you will be glad as well.’
‘But he is still small and slight – he will die there. And no one will take care of him like me, his own father. That’s why I would like to bring him up, and when he is grown up, the nobles can take him to Dolniaky, or make him join the army, or something similar. But you know that even a hen wouldn’t leave its young until they grow up.’
‘You are a good father, Ďurko, a very good father. But I cannot agree with you. You tell me you want to keep him until he grows up, and then you will give him to us. Maybe you would give him to us, perhaps. But would he want to leave home at that age? He would get used to poverty and he would only want to be a tinker. And even if he was willing to go to Dolniaky, would it be good for him there? He would never get used to the food, or the language, even though he would be much better off there. It is similar to oats. They can grow in poor soil, but when you plant them into good soil they will do better. This way your boy will get used to the land, he will learn Hungarian – and what an advantage that will be!’
‘But he will forget Slovak.’
‘Even if he does, he will never need the language anyway. So you should calm down; go home and thank our dear Lord for ridding you, a poor man, of the burdens of raising a child. You don’t even know how much trouble it is; it really is a heavy burden to carry.’
The Slúžny sighed. He remembered his own sons, both of whom were studying at a university in Pešť. It was taking them a long time, almost half a dozen years, because they were mostly spending their time in taverns and cafés.
‘I would rather carry that burden…’
‘You’re silly, you don’t know what you are saying. You toil so hard, your views will change shortly. And now go – farewell.’
‘I am begging you, please give him back to me. I can’t let him go like this.’
‘Well, well. You surprise me,’the Slúžny continued. ‘Listen carefully. I will explain it to you one more time. We civil servants are here to take care of the welfare of this country. Here everyone has to be happy, whether they like it or not. That’s why your son has to be happy as well, and that’s why he has to stay in Dolniaky.’
‘I want to take care of his welfare myself, that’s my duty as a father,’ Ďurko replied.
‘We will see. I don’t have more time. We will talk about it again. I will have you called in later.’
He sent Ďurko to the hall, where he sat down and hoped for good news. It was clear that the Slúžny didn’t have the strength to resist him, and had he not sent him away he would have capitulated. Just one more attempt and the child would be saved.
People kept entering and leaving the office, the bells had tolled twelve times, but Ďurko wasn’t called in. Finally the Slúžny appeared in the door wearing a warm fur coat. He went straight outside, where two impatient horses were waiting. Ďurko realised that the decisive moment had arrived. He stood up and forced the Slúžny to stop. He looked at him with astonishment; he forgot that he was supposed to speak to Ďurko again.
‘Well, Michal… or whatever your name is…’
‘Ďurko.’
‘Yes, Ďurko. Here, my dear Ďurko, all our efforts would be futile. Nothing can be done, nothing at all. I can’t return the boy to you because I don’t know where they sent him.’
‘But how is it possible that even the nobles don’t know?’
‘Well, I told you that I don’t know, and I really don’t know. No matter how hard I would try… In the end, it’s all the mayor’s fault. Why did he put him down as an orphan? Go see him, I don’t have time.’
The Slúžny sat down in the sleigh, and his servant wrapped a rug of bear fur around his feet so that they didn’t get cold. Then he lashed the horses, the bells jingled and the sleigh moved towards the casino, where an opulent lunch was waiting for the Slúžny. He certainly deserved it after all his efforts that day.
Ďurko didn’t think twice. He started walking towards the casino as well. Of course, there was no lunch waiting for him there, but he didn’t like the Slúžny’s office anyway. He wanted to take the last decisive step. He sat down on a frozen bench in front of the casino; he didn’t even feel the Christmas winter around him. In fact he was hot rather than cold. His head was burning and his senses were numbed by fever.
The sun finished its short journey, and the night started spreading its dark wings. Some stalls were still standing, but most had already been taken down. The streets were quiet and deserted. People had returned to their villages. But one could hear plenty of laughter, singing, toasts and the vibrant gypsy music through the windows of the casino. The horses of the Slúžny were standing in front of the doors, waiting to speed their master to his beautiful manor house outside the city. Ďurko stood up as well, because twilight brought severe frost that slid under his coat and forced him to move. The nobles were leaving the casino one after the other, and all of them trembled when they felt fresh air. But still, they were merry, even rapturous. One could see it on their faces. They sat down in their sleighs and moved towards their manor houses. The Slúžny was among the last ones to appear. He was merry too, even more than the others. He found Ďurko standing next to the sleigh. ‘You are still here! It must be late for you. Where are you from… I forgot, oh, I remember: from Riečany, yes, Riečany.
