"Yes," said my uncle, "he could. And I have sung to his fiddling when the _tatto-pani_ [hot water, _i.e._, spirits] boiled within us, and made us gay, oh, my golden sister! That"s the way we Hungarian gypsy gentlemen always call the ladies of our people. I sang in Romany."
"I"d like to hear you sing now," remarked a dark, handsome young man, who had just made a mysterious appearance out of the surrounding shadows.
"It"s a _kamaben gilli_" (a love-song), said the _rye_; "and it is beautiful, deep old Romanes,--enough to make you cry."
There was the long sound of a violin, clear as the note of a horn. I had not observed that the dark young man had found one to his hand, and, as he accompanied, my uncle sang; and I give the lyric as he afterwards gave it to me, both in Romany and English. As he frankly admitted, it was his own composition.
KE TEINALI.
Tu shan miri pireni Me kamava tute, Kamlidiri, rinkeni, Kames mande buti?
Sa o miro kushto gry Taders miri wardi,-- Sa o boro buno rye Rikkers lesto stardi.
Sa o bokro dre o char Hawala adovo,-- Sa i choramengeri Lels o ryas luvoo,--
Sa o sasto levinor Kairs amandy matto,-- Sa o yag adre o tan Kairs o geero tatto,--
Sa i puri Romni chai Pens o kushto dukkrin,-- Sa i Gorgi dinneli, Patsers lakis pukkrin,--
Tute taders tiro rom, Sims o gry, o wardi, Tute ch.o.r.es o zi adrom Rikkers sa i stardi.
Tute haws te ch.o.r.es m"ri all, Tutes dukkered buti Tu shan miro jivaben Me t"vel paller tute.
Paller tute sarasa Pardel puv te pani, Trinali--o krallisa!
Miri chovihani!
TO TRINALI.
Now thou art my darling girl, And I love thee dearly; Oh, beloved and my fair, Lov"st thou me sincerely?
As my good old trusty horse Draws his load or bears it; As a gallant cavalier c.o.c.ks his hat and wears it;
As a sheep devours the gra.s.s When the day is sunny; As a thief who has the chance Takes away our money;
As strong ale when taken down Makes the strongest tipsy; As a fire within a tent Warms a shivering gypsy;
As a gypsy grandmother Tells a fortune neatly; As the Gentile trusts in her, And is done completely,--
So you draw me here and there, Where you like you take me; Or you sport me like a hat,-- What you will you make me.
So you steal and gnaw my heart For to that I"m fated!
And by you, my gypsy Kate, I"m intoxicated.
And I own you are a witch, I am beaten hollow; Where thou goest in this world I am bound to follow,--
Follow thee, where"er it be, Over land and water, Trinali, my gypsy queen!
Witch and witch"s daughter!
"Well, that _is_ deep Romanes," said the woman, admiringly. "It"s beautiful."
"_I_ should think it was," remarked the violinist. "Why, I didn"t understand more than one half of it. But what I caught I understood."
Which, I reflected, as he uttered it, is perhaps exactly the case with far more than half the readers of all poetry. They run on in a semi-sensuous mental condition, soothed by cadence and lulled by rhyme, reading as they run for want of thought. Are there not poets of the present day who mean that you shall read them thus, and who cast their gold ornaments hollow, as jewelers do, lest they should be too heavy?
"My children," said Meister Karl, "I could go on all day with Romany songs; and I can count up to a hundred in the black language. I know three words for a mouse, three for a monkey, and three for the shadow which falleth at noonday. And I know how to _pen dukkerin_, _lel dudikabin te chiv o manzin apre latti_." {270}
"Well, the man who knows _that_ is up to _drab_ [medicine], and hasn"t much more to learn," said the young man. "When a _rye"s_ a Rom he"s anywhere at home."
"So _kushto bak_!" (Good luck!) I said, rising to go. "We will come again!"
"Yes, we will come again," said Meister Karl. "Look for me with the roses at the races, and tell me the horse to bet on. You"ll find my _patteran_ [a mark or sign to show which way a gypsy has traveled] at the next church-door, or may be on the public-house step. Child of the old Egyptians, mother of all the witches, sister of the stars, daughter of darkness, farewell!"
