The Slaves of the Padishah

Introduction

Török Világ Magyarországon, now englished for the first time, is a sequel to Az Erdély arany kora, already published by Messrs. Jarrold, under the title of ’Midst the Wild Carpathians. The two tales, though quite distinct, form together one great historical romance, which centres round the weakly, good-natured Michael Apafi, the last independent Prince of Transylvania, his masterful and virtuous consort, Anna Bornemissza, and his machiavellian Minister, Michael Teleki, a sort of pocket-Richelieu, whose genius might have made a great and strong state greater and stronger still, but could not save a little state, already doomed to destruction as much from its geographical position as from its inherent weakness. The whole history of Transylvania, indeed, reads like an old romance of chivalry, cut across by odd episodes out of The Thousand and One Nights, and the last phase of that history (1674–1690), so vividly depicted in the present volume, is fuller of life, colour, variety, and adventure than any other period of European history. The little mountain principality, lying between two vast aggressive empires, the Ottoman and the German, ever striving with each other for the mastery of central Europe, was throughout this period the football of both. Viewed from a comfortable armchair at a distance of two centuries, the whole era is curiously fascinating: to unfortunate contemporaries it must have been unspeakably terrible. Strange happenings were bound to be the rule, not the exception, when a Turkish Pasha ruled the best part of Hungary from the bastions of Buda. Thus it was quite in the regular order of things for Hungarian gentlemen to join with notorious robber-chieftains to attack Turkish fortresses; for bandits, in the disguise of monks, to plunder lonely monasteries; for simple boors to be snatched from the plough to be set upon a throne; for Christian girls, from every country under heaven, to be sold by auction not fifty miles from Vienna, and for Turkish filibusters to plant fortified harems in the midst of the Carpathians. Jókai, luckier than Dumas, had no need to invent his episodes, though he frequently presents them in a romantic environment. He found his facts duly recorded in contemporary chronicles, and he had no temptation to be unfaithful to them, because the ordinary, humdrum incidents of everyday life in seventeenth century Transylvania outstrip the extravagances of the most unbridled imagination.

No greater praise can be awarded to the workmanship of Jókai than to say that, although written half a century ago (the first edition was published in 1853), Török Világ Magyarországon does not strike one as in the least old-fashioned or out of date. Romantic it is, no doubt, in treatment as well as in subject, but a really good romance never grows old, and Jókai’s unfailing humour is always—at least, in his masterpieces—a sufficient corrective of the excessive sensibility to which, like all the romanticists, he is, by temperament, sometimes liable.

Most of the characters which delighted us in ’Midst the Wild Carpathians accompany us through the sequel. The Prince, the Princess, the Minister, Béldi, Kucsuk, Feriz, Azrael, and even such minor personages as the triple renegade, Zülfikar, are all here, and remain true to their original presentment, except Azrael, who is the least convincing of them all. Of the new personages, the most original are the saponaceous Olaj Beg, whose unctuous suavity always conveys a menace, and the heroic figure of the famous Emeric Tököly, who, but for the saving sword of Sobieski, might have wrested the crown of St. Stephen from the House of Hapsburg.

I

The Golden Caftan

The S—— family was one of the richest in Wallachia, and consequently one of the most famous. The head of the family dictated to twelve boyars, collected hearth-money and tithes from four-and-fifty villages, lived nine months in the year at Stambul, held the Sultan’s bridle when he mounted his steed in time of war, contributed two thousand landsknechts to the host of the Pasha of Macedonia, and had permission to keep on his slippers when he entered the inner court of the Seraglio.

In the year 1600 and something, George was the name of the firstborn of the S—— family, but with him we shall not have very much concern. We shall do much better to follow the fortunes of the second born, Michael, whom his family had sent betimes to Bucharest to be brought up as a priest in the Seminary there. The youth had, however, a remarkably thick head, and, so far from making any great progress in the sciences, was becoming quite an ancient classman, when he suddenly married the daughter of a subdeacon, and buried himself in a little village in Wallachia. There he spent a good many years of his life with scarce sufficient stipend to clothe him decently, and had he not tilled his soil with his own hands, he would have been hard put to it to find maize-cakes enough to live upon.

In the first year of his marriage a little girl was born to him, and for her the worthy man and his wife spared and scraped so that, in case they were to die, she might have some little trifle. So they laid aside a few halfpence out of every shilling in order that when it rose to a good round sum they might purchase for their little girl—a cow.

A cow! That was their very ultimate desire. If only they could get a cow, who would be happier than they? Milk and butter would come to their table in abundance, and they would be able to give some away besides. Her calf they would rear and sell to the butcher for a good price, stipulating for a quarter of it against the Easter festival. Then, too, a cow would give so much pleasure to the whole family. In the morning they would be giving it drink, rubbing it down, leading it out into the field, and its little bell would be sounding all day in the pasture. In the evening it would come into the yard, keeping close to the wall, where the mulberry-tree stood, and poke its head through the kitchen door. It would have a star upon its forehead, and would let you scratch its head and stroke its neck, and would take the piece of maize-cake that little Mariska held out to it. She would be able to lead the cow everywhere. This was the Utopia of the family, its everyday desire, and Papa had already planted a mulberry-tree in the yard in order that Csákó, that was to be the cow’s name, might have something to rub his side against, and little Mariska every day broke off a piece of maize-cake and hid it under the windowsill. The little calf would have a fine time of it.