You can come with me. Stand here, behind the seats. Just stand here, I will gladly take you…’
‘I thank you with great humility. But instead, please, my Ondrej…’ He couldn’t continue; his voice trembled with cold, or grief, and his throat clenched.
‘Oh yes… your son… they took him… to the army, isn’t that right…’
‘Not the army. They took him to Dolniaky.’
‘Yes, Dolniaky… now I remember. Just leave him there… He will be happy there. There it’s not that cold and by now he has surely tasted bacon. Trust me, he would miss it.’
‘He will die there.’
‘He won’t die… Of course not, you silly man! That’s stupid! Move a bit, so I can sit down.’
‘I am begging you for mercy…’
‘Look at how he can beg, what a rascal! Now go…’
Ďurko shouted obdurately: ‘I won’t move until…’
‘Look at him! I am telling you again, move, I don’t want to spoil your Christmas…’
The Slúžny suddenly lost his good mood. He frowned, waited for a moment, but Ďurko didn’t move. The Slúžny grabbed his shoulder, pushed him to the side and sat down. When Ďurko saw he was being brushed aside, he jumped in front of the horses and grabbed their reins. The Slúžny wrapped his feet and shouted in a calm voice: ‘Jóži!’ But it wasn’t necessary, because Jóži had noticed that something strange was happening and he rushed to help his good master. He grabbed Ďurko, who kept clutching the reins. The Slúžny said something to Jóži, but it was in the indigenous language, so Ďurko didn’t understand it. Suddenly he felt burning pain on his face. Jóži had lashed him with a whip. The horses jerked, the bells jingled and the sleigh was gone.
Ďurko found himself lying in the snow. He stood up, but Jóži didn’t even allow him to clean his coat. He directed him to the building that said ‘Szolgabírói hivatal’.
They locked him up, but Slúžny’s threat wasn’t fulfilled. Ďurko’s Christmas was destroyed anyway; and there was no way things could have gotten worse.
The houses in Riečany were still awake. Joy and delight looked out of the windows into the gloomy night. ‘Peace on earth, and goodwill to all men,’ proclaimed the Angelic Hymn, which came true. Families gathered around dinner tables, indulging in the happiness which had arrived with Christmas Eve. Only one house in the heart of the village was sad and dark – sad like those who inhabited it. It remained empty, its fireplace cold. No one lit a Christmas candle on the dinner table.
The house of Ďurko’s father-in-law wasn’t any happier. God had blessed them with everything they needed; the table was ready, but those who were supposed to sit at it were missing. Two family members were away: one of them in prison, the other one only God knew where. The Slúžny promised to the old man that he would set Ďurko free for Christmas Eve, but as people say ‘the nobles’ love is tied to a hare’s tail’, and they are right, for Ďurko remained imprisoned.
Unexpectedly, Katrena had arrived, without the boy. Her father asked her why she hadn’t brought him.
‘The nobles don’t know where he is. They just sent me from one city to another. I went to almost all the places where he could have been, but I didn’t find my child.’
‘Why didn’t you tell them his name?’
‘There was no point, they don’t even know it. The orphans had to leave their names here, and they were sent to Dolniaky like calves, nameless. They will get new names there, different ones, so that they won’t find out which village they have come from. That way they won’t be able to return.’
‘But how could they tell those poor things from each other? Surely they had to have some names.’
‘Each one of them was given a number. Those numbers became their names, and that was how they could tell them from each other.’
The old man remembered that only goods were labelled with numbers, and he was surprised by the novel way of naming people, as was everyone else who heard about it. But can anything under the sun still be considered strange, especially in Hungary?
Katrena had arrived by train, which was unusual. She was so poor she didn’t even have enough money to return, so the nobles somewhere in Dolniaky took pity. They treated her as a tramp or a prostitute, labelled her with her own number, and sent her back to Riečany. Indeed, that was the only way she could have spent Christmas Eve at home with her parents, and not alone somewhere in the middle of the Hungarian plains.
Such was Christmas at the Lobodas’ in Riečany.
On the other hand, the clerk enjoyed the most pleasant and satisfying Christmas he could have ever imagined. After all, he had managed to take care of a hundred and twenty poor ‘orphans’ without having to pay a single kreutzer from his own pocket. The act also brought him the eternal gratitude of his motherland; he had managed to turn one hundred and twenty potential ‘foreigners’ into the exact same amount of ‘indigenous’ citizens. The fact that a few Slovak families suffered, that the whole ‘foreign’ nation suffered, did not bother him in the slightest. After all, he knew the Polish saying: Grzech na Wegrzech a pokuta w Polskiej (Sin in Hungary, repentance in Poland).
