OLD SERBIA
257
known. Some of the repetition on which Stephen insisted
added to the power and the glory of Serbia, for what he imitated
was his father's strength. He followed him in church-building ;
Dechani, the great monastery at Fetch we Were going to visit
after we had seen Kossovo and the Trepcha mines, was his
foundation. He followed him in military triumph ; there was
a new Bulgarian Tsar, Michael, who found the Byzantine
Empire quite ready to combine with him against Serbia, in spite
of the marital alliance made through Marya Palaeologos, and
this invasion Stephen brilliantly defeated in a decisive battle at
Kustendil, which was then known as Velbuzhd. But the weak-
ness that made him an imitator made his imitations of strength
of no avail.
Milutin had raged against his son, blinded and exiled him,
pardoned him and kept him impotent after the reconciliation,
because he was the stronger of the two. Even had Stephen
had the power to revolt against him, his political wisdom had
created a people so contented that they would never have con-
sidered supporting the son against the father. Milutin’s genius
guaranteed him the right to sit in his throne till natural death
removed him. But when Stephen raged against his son he
invited a different destiny, for his son was a greater man than
himself or Milutin, and against this menacing and prodigious
heir he had built no bulwark of a people's loyalty He had
indeed greatly alarmed and irritated the nobles by failing to
consolidate his victory over Bulgaria by statesmanlike action
and leaving it a resentful and armed autonomous state. His
son set himself at the head of the malcontents, conquered his
father, and imprisoned him in a castle to the north of Kossovo.
Then he had himself crowned king by the great scholar and
statesman. Archbishop Daniel. It was necessary that this
should be done soon, while his hands were still clean, since
Daniel was incorruptible ; for two months later, with his conniv-
ance if not by his actual orders, Stephen was strangled in
prison
Thus dreadfully was it announced that this family of amaz-
ing genius, which had now been reinforced with Byzantine and
French and Bulgarian and Asiatic blood of proven worth, had
reached its moment of divine positiveness. The seed that had
travelled from loin to loin of the Nemanyas, driving them from
the Adriatic swamp of their beginnings to glory and torture and
2s8 black lamb and grey falcon
art and crime and civilisation, had at last found its proper
instrument. This son of Stephen was also called Stephen. To
distinguish them the father is called Stephen Dechanski, from
the great monastery he founded, and the son is called Stephen
Dushan. There is a dispute about the meaning of the word
Dushan. It might be a term of endearment,* a diminutive of
dusha, the soul ; but some have tried to derive it from the verb
dushiti, to strangle, and seen in it a reference to his father's fate.
But plainly the first is the proper root. He was probably
called that in childhood, for his sister was called Dushitza ;
and Slavs would not find it incongruous to give a national hero
such a tender name. It is, on the other hand, unlikely that they
should go about calling him ‘‘ the strangler ", for if he had
been that once he could be it again. It is as improbable that
Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers should have gone about speaking
of her not as Gloriana but by some name alluding to the axe that
put an end to Norfolk and Essex and Mary. The analogy
must suggest itself, for, even as Milutin was Serbia’s Henry
VIII, so Stephen Dushan was its Elizabeth.
Stephen Dechanski came between him and his grandfather
Milutin, as Edward and Mary came between Henry VIII
and Elizabeth : fragile creatures not insulated from the
lightning that played round their families and wilted by it, not
inspired. But Stephen Dushan could grasp any thunderbolt,
perhaps because, like Elizabeth, he needed all arms, being
wholly surrounded by enemies and in mortal fear. In a few
years he made himself the most powerful monarch in the four-
teenth century, and if he had not he would have become a vassal.
On his east was Bulgaria, which his father had left only half
pacified ; on his west was Catholic Bosnia, always plotting with
the Papacy to attack Orthodox Serbia ; on his north was
Hungary, as always suicidally eager to attack its neighbours
when they were attacked by Asiatic invaders ; on his south
was the Byzantine Empire, which was ready to fight him but
quite unable to fight the Turks as they swept on towards
Europe. To confront all these enemies he must be more than
a king, he must be an emperor, and unconquered at that. It
was so with Elizabeth. If she were not to be Gloriana of a
supreme England her head must be on the block and her
country the wash-pot of France or Spain.
Stephen Dushan dealt first of all with Bulgaria ; he threat-
OLD SERBIA
259
ened it with arms and then married the Tsar’s sister Helen. It
is typical of this perplexing age that this woman, who must
have been handed over to her husband like so much merchandise,
who had every reason to be timid and cultivate no art but the
smile that melts the jailer, became a figure of commanding
ability. She was her husband’s constant companion and ad-
viser, and impressed foreign diplomats by her sense and courage
both before and after his death. Next he led a campaign
against Byzantium, conquering a large part of Macedonia and
besieging Salonica. That he could not follow up to its full con-
clusion, for he was stabbed in the back by the King of Hungary
and had to hurry northward to repel an invasion. But his suc-
cesses had already been sufficient to enable him to impose a
treaty on the Byzantines which was likely to make them respect
him in future. In the north he defeated the King of Hungary
and seized a considerable slice of his territory. Later he drove
the House of Anjou out of its possessions in Greece and Albania,
which improved his strategical position in relation to Byzantium.
All these were affairs of arms ; but he worked by diplomacy
also. He stretched across his troublesome Catholic neighbours
in Bosnia and shook hands with the Republic of Venice, which
was inclined to regard him with sympathy, since it was at war
with his own enemy, Hungary, over Dalmatia. It is needless
to say that he found Venice, as always, selfish and short-sighted
and anti-Slav, and to protect his interests he had to practise the
cunctatory, teasing guile that we take as characteristic of Queen
Elizabeth. Sometimes we recognise in him, as well, her secret,
mystifying grin by which she so often infuriated foreign diplo-
mats. Once he wrote to Venice begging to be allowed shelter
there if his country should be overrun with enemies. This has
been regarded by some historians, who have not taken the pre-
caution of examining its date, as evidence of the insecurity of
his reign. But it was written nine years after his accession to the
throne, when he had just defeated the Angevins and had every
reason to feel pleased with himself. “ What a business it is to
treat with a woman,” complained one of Elizabeth’s Spanish
ambassadors, ** who must have a hundred thousand devils in
her body, notwithstanding that she is for ever telling me that
she yearns to be a nun and to pass her time praying.”
That tale Stephen Dushan also could tell. He had a pro-
longed correspondence with the Popes Clement VI and Innocent
26 o black lamb and GREY FALCON
VI which he must have carried on in a spirit of pure cynicism,
for the Papacy had been at Avignon for thirty years or so and
was now simply an instrument of French foreign policy, and
far too heavily involved with Hungarian interests to be able to
promise much to Serbia. But he affected to be anxious for
conversion, though when the Pope dispatched precise instruc-
tions as to how this might be arranged he was apt to assume a
glassy blankness, as if he had hardly understood what all these
letters were about. In fact he was a devoted member of the
Orthodox Church, though his relations with it were curious. It
did not forgive him then or afterwards for the murder of his
father. Though the Nemanyan kings were described by the
astonishing term born in sainthood because they were de-
scended from St. Simeon, and both Milutin and Stephen
Dechanski were revered as saints, there was no nonsense about
canonising Stephen Dushan. But like his father and grand-
father he took no important step without consulting the great
Archbishop Daniel ; and as time went on he became actively
interested in the organisation of the Church, for legal and
political reasons.
The path of his ambitions lay southwards. He meant to
win one of the multiple crowns of Byzantium ; the Empire was
distraught by civil war and he knew he could seize it and rule
it. That alone would have prevented his adherence to the
Roman Catholic Church, for it was not thinkable that Byzantium
could be ruled by anyone not Orthodox. But there was also a
technical problem to be solved. Only a patriarch could crown
an emperor and it was quite obvious that the Oecumenical
Patriarch, who was a fierce partisan of the existing imperial
families, would never consent to crown a Serb conqueror. So
Stephen Dushan convoked a Great Council of Serb and Bul-
garian ecclesiastics at Skoplje and induced them to raise the
Serbian Archbishopric of Petch to a Patriarchate. Less than a
month later the newly appointed Patriarch crowned Stephen
Dushan Emperor and Autocrat of the Serbs and the Byzantines,
the Bulgarians and Albanians, his wife an empress, and their son
a king. This amounted to the schismatic foundation of a new
nationalist Church, but the situation was treated with great
calm, so different are the tempers of the Roman Catholic and
the Orthodox faiths. Ultimately the Oecumenical Patriarch
anathematised the Emperor, the new Patriarch, the whole
OLD SERBIA
261
Serbian Church and the whole Serbian nation, but not for nearly
seven years, and then for reasons that were largely political.
Meanwhile Stephen Dushan behaved handsomely to such
remnants of the purely Byzantine Church as were incorporated
in his expanding territories, not only confirming but increasing
the privileges of the see of Ochrid. He was an extremely
tolerant ruler, and it was definitely his policy to let conquered
territories inhabited by non- Serbian populations retain all their
accustomed forms of government.
This theory broke down, however, when he took Thessaly
from the Empire. There he found that the Byzantine clergy
were urging their congregations to revolt, and he had to supplant
them by Serbians. This was undoubtedly an interference with
the soul of a people, but it can at least be argued that he was
constrained by neaissity. When Mussolini prevents the Slovenes
from using their own language in their churches and their
schools and their homes, it cannot be urged in his excuse that
if they were not part of Italy they would be part of a neighbour-
ing disorder which would be fatal to Italian peace, for if they
were on the other side of his frontier they would be incorporated
in the unaggressive and civilised state of Yugoslavia. But in
the days of Stephen Dushan, the Byzantine Empire was a
masterless land, where weeds grew that spread to all neigh-
bouring fields and smothered all profitable crops. We know its
state from the unimpeachable evidence of one who recorded
that state without shame, since he himself was responsible for
it and thought that all he did was good ; we have the memoirs of
John Cantacuzenus, the Byzantine usurper.
That detestable man was one of those men who are the price
a civilisation pays in its decay for the achievements of its prime.
In Byzantium, as in many other societies, government was
reserved to the hereditarily favoured and to the lucky, who were
immediately taken into the bosom of the hereditarily favoured
as soon as their luck had declared itself, since the rich are apt to
believe riches are a mark of divine favours. A closed and self-
satisfied group, they were able to develop the technique of
government to a point very near perfection, and to realise its
full potentialities by exchanging the information which came to
their hands through their monopoly of power. Thus they
secured more and more successes for their country and for
themselves, until they became in their own eyes magicians who
262 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
could not know failure. In the end they came to regard national
prosperity as a secretion of their class, which it could produce
for ever provided it led a healthy life and was allowed to practise
its traditional activities ; and this was a fantasy so delicious
that they could not bear to be awakened from it even when it
conflicted with their own interests. We English are fanriliar
with such bemusement. Many of our manufacturers refuse to
alter their methods by which they established their wealth in the
nineteenth century, although it is written in their balance-sheets
that they are losing the twentieth-century market ; and our
diplomats have for long behaved as if British sovereignty were
guaranteed simply by the mode of living habitual in legations
and embassies.
There comes a time in the history of every country when
even its most subdued and credulous children see through the
fantasy of its governors, usually for the reason that it is threatened
by famine and danger, and its governors exaggerate that fantasy
to an insulating madness rather than face reality. Cantacuzenus
was the sign that the Byzantine Empire had come to such a
pass. It was, of course, doomed. Destruction by the Turks
awaited it, but it had already been destroyed by the merciless
West : by the greed of Venice and Genoa and Pisa, which had
demanded murderously exorbitant trade agreements from it in
return for help against the marauding Latins ; by the intrigues
of the Papacy, which always hated the Orthodox Church more
bitterly than Islam ; by the foreign mercenaries who bound
themselves to fight against the Turks and turned in treachery
against their employer. There is, indeed, no end to the crimes
committed against Byzantium by the other and supposedly more
civilised side of Europe ; and while it worked slowly Asia
worked faster. Quite soon the Turks had eaten into Byzantine
territory over in Asia Minor, and this was of the gravest import-
ance, for from those districts the Empire had drawn most of
her sailors and soldiers. There was nothing the Byzantines
could have done save resign themselves to partnership with
Serbia and Bulgaria, who were of the same religion and related
in culture. This could have been arranged without the em-
barrassment of a confessed capitulation through the institution
of the multiple crowns. There was no limit to the number of
Byzantine emperors which could coexist, and at one time there
had been five. One only of these exercised the imperial power,
OLD SERBIA
263
and the others were sleeping partners, ready to act in a con-
sultative capacity or as successors. In Serbia this custom had
already been adopted and several Nemanyan kings had crowned
their sons as secondary kings with special rights over a part of
the country. It should have been easy to make an arrangement
which would have united the Orthodox Balkan peoples under
two or three emperors, particularly as by now the Byzantine
population was largely Slav. That, however, was not the will
of John Cantacuzenus.
He was the heir to one of the c fortunes which shamefully
existed in this shattered state, and he was the Great Domestic,
which is to say the military commander-in-chief of the Emperor
Andronicus II. His disintegrating influence was first made
manifest when the Emperor disinherited his grandson,
Andronicus the Younger, after he had pushed generally un-
satisfactory conduct to a climax by employing some archers to
hide outside his mistress’s door and assassinate a visitor of
whom he was jealous. As the dead man proved to be his
brother, and his father, who was an invalid, died of shock on
hearing of the tragedy, the old Emperor’s action was explicable
enough. But so violent were the times that some of the nobles
thought it unreasonable and refused to accept the Emperor’s
nomination of another grandson as his heir. This preposterous
movement was supported by John Cantacuzenus, who thereupon
led the country into seven years of civil war. He left an ex-
tremely detailed autobiography to tell us why and how he did
it, which is a disgusting work. It resembles that mixture of
white of egg and sugar used instead of pure cream by some
pastrycooks : endless pleas of self-justification make the page
unnaturally white, it is sickly with a smug sense of good form, it
is slimy for lack of principle, and recognition of reality. There
could be no more convincing proof that in certain periods a con-
servative class can be more disruptive than any revolutionary
horde.
Unquestionably Cantacuzenus was a man of great ability.
Byzantine administration had developed a tradition of efficiency
and the army was the most highly organised that Europe was
to see till modern times, so a successful commander-in-chief was
likely to be a brilliant man by any standards. He prided himself
on his powers of negotiation, no doubt with reason, for Byzantine
diplomacy was extremely accomplished. But negotiation is an
264 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
art safely to be practised only in the years of plenty, when
there is a surplus which can be comfortably haggled over by the
parties involved. In gaunter times a country must lay down the
conditions necessary for its own preservation, and annihilate
those that will not concede them. Cantacuzenus, however, was
constitutionally unable to see that Byzantium could ever not be
at its zenith, and with the utmost recklessness he encouraged
the difference between the Emperor and his grandson, in the
hope that his skill would arrange a compromise between them.
That hope was more than gratified. During the seven years
of civil war he thus precipitated, he was able to present three
most ably framed treaties for the signatures of the disputants
as they stood bloodstained in their ravaged country. Cantacu-
zenus was a surgeon to Byzantium, and the operation was always
successful, but the patient always died.
At length his fellow-countrymen began to notice something
about him. They showed an extreme reluctance to suffer him
in any position of power, and they manifested it in an un-
mistakable manner when the younger Andronicus died and left
him guardian of his twelve-year-old son, John. Cantacuzenus
could not understand their ingratitude. He knew that he had
ability of a sort that had in the past rendered Byzantium many
services, and the exemption of his class from all criticism pre-
vented him from realising that the technical accomplishment of
diplomacy is not the same thing as statesmanship. With
sublime dignity and the full authority of a conscience that his
autobiography brings to the reader’s eye in the likeness of an
immense and tasteless building, he started the civil war again
by crowning himself Emperor and claiming the executive
power from the child Emperor John and his mother, Anne of
Savoy. There followed thirteen years of the most painful dis-
order, which Cantacuzenus saw as a series of triumphs for his
own dexterity, as indeed they were if they were considered
individually, without regard to their cumulative effect in murder-
ing the Byzantine Empire.
During this time Cantacuzenus turned constantly to neigh-
bouring states for aid, and conducted his negotiations with them
on the highest imaginable plane of tact and discretion. These
greatly expedited the collapse of civilisation in South-East
Europe, for his neighbours required order in Byzantium for
the sake of the common front they had to form against the
OLD SERBIA
265
Turks, and they could not be certain whether this could better
be guaranteed by Cantacuzenus or by the Empress Anne, and
they too vacillated and added to the confusion. Later, he gave a
disastrous exhibition of his virtuosic talents in his achievement
of an alliance with Orkhan, the chief of the Ottoman Turks.
Nothing could have been more expert. But it brought the
Turks to Europe in numbers that made it impossible ever to
expel them again ; and when he gave his daughter in marriage
to Orkhan he weakened the clear picture of the antithesis
between the Christian Byzantines and the Islamic Turks which
should have been preserved at all costs in the minds of his
own people and the West.
Finally Cantacuzenus set the seal on his adept and imbecile
achievements by ingeniously making peace with the Emperor
John, who was now a young man, on condition that there were
two emperors and three empresses — himself, young John, his
mother Anne of Savoy, Cantacuzenus’s wife and his daughter,
whom he had induced young John to marry — and that he
himself reserved the right to be sole ruler for the next ten years.
It was certainly a masterpiece of diplomacy to get this agree-
ment signed, but he must have been powerfully aided by the
exhaustion he had brought on his country. Civil war had so
depredated the state that even the court, which had not long
before amazed the world, was stripped of its gold and jewels.
At the wedding feast of the Emperor John and Cantacuzenus’s
daughter, royalty and nobles alike adorned themselves with
gilt leather and coloured glass, and the toasts were drunk from
tin and lead.
But the defence of humanity against its Cantacuzenuses is
its quick resilience. As soon as the truce between the two com-
batants had given the country a breathing-space, the young
John rebelled and brought in Genoese help, and was supported
by most of his subjects. Cantacuzenus’s response was to make
his son Matthew emperor in John’s stead ; he knew that what
the country really needed was one more of a family who knew
how to do things. At this point the Byzantines at last lost
patience. They turned on him as one man and ran him into
a monastery. In the most graceful fashion imaginable he ac-
cepted the situation, took his vows, and, since his attentions had
been insufficiently appreciated here on earth, transferred them
with unabated self-confidence to the next world. He spent the
VOL. II S
266 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
many remaining years of his life in fomenting the spiritual
equivalent of civil war by writing ingenious treatises against
Jews and Mohammedans. It was characteristic of him that first
he ably invited the Turks to Europe, where they had no busi-
ness to be, and then as ably assailed them for the ideas which
they had every right to hold.
This Conservative politician, shining smooth, smooth as
water as it slips over the lip of a precipice, came to Prishtina
at a time when he should have been doubtful about his fate,
being a new-fledged and not popularly acclaimed usurper ; and
indeed he was diffident as a Member of Parliament who for the
sake of holding office has just crossed the floor of the House.
He perhaps never knew a deeper diffidence. The town he
entered, the town in which Constantine and my husband and
I were lunching, was then very proud. It was built of wood,
which some historians have mentioned as proof that it was
primitive ; but the Slav, like the Scandinavian, always builds
in timber when he can, and the Mediterranean habit of using
stone was determined by the lack of forest and the abundance of
quarries in the south. Between the wooden houses the Serbian
nobles and their ladies rode out to meet him, themselves hand-
some in red cloaks lined with fur and embroidered in gold, and
their horses as handsome with silver trappings, often brought
from Venice. They were not greatly divided by their Slavdom
from their visitor. Many of them spoke Greek, and to Stephen
Dushan it was as a second mother-tongue, since he had lived
in Constantinople from his eighth to his fifteenth year ; and
the protocol of the court was definitely Byzantine, which pleased
Cantacuzenus very much.
It was the Serb custom, he tells us, that when an eminent
foreigner came to visit their king they both descended from their
horses and the foreigner kissed his host on his face and breast.
But Stephen Dushan ordered that when Cantacuzenus came
he was to be greeted as he would have been within his own
empire ; so all the nobles dismounted as soon as they saw him
in the distance and when he approached them they stepped
forward to kiss his knee where it was crooked against the
saddle. Then he was taken to the palace, and was received
very graciously by the Emperor and Empress, and when it was
time for banqueting he was taken into a great hall and set at
a table in a chair higher than Stephen Dushan's own. Byzan-
OLD SERBIA
267
tine though he was, this banquet impressed him. The nobles
and their ladies wore their ceremonial costume of green or
yellow tunics, studded with diamonds and precious stones and
the cut gems of ancient Greece, and belted with silver and gold.
The men carried magnificent daggers and wore jewelled rings
and bracelets and crosses suspended from the neck, and the
women were crowned with intricately wrought diadems of gold
and silver, from which fine chains ran down to take part of
the weight of their immense and gorgeous earrings. To the
music of flutes they drank great quantities of mead and wine,
and ate game and venison and fish which had come in snow from
the Danube, with many kinds of vegetables and fruits and
sheep’s milk and honey ; and there was also about the table
the orchestral murmur of a great cosmopolitan court. Many
Italians and Spanish and Asiatics had come to Serbia to seek
their fortune, and Stephen Dushan had for his personal guard
a company of German soldiers, in imitation of the Byzantine
Emperor’s famous Varangian guard of Scandinavians and
English. But Cantacuzenus was not more impressed by the
wealth and cosmopolitan quality of the court than by its fine
and formal manners. He was hardly ever suffered, he says,
to remain alone in his tent. Nearly every day Stephen Dushan
sent a deputation of the most distinguished old nobles and
the most charming young pages, to beg him to come to the
palace and give the court more of his delightful company ;
and when Cantacuzenus obeyed the summons Stephen Dushan
would come to meet his guest at the door of his great apart-
ment, and sometimes even at the place where he dismounted.
When enough time had passed to satisfy the convention that
there was nothing behind the visit save pure sociability, Stephen
Dushan asked Cantacuzenus whether he had come to ask any
favour of him, and expressed the hope that if this were so he
would be able to accede. Cantacuzenus answered by a reference
to the myth of the gods gone avisiting, and said that he had
come to gain Stephen Dushan’s friendship, since the wise
esteemed nothing so highly as a faithful friend. But he went
on to admit that he sought his host’s aid in restoring order to
the Byzantine Empire. He added that if Stephen Dushan did
not want to help him he would like to be told so at once, in order
that he could look for other means of salvation ; and one per-
ceives in his account of his own conversation how clever a
268
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
performing flea he was. He made his appeal in terms that en-
meshed Stephen Dushan by the twin assumptions that they
were gentlemen talking together, and that the one who altered
the tone of the conversation from the tenor determined by him-
self would prove himself no gentleman, and by a strong hint
that if help were refused the refusal would be taken as pro-
ceeding from impotence.
This last suggestion Stephen Dushan, whose security de-
pended largely on his prestige, could not let pass. He had
soldiers enough to give Cantacuzenus all the help he needed,
he said, if Cantacuzenus proved that he really wanted it. Can-
tacuzenus expressed wonder at the phrase. What proof could
be necessary ? Stephen Dushan replied that he could believe
in Cantacuzenus’s desire for help if he handed over to the Serbian
crown all the towns of Thrace : that is to say, on the Greek
seaboard east of Salonica. It was in fact not an exorbitant
demand. The inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire were by
this time mostly Slav and not Greek, so there was no racial
reason why the Serbs and Bulgars and Byzantines should not
coalesce, and it was imperative that the territory should fall
under the shield of a strong government. Often aggressors
have justified their thefts on such grounds, but here in South-
East Europe, in the middle of the fourteenth century, they
happened to be valid. Ungoverned towns on the seaboard
meant a door unlocked to the robbers from the Catholic West.
Cantacuzenus answered Stephen Dushan very much as an
English diplomat of the worst old type might speak to an
American who was being tiresome about the debt settlement.
The theme of gentlemanliness was recapitulated with frosty
delicacy. “ You speak very reasonably,'’ he told him, ** con-
cerning the reward you want ; for there is no wise man who
does not expect a return when he goes to trouble and expense.
So, if your instinct does not tell you that you ought to help me
as an act of grace, you are right to ask me to buy your assistance.
But if I buy it and pay for it, I shall be under no obligation to
you, for who pays for what he buys feels under no obligation to
the seller. But if you help me out of generous friendship, and
out of ambition of a sort honourable to a sovereign, it will be a
glory to you to have taken up arms for such noble motives, and
not from greed, as low natures would. Moreover,” he added,
“ if you have me as a friend while I enjoy the imperial power,
OLD SERBIA
269
you will possess all that I possess, since everything is shared
among friends, as the philosophers say.” He had made perfect
use of his technique ; he was now to show his perfect blindness
to reality. ” If your offer of help is conditional on the surrender
of the towns you claimed, say so frankly,” he ended coldly, ” so
that I can make other arrangements. For I swear to you that
I will never surrender a single town ; but I will guard them all
as I have guarded my own children.” They were not his chil-
dren ; they could not be guarded so long as he pretended
they were.
Stephen Dushan ihen fell into a transport of rage, which
must have been impressive enough. Foreigners who visited his
court describe him as ” the tallest of all men of his time ”, and
a fresco portrait shows him sinewy, with black eyes burning
over high cheek-bones. There was reason in his rage against
Cantacuzenus, for the usurper was in his weakness a threat to
the peace of the whole Balkan world. But Stephen Dushan
was calmed by his wife, the Empress Helen, and he consented
to summon the Diet of twenty-four of his most important nobles
and discuss the issue with them. There an important part was
played by Helen, in a fashion illustrating the ambivalence with
which men regard women. They love them and they hate
them ; they pamper them and ill-treat them ; and women are
at once slaves and freer than men. In medieval Serbia women
must have been chattels, for their evidence was not accepted
in the law courts ; and such a rule always implies that no
woman is sufficiently assured of protection by society to risk
giving evidence that has not been dictated to her by some man.
Yet the Empress Helen was able to rise in the Diet and make a
long speech urging a rejection or at least a modification of her
husband’s policy, in terms which suggest that she was accus-
tomed to using her mind vigorously and without fear.
This speech was extremely able. She affirmed that the Serbs
were under no obligation to consider Cantacuzenus’s interests
before their own, but warned them to judge carefully what was
best for them. In cryptic phrases, which we now know to have
referred to an offer made by Anne of Savoy to hand over an
immense slice of Byzantine territory in return for Cantacuzenus
alive or dead, she repudiated the possibility of harming their
guest. That, she said, would be a crime displeasing to men and
odious to God. She believed that they should aid Cantacuzenus ;
270 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
for he had in the past proved himself an able governor, and if
he regained imperial power might be a dangerous enemy. She
suggested that the price they should ask of him for their aid
should be not new towns but recognition of their claim to the
towns which they and their ancestors had already taken from
the Byzantines. With shrewdness greater than was recognised
by Cantacuzenus, she pointed out that he would probably accept
these conditions since the loss of these towns brought no personal
disgrace on him.
The Empress convinced both the Diet and her husband.
Stephen Dushan made a speech and thanked her for her care
for his people, and then went to Cantacuzenus and said, smiling,
“ You have won, you have persuaded us to undertake all sorts
of hardships and trials for your sake.‘* When Cantacuzenus
heard Helen’s proposals he accepted them eagerly and sat down
happily to turn out more of his exquisitely accomplished paper-
work. But his fortune was crumbling so fast that the basis of
the treaty altered between its drafting and its signing. A military
adventurer who was straddling the border between Serbia and
Byzantium, acknowledging the allegiance of now one and now
the other according to their fortunes, took another Byzantine
town and hastened to drop it into Stephen Dushan’s lap. It
was an ill omen. The fellow was an infallible barometer, and
since it was his opinion that Cantacuzenus meant nothing, that
probably was his real value, and alliance with him was of no
service to Serbia. But Stephen Dushan went on with the treaty,
insisting merely that the town should be added to the list of his
possessions and the adventurer should be declared his subject,
though Cantacuzenus fought hard to keep them under his im-
potence. Then the twenty-four members of the Diet were
called together and told, by an admirable form of parliamentary
procedure which has been insufficiently imitated, that since they
had decided that military aid should be given to Cantacuzenus
they must now provide it, and twenty of them were sent off at
the head of troops with orders to obey their new general in all
things. They must have left Stephen Dushan reflecting, as
Elizabeth was so often forced to do, that no man has any reliable
ally save in his own right hand.
