MIGJENI
PROSE SKETCHES
TRAGEDY OR COMEDY?
Man is a living guitar on which a
fervent hand transforms the vibration of strings into melodies...
tragic or comic?
Man is a living guitar by which Good
and Evil have revealed tragedies or comedies of their own.
Man is a living guitar, by which God,
in long, never-ending melodies, has expressed the majesty of
His... tragedy or comedy? Who knows...?
Ding, dang, dong... are the sounds of
the guitar, or rather of the heart, which create melodies - perhaps
sad, perhaps bitter, as acrid as our world (Earth) on the tip
of the tongue of the Cosmos. Ding, dang, dong... ding, dang,
dong. It is perhaps pleasure, perhaps a friendly smile, a wild
rejoicing like the grinning of a madman at the crossroads. Perhaps.
Who knows?... The ardent hand plucks the strings of the guitar,
slowly at first, then faster and faster. Lustful fingernails
wound the guitar, no, the breast, the heart... blood drips and
flows... the string breaks... the melody dies - and so does man!
An individual, of an unsavoury sort,
revealed his pain at the corpse of what was once man, while in
the corner of his eye a crocodile tear glistened, reflecting
the tragedy of the corpse. Another individual, of a better sort,
laughed, guffawed so much that the features of his face became
distorted and turned ugly. It was the mirth of a man in the face
of comic fatality. Through man, Good, Evil, and God emerged from
the dark into the light, and through man, they will recede into
the darkness once again. Behind them the vaguest of impressions
will subsist, planted in the lap of life, and will plunge into
complete oblivion. But for the moment, all man is a stage on
which Good, Evil, and God perform dramas of hatred and love,
of contempt and affection, of desire and apathy, of adoration
and condemnation... And while they are playing out their martial
dramas of artistic refinement and theatrical majesty, they jab
the sharp knives and poison arrows and pour molten lead into
man, emitting cries of victory. When the battle is won, the tragedy
concludes with a majestic Te Deum, with a Te Deum Laudamus
full of perfidious sincerity. The Te Deum is the key to
a comic opera called Peace: tragedy, comedy, and so it goes on
and on. Where tragedy is born, comedy is present as a guest of
honour - a godfather - and conversely, where comedy is born,
tragedy attends as the guest of honour and godfather. They call
it a tragicomedy, or is it a comic tragedy or a tragic comedy?
Do you understand? If not, remember: "Laugh, Pagliaccio,
at your shattered love," and you shall understand.
"Laugh, Pagliaccio, at your shattered
love!" The figure of Pagliaccio was created by the Absurd
to entertain the shadows of the night, the light of day, and
the creatures of the other world. All of them are waiting for
him to laugh, and this will give rise to a universal laugh, a
burst of laughter, a roar which will cause the Cosmos with all
its planets and spheres to shudder. And all the time, man's heart
is breaking. His heart is breaking because his life depends on
that laugh, depends on the mercy of the merciless planets, depends
on the hearts of the heartless spheres, depends on the Absurd
which created him. It is a difficult and far from comforting
condition for the fragile reed which is man in the face of the
Cosmos. The tragedy of man is to be found in his illusion of
grandeur, and the comedy is in his sense of insignificance. Thus:
"Laugh, Pagliaccio, at your shattered love!"
It is a tragicomedy!... or, the tale
of human feelings, whichever you prefer.
[Tragedi apo komedi?, first published
in Illyria on 1 July 1934. From the volume Migjeni,
Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 115-117 Translated
from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the
volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories,
Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 129-131.]
REFRAIN OF MY TOWN
"Sir, sir, please sir, please
give me something!" This is the refrain, the fair refrain
of my town. When morning awakens in the streets, when the sun's
rays begin to shine between the legs of passersby, and the shadows
of cars and carriages begin to glide along the ground, the chorus
starts up on the sidewalks, the fair refrain of my town: "Sir,
sir, please sir, please give me something!" Who could put
the beauty of this refrain to music? Mozart? Beethoven? Ha, ha,
ha! Only the sidewalks of my town know how to sing this melody
and only its inhabitants hear it. And they love it, for the people
here are very fond of music. From morning to night they hear
the same litany and are never bored with it. They've never chased
away (or given a penny to) a singer yet. No! They are great fans
of music. The refrain sounds especially beautiful in the twilight.
The streets of the town then have a romantic allure (like the
one you see in coloured photographs). Citizens, satisfied with
their day's work, are out for a bit of nightlife. The sky smiles
down on them like a virgin and the lips of each of them are ready
to respond with a sensuous kiss... and in the midst of it all,
the fair refrain of my town. Can you imagine such joy?
***
I don't know if what I'm now going
to tell you is a dream or a nightmare.
"Sir, sir, please sir, please give
me something!" A boy, some ten or twelve years old, like
a pretty little puppy (white, black, or reddish-brown) leaping
up and down to lick its master's hand, limps along behind a gentleman.
He gives a gentle tug to the seam of his coat, a very gentle
tug, for he is afraid of waking the wrath of the gentleman, of
a god, of a devil, the wrath of this gentleman/human being, I
mean. He thus gives an exceedingly subtle tug and implores, "Sir,
sir, please sir, please give me something!" But the gentleman/human
being is lost in thought: the new season has begun! The season!
The season! Always the season and, as the season changes, so
does his wife, his children and so does he himself - with whatever
the season calls for. Preoccupied with such matters, he pays
no attention to the little beggar who, wasting no thoughts on
the season, reflects on how well the gentleman must have dined,
how warm his coat must be, how fine his shoes are... Lost in
such thoughts, he pulls more strongly at the gentleman and implores
in a louder voice, "Sir, sir, please sir, please give me
something!" Suddenly, the gentleman turns and slugs the
little beggar in the face. "You good-for-nothing,"
he snarls and departs without giving him anything. Or rather,
he did give the pallid face a slug. A groan from the child's
breast attracts the attention of passersby. "Hey, look,"
someone cries out, "that little beggar is trying to steal
something!" The people think that the boy has attempted
to pick the gentleman's pocket. That's why he was struck. The
blood from the little beggar's heart flushes in his face and,
like a stalked bird, he gathers all his infant force to flee.
