Part 3

Vot y'dit troika udalaiya.

Hear ye the troika-bell a-ringing, And see the peasant driver there? Hear ye the mournful song he's singing, Like distant tolling through the air?

"O eyes, blue eyes, to me so lonely, O eyes--alas!--ye give me pain; O eyes, that once looked at me only, I ne'er shall see your like again.

"Farewell, my darling, now in heaven, And still the heaven of my soul; Farewell, thou father town, O Moscow, Where I have left my life, my all!"

And ever at the rein still straining, One backward glance the driver gave; Sees but once more a green low hillock, Sees but once more his loved one's grave.

"Stoi!"--Halt! We stopped at a stylish-looking building, entered a hall, left our skubas, and I heard the general ask, "Are the gypsies here?" An affirmative being given, we entered a large room, and there, sure enough, stood six or eight girls and two men, all very well dressed, and all unmistakably Romany, though smaller and of much slighter or more delicate frame than the powerful gypsy "travelers" of England. In an instant every pair of great, wild eyes was fixed on me. The general was in every way a more striking figure, but I was manifestly a fresh stranger, who knew nothing of the country, and certainly nothing of gypsies or gypsydom. Such a verdant visitor is always most interesting. It was not by any means my first reception of the kind, and, as I reviewed at a glance the whole party, I said within myself:--

"Wait an instant, you black snakes, and I will give you something to make you stare."

This promise I kept, when a young man, who looked like a handsome light Hindoo, stepped up and addressed me in Russian. I looked long and steadily at him before I spoke, and then said:--

"Latcho divvus prala!" (Good day, brother.)

"What is that?" he exclaimed, startled.

"Tu jines latcho adosta." (You know very well.) And then, with the expression in his face of a man who has been familiarly addressed by a brazen statue, or asked by a new-born babe, "What o'clock is it?" but with great joy, he cried:--

"Romanichal!"

In an instant they were all around me, marveling greatly, and earnestly expressing their marvel, at what new species of gypsy I might be; being in this quite unlike those of England, who, even when they are astonished "out of their senses" at being addressed in Romany by a gentleman, make the most red-Indian efforts to conceal their amazement. But I speedily found that these Russian gypsies were as unaffected and child-like as they were gentle in manner, and that they compared with our own prize-fighting, sturdy-begging, always-suspecting Romany roughs and rufianas as a delicate greyhound might compare with a very shrewd old bull-dog, trained by an unusually "fly" tramp.

That the girls were first to the fore in questioning me will be doubted by no one. But we had great trouble in effecting a mutual understanding. Their Romany was full of Russian; their pronunciation puzzled me; they "bit off their words," and used many in a strange or false sense. Yet, notwithstanding this, I contrived to converse pretty readily with the men,--very readily with the captain, a man as dark as Ben Lee, to those who know Benjamin, or as mahogany, to those who know him not. But with the women it was very difficult to converse. There is a theory current that women have a specialty of tact and readiness in understanding a foreigner, or in making themselves understood; it may be so with cultivated ladies, but it is my experience that, among the uneducated, men have a monopoly of such quick intelligence. In order fully to convince them that we really had a tongue in common, I repeated perhaps a hundred nouns, giving, for instance, the names of various parts of the body, of articles of apparel and objects in the room, and I believe that we did not find a single word which, when pronounced distinctly by itself, was not intelligible to us all. I had left in London a Russo-Romany vocabulary, once published in "The Asiatic Magazine," and I had met with Bohtlinghk's article on the dialect, as well as specimens of it in the works of Pott and Miklosich, but had unfortunately learned nothing of it from them. I soon found, however, that I knew a great many more gypsy words than did my new friends, and that our English Romany far excels the Russian in copia verborum.

"But I must sit down." I observed on this and other occasions that Russian gypsies are very naif. And as it is in human nature to prefer sitting by a pretty girl, these Slavonian Romanys so arrange it according to the principles of natural selection--or natural politeness--that, when a stranger is in their gates, the two prettiest girls in their possession sit at his right and left, the two less attractive next again, et seriatim. So at once a damsel of comely mien, arrayed in black silk attire, of faultless elegance, cried to me, pointing to a chair by her side, "Bersh tu alay, rya!" (Sit down, sir),--a phrase which would be perfectly intelligible to any Romany in England. I admit that there was another damsel, who is generally regarded by most people as the true gypsy belle of the party, who did not sit by me. But, as the one who had "voted herself into the chair," by my side, was more to my liking, being the most intelligent and most gypsy, I had good cause to rejoice.