Eight years later Cantacuzenus and Stephen Dushan met
again : a long way from Prishtina, outside Salonica. By this
time Cantacuzenus was far advanced in his competent and
OLD SERBIA
271
complacent pursuit of destruction, and Stephen Dushan had
pushed out his strength to north, south, east and west, gathering
to himself mastery of the Balkans. He had made Skoplje a great
city, and there he had been crowned one Easter Sunday Emperor
and Autocrat of the Serbs and Byzantines, the Bulgars and the
Albanians. His upbringing in Constantinople had always pro-
foundly influenced the etiquette of his palace, and now he lived
in an exact imitation of the Byzantine court ; he had assumed
the tiara and used the double eagle as his emblem, and his
officials were called by tho names borne by their originals in
Byzantium, Sebastocrator and Grand Logothete, Grand
Domestic and Sacellary. The imitation went deeper than
nomenclature. He was not, of course, wholly free from care.
When Cantacuzenus, in a last ill-considered effort to reclaim
territory which he could not hold, had marched against him
he had found it far from child’s-play to repel the attack, for his
Catholic enemies had stabbed him in the back on the Bosnian
frontier. But he was magnificent, imperially magnificent. The
land he stood on as he faced Cantacuzenus was to its further
distances his, or about to become his, drawn to him by the
magnetism of his true power, which all others lacked.
He had first to resist Cantacuzenus’s reproaches of perfidy.
Like Elizabeth he awoke in his enemies an indignant sense that
they had had to deal with an infinity of cunning and trickery ;
but any animal will run like a fox if it is hunted like a fox.
Unquestionably he had broken treaties he had made with
Cantacuzenus, but the alteration in the two men’s status must
have made it difficult to observe them. It would be hard to
execute a document signed by a living man and a phantom.
The further rights and wrongs of this dispute cannot be judged,
for at this stage of his memoirs Cantacuzenus had arrived at a
decision, not unfamiliar in autobiography, that he could only
be fair to himself by lying. But he tells us something of Stephen
Dushan which we can believe because it is not credible. It
struck the unimaginative Cantacuzenus as so odd that he put it
down in the hope of discrediting his successful rival. He says
that in the midst of their open conference, in the hearing of all
the Byzantines and Serbs, Stephen Dushan suddenly confessed
that he was very greatly frightened of Cantacuzenus and his
forces. Yes, he said, he feared them horribly. If the thought
of them came to him as he slept, he woke in a sweat ; if it came
272
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
t© him before he slept, he stayed awake all night. This was a
surprising note ; and it was struck again later in the conversa-
tion. Cantacuzenus asked him how he had come to lower
himself by paying a certain state visit to Venice and making
obeisances to the republic unsuitable in the ruler of a kingdom
so much more mighty and extensive ; and he answered that he
was well aware how much beneath his dignity his bearing had
been, but fear had compelled him. He added that, considering
what fear was, he wondered it had made him do nothing baser.
Cantacuzenus naively said to himself that evidently he and the
whole world had been acting on far too elevated a conception
of Stephen Dushan’s character, and forthwith demanded from
him the return of all the Byzantine territory he had conquered.
Stephen Dushan was amazed by the suggestion. He had
merely been discussing the nature of fear and the occasional sick
fancies to which he, like all born of woman, was subject ; he
had not had the slightest intention of acting weakly. It is as
if a Dostoievsky character came marching to us through Caesar’s
De Bello Gallico, There could be no more curious proof of the
identity of the Slav character through the ages, for he was
plainly giving rein to the desire that governs the Slav of to-day,
the desire to know the whole. Finding himself at the extremity
of a condition, he leaned out of his destiny towards its opposite,
trying to understand that also. Had he been defeated and
hopeless, he would have talked of triumph till his hearers
would have wondered at his boasting. So it was natural for
him to explore his potentialities for terror, since though danger
still threatened him, it seemed that he had found a formula for
its control.
The core of his power was his great strength, which enabled
him to support the delicacy of his Slav mind. He was apparently
a man of the explosive but easy temper which goes with perfect
health and exceptional vitality. A glimpse of his habitual
being is given in that part of the Acts of the Saints which deals
with St. Peter Thomas, a curiously stupid and tactless person
who was very unsuitably employed as a Papal Legate. He was
sent to the Serbian court to labour for its conversion, but for
some mysterious reason refused to make the usual obeisance
on being received by the Emperor. Not unnaturally Stephen
Dushan was carried away by rage, and he forbade the Roman
Catholics about the court to attend a Mass at which the Legate
OLD SERBIA
273
was to officiate on the following day, on pain of having their
eyes put out. St. Peter Thomas interpreted this to mean that
he ran the risk of being killed, though blinding, which was a
recognised penalty borrowed by the Serbs from the Byzantines,
never entailed death. But he went ahead and celebrated the
Mass, which was attended by many of the German guards and
other Catholic courtiers. It was a singularly graceless act on
their part, for there was complete religious freedom in the Serbian
Empire, and they could have attended any Mass save that
celebrated by the priest who had insulted their Emperor. But
when Stephen Dushan sent for them, and they told him they
were prepared to lose their lives as well as their eyes for their
faith, he was shaken by sudden laughter and let them go un-
punished as a reward for their spirit ; and he treated St. Peter
Thomas for the rest of his stay with a special courtesy.
There shines through the story a reluctance to waste time
on hatred and compulsion which is characteristic of Stephen
Dushan. That may seem an odd testimonial to give a parricide ;
yet even that vast initial crime has aspects that warn us not to
judge it as if it were a piece of our age. When Stephen Dushan
murdered his father he neither killed nor imprisoned nor even
exiled his stepmother. Six years afterwards he married her to
the despot John Oliver and gave her a large dowry, including
the Sheep^s Field and the town of Veles ; and documents in
which he called her his ** well-beloved mother show that in
the meantime she had been a respected figure at his court. We
ask ourselves in vain how it can have been done, how the
persons involved found it possible to go on breathing when they
were in the same room, so great their reciprocity of fear and
shame. But the situation is not shocking compared with Tudor
practice, for Lady Jane Grey might well have sighed for some
Nemanyan tolerance ; and any comparison with the practice
of modern times, though it would have been to our advantage
thirty years ago, becomes less so with the dawning of each day.
It cannot be doubted that if Stephen Dushan failed to achieve
the millennium it was not because he lacked the appetite for it.
Like most of us, he would have used the means if he had known
what they were.
He liked life to take its own course. There was nothing
totalitarian or xenophobic about his regime. His people showed
a reluctance to trade in towns and work in mines, preferring,
274 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
very reasonably, to farm their fat lands. Their sovereign let
them have their way, and brought in Venetians and Ragusans
as traders and Saxons as miners, and treated them well. We
know exactly how his mind ran on these and many other matters,
for he left behind him a legal code comprising nearly two
hundred articles. This is a very creditable achievement, which
brought up to date the laws made by the earlier kings of the
Nemanyan dynasty and was in sum a nicely balanced fusion of
Northern jurisprudence and the Byzantine system laid down
by Justinian. It coped in an agreeable and ingenious spirit
with the needs of a social structure not at all to be despised even
in comparison with the West.
There, at this time, the land was divided among great feudal
lords who ruled over innumerable serfs ; but here in Serbia
there were very few serfs, so few that they formed the smallest
class in the community, and there was a large class of small free
landowners. There was a National Diet which met to discuss
such important matters as the succession to the throne or the
outbreak of civil war, and this consisted of the sovereigns, their
administrators, the great and small nobility and the higher
clergy ; it was some smaller form of this designed to act in
emergencies that met to discuss whether John Cantacuzenus
should receive Serbian aid. All local government was in the
hands of the whole free community, and so was all justice,
save for the special cases that were reserved for royal juris-
diction, such as high treason, murder and highway robbery.
This means that the people as a whole could deal with matters
that they all understood, while the matters that were outside
common knowledge were settled for them by their sovereign
and selected members of their own kind ; for there were no
closed classes, and both the clergy and the nobility were con-
stantly recruited from the peasantry.
Against the military difficulties that constantly beset Stephen
Dushan there could be counted the security of this possession :
a country rich in contented people, in silver and gold, in grain
and cattle, in oil and wine, and in the two traditions, one
Byzantine and mellow, one Slav and nascent, which inclined its
heart towards civilisation. Here was plenty, and a plentiful
spirit : with a gesture that recalls our own Tudor age, when a
gentleman leaving his country house for some months would
leave orders that all visitors should be well entertained in his
OLD SERBIA
275
absence, Stephen Dushan ordered that all foreign envoys travel-
ling through the land should be given all the meat and drink
they desired at the imperial expense. As he pressed southward
into Byzantine territory he restored to it elements necessary
to civilised life which it had almost forgotten. He was not in
need of money, so he did not need to rob his new subjects after
the fashion of participants in the Civii War ; he taxed them less,
repaired gaps in their strongholds, and lent them Serbian soldiers
as police. He also practised the principle of toleration, which was
very dear to the Byzantine population ; it must be remembered
that the Orthodox crowd of Constantinople rushed without
hesitation to defend the Saracen merchants^ mosque when it was
attacked by the fanatic Latin knights. There could be no
complete application of this principle, and Stephen Dushan
certainly appointed Serbian governors to rule over his new
territories, as well as Serbian ecclesiastics when the local priests
were irreconcilable ; but he left the indigenous social and
political systems just as he found them, and there was no
economic discrimination against the conquered.
It was as if there were falling down the map from the
Serbian Empire an ooze of honey, runnels of wine. They must
drip across Byzantium, they must spread all over the country to
the sea, to the Bosphorus. To all men’s minds it became possible
that some day Stephen Dusnan might come to Constantinople
and that he might be Emperor not only of the Byzantines but
of Byzantium, seated at its centre in the palace that had known
Constantine the Great and Justinian. There are many reasons
why he should not have succeeded in this enterprise. It would
have been hard to capture Constantinople without a fleet, and
Stephen Dushan could neither develop maritime power nor
persuade the short-sighted Republic of Venice to enter into an
alliance with him for the sake of his aid against the Turks. But
there were many reasons why he should not have been able to
found the empire that he did ; the cards stacked against him by
his neighbours on every frontier made any further extension of
territory seem impracticable. But even so the end of our Queen
Elizabeth’s reign could not have been foretold at its beginning.
It is chiefly Russian nineteenth-century historians, pro-Bulgar
and anti-Serb, who allege that Stephen Dushan could not have
reached Constantinople. His own age, and those who lived
within recollection of its glory, believed him capable of that
276 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
journey, and more. He would have found it a poor place ; it
had been stripped of its wealth by the civil wars, its population
had been wasted by the first onslaughts of the plague, its valuable
harbour was in the hands of loutish Italians who seized its
commerce and insulted those they had robbed. Those who knew
him trusted him to restore its splendour, which would have been
to perform a miracle. He might have achieved deeds more
miraculous still. He might have saved Europe from the Turks ;
he must, in any case, have held them in check and given Europe
a longer time to arm herself. It might have been that Hungary
need never have had her hundred and fifty years of Turkish
tyranny, and Vienna need never have been besieged, and
then that abomination of abominations, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, need never have been founded. Our night would have
been less black, and our glory far more glorious.
But Stephen Dushan died. In the forty-ninth year of his
life, at a village so obscure that it is not now to be identified,
he died, in great pain, as if he had been poisoned. Because of
his death many disagreeable things happened. For example,
we sat in Prishtina, our elbows on a tablecloth stained brown
and puce, with chicken drumsticks on our plates meagre as
sparrow-bones, and there came towards us a man and a woman ;
and the woman was carrying on her back the better part of a
plough. Here, where women had worn diadems of gold and
silver, and the Empress had spoken her fine mind before the
respect of the Diet, where the worth of womanhood had been so
generally conceded that a painter could treat it passionately in
his frescoes and assume the sympathy of his audience, this
woman had walked a great distance by the side of her husband,
bearing a heavy burden, while he went free
It could be seen that they had made a long journey, for
their sandals and woollen stockings were white with dust, and
though she was of my own sturdy pack-horse build, a blue
shadow of fatigue lay across her mouth. Her husband went
up to the hotel-keeper, who was leaning against the door, and
had a long talk with him, while she stood and looked at us.
She could not sit down because of the long iron blade that was
bound to her back and ran from above her head down to her
knees. It was apparent that neither she nor her husband felt
any embarrassment at the sight they presented. They had smug
and serious faces, and would not, I think, have done anything
OLD SERBIA
277
that was not approved by the community ; indeed, when he
tied the ploughshare to her they were both automatically
carrying out a custom which nobody in their world had ever
criticised, without any intention of unkindness on the one side or
resentment on the other. It was not as if she were a middle-aged
woman against whom her husband might have turned as she
had lost her sexual value, for she was in her early twenties, and
showed a certain handsomeness ; and there looked to be a
steady though dull good-humour between them.
It may be said that if th^t yvere so, that if she and her
husband were contented and the community were not shocked,
there was no reason for strangers to become excited. In
Prishtina it could be seen that this was not true. Any area of
unrestricted masculinism, where the women are made to do
all the work an*] are refused the right to use their wills, is in
fact disgusting, not so much because of the effect on the women,
who are always taught something by the work they do, but
because of the nullification of the men. This Kossovo peasant
was strong and upstanding, but he had the pulpy look of a
eunuch, and this was not unnatural, for he had resigned from
the sphere of effort. He had expected the woman to do every-
thing, to produce the next generation and to do all the work for
this one ; he had left not enough of the task over for himself.
Though the woman was not so null, she had a displeasing air
of essential slovenliness which cancelled the superficial neatness
of her black dress and orange kerchief. She had grown careless
of her womb. She had forgotten that she must use herself
delicately, not out of pride or cowardice, but because her body
was an instrument of the race. Life, that should have pro-
ceeded from these people, running ahead to conquer the next
stage of time, dragged behind them like a shadow cast on mud.
Yet people here had once known all that we know, and more,
but the knowledge had died after the death of Stephen Dushan,
it had been slain on the field of Kossovo.
The pair moved off into the sunlight, high coloured and well
fleshed, hollow with stupidity. I went upstairs to the lavatory.
Open doors in the corridor showed me bedrooms monastic in
cleanliness and austerity, with iron bedsteads, flimsy wash-
stands and enamelled ewers and basins, and bare boards
scrubbed white by the secret process the gipsies use. In one
room a kilted Albanian lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling
278 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
and counting on his fingers. The lavatory was of the old Turkish
kind : that is to say, it was a small room paved with stone,
with a round hole in the floor near one wall, and a tap not far
away. The whole floor was wet. Everybody who used the place
must go out with shoes stained with urine. It was an unlovable
apartment. The dark hole in the floor, and something hieratic
in the proportions of the place, made it seem as if dung, having
been expelled by man, had set itself up as a new and hostile and
magically powerful element that could cover the whole earth
with dark ooze and sickly humidity. There came on me the
panic that bad sanitation can sometimes arouse even in the most
hardened travellers. I felt as if the place were soiling me with
filth which I would never be able to wash off because it was
stronger in its essence than mere mild soap and water.
I went downstairs and said to my husband, who was standing
outside the hotel looking at a piece of orange cloth, “ In
Byzantine Constantinople there was an abundant water supply,
and we know from the charters of the hospitals that they had
elaborate bathrooms and lavatories.** He answered, ** My poor
dear, I was afraid it would be like that. But look at this. I
went over to the shops to see if I could buy you a local hand-
kerchief, but this is all they use.** It was a square of poorly
woven cloth with a machine-stitched hem ; at eight-inch
intervals there were knotted through the hem wispy skeins of
four or five orange threads, about three inches long, which
were as poor attempts at decoration as have ever been made.
“ They say one can buy good embroideries in the town, there is
a well-known woman who sells them,** said my husband, ” but
this is what most of the women wear. They are the plainest
things we have found anywhere. They say the people here are
so poor they have no wool to spare to make things for them-
selves, they have lost the habit of ornament.**
Plain of Kossovo II
As we got into the automobile Constantine made a face at
some scented rags of meadowsweet, a few rose-petals, that had
fallen from the dead flowers I had thrown away before lunch.
** That I cannot understand,** he said, “ that you pretend to
love beautiful things, and yet you pick flowers though you know
OLD SERBIA
279
they must wither and die, and will have to be thrown away/*
** Why not ? ** I asked. ** There were hundreds of others where
these grew, so nobody would miss them, and we all enjoyed them
for two or three hours.** He shrugged his shoulders and said,
** Oh, well, if that is your point of view, it is your point of
view.** Then, huddling down in his place, he threw back his
head and sat with his eyes shut and a contemptuous smile on his
lips. ** You are very different from my wife,** he said. “ She
is a mystic, she would rather dance round a wayside flower
than pluck it. But that you V'ouid not understand, for you
English are not tender.** My baser part silently remarked that
Gerda could not have danced round a wayside flower without
inflicting the most untender damage on the surrounding growth.
I thought also of her hatred of the gipsy boys and girls who
were like flowers ** She is as tender as the Turks were,** I
said to myself, ** the Turks who loved nature, who slaughtered
human kind,** and we sat dumb as the road rose out of the
trench where Prishtina lies, looking back at the new white-
washed Government buildings that protrude square as a set
chin among the shapeless lumber of the old town, or forward
to the dark green of the plains. The close opaque texture of
the grass gave them an artificial look, as if they had been
prepared for a special purpose, like our race-tracks and golf-
courses, or that mound at Silbury which our prehistoric ancestors
put to some unknown use.
I tried to deny its flat, monotonous boast of irreparable
damage done to our kind. I pretended that perhaps very little
had been destroyed here, since if Slav culture had been a reality
the Serbian Empire would not have fallen to pieces in the thirty-
four years between the death of Stephen Dushan and the battle
of Kossovo. That is the opinion of the anti-Serb historians ;
they point out that within a short time his empire had dissolved
into its constituent parts, so that the Turks were faced not by a
united people, but by a loose federation of feudal barons and
their followers. But as I resorted to repeating it I knew it was
nonsense. England might have passed into a disabling period
of faction fights if Elizabeth had died at forty-eight instead of
seventy ; and there were many reasons why Serbia was specially
liable to such disorders.
One proceeded from a genetic fatality that has been largely
responsible for the unstable character of civilisation. Stephen
2^6 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Dushan had begotten, as great men sometimes do, a son that
was a faint echo of his father’s genius ; of a like rarity and
fineness, but without the needed volume and force. Though
Stephen Urosh was only nineteen when he came to the throne,
his limitations had already been recognised. It seems certain
that his able mother, the Empress Helen, did not want him to
assume power. For a time she transacted the imperial business
Tierself, even to commanding the armies in the field, and even
after she had retired to the cloister as the nun Elizabeth she
continued to administer a certain amount of territory. Eight
years after Stephen Dushan’s death the Byzantine Emperor
John became anxious for an alliance with Serbia against the
Turks, and sent his Patriarch to arrange the necessary pre-
liminary step of arranging for the repeal of the excommunica-
tion he had pronounced against the Serbian Church. It was
to the Empress in her convent that the mission addressed itself.
It is typical of the fitful and distracted spirit of the age that
when this mission was aborted by the death of the Patriarch
on the road, no step was taken to send out another.
A further reason for the collapse of Serbia was a calamity
which ravaged the country shortly after Stephen Dushan’s
death and would have shaken the authority of any successor,
no matter however able. It is described as a famine which
killed many men ; and it can be identified as an attack of the
form of plague then devouring the population of Constantinople.
Such an epidemic left vast areas of farm-lands under-cultivated,
destroyed centres of craftsmanship, and annihilated foreign
trade. This catastrophe must have affected the Empire, which
by this time had enjoyed the happiest expansion for three-quarters
of a century, as the slump of 1929 affected the United States.
In those days, when economic theory had hardly begun to be
formulated and was wholly beyond the comprehension of
ordinary man, material discontents often expressed themselves
in theological or dynastic disputes quite irrelevant to the hard-
ships experienced.
The Byzantines of that age vented their misery in the
controversy of the Zealots ; but the Serbs were artists rather
than intellectuals, and they preferred to dispute about the seen.
They therefore wrangled about their rulers. It would have
been far better if they had discussed whether the divine light
of the Transfiguration could have been apprehended by the
OLD SERBIA
28 1
corporeal eye, for that could only have gratified the vanity of
the unseen powers, and Serbia had to be very careful of disturb-
ing the seen powers. For it was still creating its nobility, that
is to say its administrative class, by means which demanded an
acknowledged authority. We realise this in learning that when
a noble was given a military or civil charge he was given by the
sovereign arms and a war* horse ; and when he died these or
new ones had to be handed back to the sovereign, who decided
whether to return them to a son of the dead man or to confer
them on another family. Thk required a monarch of almost
ecclesiastical authority whose will was sacred law. If he vacillated
in the many decisions of a like personal nature which he had to
make, a crowd of feudal barons would press in on him, disputing
his title to domination and then claiming it for themselves. It has
always been the s^pecial tragedy of Slav communities that at any
moment of crisis they can furnish not too few but far too many
men capable of taking charge of affairs. h
In the first few years of Stephen Urosh’s reign there were
quite a number of aspirants to his power. There was his mother ;
his father’s brother Simeon, and his son-in-law ; two brothers
Uglyesha and Vukashin, formerly his cupbearer and marshal,
who rebelled against him and stole large portions of his land ;
and there were several lesser chieftains, including some vigorous
personalities who fell on Bulgaria and partitioned it. For
some time before the battle of Kossovo all these rivals had
been obscured. Stephen Urosh was driven into exile and
murdered, and presently the fame of his gentleness made the
faithful speak of miracles at his tomb. It was of him that the
Russian monk had said to us at the monastery of Yazak in the
Frushka Gora, “ No, there is nothing interesting here, only
the body of a Serbian emperor.” Vukashin and Uglyesha were
killed leading their armies against the Turks, Vukashin at the
hand of a treacherous servant. Of the others those who were
not obliterated by natural death or military failure were outshone
by two princes of conspicuous ability.
One was Tvrtko, King of Bosnia, an offshoot of the Nemanya
family, who had seized a great part of Dalmatian and Serbian
territory ; the other was Prince Lazar, the same Lazar whose
brown defeated hand I touched at Vrdnik, who was lord of
the northern and eastern Serbian lands. Tvrtko had shown
signs of military genius and Lazar could claim at least a high
VOL. II T
28a BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
degree of military efficiency. In the pact they signed for the
sake of maintaining Slav unity against the Turks they showed
considerable statesmanship. The quality of these two men
suggests that the decadence of the Serbian Empire after the
death of Stephen Dushan was only the trough that follows a
great wave, and that a wave as great might have succeeded it.
The historians, in trying to prove that Balkan Christian civilisa-
tion was already self-doomed before its destruction, are moved
by a snobbish and pusillanimous desire not to speak ill of the
Old Squire, destiny. It is probablo that the battle of Kossovo
deducted as much from civilisation as the sum of England after
the Tudor age.
It was a painful thought, implying that the world we have
embarked on is a leaky ship and may not keep afloat. I did not
want to get out of the automobile when Constantine said, ** See,
now we must walk and I will show you all things of our tragedy.**
But when I stood on the road I felt nothing. I saw before me
simply green downs like those that lie along some Wiltshire
valleys, and a high silver sky which took all foreignness from
the scene, since it made the snow ranges on the horizon look
like shining bars of cloud ; some winding roads and lanes, and
some scattered buildings. Nothing that had happened here
was present to me. At Grachanitsa I had seen medieval Serbia
in its living guise as the visitor may see the Tudors at Hampton
Court or Frederick the Great at Potsdam ; but the armies that
had waited here on the eve of St. Vitus* Day in 1389 were not
even ghosts to me, they were words out of a book. Nothing
could be more agreeable than to be so exempt. I remembered
how I had dreaded the first anniversary of the most disagreeable
event that had ever befallen me, and how I had awakened on
the day and felt nothing, absolutely nothing. I walked away
from the automobile towards a tuft of pinkish-purple flowers
that grew about a hundred yards away, enjoying the cool,
freely flowing air of the uplands, and I did not turn round when
Constantine called to me. But Dragutin ran after me, and
said slowly, in order that I might understand, ** Like a child,
like a child.** He put his hand flat two or three feet above the
ground, and with the other pointed to Constantine. Like a
child he is, but he has a bad wife. Come to the hill, it is very
interesting. Do not mind him,**
“ No, no, it is not that,** I said, but I could not explain, so I
OLD SERBIA
283
followed him across the grass, and we joined my husband and
Constantine, who were on a path running up a little hill, on the
top of which was a whitewashed hexagonal building, surmounted
by a grey-blue metallic dome. Around it the turf was pierced
here and there with the white toppling poles of Moslem tombs,
and there were some wild rose bushes and a fruit tree, hung with
brown wreaths of dead blossom. Out of the folds of what had
seemed an empty landscape there emerged suddenly a number
of people who converged on us just as we reached the building.
There was a veiled woman, her black cotton garments made
a strange ghostly colour by the heavy summer dust, gliding
along with a baby in her arms and two little children at her
heels, exhibiting a dark and slippery and un-individualised
fecundity like caviare. There was a lean and wildish-looking
man with a shepherd's staff; his cheeks so hollow that one
might have thought he usually wore false teeth and had taken
them out, were it not that his belly was as concave. There
was a Christian girl of about fourteen who had better been
veiled, for her face showed a fixed and empty stare of hunger,
of appetite so completely starved that it was ignorant of its own
object. She wore a skirt that was a straight piece of cloth
gathered along one selvedge to form a waistband so that it
stood out round her knees like a coarse version of the ballerina's
toutou. There were several boys, all wearing the fez, all bandy.
The veiled woman slipped with her children into the shabby
porch of the octagonal building, and Constantine explained
sententiously, “ This is a holy place for them," and indeed she
had the air of being on some errand which at once satisfied
the motor impulses and the sense of duty, like shopping or
calling, but more so, which Moslem women bring to their
religious exercise. The man with the shepherd's staff stared at
Dragutin with the admiration due to a very handsome man.
The children held out to us bunches of flowers with an
almost aristocratic lack of insistence, and Constantine said,
" These are the famous poppies of Kossovo that grow nowhere
else, they are supposed to have sprung from the blood of the
slaughtered Serbs. Later the whole plain is red with them, but
as you see it is too early for them, these are only buds." They
were a very beautiful kind of wild peony, with golden centres
and pink stamens. My husband bought some from the girl and
Dragutin bought some from the boys ; he was behaving at
284 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Kossovo as he behaved at springs and in churches, with a
mystical and soldierly excitement, like one who salutes the
sacred spectre of valour.
Constantine began to tell us how the troops had been mar-
shalled for the battle. Here Prince Lazar had had his tent,
there the Turks had waited. But no ! interrupted Dragutin.
He was shouting slowly and without rage, as he did when
moved by patriotic fervour. ‘‘ How could they wait in the
North-west ! Not here, but there were they, the dogs ! And
there, over there, Vuk Brankovitch should have come in with
his troops but turned away and left the battlefield ! ’* “Vuk
Brankovitch,’* said Constantine, “ is the Judas of our story.
He was the specially beloved brother-in-law of the Prince Lazar,
and he is supposed to have sold himself to the Turks and to have
led his army off the battlefield at a crucial moment, thus exposing
Lazar’s flank. But now historians do not think there was any
treachery, though it seems likely that one of the Serbian princes
did not receive a message in time telling him to go forward to
Lazar’s support, and so failed him. But we all know that it
was not treachery that lost us Kossovo, it is that we were all
divided among ourselves.” “ Yes,” said Dragutin, “ it is so in
our songs, that we were betrayed by Brankovitch, but we know
that it was not so, that we lost the battle because we were not of
one mind.” “ How do you mean you know it ? ” I asked. “ Do
you mean you learned it at school ? ” “No,” he said, “ we
know it before we go to school. It is something our people
remember.” I was again checked by the curious honesty of the
Slav mind, by its refusal to dress up its inconsistencies and
make them superficially acceptable to the rationalist censor.
They had evolved a myth which accounted for their defeat by
treachery within their own ranks and thereby took the sting out
of it, just as the Germans did after the war ; but they did not
suppress the critical part of their mind when it pointed out to
them that this m3rth was merely a myth. With an inconsistency
that was not dangerous because it was admitted they let their
myth and the criticism of it coexist in their minds.
Constantine and Dragutin waved their arms at the down-
land, and still I saw nothing. I turned aside and looked at the
white building behind us and I said, “ What is this place ? Can
we go in ? ” “ Certainly, certainly,” said Constantine, “it is
very interesting; this is the mausoleum of Gazi Mestan, a
OLD SERBIA 285
Turkish standard-bearer who was killed in the battle and was
buried where he lay.” ” Yes,” shouted Dragutin, ” many of
us fell at Kossovo, but, praise be to God, so did many of them.”