He spurts off, relentlessly pursued by fear, and only comes to
a halt when his face and back are bathed in sweat. A hole, a
tiny hole that I could crawl into somewhere far away and die
of hunger - that was his only thought. Another boy, a bit older,
sees the urchin running and cries out in a fit of mocking, "Hey,
you little twirp, where do you think you're you off to? Hang
on! Don't you remember what we decided on the other day? I get
to throw a handful of coins into your face and you get to keep
them... Aren't you going to keep your promise?"
"Alright, but don't throw them hard.
I get to cover my eyes with my hands so you don't blind me."
"OK, let's do it now. Hey, what
are you trembling for? You're not chicken, are you?"
"No... but I'm hungry."
"So, you're not chicken, eh..."
and suddenly hurls the money in the younger boy's face, the coins
scattering with a jingle. The little beggar, poor lad, stands
there unmoved, but then, almost robbed of his strength, gets
down on his knees and, with a grin on his face, begins to pick
up the pennies. A scarlet drop on his forehead sparkles in the
sun. It is blood.
No, no. It was no dream, but a nightmare,
when a singer, inspired to this refrain by these fictitious events,
sang by mistake:
On
the mercy of the merciless
The little beggar survived.
His life ran its course
In dirty streets,
In dark corners,
In cold doorways,
Among fallacious faiths.
But one day, when the world’s pity
dried up
He felt in his breast the stab
Of a new pain, which contempt
Fosters in the hearts
Of the poor.
And - though yesterday a little beggar,
He now became something new.
An avenger of the past,
He conceived an imprecation
To pronounce to the world,
His throat strained
To bring out the word
Which his rage had gripped
And smothered on his lips.
Speechless he sat
At the crossroads,
When the wheels of a passing car
Quickly crushed
And... silenced him.
[Një refren i qytetit t'em,
first published in Illyria on 15 July 1934. From the volume
Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 122-126.
Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published
in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short
Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 132-135.]
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
A man of thirty years. He stands in
front of the movie theatre billboard, unemployed, on a work day.
Pfff. He spits, turning away from the billboard. He has the impression
that someone has called him, but no, no one has. No one needs
a manual labourer. And so he continues his daily routine. He
stares at the posters in front of the movie theatre. Pfff. They
know how to live, he says, and approaches the posters to have
a good look. It's the same film every day: an attractive girl
standing beside a good-looking young man. The worker gazes at
them in envy. He takes a dislike to the leading man and gives
him a nasty stare. He spits and looks down at his own shoes.
He does not really know what they are, his old, worn-out shoes,
an incarnation of real shoes. He bends over to tie the laces,
uttering a groan as he straightens up. He saunters off, along
the sidewalk of course. You can even go barefoot on the sidewalk
if you want. Why not?
He paces slowly, taking it easy. Like
a man without a job. Others come by, too, not at ease, but more
in a hurry. How good it is to be able to take it slow, to stroll
like a gentleman. But, what am I saying? Is it really a good
thing to stroll and take it easy? Yes and no! No and yes! It
depends. For a gentleman, it's a proper thing to saunter at one's
leisure, it's good for the digestion. For a working man, it's
not. Why? You know why. But our worker strolls and takes it easy.
Like a gentleman. That's the way the times and the world are
nowadays. If you want to be a gentleman, you can. Yet our worker
doesn't want to be or imitate a gentleman, just the times...
No interest. He doesn't like their pompous ways. Not that they
bother him, it's just... well, you know.
Bong, bong, bong, bong. Four o'clock
in the afternoon! How cruelly the bells resound in a worker's
guts. The bell tower of the church strikes four and resonates
hollow in a worker's damn guts. Four! Four! Four! Four everywhere!
And why four? Why? An argument, a revolt. Almost a revolution.
A revolution in miniature. The roar of a cannon... No! the sound
of starving, rumbling guts.
Our worker continues to loiter in the
streets of the town. He is looking for work. Like his fellow-workers
in Berlin and London. Nowhere is there a laden truck for him
to unload. Nowhere is there a traveller with suitcase in hand
in need of a porter. Nowhere! Nowhere! No one wants the sweat
of his brow. Nowhere are there a couple of leks to be made.
The worker stops in front of some shops
and stares into the window. He observes and savours our romantic
era. He stands in front of the store display of a stationery
shop. Behind the glass are postcards of movie stars. He grits
his teeth. In anger he raises his fist to... But there are laws!
And police! The consequences flash through his mind. He turns
from the stars in disdain and spits. He continues on his way
and spits again. He looks to the left and to the right. And spits
again. Starving and in rags he saunters past shops full of "forbidden
fruit" (a tale from the Bible).
His instincts yearn to express themselves.
Our worker gets control of himself once again! The law! Police!
To play it safe, he folds his hands behind his back. His hands
are strong, powerful. They could seize the devil by the throat
and strangle him. But the law protects the devil, too.
Bong, bong, bong, bong! How long will
it last?
[Moll' e ndalueme, first published
in Jeta dhe kultura on 20 July 1935. From the volume Migjeni,
Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 132-135. Translated
from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the
volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories,
Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 136-137.]
DO YOU NEED ANY COAL, SIR?
Two sacks of coal loaded onto a packhorse.
