Chapter 10 Chapter 1 Burscade and Matiff
The prelude to this story ends with its final events.Fifteen years have passed, and on May 24, 1882, the festival in the main city of Laguza came.
The province is located in a narrow tongue between the northern region of the Dinarik Mountains (Herzegovina) and the Adriatic Sea.It is densely populated, with about 400,000 to 500,000 residents.
The Dalmatian nation is an industrious and stubborn nation.In this barren land where even humus is rare, they lived a frugal life.They have been through the world and are proud of their frequent political turmoil.The 1815 Revolution made them vassals of Austria, but the Dalmatians have always held the Austrian rulers in contempt.They are honest and upright, and they have left a good impression in their interactions with other nationalities.People praised this place with a good saying collected by Mr. Iliad: "Do not close the door at night, and do not pick up lost things on the road."
The province of Dalmatia is divided into four regions, Sala, Sbalato, Kotor and Raguza.There are counties under the region.The Governor's Palace is located in the provincial capital Sala, where the Parliament also meets.Several MPs are members of the House of Lords in Vienna.
In the sixteenth century, the fleeing Serbs and Turks fought wars with Muslims, Christians, Sudan and the Republic of Venice, and the Adriatic Sea was shrouded in the horror of continuous war.But since the sixteenth century, the times have changed greatly, and now the refugees have long since disappeared, leaving only a small number of descendants in the province of Carniols.The Adriatic is now as safe as anywhere in the majestic and poetic Mediterranean.
The city of Raguza, or rather the small country of Raguza, was already a republic before Venice, that is, at the beginning of the ninth century.Until Napoleon I promulgated a decree in 1808, it was merged into the Kingdom of Yilili in the second year and became the dukedom.As early as the ninth century, the fleet of the Raguza city-state republic had sailed in all the seas of the Mediterranean Sea, monopolizing the trade with pagans.This monopoly position was provided by the Holy See, so Raguza was valued among the small republics of southern Europe.Not only that, Raguza is also famous for its splendid culture.Its reputation as a scholar, reputation as a writer, and style as an artist make it known as the Athens of Slovenia.
In order to meet the needs of maritime trade, it must have a deep-water port that can accommodate large-tonnage ships.But Raguza has no such harbor.There is only a small port, which can only be moored by small coasters and ordinary fishing boats, and there are hidden reefs that hinder shipping.
Fortunately, two kilometers north of Raguza City, the natural harbor of Gravosa in the depths of the Umbra Femla Bay can meet the various needs of large-scale shipping businesses.This is the best port on the Dalmatian coast, with a large water depth, which can berth for all kinds of ships and even warships.Here, docks and shipyards can be built everywhere, and large cruise ships can also berth.
On the boulevard connecting the city of Raguza and the port of Gravosa, there is a constant stream of citizens coming and going.The hatchback villas on the avenue are beautiful and pleasantly shaded.
One day in spring, it was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. During the period before dinner, the weather was exceptionally clear. The citizens of Raguza City, with a population of 16,000 to 7,000, flocked to the port of Gravosa in groups.
The town of Gravosa on the outskirts of Raguza - maybe people didn't call it a town at the time - is living its own show.There are games of all kinds, buskers' sheds, open-air music and dancing; there are also quack doctors, jugglers and virtuosos.The bragging and shouting they used to attract the audience, the singing of various instruments, singing, and human voices merged into one, echoed between the streets and alleys and the docks, making it very noisy.
It is a good opportunity for a foreigner to study the various characters of the Slavic peoples mixed with the Gypsies.Not only wandering entertainers came to celebrate the festival, and they used the curiosity of the spectators to earn a living, but also country people and mountain people were willing to participate in such public entertainment.