I was astonished at the sensible curiosity as to gypsy life in other lands which was displayed, and at the questions asked. I really doubt if I ever met with an English gypsy who cared a farthing to know anything about his race as it exists in foreign countries, or whence it came. Once, and once only, I thought I had interested White George, at East Moulsey, in an account of Egypt, and the small number of Romanys there; but his only question was to the effect that, if there were so few gypsies in Egypt, wouldn't it be a good place for him to go to sell baskets? These of Russia, however, asked all kinds of questions about the manners and customs of their congeners, and were pleased when they recognized familiar traits. And every gypsyism, whether of word or way, was greeted with delighted laughter. In one thing I noted a radical difference between these gypsies and those of the rest of Europe and of America. There was none of that continually assumed mystery and Romany freemasonry, of superior occult knowledge and "deep" information, which is often carried to the depths of absurdity and to the height of humbug. I say this advisedly, since, however much it may give charm to a novel or play, it is a serious impediment to a philologist. Let me give an illustration.

Once, during the evening, these Russian gypsies were anxious to know if there were any books in their language. Now I have no doubt that Dr. Bath Smart, or Prof. E. H. Palmer, or any other of the initiated, will perfectly understand when I say that by mere force of habit I shivered and evaded the question. When a gentleman who manifests a knowledge of Romany among gypsies in England is suspected of "dixonary" studies, it amounts to lasciate ogni speranza,--give up all hope of learning any more.

"I'm glad to see you here, rya, in my tent," said the before-mentioned Ben Lee to me one night, in camp near Weybridge, "because I've heard, and I know, you didn't pick up your Romany out of books."

The silly dread, the hatred, the childish antipathy, real or affected, but always ridiculous, which is felt in England, not only among gypsies, but even by many gentlemen scholars, to having the Romany language published is indescribable. Vambery was not more averse to show a lead pencil among Tartars than I am to take notes of words among strange English gypsies. I might have spared myself any annoyance from such a source among the Russian Romanys. They had not heard of Mr. George Borrow; nor were there ugly stories current among them to the effect that Dr. Smart and Prof. E. H. Palmer had published works, the direct result of which would be to facilitate their little paths to the jail, the gallows, and the grave.

"Would we hear some singing?" We were ready, and for the first time in my life I listened to the long-anticipated, far-famed magical melody of Russian gypsies. And what was it like? May I preface my reply to the reader with the remark that there are, roughly speaking, two kinds of music in the world,--the wild and the tame,--and the rarest of human beings is he who can appreciate both. Only one such man ever wrote a book, and his nomen et omen is Engel, like that of the little English slaves who were non Angli, sed angeli. I have in my time been deeply moved by the choruses of Nubian boatmen; I have listened with great pleasure to Chinese and Japanese music,--Ole Bull once told me he had done the same; I have delighted by the hour in Arab songs; and I have felt the charm of our red-Indian music. If this seems absurd to those who characterize all such sound and song as "caterwauling," let me remind the reader that in all Europe there is not one man fonder of music than an average Arab, a Chinese, or a red Indian; for any of these people, as I have seen and know, will sit twelve or fifteen hours, without the least weariness, listening to what cultivated Europeans all consider as a mere charivari. When London gladly endures fifteen-hour concerts, composed of morceaux by Wagner, Chopin, and Liszt, I will believe that art can charm as much as nature.

The medium point of intelligence in this puzzle may be found in the extraordinary fascination which many find in the monotonous tum-tum of the banjo, and which reappears, somewhat refined, or at least somewhat Frenchified, in the Bamboula and other Creole airs. Thence, in an ascending series, but connected with it, we have old Spanish melodies, then the Arabic, and here we finally cross the threshold into mystery, midnight, and "caterwauling." I do not know that I can explain the fact why the more "barbarous" music is, the more it is beloved of man; but I think that the principle of the refrain, or repetition in music, which as yet governs all decorative art and which Mr. Whistler and others are endeavoring desperately to destroy, acts in music as a sort of animal magnetism or abstraction, ending in an extase. As for the fascination which such wild melodies exert, it is beyond description. The most enraptured audience I ever saw in my life was at a Coptic wedding in Cairo, where one hundred and fifty guests listened, from seven P.M. till three A.M., and Heaven knows how much later, to what a European would call absolute jangling, yelping, and howling.

