The Slaves of the Padishah
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.