There are especially many women who celebrate the festival, including city wives, suburban peasant women and seaside fisherwomen.Some of them were dressed in the latest fashionable Western European fashion, others in exotic clothes; each county had its own characteristics, at least in the details of clothing.For example, some wear skirts and white shirts with embroidery on the chest; It looks like a Persian carpet; some have colorful knots on their braids, white bonnets and veils, hanging behind them like an oriental turban; some women's leggings and shoes are tied with straw ropes. tied.It's really all kinds of things.In order to embellish these strange attires, some people make bracelets, necklaces, or string up coins into various shapes, and wear them on arms and necks, and hang them on their chests or belts.Even country folk donned them, and they didn't dislike glittering embroidered lace.
But among the citizens of Raguza, among the richest attire of seamen in the port, the clothes of the brokers were especially conspicuous.These privileged professionals are dressed in the authentic oriental porter style: head wrapped in a turban, wearing a jacket, vest and loose Turkish trousers, with a belt and leather slippers.Their clothes are unique, even if they go to Galata Marina or Topuane Square, they will not be inferior.
The festive atmosphere in the town is strong, and there is joy everywhere.On the square, the booths on the pier were crowded with spectators.An "ancillary program" of launching a ship attracted a large crowd of spectators.This is a unique coastal ship in the Adriatic Sea. It has two masts, two sails with beams, and ropes tied up and down.
At six o'clock in the afternoon the ship was about to launch.The hull has been separated from the support, and it can slide into the sea only after the mast bolt is pulled out.
Until this time, buskers, folk musicians, and jugglers are still performing their unique skills, showing their talents and doing their best to please the audience.The musicians attract the greatest audience, and the pianists are the most successful.With the accompaniment of peculiar instruments, the musicians sang their hometown tunes with vigorous voices, which is really worth listening to.
A tall, yellow-skinned, brown-haired singer, holding his instrument between his knees, like a long, thin cello, sang a short lyric song vividly, the following is a line-by-line translation Lyrics that come out:
Ripple, the song of the gypsy girl,
Please look carefully,
Treasure her beauty.
If you stay away from her,
Glittering, from under her long eyelashes,
Those fiery eyes,
sweet song
Charming girl.
Ripple, the song of the gypsy girl,
Please look carefully,
Treasure her beauty.
After the first verse is sung, the singer holds up the wooden bowl and begs the audience for a few copper coins.But the income is quite meager, so he went back to his original position and tried to pull the audience's heartstrings with the second paragraph.
If the gypsy girl sings,
Her dark eyes gaze at you,
Thy heart loses its mind at once,
Intoxicated, let her hold on to it.
Ripple, the song of the gypsy girl,
Please look carefully,
Treasure her beauty.
A man of about fifty to fifty-five years of age listened peacefully to the gypsies singing; he was so indifferent to such a seductive song that he never opened his purse.Really, no gypsy girl sings "Look at you with black eyes," it's just tall men who sing.He didn't unpack.He was about to leave the square when a girl beside him stopped him and said:
"Father, I don't have any money with me. This is a good man, please give him some money!"
So the singer got four or five.Without the girl's pity, he might not have it.The girl's father was a rich man, not because he was too stingy to give alms to the buskers, but because he had no compassion for these people.
Then, the father and daughter walked through the crowd towards other noisy art booths.The luthiers went their separate ways, "spending" their earnings at nearby restaurants.They were going to finish off bottles of Srivofeja, a spirit distilled from plum juice, which the gypsies drank in just a few sips, like ordinary sherbet.
Not all of the singers and buskers who braved the wind to perform here were well received, however.The most neglected were the two jugglers, who spared no effort to perform on the stage, but no one patronized.
Above the front of the stage hung some rather worn-out canvases, on which lions, jackals, hyenas, tigers, pythons and other beasts of prey were painted with water gel paint.Bright colors, strange shapes, very imaginative.Some of them are jumping, some are galloping; the scenery is not so realistic.
Behind the canvas is a small garden platform, surrounded by worn canvas on three sides, full of holes, and those who don't know what to do can look inside at will.
In front of the terrace was a wooden board, hung on a crooked stake as a signboard, on which was written in black charcoal:
french acrobat
Burscard and Matiff
Both physically and mentally, the two men were very different.It's just that they are both natives of Provence, and their fellow countrymen brought them together to travel around the world for their living.