The real medium, however, between what I have, for want of better words, called wild and tame music exists only in that of the Russian gypsies. These artists, with wonderful tact and untaught skill, have succeeded, in all their songs, in combining the mysterious and maddening charm of the true, wild Eastern music with that of regular and simple melody, intelligible to every Western ear. I have never listened to the singing or playing of any distinguished artist--and certainly never of any far-famed amateur--without realizing that neither words nor melody was of the least importance, but that the man's manner of performance or display was everything. Now, in enjoying gypsy singing, one feels at once as if the vocalists had entirely forgotten self, and were carried away by the bewildering beauty of the air and the charm of the words. There is no self-consciousness, no vanity,--all is real. The listener feels as if he were a performer; the performer is an enraptured listener. There is no soulless "art for the sake of art," but art for direct pleasure.

"We intend to sing only Romany for you, rya," said the young lady to my left, "and you will hear our real gypsy airs. The Gaji [Russians] often ask for songs in our language, and don't get them. But you are a Romanichal, and when you go home, far over the baro kalo pani [the broad black water, that is, the ocean], you shall tell the Romany how we can sing. Listen!"

And I listened to the strangest, wildest, and sweetest singing I ever had heard,--the singing of Lurleis, of sirens, of witches. First, one damsel, with an exquisitely clear, firm voice, began to sing a verse of a love-ballad, and as it approached the end the chorus stole in, softly and unperceived, but with exquisite skill, until, in a few seconds, the summer breeze, murmuring melody over a rippling lake, seemed changed to a midnight tempest, roaring over a stormy sea, in which the basso of the kalo shureskro (the black captain) pealed like thunder. Just as it died away a second girl took up the melody, very sweetly, but with a little more excitement,--it was like a gleam of moonlight on the still agitated waters, a strange contralto witch-gleam; and then again the chorus and the storm; and then another solo yet sweeter, sadder, and stranger,--the movement continually increasing, until all was fast, and wild, and mad,--a locomotive quickstep, and then a sudden silence--sunlight--the storm had blown away.

Nothing on earth is so like magic and elfin-work as when women burst forth into improvised melody. The bird only "sings as his bill grew," or what he learned from the elders; yet when you hear birds singing in woodland green, throwing out to God or the fairies irrepressible floods of what seems like audible sunshine, so well does it match with summer's light, you think it is wonderful. It is mostly when you forget the long training of the prima donna, in her ease and apparent naturalness, that her song is sweetest. But there is a charm, which was well known of old, though we know it not to-day, which was practiced by the bards and believed in by their historians. It was the feeling that the song was born of the moment; that it came with the air, gushing and fresh from the soul. In reading the strange stories of the professional bards and scalds and minstrels of the early Middle Age, one is constantly bewildered at the feats of off-hand composition which were exacted of the poets among Celts or Norsemen. And it is evident enough that in some mysterious way these singers knew how to put strange pressure on the Muse, and squeeze strains out of her in a manner which would have been impossible at present.

Yet it lingers here and there on earth among wild, strange people,--this art of making melody at will. I first heard it among Nubian boatmen on the Nile. It was as manifest that it was composed during the making as that the singers were unconscious of their power. One sung at first what may have been a well-known verse. While singing, another voice stole in, and yet another, softly as shadows steal into twilight; and ere I knew it all were in a great chorus, which fell away as mysteriously, to become duos, trios,--changing in melody in strange, sweet, fitful wise, as the faces seen in the golden cloud in the visioned aureole of God blend, separate, burn, and fade away ever into fresher glory and tints incarnadined.

Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming, after informing us that "it is utterly impossible to give you the faintest shadow of an idea of the fascination of Tahitian himenes," proceeds, as men in general and women in particular invariably do, to give what the writer really believes is a very good description indeed. 'T is ever thus, and thus 't will ever be, and the description of these songs is so good that any person gifted with imagination or poetry cannot fail to smile at the preceding disavowal of her ability to give an idea.

These himenes are not--and here such of my too expectant young lady-readers as are careless in spelling will be sadly disappointed--in any way connected with weddings. They are simply the natural music of Tahiti, or strange and beautiful part-songs. "Nothing you have ever heard in any other country," says our writer, "bears the slightest resemblance to these wild, exquisite glees, faultless in time and harmony, though apparently each singer introduces any variations which may occur to him or to her. Very often there is no leader, and apparently all sing according to their own sweet will. One voice commences; it may be that of an old native, with genuine native words (the meaning of which we had better not inquire), or it may be with a Scriptural story, versified and sung to an air originally from Europe, but so completely Tahitianized that no mortal could recognize it, which is all in its favor, for the wild melodies of this isle are beyond measure fascinating.