At its flank, a highland woman. The sidewalk with its line of
shops to the left and right. The horse and the highland woman
are passing by. Coal for sale. An artist would be alarmed at
the disharmony of the scene. Appalling disharmony. The highland
woman blows her nose using her fingers. The result falls onto
the ground and she wipes her fingers on her jubleta. A
simple gesture, but a select motif for a painter. The stick in
the woman's hand drags along the road, leaving a kilometre-long
trail behind it. It is the residue of the mountain dweller's
thoughts.
"Do you need any coal, sir?"
"How much are you charging?"
"Twelve leks - or better, you say
your price. Hey, don't go away."
"Twelve leks in this heat?"
someone else asks her with a grin.
"Well, how much will you give me?"
"No, I don't need any coal."
True, it is hot outside. Who needs coal?
Alright, ten leks, thinks the highland woman to herself, walking
down the shady side of the road. The horse paces onwards with
its eyes closed. Perhaps it is dreaming. Now in old age, it is
musing on its love for a long-forgotten mare. The woman leaves
the horse alone to relish its memories. She is patient. Back
in the sunlight now, a shadow follows them, or rather two shadows.
Two shadows entwined and merged with one another - the shadow
of the horse and the shadow of the highland woman. You cannot
tell which is which, or separate them. One is nothing without
the other; each is of no value. Only together do they form a
whole. A living whole. Krk, krk, krk, the coal crunches on the
horse's back. Krk, krk, krk, the monotonous clicking of the horseshoes
over the cobblestones.
The highland woman lifts her head to
see where the sun is. It's time to head back, to return to the
mountains. And the coal has not been sold. She resolves to sell
it more cheaply.
"Hey, young man, what time is it?"
The lad is attracted by the good-looking
mountain lass. He approaches politely and tells her the time.
He asks how much she wants for the coal and starts to barter
with her, although he has no intention of buying. She is young
and attractive. Why shouldn't he talk to her? "Oh, she's
filthy," the lad realizes. "The mountain peasants are
so stupid. They don't understand anything. You have to tell them
everything, even what cannot be said in words." This is
what the young man is thinking to himself as he musters the young
highlander, as would a nobleman his young servant. "What
a fool she is. She doesn't understand a thing!" And the
lad goes on his way. The highland woman has begun to worry about
the homeward journey. She looks at the sun sinking in the west.
How can she return to the mountains in the dark? She is not afraid
of vampires and demons, and if she were an old woman, she would
not be frightened at all, but, she cannot forget that people
once or twice approached and at first she had not known what
they wanted... She certainly has no fear of vampires in town,
but she is wary of these people. Why? Because she is young and
not bad-looking.
Ardour penetrates her breast.
"How much is the coal, my good woman?"
The highlander turns around. She recognizes
the fellow speaking to her. She had once sold coal to him. She
replies:
"Eight leks?"
"No, that's too much. I was mad
about you last time," says the man, looking left and right.
The highland woman smiles, somewhat embarrassed.
She covers her face, blushing, and looks away from him. Timidly
she asks:
"Well, how much will you pay?"
"Five."
"Give me seven."
"Alright, six and it's a deal."
The mountain lass hesitates. She reflects
for a moment, turning her gaze towards the sun. "May fortune
be with me," she murmurs, and follows her customer. The
fellow walking in front of her wallows heavily in the memory
of the highland woman, who blushes - red with shame.
[A do qymyr, zotni?, first published
in Illyria on 28 September 1935. From the volume Migjeni,
Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 136-140. Translated
from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the
volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories,
Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 138-140.]
THE SUICIDE OF THE SPARROW
The sparrow was suffering from depression.
It was born in a very barren land. Instead of grass, there were
boar bristles, and instead of trees, there were the horns of
prehistoric beasts. Who would not be depressed in such an environment,
if one could call it nature? A sparrow does not need much to
live on, but an environment devoid of nature, did not provide
anything.
Do not ask how the sparrow happened to
be born in that land, or how man ended up in this part of the
universe. We don't know much about it. There are hypotheses and
there are dreams. Millions of years and then a word is uttered,
for example: "Let there be light. And there was light."
Do you see? It's all magic. Hocus pocus. Applause!
I already explained that the sparrow
was destined to live in a land where instead of grass there were
boar bristles, and instead of trees, there were the horns of
prehistoric beasts.
Once, the sparrow was perched on a horn.
It was demoralized at seeing nothing but boar bristles. It was
glum at having to fly from horn to horn. It closed its eyes out
of frustration and sorrow, and fell into a sombre mood. A person
with a melancholic disposition is intelligent, and the sparrow
with a melancholic disposition was intelligent, too. Intelligence,
in the broadest sense of the term, has rarely been a blessing
to anyone.
The sparrow, perched on a horn and in
the depths of depression decided to commit suicide. It looked
about in philosophical irony and took the irrevocable decision
which glimmered in its despairing eyes. It chirped once, it chirped
twice, it chirped three times. Then there followed a long and
poignant cry, its last will, the testament of its suffering.
Without spreading its wings, it jumped off the horn and plunged
into a boar bristle as long and sharp as a knife, and was impaled.
A sparrow, impaled on a boar bristle.
Its tail and wings fluttered, causing it to rotate around the
bristle, as metal weather vanes turn on the top of our chimneys
when the North Wind begins to blow.
What is the logical connection here?
Do I detect complaints?
Indeed, my dear and far from superficial
reader, are there not enough logical, moral, and dogmatic inconsistencies
in the realities of this world? Why get angry and accuse me of
a few logical inconsistencies which are doing harm to no one?
[Vetvrasja e trumcakut, first
published in Illyria on 4 January 1936. From the volume
Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 147-150.Translated
from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the
volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories,
Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 141-142.]