Were they ever quite famous in faraway France?Where did their strange names come from?Is it from Cape Matif and Cape Boscade, on either side of the Gulf of Algiers?These people don't care about it.But the two names fit them as well as Mount Atlas did for a wrestling giant.
Cape Matif is at the northeastern end of the vast Gulf of Algiers.Despite the blowing of the wind and waves, it stands proudly, as if it is challenging the huge waves.
However, this is also the image of Matif the Hercules, Alcide and Porthos, the rival of the famous fighters Ondrail and Nicolas Krest in the arenas of southern France.
Said that he is a strong man, "seeing is better than hearing a hundred times", people say so.
He is about six feet tall, with broad shoulders and hunched back. He has a huge head, a chest like a blast furnace, his legs are as thick as a twelve-year-old tree trunk, his arms are like connecting rods on a machine, and his hands are like a pair of large scissors. , physically strong, vigorous.If people ask his age, people will be surprised, he just turned twenty-two years old.
This man was of low intelligence, kind-hearted, docile, never lost his temper, and never hurt anyone.He hardly dared to shake hands with others, for fear of breaking their hands.He is burly and powerful like a tiger, but he has no tiger spirit in his heart.As if deliberately arranged by the creator, he was like a son in front of his short companion, obedient and obedient.
Cape Boscade on the west side of the Gulf of Algiers is in stark contrast to Cape Matif across the bay.Cape Boscade is a slender rock that juts out to sea.Boscade, a bony little fellow of twenty, was named for the Cape.Weighed in catties, his weight is less than a quarter of that of his companions in kilograms.But he is very shrewd, dexterous, quick-witted, shares joys and sorrows with his partners, and does not play his temper; he has a philosophy of life, and has the ability to create and put it into practice.The two partners are really like a resourceful, decisive, and harmless monkey who has formed an inseparable friendship with a benevolent elephant. Under the leadership of the monkey, they wander around and live a career as a performer.
Both of them took juggling as a profession and went to the fair to perform.Matif or Cape Matif, as he was often called, performed all kinds of wrestling on the stage, bending iron bars on the ulna, lifting the heaviest spectators with outstretched arms, and lifting partners on the ground. Juggling with your hands is as effortless as playing billiards.Boscade, or Boscade's Corner--as he was often called--runs up and down the stage, entertaining and entertaining the audience with his clown moves and endless witticisms; Card tricks often amaze spectators.Whether playing his cards up or down, he outmaneuvered the most ingenious spectators and put even the most ingenious magicians to shame.If the audience got tired of the show, he would perform handstands, walk a tightrope, and ask for a few tricks to impress the audience.Even Boscard himself often said: "I am the 'winner' of cards."
But "Why, tell me, why?" was Boscade's catchphrase.Why did the spectators on Gravosa's pier go to other art booths on this day, leaving these two poor men in the cold?Why is the meager income they so desperately need appearing to be in vain?why?Matiff could not answer, and it was indeed difficult to answer.
Their language, a mixture of Provençal and Italian, was pleasant enough to be intelligible to a Dalmatian audience.They live in this world but never know who their parents are.Since leaving their hometown in Provence, they have wandered around without relatives.They lived in the wind and rain, endured hunger and hunger, went to the market and went to the market to make a living by performing arts.But after all, they overcame the difficulties and survived anyway.It's not bad if you can't have lunch every day, as long as you can guarantee dinner; as Burscade used to say: "Don't ask for what can't be done!"
But this day, this upright young man was not demanding, he just wanted to attract dozens of spectators to their stage, hoping that they would patronize this dilapidated stage.Unexpectedly, his foreign-toned, laugh-out-loud touts, those rambling, incoherent words that would have made a fortune from a short comedian, failed to tug at the heartstrings of the spectators today.His grimace, which would have made the stone icons in the niches of the church smile, and his wriggling movements, which may be called geniuses, failed to win the hearts of the audience.His thatched wig, suspended from salsify grass, which swung like a tail over his tight red jacket, failed to make the audience laugh either.Even if he performed the famous hunched clown Polisinello in the Roman drama or Stendhallo in the Florentine comedy, today he has lost the charm of attracting audiences.