This bewildering speech was received with admiring awe, and we departed.
I should have liked to hear the comments on us which pa.s.sed that evening among the gypsy denizens of Mammy Sauerkraut"s Row.
V. A GYPSY LETTER.
All the gypsies in the country are not upon the roads. Many of them live in houses, and that very respectably, nay, even aristocratically. Yea, and it may be, O reader, that thou hast met them and knowest them not, any more than thou knowest many other deep secrets of the hearts and lives of those who live around thee. Dark are the ways of the Romany, strange his paths, even when reclaimed from the tent and the van. It is, however, intelligible enough that the Rom converted to the true faith of broadcloth garments by Poole, or dresses by Worth, as well as to the holy gospel of daily baths and _savon au violet_, should say as little as possible of his origin. For the majority of the world being sn.o.bs, they continually insist that all blood unlike their own is base, and the child of the _kalorat_, knowing this, sayeth naught, and ever carefully keeps the lid of silence on the pot of his birth. And as no being that ever was, is, or will be ever enjoyed holding a secret, playing a part, or otherwise entering into the deepest mystery of life--which is to make a joke of it--so thoroughly as a gypsy, it follows that the being respectable has to him a raciness and drollery and pungency and point which pa.s.seth faith. It has often occurred to me, and the older I grow the more I find it true, that the _real_ pleasure which bank presidents, moral politicians, not a few clergymen, and most other highly representative good men take in having a high character is the exquisite secret consciousness of its being utterly undeserved. They love acting.
Let no man say that the love of the drama is founded on the artificial or sham. I have heard the Reverend Histriomastix war and batter this on the pulpit; but the utterance _per se_ was an actual, living lie. He was acting while he preached. Love or hunger is not more an innate pa.s.sion than acting. The child in the nursery, the savage by the Nyanza or in Alaska, the mult.i.tude of great cities, all love to bemask and seem what they are not. Crush out carnivals and masked b.a.l.l.s and theatres, and lo, you! the disguising and acting and masking show themselves in the whole community. Mawworm and Aminidab Sleek then play a role in every household, and every child becomes a wretched little Roscius. Verily I say unto you, the fewer actors the more acting; the fewer theatres the more stages, and the worse. Lay it to heart, study it deeply, you who believe that the stage is an open door to h.e.l.l, for the chances are ninety and nine to one that if this be true _you_ will end by consciously or unconsciously keeping a private little gate thereunto. Beloved, put this in thy pipe and fumigate it, that acting in some form is a human instinct which cannot be extinguished, which never has been and never will be; and this being so, is it not better, with Dr. Bellows, to try to put it into proper form than to crush it? Truly it has been proved that with this, as with a certain other unquenchable penchant of humanity, when you suppress a score of professionals you create a thousand zealous amateurs. There was never in this world a stage on which mere acting was more skillfully carried out than in all England under Cromwell, or in Philadelphia under the Quakers. Eccentric dresses, artificial forms of language, separate and "peculiar" expressions of character unlike those of "the world," were all only giving a form to that craving for being odd and queer which forms the soul of masking and acting. Of course people who act all the time object to the stage. _Le diable ne veut pas de miroir_.