And lo and behold! when the halfpennies and farthings had mounted up to such a heap that they already began to think of going to the very next market to bring home the cow; when every day they could talk of nothing else, and kept wondering what the cow would be like, brindled, or brown, or white, or spotted; when they had already given it its name beforehand, and had prepared a leafy bed for it close to the house—it came to pass that a certain vagabond Turkish Sheikh shot dead the elder brother, who was living in Stambul, because he accidentally touched the edge of the holy man’s garment in the street. So the poor priest received one day a long letter from Adrianople, in which he was informed that he had succeeded his brother as head of the family, and, from that hour, was the happy possessor of an annual income of 70,000 ducats.

I wonder whether they wept for that cow, which they never brought home after all?

Mr. Michael immediately left his old dwelling, travelled with his family all the way to Bucharest in a carriage (it was the first time in his life he had ever enjoyed that dignity), went through the family archives, and entered into possession of his immense domain, of whose extent he had had no idea before.

The old family mansion was near Rumnik, whither Mr. Michael also repaired. The house was dilapidated and neglected, its former possessors having lived constantly abroad, only popping in occasionally to see how things were going on. Nevertheless, it was a palace to the new heir, who, after the experience of his narrow hovel, could hardly accommodate himself to the large, barrack-like rooms, and finally contented himself with one half of it, leaving the other wing quite empty, as he didn’t know what to do with it.

Having been accustomed throughout the prime of his life to deprivation and the hardest of hard work, that state of things had become such a second nature to him, that, when he became a millionaire, he had not much taste for anything better than maize-cakes, and it was high festival with him when puliszka1 was put upon the table.

On the death of his wife, he sent his daughter on foot to the neighbouring village to learn her alphabet from the cantor, and two heydukes accompanied her lest the dogs should worry her on the way. When his daughter grew up, he entrusted her with the housekeeping and the care of the kitchen. Very often some young and flighty boyar would pass through the place from the neighbouring village, and very much would he have liked to have taken the girl off with him, if only her father would give her away. And all this time Mr. Michael’s capital began to increase so outrageously that he himself began to be afraid of it. It had come to this, that he could not spend even a thousandth part of his annual income, and, puzzle his head as he might, he could not turn it over quickly enough. He had now whole herds of cows, he bought pigs by the thousand, but everything he touched turned to money, and the capital that he invested came back to him in the course of the year with compound interest. The worthy man was downright desperate when he thought upon his treasure-heaps multiplying beyond all his expectations. How to enjoy them he knew not, and yet he did not wish to pitch them away.

He would have liked to have played the grand seignior, if only thereby to get rid of some of his money, but the role did not suit him at all. If, for instance, he wanted to build a palace, there was so much calculating how, in what manner, and by whom it could be built most cheaply, that it scarce cost him anything at all, but then it never turned out a palace. Or if he wanted to give a feast, it was easy enough to select the handsomest of the boyars for his guests. Whatever was necessary for the feast—wine, meat, bread, honey, and sack-pipers—was supplied in such abundance from his own magazines and villages, that he absolutely despaired to think how it was that his ancestors had not only devoured their immense estates, but had even piled up debts upon them. To him this remained an insoluble problem, and after bothering his head for a long time as to what he should do with his eternally accumulating capital, he at last hit upon a good idea. The spacious garden surrounding his crazy castle had, by his especial command, been planted with all sorts of rare and pleasant plants—like basil, lavender, wild saffron, hops, and gourds—over whom a tenant had been promoted as gardener to look after them. One year the garden produced such gigantic gourds, that each one was as big as a pitcher. The astonished neighbours came in crowds to gaze at them, and the promoted ex-boyar swore a hundred times that such gourds as these the Turkish Sultan himself had not seen all his life long.

This gave Master Michael an idea. He made up his mind that he would send one of these gourds to the Sultan as a present. So he selected the finest and roundest of them, of a beautiful flesh-coloured rind, encircled by dark-green stripes, with a turban-shaped cap at the top of it, and, boring a little hole through it, drew out the pulp and filled it instead with good solid ducats of the finest stamp, and placing it on his best six-oxened wagon, he selected his wisest tenant, and, dinning well into his head where to go, what to say, and to whom to say it, sent him off with the great gourd to the Sublime Porte at Stambul.

It took the cart three weeks to get to Constantinople.

The good, worthy farmer, upon declaring that he brought gifts for the Grand Seignior, was readily admitted into the presence, and after kissing the hem of the Padishah’s robe, drew the bright cloth away from the presented pumpkin and deposited it in front of the Divan.