However, it has not been a day for the two of them to deal with the Slavic audience, and it has been a month or so.
After leaving Provence, the two crossed the mountains and crossed the Alpe-Maritimes to Milan, Lombardy and Veneto in Italy, doing entertainment along the way.Matif and Boscard were famous for their strength and cleverness respectively, and their fame spread far and wide, reaching the city of Trieste in Irily.They then set off from this city, along the Istrian peninsula, down the Dalmatian coast, and arrived in Sara, Salon and Raguza successively.They find it more advantageous to go straight ahead than back.Go back, the tricks have been exhausted, go forward, there are always new programs, and the income will always be more.
But they themselves know very well that such a career as a performer will not only fail to thrive, but will even go from bad to worse.So both poor men wanted to go back to Provence and never wander so far from their native land!But I don't know how to realize this wish.Poverty, hunger, and wandering around are like dragging a heavy iron ball on your feet. It is not easy to travel hundreds of kilometers to return home!
The future is disastrous, and the most urgent thing is that dinner has not been settled yet!Not a penny in the purse.The so-called money bag is just the corner of the tie that Boscade often uses to hold money.
Boscade tried all his tricks on the stage, calling desperately into the air, but it was still in vain!In vain did Matif work his biceps, his veins jutting out like ivy's branches around a gnarled trunk!No audience came into the booth, and they didn't even have the intention to stop.
"Iron rooster--a dick, these Dalmatians!" said Boscade.
"Heart of stone!" Matiff added.
"It seems that today is not a good day, we should be unlucky! Matiff, let's pack our bags!"
"Where are you going?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"You'd better talk about it."
"Well, there is a place where you can almost guarantee one meal a day, what do you think?"
"Where is this place, Boscade?"
"Hey! It's far, far, far... so far, Matiff!"
"At the ends of the earth?"
"The earth has no end," replied Boscard in a rhetorical tone. "If the earth had an end, it wouldn't be round, and it wouldn't spin! If it didn't spin, it'd be at rest, and if it's at rest..."
"So what if it's still?" Matiff asked.
"Still, it will say time late, then fast, hit the sun, and it will take less time to put the rabbit away when I am juggling."
"At that time?"
"Then, like a clumsy juggler, you throw two balls in the air, hit them together, click! smash them up, and they fall. The audience whistles, booes, and asks for their money back .Then tonight, he won't have dinner!"
"So," Matiff asked, "we won't have dinner if the earth hits the sun?"
As a result, Matiff fell into boundless contemplation.He sat in a corner of the stage with his arms folded against his sweat vest, moving his head like a Chinese porcelain man, saying nothing, seeing nothing, and hearing nothing.In his fat head, there are many associations and confusion, and everything is mixed into a fuzzy ball, which is completely incomprehensible.He suddenly felt a void in his heart, like a bottomless abyss, and he was climbing, climbing, climbing no higher, and the words that Boscade had just used to express distant things deeply impressed him. in his head.Then someone let go of his hand suddenly, and he fell...into his stomach, into the air!It was like a nightmare.The poor hungry man stood up from the little stool, stretched out his hands, and felt dizzy as if he had fallen off the stage.
"Oh! what's the matter with you, Matiff?" cried Boscade, taking his companion by the hand, and dragging him back to his original place with great difficulty.
"I... I... I have..."
"What... tell me!"
"I have..." Matiff said, gradually recovering his thoughts. "I have something to tell you! Boscade!" He, a person who doesn't like to use his brain, really struggled to use his brain.
"Speak, my friend, and don't be overheard! The audience is gone!"
Matiff sat on a small stool, pulling his diminutive companion gently to his side with a strong arm, as if afraid to crush him.
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