LITTLE LULI
No one knows Luli. Even the friends
playing with him don't know him. Or rather, they know him, but
play among themselves, and Luli watches them. Everyone has his
own problems and difficulties nowadays, even children. So does
Luli. Oh Luli, how early you learned to stand on your own two
feet.
When Luli enters the schoolyard, with
a slight grin on his face, he speaks to no one. He walks slowly,
glancing to the left and to the right, advancing all the time
until he reaches the school door. This is his favourite spot.
There he stands in the golden rays of the sun in these autumn
days. Luli leans against the wall, little fists clenched in his
pockets, and his snubby nose, red from the morning frost, turned
in the direction of the sun, and... looks around. What attracts
his attention most are the boots which the other schoolboys are
wearing. "How splendid they are! Look how they shine!"
thinks Luli to himself and then stares down at his own beat-up
shoes, with five bare toes protruding from each. Out of curiosity,
he approaches one of the boys who is wearing brand-new boots.
"Look how they're shining!" But the lad with the boots
runs off, and Luli returns to his spot in the sun to warm his
feet. What is poor Luli supposed to do when the sun is not shining?
Perhaps the apostles of love and mercy will bear some of his
suffering.
Perhaps, perhaps...
From time to time the teacher comes over
to Luli. And when Luli's face is clean and he has no pimples,
the teacher strokes his cheeks and the nape of his neck. Luli
cuddles up and takes the teacher's hand, looking fondly at it
and wishing he had something to give to the teacher as a present.
But he doesn't have any violets. And what else could little Luli
give to the teacher? Only his shoes with their mouths gaping
wide open as if they would devour the teacher. Yes, yes, little
Luli's shoes are going to devour the teacher.
[Luli i vocërr, first published
in Illyria on 18 January 1936. From the volume Migjeni,
Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 151-152. Translated
from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the
volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories,
Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 143-144.]
IN THE FLY SEASON
He is grown now and cannot chase flies
through the house and squash them as he used to do because people
would otherwise say he'd lost his mind. The neighbours, the gossiping
neighbours, are only waiting for a chance to pounce on him. Hylli
remembers as if it were yesterday how the teacher told the third
grade pupils that if they swatted a fly in the springtime, it
was like swatting the thousands of flies which would have been
born of it in the summer. And when the oldest of the children
asked whether they ought to swat the female or male flies, the
teacher stammered and only with difficulty was able to reply
"all of them have to be swatted." In accord with the
teacher's suggestion, the tables, walls, wooden chests and chairs
echoed that spring to the swatting of flies. Encouraged by their
teacher, the children had declared war. The following day, each
child at school would recount how many enemies he had exterminated,
how the battle had taken place, and what weapons had been used.
Hylli had not been any better or worse than the others as a warrior
in the bloody battle. He had accomplished as much as any other
boy. In fact, he had caught one fly, but had thereby broken a
vase and been given a beating by his mother.
Hylli is now sitting in an armchair with
a book in his hand, staring at a fly making circles under the
ceiling. He can hardly control his impulse to leap up and nab
it. Soon though, surprised by his fratricidal instincts, he calms
down. He now reflects on the fly in a more amicable fashion and
sees it as a harbinger of summer - although not even one harbinger
of spring had made its appearance yet. Such things do not interest
him anymore. Swallows, who cares? But where did the fly come
from? There must be a dunghill somewhere around. Then he remembers
the dung piled in the yard of the beautiful lady next door. Hylli
now observes the fly with admiration. He admires its loops under
the ceiling. The fly, the dung, and the beautiful lady next door
all combine to form a rhapsody on this spring afternoon, a rhapsody
of urban life on an afternoon in May.
***
But the fly did not remain at its
usual altitude. It began its slow descent to the lower spheres
of the room. Hylli was afraid it might drown in the coffee cup
which he had just been handed. A shiver ran down his spine when
he considered how he might swallow a dead fly when gulping down
his coffee. His pessimistic nature found the thought revolting.
In reality, when considered as part of the divine plan, this
fly was quite superfluous, he reflected. Unemployed apprentice
boys and students sitting around at home would have found something
to do, if it were not for these flies.
But as Schopenhauer once remarked, pleasure
is nothing but a temporary interruption of ever-recurring pain.
If it were not for driving nervous people crazy, there would
be no need for flies at all. And there are certainly enough other
flies in life. And what flies there are! Think of the horseflies
which you cannot get rid of when they are drawing blood without
giving them a swat, or rather, a big slap.
It is the nature of flies to interfere
in other people's business and to take things into their own
hands. It flew over his cup of coffee like a reconnaissance aircraft.
Where the hell are the people responsible for getting rid of
them? The people being paid to do the job? What are the members
of parliament doing about this? The flies are the only decorations
we have in this town. Finally something for visitors to see here...
he thought. Unwillingly, Hylli got nervous and, with a swift
move of his arm, swiped at the fly. He opened the palm of his
hand, but there was nothing in it. Almost got it. Suddenly, a
former ally in the fly-war and now a fellow student stood in
the doorway.
"What are you doing, Hylli? Catching
flies?"
"Nothing... I was just thinking
how futile life is," responded Hylli, as usual.
[Në sezonën e mizave,
written in Puka in May 1936. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra,
Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 192-194.Translated from the
Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales
from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini
2004, p. 145-147.]
THE PLATFORM OF A MAGAZINE
No politics!
"No! We agree. Politics have no
healthy basis, no law, no rules, no framework. Not even morals,"
added a moralizing editor, observing his colleagues from over
the rim of his glasses. This same editor had bitten off a chunk
of the book "Religious morality" for lunch instead
of his sandwich and had spat the bite out again when he discovered
he could not swallow it. But the gentleman had children at home,
and children, according to the principles of modern education,
are monkeys. This is why, when they saw their father spitting,
they began to imitate him with a "Pff, pff, pff."