As we went into the wooden porch, the veiled woman and her
children padded past us. We found ourselves in a room which,
though light and clean, had that look of having been long dis-
used by any normal forces, which one expects to be completed
by stuffed animals ; but there was nothing there except two
coffins of the Moslem type, with a gabled top, higher at the
head than the heels. They weie covered with worn green
baize, and hung with cheap pieces of stuff, some clumsily em-
broidered, others printed . On the walls were a few framed scraps
of Turkish calligraphy, a copy of a Sultan's seal, and some
picture postcards. A man came towards us, smiling sweetly
and indecisively He wore a faded fez and neat but thread-
bare Western clothes, and his whole appearance made a wistful
allusion to a state better than his own ; I have seen his like in
England, walking through November rain in a summer suit
and a straw hat, still mildly cheerful. He told us of the fame
and gallantry of Gazi Mestan in a set speech, unnaturally
uttered from some brain-cell petrified by memory. ” And you ?
Who are you ? ” said Constantine. ” I am the descendant of
Gazi Mestan's servant,” the man answered, “ the descendant
in the sixteenth generation. My forefather was by him as he
fell, he closed his dead master's eyes for him, he preserved his
body and guarded it after it had been placed in this tomb. So
have we all guarded him.”
A weak-eyed boy ran into the room and took his stand beside
the man, who laid an arm about his shoulder. ” My brother,”
he said tenderly, and laid his face against the boy's fine lank
hair. They looked incredibly fragile. If one had tapped them
with a pebble on the paper-thin temples they would have
dropped to the ground, still faintly smiling ; the bare ankle-
bones showing between the boy’s brown shoes and frayed
trouser-hems were so prominent that the skin stretched across
them was bright red. ” What do these people live on ? " I
asked. ” Doubtless they receive gifts, this is a kind of shrine,”
said Constantine, ” and there would probably be an allowance
from the Vakuf, the Moslem religious endowment fund. In
any case they can do nothing else, this is the family’s destiny
and it is a distinction.” ” But they are not like human beings
286
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
at all/* I said, ** they are to human beings what a ship inside a
glass bottle is to a real boat/* I saw before me what an empire
which spreads beyond its legitimate boundaries must do to its
subjects. It cannot spread its own life over the conquered
areas, for life cannot travel too far from its source, and it blights
the life that is native to those parts. Therefore it imprisons all
its subjects in a stale conservatism, in a seedy gentility that
celebrates past achievements over and over again. It could be
seen what these people had been. With better bones, with more
flesh, with unatrophied wills, they would have been Turks as
they were in the great days of the past, or as they are in the
Ataturk*s Turkey, robust and gracious. But there they were
sweet-sour phantoms, human wine gone to vinegar.
Outside we found Dragutin lying on the ground, the girl and
the boys about him and a field mouse curled in his hand. You
do not want to go inside ? ** asked Constantine. ** No,** he said.
** That a Turk was alive and is dead is good news. But this one
has been dead so long that the news is a bit stale. Hola ! ** he
roared, and opened his hand and the field mouse made a brown
streak for safety. ** Now I am to take you to the tomb of the
Sultan Murad,** he said, standing up, ** but thank God we stop
at a Christian monument first.** It was some miles down the
main road, a very plain cross set back in a fenced garden where
irises and lupins and the first roses grew with an astounding
profusion. It could be understood that Kossovo had really
been fertile, that it had once supported many fat villages. The
two soldiers who were guarding the monument came down to
the gate to meet us, two boys in their earliest twenties, short and
sturdy and luminous with health, their skins rose under bronze,
their black eyes shining deep and their black hair shining
shallow.
When I admired the garden one of them fell back and
picked some flowers for me from a bed, not in the main avenue,
lest the general effect should be spoiled, and Constantine said
to the other one, ** You are a Serb from the North, aren*t you ? **
He answered smiling, Yes, I am from the North, I am from
the same town as you, I am from Shabats.** “ What ! ** ex-
claimed Constantine, looking like a baby that has seen its
bottle. ** Do you know me ? ** ** Which of us in Shabats does
not know the great poet who sprang from our town ? ** replied
the soldier ; and I liked the people of Shabats, for I could see
OLD SERBIA
287
from his face that they knew the best as well as the worst of
Constantine, and revered him as well as mocked him. “ But
tell me,** interrupted Dragutin, “ is that other one not a Croat ? ”
“ Yes,** he said, ** he is from Karlovats.’* “ Is it not hard to be
here all day with a Croat ? *’ ** No, indeed,** said the soldier,
it is most surprising how pleasant he is ; he is my true friend,
and he is a good soldier ; I never would have believed it.**
“ You don*t say so ! ** said Dragutin. ** I tell you,** said Con-
stantine, ** there are many good Croats, and we Serbs must
make friends with them.** “ So,** said Dragutin.
We were silent for a time at the foot of the memorial which
bore the appalling v/ords, ** To the heroes who fell for the
honest cross, freedom, and the right of the people, 1389-1912,
erected by the people of Prishtina **. It made the head ache
with its attempt to commemorate people who were utterly out-
side the scope of memory ; slaves born of slaves, who made
their gesture of revolt and died, isolated by their slavery from
the weakest, furthest light and warmth of fame. When we
turned our faces to the garden again, we found the other soldier
standing beside us, holding out a bouquet that was like a
bouquet on a fire-screen made for a court, that had form and
a tune of colour. All Slavs, except those who become florists,
have a natural genius for arranging flowers. After I had
thanked him, Dragutin said, “ Hey, Croat ! You*re a brave
fellow. How do you like us Serbs ? ** Very well, very well ! ’*
he answered smiling. Everybody is kind to me here, and I
had thought you were my enemies.*' ** Eyah ! ** said Dragutin,
twisting the lobe of the boy*s ear, We*ll kill you all some
day.** The boy wriggled and laughed, and they all talked till
we turned to go, and Dragutin gave the boy a great smack on
the back, saying, ** Well, you two, if you come to Skoplje, you*ll
find me at the Ban's garage, and maybe there'll be some papri-
kasch for you. You're what Yugoslavia needs." On this little
ledge they met and clung together, on this cross-wide space
from which the dark grasses of Kossovo had been driven back,
they who had been born under different flags and had to beat
down a wall of lies before they could smile at each other.
If the battle of Kossovo was invisible to me it was because
it had happened too completely. It was because the field of
Kossovo had wholly swallowed up the men who had awaited
destiny in their embroidered tents, because it had become
288 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
sodden with their blood and now was a bog, and when things
fell on it they were for ever lost. Constantine said, ** Now I am
taking you to the mausoleum of the Sultan Murad, who was
commanding the Turkish forces and was killed the night before
the battle by a Serb called Milosh Obilitch, who had been sus-
pected of treachery by our people and wished to clear his
name.” The Sultan Murad or Amurath, was the son of Orkhan
the Victorious and a Greek girl raped from her bridegroom’s
arms, whom the Turks called Nilufer, the Lotus Flower, and
his records suggest an immoral attempt to create the kind of
character admired by morality, for an astounding cruelty seems
to have been introduced as an alloy to harden the soft gold of
his voluptuous delight in all exercises of the mind and body.
“His mausoleum,” said Constantine, “ was built where he
fell.”
A track led from the road across the opaque and lustreless
pastureland characteristic of this place, to what looked like a
deserted farmhouse. As we came to the gate in the farm paddock
it was as it had been at the tomb of Gazi Mestan : the bare
countryside exhaled people. They came to meet us at the gate,
they whipped round the corners of the paddock, men in Western
clothes who had the look of Leicester Square or Place Pigalle
touts, not that they knew much or perhaps anything of infamy.
The resemblance lay in their terrible desire to sell what they
had, which since they had nothing caused them to make piteous
claims to the possession of special knowledge, the power to
perform unusual services. Their bare feet, treading softly on
rag-bound leather sandals, pattered before us, beside us, behind
us, as we followed a stone path across a grassy quadrangle. A
house looked down on us, its broken windows stuffed with
newspaper, its wall eczematous where the plaster lacked.
Through another gateway we came on a poor and dusty
garden where the mausoleum stood. A fountain splashed from
a wall, and there was nothing else pleasant there. The door
of the mausoleum was peculiarly hideous ; it was of coarse
wood, painted chocolate-colour, and panes of cheap glass, all
the wrong shape. Public libraries and halls in small provincial
towns in England sometimes have such doors. Beyond was a
rough lawn, cropped by a few miserable sheep, which was
edged with some flowers and set with two or three Moslem
graves which were of the handsome sort, having a slab as well
OLD SERBIA
289
as a column at the top and bottom, but were riven across by
time and neglect. On the grass sat some veiled women picnick-
ing among their pretty, sore-eyed children, with the infinitely
touching sociability of Moslem women, which reticently reveals
a brave and frustrated appetite for pleasure, doling itself out
crumbs and making them do. On a fence made of small sticks,
defending a young tree from the sheep, hung a line of many-
coloured rags, just recognisably garments that had been washed
very clean. At least one of these women lived in a cottage so
far from all other water that it was worth her while to bring her
washing to the fountain ; yet on these bare downs it could be
seen there was no cottage for a mile or two.
We drew near to the hideous door of the mausoleum, and it
was opened by an old man whom we knew to be an imam, a
priest, only from the twist of white cloth about his fez ; not in
his manner was tiiere any sign of sacred authority. He greeted
us blearily and without pride, and we followed him, our touts
padding behind us, into the presence of the Sultan Murad.
The walls of his last lodging were distempered in drab and
ornamented with abstract designs in chocolate, grey and bottle-
green, such as Western plumbers and decorators loved to create
in the latter half of the last century, and its windows were
curtained with the intensely vulgar dark green printed velvet
used in wagons-lits. In a sloping gabled coffin such as sheltered
Gazi Mestan, but covered with velvet and votive offerings of
stuffs by some halfpence costlier, lay Murad. His turban hung
from a wooden pole at the head of the coffin, a dusty wisp. The
priest turned blindish eyes on Constantine and told him some-
thing ; after the telling his fishlike mouth forgot to close.
“ This old one is relating that only the Sultan's entrails are
here,*^ said Constantine, “ the rest of him was taken away to
Broussa in Turkey, but I do not know when." Even the most
rational person might have expected that the priest would have
shown some slight regret that this shrine held the entrails of the
Sultan and not his heart or his head. But in the pale luminous-
ness of his eyes and the void of his open mouth there was seated
the most perfect indifference.
Two of the touts padded past us and sank mumbling into the
prostration of a Moslem prayer, in the hope that we might gape
and tip. It is impossible to have visited Sarajevo or Bitolj or
even Skoplje, without learning that the Turks were in a real
*90 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
sense magnificent, that there was much of that in them which
brings man off his four feet into erectness, that they knew well
that running waters, the shade of trees, a white minaret the more
in a town, brocade and fine manners, have a usefulness greater
than use, even to the most soldierly of men. They were truly
aristocratic, they had prised up the clamp of necessity that fixes
man with his belly close to the earth. Therefore it was painful to
see these Turks to whom two full meals in succession were more
remote objects of lust than the most fantastic luxuries had been
to their forefathers, to whom rags and a dusty compound
represented a unique refreshment. These mock devotions were
disgusting not because they were prostitutions of a gallant
religion, since that represented an invincible tendency of man-
kind, but because they were inspired by the hope of dinars far
too few for any purchase worth making. I turned away ; and
the tail of my eye caught the touts in a furtive movement
betraying an absolute bankruptcy of the vital forces, an inability
to make an effort except when financed by some expectation
for that specific purpose. Once they saw they had not interested
us they stopped their prostrations in mid-air, wearily straightened
themselves, and shuffled after us into the paddock.
“ It is silly to bring foreigners to see these old Turkish
things,” said Dragutin to Constantine. ” Everything Turkish
is now rotten and stinks like a dunghill. Look at these creatures
that are more like rotten marrows than men, they ought to be
in mausoleums themselves, their mothers must have been dead
for yea"fs before they were born.” His animal lack of pity was
the more terrible because it was not even faintly malicious.
We hurried out of the paddock, some of the touts gaining on
us and pattering ahead, looking back at us with their terrible
inexorbitant expectancy. One could easily have become cruel
to them. Beyond the gate Constantine led us along the plaster-
less walls till he found the spot where, it is said, the man who
murdered Murad was put to death. ” His name,” he said,
” was Milosh Obilitch ; but to tell you the truth it was not. It
was Kobilitch, which means Brood-mare, for in those days our
people, even in the nobility, did not have surnames but only
Christian names and nicknames. But in the eighteenth century
when all the world became refined it seemed to us that it was
shameful to have a hero that was called Brood-mare, so we
dropped the K, and poor Milosh was left with a name that meant
OLD SERBIA
291
nothing at all and was never his. What he would have minded
worse was that many people nowadays say we should not honour
him at all, because he gained the Sultan's presence by a trick,
by saying that he was a deserter and wished to join his enemies.
He felt, and patriots still feel, that he had to clear his name in
the eyes of his people from the suspicion of being a traitor, and
that he had bought the right to play that trick on the Turks
because he gave them his life in return."
"It is strange," I said, " that the Turks were not dis-
organised by the murder of t^ie» Sultan.” " Nothing could
have disorganised them," said Constantine, " they were superb,
they had superbia^ they were all as Mohammed would have had
them, they were soldiers ready to submit to all discipline because
they believed that they had been enlisted by God, who at the
end of the world would be with them as their general." " Our
Sir Charles Eliot," I said, " wrote of them that * The Sultan
may be a Roman Emperor, but every Turk is a Roman citizen
with a profound self-respect and a sense not only of his duties,
but of what is due to him.' " As I spoke I noticed that my hus-
band was no longer walking beside me, and, as wives do, I looked
round to see what the creature might be doing He was some
paces behind us, giving some dinars to the touts, who were
taking them with a gentle, measured thankfulness, unabject in
spite of their suppliance, which proved that what Eliot had
said of them had once been true, though the total situation
showed it to be now false. They stopped following us after
that, and remained staring mildly after us, boneless as flames,
their pale faces and dusty clothes dingy in the sunlight. They
stood wide, wide apart on the dark grass of Kossovo, for their
flesh was too poor to feel the fleshly desire to draw together. A
people that extends its empire too far from its base commits the
sin of Onan and spills its seed upon the ground.
We had not been driving very long when the road ran
through a grove, and Dragutin brought the automobile to a
halt. " Here we will eat," he said, holding the door open.
" What do you mean ? " asked Constantine. " Well, did you
people not bring bread and wine and eggs from Skoplje ? "
asked Dragutin. " This is the best place to eat them, and it is
high time too, for it is very late and the English are accustomed
to meals at regular hours. So get you out and eat." " No, no,"
said Constantine, taking out his watch and shaking his head,
292
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
** we must push on to Kossovska Mitrovitsa, and it may be dark
before we get there.** “ What are you talking about ? ** said
Dragutin. “ It is about three in the afternoon, this is May,
and Kossovska Mitrovitsa is not two hours away. Step quickly,
you must get out.** He did not speak out of insolence, but in
recognition that Constantine had suffered some sort of dis-
integrating change during the last few days, and that his judg-
ment was not now to be trusted. Constantine looked at him in
unresentful curiosity, as if to say, ** Am I as bad as that ? **
and obeyed. Dragutin put out the rugs and the food on the
grass and said, “ There now, you can have fifteen minutes,**
and walked up and down the road in front of us, eating an apple.
He called to me, ** You don’t much like being here.** “ No,*’ I
said, it*s too sad. And just now I have been thinking of the
Vrdnik monastery in the Frushka Gora, where I saw the body
of the Prince Lazar and touched his hand.** “ Ah, yes, the
poor saint,** said Dragutin, “they cut off his head because our
Milosh Obilitch had killed their Sultan, though doubtless they
would have done it anyway. They were wolves, it was their
nature to shed gentler blood. Well, it could not be helped. We
were not of one mind.**
He took another mouthful of apple and munched himself
down the road, and I said to Constantine, “ It is strange, he
does not blame the nobles for quarrelling among themselves.**
Constantine said thoughtfully, “No, but I do not think that is
what he means.** “ But he says, ‘ we were not of one mind,*
he has said it twice to-day, and in all the history books it is said
that the Slavs were beaten at Kossovo because the various
princes quarrelled among themselves. What else can he mean ? **
“It is true that our people always say that we were beaten
because we were not of one mind, and it is true that there
were many Slav princes before Kossovo, and that they all
quarrelled, but I do not think that the phrase has any con-
nection with that fact,** said Constantine “ I think the phrase
means that each individual Slav was divided in his attitude to the
Turk, and it makes an allusion to our famous poem about the
grey falcon.** ** I have never heard of it,** I answered. Con-
stantine stood up and called to Dragutin, who was now munch-
ing his way back to us, “ Think of it, she has never heard of
our poem about the grey falcon ! ** “ Shame ! ** cried Dragutin,
spitting out some pips, and they began chanting together :
OLD SERBIA
293
V
“ Poletio soko titsa siva,
Od svetinye, od Yerusalima,
I on nosi titsu lastavitsu. . .
“ I will translate it for you/* said Constantine. ** In your
language I cannot make it as beautiful as it is, but you will
see that at any rate it is not like any other poem, it is peculiar
to us. . . .
There flies a grey bird, a falcon,
From Jerusalem the holy^^
And in his beak he bears a swallow.
That is no faldon, no giey bird,
But it is the Saint Elijah.
He carries no swallow,
But a book from the Mother of God.
He comes to the Tsar at Kossovo,
He lays the book on the Tsar*s knees.
This book without like told the Tsar :
“ Tsar Lazar, of honourable stock.
Of what kind will you have your kingdom ?
Do you want a heavenly kingdom ?
Do you want an earthly kingdom ?
If you want an earthly kingdom,
Saddle your horses, tighten your horses* girths,
Gird on your swords,
Then put an end to the Turkish attacks,
And drive out every Turkish soldier.
But if you want a heavenly kingdom
Build you a church on Kossovo ;
Build it not with a floor of marble
But lay down silk and scarlet on the ground,
Give the Eucharist and battle orders to your soldiers.
For all your soldiers shall be destroyed.
And you, prince, you shall be destroyed with them.**
When the Tsar read the words.
The Tsar pondered, and he pondered thus :
“ Dear God, where are these things, and how are they I
What kingdom shall I choose ?
Shall I choose a heavenly kingdom ?
Shall I choose an earthly kingdom ?
If I choose an earthly kingdom,
294
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
An earthly kingdom lasts only a little time,
But a heavenly kingdom will last for eternity and its centuries.”
The Tsar chose a heavenly kingdom,
And not an earthly kingdom,
He built a church on Kossovo.
He built it not with floor of marble
But laid down silk and scarlet on the ground. ^
There he summoned the Serbian Patriarch
And twelve great bishops.
Then he gave his soldiers the Eucharist and their battle orders.
In the same hour as the Prince gave orders to his soldiers
The Turks attacked Kossovo.
There follows,** said Constantine, a long passage, very
muddled, about how gallantly the Tsar fought and how at the
end it looked as if they were to win, but Vuk Brankovitch
betrayed them, so they were beaten. And it goes on :
Then the Turks overwhelmed Lazar,
And the Tsar Lazar was destroyed,
And his army was destroyed with him.
Of seven and seventy thousand soldiers.
All was holy, all was honourable
And the goodness of God was fulfilled.*’
I said, “ So that was what happened, Lazar was a member
of the Peace Pledge Union.** Through a long field of rye on
the crest of a hill before me, a wind ran like the tremor that
shuddered over my skin and through my blood. Peeling the
shell from an egg, I walked away from the otherfe, but I knew
that the poem referred to something true and disagreeable in
my own life. ** Lazar was wrong,** I said to myself, “ he saved
his soul and there followed five hundred years when no man on
these plains, nor anywhere else in Europe for hundreds of miles
in any direction, was allowed to keep his soul. He should have
chosen damnation for their sake. No, what am I saying ? I
am putting the State above the individual, and I believe that
there are certain ultimate human rights that must have preced-
ence over all others. What I mean is rather that I do not believe
in the thesis of the poem. I do not believe that any man can
OLD SERBIA
^05
procure his own salvation by refusing to save millions of people
from miserable slavery. That it was a question of fighting does
not matter, because in actual fact fighting is not much more
disgusting, though probably slightly so, than many things
people have to do in order that the race may triumph over
certain assaults. To protect us from germs many people have
to perform exceedingly diotasteful tasks in connection with
sewage, and to open to the community its full economic resources
sailors and miners have to suffer great discomfort and danger.
But indeed this poem shows that the pacifist attitude does not
depend on the horrors of warfare, for it never mentions them.
It goes straight to the heart of the matter and betrays that
what the pacifist really wants is to be defeated. Prince Lazar
and his troops were to take the Eucharist and they were to be
destroyed by the Turks and then they would be saved. There
is not a word about avoiding bloodshed. On the contrary, it is
taken for granted that he fought as well as he could, and killed
every Turk within reach. The important thing is not that he
should be innocent, but that he should be defeated.’*
I realised fully why this poem had stirred me. When I had
stood by the tomb in the monastery at Vrdnik in the Frushka
Gora and touched Prince Lazar’s mummied hand, I had been
well aware that he was of a pattern familiar to me, that he was
one of that company loving honour and freedom and harmony,
which in our day includes Herbert Fisher and Lord Cecil and
Professor Gilbert Murray. Such people I have always followed,
for I know that they are right, and my reason acknowledges
that by their rule and by their rule only can a growing and
incorrupt happiness be established on earth. But when all
times have given birth to such good men and such as myself who
follow them, why has this happiness not long been accomplished ?
Why is there still poverty, when we are ready for handsomeness ?
Why is there carelessness for the future of children ? Why is
there oppression of women by men ? Why is there harshness of
race towards race ? I know the answer. I had known the
answer for long, but it had taken this poem to make my mind
admit that I knew it.
It is revealed at all meetings addressed or attended by the
lesser of those who care for the freedom and the well-being of
others, which often exhale a strange sense of danger. Meetings
of the opposite party, of those who desire others to be enslaved
196 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
for their benefit or to preserve iniquitous social institution^
because of the profit they derive from them, offer the simple
repulsiveness of greed and stupidity, but not this sense of
danger. It is evoked in many ways : by the clothes worn by
the women among the speakers and the audiences, which are
of a sort not to be accounted for by poverty and by overwork,
since they are not specially cheap and must indeed require a
special effort to find, so far do they depart from the normal.
They can serve no purpose save to alienate public opinion ;
and it is sad that they should not do all that they can to secure
the respect of the community when they are trying to revise
communal beliefs. It appears possible that they do not really
want to succeed in that attempt ; and that suspicion is often
aroused by the quality of the speakers* voices and the response
of their audiences. The speakers use all accents of sincerity
and sweetness, and they continuously praise virtue ; but they
never speak as if power would be theirs to-morrow and they
would use it for virtuous action. And their audiences also do
not seem to regard themselves as predestined to rule ; they
clap as if in defiance, and laugh at their enemies behind their
hands, with the shrill laughter of children. They want to be
right, not to do right. They feel no obligation to be part of the
main tide of life, and if that meant any degree of pollution
they would prefer to divert themselves from it and form a
standing pool of purity. In fact, they want to receive the
Eucharist, be beaten by the Turks, and then go to Heaven.
By that they prove themselves inferior to their opponents,
who do not want to separate themselves from the main channel
of life, who believe quite simply that aggression and tyranny
are the best methods of guaranteeing the future of man and
therefore accept the responsibility of applying them. The
friends of liberty have indeed no ground whatsoever for regard-
ing themselves as in any way superior to their opponents, since
they are in effect on their side in wishing defeat and not victory
for their own principles. Not one of them, even the greatest^
has ever been a Caesar as well as his kind self ; and until there
is a kind Caesar every child of woman is born in peril. I looked
into my own heart and I knew that I was not innocent. Often
I wonder whether I would be able to suffer for my principles if
the need came, and it strikes me as a matter of the highest im-
portance. That should not be so. I should ask myself with far
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297
greater urgency whether I have done anything possible to carry
those principles into effect, and how I can attain power to make
them absolutely victorious. But those questions I put only
with my mind. They do not excite my guts, which wait
anxiously while I ponder my gift for martyrdom.
“ If this be so,** I said to myself, if it be a law that those
who are born into the world with a preference for the agreeable
over the disagreeable are born also with an impulse towards
defeat, then the whole world is a vast Kossovo, an abominable
blood-logged plain, where people who love go out to fight
people who hate, and betray their cause to their enemies, so
that loving is persecuted for immense tracts of history, far longer
than its little periods of victory.** I began to weep, for the Left
Wing people among whom I had lived all my life had in their
attitude to foreign politics achieved such a betrayal. They were
always right, they never imposed their rightness. “If this dis-
position to be at once Christ and Judas is inborn,** I thought,
“ we might as well die, and the sooner the better, for the defeat
is painful after the lovely promise.** I turned my back on the
plains, not to see the sodden grass, not to think of the woman
stupid under her ploughshare in Prishtina, the weak-eyed loving
brothers embracing feebly in the standard-bearer’s mausoleum,
the pale touts falsely and hungrily genuflecting about the
Sultan’s coffin, not to imagine the lost glory of the Christian
Slavs, the glory different but equal and equally lost, of the
Ottoman Turks. Even when I saw none of these things with
the eye of the body or the mind I felt despair, and I began to
run, to be more quickly with my companions.
The party I had left had now been joined by a fourth, an old
Albanian wearing the white skull-cap which is as the fez to the
Moslems of that people. He had been invited to share our
food, and he was sitting on the ground with his back to me.
When I drew nearer he turned about to greet me with the smiling
social grace peculiar to Albanians, and I saw that in his arms
there was lying a black lamb such as I had seen sacrificed at the
rock of the Sheep’s Field ; and the meaning of Kossovo was
plain.
The black lamb and the grey falcon had worked together
here. In this crime, as in nearly all historic crimes and most
personal crimes, they had been accomplices. This I had learned
in Yugoslavia, which writes obscure things plain, which fur-
VOL. ii U
ags BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
nishes symbols for what the intellect has not yet formulated.
On the Sheep’s Field I had seen sacrifice in its filth and false-
hood, and in its astonishing power over the imagination. There
I had learned how infinitely disgusting in its practice was the
belief that by shedding the blood of an animal one will be
granted increase ; that by making a gift to death one will receive
a gift of life. There I had recognised that this belief was a vital
part of me, because it was dear to the primitive mind, since it
provided an easy answer to various perplexities, and the primi-
tive mind is the foundation on which the modern mind is built.
This belief is not only hideous in itself ; it pollutes the works
of love. It has laboiu*ed for annulment of the meaning of
Christianity, by insinuating itself into the Church and putting
forward, by loose cries and the drunkenness of ecstasy, a doc-
trine of the Atonement too absurd to be set down in writing.
By that doctrine it is pretended that Christ came to earth to
cook up a senseless and ugly magic rite, to buy with His pain
an unrelated good, and it is concealed from us that His death
convicted us of sin, that it proved our kind to be so cruel that
when goodness itself appeared amongst us we could find nothing
better to do with it than kill it. And I had felt, as I walked
away from the rock with Militsa and Mehmed, that if I thought
longer about the sacrifice I should learn something more, of a
nature discreditable to myself.
Now that I saw the lamb thrusting out the forceless little
black hammer of its muzzle from the flimsy haven of the old
man’s wasted arms, I could not push the realisation away
from me very much longer. None of us, my kind as little as any
others, could resist the temptation of accepting this sacrifice
as a valid symbol. We believed in our heart of hearts that life
was simply this and nothing more, a man cutting the throat
of a lamb on a rock to please God and obtain happiness ; and
when our intelligence told us that the man was performing a dis-
gusting and meaningless act, our response was not to dismiss
the idea as a nightmare, but to say, “ Since it is wrong to be
the priest and sacrifice the lamb, I will be the lamb and
be sacrificed by the priest.” We thereby set up a principle that
doom was honourable for innocent things, and conceded that if
we spoke of kindliness and recommended peace it was fitting
that afterwards the knife should be passed across our throats.
Therefore it happened again and again that when we fought
OLD SERBIA
299
well for a reasonable cause and were in sight of victory, we
were filled with a sense that we were not acting according to the
divine protocol, and turned away and sought defeat, thus be-
traying those who had trusted us to win them kindliness and
peace.