* * *
1 The story is set in the 19th century, when Slovakia was a part of Hungary. The term Dolniaky referred to the part of the state inhabited by ethnic Hungarians, which mostly corresponds to modern-day Hungary.
2 Slúžny were the highest-ranked civil servants in a given county or region. They were responsible for decision-making, legal matters and tax collection. They were elected by the local nobility and were usually nobles themselves.
3 The capital city of Hungary, now called Budapest.
Gajdoš’s War Horse
Jozef Cíger Hronský
(23. 2. 1896 Zvolen – 13. 7. 1960 Luján, Argentina)
Translated by Denis Dobrovoda
Jozef Cíger Hronský trained as a teacher, receiving his teaching certificate shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. In 1917 he joined the Austro-Hungarian army and fought at the Italian front. After the war he returned to teaching. He also started to write and in the 1930s he became one of the most prominent Slovak authors of his generation. In 1941 he became the chairman of Matica Slovenská, the most important and established Slovak cultural organisation. He oversaw a significant increase in its publishing and the creation of cheap editions of highly-regarded books that were supposed to educate the village readership. For political reasons he decided to emigrate to Argentina after the Second World War, where he lived until his death.
In his writing Hronský concentrated on the Slovak village, because, as he claimed, Slovakia didn’t have a proper city, and its towns were ‘colourless’. For Hronský, the village was the foundation on which Slovak literature rested.
Hronský’s detailed and accurate descriptions of village life have impressed literary critics ever since the beginning of his career. He is often compared to Martin Kukučín, the towering figure of Slovak realism. Hronský was seen as the writer who would carry on in the tradition of the ‘village short story’.
His ground-breaking novel, Jozef Mak, met with universal acclaim. The detailed psychological descriptions of the characters’ inner world, together with Hronský’s reflections on war, were praised by literary critics. In some of his other works he used elaborate symbolism and poetical language. His expressionist novel Gráč is considered the first modern novel in Slovak literature.
However, his work for children is also unique and deserves praise for its innovation. Unlike previous writers, Hronský’s books aren’t meant to be didactic or moralistic. He wanted children to enjoy reading them, and that was why he put emphasis on play, adventure and the positive side of life.
The short story, Gajdoš’s War Horse, about a soldier who returns home from the First World War, was first published in 1932. Hronský later elaborated on the theme in Gráč, which also featured a horse symbolising the war, and a romantic relationship which helped to heal psychological wounds and allow the main character to come to peace with himself and others.
Gajdoš’s War Horse
Jozef Cíger Hronský
1
It wasn’t at all humane that no one told the 31st regiment that the war was over. Not at all!
After the regiment left Piava gunner Gajdoš got angry. They were just wandering about, marching without end. He stepped in the watery mud near Tagliamente, clenched his fist, and because he did not know who to threaten, he started shouting in all directions.
‘May damnation descend upon all our generals! Why did we have to move now, when I finally discovered where the sappers hide their rum?’
In reality, he didn’t utter the second sentence; he kept it to himself. And his anger with the generals wasn’t genuine either, because he couldn’t even remember whether he had ever seen one. Even if he had, he was sure that it was not them that had made him clean his rifle even when it was perfectly clean. Only Lieutenant Wasserbauer and Corporal Žilinčák gave him such idiotic orders, which were just meant to annoy him.
‘Damnation!’
Gunner Gajdoš always said that when he needed to calm down after anger took hold of him. And now he had double the right to curse. Just why didn’t Wasserbauer tell them something like this: ‘Gentlemen! Now I am going to give you the most difficult of orders. We are going to march for hundreds of miles come thunder or rain. If our wet coats freeze to our knees we won’t care. We will keep marching even if we only receive one piece of cheap bread a week. But we will prevail, because we will be marching home. I, Lieutenant Wasserbauer, won’t be scolding you in a week or two, because I won’t be a lieutenant anymore. I will only be Wasserbauer. The war is over…’
Why didn’t he tell them anything?
At least Žilinčák should have shouted: ‘You swines! You will be sorry if I catch you! Quiet! Lift your bloody hoofs, like I have shown you so many times. Behave! I don’t want to hear a word about food for at least a week! Do not fall behind even if you are dead, because we are going home. Behind the village I live in stands a cross with a Christ made of metal hanging on it. The nails which hold his feet are all rusty, and the rust is running down his feet, and it looks like blood. When we pass by that cross on the way home I won’t be scared of anything, not even the blood. Maybe I will touch it.