Politics are like a chameleon which,
as is known, takes on the colour of its environment. If a chameleon
happens to be sitting on a cliff, it will take on the colour
of the cliff. Even if someone points it out to you, you will
have trouble distinguishing it from the cliff. If you rush headlong
to catch it, the trophy you have on your return - when you get
back from this Trojan War - will be found on your forehead. It
will have swollen as thick as the cliff you bumped into. The
moment you think you have caught a chameleon, it is gone.
"That is the definition of politics,
if there is one," said another editor.
"Our magazine has nothing to do
with politics!"
"No! not at all," repeated
all the editors, remembering the story about trying to catch
a chameleon! Politics are dangerous!" they repeated to one
another, nodding.
"Let us not forget, gentlemen, our
magazine must be idealistic."
"Bravo! Idealistic!"
"It will devote itself to the education
and defence of those who have no defence! It will open the eyes
of the blind!!
"Yes..."
"It will awaken pride in our nation."
"Yes, bravo! National awareness
is sleeping and needs to be awakened with a forty-two..."
"Shshsh!" they turned on the
uncouth speaker, who happened to be the one who sorted the mail.
In the end, they drafted a platform for
an idealistic magazine.
Supernatural posters were put up throughout
the town, many of which were glued onto the front windows of
people's ground-floor homes, so that they now sat in the dark.
In a little alley where, in one day,
four cats, three people, and perhaps a rooster with its hens
pass by, a cow stopped in front of the red poster and speared
it with its horns. It must have been related to the Spanish toreros.
"War! war!" cried the people
as they gathered in front of the poster on the main street (the
population was caught up in a war psychosis because of the Italian-Abyssinian
conflict). Finally they found someone with a modicum of education
who was able to read out loud: "Idealistic magazine!"
"What nonsense!" muttered a
lady with bobbed hair who set off down the road at a martial
pace.
The magazine remained unsold, for the
population happened to be illiterate. There was no money left
over for the second number. "What we need is a subsidy!"
resolved the editors.
[Programi i një reviste,
first published in Bota e re on 16 June 1936. From the
volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988,
p. 156-158.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first
published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian
Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 148-149.]
THE HEADLESS IDOLS
A terrible tempest toppled the idols.
Some crumbled to dust, others lost their heads. The heartless
storm did not arise on the horizon or appear from out of the
skies, but from the bowels of the earth. And whatever emerges
from the interior of the earth is either tender, like the most
intimate of pleasures, or is terrible, like the tempest which
toppled the idols.
The remains of the pulverized idols'
heads blew away. Nothing was left behind them, and the headless
gods stood there as awkward witnesses to an age gone by.
Decapitated idols. Disfigured nature.
And the people who lived among them wandered about aimlessly.
Those who had been born before the destruction of the idols and
who had seen them in all their ceremonial splendour, now grieved
and longed for the age of the former glory. They still hoped
that the deities would save them when they died. Those who were
born in the age of headless idols did not know what to make of
them. They wanted to worship them, but what was there to worship?
Faceless forms? They wanted to believe in them, but what was
there to believe in? Brainless bodies? How could such abominations
be worshipped? Who could believe in a headless god? Anything
without a head is a corpse, and corpses have no place among the
living. Corpses are for burying. Any other contact with them
could prove fatal. A catastrophe. The whole nation could be destroyed.
(Our nation was not destroyed. But the
only reason for this is that our direct neighbours suffered more
or less the same fate as we did.)
Headless deities! Victims of time which
devours everything, victims of fatality. There they stand, mutilated,
only because no one can be found to build new ones. But one day,
someone will be found. And the new idols he builds will be worshipped
by the masses. The material they are made of will be the morals
of the age, and the form they are modelled after - modern man.
Headless gods! At their burial, the tolling
bells will crack, the minarets will bend over backwards, and
chanting jaws will spring out of joint. Then there will be silence,
for every cry begins and ends in silence. Only then will work
begin.
[Idhujt pa krena, first published
in Bota e re on 30 July 1936. From the volume Migjeni,
Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 164-165.Translated
from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the
volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories,
Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 150-151.]
THE LEGEND OF CORN
Corn! Corn!
Gods are not glorified in the twentieth
century. Corn is. Our mountain pastures, temples to the greater
glory of god, have now become temples to the glory of corn.
A grain of corn is a seed of suffering,
in which there is much hunger and little corn.
The word 'corn' is the stuff of legends
born of the will to survive. The will to survive is as great
and wondrous as our mountains which open their bosoms to bury
the starving people. On our mighty peaks, the legend told is
one of birth, of life, and of death. And this bitter legend,
full of ago-old pain and agony, is so heartrending that it would
move you to tears.
Corn! Corn!
A cry for help. Glorification of the
twentieth century! It is not the names of gods which are heard
in the mouths of babes when they begin to speak, but the word
corn. Corn! It is the symbol of our age; it is synonymous with
survival for the legendary inhabitants of these wild and savage
mountains.
The alpine valleys echo the words of
starving highlanders who plod along in a line, one after the
other, each bearing half a sack of corn. It is a long, endlessly
long line, as long and endless as their suffering. Each of them
bears half a sack of corn on his back, bears his life, bears
his god. The true god - long-desired corn.
Corn! Corn!
The news that corn was to be distributed
emerged from the bowels of the earth and flowed through deep
veins into the stiff limbs of the land called the State. And
it caused the breathing masses, who hardly have enough to keep
themselves alive, to quiver with delight.
Like ants gathering around grains of
corn, the highlanders assemble around the depot in the district
capital. Corn is to be distributed to the surrounding villages.