Thus it was that the Slavs were defeated by the Turks on the
field of Kossovo. They knew that Christianity was better for
man than Islam, because it denounced the prime human fault,
cruelty, which the military mind of Mohammed had not even
identified, and they knew also that their essential achievements
in conduct and art would be trodden down into the mud if they
were vanquished. Therefore, because of the power of the rock
over their minds, they could not go forward to victory. They
knew that in this matter they were virtuous, therefore it was
fitting that they should die. In that belief they betrayed all the
virtuous who came after them, for five hundred years. And I
had sinned in the same way, I and my kind, the Liberals of
Western Europe. We had regarded ourselves as far holier than
our Tory opponents because we had exchanged the role of priest
for the role of lamb, and therefore we forgot that we were not
performing the chief moral obligation of humanity, which is
to protect the works of love. We have done nothing to save
our people, who have some little freedom and therefore some
power to make their souls, from the trampling hate of the other
peoples that are without the faculty for freedom and desire to
root out the soul like a weed. It is possible that we have be-
trayed life and love for more than five hundred years on a field
wider than Kossovo, as wide as Europe. As I perceived it I felt
again that imbecile anxiety concerning my own behaviour in
such a crisis, which is a matter of only the slightest importance.
What mattered was that I had not served life faithfully, that I
had been too anxious for a fictitious personal salvation, and im-
becile enough to conceive that I might secure it by hanging
round a stinking rock where a man with dirty hands shed blood
for no reason.
“ Is this not a lovely old Albanian man ? ” asked Constantine.
Indeed he was ; and he was the lovelier because he was smiling,
and the smile of an Albanian is cool and refreshing as a bite
out of a watermelon, their light eyes shine, their white teeth
gleam. Also this old man's skin was white and transparent,
like a very thin cloud. “ I think he is very good," said Con-
300
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
stantine, ** and he is certainly very pathetic, for he has guessed
we are going to the Trepcha mines and he wants us to get a
job for his grandson, who, he says, is a clever boy. I wonder if
we could not do something about it.*’ Constantine was always
at his happiest when he was being kind, and this opportunity
for benevolence made his eye shine brighter than we had seen
it for many a day ; but the cheek below was pouched and
raddled like a weeping woman’s. Perhaps he had been weeping.
The grey falcon had visited him also. He had bared his throat
to Gerda’s knife, he had offered his loving heart to the service
of hate, in order that he might be defeated and innocent.
“ Naturally,” said Dragutin, speaking broken German so
that the old man should not understand, “ this one must be
something of a villain, since he is an Albanian. The Albanians,
having the blood feud and being brigands and renouncers of
Christ, are great villains. But this one is poor and very old,
and whatever harm he does he cannot do for much longer, so
let us do what we can for him.” He shuddered, then laid his
open hand on his chest and breathed deeply, as if he had thought
of old age and was restoring himself by savouring his own
health and strength. It would have been possible to take him
as an image of primitive simplicity had he not, only a little
time before, recited this subtle and complicated poem about the
grey falcon, and had not that poem survived simply because
his people were able to appreciate it. This is the Slav mystery :
that the Slav who seems wholly a man of action, is aware of
the interior life, of the springs of action, as only the intellectuals
of other races are. It is possible that a Slav Caesar might be
moved in crises by a purity of metaphysical motive hardly to
be conceived elsewhere, save among priests and philosophers.
Perhaps Stephen Dushan was not only influenced by thoughts
of innocence and guilt, as all great statesmen are, but was
governed by them almost to the exclusion of simpler and more
material considerations. Perhaps he died in his prime as many
die, because he wished for death ; because this image of bloody
sacrifice which obsesses us all had made him see shame in the
triumph which seemed his destiny. He stood at his doonVay
in the Balkan mountains and looked on the gold and ivory and
marble of Constantinople, on its crosses and its domes and the
ships in its harbours, and he knew that he was as God to these
things, for they would cease to be, unless he retained them as
OLD SERBIA
301
clear thoughts in his mind. He feared to have that creative
power, he stepped back from the light of his doorway, he
retreated into the blameless world of the shadows ; and Con-
stantinople faded like a breath on a window-pane.
Yugoslavia is always telling me about one death or
another,^’ I said to myself, “ the death of Franz Ferdinand, the
death of Alexander Obrenovitch, and Draga, the death of
Prince Michael, the death of Prince Lazar, the death of Stephen
Dushan. Y et this country is full of life. I feel that we Westerners
should come here to learn to liv *. But perhaps we are ignorant
about life in the West because we avoid thinking about death.
One could not study p^ography if one concentrated on the land
and turned one*s attention away from the sea.** Then I cried
out, for I had forgotten the black lamb, and it had stretched out
its neck and lai*' its cold twitching muzzle against my bare
forearm. All the men laughed at me, though the Albanian was
careful to keep a central core of courtesy in his laughter. I
returned their laughter, but I was frightened. I did not trust
anybody in this group, least of all myself, to cast off this infatua-
tion with sacrifice which had caused Kossovo, which, if it were
not checked, would abort all human increase.
Kossovska Mitrovitsa I
The town lay on the limits of the plain, at the threshold of
the warm, broken Serbian country that reminds Somerset men
of Somerset and Scots of the Lowlands, a little town, a standard
town, with barracks on a hill, some minarets, the main body
of its houses round the bend in the river : some exquisite old
Turkish houses, with their beautifully proportioned upper
storeys and intricately carved lattices, notably in the street where
we found our hotel. “ Go in, go in,** said Dragutin impatiently,
** do not look at the rat warrens left by the abominable, look
rather at this hotel, which has been built since the mines at
Trepcha were opened, and is fino^ fino,'' Certainly the large
cafe we entered was very clean and proud and well found, and
entirely lacked the Balkan touch : that is to say, nothing in the
place looked as if it had been brought from somewhere else and
adapted to its present purposes by a preoccupied intellectual.
But the people who were sitting there were Balkan enough.
302
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Four men were playing cards with their hats on, and a young
priest was circling round them with a glass of tea in his hand,
looking at their cards. He was supremely beautiful ; his long
hair and beard were wavy and blue-black, his eyes were immense
and gentian-blue. At the sight of one man’s hand he flung back
his head, cried out something mocking, sat down, and sipped
his tea between gusts of silent laughter. “ From his accent I
think he is Russian,” said Constantine ; and indeed he had the
spiral and ethereal air, as of one formed from smoke-wreaths,
which I had noticed in some of the Russian priests and monks
I had met in Yugoslavia. “ Yes, he is a Russian,” said the
waiter ; ” there are people of all nations working in the Trepcha
mines, and among them are many Russians, and this is the son
of one amongst them.”
” Now I have engaged our rooms,” said my husband, ” I
must go and telephone to the people at the mines, to see if it
will be convenient for them to let us go up and see them now.”
Certainly, certainly,” said Constantine, I will tell the waiter
to show you the telephone and get you the number.” But
when my husband came and told us, ” It is all right, they
sound very nice people, very Scotch, and they say they will be
very delighted to see us, and that we are to come up at once,”
Constantine said with a sad smile, “ I hope that you did not
frighten your friends by telling them that you were bringing
me with you, for I am going to excuse myself.” ” But why ? ”
exclaimed my husband. ” They sounded as if they would really
be so pleased to see you, it was not merely a matter of politeness.
And I am sure you will be interested to visit the mine.” Con-
stantine shook his head and continued to smil^ “ I do not
think they will really be very disappointed if I do not come with
you,” he said. ” I understand the English too well to believe
that. I think you and your friends will be happier if you are all
English together and you can say what you really think of my
country.” He said it with Gerda’s accent. ” And as for seeing
the mine, I am a writer and I do not really need to visit a mine
to know what it is like.’* He added, that I might not fail to
note that he had let fly at me, ” I am not a journalist, me. I
am a poet.”
He was depriving himself horribly. If he had come with us
there would have been new people to impress and charm ; and
his mind, which was actually not at all autokinetic, but which,
OLD SERBIA
303
like a New Zealand geyser, let loose its fountains only when
some solid object had been dropped into it, would have been
inspired to its best by the spectacle of anything so remote from
his experience as a mine. But it was no use arguing. One
by one he was closing the shutters of all his windows. We
sat for a moment in silence drinking our coffee. A waiter came
in with a plate of sweet cakes, slices of the Dobosh and Sacher
Torten that in the Balkans mean sophistication and pride and
contact with the West, and put it down by the card-players.
The young priest took one and begr.n to circle round the players
again, eating it upwards instead of downwards, pressing it
against the roof of his mouth with his tongue, as the bears in
the Zoo do, when they are given a spoonful of honey. The
upper half of the tall caf^ windows nearly touched the pro-
jecting first floor a Turkish house opposite. Two bare hands
gripped the top of the lattice, we were being watched by a
hidden face.
Dragutin walked through the cafe and Constantine called
out, ** Are you ready to take them to the mines in a minute or
two ? ” He answered, Yes, indeed. I have put my head in a
basin of cold water, and I am just as fresh as if I had just left
Skoplje, And if I had not I should still be ready to go to the
mines, for that place up there is fino^ fi7io. There would I live
if I were not the Ban’s chauffeur, and I say it seriously.”
Before Dragutin shut the automobile door on us, he cried
again, ” Fino^ fino ! ” and waved his arm in promise that we
were going to drive to Paradise. ” I wonder what it is that
Dragutin considers fino, fino,"' said my husband, ** I fear it
may be something quite terrible in concrete.” Looking out
of the window, I said, ” There are an extraordinary number of
shops, and they sell excellent things, really quite excellent fruit.”
” I see that everybody moves quickly and lightly,” said my
husband. ” This little place has a pride, as if it were some-
where like Bitolj.” The road took us out of Kossovska Mitrovitsa,
into a valley, hugging the base of steep hills covered with dwarf
beechwoods and winding with the willow-hung course of a
river, and brought us soon to a succession of prodigies alien
from the idyllic character of the countryside, which suggested
the more delicate type of folk-song, just a little more robust
than the written lyric. There was a multiplication of railway
tracks by the river-bank ; and then there was a low hill, not a
304
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
mound but a hill, square-cut and the colour of death. “ That
is waste from the mines,** said my husband ; ** nothing can
ever be done with it, nothing will ever grow on it.** Then came
a group of pale corrugated buildings, fantastic according to
the whimsy of engineering, straddling high on stilts here, there
dropping long galleries from third floor to ground like iron
necks that want to drink, or lifting little tanks that stand on
thin legs among the roofs like storks. ** This is an immense
place,*’ said my husband happily. Then the river regained its
peace and ran among its water-meadows again, and the road
forsook it and swung up the southern incline of a steep hill.
** Fino^ fino ! ** cried Dragutin, waving at the hillside ; and he
was perfectly right. The upper half of the hillside was un-
reclaimed from wild nature and wild history ; above beech-
woods and thickets, a slope of long grass harlequined with
flowers ran up to a pinched peak confused with the ruins of a
castle. This was lovely enough, but not so lovely as what lay
below. The lower half of the hillside was entirely covered with
villas of the Golder’s Green sort, standing in little gardens ; and
it was indeed fino^ fino, I would not have thought so before I
went to the Balkans, but now I knew it.
** I never realised before,** said my husband, ** that a garden
is a political thing.’* For weeks past we had never seen a
country house which was not planned on the definite under-
standing that the people living in it were bound to be frightened
most of the time, and for very good reason. Unless houses
were in the centre of a town they turned blank sides to the road,
and surrounded themselves with high walls, to halt the attack
of the Turkish soldier, the brigand or the tax-collector. But
here we saw windowed walls freely exposed to the four
quarters, their irises and their roses and green peas and
runner beans left unguarded before every eye. Here nobody’s
grandmother had been raped and hamstrung, nobody’s grand-
father had had his entire crop stolen by brigands and been
marched off by the disappointed tax-collectors to do a season’s
forced labour for the Pasha and never been seen again. Some of
the windows were brightly giving back the westering sun, and it
seemed like a blast blown by a jolly trumpeter who had never
known despair. ** These houses belong to the chiefs,” said
Dragutin, ** but the men also have beautiful homes. Look
down in the valley 1 But let us go on, for the Gospodin Mac’s
OLD SERBIA
30s
home is at the very top, and it*s the most beautiful of all ! **
Thus we ascended to heights superior to Golder’s Green, to
Chislehurst, to very Heaven, which is indeed what Chislehurst
is, can one but see it for a second brushed clear of that dust which
settles on institutions, not when they are disused but when they
have been so long in use that they are taken for granted.
There was a gravel sweep, and beds of standard roses on
each side of the front door, and Dorothy Perkins all over the
white rough-cast walls, and a perambulator on the porch. An
Aberdeen terrier waddled out io meet us, and we acclaimed
him, since not for weeks had we heard a country dog bark so
comfortably, with so palpable a mere feint of exasperation. But
this dog had known no graver incident in its life than a moment’s
uncertainty about the verdict of the judges at Cruft’s ; he did
not come of a linr of dogs trained to take food only from their
master’s hands lest his enemies should poison them. Within
the villa there was English chintz, fatly upholstered armchairs
and sofas, polished floors and, as so often in an English home, a
Scottish family. There was the Gospodin Mac, a Scotsman
of the toughly delicate type, whose sharp features and corded
neck and lean body looked as if the east winds that had blown
on him in his childhood had twisted and wrung every part of
him save the head and the heart. His wife was a sample of the
other Scotland, the abundant Scotland, the one country which
knows how to make its cakes rich enough, that scorns the
superficial voluptuousness of icing and cream fillings and
achieves the sober luxury of shortbread and Scotch bun. She
was strongly built ; Ayrshire born she used the deep soft speech
of the Western Lowlands ; and she moved slowly and con-
fidently, as those do, no doubt, who work in the Mint. For
she too had behind her a store of wealth, in her mother wit
and powers of observation, her invincible curiosity, and her
unalterably high standards. There was a married daughter,
who wrung my heart without knowing it by her resemblance
to the dearest friend of my schooldays, whose angular
grace and fine cheek-bones and clear colouring and sweet
voice she had borrowed without the slightest excuse of a
blood tie. These people instantly entranced us. I hung round
them shamelessly, like a hungry dog at a larder door. We
stayed with them too long that day, for we accepted when we
were asked to supper, and did not go back to the hotel afterwards
3o6 black lamb AND GREY FALCON
as soon as we should. Indeed, whenever I found myself in
their presence I stayed with them exactly as long as I could,
because they knew all sorts of things that I and my friends do
not know, they were all sorts of things that I and my friends
are not.
** Neither this nor any of the mines we own in Yugoslavia
is being worked for the first time. First the Greeks worked
them, and then the Romans : then in the Middle Ages the Serbs
brought in the Saxons to work them. Then under the Turks
the work stopped, stopped dead, for five centuries, until we
started it again. And the funny thing is that you can tell each
period by its style, without looking at its age. The Greeks had
great fancy, they seem to have been wonderful at guessing
where the stuff was likely to be and finding the most ingenious
way of getting at it. But their construction was only fairish.
The Romans don’t seem to have had such good ideas but they
were grand on construction. They always made a lovely job of
the building. And the Saxons just came along nicely, without
adding anything, but following on well. And we’re using a lot
of it just as it was. I never go by the stone seat where the
Roman sentinel sat, without giving it a pat, and wondering
too. For just by that seat there’s a bit of construction that none
of us can understand. There’s a long piece of tunnelling, too
small for even a child to crawl through, running from one full-
sized gallery to another, and no way of getting from one to the
other that I can see. We’ve all puzzled our heads over it, and
not one of us can work out an explanation. But sometimes that
happens, you find workings in old mines that are incompre-
hensible to the finest engineers.” It was disconcerting, this
emergence of mystery, constant character of human activities,
in anything so concrete as mining.
There was an offer to take us up to the mine next day,
which I accepted so eagerly that the Gospodin Mac brought
forward his immensely thick eyebrows and made his terms plain.
“ I said up to the mine, not down the mine, mind you.” My
husband and I smiled at one another, for I have a terror of
going below the earth, which has kept me out of London and
New York subways for twenty years ; but I said, “ Is it so
dangerous then ? ” But it was not a matter of danger ; it
was the men’s feelings that had to be considered. ** They
believe that if women come down the mine there is bound to be
OLD SERBIA
307
an accident. Now will you explain me that ? They had just
that same belief out in the mines where we were in South
America, and they have it in mines all over the world. But
elsewhere than here you have miners wliose families have been
working below surface for generations and who have worked in
different countries. It*s natural the> should have developed
their superstitions and then pooled them with the miners of
these other countries. But the people here haven’t worked in
a mine for five hundred years : in fact I don’t think these people
have ever worked in mines, because under the Serbian Empire
it was Saxons and Saxons only who were miners. The foreign
miners who taught these chaps their mining work can’t have
given them these ideas, for they couldn’t speak Serbian enough
for general conversation, indeed they have to teach them largely
by the look-see method. Well, how does it happen that miners
here now hold, and hold passionately, as if they had held them
for generations, exactly the same superstitions that miners
hold all over the world ? I wish somebody would explain me
that.” His daughter said, “ And there’s no use arguing with
them over this superstition, for whenever Dad’s insisted on
letting a woman go down the mine there’s been an accident
just afterwards.” ” A serious one ? ” The Gospodin Mac
shrugged his shoulders. We paused, confronted for a moment
by the suspicion that the universe was idiotic : or that man was
idiotic, made idiotic to the point of suicide, which would make
his unconscious self pull down a prop and let blackness devour
him, rather than that his libel on the female of his kind should
be proved untrue.
The women talked too, always well, always of known things.
They spoke of the people in the town. Yes, there were still some
Turkish families who had not gone back to Turkey, who were
indeed too wealthy to abandon their interests here. There was
one family which Mrs. Mac knew quite well, who still kept a
nice house outside the town. There were some fine sons, but
they were all at odds, all pulled apart because they wanted to
fit in with Yugoslavian life but had their family pride and
tradition keeping them to Mohammedanism, which made them
aliens in their own country. One had recently consented to obey
his parents and marry the daughter of a merchant in Bitolj, in
order to cement some business alliance. ** But the boys here
get used to seeing the girls that work in our offices down at the
3o8 black lamb AND GREY FALCON
mill,** said Mrs. Mac, ** and right smart they are ; indeed, 1
think the White Russians almost overdo it.** The girl from
Bitolj did not satisfy these standards, and it was the habit of
the young husband to get drunk every now and then and go with
his wife to some public place and twitch off her veil and cry,
‘ Look at the dreary piece Tve been given ! ** But he always
woke up afterwards a good Turk, and suffered agonies of repent-
ance for his outbreak, so he had the worst of both worlds.
** Most of the Moslems we have working for us are
Albanians,** said the Gospodin Mac, ‘‘ and everybody likes the
Albanians.** That is universally said : the enmity the Turks
fostered between the Albanians and all the other Balkan races is
being allayed simply by Albanian charm. They began to talk
of their old gardener, an Albanian Moslem, whom they had
loved dearly, and who was now desperately ill of an internal
disease. “ I doubt his wife*s any great help to him,** said Mrs.
Mac. ** It*s a funny thing, these Moslem women aren*t so
domesticated as you would think. They say they don*t take
any pleasure in cooking, and that if they’re by themselves they
just live on black coffee, drinking it all the day through. I don*t
think they know how to make their men comfortable. But the
people round here were in a terrible state until the mine started.
Lots of them had no notion of cooking. They’d bake a kind of
unleavened bread in the ashes and that’s all they’d do ; and in
the time when the gourds are in they’d mix up some gourds and
dough and bake it into the most awful mash you ever saw, just
like the dog’s dinner. Meat they’d never see from one year to
another, so they just lived on this mess.”
It is written in the history books that three hundred years
after Kossovo the Serbs of this district tried to find a remedy for
their misery by emigration. They had never been subdued
and had spent those intervening centuries in perpetual revolt,
but after they had aided the Austrians in their attacks on the
Ottoman Empire in the latter half of the seventeenth century
and had seen the Westerners, with all their advantages fail, they
lost heart. Then came the time that is written of again and
again, when the Patriarch Arsenius III accepted the Austrian
Emperor Leopold’s offer to receive hospitably all Serbians
migrating into his territory, and he marched at the head of thirty-
seven thousand Serbian families across the waste lands of the
Slavs into Hungary in 1690. That is what is set out in the
OLD SERBIA
309
history books. But of course it is not the whole truth. Nothing
is written of the people who did not join in the trek, for of course
not all of them did. When Caulaincourt passed across Russia
at the side of Napoleon they found that none of the towns which
had been evacuated were quite empty. In each of them were
** Quelques malheureux de la deriliire classe du peuple
“ quelques vieils hommes et femmes de la derniere classe
It would be so here. There would be some people who would
not join in the emigration because their extreme misfortune
made them unacceptable even by their own unfortunate com-
munity : the old, the s^ck, the criminal, women without men,
victims of odd obligations, those on whom the enemy had some
hold. They stayed behind, and the generations after them
forgot. Forgot everything, even how to cook. So what they
ate looked like the dog’s dinner. History came up in its real
colours, blown on by this woman’s breath.
We said good-night and stood in the porch under the Dorothy
Perkins roses, waiting for Dragutin. In the valley below a dog
howled, and howled again : a bore of a dog that had never been
told about climax. “ Confound that dog,” said Gospodin Mac,
** that’s the one that keeps me from sleeping. We must see
about that to-morrow ; this is the third night that it’s been giving
us a concert.” ” It’s the German’s dog,” said his daughter.
” Do you have many Germans working here ? ” asked my
husband. ” Only the one that takes care of the rope-way,” said
the Gospodin Mac. ” Well, if you have to have a rope-way,
you have to have Germans,” said my husband, ** I don’t think
I like that, the way that all the decent funiculars in the world
are made by a German company.” ” I don’t like it myself,”
said the Gospodin Mac, but we console ourselves with thinking
that they won’t make a funicular except with English steel
rope.” His happy knowledge of material objects made me think
of two lines of a poem taught me in my childhood, which had
always till now seemed ironic :
The world is so full of a number of things.
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
The night wind blew through the women’s thin dresses, and
I murmured apologetically, ” That chauffeur is a very long time
in coming.” Then we heard through the darkness the voice of
Dragutin making his farewells to the butler and the cook at the
310 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
kitchen door, slow and deep-chested and rhetorical, and he
came striding along with primitive but superb panache : so
might a subject of Stephen Dushan's have borne himself, sure
that at any moment now he might receive the horse and armour
which would make him a noble. With a new breadth of style,
he drove us down the hillside, where naked lights over gateways
carved out of the blackness a white cell of garden that would be
for ever England as far as Carter’s seeds could help it, along the
dark highway, through the sleeping town, to the hotel, which
was oddly at this late hour a square of light. The caf6 was still
half full of people. It had the same air as all places where
Slavs sit up at night : it was as if time had precipitated itself in
the artificial light and hung there suspended, brooding before it
again committed itself to the curious course of life. “You
are up late,” my husband said to the proprietor. He answered,
” It is the White Russians from the mines, they never want to
go to bed.” And indeed it could be seen that it was so, for these
people had the Russian quality which, not the same as merit,
nor even beauty, makes them a point of departure for the
imagination, that special quality which makes any actor or
actress with Terry or Barrymore blood light up a stage, whether
he or she can act or not. “ I do not complain,” said the pro-
prietor, “ it means money. We had no money till the mines
opened, but now it comes in, more and more every day. God
be thanked ! ” he said.
We were in a town drenched with a rising tide, but the tide
had not yet risen so far as one might suppose. That we learned
next morning as we went about making purchases before they
came to take us up to the mines. This was an island : parts
of it were even now incomunicado^ not having had whispered
to them the words we all know. We realised this when a
photographer from whom we had bought some films halted us
at the show-case outside his shop, saying, “ Look ! Of these I
am unusually proud ! ” He spoke of several pictures represent-
ing a middle-aged woman, wearing the full trousers and em-
broidered jacket of an odalisque, and offering the spectator a
cup of coffee with a leer which indicated that it was a symbol
for the joys of the harem. The portraits were in fact not
unattractive. It is true that she was plump as an elephant,
but she was so beautiful that the resemblance only served to
explain what it is that male elephants feel about female elephants.
OLD SERBIA
311
“ Very nice/* said my husband, “ who is she ? ** “ The wife
of the general in command of our garrison,'’ said the photo-
grapher. It was as if a show-case in Aldershot High Street
should be filled with portraits of the wife of the general in
command of the district, clad in the coquetry and localised
plumage of Mistinguett.
But we spoke no more of her, for my husband had caught
sight of another photograph, set just below these portraits,
which were so exuberant in the lit^^ral sense of the word. It
strangely contrasted with them. Four astonished mourners
presented to the street a lidless coffin, in which there lay a bearded
man with closed eyes, death collecting visibly in the hollows of
his cheeks. About the coffin stood some children, wild-eyed with
grief, and a woman putting her hand to a forehead blank with
distraction. My God, who was that ? ” my husband asked.
** It is our late mayor,” said the photographer. ” He was a very
good man.” ” Was he assassinated, or was it an accident ? ” asked
my husband. ” Who ? The Mayor ? ” said the photographer.
” No, no, it was remarkable how everybody liked him. He died
of something wrong with his stomach.” ” Then what is this
scene ? ” ” It is just his funeral.” ” But look ! ” I said, pulling
at my husband’s sleeve, for I had found yet a third indication of
a life different from ours. It was the photograph of a young
black-haired man wearing the kind of face which Slavs assume
when they intend to look romantic, which all Russian ballet-
dancers use when they are teetering for balance : it resembles
a sad spoon. The portrait showed his nude torso to the waist :
and between his mammary glands, which were a shocking waste,
a chain suspended that most innocent exemplar of jewellery, a
heart-shaped pendant with a seed pearl in its centre. ** Who
is this young man ? ” asked my husband. ” He is a lieutenant
in the garrison here,” replied the photographer, wholly without
embarrassment. ” He is a funny fellow, always coming to be
photographed, always in fancy dress, sometimes in woman*s
clothes.” ” Are there many such young men here ? ” asked my
husband. ” He is the only one,’* said the photographer.
At our hotel a car waited to take us up to the mines and
Constantine sat dunking a roll in his coffee. ” Good morning ! ”
we called, and he answered us civilly, but with at look of con-
demnation checked only by the painful exercise of courtesy. It
was apparent that we were committing the same crime as those
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
31 *
who are not sea-sick when others are. “ Will you be ready
soon ? ” we asked. His forehead contracted in agony. It was
apparent that we spoke too loud. ** Ready for what ? ” he
asked. ** To go up to the mines,” I said, ” it will all be very
interesting, and you’ll like the manager, he is a most wonderful
person.” Constantine laughed silently into the distance. It
was apparent that we had shown gross insensitiveness. ” No,
I do not think I would like the manager,” he said. “ I have
read of such people in Dickens, and I think we are of quite
different sorts.” ” Oh ! come on ! ” we pleaded, but he raised
his eyebrows and pulled his mouth down and looked down at the
table-cloth, slowly shaking his head. No,” he said, ” where
men claw at the sides of the noble mountains, for the sake of
money, mere money, there I would be quite out of place. But
you go,” he said kindly, ” you go. I shall not blame you. We
cannot all feel the same repugnances. Go up there and be
happy. And I will get Dragutin to drive me to some place
where the mountains have not been violated. And there I will
be at peace, and I will remember that I am a poet, and I will
be very happy. Happier than I think you could understand.”
We murmured and left him, not because we were angered by
him, for we were not. Both of us loved him, and he was at this
moment most piteous, for his floridity was purplish and the
whites of his eyes were dun. But it was as physically exhausting
to talk to him when he was fixed in this perverse attitude as it
would be to talk to a contortionist whose mouth spoke out of
the shadow under his crooked knee.
The chauffeur who had come to take us to the mines was
the personal chauffeur of the Gospodin Mac ; and it appeared
that there are some who are heroes to their valets. ” Does he
hope we will repeat all this to his employer ? ” my husband
wondered ; but answered himself, “No, he is too noble a
creature and anyway he conceives his relationship with the
Gospodin Mac as already ideal.” We went out of the town and
received proof that we were indeed in the South, where the land
burns in summertime like the human skin ; a bridge joined
brown land to brown land, and in a brown river there swam
brown youths. In a valley where still browner babies kicked
and squealed among bulrushes in a shallow stream, there
marched over the mountainside the pylons of a rope-way, with
here and there a carrier riding down from the mines tp the mill.
OLD SERBIA
313
Thereafter there was a group of gay new houses up on the hills,
and the chauffeur halted us. “ Our workmen live there,” he
said, and we responded that they were very beautiful ; and so
they were, they had the same lyrical quality as some modern
French industrial garden cities, such as those on the Seine near
Caudebec where the hydroplanes are made. ** Some of the houses
you will see later on are built by the company, and they are
magnificent,” continued the chauffeur, ” but these are built by
the workmen themselves, and they are line enough. They also
have the wonderful thing th'it the Gospodin Mac has brought
to our country. They also have ine septic tank.” He turned
towards us passionately. Is it not a most wonderful thing,
the septic tank ? All tins filth that gushes out ” — his arms
drew on the sky an image of the impurity that floods the universe,
not to be beaten back by the spirit, only to be conquered by the
talisman of the Gospodin Mac — ” turned into water, clear
water ! ” His hands fluttered, saluting salvation. ” Many
centuries after my master is dead,” he cried, ” he will be
honoured because he brought us the septic tank.” The primal
idea of sanitation surprised us by its angelic appearance. Yet
the memory of the obscure apartment at Prishtina, with the
age-old coat of slime on its floor, made it not so surprising.