The gypsy of society not always, but yet frequently, retains a keen interest in his wild ancestry. He keeps up the language; it is a delightful secret; he loves now and then to take a look at "the old thing." Closely allied to the converted sinners are the _aficionados_, or the ladies and gentlemen born with unconquerable Bohemian tastes, which may be accounted for by their having been themselves gypsies in preexistent lives. No one can explain how or why it is that the _aficion_ comes upon them. It is _in_ them. I know a very learned man in England, a gentleman of high position, one whose name is familiar to my readers. He could never explain or understand why from early childhood he had felt himself drawn towards the wanderers. When he was only ten years old he saved up all his little store of pence wherewith to pay a tinker to give him lessons in Romany, in which tongue he is now a Past Grand. I know ladies in England and in America, both of the blood and otherwise, who would give up a ball of the highest flight in society, to sit an hour in a gypsy tent, and on whom a whispered word of Romany acts like wild-fire. Great as my experience has been I can really no more explain the intensity of this yearning, this _rapport_, than I can fly. My own fancy for gypsydom is faint and feeble compared to what I have found in many others. It is in them like the love for opium, for music, for love itself, or for acting. I confess that there is to me a nameless charm in the strangely, softly flowing language, which gives a sweeter sound to every foreign word which it adopts, just as the melody of a forest stream is said to make more musical the songs of the birds who dwell beside it. Thus Wentzel becomes Wenselo and Anselo; Arthur, Artaros; London, Lundra; Sylvester, Westaros. Such a phrase as "_Dordi_!
_dovelo adoi_?" (See! what is that there?) could not be surpa.s.sed for mere beauty of sound.
It is apropos of living double lives, and playing parts, and the charm of stealing away unseen, like naughty children, to romp with the tabooed offspring of outlawed neighbors, that I write this, to introduce a letter from a lady, who has kindly permitted me to publish it. It tells its own story of two existences, two souls in one. I give it as it was written, first in Romany, and then in English:--
_Febmunti_ 1_st_.
MIRO KAMLO PAL,--Tu tevel mishto ta shun te latcherdum me akovo kurikus tacho Romany tan akai adre o gav. Buti kamaben lis sas ta dikk mori foki apopli; buti kushti ta shun moro jib. Mi-duvel atch apa mande, si ne shomas pash naflo o Gorginess, vonk" akovo vias. O waver divvus sa me viom fon a swell saleskro haben, dikdom me dui Romani chia beshin alay apre a longo skamin adre --- Square. Kalor yakkor, kalor balyor, lullo diklas apre i sherria, te lender trushnia aglal lender piria. Mi-duvel, shomas pash divio sar kamaben ta dikav lender! Avo! kairdum o wardomengro hatch i graia te sheldom avri, "_Come here_!" Yon penden te me sos a rani ta dukker te vian sig adosta. Awer me saldom te pendom adre Romanis: "Sarishan miri dearis! Tute don"t jin mandy"s a Romany!" Yon nastis patser lende kania nera yakkor. "Mi-duvel! Sa se tiro nav? putchde yeck. "Miro nav se Britannia Lee." Kenna-sig yon diktas te me sos tachi, te penden amengi lender navia shanas M. te D. Lis sos duro pa lende ta jin sa a Romani rani astis jiv amen Gorgios, te dikk sa Gorgious, awer te vel kushti Romani aja, te tevel buoino lakis kaloratt. Buti rakkerdem apre mori foki, buti nevvi, buti savo sos rumado, te beeno, te puredo, savo sos vino fon o puro tem, te butik.u.mi aja kekkeno sos rakkerben sa gudli. M. pende amengi, "Mandy don"t jin how tute can jiv among dem Gorgies." Pukerdom anpali: "Mandy dont jiv, mandy mers kairin amen lender." Yon mangades mande ta well ta dikk a len, adre lendes ker apre o chumba kai atchena pa o wen. Pende M., "Av miri pen ta ha a bitti sar mendi. Tute jins the chais are only kerri aratti te Kurrkus."
Sunday sala miri pen te me ghion adoi te latchedon o ker. O tan sos bitto, awer sa i Romanis pende, dikde boro adosta paller jivin adre o wardo. M. sos adoi te lakis roms dye, a kushti puri chai. A. sar shtor chavia. M. kerde haben sa mendui viom adoi. I puri dye sos mishto ta dikk mande, yoi kamde ta jin sar trustal mande. Rakkerdem buti aja, te yoi pende te yoi ne kekker latchde a Romani rani denna mande. Pendom me ke laki shan adre society k.u.mi Romani rania, awer i galderli Gorgios ne jinena lis.