The savage peaks with their fog and snow had tried to prevent
the mountain dwellers from getting there, as did the skies which
poured rain to drench them to the bone. But who can stop them
when they set out in search of corn? Corn for their children,
marked by misery, who when they stretch out their arms, resemble
pale little ghosts. These tykes are the real testament of human
tragedy. The tragic witnesses in this part of the globe which,
for foreigners, calls to mind legends of the past. Legends of
the past with legendary glory, for real glory is to be found
nowhere near the aeries of the Mountain Eagles.
The highlander makes his way down through
the mountain valleys with nothing but the shirt on his back and
his legendary trousers to so as to reach the district capital
in search of corn. His breast is a slab of granite broken off
from a cliff and stuck on two legs as strong and straight as
tree trunks. This chunk of mountain advances without making a
sound. In front of the corn depot his real nature comes to the
fore and he turns chicken, becomes servile, frightened, because
- in his thinking - that is the way the law and the authorities
want him to be, otherwise he gets no corn. "As you wish,
sir," he repeats from time to time in the most ridiculous
fashion, with the voice of a madman and the gestures of a monkey,
hoping desperately not to awaken the disfavour of the angels
distributing corn.
And when they secure the corn, they set
off one by one along the narrow path through the mountains and
through their lives. It happens on occasion that grains of corn
fall onto the ground through a little hole in one man's sack.
The fellow behind him takes no notice and treads on them. The
third man curses him savagely: "Don't step on them, or the
wicked fairies will get you!" For the twentieth century
is ten decades for the glorification of corn in the aeries of
the Mountain Eagles.
[Legjenda e misrit, first published
in Bota e re on 15 October 1936. From the volume Migjeni,
Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 167-170.Translated
from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the
volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories,
Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 152-154.]
LETHAL BEAUTY
The moon stares down from the vaults
of heaven with a face as pale as death. It stares at the mountain
world powdered in sugary crystals. It stares at the sparkling,
snow-covered huts of the village, with hardly a trace of life.
All are covered in a white blanket of snow. And this wan beauty
can kill you. It snuffs out the soul of the highlanders just
as the cold, pallid figure of a naked woman snuffs out the soul
of an artist.
In a hut groaning under the weight of
the snow, there are but two colours: red and black. Red is the
glow of the hearth in the middle, and black is the colour all
around it. Veiled in the black of night are the recesses of the
hut, from which the faint bleating of a lamb or the bell of a
cow can be heard. The steam rising from their mouths falls onto
their fell in frosty flakes. Silence. Everything is crystallized.
An arm stretches out and grasps a piece of wood, poking it in
the fire. Sparks fly about and flames lick the darkness. Up to
the beams and around the faces at the hearth soar the sparks.
Bodies shiver. The cold air from the dark corners of the hut
claws into their backs. Brrrr. The chill gapes behind them.
"Go and make sure that Laro is not
freezing."
They rise and give their cow Laro a place
by the fire. These family members need warmth, too, in the crystal-cold
hut. Laro knows how to position herself next to the fireplace,
but with her huge body, she almost squeezes two of the children
to death, who are sleeping at the hearth.
The animals become uneasy as the temperature
drops to its lowest around midnight. Yes, there is a commotion.
One after the other they approach the humans with pleading eyes:
"Give us a place beside the fire so that we can warm ourselves,
too. We are freezing..." Humans may show no pity on humans,
but they do take pity on animals. Thus they make way and give
the animals a place by the fire, receding themselves into the
gaping darkness.
Dawn breaks with its white and lethal
beauty. The humans awaken with stiff, near-frozen limbs, stinging
from the horrors of the night. They rise, but one little child
does not move. Its mother stretches out to touch it and a terrible
scream rends the hearts in the hut. The agony of the mother melts
these hearts, but revives not the frozen heart of the little
child.
Yes, the mother's favourite child froze
to death. Its red and purple blood congealed in its veins and
heart, turned into crystal like the glasses in the tea service
of a millionaire. No, its blood has transformed into rubies for
the necklace of a lady. The body of the little child, his mother's
favourite, was as stiff as a stone statue. A stone statue plucked
from his mother's breast.
Get rid of the statue, take it into town.
Set it up in some square. Let it serve as a monument to someone.
Dedicate it to the worthiest person in the land! To a minister,
a member of parliament, or another... And if you don't find anyone
of sufficient merit, then dedicate it to a less-worthy figure:
to some traditional god.
[Bukuria që vret, first
published in Bota e re on 15 December 1936. From the volume
Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 171-173.Translated
from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the
volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories,
Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 155-156.]
THE HARVEST
The sun rose day after day, larger
and more splendid, only to sink in radiant satisfaction with
the people far below.
Early up on these crystal-clear mornings
were the farmers who thanked the rising sun and, when the rosy
rays of evening came, they begged it, entreated it, not to come
back the next day, but to send rain, because their newly-sown
fields in the verdant valley needed two days of rain a week.
The sun heard their prayers, as would
a beaming mother those of her beloved child. It smiled blithely
and went down in a glorious magenta. The next morning it did
not rise. Instead, accompanied by all the hues of a rainbow,
there came a soft and priceless rain shower which tenderly moistened
the earth and gently watered the plants, not even hurting the
poppies.
The same happened on the second day.
On the third day, a splendid sun appeared
again. Its golden rays quivered as if they were the limbs of
some profound and delicate spirit.
How the people were looking forward to
the coming harvest! From the hillside over the village they observed
the fields of grain, like a green sea, as it was caressed by
a gentle breeze from the west. The farmers could not only see
it; they could feel the grain growing, and with the grain, they,
too, were growing, reaching to the heavens, becoming titans.
At last! rose the satisfaction from their breasts as they dreamt
of the coming harvest.
The children, seeing their parents satisfied,
were all the happier. They wove garlands of flowers in the meadows
and set them on their little heads, took one another's hands,
sang and danced. Ah! Ah! Cries of joy rose from their little
breasts, inspired by a blithe future.