I would never have known the mine-head for what it was.
It looked like a railway station, standing under a scar in the
wooded hills at the valley-head, with a goods tram loaded with
lumps of ore, the colour of ageing and desperate silver, puffing
away from it. In what looked like a waiting-room, and was a
kind of office, we found two young Englishmen wearing overalls
and carrying electric torches, who paused to tell us before they
went off to take baths that they had just been down the mine
with the Gospodin Mac, and that he had come up first and would
be with us as soon as he had bathed and dressed. They were
admirable young men, neatly shaped by their profession, like
well-sharpened pencils. Not theirs the long points of the artists
and scientists, which are as like as not to break and necessitate
a fresh use of the knife ; not theirs the bluntness of those who
know no craft. They were just right. As they went I looked
at the map of the mine that was hanging on the wall and said,
“ I cannot understand the name of this place — Stan Trg. Trg
I know to be market, but what is Stan ? It does not seem like a
Serbian word at all.” ” Neither it is,” said one of the English-
X
VOL. II
3X4
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
men, it is simply a mistake. Somebody copied the name
wrongly when the mine was started, and nobody about the place
knew enough Serbian to correct it. But it ought to be Stari.**
They left us marvelling at the impersonality of the governing
daemon of mining, which goes into a country of which it knows
nothing, not so much of its language as the word which means
** old ”, and digs down into its vitals for its secret wealth.
By daylight the Gospodin Mac’s wind-bitten fragility looked
even frailer than on the night before, his strength more apostolic
in its meek sternness. We walked out of the office with him
and the drivers of some passing ox-carts turned their heads
to look at us, strangers partaking in the local glory. Each
of them was enough to ravish the heart of woman, for they
wore the Lika cap. This is the most attractive form of head-
gear ever designed for men. It is a round black cap with a
red edge to it, and a bunch of fine black braid falling to the
left shoulder where it gives any man an air of gallantry and
amusing faithlessness. By itself it would explain why Lord
Byron loved the Near East. ” But Lika is far away,” I said.
It is on the Karst, on the limestone behind the Dalmatian coast,
to be reached from Kossovo only through Montenegro or by
by-ways in the Bosnian hills. ** We are full of those chaps,”
said Gospodin Mac, the Government sends batches of them
down here to work for us, from the villages up there on the
mountains, where they can never make a decent living, because
there’s literally no land, just pocketfuls of earth in the rock.
We have all sorts of people here, you know. It’s a fine mix-up
of races and religions. We have the Catholic Croats from
Croatia, Catholic Croats from Dalmatia, the local Orthodox
Serbs who were here when we came, the Orthodox Serbs from
Serbia who are quite different, some Orthodox Serbs from
Montenegro, who are quite different again, the local Albanians
who are some of them Moslems and some of them Catholic
and a few of them Orthodox, some White Russians in the
offices and in the mill, and us Scotch, and English and Ameri-
cans. Yes, they get on well now. At first it wasn’t good.
Sometimes it was very bad indeed. We had a Croat foreman
who engaged the hands, and there was a devil of a row about
him with the Serbs, they swore he was favouring the Croats.
But he was a good man, and I thought there was nothing in it,
and I wouldn’t fire him. So one day the poor fellow was
OLD SERBIA
315
sitting in his office and a Serb workman who had had too
much to drink came in and shot him dead. It was a terrible
business. But we caught the murderer, though he had gone
up into the hills, and he was sent down for a long sentence, and
that got us all on a stage further. They saw that the old days
were over, and that you didn’t pay for a life with a life, but with
a life in a prison. That they don’t like so much, and they
began to see things differently.” ” Had the Croat foreman
been favouring the Croats ? ” I asked, and when he did not
answer but talked of soitir'thing else, I asked him again at his
first pause : I never learned better when I was a child, though
they often tried to teach me. We have a Croat now in much
the same position, and no man could be fairer,” was his answer,
and I fell behind, staring in the dust while the two men talked
mineral technicalities. ” I thought there was nothing in it.
. . . We have a Croat now who ...” I saw him sitting
alone in an office, turning over a dead man’s papers, growing
suddenly white and pinched round the nostrils as he recognised
some obstacle to order which had taken the mean advantage
of being ideological and not metallurgical, of not being amen-
able to treatment on sound mining principles.
A winding road took us up a steep hill through a garden
city of white houses and pink roofs, set about with orchards.
It was exactly like such places in the West and totally different.
With us they mean an attempt to mitigate a victory of darkness
over decent earth ; but here it meant that the decent earth
had for the first time in centuries known other than darkness.
With us industrial workers appear as victims of a social system
that has prevented them from enjoying the relatively agreeable
existence of a free peasant or an artisan, and has condemned
them to a standard of comfort far below that enjoyed by other
classes who do easier work or none at all. That view was
moonshine here. For five centuries no way of living had been
within reach of these people which could be considered as a
preferable alternative ; this was not so in Macedonia and not
so in Serbia, but it was true of this particular area. For five
centuries there had been no class in this community which
enjoyed such a high standard of comfort, and there still is
none ; the functionaries and Army officers are far more pinched
for means. In the porches of these little houses women were
sitting as the blessed in Paradise, with the reinforced satis-
3i6 black lamb AND GREY FALCON
faction of those who have known a previous inferiority. Their
children, playing among the flowers, turned on us eyes that,
whether black or that profound yet light Slav blue, seemed to
lack something and be the better for it ; and we realised how
many of the children we had seen lately had been solemnised
by the knowledge of hunger and peril. “ Running water in
every house,** murmured the Gospodin Mac, “ and they keep
them like new pins.” We passed through this ordinary yet
authentic Eden, and came to a canteen where the unmarried
workers eat their midday meal. There cooks stood smiling
with the special pride of those who practise mysteries not only
beneficent but novel, beside cauldrons where bean soup bubbled
brown and sooty black, and lamb chops simmered in gravy
peat-red with paprika. I know of at least one English public
school where the food is not so good. There was no mistake
about it, here mechanical civilisation was enticing. This
modern industrial unit pleased like a paper transparency held
against light, for the double reason that it was a superb specimen
of its kind, and that there was behind it the vacuum of Turkish
misrule.
It was as touching as the glow of contentment in the eyes
of the foreign immigrants in the United States during the
good old days before 1929, who were entranced to find them-
selves where there was an abundance of food, no matter what
the weather might be, warm and cheap clothing, comfortable
footwear, water-tight housing, and, not easily to be acquired
but within the possibility of acquirement as never in East
Galicia or Portugal, radios, refrigerators and automobiles.
They had not realised that in this new industrialised world
there are seasons other than those determined by the course
of the sun, which are both crueller and longer ; and that the
urban versions of blizzard and drought are more terrible be-
cause they must be suffered in an absolute destitution, unknown
to communities where each owns or has the right of access to
at least a strip of land, and where all are joined by ties of
blood or friendship cultivated through generations. The
process had been slower in our own country, but I had seen its
last lamentable phase. The English manufacturers of the
nineteenth century had appeared as redeemers to the down-
trodden agricultural labourers who were dying rather than
livingunder a land system which would have shocked the Balkans,
OLD SERBIA
317
and who found food and warmth such as they had never known
in the towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire and the Midlands ; but
they have no such reputations among the vast unhappy army
of the unemployed. My instinct therefore was to warn the
miners who were coming in at the door, grinning with happy
appetite, ** Do not be deceived. Whom you suppose to be
your benefactor is in fact your enemy, and will enslave you
and take from your children what you never lost even under
the Turk, the right to work.**
They would have answered, ** What, we are to count as an
enemy one who gave us food tor our bellies and clothes for
our back, and a reast>nable chance of dying in our beds ?
If you ask that, then > ou can ne/er have known hunger and
cold and fear.” And they would have been right. It is a
monstrous piece cf bogus liberalism to deny that industrialism
has done much for the highest interests of humanity by raising
the standard of living. It is as foolish as to deny the harm it
has done them by not raising it enough, by poisoning the skies
and fields with cheap cities, and taking away the will of its
employees by keeping them in political and economic subjection.
I was at fault in assuming that because English and American
industry had proved unable to maintain its workers as it had
at first promised, that must be so in Yugoslavia. The slow
decline of prosperity in England was due to the shrinkage of
markets, caused largely by the increasing capacity of the Orient
to produce its own requirements, to the defects of the upper-
class education which put all industrial undertakings with the
promise of stability into the hands of heirs incapable of adapting
themselves to altered conditions, and to over-conservative bank-
ing. The quick decline of prosperity in America was due to
industrialists who had lost sight of the existing limitations of
consumption, and to reckless banking. In both England and
America the ultimate blame lay, of course, deeper than this :
in the insistence of the richer classes in keeping too large a pro-
portion of the profits of industry, and all its control, in their
own hands. This meant that it was exploited for the benefit
of their immediate needs and not with regard to its perpetua-
tion. That deepest factor of all was present in the Yugoslavian
situation. These miners were working for the share-holders,
whose interests came first. But the mine had been started after
the war, when European aspirations had become more modest,
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
318
by Anglo-American financiers of the more stable sort, who had
never suffered from the gambling fever that swept Wall Street
and the Middle West. It was probably under cautious and dis-
illusioned management, and was certainly staffed by men who
had no hopes of rising to permanent grandeur in a Scotch
baronial mansion with twenty-five bedrooms, all kept up by
grinding the faces of the poor. It might well be that the in-
dustrial unit would last so long as there was metal to be fetched
out of the ground, prudently and patiently.
Was there, one wondered, unity among these workers ?
Were the English and Americans, who formed the high com-
mand of the mines, as it were, sensible of the necessity to make
this enterprise an instrument of life instead of death ? That
depended on what mining engineers were like, which was a
matter wholly veiled from me. I knew that the one beside me
was fully aware of the issues within his control.
The Gospodin Mac was pointing to a hillside that showed
the particular charm of Serbian scenery, the upland lawn among
woodlands, proper place for nymphs to dance, and he was
saying, ‘‘ That’s our land too. And I was sorry to buy it, though
it’s as well for us to have as much land as we can round here.
There was a piece down on the other side of the valley that we
couldn’t snap up in time, and some blackguards started a red-
light district there that’s the source of almost all the trouble we
have with the men. But this land up here I was sorry to buy,
because the Albanian who owned it hadn’t wanted to move out
of it, and he was a real decent old man. He came to me and
he said, * Here, you’d better have my land. It’s no use to me
any more. My women can’t walk about unveiled on the place,
and we can’t live the same sort of life we used to before you
came. So give me some money for it and we’ll go down and
live in the town.’ And mind you, I think the family had been
there for ever. We gave him two thousand pounds for the place
and every step of the transaction was a pleasure, he was so
honest and polite, and he knew perfectly well we were being
fair with him, and he would have cut off his hand rather than
not be fair with us. I often grieve that we should have put an
end to the way he and his family were living, for it was produ-
cing fine people. Every now and again he comes in for advice,
because he trusts us, but I don’t know that there’s much of his
two thousand left. It’s not easy to find investments in this
OLD SERBIA
319
country that give as good return as land, and it*s not easy to
live a life in a little town that’s as good as life in your own place
up in the hills. There’s no sense trying to fool oneself, not every
change is for the better.” That is the sort of ancient wisdom
modern man must have.
He added, ” But anyway I’ve a soft spot for the Albanians.
We all like them. And it’s not just bt'^ause they knuckle down
to us. They’ve got plenty of spirit. They’re good trade union-
ists. When we had a wages’ dispute some time ago the Albanians
stood firmer than anybody, and I admired them for it. After-
wards the Government sent a co aniission down to enquire into
the causes of the strike, and they hinted to me they thought it a
pity we employed so m iny Albanians, but I wasn’t having any.
I said straight out we employed them because we found them
decent, hard-working fellows, and we’d go on employing them.
But that’s something that’s getting better. The Serb adminis-
trators all get to like the Albanians and less and less make a
distinction between them and their own people. This country’s
getting over its past nicely.” We paused to take breath on
a steep turn in the road, and looked down on the workmen’s
canteen. My husband asked me, ” Do you see the two men
who just went into the building ? No ? Well, I thought one
of them was Dragutin.” ” It could not have been,” I said con-
fidently, “he is taking Constantine somewhere up into the
mountains.” At the thought of Constantine both of us felt
guilty, as if we had failed in charity by being happy away from
him, with this whole and untroubled man.
But this man was a genius : the unique exception that not
only fails to prove the rule, but leaves it in doubt what the
rule may be. Nor could one judge anything from Gospodin
Mac’s predecessor, Mr. Cunningham, whom we found higher
up in the road, a broad grizzled Scotsman standing in his
garden with a monk, both intent on a beehive. It seemed that
bee-keeping was his hobby, and he spent much of his time
teaching people of the district to make and use modern hives
instead of the primitive sort which have to be broken every
time a comb is removed ; and this was of special interest to the
poorer monasteries, which could not afford to buy sugar. When
the monk had left us we walked among Mr. Cunningham’s
flowers, which were magically not desiccated by the South, which
grew as if the earth were cooled by the Highland air that had
320 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
nourished his accent. I said to him, ** What columbines f
They look like living things that might fly away at any minute,’*
and he answered, “ Ay, you know they call them the fairy
flowers.** His Scottish r's roared past me like the March
wind in Princes Street. “ Fehrrry flowerrrs. . . .** Presently
Mr. Cunningham said, ** 1*11 be telling Sasha to send a bottle
of absinthe up to the mess for our cocktails, if the company
is as partial to it as I am,** and he called to the house, ** Sasha !
Sasha ! ** He explained to us, ** Sasha’s our factotum here ;
he’s a great character. Lord knows what would happen to
us all if Sasha wasn’t here to look after us.” When Sasha came
out into the garden this conversation followed the pattern so
often to be remarked in countries where people of a mechanised
Western race live among people of a more primitive race whom
they have dominated. The Scotsman opened the conversation
in the peremptory tones of a nurse speaking to a child, and the
Serb answered like a child who accepts the authority of a
nurse, but made a further remark in which he in his turn
spoke like the nurse, and was answered by the Scotsman as if
he were the child. It is thus that an English officer in India
talks with his Hindu batman, it is thus that a Southerner talks
with his coloured butler, it is thus that a Canadian holiday-
maker talks with his Indian guide, should they be intelligent
people. Only stupidity fails to recognise that each of the
parties in such a relationship has command of a store of in-
formation almost wholly forbidden to the other ; so that each,
in the other’s sphere, is helpless and astray unless his host is
generous. That recognition was fully present in the Scotsman’s
voice. His climate-toughened shrewdness made him sensitive
to the problems of his profession, the nature of ore and its
hiding-places under the earth. It made him wise also about
bees, flowers and men, and not to be deflected from his wisdom
by vanity. He could not have borne to sacrifice his just per-
ception of Sasha in order to exaggerate his sense of superiority
to Sasha. Such men favour the growth of civilisation.
But the ordinary run of mining engineers might not be of
the same breed as their leaders. There was this inveterate
disposition to care only for their hard inorganic quarry, and
to leave the state of living men which was the mine’s matrix
unnoticed and uncomprehended, which had been responsible
for the naming of a Serbian mine with the gibberish of ” Stan
OLD SERBIA
321
Trg/* which had been a characteristic of those who had
worked here before them, in the days anterior to the Turkish
night. On a plateau by this hillside road stood the ruins of a
chapel where the Saxon miners, brought here by the medieval
Serbian kings, had worshipped according to their faith. Those
Saxons were not Serbs, nor Saxons either, but simply miners.
They formed a state within the State. The Serbian laws did
not bind them ; they were subject to the code, which was not
borrowed from Saxony, but was simply and purely of the
mines. It was not, as might have been suspected, a permit
to laxity, extorted by those who rendered essential services to
an expanding state ; it was a juristic provision for the miner’s
mystery, to use that admiiable English word meaning all
information relating to the theory and practice of a craft,
which we borrowed from the Old French mestier^ and by care-
lessness amounting to genius confused in spelling with the
word we derive from the Greek for occult. It made that
craft an iron-bound dedication : a man found damaging a
mine was hung by a rope downwards in the pitshaft, and the
rope was cut. For their Catholic worship these separate people
had taken a church such as was built by the natives of this
soil, a Byzantine church planned for the Orthodox rite, and
had brought a German artist to paint it with frescoes. Centuries
after, now that its vaults were broken and its frescoes washed
pale by rain and sun, it was apparent that something had
happened which had left this not a true growth of the genius
of the land. These were true internationalists, disregarding the
nation’s peculiar soul.
So, too, were the young men we met in the mess at the
top of the road. They were mining engineers, without any
doubt. Other things they might be, sons and lovers, husbands
and fathers, saints and sinners, philosophers and natural men ;
but each of them, picked up between Divine finger and thumb,
and asked by the thunder who he was, would have answered,
** I am a mining engineer.” Their preoccupation with their
calling was so great that it excluded any dangerously excessive
intensification of itself. A mining engineer must keep fit ;
he must not be irritable and he must be able to bear up under
physical strain. Therefore they played tennis, they read a bit,
they took photographs, they learned languages ; and they
faced life with smooth brows and not a paunch among them.
322
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
And they presented, as a shining tiled wall, this detachment
from the life around them.
Th^re was one Serbian among them, a doctor, a jolly soul^
with reddish hair and a face that had begun to wrinkle not
because he was older than his age but because he still loved
to laugh like a child. When we said we had been in Bitolj he
told me he was a native of that city, and we talked for a little
about the place, its mosques, its lovely girls, its acacias, and
the rich civilisation that lay under its surface. It was his
belief that the town, though so much poorer than it was
when it was the capital of Macedonia, was still enormously
rich. Many, many of the women that shuffle about the little
shops by the river in the morning, in their cotton wrappers,”
he said, “ have more gold round their necks and their wrists
than five hundred Viennese ladies who wear silk dresses ever
see in their lives. I tell you the city is full of gold, is stuffed
and crammed with gold.” He spoke, too, with Balkan gusto
of a perilous childhood. ** My father was a schoolmaster,”
he said, ” he was the head teacher of the first Serbian school
that was ever in Bitolj. The Bulgarians had their schools and
the Greeks had their schools, but we Serbs had none. So my
father, who was a Serb from the Shumadiya, came down and
taught his own people. So my mother was always very nervous,
for of course any day he might have been killed, whether by
the Turks or the Bulgars or the Greeks, she did not know.”
” But why should he be killed because he was a schoolmaster ? ”
asked some of the engineers. ” And why was Bitolj such a
rich city ? ” They knew nothing of the tradition of the Turkey
in Europe which had shaped the land in which they lived.
They were ignorant too of something which was more
recent, and had been commemorated in print, for even the
English to read. I said to the doctor, ” And what happened
to you during the war ? ” and he answered, clapping his hand
over his laughing mouth, “ You will never guess ! Do you
know, I went with the retreating Serbian Army through the
Albanian mountains down to the sea. You see, I should have
gone with my mother and my brother and sisters in the refugee
train to Salonica, but I was sent with a message to an old
grand-uncle of mine in another part of the town, and on the
way home I began to worry about a little boy I liked very
much, so I went to see what he was going to do, and by the
OLD SERBIA
323
time I realised I could not find him I was too late to catch the
train. So I joined some soldiers whom I saw walking in the
street, and I went off with them to Ochrid, and away into the
Albanian mountains. And, do you know, it was not so terrible.
Yes, all you have heard is true. There was snow and ice, and
very little to eat, and the Albanians sniped at us from the
rocks. But I felt very grown-up, and all Serb boys want to be
grown-up and to light, and the soldiers made a great pet of
me. When we got up into the mountains, they took a coat off
a dead soldier and put it on me, and of course it was far too
big for me, it came right down to my feet, so they called me
‘ General Longcoat They were really very kind to me ;
when there was any foo^i I alv ays got the first of it. So, when
we got to Corfu and they found my family was at Salonica,
and sent me off to find them, I really was not so pleased. Think
of being told to go to bed when you had been through all that !
It was as astonishing as if one day a fellow-guest announced
that he had been to Moscow and back with Napoleon ; but it
was not less astonishing that most of the Englishmen who
were listening had never heard of the retreat through Albania,
and not one of them had ever heard the folk-song which com-
memorates that agony : ** Tamo Daleko, Daleko od mora.
Tamo ye selo, Tamo ye Serbiya Yonder, far yonder, far
from the sea, is my village, my Serbia ! It meant that they
could not know Yugoslavia ; or rather that they could not
synthesise all the valuable information they held regarding her
into any valid picture of her. It seemed to follow from this
that they were a danger to the State, because they would not
be controlled by regard for her interests of which they were
ignorant. Such would have been the opinion of Brigham
Young, who was one of the few really great statesmen of the
nineteenth century. He always regarded as enemies of the
State the prospectors and miners who came to Utah in search
of her mineral wealth. They were not part of his people, and
therefore would not serve its interests. That was his theory ;
but in this mess-room above the mines of Stan Trg it emerged
that there was nothing in it so far as this part of the world
was concerned.
These men were not free to turn against their fellows. A
force bound them. They fell to recounting tales of their be-
ginnings ; all. it seemed, had gone into strange lands as
324
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
youths, it might almost be said as children, and had been
assailed by climates that were torturing misconducts of the
sun and snows, and events that were monstrous births that
should have been kept in bottles in the Surgeons* Hall of
circumstance. They had, however, not been perturbed. They
had been, and were still, sustained by a code. They believed
. . . what did they believe ? That one must be clean in body ;
that one must not tell lies, or suffer lies to be told to one : that
one must do whatever work one was paid for doing, and do
it well ; and that one must not cause pain in other people,
and must let them make their own souls as far as possible.
This is the ethical tradition built into the English and American
mind by Protestantism, and it is easy to deride it. There is
indeed positive need that it should be derided, since it is an
insufficient prop, and worse, for people who are prosperous ;
it is to them actually a prescription for ruin. Any Englishman
of the upper bourgeoisie and the classes above it finds no
difficulty about being clean ; he can persuade himself that
what he says is true, and can compel his economic inferiors to
tell him the truth ; he has probably chosen work that makes
no great demands on his powers ; and the duty to leave others
in peace may be construed as permission to indulge in the
pleasures of indifference. But this same code, applied by such
as these mining engineers, was a discipline that can even be-
come an instruction in mysticism. To be clean in lands where
nature intends one to be sweaty and unkempt : to tell the
truth and exact it in circumstances so difficult that cautiousness
cries out to let all be glossed over ; to do work well, far away
from criticism, and in fatigue of the flesh and spirit ; to respect
the rights of alien people, who are uncomprehended and there-
fore terrible : this rule makes no man an enemy of the State.
There are, of course, mining engineers who follow this discipline
imperfectly or not at all. But since these in this mess were
chosen by the Gospodin Mac, who was himself that discipline
made visible, they were not of that sort. Though the West has
again and again infected the Balkans with corruption, it seemed
probable that this contact was innocent.
In the afternoon we drove away from the mines, down the
valley to the town and the pale sprawling buildings where the
ore was milled ; about us conveyor belts went on their endless
journeys to nowhere and puffs of smoke at escape-valves
OLD SERBIA
325
registered the culmination of a process which, so far as I, with
my mechanical incompetence, was concerned, had never begun.
** It is no use whatsoever for you to explain these things to
me,** I told the Gospodin Mac ; “to me it is all magic and
nothing but magic.** “ It is funny you should say that just
here,** he answered, “ for that*s exactly what these particular
machines are to me, and to everybody else in the outfit.** We
were standing among a number of tanks, all filled with a
seething solution of ore, but each bubbling in a different tempo
and stained to a different shade of grey. “ These machines
are the most valuable we have,* he continued. “ They*re the
last word. They*re wizards. In each bath the ore throws off
one of its constituents, cither silver or magnesium or sulphur
or whatever, so that by the time it*s got through this room all
the goodness has b^een taken out of it and we*ve just to collect
the various minerals from the baths. But I can*t understand
the theory on which these machines work, nor does anybody
else here that I know of. I don*t mean that we can*t mend
them when they break down. We can, just as you could correct
the faults of grammar in a book of mining, though you wouldn*t
be able to make the sense of the book. But the principle of the
things is far beyond me. The chaps who brought them over
from America understood them all right, and they stayed here
for a bit. But the machines were their life-work, they’d
specialised on those lines, and we*re general-purposes fellows
who have to get on with the business of running the mine.**
“ Do you mean that in mining also there is too much to be
known ? ** I asked. “ Much too much,** he said, “ for any one
man.** There is no escape from mystery. It is the character
of our being.
But this man was not perturbed. We stood on the bridge
that crossed the railway line, running from the mill to the
high-road. On our left the rope-way, striding across the hills
up to the high mines ; on our right was the steep wooded peak,
crowned with the fortress. The afternoon was golden on these
heights, but the Gospodin Mac looked before him at the
square-cut hill of waste which in the sunshine was the colour of
something deader than death, of death without the hope of
wholesome putrefaction and dissolution. “ That worries me
a lot,** he murmured. “ So far as we can see, nothing will ever
grow on that, not to the end of time. Well, it*s an eye-sore.
326 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
And this was a bonny place before we started on it.*’ On the
line below us a dozen men were digging a pit, Albanian Moslems
in their white fezes and linen tight-waisted shirts and trousers.
I levelled my camera on them, and one looked up and saw me.
Instantly he was transformed, and so, the instant after, was
the whole group. Gallantry ran through their bodies, turning
their heads to a provocative angle, setting their hands on their
hips ; their eyes and teeth flashed through the distance. Per-
haps they could not see that I was no longer young, or perhaps
their romanticism forbade them to notice it, so that they could
go through the day with the idea that they had attracted the
admiration of a beautiful Englishwoman.
The Gospodin Mac brooded over them as over his children.
“ I tell you they’re fine, these Albanians,” he said. ” And I
think this lot have got over the blood-feud. That’s the curse
of Albanian life. But they say theyVe dropping it. It stands
to reason they will. Give a man a decent job and a house
and a garden he likes, and he’ll think twice about trapesing
off to kill the uncle of a man who killed his second cousin,
particularly if he knows he’ll go to jail. That blood-feud, you
know, it made everything impossible. When the Yugoslavs
took over this country after the war, it was hard to get the roads
safe for travelling. Under the Turks, people simply did not
travel, unless they were rich enough to have an armed escort
or unless they had to for some reason. There were whole
villages up in the hills where every single family was in the
brigandage business. You couldn’t blame them. They’d been
pushed into it. Maybe they’d fallen foul of the authorities at
some time and got driven on to the land that can’t be cultivated.
Or maybe there’d been a strong character born who’d turned
the whole lot of them wrong. Anyway they used to sweep
down on the roads round here and rob and murder. It had
to be stopped. And the only way the gendarmes could stop it
was by going up into these villages and killing every man,
woman and child. Mind you, nothing less would do. If
they’d let one child get away, as soon as it had grbwn up it
would have had to carry on the blood-feud against the gen-
darmes, or the people who were supposed to be responsible
for the gendarmes’ attack. And that was a cruel hard thing,
not only on the villagers but on the gendarmes, who are usually
very decent feUows and it was hard on the whole people. It
OLD SERBIA
lowered their standards. If you made the gendarmes as tough
as that they were as tough with everybody. But settling down,
it was just a phase. . .
So it went on, this living exposition of the trials of a state
engaged in resurrection, and therefore ravaged by the pangs
of both death and birth.
When we went back to the hotel were still glowing with
satisfied listening, and we hushed each other as we caught
sight of Constantine, sitting florid and miserable in the cafe,
alone among the White Russians, a newspaper spread out on
the table before him. “ May vc sit down with you and have
coffee ? ” I said timid^- “ Certainly, certainly,** he replied,
but once we were seate , imposed on us hurt and smiling silence.