Yoi pende sa miri pen dikde simlo Lusha Cooper, te siggerde lakis kaloratt butider denna me. "Tute don"t favor the Coopers, miri dearie! Tute pens tiri dye rummerd a mush navvered Smith. Was adovo the Smith as lelled kellin te kurin booths pasher Lundra Bridge? Sos tute beeno adre Anglaterra?" Pukkerdom me ke puri dye sar jinav me trustal miri kokeri te simensi. Tu jinsa shan kek Gorgies sa longi-bavoli apre genealogies, sa i puri Romani dyia. Vonka foki nastis chin lende adre lilia, rikkerena lende aduro adre lendros sherria. _Que la main droit perd recueille la gauche_.
"Does tute jin any of the ---"s?" pende M. "Tute dikks sim ta ---"s juva." "Ne kekker, yois too pauno," pens A. "It"s chomani adre the look of her," pende M.
Dikkpali miro pal. Tu jinsa te --- sos i chi savo dudikabinde ma.n.u.sh, navdo --- buti wongur. Vanka yoi sos lino apre, o Beshomengro pende ta ker laki chiv apre a shuba sims Gorgios te adenne lelled laki adre a tan sar desh te dui gorgi chaia. --- astissa pen i chai savo chorde lestis lovvo. Vanka yoi vias adre o tan, yoi ghias sig keti laki, te pende: "Jinava me laki talla lakis longi vangusti, te rinkeni mui. Yoi sos stardi dui beshya, awer o Gorgio kekker las leski vongur pali."
Savo-chirus mendi rakkerden o wuder pirido, te trin ma.n.u.shia vian adre. . . . Pali lenders sarishans, M. shelde avri: "Av ta misali, rikker yer skammins longo tute! Mrs. Lee, why didn"t tute bring yer rom?" "Adenna me shom kek rumadi." "Mi-duvel, Britannia!" pende --- "M. pende amengy te tu sos rumado." "M. didn"t dukker tacho vonka yoi dukkerd adovo. Yois a dinneli," pendom me. Te adenne sar mendi saden atut M. Haben sos kushto, loim a kani, ballovas te puvengros, te kushto curro levina. Liom mendi kushto paia.s.s dre moro puro Romany dromus. Rinkenodiro sos, kerde mande pash ta ruv, shomas sa kushto-bakno ta atch yecker apopli men mori foki. Sos "Britannia!"
akai, te "Britannia!" doi, te sar sa adre o puro cheirus, vonka chavi shomas. Ne patserava me ta Dante chinde:--
"Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi dei tempi felici."
Talla me shomas kushto-bakno ta pen apre o puro chirus. Sar lende piden miro kamaben Romaneskaes, sar gudlo; talla H. Yov pende nastis ker lis, pa yuv kenna lias tabuti. Kushto dikin Romnichal yuv. Tu tevel jin lesti sarakai pa Romani, yuv se sa kalo. Te _avec l"air indefinnissable du vrai Bohemien_. Yuv patserde me ta piav miro sastopen wavescro chirus. Kana shomas pa misali, geero vias keti ian; dukkeriben kamde yov. Hunali sos i puri dye te pendes amergi, "Beng lel o puro jukel for wellin vanka mendi shom hain, te kenna tu shan akai, miri Britannia Yov ne tevel lel kek kushto bak. Mandy"ll pen leste a wafedo dukkerin." Adoi A. putcherde mengy, "Does tute dukker or sa does tute ker." "Miri pen, mandy"ll pen tute tacho.
Mandy dukkers te dudikabins te kers buti covvas. Shom a tachi Romani chovihani." "Tacho! tacho!" saden butider. Miri pen te me rikkerdem a boro matto-morricley pa i chavis. Yon beshden alay apre o purj, hais lis. Rinkeno _picture_ sas, pendom dikkav mande te miri penia te pralia kenna shomas bitti. Latcherdom me a tani kali chavi of panj besh chorin levina avri miro curro. Dikde, sar lakis bori kali yakka te kali balia simno tikno Bacchante, sa yoi prasterde adrom.
Pendom parako pa moro kushto-bakeno chirus--"kushto bak" te "kushto divvus." Mendi diom moro tachopen ta well apopli, te kan viom kerri.