And the day of the harvest arrived.
The farmers got up early on that crystal-clear
morning. They seized their sickles, sharpened them, and set off
down the valley. The sun ascended large and splendid, causing
the farmers to squint. The sickles in their hands shone and glittered.
Once again the farmers thanked the sun from the bottom of their
hearts and proceeded, hand in hand, down to the fields.
When the farmers got there, they rubbed
their eyes. They looked at the fields in front of them and rubbed
their eyes again in disbelief. Cannon barrels threatened to devour
them. They were positioned in the direction of the village. For
the farmers, these cannons were like monsters from the fairy
tales they had heard from their forefathers. They shook in their
boots.
"What are those?" they asked,
approaching in confusion. When they placed their hands on the
cannons, the coldness of the metal penetrated their hearts. They
looked at the wheels planted firmly in the soil and felt as if
those wheels had been planted in their bodies. They were in pain.
"What are they? We never sowed this
kind of seed." Doesn't the saying go: 'As ye sow, so ye
shall reap?' We planted grain and now we've got plants of iron."
"What are they?" the poor farmers
asked one another. But no one replied. They stood there shaking,
their fingers stroking the cannons and the cannonballs, as if
to appease some apocalyptic beast. But the cannons were built
of cold iron and the beast was not to be appeased.
"What are they?" each of them
asked himself, all with tears of frustration in their eyes. They
frowned. Wrinkles appeared on their foreheads. They did not even
notice the sun shining above them. The poor farmers, their hopes
dashed, returned to their village in undescribable sorrow. When
they got home, half-crazed with worry and pain, they exclaimed
to the children who were singing and dancing:
"You will have to learn to eat iron!"
"Ho! ho! ho! we're going to eat
iron!" sang and danced the unsuspecting children.
[Të korrunat, first published
in Përpjekja shqiptare on 16 April 1938. From the
volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988,
p. 179-181.Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and first
published in the volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian
Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini 2004, p. 157-159.]
ZENEL
Zenel was like the fertile soil in
which seed, wherever it is cast, sprouts, grows, and bears more
fruit than one would expect.
I said to him:
"Zenel, tell me something that the
other children don't know."
His large chestnut eyes stared pensively
at mine as he stood up with his white teeth, his tanned face,
his smooth and well-shaped brow, and his oblong skull. He gave
his reply, quite confident in himself. It was confidence which
had often been put to the test, for he was always the one to
reply when the others did not know the answer. He spoke, with
a frown between his eyebrows.
Sometimes when he talked, Zenel was overcome
by childish fantasy. He would mount the winged horse of his imagination
and soar from one cloud to the next, but when he noticed me smiling,
he realized his mistake, fell into an embarrassed silence, sat
down without asking permission, and, out of shame, hid his face
in his hands. I laughed, and the children laughed, too, looking
back and forth at Zenel and at me.
Very occasionally, Zenel would get bored
and reply:
"I don't know, teacher."
I knew then that something in the lesson
had gone wrong. He was not interested.
Equally rare are the moments in which
Zenel bubbled with childish mirth. He laughed out loud for no
reason at all, jumped up and down, could not sit still, and disturbed
the other children. Neither a warning nor an interesting lesson
would help. It even happened that Zenel began to complain and
make fun of me, saying: "Come on, teacher. Enough is enough.
You've taught us how to live. Fine. You've taught us all things
bright and beautiful. But we are subsisting in the same life
our forefathers did, with the same joys and the same sorrows
they had in these isolated mountain valleys. Look for yourself.
You can see that boy's pale shoulder through his torn shirt,
and the other boy's bloated belly. He's dying of hunger, and
this boy cannot even keep his teeth from clattering with fever."
I noticed an ironic reproach in Zenel's
features when he laughed, as if he were to say: "Let's laugh
and have some fun as long as we are at school. Long live school!
Long live education! How often have we sung songs although there
is neither joy nor laughter here. Long live school! Long live
education, which teaches us to read and write, although this
will not help us much in our lives, but at least we will have
found a stick, if nothing more, and can write in the sky with
it: Long live school! Long live education!"
Letting the children have their fun,
I went over to the window and looked out at the mountain pastures,
above which stretched a seemingly endless forest. We had hiked
up there once and it was indescribably majestic. I studied the
slopes and mountains, the meadows in the distance, the trees,
the red earth, and the green and yellow leaves. Closer were the
cottages stamped into the earth and covered with nothing but
straw. I fell into morose contemplation and sensed my lips talking
to themselves automatically. I soon realized that the children
were looking in my direction. Turning around, I saw Zenel:
"Teacher, are we not having a lesson
today?"
"Alright, geography then."
I got out the globe and addressed them.
"Where is Albania?" two or
three of them inquired, leaning forward to get a better look.
I showed them the spot, a little red
dot among the other colours, and could sense their displeasure,
hear their disconcerted reactions:
"That small?"
"Look how tiny it is! You can hardly
see it."
"Is Albania really that small, teacher?"
asked one of the boys, gesticulating angrily.
They murmured among themselves in a disillusioned
manner, as if Albania had recently shrunk and they would have
to fight to preserve the rest. Zenel, for his part, said nothing.
He looked up at me with his sparkling eyes as if to say, "Teacher,
do something. You've saved us in many other situations. Remember
when you taught us about agricultural equipment and why we don't
have any, and when we talked about all the commodities of modern
life, all the things we don't have, and when we talked about
rich countries, which we are not? You always saved the situation.
Save us this time, too."
I noticed the little souls worrying about
the country which had seemed so big to them, but now appeared
as a little dot on the globe. They thought there was some mistake.
I had a feeling that by the next day one of the little sons of
the eagle would redraw the country on the globe as much larger.
