CHAPTER VII
THE ALBANIAN FAMILY
And now we will let the rumor of great deeds rest a while; we willclose our eyes to the wars that followed upon the siege of Janina; wewill shut our ears against the echoes of the names of a Ulysses,Tepelenti, a Kolokotrini, those heroes who shook the throne of theSultan, and all of whom the Pasha of Janina called his very dearfriends. While these bloody wars are raging we will turn into thegrove of Dodona, where formerly the ambiguous utterances of sacredprophecies were always resounding in the ears of contemplativedreamers. Let us go back eighty years! Let us seek out that quietlittle glen whither neither good report nor evil report ever comesflying, whose inhabitants know of nothing but what happens amongsttheir own fir-trees; why, even the tax-collecting Spahi only lightdown amongst them to levy contributions once in a century!
The house of Halil Patrona's consort no longer stands beside therippling stream. Nobody even knows the tomb in which the beautiful,the elfin Guel-Bejaze now lies; Guel-Bejaze, the White Rose,[9] bloomsno longer anywhere in that valley. Nobody knows the name even; onlythe oldest old grandmother in the circle of the spinning maidens cantell them tales, which she also has heard from her mother or hergrandmother, of a mad lady who used to dwell in this valley and lay atable every evening and prepare a couch every night for an invisiblespirit, whom she called her husband, and whom nobody saw but herself.
[Footnote 9: The heroine of another Turkish tale of Jokai's, _A feherrozsa_ (_The White Rose_).]
This old woman had a son called Behram, a brave, honest, worthy youth;many a time with his comrades he would pursue the Epirot bandits, whoswooped down upon their valley and carried off their cattle.
Near to him dwelt the widow Khamko, whose husband had been shot atTepelen, and who, with her son, little Ali, in her bosom, had soughtrefuge amongst these mountains.
Formerly Khamko was a gentle creature, but when they began to talk toher about the mad lady she also grew as crazy as ever the other was.She was ready to destroy the whole world, and over and over again shewould utter the wildest things; she would like, she said, to see thewhole four corners of the world set on fire so that the flames mightshoot up on all four sides of it, and every living man within it, goodas well as bad, might be burned. Listen not to such words. O Allah!
Behram was a very quiet fellow, not more than six and twenty yearsold; little Ali was scarce sixteen. But this wild, restless lad wasalready wont to wander for days together amongst the glens andmountains, and whenever he came home he invariably brought his mothermoney or jewels. And nobody knew whence he got them save Behram, towhom the youth confessed everything, for he loved him dearly.
Ali joined the company of the Epirot adventurers and with them hewould go sacking villages, waylaying rich merchants, and shared withthem the easily gotten booty.
And whenever he returned home without money, his mother. Khamko, wouldrail upon and chide him, and let him have no peace until he hadengaged in fresh and more lucrative robberies.
Behram looked askance at the perilous ways of his young comrade, andas often as he was alone with him did his best to fill his mind withhonest, noble ideas, which also seemed to make some impression on Ali,for he gradually began to abandon his marauding ways, and in orderthat he might still be able to get money for his mother, he fell toselling his sheep and his goats, and even parted with his long,silver-mounted musket. At last he had nothing left but his sword. DameKhamko, meanwhile, scolded Ali unmercifully. If he wanted to eat, lethim go seek his bread, she said. And the lad wandered through thewoods and thickets, and lived for a long time on the berries of theforest. At last, one day, when he was wellnigh famished and in thedepths of misery, he came upon an Armenian inn-keeper standing in thedoorway of his lonely little tavern. Ali rushed upon him, sword inhand, like a wolf perishing with hunger. The Armenian was a worthy oldfellow, and when he saw Ali he said to him:
"What dost thou want, my son?"
The honest, open look of the old man shamed Ali, and casting down hiseyes, he replied: "I want to give thee this sword." Yet the momentbefore he had determined to slay him with it.
The Armenian took the sword from him, and gave him ten sequins inexchange for it, besides meat and drink. So Ali returned home withouthis sword.
When Dame Khamko saw her son return home disarmed she was greatlyincensed and exclaimed:
"What hast thou done with thy sword?"
"I have sold it," answered Ali, resolutely.
At this the mother flew into a violent rage, and catching up abludgeon, belabored Ali with it until she was tired. The big, muscularlad allowed himself to be beaten, and neither wept nor said a word,nor even tried to defend himself.
"And now dost see that spindle?" cried Dame Khamko. "Learn to spin thethread and turn the bobbins quickly; thou shalt not eat idle bread athome, I can tell thee. A man who can sell his sword is fit for nothingbut to sit beside a distaff."
So Ali sat down to spin.
For a couple of days he endured the insults which his mother heapedupon him, and on the third day he returned to the Armenian, to whom hehad sold his sword, robbed him of and slew of him with it, plunderedand burned down his house, and from thenceforth became such a famousrobber that the whole countryside lived in mortal terror of him.
Dame Khamko lived a long time after this event, and ruined her son'ssoul altogether by urging him to kill and slay without mercy, till onefine day her son murdered her likewise, and thus added her blood alsoto the blood of those whom, at his mother's instigation, he hadcruelly murdered.
And this lad became the Pasha of Janina. Ali Tepelenti!
Through what an ocean of treachery, perjury, robbery, and homicide hehad to wade before he attained to that eminence! How often was he notso reduced as to have nothing left but his sword and his crafty brain?But many a time, in the midst of his most brilliant successes, in thevery plenitude of his power, he would bethink him of the two quietlittle huts where he and Behram had been wont to dwell. He never heardof Behram now, but he used frequently to think in those days andwonder what would have become of himself if he had listened toBehram's words and lived a quiet, contented life. 'Tis true he wouldnot have been so mighty a man as he was now, but would he not havebeen a much happier one?
Once, when he was a very great potentate, he had visited the littlevillage in the glen in which they had hidden away together. But nobodywould tell him anything of Behram. He had disappeared none knewwhither. Perhaps he had died since then!