The Sultan flew into a violent rage at the sight of the gift.

“Dost thou take me for a swine, thou unbelieving dog, that thou bringest me a gourd?” cried he.

And straightway he commanded the Kiaja Beg to remove both the gourd and the man. The gourd he was to dash to pieces on the ground, the bringer of the gourd was to have dealt unto him a hundred stripes on the soles of his feet, but the sender of the gourd was to lose his head.

The Kiaja Beg did as he was commanded. He banged the gourd down in the courtyard outside, and behold! a stream of shining ducats gushed out of it instead of the pulp. Nevertheless, faithful above all things to his orders, he had the poor farmer flung down on his face, and gave him such a sound hundred stripes on the soles of his feet that he had no wish for any more.

Immediately afterwards he hastened to inform the Sultan that the gourd had been dashed to the ground, the hundred blows with the stick duly paid, the silken cord ready packed, but that the gourd was full of ducats.

At these words the countenance of the Grand Seignior grew serene once more, like the smiling summer sky, and after ordering that the silken cord should be put back in its place, he commanded that the most magnificent of caftans should be distributed both to the bastinadoed farmer and to the boyar who had sent the gift, and that they should both be assured of the gracious favour of the Padishah.

The former had sufficient sense when he arrived at Bucharest to sell the gay garment he had received to a huckster in the bazaar, but his master’s present he carefully brought home, and, after informing him of the unpleasant incident concerning himself, delivered to him his present, together with a gracious letter from the Sultan.

Master Michael was delighted with the return gift. He put on the long caftan, which reached to his heels, and was made of fine dark-red Tibetan stuff, embroidered with gold and silken flowers. Gold lace and galloon, as broad as your hand, were piled up on the sleeves, shoulder, and back, to such an extent that the original cloth was scarcely visible, and the hem of the caftan was most wondrously embroidered with splendid tulips, green, blue, and lilac roses, and all sorts of tinsel and precious stones.

Master Michael felt himself quite another man in this caftan. The Sultan had sent him a letter. The Sultan had plainly written to him that he was to wear this caftan. This, therefore, was a command, and it was possible that the Sultan might turn up tomorrow or the next day to see whether he was wearing this caftan, and would be angry if he hadn’t got it on. He must needs therefore wear it continually.

But this golden caftan did not go at all well with his coarse fur jacket, nor with his wooden sandals and lambskin cap. He was therefore obliged to send to Tergoviste for a tailor who should make him a silk dolman, vest, and embroidered stockings to match the golden caftan. He also sent to Kronstadt for a tasselled girdle, to Braila for shoes and morocco slippers, and to Tekas for an ermine kalpag with a heron’s plume in it.

Of course, now that he was so handsomely dressed, it was quite out of the question for him to sit in a ramshackle old carriage, or to bestride a fifty-thaler nag. He therefore ordered splendid chargers to be sent to him from Bessarabia, and had a gilded coach made for him in Transylvania; and when the carriage and the horses were there, he could not put them into the muddy wagon-shed and the sparrow-frequented, rush-thatched stable, but had to make good stone coach-houses and stables expressly for them. Now, it would have looked very singular, and, in fact, disgusting, if the stable and coach-house had been better than the castle, whose shingle roof was a mass of variegated patches and gaping holes where the mortar had fallen out and left the bricks bare; so there was nothing for it but to pull down the old castle, and to order his steward to build up a new one in its place, and make it as beautiful and splendid as his fancy could suggest.

Thus the whole order of the world he lived in was transformed by a golden caftan.

The steward embellished the castle with golden lattices, turrets, ornamental porches and winding staircases; put conservatories in the garden, planted projecting rondelles and soaring belvederes at the corners of the castle and a regular tower in the middle of it, and painted all the walls and ceilings inside with green forests and crooked-beaked birds.

Of course, he couldn’t put inside such a place as this the old rustic furniture and frippery, so he had to purchase the large, high, shining humpbacked armchairs, the gold-stamped leather sofas, and the lion-legged marble tables which were then at the height of fashion.

Of course, Turkey carpets had to be laid on the floor, and silver candelabra and beakers placed upon the magnificent tables; and in order that these same Turkey carpets might not be soiled by the muddy boots of farmyard hinds, a whole series of new servants had to be invented, such as footmen to stand behind the new carriage, cooks for the kitchen, and a special gardener for the conservatories, who, instead of looking after the honest, straightforward citron-trees and pumpkins, had gingerly to plant out cactuses and Egyptian thistles like dry stalks, in pots, whence, also, it came about that as there was now a regular gardener and a regular cook, pretty Mariska had no longer any occasion to concern herself either with garden or kitchen, nor did she go any more to the village rector to learn reading or writing, but they had to get her a French governess from whom she learnt good taste, elegant manners, embroidery, and harp-strumming.

And all these things were the work of the golden caftan!