My husband cleared his throat and asked, ** Did you have a
good day in the mountains ? ’* “I did not go. I did not
care to go.** Constantine answered shortly, and the silence
fell again. At last he asked, ** And you, I suppose you have
had a charming day with your friends in the mines ? ** With
an air of guilt, we admitted that we had. ** I am very glad,**
he said, I am exceedingly glad, for maybe it will not always
be so happy for you and your countrymen up at the mines.**
He tapped on the newspaper that lay before him. ** It is all
written here.** ‘‘ What is it ? ** asked my husband. An
attack on the British company's title to the mine ? ** Con-
stantine grimly nodded his head. “ Yes. The concession was
given as a reward to one of our great statesmen, and his son
sold it. But he was perhaps not very clever ; and all the world
knows that to do business with the English one must be very
clever indeed, perhaps more than clever.** He raised his eye-
brows and shrugged. ** So perhaps a wrong was done, and
perhaps it will be righted.** But the deal cannot have been
crooked,** said my husband. “ I know the chairman of the
company and what is more important I know his reputation
in England and America, and the reputation of the company
and its associates, and that*s not how they behave. Besides it
would have meant taking an immense risk. The company put
a million pounds of their money into the mine before they got
a penny out. If they did that on a property out of which they
might be kicked at any moment because they had stolen it,
they wouldn’t come out of it so well.**
Constantine shrugged again. ** You are a city man,** he
328 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
said, ** a man of the city of London. No doubt all your country-
men do looks well to you. But we are a simpler people. We
see things from a different angle, and perhaps on what we see
we shall some day act.” A silence fell. We sadly drank our
coffee and would have risen to go had not a young man, dressed
rather in the style of a French romantic poet in the nineteenth
century, paused before our table. ” Good evening, Monsieur
Constantine,” he said in French, giving us a side-way look,
” Monsieur Constantine, who was a poet, who is a Government
servant.” We saw that here also there were young intellectuals,
as there had been in Belgrade and in Sarajevo and in Zagreb,
who could not forgive Constantine for having left the opposition,
who said of him quite unfairly, ” Just for a handful of silver
he left us, just for a ribbon to stick in his coat.” ” Good
evening,” said Constantine, and he explained to us, ” This is
a young writer who works by day in the laboratories at the
mine. I know him well. All people are my friends every-
where.’* The young man continued, ” Why are you sitting with
that abominable rag in front of you ? You know that it is full
of the most abominable lies. These people at the mines are
part of the filthy capitalist system, but they are as good as they
can be in that condition. And it is all nonsense, it is galimatias,
it is Quatsch, about the title to the mine. You know all that
quite well, and you know that these papers are financed by
German money, simply so that the Nazis can get their claws
into our country. But you and your accursed pack of gangsters
in Belgrade, you let the blackguards bring out these lying
papers and threaten one of the few decent institutions in our
unhappy country.” ” We do not,” cried Constantine, ” we
suppress them as soon as we find out they are being published !
Again and again the miserable things appear, and always we
send out our forces after them and we destroy them, we stamp
them into the dirt as they deserve ! ” He looked miserably
round at us, realising as he spoke that he had contradicted
himself ; and he was now so disintegrated that he could not
take any of the obvious ways out of the situation, he could not
laugh at himself or pretend, as his talent for sleight of mind
would have enabled him to do better than most men, that there
was some subtle consistency behind his apparent inconsistency.
There was nothing for us to do but rise and say good-night.
OLD SERBIA
320
Kossovska Mitrovitsa II
We stayed another day in the town, but we never got
Constantine near the Gospodin Mac, whom he would have
been bound to like and to love, both because of his connoisseur-
ship of greatness, and because of :heir common love for
Yugoslavia. So that afternoon, while the Gospodin Mac and
my husband indulged in some last orgies of technicalities in the
mill, I sat alone with Mrs, Mac on the terraces of her garden,
overlooking the hills and the vulley where the river ran, re-
flecting willows, between the sweet green pastures. I was a
child who had been left done with a honey-pot, for this woman,
like so many Scotswomen, had all the essential gifts of the
novelist. She had been long an exile, and was homesick :
half her talk made a palimpsest of the scene before us, over-
laying old Serbia with Ayrshire, coloured as it lives. Touch
by touch she built up a picture, harsh and honest like the
portraits Degas painted in his youth, of the terrific ceremony
that was performed every time her mother, a widow in the
Scotland of forty years ago, arrayed herself in her weeds to
leave her house : I saw and smelt again the thick black blistered
crepe, and felt the cutting edge of the starched white collar,
and was awed and perplexed by the drugged and thickened
expression, characteristic of widows in those days, which sug-
gested that their state had about it some joyless and degrading
satisfaction. Soberly but with the feeling she described flowing
as fresh through her words as when it had first gushed from
her eyes and heart, she told how the character of her youth had
been changed, to something precious but less gay than youth
should be, by her long engagement to Gospodin Mac, who was
then seeking his fortune abroad, and who had been too unsure
of himself to make their betrothal more than a matter of mur-
mured vows. All her spring days had been clouded by heart-
ache ; ** lt*s not good, running for the post, year after year.”
Often she had felt that people thought her dull and a failure, and
she had longed to tell her secret ; but that would have been to
tempt the gods by speaking of what she desired to happen as if it
were already happening. Her story had the depth and vigour
of early Scots poetry, of William Dunbar and Douglas* Aeneid.
This woman, with her masterly power of observation, with
VOL. II Y
330
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
her inflexible standards, had been married nearly thirty years
to the Gospodin Mac, and marriage is not so much a mystery
as a microscope ; but he had survived all her scrutiny, he had
passed all her tests. Now he was the test she applied to life.
She spoke constantly of Dad. You see that big square white
building at the foot of the hill facing this one ? That’s the
school the company gave the district. They were delighted with
it and there was a tremendous do when the foundation stone
was laid. And will you believe it ? There was a priest, and
we thought he had just come to say a prayer and give the place
his blessing, but suddenly they upped with a lamb and he cut
the throat of the poor wee thing all over the foundation stone.
That’s nothing to do with Christianity, I thought. But it’s
their own place. That’s what Dad always says. It’s their own
place. They must do things their own way. They’re funny,
mind you. They built the school too big. That’s one of their
weaknesses. They build everything too big. They’re building
a town hall down in Mitrovitsa. You’d think the place must
be the size of Glasgow to look at it. But Dad says it’s no use
raging at them for it. Just reckon with it on your side, and see
that when they get in trouble on their side that they understand
just how they caused themselves the trouble.”
She knitted a row or two of a jumper, and laid it by to say,
** It’s time Dad retired. We’ve lived long enough abroad.
We were twenty years and more out in South America. Both
the children were born out there. Then we came back, and
we had taken a house in Scotland, and they asked Dad to come
out and have a look at this mine. They’d got the concession,
you see, and they couldn’t find the right way of tackling it. So
Dad came out and he saw that they had to go after the ore in
a roundabout way, that they’d never get it by going any of the
ways that looked direct. And then it fascinated Dad, the
whole problem of the place, all the labour being different sorts
of people and all wanting to cut each other’s throats. So I
had to sell the furniture I’d just bought and the house, and
come out here. And it’s been a great piece of work for him.
But now it’s time both of us went home. We need a rest.”
She ran a knitting needle reflectively through her hair.
“ It’s difficult, you know, retiring now. Because there
aren’t the middle-aged men to take over the responsible jobs.
There’s plenty of good youngsters, but not men of forty to fifty.
OLD SERBIA
331
They're the ones that got killed in the war. So it’s a temptation
to the old ones to wait on till the youngsters get a bit older. And
Dad’s got together a nice crowd here. He's got the right spirit.
You see it's difficult here, they've got to be good in the mines
and good with the people. There has to be a clear under-
standing about that ia this sort of country. Dad always says
to everybody who comes out here to the mines, ‘ Now, you've
got to be polite to the Yugoslavs, for it's their country, and
we're only guests here.' But some of them don't take the hint,
particularly if they’ve beei^ ‘iob^'dio at home. They look to
lord it over the Slavs here then. Sooner ur later we get to
hear of it if they do. The Yugoslavs only report it if one of
our people is rude to aii officer. I'he Army is sacred to them,
you know. I do believe it's more sacred thari the Church is at
home for we don’l think it’s so terrible* to laugh at a minister.
But anyway it comes out one way or another. I caught a
common wee body making a face after I had taken a doctor's
wife from Belgrade round the bridge club when she thought
I'd turned my back, and we watched the husband and found he
was just the same. So they found themselves in the train for
London before they knew where they were.”
She drew her hand across her forehead and down till her
chin was cupped in it and then sighed into the palm, looking
downward : the most Scots of gestures. ** But it's terrible
here in some ways ! The way they treat the women !
And the law's behind them, mind you!” She shuddered!
and told a story of a cultivated Bosnian woman, a graduate
of Belgrade and Vienna universities, who had come to
the mines to work as a chemist, had married a Serbian mining
engineer, and been left a widow after some years ; and
had found herself visited by his peasant family, who seized all
her furniture and every penny of the dead man's savings, as
the inheritance laws of the country permitted them to do, and
made the startling demand that she should return with them
and marry his brother. She spoke as one who had savoured
the full horror of the subjection of women, as it is when it is
actually practised and not merely dreamed about in a volup-
tuous reverie : a plundering, a mutilation, an insult to the
womb and life, an invocation to mud and death. It was evident
that, like all people who have lived long in exile, she sometimes
felt that everything peculiar to the strange place where she
332
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
found herself was a spreading sore, bubo of a plague that will
infect and kill if there is not instant flight to the aseptic. But
she was disciplined. She knew what shadowed her for the
mere shadow that it was. After she had shuddered she instantly
grew stable. She turned her head, which was lioness-massive,
towards the green and red hills, the willowed stream in the
valleys, and said she loved them all.
At half-past four we were to go down the hill to the tennis
courts ; for it was a saint's day that was a public holiday, and
the whole mining staff was to be there, because a famous pro-
fessional player had come down for the day from Belgrade.
First we had to perform some of those trivial domestic rites
which are delicious to women like myself, who have had to
work at a specialised task all their lives. Mrs. Mac’s knitting
had to be rolled up and her work-basket set in order. She
moved with a slowness that was a sign of richness ; cream does
not pour quickly. We had to persuade the Aberdeen terrier
to be shut in the house lest he should follow us. It seemed
that the creature who had been sitting at my feet so gravely all
afternoon, putting himself in just the right position to be
scratched under the left ear, was the victim of an intemperate
passion for balls. It was like hearing that a good sound
Hegelian philosopher was given to drink. Well, we'll away ! "
sighed Mrs. Mac. We passed down a path through an orchard,
round a curve to the tennis ground. It was superbly placed.
Beyond the courts rose the peaked hill crowned with ruins,
creamy with wild flowers that grew strong among the bushes.
The game had already begun, and it had fallen, as games
between professionals and true amateurs are apt to do, into
the pattern of a dance. The Serb professional sent the ball
first into the left-hand corner of the court, and the English
amateur returned it ; then the Serb professional sent it into
the right-hand corner of the court, and the English amateur
returned it. Then the ball fell just over the net, and stayed
there. Though the professional had not to exert himself to
impose this pattern on the game he was nevertheless still
working out a problem : how to economise his expenditure of
effort to the minimum degree. He had succeeded so far that
he never needed to hurry, he was always moving slowly to
where the ball was going to be. It would have been entertaining
to watch him had not the spectators been as remarkable on
OLD SERBIA
333
precisely the same count of graceful economy. An audience
proves its discipline by its capacity for stillness. Those who
have never practised continuous application to an exacting
process cannot settle down to simple watching ; they must
chew gum, they must dig the peel off their oranges, they must
shift from foot to foot, from buttock to buttock. But the people
round this tennis court were calm ana true in their attention.
Their eyes and chin smiled neatly from left to right and from
right to left, no further tlian was necessary to follow the ball,
and their lips were quiet mouths, their fingers quiet hands, their
bodies closely furled.
There were present m.ost of the men who worked at the mines
and mills at other than manual labc ur, and two sorts of women :
their wives, and the women who were themselves working here,
as secretaries and scientific workers and household admini-
strators. Sight could not tell one the difference between the
two sorts. They were alike curled and shining about the head,
for here, as everywhere in Yugoslavia which has seen the glint
of money, the women are at least as well coiffed as they are
in Vienna, and their clothes were discreet yet gay. Many
were beautiful. There was one White Russian, always to
be remembered : an office worker, whose face was clear-cut
and cold yet tender, whose figure was armoured with elegance
yet fluid with a grace wilder than ordinary motion. There
was a Montenegrin girl, handsome as a hero, born to live
under black heights crowned with snow, under skies where
eagles circle. There were Englishwomen, to go with gardens.
But even these highly individualised women were, like the men
who sat with them, rubbed down by the pressure of a common
purpose to what was not uniformity so much as unanimity.
The mine shaped them. They worked in the interest of
the maintenance of themselves and their kind, as peasants
do, though modern industry was their medium ; and they
had joined to their educated brilliance the sacred grimness of
the peasant that will not be vanquished by his environment.
Here, certainly, Yugoslavia might take the gifts of the West
without fearing that they were poisoned, and might learn a
formula for prosperity that would let it exploit its economic
resources without danger to its human resources.
The slanting sunshine of late afternoon emphasised with
bright light and black shadows the sugar-loaf sharpness of the
334
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
peaked hill above us, the fishbone fineness of the ruins on its
summit. Some cattle wandered up there among the burning
bushes, incandescent like pious beasts that had received their
reward here on earth and been transfigured ; it could be seen
that some purple flowers as well as white grew among the long
grasses. There stood at my side the Gospodin Mac ; he and my
husband had just arrived, hot but contented from their tour of the
miracles in the mill. “ I see you’re having a good look at our
castle,” he said. “ I suppose you know that’s where Stephen
Dushan strangled his father, Stephen Dechanski.” I exclaimed,
“ But I thought that happened at Zvechan, not at Trepcha.”
He answered, ** But this is not Trepcha. Trepcha is the valley
head where the mine is, down here we are at Zvechan.” I
said, ” I wish I could go up and look at it,” but the woman
. beside me objected, ” There is nothing to be seen now, only
some broken walls. And you could not go up in those shoes,
there are snakes up there.”
That there should be snakes in the castle of Zvechan was
most fitting. The event which had come to pass on that cone
had not been compact ; it had dragged along its deadly length.
There were the years when Stephen Dechanski and his father
Milutin had hated one another, when the son had, like a hunted
beast, imitated the stillness of a stone, that he might not be
struck dead. There were the years when Stephen Dechanski
might have lived according to his nature, Milutin being dead,
but instead provoked a repetition of his earlier peril by the
offence he offered to a son, of whom nothing was more
certain than that he was the most dangerous of all his stock.
Again he imitated the stillness of a stone, but not in order that
he might escape destruction. Here on this bronze crest he had
lain quiet in order to be the doomed mark of the sweeping
sword, wielded by an executioner whom he had begotten by
his flesh and instructed by his policy. Destiny is another name
for humanity’s half-hearted yet persistent search for death.
Again and again peoples have had the chance to live and show
what would happen if human life were irrigated by continual
happiness ; and they have preferred to blow up the canals and
perish of drought. They listen to the evil counsel of the grey
falcon. They let their throats be cut as if they were black lambs.
The mystery of Kossovo was behind this hill. It is behind all
our lives.
OLD SERBIA
335
It was behind this community. It was childish to suppose
that these people of the mine could offer a formula for the ftiture
well-being of the South Slavs ; or even for themselves. It was
not childish to regard them and their effect on their surroundings
as wholly admirable. But this was only a clearing in the jungle
hewn by pioneers whom some peculiar genetic excellence, some
inspiring oddity of environment, had made superior to their
fellows. These people could not save South-Eastern Europe,
because they could not save England : which, indeed, would
certainly not save them, if their ;‘xi''tence was at stake. These
people stood for life ; it is impossible to maintain that a large
part of England does not stand for death. The men and women
of Trepcha were not of the highest social or economic importance
in their origins. None, I imagine, had had a duke for a father
or was heir to a rriillion. They came from homes where there
was upheld a tradition of comfort and fine manners, but where
there was no chance to enjoy either unless each generation
worked. They therefore knew better than those above them
as a paid athlete earning his keep by daily performance realises
more intensely than any amateur that he must not poison his
strength by alcohol or unwholesome food, that it is good for a
man to be temperate and precise and to respect the quality of
others. But the people who determine the fate of England have
not learned that lesson ; for we are still governed by our great
houses.
There is no sense in a house of extravagant size, unless it
is the seat of a small court such as all forces in European history
have combined to eliminate, or the home of a devotee inspired
by passionate charity to feed and house all comers. Yet the
pride of those who occupy such “ places ** is quantitative.
They exult in the number and magnitude of their rooms, the
extent of their gardens and glass-houses and stables, the troops
of their servants and grooms and gardeners. It is rarely the
harmonious proportions of their homes that please them, and
there indeed lies their true destruction. For they have lost
their taste, which left them during the nineteenth century, and
has scarcely been recovered save by those separated from their
own class by some barrier such as exceptional gifts, physical
weakness or homosexuality. The proof is written on their walls
by their family portraits ; beside their Holbeins and Van Dycks,
their Gainsboroughs and Reynoldses and Lawrences, hang their
336 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Dicksees and Millais and Herkomers, Sargents and Laszlos and
Birleys. The eye has lost its acuteness because the well-being of
the whole organism does not depend on sight or any other of its
senses. These people would eat well, if they were blind and deaf
and dumb, because the industrial revolution and colonial ex-
pansion had in the past combined to drop food into their mouths.
Having lost their taste, they lost their souls. For they could
no longer base their standards on quality, and so developed
their pride in quantity. But a quantity of possessions, on the
scale that they have learned to enjoy them, can only be the
massed result of past achievements. They cannot have any
relation to present achievement. Therefore these people turn
away from life. The best of them escape into concentration on
the craft knowledge of certain pursuits, such as horsemanship
and shooting and fishing, which does not give them the general
good sense that often follows from the practice of a craft, because
of the insane emotional exaltation engendered by their sense of
superiority to those who, by reason of intellectual preoccupa-
tions or economic insufficiency, are unwilling to exchange all
other interests for these exercises. It cannot be conceived, if
the proposition is examined coldly, that a Conservative society,
which behaves as if hunting were as sacred as the practice of
religion, does not make each of its members a fool for life.
Those who preserve enough mental vigour to make their mark
in public life sit on the benches of Parliament with a majesty
related to some other period in our history ; and their contact
with the present is the reading of memoranda prepared by
experts, whom they are apt to distrust because of their different
social origins. They have certain principles to which they are
ponderously loyal ; they protect mass accumulations of past
effort and deny the claims of the present. They would not lift
a finger to defend the Gospodin Mac and his officers. They
would not understand the beauty and ingenuity of their work at
Trepcha, because it was not hunting and shooting, because it
was modern. They would become moderately excited about it
as a source of dividends, but they would let international
politics take a direction perilous to the maintenance of the mine,
because they were still in the nineteenth century and could not
believe that English authority was not absolute the whole world
over, and English capital inviolably safe. This governing class
meant death for England, however well scattered Englishmen
OLD SERBIA
337
might serve life ; and therefore English example could not
mean salvation for Yugoslavia.
I said to the Gospodin Mac, “ Are the Foreign Office and the
Legation people interested in you ? ** He answered, ** Not in
the least. Though Tve often thought they might be. After all
weVe an important British influence in the Balkans. But
they’ve never even told me what to do in case of war. I should
ask them more insistently, I suppose. But you know what these
diplomats are, they’re bored with you, and you get bored with
them.” There is nothing more to die discredit of the great house
than the tendency of its children to fret for their homes in the
Foreign Legations. Social extremes meet in exile. The average
English diplomat en posie anywhere but the great familiar capi-
tals, in Paris, Berlin, Rome or Vienna, reacts exactly like a young
woman who has given up duty at the haberdashery counter to
marry a young man in a Continental branch of a bacon firm.
There is the same frenzied interest in clothes, and the same
resentful indifference to the exotic surroundings. This is not an
aristocratic attitude, but the great house no longer produces
aristocrats but only the privileged.
Their privileges are enormous, and they afford ill examples for
the ambitions of other classes. Their wealth fascinates and im-
presses the rest of society because it is inherited. To be fortunate
from the womb, to be so fortunate that we can outstrip the curse
of Adam all the way from the cradle to the grave, this is the
fate we would have chosen for ourselves in our childhood ; and
therefore it is what we would desire for our children, since when
we think of them we are all childish. We look at the great
house, with its obvious foundation of secular wealth, and we
regard it as evidence that our hopes can be gratified ; and thus
thrift, that most innocent of virtues, which is rediscovered every
time a child puts by a sweet for to-morrow, is enlarged and de-
graded into that swollen monster of insensate expectation, the
desire to invest savings in return for enormous and eternal
dividends.
We have no basis for our hopes in practice or theory. The
wealth that sustains the great house was usually made by
ancestors who had the luck to seize land or mineral rights or a
monopoly of trade in the days before society had learned to
protect itself from exploitation, or to discover some means of
cheapening articles for which there is a widespread and perma-
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
338
nent demand. The first form of luck cannot be enjoyed in the
present stabilised world, and the second occurs more and more
rarely in our highly competitive industrial system. Nor can it
be believed that ordinary savings are so scarce that borrowers
need pay a very high and perpetual rate of interest on them.
But the whole of our economic structure is based on that pre-
tence, and a millstone of greed is tied round the neck of every
industrial enterprise, calculated to be just as heavy as its power
can bear without collapse. Even here at Trepcha the dividends
that were paid out to the shareholders must have been a handicap
on the mine’s social value. It was true that a million pounds
had been put into the mine before it yielded its ore, but the
price which is paid for all such advances is altogether excessive.
Much went to the distant dividend-drawer, who cared not a
hoot for the miners or for Yugoslavia, but he, poor dog, helpless
as any one else in this chaotic world, was facing enormous
political risks and might presently draw no dividends at all.
International finance is not so Machiavellian as the simpler
forms of Socialist and Fascist propaganda pretend. Its fault
is probably that it pulls too few strings rather than too many,
and it can no longer be counted as among the major causes of
war. But it is like a learned but deaf and prejudiced judge
sitting on the bench at a trial raising tremendous issues of
personal destiny and juristic principle. Sometimes it hears
and is wise, sometimes it babbles.
These people of the Trepcha mines were not wholly
innocent ; for the England which was inferior to them neverthe-
less existed by their consent. It is probable that the Gospodin
Mac was an old-fashioned Scottish Liberal, reared in reverence
for Mr. Gladstone, and it is certain that he was a Radical in
spirit ; again and again he betrayed his sense that the spirit
of society was not loyal to the creative spirit that expressed itself
in sound mining and sound administration. His wife would
have witnessed a revolution, had it been the right one, with the
sturdy approval of a housewife who sees a sluttish neighbour
at last tackling her spring cleaning. But most of the others who
sat round the tennis court would, I think, have been fiercely con-
servative. They would have leaped to the defence of the forces
which were working for their destruction ; they would at least
have excused, if they would not have totally exonerated,
any governor who murdered those revolutionaries who were
OLD SERBIA
339
seeking to come to their relief. Everywhere such men as these,
men of definite and distinguished action, tend to vote for the
maintenance of the great house. They cannot give any close
intellectual justification for their feelings. Plainly they are
obeying their instincts ; and instincts, it is proverbial, are
sound. But that is a self-flattering lie we humans tell ourselves,
which was disproved by the peak above us, goal of Stephen
Dechanski*s indeflectable instinct for death.
My husband said, “ It is time that we must go,” and we
began our farewells. I felr real sorrow that I should probably
never see these people agam, anJ as I left I turned to a group
of men and women whom I had not met and said ” Good-bye,”
although I knew it was an action appropriate to a royal person
leaving a bazaar, because I wanted to look squarely at their
pleasantness. But in the very intensity of my admiration for
them I realised h^jw impotent the West was to help the rest of
the world ; for it produces individuals so entirely excellent, so
single-minded and honest and fastidious, that a Paradisal
society should long ago have established itself, had not there
been within them a dark force impelling them to trace with
their actions, so delicate and graceful when considered separ-
ately, a hideous and gloomy pattern. Here, through the genius
of the Gospodin Mac, that force had been so far as possible
frustrated, and the Western virtues showed themselves in their
purity. But this was a purely local exorcism. The West, as I
thought of it extending thousands of miles beyond the setting
sun, was astonishing in its corruption, in its desire for death,
and in its complacency towards its disease.
Only in Macedonia, it seemed to me, had I seen mankind
medicining its corruption, trying to raise up its love of life so
that it might contend with its love of death and defend the
kingdom of human affairs from a government that should ex-
tend only over the grave. I remembered how Bishop Nikolai
had seemed to wrestle with this desire to die as if he were throw-
ing a steer, though his columnar body had stood stock-still in
his rich robes. I remembered how the monks of Sveti Naum
had held up an enticing symbol of life to those who had lost
their taste for it. I remembered with hope that we were going
that evening to Petch, and would the next day visit the great
monastery which Stephen had founded at Dechani, for it is a
seminary for the training of monks, and there it would be made
340 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
plain whether these achievements in Macedonia were the works
of individual genius, or whether the Orthodox Church were in
possession of wisdom which it could impart to all its children :
if that were so, then even the mediocre could perform such
feats, and the preference for life could be established every-
where. We were standing at the gate now : Dragutin was
waiting for us beside the automobile, his hand to his forehead,
looking as if he had brought our gold-harnessed horses to the
tent of Tsar Lazar. The Gospodin Mac said, ‘‘ You’ll like
Dechani, it’s a beautiful place up there in the mountains, it's
like a Highland glen," and his wife said, “ I hope you'll not be
shown round by that wee monk with the awful goloshes." At
last we slid down the hillside that was like Golder's Green, that
was like Chislehurst, that was truly very Heaven, and the dark,
proliferating complexity of Slavonic life again absorbed us.
Fetch I
When we got back to the hotel Constantine was walking up
and down in a frenzy of impatience, holding his watch in his
hand. That fretfulness which we had begun to notice as part
of the disintegration that Gerda had worked upon him, now took
the form of a continual allegation that everybody but himself
was either too late or too early for every event in the daily
routine. If he saw people drinking coffee it seemed to him that
they might have done it with propriety an hour earlier or an
hour later, but not then. Now we had come back to the hotel
twenty minutes before the time set for our departure for Fetch,
but it was to him as if we were very late, so late that we would
have to put off the journey till the next morning. As we got
out of the car he ran towards us, waving his watch and crying
out reproaches, but Dragutin jumped out and faced him with
the detached malevolent intensity and cold health of the snake.
It was day by day more apparent that he was repelled by
Constantine's sick state and would have liked to chase him
away from us. Though we could not understand what he said
to him, we felt the chill of its insolence, and there was suddenly
a muffled quality about Constantine, as if he had slipped on a
padded garment to pfotect himself. I wondered if there had
been a scene between the two of which I knew nothing. But
OLD SERBIA
341
Constantine only said, ‘'Well you know we must not start too
late, for until a short time ago this road was the most dangerous
in Yugoslavia/* “ But it is so no longer,** said Dragutin, and
began to load the car with our luggage.
They began to wrangle on the point again, when we had
travelled some distance from the town and were passing through
low hills covered with scrub-oak, now ruddy with the early
sunset. Where the road cut across a twisting valley we saw a
car drawn up by the roadside and a man standing on a raised
hillock, his head bent tow;irds the ^vest. We slowed down and
saw that he was crossing himself, and we stopped dead. “ When
he has finished I will jisk him why he is praying, here,** said
Dragutin ; “ perhaps it is a holy place v;here some Turkish
beg was killed.** When the man stepped down from the
hillock he shoute ’ to him, “ Why are you praying, friend ? **
The man came up to our car and answered, “ Because I am
glad to be alive. But are you not English ? Listen how well I
speak English ! My friends in England laugh at me and say
I speak so well that I speak Scotch. For all the war I was at
school at Aberdeen. And afterwards I came back here, and
because of my good education I became a dealer in factory-
made clothes and that is why I am praying here now. For
very often I had to make this journey from Kossovska Mitrovitsa
to Fetch, and because of the brigands I was always very
frightened, particularly just at this spot, for they used to come
down this valley and lay a tree-trunk across the road. I used
to think of my dear wife and my little children, and pray to God
for protection, and now that there is no more danger I am thank-
ing Him for giving it to me. But since you come from England
I would like very much to talk to you. Are you going to Fetch ?