To raise their spirits, I said to them:
"What? Albania is not small! It
is large. If you divide the country up by all the people living
in it, there is more space per person here than in the other
countries of Europe."
"Well, why did they draw it so small,
then?" asked one little advocate of the rights of his nation
indignantly, supporting his intervention with a gesture of his
hand.
I could hardly resist laughing, and replied:
"Because we are smaller than the
other countries. But that doesn't mean anything. To live happy
lives, all we need is the land that we have. We just need to
work, and..." At this moment, the bell rang and the children
lost interest in the theory of happiness which I was projecting.
Irritated, they stomped out of the classroom, one by one, still
discussing the matter with one another. Zenel remained behind,
unnoticed by the others. When they had all left, he said to me
with a bitter smile:
"We have nothing at all, teacher,
neither new equipment to work the land, nor clean, modern houses
like they do in other countries. We are small..."
I interrupted. Zenel's conclusion was
both depressing and true. I talked to him and endeavoured to
pacify him. I don't know if he believed me.
I had often thought about Zenel's future.
But what could I do? Good will on my part was not enough to allow
Zenel to climb the lofty peaks in order to glimpse the light
shining on the horizon. There was something fatalistic within
me which said: Let Zenel grow up to live the primitive life his
parents did. It is better for him. There is no sense in my dragging
him up the dizzying aeries where he will only despair and break
his neck when he looks down at his loved ones and realizes he
cannot help them.
Thus, when the time came, I handed Zenel
his graduation certificate and wished him well. When he departed,
I was disconsolate, knowing we would never see one another again.
[Zeneli, first published in Përpjekja
shqiptare in December 1938. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra,
Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 183-187.Translated from the
Albanian by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales
from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini
2004, p. 160-164.]
THE ROBBER'S KISS
Another spring has come. It is the
seventeenth spring for Dila who is lying in the grass and feels
exactly as if seventeen springs have passed, no more and no less.
"Mother, how old am I?" she
had inquired at home.
"You have just turned seventeen,
daughter!" responded the mother, resting on one arm and
holding the other arm over her eyes to protect herself against
the rays of the sun.
And Dila, stretched out in the grass,
feels exactly seventeen years old. There she lies, looking up
at the blue sky and listening to the bells of the herd. The bell
with the higher tone belongs to the bellwether, whereas the louder
bell belongs to the cow. She gets up from time to time to take
a look at the herd and then lies down again, with an undefined
longing in her breast. How strongly Dila senses the seventeen
years within her! A prisoner of desire, she folds her hands behind
her head and lies back, feeling the blood beating hard in her
temples. Now the longing within her has become all the stronger.
Dila closes her eyes and waits for something to happen. A warm
breath of air passes over her moist, half-open lips.
***
A hard winter had preceded that spring.
The snow, which was now confined to the high mountain ridges,
had covered all the land. A violent storm had driven the drifts
right into the mountain caves and hollows of the tree trunks.
In the course of that frosty winter, the wild animals had come
down into the valley, to the humans who had not made them welcome.
Together with the animals arrived a robber, the terror of all
those who had heard of him but had never seen him. Having received
a promise of good conduct, Dila's father took the robber in and
gave him bread and salt. During the month he stayed with them,
Dila realized that this robber could not possibly be the person
accused of murder, theft, and rape. That was the reputation he
had, but he was not really like that. Her mother smiled at their
twenty-four-year-old guest, and so did Prenda, her brother's
young wife. He conversed with her father, and he sang songs with
her brother. Their robber guest was a good man and they all thought
highly of him. Dila, willingly or unwillingly, stared at him
from time to time and blushed, willingly or unwillingly. On occasion,
willingly or unwillingly, she touched his arm while passing,
to do her household chores. The contact made her breasts swell.
Dila was not even afraid of his weapons
- his cartridge belt, his rifle, his revolver. A long-suppressed
sensation blossomed in Dila's heart and burgeoned from day to
day. The feeling turned into a yearning which left her awake
at night.
But one morning, when the sun rose like
a gold coin in the sky, the robber was gone. Dila was left alone
with her love for him.
***
Dila's desire had transformed into
passion on that bright spring day as she lay in the grass. She
could feel the blood throbbing in her veins. Her passion increased
all the more when she closed her eyes and dreamed of what she
had never had. She had never known ... She never saw the robber
again. Her seventeen springs were seventeen silent, but passionate
calls to this man.
There she lay dreaming and refused to
look even when she felt a weight on her body, when she heard
the heavy breathing of a man, and when she tasted the moisture
of his lips. She would not open her eyes. Perhaps she was afraid
of destroying the moment of rapture which had taken possession
of her... Only when the weight was gone from her body did she
open her eyes. She stood up, but there was no one there. She
looked around and saw only the traces of footsteps in the grass
to her left. Dila quivered. "It was him," she cried,
" the robber!" and set off after him, following the
footprints. She ran in her ecstasy, as if intoxicated, and did
not even notice the smirk on the face of a nearby shepherd. Dila
hastened down the hillside, still in rapture, though no more
traces of his steps were to be found. She had left the herd behind
her, not even realizing why she was following the robber, and
ran until she reached the edge of a cliff. She called out his
name. Her footsteps echoed from stone to stone, but her call
went unanswered.
In the twilight, agonized voices could
be heard on the high mountain pastures and in the ravines: "Dila!,
Dila!, Dila!"
[Puthja e cubit, first published
in Tirana in 1954. From the volume Migjeni, Vepra, Tirana:
Naim Frashëri 1988, p. 188-191.Translated from the Albanian
by Robert Elsie and first published in the volume Tales from
Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories, Peja: Dukagjini
2004, p. 164-166.] |
Albanian Literature in Translation
Classical
Authors (19th - early 20th centuries)