Are you staying there long ? Ah, well, then I shall see you,
but now I must hurry, for I must go to supper with a friend of
mine who has a farm outside the town.** “You see,” said
Constantine, as he left us in dust, “ he said the road was
dangerous.** “ He said it had been dangerous,** Dragutin
corrected him, “ and he showed by his action he believed it was
so no longer. I believe in God as much as anybody, but on a
road where I thought there were still brigands I would not leave
my car and stand beside it praying, I would pray as I drove,
and so would any sane man.**
The brigands who had operated on this road were by way
342 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
of being political insurgents. They were Albanians claiming
to repr^ent the element which had been dispossessed by the
redistribution of land made by the Yugoslavian Government
after the war. All over the Balkans there is an association
between highway robbery and revolutionary idealism which the
Westerner finds disconcerting, but which is an inevitable con-
sequence of the Turkish conquest. This crystallised the con-
ditions of the fourteenth century ; and in the Middle Ages
anybody who stepped out of the niche into which he was born
had no other resource but banditry, as he could neither move
to another district nor change his trade. If a peasant excited the
displeasure of authority by standing up for the rights of his
kind, he had to make himself scarce and thereafter live in cover
of the forests and make forays on rich travellers, alike under the
Nemanyas and under the Turks. Hence the Balkan peoples
are not, to this day, initially shocked by a rebel who professes
political idealism though he habitually loots and murders,
though sooner or later they become irritated by the practical
results of this application of medieval theory to modern condi-
tions. The weak point in the programme is the present lack of
rich travellers. A Robin Hood working on the road between
Fetch and Kossovska Mitrovitsa would earn a few good meals
in spring and autumn and none at all in summer and winter.
So he would have to fall back either on robbery from travellers
of inconsiderable means, or regular exactions from the local
peasants : that is to say, he would become a pest to the very
class which he claimed to be championing. This is the real
reason why I.M.R.O., the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary
Organisation, perished ; and these Albanians could not surmount
the difficulty, particularly after the Trepcha mines brought money
to the district. The peasants became so anxious to get on with
their lives and enjoy their share of this new prosperity that,
actively or passively, they were all on the side of the gendarmes.
But even so the business of exterminating these bandits must
have been formidable. To the right of this road runs a wall of
mountains, fissured with deep wooded glens, and to the left lies
a flat plain, green and sweet and fertile as our Vale of Pewsey.
The loot was as tempting as the cover was kind.
** Look, there is Tserna Gora, there is Montenegro,** said
Constantine ; and it was so. The country, the fact of it, the
essence of it, not just a part of it, was before our eyes. A wall
OLD SERBIA
343
of mountains ran south from Kossovska Mitrovitsa, another
wall ran north to meet it from the misty limits of the plain, but
they stopped short of meeting ; and above the gap was a still
higher wall, a black cliff-face, half as tall as the sky. That was
Tserna Gora, Monte Negro, which may fairly be translated as
the Black Mountain, but meant nothing of the sort when the
name was given, for then it meant the mountain of Strashimir
Ivo the Black, that is to say the outlaw, a Serbian chief who fled
there half a century after Kossovo and established a Christian
principality. The Turks did not follow him, not for a couple of
centuries. They sat on the plain and looked up at this colossal
fortress, this geological engineering feat that brings rock as it
is seen only deep below earth in caverns and abysms and hangs
it in an area that had seemed reserved for clouds.
About the mouth of this gap were scattered agreeable
foothills, on which we discerned as we grew nearer the mosques
and cubes of a city. Thr buildings glimmered blue-white
about us as we drove into an evening iced and shadowed by the
precipice at the end of the gorge, but still light enough to dis-
close the tottering and dilapidated charm of Fetch. It is not
unlike a Swiss town, for a river rushes beside the high-street,
bringing the cold breath of the glacier with it, and as the light
fails the mountains seem to draw closer ; but the place knows
nothing so solid as a chalet. Nobody can imagine how insub-
stantial an inhabited building can be till he has visited Fetch.
Most of the houses we passed, and nearly all the shops, could be
knocked down in half an hour by any able-bodied person with a
small pick, and quite a number could be razed to the ground.
Many are made of thin planks and petrol tins, and such as had
essayed the use of plaster had been stricken with a kind of
architectural mange.
We went up the high-street, which was very broad, with a
breadth that was the more remarkable because the shops and
inns on each side were so low and rickety. A stream ran down
one side of it, one of those channelled by the Turks to take the
drainage. It was the hour of the Corso, and a crowd of people,
mostly very tall, were shuffling up and down, their passionate
faces and fantastic dresses shot with two aspects, both equally
passionate and fantastic, by the conflicting lights of the dusk
and the white downpour from the electric standards. There
was contrapuntal sense of movement, for there was the leisurely
344
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
shuffle of the crowd, the quick ripple of the stream in the road-
way, and the leaping and dancing of the river which could be
seen through the gaps in the houses, driving over a wide bed of
shingle among poplars and willows. Yet I was reminded of a
ghost town I once visited in Colorado, where a ribbon of un-
trodden dust led between windowless frame houses to an
abandoned mine.
The hotel received us into a vast eccentric bosom. It was
built round a restaurant, a strange irregular quadrilateral apart-
ment, with a gallery and a line of super-Corinthian pillars
marching across it, all painted a hot dull maroon. It was yet
another specimen of the innate architecture of the Balkans,
which seems to have been run up without a pattern by somebody
who had never seen a building of the type he was constructing.
In this restaurant a few people in Western clothes, probably
functionaries, sat about at the tables, attended by several
waiters ; all, because of the vastness of the room, in which the
beams of the electric light wandered loosely and ineffectively,
seemed to be featureless. We went upstairs and traversed
passages that were true to the Fetch fashion for insubstanti-
ality. When the floor creaked underfoot it was making no idle
complaint, it had indeed suffered an injury.
The manager flung open the door of a bedroom and we
looked in on an ebony-haired young officer, his olive-green coat
tapering exquisitely to a dandyish waist, who was standing at
an iron table and washing his hands in an enamel basin with
bright pink soap. The scent of the soap was so powerful, so
catastrophically floral, that we remained in a still and startled
semicircle, looking down at this magical lather. It was as if
one had opened a door and found a man taking a white rabbit
out of a top-hat. It was the manager who first recovered his
self-possession. ** It seems the room is occupied,” he explained
to us. Reluctantly we retired, our eyes on the extraordinary
soap. ” But the officer is going quite soon,” he said, when we
were out on the landing. ” If you will sit down here you will
not have long to wait.” ” Have you not other rooms ? ” asked
my husband severely, in German. ” Yes,” the manager
answered, ” but there is something special about this room and
the next, I have often remarked it, I would like you to have
them.” ” And I ? ” said Constantine, “do I also have to
wait ? “ “ Yes,” said the manager, “ there is another officer
OLD SERBIA
345
in yours. I do not know why they have not gone. They said
they would be gone at half-past five. But of course they are
both young, and when one is young one often does not know
how the time is passing. You will find these comfortable
chairs.”
About that he was wrong. They were cane chairs with large
holes in the seats. But it was not disagreeable to occupy them,
for they were set beside a table where a chambermaid was
ironing a pile of sheets, and she was a very agreeable person.
She was a Hungarian, not /cry youi.g or pretty, but she had a
jolly, monkeyish face, with russet cheeks and shining brown
eyes, which she twisted into amusing grimaces. The sheets
were very coarse, so taai. to iron them required a real muscular
effort, and every time she responded to the strain with a delicious
expression, a biend of ascetic voluptuousness and self-mockery.
It was quite pleasant sitting there in the warm dusk. The
sheets smelt like toasted tea-cakes. I nearly went to sleep several
times, but I was awakened because the doors of a cupboard
just beside me kept on bursting open for no other cause but sheer
flimsiness, sheer inability to stay put together another instant,
disclosing a number of unidentifiable objects wrapped in brbwn
paper. I remembered a Russian novel I had once reviewed
in which the description of a bedroom had ended with the
sentence ” And under the bed there was an enormous enema ”.
At last the officers clattered down the passage, and we took
over their rooms. Ours was still tenanted by the scent of the pink
soap, the spectre of an unthinkably lush and oleaginous summer.
We changed our clothes, and just as we were ready Constantine
knocked on the door and came in looking very pleased and
happy. “ That little Hungarian chambermaid,” he announced,
” she is perhaps not so good as she might be, or perhaps she is
a little better. I have told her I want a hot, hot bath, because
I have a little fever and I want to sweat, and she says to me,
* Yes, you will have a hot, hot bath, myself I will make it very
hot, but who will give you the massage afterwards ? Is it
myself also ? ' Ah, it is so with all our chambermaids, they are
very naughty, but very good also, you saw how she worked.”
He turned his back on us to straighten his tie among the
delirious reflections of the extravagantly framed mirror, with a
sudden revival of the gallant spirit of self-parody that had so
often enchanted us, when we had first travelled with him ; and
z
VOL. II
346 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
all three of us laughed. But I noticed that the back of his
neck was fiery red, and I said, ** But what about this fever ?
Constantine, are you really ill ? ** He whirled about and
answered, “ It is from my hand.** We stared at it in horror :
the whole hand between the knuckles and the wrist was scarlet
and pulpy. “ But what happened ? ** Just this morning as
we got up from breakfast,** said Constantine, “ I was stung
by a great ferocious insect with huge wings. It was either a
wasp or a hornet. But you did not notice.**
We both hung about him and made penitent and sympathetic
murmurs, and suddenly we were friends as we had been at the
beginning. He was to us as our child and a great man, and
we were to him as his father and mother and his pupils, and
there was no barrier between us and our words. But soon his
face grew vacant, as if he were listening to a distant voice, and
then hardened. He said, “ Yes, I feel very ill, but you need not
bother, I will come downstairs, and though I will not be able
to eat one mouthful, I will sit with you when we have dinner,
and afterwards I will take you a walk round the town.** You
will do nothing of the sort,** said my husband, ** you will go to
bed and have some dinner sent up to you.** No,** said Con-
stantine. ** I know your habits very well now. The walk round
the town after dinner, you would feel terribly if you missed it.
And I know what you English are.** My husband said sud-
denly a short word which has so rarely been spoken in my
presence that I wonder how it is I understand it, and taking
Constantine’s arm in his, led him from the room. When he
came back, he said, ** Forgive me, my dear. But I thought this
situation could only be handled by the natural man. And do
not worry. He was quite happy to be sent to bed.**
We dined in the restaurant of the principal hotel and there
we ate excellent trout, but not until after an immense delay.
The apartment was so large that as soon as a waiter took an
order he broke into a trot towards the kitchen ; and I have no
doubt that the kitchen was also vast, and that the cooks had to
stop their work every now and then to rebuild a wall or relay a
floor. We passed the time in spelling out the news in the
Belgrade newspapers which were constantly brought in by little
dark boys of distinguished appearance in very ragged clothes,
and in talking to a young man who came up to us and asked In
German if he could be of any help to us, since we were strangers.
OLD SERBIA
347
He told us he was a Croat lawyer, come to be clerk of the local
law court, and he gave a very pleasant impression of youthful
simplicity and courtesy, of a real knightliness. He left us when
our trout was brought, and as soon as we had finished it we had
another visitor. A dark full-bodied man, more smartly dressed
than anybody else in the restaurant, had been watching us from a
nearby table for some time and now came up to us. He said
to my husband, “ Good evening. It is interesting to meet a
German so far from home.** “ I am not a German,** said my
husband, “ I am English.**
The dark man looked at his reply as if it night be picked up,
carried away, dropped down, buried, or accorded any treatment
except belief. ** Yet you speak German like a German,** he
said. “ That is because I spent some years as a boy in Ham-
burg,** answered rr?/ husband, and I have spent much of my
life doing business with Germans.** The dark man said nothing
to distract us from his disbelief, and my husband said testily,
** And you ? You are a German ; what are you doing here ? *’
“ Oh, I am not a German ! ** exclaimed the dark man with an air
of surprise. Yet you speak like a German,** said my husband.
That is because I am a Dane,** said the dark man. After an
instant he appeared to become intensely irritated with my
husband*s face which is long and intelligent, and he left us with
a curt farewell. He does not believe me when I say I am
English,** commented my husband, but he is infuriated when
I do not believe him when he says * I am a Dane *. He feels I
am not playing the game. That means that he is a German.**
** Could he possibly be a Dane ? *’ Not possibly,** said my
husband ; ** he does not even speak with a North German
accent. That man has spoken Berliner German from his
infancy.**
At that point Dragutin, who had been sitting on the other
side of the room, came up to say good-night to us. We gathered
that he was telling us that Fetch was very depressing after
Trepcha, and that he had never seen anything more wonderful
than the house and works he had seen at Goru. After he had
gone it struck me that Goru is not the name of a place, but a
word meaning up in the. mountain. He had, in fact, been to
the mine-head. ** This is too frightful ! ** I said. ‘‘ Do you
remember when I thought I saw Dragutin at that canteen just
before we had lunch in the mess ? Well, I did ! He must have
348 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
got a friend to take him up there ! ** “ What is so frightful
about that ? ** asked my husband. It means,’* I answered,
that he went off and left Constantine, probably without asking
permission, so that instead of Constantine going off for a soli-
tary drive and feeling superior to us and all the people at the
mines, because he was a poet and acting poetically, he had to
sit in the hotel feeling left-out and despised.'* “ My God,
I believe you’re right ! ” exclaimed my husband. We gazed
at each other in real horror. “I do not think Dragutin
would deliberately disobey Constantine,” he said, ” I think he
simply forgot him. He knows quite well that Constantine is
not a whole man, and that he has been in some way destroyed,
and he fears an infection. Now I understand another cause for
Anti-Semitism ; many primitive peoples must receive their first
intimation of the toxic quality of thought from Jews. They
know only the fortifying idea of religion ; they see in Jews the
effect of the tormenting and disintegrating ideas of scepticism.
Dragutin sees a man made as miserable as sickness, as poverty,
as disgrace could make him, by an idea which is so mighty
that it can exercise this power even though it was let loose on
him by a woman. No wonder he is appalled. Well, let us go
and get some sleep.”
So we climbed the creaking staircase and came to our room,
passing the little Hungarian chambermaid as she burrowed
among candles in a store cupboard, still busy ; and we slept
well, though once I woke and turned on the light and watched
a frieze of five mice pass along the skirting. In the morning
as many beetles watched me as I dried after my antique bath.
But all was clean, aseptically clean ; and for the explanation
there was the chambermaid down on her knees, her right hand
swishing the suds across the flimsy floor, her head rolling from
side to side and a tune coming in a half hum, half whistle,
through her teeth. We bade her good-morning and told her
she worked too hard for a pretty girl, and she looked up laugh-
ing, and from a plank in front of her broke off a huge splinter
like a piece of toast. ** Yes,” said Constantine, who just then
came out of his room, ** she is a good girl, and she has great
sensibility. Last night she came into my room and she said so
kindly, ‘ Ah, I would so like to be with you, for there is some-
thing about you very sweet, and you are far more cultured than
most men who come to this hotel, but I see you are too ill, and
OLD SERBIA
349
so I will bring you a little orange drink instead.* **
We went down and had our breakfast outside the principal
hotel, and sat over our coffee for an unnecessary length of time,
enchanted by the scene. The most enchanting element in it
was a number of pretty little girls with dark hair sun-bleached
on the surface, and fair delicate bronze skins, who darted
about in most beautiful costumes, consisting of fitted jackets
and loose trousers gathered at the ankles, cut out of brilliant
curtain material with an extreme sense of elegance that was not
of an Oriental sort. The effect is too feminist. The little girl
is set apart as a little gi-J^ as a possible object for poetical
feeling, but her will is respected, she can n n and jump as she
likes. We ceased to look at them only to wonder about several
cheap cars waiting in front of the hotel, which as we breakfasted
filled up with people apparently strangers to each other, who all
held lemons in thcfr hands and looked exceedingly apprehensive.
“ They fear to be sick,** explained Constantine, “ and it is to
prevent it that they are going to suck lemons. They are going to
travel through Montenegro, to Kolashin or Tsetinye or Podgo-
ritsa or Nikshitch, and they must go by motor bus or by car,
since there is no railway in all Montenegro, it is too mountain-
ous.** And looking up the road at the walls of rock which barred
the way, that seemed obvious. Nothing but a Simplon tunnel
that took a whole day to pass could meet the case. ** The poor
passengers,** continued Constantine, ** they have reason for
fearing to be sick, and even to die. For the Montenegrins are a
race of heroes, but since the Turks have gone they have nothing
to be heroic about, and so they are heroic with their motor
cars. A Montenegrin chauffeur looks on his car as a Cossack
or a cowboy looks on a horse, he wishes to do tricks with it that
show his skill and courage, and he is proud of the wounds he
gets in an accident as if they were scars of battle. It is a superb
point of view, but not for the passenger. One cannot work out
a formula, not in philosophy, not in aesthetics, not in religion,
not in nothing that would make it good for the passengers.
Yet there have to be passengers for there to be a chauffeur.
It is a very grave disharmony.**
There came to our table at that moment a lean and hard-
bitten and harassed man in uniform, who introduced himself as
the Chief of Police at Petch. He spoke American English, for
he had been in the Middle West nearly twenty years, and he was
350
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
consumed by that emotion so socially disruptive, so critical of all
our sentimental pretences, that it has no name : the opposite
of nostalgia, a sick distaste for the fatherland. ** All here is
as strange to me as it is to you,** he complained. They asked
me to come back from the United States and become Chief of
Police, and because I was for Yugoslavia I obeyed, but I made
a mistake. There is too much to do. These folks here won*t
act right unless you make *em, and to make *em you have to
know every one of them by sight. Will you believe that I have
to come down every evening and watch the Corso, just to see
how they all act and get in my mind who*s who ? Can you
imagine folks acting that way in the States ? ** There are
nearly fourteen thousand inhabitants of Fetch ; in the plain
which stretches from Fetch south to Prizren, a matter of fifty-five
miles or so, there were in Turkish days a steady six hundred
assassinations a year ; I found some pathos in the lot of a
gentleman who was trying to induce by individual attention
such a large number of people, who had been shaped by such
a tradition, to behave like good Babbitts. My husband said,
** But many of your charges look very charming,** and I added,
** the little girls are really lovely.** The Chief of Police said in
astonishment, “ Do you really think so ? ** But certainly,**
we said. Oh, no, you are mistaken ! ** he exclaimed. ** But
we have seen the most exquisite little girls,** I began, but
Constantine interrupted me. “ The Chief of Police,** he ex-
plained, ** is a Montenegrin, and he is trying to tell you, if
you would only let him, that only up there behind that wall
at the end of the street in Montenegro are people really charming
and little girls really lovely.** ** Well, I doubt if a man not
fortified by such beliefs would accept such a post,** said my
husband. I asked, after the Chief of Police had made exactly
the speech that Constantine had anticipated, “ But are not the
people influenced a great deal by the monks at the Patriarchate
church and the Dechani monastery ? ** He looked at me in
bewilderment. “ Influenced ? But in what way ? *’ “ Why, for
good,** I stammered ; ** the monks, you know.** He continued
to look at me in perplexity, but just then a gendarme came in
and, after saluting, whispered in his ear ; and he jumped up
and left us in the manner of a mother who has just heard that
two of her children have been fighting and have hurt themselves.
“ It is hotter than it has been/* I said, as we drove out of
OLD SERBIA
351
the town, along the road towards Montenegro, on our way to
the Patriarchate church of Fetch, which is nearly as famous as
the monastery of Dechani.
It was a very pleasant drive, with the houses thinning and
showing us the rich pastures that ran up to the wooded foothills,
and the brilliant river that dashed down from the gorge. I
do not think that it is hot at all,” said Constantine. ** But the
sun is strong,” I said. ** I hnd it very weak,” said Constantine.
Oh, no ! ” I exclaimed. ** This morning at eight the stockings
that I washed last night and hung at the window were quite
dry.” I realised that I had spoken foolishly even before he had
sneered, ” You have proof for everything.” His face was heavy
and swollen, half with f^'ver, half with the desire to hurt. Gerda
had convinced him thrt being a Tew he was worthless, and he
wanted to establish that everybody else she despised was worth-
less too, so that we could crash down together to common
annihilation under her blonde, blind will. The three of us kept
silent till we came to the Patriarchate, which lies in a walled
compound among the foothills at the opening of the gorge, low
by the river under the wooded cliffs.
Through an archway we entered what seemed a decent little
country estate, with proper outbuildings and a trim wood-stack,
a kitchen garden as neat as a new pin, and an orchard with its
trunks new- washed against blight. A very old monk, lean and
brown as a tree-trunk, smiled at us but did not answer what
Constantine said, and led us along an avenue to a round fountain
shaded by some trees. We thought he was deaf, but he was a
Russian who had never learned any Serbian during his seven-
teen years of exile here. While he fetched the Abbot from his
house, there appeared at our elbows Dragutin, to enforce the
observance of his special rite and see that we drank from the
fountain. It cured all ills, he said, and bestowed also the blessing
of Christ. He had brought tumblers from the automobile, so
that we could drink in comfort, and indeed it was delicious
beyond the nature of water.
When I had finished drinking, I looked round with satis-
faction. This was a fat little estate : the buildings were not only
new, they were well-kept, and on the finely tilled terraces behind
the guest-house there were trim beehives of modern pattern, and
the stone runner that took the fountain’s overflow to a stream
was weedless. I remembered the account of the Patriarchate
352 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
in that valuable book, Travels in the Slavonic Provinces oj
Turkey-in-Europey by Miss Muir Mackenzie and Miss Irby,
so penetrating in its view of the Balkans that, though it was
written seventy-six years ago, it still answers some questions that
the modern tourist will find unanswered anywhere else. These
two ladies arrived here with a guard of Moslem Albanian soldiers,
with the intention of staying the night, and found terrified
monks who, with an inhospitability most uncharacteristic of the
Slav or the Orthodox Church, made every effort to turn them
away. The ladies, who were, like so many Victorian women
outside fiction, models of courage and good sense, turned their
guards out of the room and talked to the monks privately, and
found that the poor wretches had had all their food seized by a
passing troop of Moslem Albanians, and were terrified lest the
new invaders should punish them for their empty cupboards.
When the ladies met the situation by sending their guards not
only out of the room but out of the monastery, there was still
some delay before they could get to bed, since the relative flea
population of the different rooms had to be considered, and
empty windows had to be fitted with glazed frames, which were
not brought out till the soldiers had gone. It is a very strong
compact of medieval discomfort and medieval insecurity.
Nothing could be more remote from the present atmosphere,
which could be best expressed by the Scottish word douce
Yes, we were standing in as douce a wee policy as could be
wished.
The Abbot still did not come. We passed some time looking
at the carvings on the fountain, which had an extremely primi-
tive air yet in one panel represented a man carrying a fairly
modern rifle, but Constantine grew nervous and restless and we
took him off to look at the church. It lay on our right, among
some walnuts and mulberries and pines, the green ground
rising steep behind it. “I have a prejudice against this church,**
said my husband, as we went towards it, “ because a French
author wrote of it, * Elle a la couleur tendre de la chair des
blondes *.** I said, in some bewilderment, “ This is even more
than I should have asked of you, my dear.’* ** I felt strongly,”
he explained, that he should not have followed that sentence
with his next, * Elle est bdtie de gros blocs rectangulaires y ir-
riguliers *. The picture one is left with is hardly pleasing.**
But indeed what was in the French author*s mind was very
THE TOMB OF GAZI MESTAN ON KOSSOVO
THE PATRIARCHATE AT FETCH
OLD SERBIA
353
apparent. The church is actually the colour of a fair woman’s
skin, where it gets some weathering but not much, say in the
throat or just above the wrist ; and in form it is a many-breasted
Diana of Ephesus. It is an assembly of three small churches
lying side by side, each with a cupola and a rounded apse, and
all its masses are maternally curved. It seemed very fitting
that there should come out of the porch a company of matrons
in whom age had destroyed all that is evanescent in womanhood,
all that is peculiar to the period of mating and child-bearing,
yet who might have served gloriously as types of their sex be-
cause what was left was sc plainly dedicated to all its essential
purposes, the continuity of life and its hannony. They were
slender and erect, like (he old women of Ochrid, but lacked
that aristocratic and even luxurious air which was natural
enough in a town with its Byzantine past ; they might have
been Romans wherj Rome was still a sturdy republic. All of
them were old enough to remember the bad days in Fetch when
the Turks had so encouraged the Albanian Moslems to ill-treat
their Christian neighbours that at every Serb funeral the corpse
was pelted with stones and filth ; but they carried themselves
with the most untroubled dignity. It came back to me that
Miss Muir Mackenzie and Miss Irby had been immensely im-
pressed by a woman of Fetch called Katerina Simitch, a childless
widow who carried on a Christian school for girls, with a
courage that never broke before the persistent hostility of the
Moslems. She was a nun solely because the status was useful
to her in her nationalist work ; the Englishwomen’s descrip-
tions of her evoke the calm and wise personality of a great
statesman. Yet it is safe to say that she took her vows without
impiety, for in those days Christianity and Slav, nationalism
must have seemed, even to the most spiritual, almost one and
the same These women who were coming out of the church
would certainly be kin to Katerina Simitch’s pupils, and some
might even be of her blood. If she had seen them she would
have felt pride. She would have taken for granted their quiet
fierceness and their fleet dignity for it was hers also, and she
could not have conceived Slav women otherwise ; but she would
have recognised a sign of new times, and rejoiced at it, in the
white sleeves which were disclosed by their black cloth boleros.
They were made of the striped silk which is woven in the dis-
trict ; in Katerina’s day only a few Christian women could
354
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
afford to buy it, or even to make it, since the mulberry leaves
for the silkworms cost more than Christians could afford.
.We went into the porch, which formed a long hall outside the
three churches. There were two more old women sitting and
talking thoughtfully on a stone bench that ran round the wall,
one holding a branch cut from a walnut tree. Their ease, and a
proud and hospitable gesture that this woman made with her
walnut branch when she saw we were visitors come to admire,
recalled the history of these churches.
The first had been built in the early thirteenth century by a
Patriarch named Arsenius, by order of St. Sava, who felt that the
seat of the Serbian archiepiscopate, Zhitcha, was dangerously
exposed to Hungarian invasion from the West and Tartar in-
vasion from the East, and told him to find a safer shelter for it
in the South. Here the growing Serbian civilisation had the
centre of its spiritual life, and when Stephen Dushan was obliged
to detach his church from the domination of Constantinople this
became the seat of the Patriarchate. It was to meet the needs
of this increasing importance that two other churches were
joined to it in the following hundred years. When the Turks
came the independence of the Serbian Church was destroyed,
and for a time the Christian Slavs were again subject to Con-
stantinople. But in the sixteenth century there took place the
drama of the Sokolovitch brothers, which we had already heard
of at Grachanitsa, to which their complicity had added the great
porch. One, known as Mehmed, was taken by the Turks as a
child and reared as a Janissary, and had risen to be Grand
Vizier, in which office he restored the Serbian National Church
and made his brother, the monk Macarius, Patriarch of Petch
with many privileges. It would be interesting to know how
seriously the state of such a renegade as Mehmed was regarded :
whether time and repetition rubbed down the crime till it was
accepted as a legitimate ruse of Christian self-preservation, or
whether it preserved its primal horror. Through this porch
Macarius must have walked many thousand times, and either
he was not glad, not sorry, child of a twilit age, where faith was
grey with incrustations of compromise, or he believed that his
brother must burn in hell, and must have been sorely perturbed
to consider that he could not give the saving bread and wine
to his people had not his brother chosen damnation. But there
exists no record of these people’s interior lives. As yet humanity
OLD SERBIA
355
has chronicled little more than its simpler and more agreeable
experiences.
In any case Macarius carried on his work efficiently ; and he
was succeeded by a number of able patriarchs until the Great
Trek to the Danube in 1690, when the Patriarchate was trans-
ferred to its present seat at Karlovats, which we had visited
among its lilacs from Belgrade. But that did not mean that the
building was ever wholly abandoned. There was always some
ecclesiastical activity here, even in the darkest days of the Turkish
subjection during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
This continuity of Christian woijhip resulted, as it often does,
in destruction of the most valuable part of the Christian heritage.
St. Mark’s would be far more beautiful if Venice had not been
prosperous enough to alter and adorn it for some hundreds of
years after it had attained its perfection ; and here in the three
churches of Fetch the most exquisite Serbo-Byzantine frescoes
were covered over during recent times with pious trivialities
paid for by peasants who wanted to mark their appreciation of
the comfort they had received there throughout the long ages
of their servitude. These are now, as at Neresi, being removed
from the walls, so that one may see the old beside the new, and
learn again the paradox by which the greatest tragic art has
been produced. In the happy Austria of the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries Mozart and Beethoven both looked
into the dark springs of human destiny ; in the petty and sordid
Austria of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
which every day carried the plot for the doom of itself and
Europe a stage further, there was heard the clear ripple of the
waltz and the operetta. Here, at every ragged edge that joins the
frescoes which were divided by from three to four hundred years,
it is shown that the free and fortunate subjects of the Nemanyas
could bear to contemplate the mystery of pain, while the down-
trodden Christian rayahs asked only to think of favour and of
prettiness. The contrast was at its most positive where a charm-
ing fresco, visibly affected by what I have called the Turkish
Regency style, depicting some bland and chic angels having
a party at a table obviously arranged by someone with a modish
sense of fun, before a window hung with coquettish muslin
curtains, was being hewn asunder and flaked off to bring to
light an enormous and merciless presentation of the relationship
between man and his mother.
356 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
All these early frescoes, though they range in date over two
hundred years and show marked variations in style, are alike
in being merciless. Here the angels sweep down like furies,
the Holy Ghost is seen as a bird of prey, and at the Transfigura-
tion the multitude is aghast, as well it might be at that demon-
stration that man is wholly deceived by the material world, and
there is another one beyond for him to master. In the dome
of one of the three churches there is a Christ Ruler of All,
dressed in an amber robe and crowned with a golden halo
against a silver background, confined by a whirlwind of
angels, which puts before the eye, as some great music has
put before the ear, the ecstasy of pain that comes from great
gifts, great power, great responsibility. Sometimes this
central core of harshness is disguised by the most delicious
grace. One fresco represents the Mother of God feeding the
infant Jesus at her breast while three women adore Him and
two angels stand in waiting, which recalls a Duccio or a
Giunta Pisano, but shows an even greater refinement, an
ethereal force very rarely present in Italian painting. It is
as if the artist was working in a world where grossness and
feebleness were almost unknown, or at least under the ban of
the common consciousness. But even here there is a lack of
mercy. The infant Jesus is not so much a baby as a reduced
adult, a microscopic sage and ruler, and He is sucking His
mother’s nipple with mature unsmiling greed, as if He meant
to take the last drop and give her no payment of gratitude, al-
though her body is a soft mass about Him, protecting Him as
the pulp of a ripe fruit about its kernel. The resemblance be-
tween the Nemanyan and the Tudor ages is strong. So did the
Elizabethan poets know that though Elizabeth was Gloriana
and England glorious, God is not kind to man, not here on earth.
But the most merciless of all these frescoes was the Virgin
and Child that stared out through the angels* tea-party.
This is terrible, with a terror that makes the efforts at realism
of later artists such as Rouault seem the fee-fo-fum of a child
playing at ogres in the nursery. A vast Virgin is massive as a
mother must seem to the child she picks up in her arms and
carries where he has not wished to go, that is, unfairly massive ;
and she grips Him with fingers of masonic strength, which
are as ten towers, ten lighthouses, affixed to her huge palm.
Her features are as gigantesquely marked as all adults must
OLD SERBIA
357
seem to a baby’s hand, and she appears unreasonably stern, as
those yet unacquainted with the dangers of this world must con-
sider their mothers. The love and kindness published on her
huge face is as a huge army entrenched about its object. At
her bosom the Christ child is poised like a tiny fettered
athlete. His muscular legs bared by runner’s shorts. His glitter-
ing enraged face proclaiming revolt against this imprisoning
benevolence and shining with the intention of flight to a remote
and glorious goal which is His secret. A mind unaware of
timidity had considered those questions, ** Who is my brother
or my brethren ? ” and ** Woman what have I to do with thee ? ”
and had taken into account certain agonising arguments he
had heard in the world ’bout him.
They were still, it seemed, being carried on. Constantine
turned his back on the fresco and took two letters out of his
pockets, which he had already told us in the automobile he had
received from Gerda and his mother that morning. He opened
them both, stared at them in turn, and seemed to grow hot
though the shadow of the church was cool about us. ** You are
worried,” I said. ” Why do you not leave us and go straight
home to Belgrade ? ” He answered in a whining tone, ” But
if I go home I will only have to take round a French woman
journalist who is coming early next week to write about us bar-
barians. I do not like these political Frenchwomen, they are
all the same ; they are all like Genevieve Tabouis and Andree
Viollis, they drag round the world and disapprove of all that
real men do.” He looked up at the tremendous Virgin, his
upper lip lifting from his teeth in a sneer : his eyes left her and
stared apprehensively into space. ” I have other ideas what
women should do,” he said weakly, as if he were very tired.
We turned away and looked at other frescoes and the great
marble tombs of the Patriarchs, but he followed us restlessly,
and we went out of the church.
Outside I saw a monk, whom I knew to be the Abbot because
he wore the broad scarlet sash of his office, standing under a very
twisted old nut tree, talking to the old women who had passed
us as we went into the Church. Now that I saw them from a
distance I noted, what I had not seen before, since my eyes had
been fixed on their magnetic faces and their snowy sun-bright
sleeves, that they wore not skirts but trousers of dark flowered
material, gathered at the ankle into a black braided cuff, which
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
358
seemed incongruous garments on women who might very well
have been heads of colleges. They were speaking to the Abbot
with a charming reverence which was due partly to their sense
of his priesthood and partly to his special suitability for it ; for
they were looking at him with calm and chaste approbation of
his extreme good looks. He was a tall man with a clear white
skin and a dark wavy beard, like one of the Assyrians in the
British Museum ; ever3rthing about him spoke of quiet strength
and good health. He must have pleased them by the proof he
gave that their darling care, the race, was still sound. There
was standing a little distance off a monk of very different ap-
pearance. He was extremely short and so round-shouldered
that he was nearly hunchbacked, and his long hair and beard
shone chorus-girl golden. The Abbot looked up and saw me
coming out of the church with my husband and Constantine
just behind me, and with a curious combination of a welcoming
smile and an embarrassed gesture he moved towards us, joined
by the small blond monk. He was glad to see us ; he was a
Serb from Serbia and knew Constantine’s name, and in any case
he came of good Orthodox stock with its tradition of hospitality ;
yet he was not at ease. After he had greeted us he introduced
the short blond monk, saying, ** This is a brother from the
monastery at Dechani who came over to help me at a special
service we had this morning. I am afraid he will have to go at
once, if he is to catch his motor bus back.”
But the little creature pressed forward and with the pinched
and dwarfish vivacity of a pantomime child shook his finger at
us, crying, in a peculiar German, “ I know what you are think-
ing about me ! ” It was an intensely embarrassing remark
coming from one so physically odd, but at once he continued,
with a great deal of trilling laughter, “ You are thinking, ‘ How
fair he is ! How can he be so fair, being a Yugoslavian ? He
is fair as a German ! ’ ” We had, of course, been thinking
nothing of the sort, for a number of Slavs, particularly Bosnians,
are fairer than Germans, are as fair as Scandinavians. All that
had struck us about his hair was the peculiar harshness of its
colour. “ I will explain the mystery to you,” he tittered. ” I
am a Croat, yes, I am a Croat from Zagreb. But my mother,
my beloved and saintly mother, she was a true German born in
Austria, and she it was who gave me my golden hair ! ” His
little fists swept forward the curls that hung down his back so
OLD SERBIA 35^
that they covered his eyes and became tangled in his beard.
‘‘ Always when I was a child people stopped in the street and
said, ‘ Who is this child that is fair like an angel, that looks
like a real German child ? * and my mother would say, * It is a
German child, and yet it is not a German child
The creature reeled about in paroxysms of laughter, and the
Abbot said, “ If you do not hurry you will miss the motor bus.”
‘‘Yes, yes,” the little creature cried, “ I must not do that, for
I receive all the distinguished visitors who come to Dechani.
I speak to them my mo^hf^r-tongne, the beautiful German.
This afternoon I muse receive an Italian general, and his wife
who is a princess ; to-morrow morning I must receive a pro-
fessor who is at the bead of the greatest university in France.
They will have to be shown round by me, for the other monks
do not know German, it is only I who speak German.” ” The
motor bus,” said the Abbot. “ Oh, isn’t it a shame that I must
go ! Well, good-bye, good-bye, good-bye ! ” He ran away
from us with tiny twinkling steps, smiling at us over his shoulder
and undulating his outstretched arm, like an old-fashioned fairy
queen quitting the stage of a pantomime.
The Abbot took off his tall hat, blew into it, replaced it,
and evidently felt much better. It was an odd gesture, but we
all knew what he was feeling and sympathised. He had suffered
acutely from this bizarre interlude, because, as we were to find
out later on, he was primarily a country gentleman. That was
why he had been made the abbot here. It was his duty to restore
the estate of the Patriarchate to order and productivity, so that
the Christians of Fetch might see how their God wished them
to live in fair weather, when martyrdom was no longer required
from them. In this he was succeeding admirably, for the
monastery had that look of agrarian piety to be seen in many
French and some English farms and market gardens. I do not
think that the frescoes meant very much to him, but he spoke
with great pleasure of the two visits that Bernard Berenson and
Gabriel Millet had made for the purpose of examining them.
He had his full measure of the countryman’s feeling for crafts-
manship, and he could see that these people knew their jobs.
Also, he explained with enthusiasm that he had derived great
enjoyment from the handsomeness of Mr. Berenson and his
personal exquisiteness. ” He is like a prince ! ” he said ; ‘‘ with
his white hair, and his fine hands, and his slender body, and all
36 o black lamb AND GREY FALCON
his clothes so neat and clean, he is like someone from a great
court. I hope that there are many pictures of him all over
England and America.**
He took us up to his parlour, which was sweet and clean,
and we drank good coffee and ate crystalline spoonfuls of quince
jam, while he talked of his work and the place. Yes, it was
beautiful, though in winter the winds came down the gorge
from Montenegro very bitterly, and there was a great deal of
snow. The land was very good, though this monastery was far
from being rich like Dechani, and he found the people who
worked for it very pleasant indeed, particularly the Albanians.
We noted again the liking that most Serbs now feel for
the Albanians, who during the Turkish occupation were
their most constant tormentors. His congregations, he
went on to say, were very good and pious, and came many
miles to the services. Yet the Abbot *s large handsomeness,
which should have been as placid as cream, was dimmed by a
cloud of perplexity and exasperation immediately he had given
us an assurance of his satisfaction with the district. His dark
brows drew together under his clear fleshy forehead, and his
eyes, luminous as a peat stream, seemed to see something not
very far off and not entirely gratifying, perhaps the main street
of Fetch as it would appear to eyes for whom nothing in it
had the charm of unfamiliarity, a track, too wide for any traffic
that could conceivably pass this way, with telegraph posts
marching along it in full futility, bringing no useful messages
to the town.
We should have gone to Dechani that afternoon, but at
lunch it was plain that Constantine’s fever had come back to
him, so he telephoned to the Abbot and arranged that we should
go the next morning instead. We sent Constantine to bed and
tried to sleep a little ourselves, for we were both deadly tired.
But I found it difficult to rest, because whenever my mind was
not preoccupied by some new sight it was invaded by the
recollection of some of the tremendous events which had been
shown or explained to me during the last two months : the
struggle of the Croat soul between its Slav self and its Western
education, the outlawry of the Dalmatian Uskoks, the
mart3n-doms of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek and Princip
and Chabrinovitch, the conflict between the Obrenovitches
and the Karageorgevitches, the magical practices of Mace-
OLD SERBIA
361
donian Christianity, the rites of St. George’s Eve, the glory of
Grachanitsa and the self-slaughter of Kossovo, the noble effort
of Trepcha, and the nihilism of Gerda, with its demand that all
these efforts of the human spirit should be set aside and that
all the forces of the universe should be directed to the purpose
of cramming her with whatever material belonged to others.
When at last I slept a dream distressed me by its proof that the
thing which stung Constantine’s hand was his wife. She did
not want him to write any more poetry, because he was a Jew
like Heine.
My husband was awakened by the scamper of mice among
our shoes, so we gave up and went for a walk on the hills
overlooking the Patriar^ hate on the other side of the river,
among budding woods and through meadows tangled with pale-
purple and blue fl(>wers. We met a good-looking young man
who was stripped ro the waist and carried a bright-blue shirt
and wet bathing dress. Ho looked at us very hard and then
turned back, and asked if he might walk with us and show us
one of the hermits’ caves which are so numerous in this dis-
trict that they gave the town its name ; for Fetch is an old word
for cave. He spoke a didactic kind of English which he said
he had learned in America as a child, during a visit to an uncle,
but which had the hollow ring of the propagandist printed
word. “You may wonder why I approached you when my
torso is nude,” he said, “ but I did so in full confidence for I am
sure that you are people who have swept all unwholesome
prejudices out of your minds, and are open-minded and recep-
tive to such healthful ideas as sun-bathing.” “ How did you
know that ? ” asked my husband. “ I watched you last night
as you had dinner outside the hotel,” answered the young man,
“ and I am sure of it.” “ But what did we do as we dined that
convinced you we’re in favour of sun-bathing ? ” pursued my
husband. “You are very polite to your wife,” said the young
man ; “ it is evident that you have conquered your animal in-
stinct to oppress the female and have accepted intellectually and
emotionally the point of view that by child-bearing she contri-
butes as much to the State as the male by his characteristic
activities. You talk together very intently also, so it is evident
that you have raised her to your intellectual level. Yesterday
I went back to my house and made my wife come out and look
at you as an example, for she is of these parts, and she is not
362 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
always sure that she ought to be advanced. She is dragged
down by her early surroundings. But she is very beautiful and
very good, and there is something special about her which would
be difficult to describe. But besides your attitude to each other,
you have the appearance of cultured people. I am sure you
read many books. What sort of books do you prefer and why ? **
Towards such people who ask such questions my husband
feels as a shepherd towards lambs. He does not ask him-
self whether he would not rather be thinking his own thoughts or
spending the time with companions more like himself, he wholly
abandons himself to the feeling that there is a breed valuable to
the community and that he must cherish ever>" member of it.
He talked with the boy about books as we strolled along the
hillside under green firwoods so high that the spring had only
lately reached them, through the flowery pastures, past a ruiaed
house where snakes slid among rank hemlocks and hellebores,
to the visibly icy reservoirs where the boy had been bathing, and
up a grassy slope to the cavern. It still glowed faintly with holy
pictures painted by a medieval hermit, and it resounded with
cries that might have been thought to proceed from a spirit in
travail, had not the angular behind and bell-rope tail of some
form of cattle been visible in its depths. On the grass near by,
in the shadow cast by an acacia tree, sat an old Albanian, his
bright eyes and smile fresh as a bubbling spring. We felt
that he would have been sure to pick the best place for a rest, so
we sat ourselves down beside him.
The young man exchanged jokes with him ; and one was
so funny that the young man rolled over and over on the ground,
but he remembered to pick himself up and say, in a superior
manner, “ The Albanians are a people of great mother- wit, but
they are not at all advanced,’* and started talking about books
again. His special interests were economics and political theory,
and he called himself a Communist, but he had in fact a far
more intelligent interest in Marxism than most Yugoslavs who
claim that name. They are for the most part simply exponents
of the age-long opposition between the country and the towns
and have much more sympathy with William Morris than with
Marx, but this young man had read Das Kapital with a mind
of good tough critical fibre. My husband repeated to him some
of the most amusing passages out of H. W. B. Joseph’s book on
the Marxian Theory of Value, and in spite of his faith he laughed
OLD SERBIA
363
aloud and rolled over on his back just as he had done at the
Albanian’s jokes. “ Who is the man that wrote that book ? ”
he asked. He must have a wonderful mind, though of course
essentially frivolous. Do you know him ? ” ** He has one of the
finest minds in the world,” said my husband, ” and he was my
philosophy tutor at Oxford.” “ Oh, what I could do,” cried the
boy, ” if I had the advantages you have had ! ” He sat up and
held his chin in his hands and looked sulkily down the valley,
and then a light stirred in his eyes and he turned to my husband.
” I heard them say in the town that you came from Kossovska
Mitrovitsa and that you were great friends with the people at
the Trepcha mines. Could you not give me a letter to the Gos-
podin Mac asking him t v give me work ? For there is nothing
here for me to do. I help my father in the hotel he keeps, but
there is not enough work for the two of us, and I am too good
for the work there is, I could do much better. Sometimes I
weep, because Fetch has nothing for me to do.”
On our way down to dinner we went into Constantine’s
room to see how he was faring with his fever, and on the landing
we saw that the chambermaid was ironing her pile of sheets as
she had been doing the night before, but this time she was
quietly weeping. I said to Constantine, ” Your little admirer
is crying her eyes out, have you been cruel to her ? ” He
answered, ” No, she has told me what grieves her and it is some-
thing more important than me. She came in here to bring me
an orangeade and she sat on my bed and she said, * I should be
happy, for they pay me well here. They know well that the
hotel is falling to pieces and that if I were not here to scrub the
floors and keep the mattresses clean we would be overrun with
mice and beetles and bugs. But sometimes I cannot bear life.’
I said to her, ‘ What is it you cannot bear, my little one ? * and
she answered, ‘ It is death. It makes me so angry. Three days
ago a man died here, he was a very rich man and he held high
office in the town. When the Prime Minister came here he was
among those who received him, and he wore a tall hat such as
the gentlemen wear in Budapest. I knew him well, and he was
a proud and powerful man, with many things passing through
his head. And three days ago he died, and yesterday they
carried his coffin through the streets, and he was nothing, just
a body that would soon begin to stink and would be just dirt,
just filth ! ’ And then she began to cry, so I said, * Did you love
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
364
him, my little one ? * and she answered, ‘ No, not at all, but it
makes me so angry that death can do such a thing, that one day
there can be a man, full of importance, and the next day there
is nothing. It should not be so. Oh, I felt so furious, I wanted
to fight death and kill him.’ And she sat there and wept, and
I think she was speaking the truth. I think she had not loved
this man but was only enraged at the idea of death, for she wept
like a woman who has been insulted, not like a woman who has
been hurt. Then she said, * I must iron my sheets,’ and she
beat my pillow, and she went from me.” When we went out
on to the landing she had left her task for a moment, and a
guttering candle, standing on the rucked ironing-blanket between
a pile of rough sheets and smooth ones, cast tremendous
shadows on the walls and ceiling as we passed.
As we sat down in the restaurant there came to our table
the traveller in ready-made clothing we had seen praying on
the road near Kossovska Mitrovitsa, who was so civil that we
asked him to dine with us. He accepted our invitation with
alacrity because he longed to speak of the abode of joy, a blend
of Venice in Carnival time and the New Jerusalem, to which
his memory had transformed Aberdeen. But there was some
other alchemic agent beside his memory ; there were person-
alities at work which had softened the gaunt handsome-
ness of that town and injected blandness into the veins of
my maternal country to mix with its grim vigour. For he spoke
of many people he had met in Great Britain with tenderness,
particularly of one woman whom he proved by his story to be
remarkable. She had organised the scheme for placing the
Serbian refugee boys in English and Scottish homes and schools
and had travelled perpetually to see how they were getting on ;
and later she had astonished them by her interest in them as
individuals. ” She was like a baba, like a grandmother,” he
said, ” but many people are fond of children, and young people,
it is like being fond of dogs or horses. It is what happens
afterwards that matters. And do you know, last year, she came
out here. She said she was getting very old and might die
before long, and she wanted to see what had happened to her
boys. So she travelled all over the country seeking us out,
and when we had done well she was so pleased. She came to
my house and had tea with my wife and saw my children, and
she sat and nodded her head and said, * This is very good, this
OLD SERBIA
365
is very good indeed. It couldn’t be better. I shall often think
about this when I get home.’ She had really liked us boys, for
ourselves, not because we were boys. That I think very nice.”
And indeed we thought it a Paradisal action, full of promise
that earth need not always be what it is.
” I shall always be glad that I was in England,” he went
on, “for I learned to do things neatly and in order and at a
definite time, which we do not do here, and this has made me
successful in business. Not very successful, I am not an eagle ;
but I have all I want and much m':'re than I expected as a child,
and I can keep my wife well and give her a nice home, and my
children are strong and well educated. But I am glad I came
back to Yugoslavia, for it is a most beautiful country.” He
asked us if we had visited many of the monasteries, and was
sorry that we had not visited more in Serbia proper, in the
valleys south of Belgrade, but glad that we had seen Sveti
Naum and the Frushka Gora. “ How do you know the
monasteries so well ? ” asked my husband. “You cannot take
much time off to look at them while you are travelling in your
business.” “ Then I have no time at all,” he replied, “ but I
belong to a society in Belgrade, and every time there is a holiday
such Easter or Whitsuntide we members hire motor chara-
bancs and we drive off with our wives and children to some
monastery and stay there two or three days. It is an excellent
way of spending a holiday, for it keeps us close to the Church,
even when we do not like what the Patriarchs do, and forget
to go to services in Belgrade, and it reminds us of our national
history, and the places are always exceedingly beautiful, and
there are many good monks whom it is pleasant to meet.” I
tried to imagine Canterbury or Gloucester invaded by a Bank
Holiday crowd, who picnicked all over the Close and sang and
danced and drank, and occasionally rushed into the cathedral
and joined heartily in the service and rushed out when they felt
like it, and freely and familiarly conversed with the Dean and
Chapter. The imagination cannot contrive such a picture.
The Anglican Church has bought decorum at such a great
price that it is indelicate to imagine her deprived of her purchase.
“ I am glad,” continued our friend, “ that you are to see
Dechani. It is one of the most beautiful of monasteries. My
friends and I spent last Easter there and we were amazed by
its richness. It gives some idea of what our land must have
366 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
been like in the days of the Nemanyas.** ‘‘Has Dechani much
influence on this town I asked. “ It does not seem so,”
answered the traveller ; “ this is a miserable town, not because
the people here are not good, for the Serbs of Fetch have always
been remarkable for character and intelligence, but because
nothing ever happens here. They say that dinars amounting
to two or three thousand pounds a month are paid into the town
as war pensions and gratuities, and the people live chiefly on
that. It is a subsidy of a little over two pounds a year per head.
You see, under the Turks it was a frontier town, and that meant
a lot of money, both in the employment of troops, and in selling
the troops goods and in smuggling ; and the people had a
great interest in maintaining their faith against persecution.
But now they need a new thing.”
He excused himself early, for he had to start driving south
the next morning shortly after dawn ; but he did not go till he
had performed a service for us in the way of some supplies from
a chemist. He was an altogether admirable person, but his
place was almost at once taken by a person whom we found less
admirable, the Dane who spoke German like a German. “ Good
evening,” he said, “ I suppose you will be going to Tsetinye
to-morrow ? ” “ No,” said my husband. ” But what are you
doing here so long ? ” demanded the Dane. “ We are tourists,”
said my husband. ‘‘ But there is nothing here to keep a tourist
longer than one day ! ” exclaimed the Dane in a tone of ex-
asperation. ” We have not yet seen Dechani,” said my
husband. ‘‘ But you should have seen Dechani in the morning,
and the Patriarchate in the afternoon ! ” the Dane said in a
very loud and threatening voice. ‘‘ What are you doing here
in Fetch ? ” asked my husband. The Dane clearly thought this
an impertinent question. ‘‘ I am a traveller in agricultural
machinery,” he answered coldly, as if to tell us to mind our own
business. ” I suppose you will be here for weeks,” said my
husband. ” Why do you say weeks ? ” asked the Dane. ” Well,
would you rather I said days, months or years?” replied my
husband. In open ill-humour the Dane went back to his own
table and studied a German newspaper.
OLD SERBIA
367
Fetch II
The next morning we spoke of this suspicious person to
Constantine, as we breakfasted outside the hotel. ** Certainly
he will be a German agent,** he said. “That is the second
we have come across, for I am sure vhe little one in knicker-
bockers at Sveti Naum was u German agent also. But I cannot
think what can be to happen here, for this is not an important
place. In Macedonia the Germans make much trouble with the
Bulgarians, and it is worth their while, but here there are only
Albanians, and it is worth nobody*s while to stir them up.**
The day was hotter and there had been no rain for days ; a
wind came down from the wall of rock at the end of the gorge,
stabbed us with unexpected chill, and blew into our teeth, into
our eyes, a film of warm dust from the high-street. The slight
discomfort aroused in Constantine his chronic malaise, and he
turned to us with a gorgon smile. “ Yes, the Germans are
terrible people,** he sneered, “ they employ secret agents to
serve their interests abroad. I suppose the English never did
so, not in Russia, not in India.** “ Of course we use secret
agents like every other power,** said my husband, “ and some-
times we use them justifiably and sometimes unjustifiably,
which again can be said of any other power. What is interesting
us is not the fact that this man is a secret agent, but that he
practises his art with so little discretion that we have only to
describe his proceedings for you to be quite sure that he is a
secret agent.** “ Yes,** squealed Constantine, clenching his fists,
“ the English are always cold and dignified and they are never
ridiculous, and the Germans are clowns and make fools of
themselves, but there is a mystery there, and what is behind
it may not mean that the English are saved and the Germans
damned.’* His voice sounded charlatanish and bewildered ;
he was using the spiritual vocabulary of the Slav who is pre-
occupied with the ideas of failure and humiliation, to justify
his allegiance to Gerda, who had no sympathy with them and
would have regarded his interest in them as proof of his Slav
inferiority, and as he spoke his taste exposed to him his own
falsity, though he persisted in it.
But once we had started on our way to Dechani Constantine
became himself again, for the road was beautiful. I have said
368 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
that Fetch stands where a wall of mountains running from the
north just fails to meet a wall of mountains running from the
south. The road from Kossovska Mitrovitsa to Fetch lies under
the mountains that come from the north ; the road from Fetch
to Dechani lies under the mountains that come from the south,
and passes country that is better watered and shadowed, and
is therefore green with a fertility that seems to well up from deep
wet roots. Forests are thick on the hillside, tall trees hold up
handsome densities of foliage, and on the left of the road
stretches the plain we had seen on our way from Kossovska
Mitrovitsa, that is rich and damp as the Vale of Fewsey. In its
fat fields parties of labourers worked in close-set teams, looking
like a corps de ballet in their white pleated skitts, and in the
villages women stately as the queens in their frescoes gossiped
round the fountains. But the houses we passed told an appalling
story. The narrow windows were set high, so that they could
be shot from and not into, and the walls were pock-marked with
bullets. I remembered having read that on this road there
stand two houses, side by side, which in 1909 were the subject
of an imbecile tragedy. In that year a man living in one slew
four men of the family living in the other. He had to flee.
That is natural enough. What was not natural, what was as
artificial a constriction of human nature as any abuse of
Western civilisation, was that thirteen other men belonging to
his family who had nothing whatsoever to "do with the crime,
were obliged to flee. Had they not done so, the institution of
the blood-feud, which flourished unchecked under Turkish rule,
would have involved them in a welter of butchery, in which all
must have acquired the guilt of murder and would themselves
have been murdered. In 1919, under Yugoslavian rule, the
criminal was arrested, and his innocent relatives, with the consent
of the inhabitants of the other house, who were equally anxious
to be relieved from the blood-feud, were able to return home.
Order is something. I thought so again when we passed
through a grove of trees which the Turks, in their great love
for any beauty that did not involve careful maintenance, had
chosen for a graveyard. It must have been at this grove
that the down-trodden monks of Dechani had waited when
Miss Muir Mackenzie and Miss Irby came to visit them on
their way from the Fatriarchate, more than seventy years ago,
that they might beg the ladies not to bring their Turkish
OLD SERBIA
369
military guard to the monastery, as they were worn out
with defending their treasures and the sanctity of their altar.
Miss Mackenzie and Miss Irby had had to act with great
decisiveness, even scribbling notes to demonstrate their
command over the magical art of writing, before they could
rid themselves of the soldiers, who had evidently promised
themselves great sport at the monastery. Now the grove was
empty save for an Albanian shepherd-boy, pretty as a girl, who
sat playing on a pipe, while his flock nibbled among the tree-
trunks and the marble stumps of ^he tombs, dappled like them
with sunshine and shadow.
We were at Dechani. Across a wide neatness of farmland
we looked into a glen of the Highland sort, with a background
of mountain falling back from mountain to show snow peaks
that must have beer, many miles distant, far beyond the Albanian
frontier. The nearer hills were emerald on their lower slopes
and above that shrill green, where there were beeches and
limes ; and where there were pines they were feathered with
blackness. At the mouth of the glen was the white oblong of
the monastery. It was larger than any other we had seen,
and even from this distance it could be seen that it was a rarity,
a jewel. As we drew nearer to it down a by-road we could see
that it could never be spoiled, and also that it was as near to
being spoiled at this moment as it could ever be. For it was
covered with scaffolding and surrounded with the potent and
infective disorder that builders, by a malign kind of compensa-
tion, diffuse round what they repair. But when we had crossed
the ramp of planks that was now the only entrance to the
monastery, and picked our way among the trenches and heaps
of rubble in the courtyard, it was fully apparent that what we
had come to see was a pearl of architecture. It has the unity of a
pearl, its living texture, and even its tint, for it is built of blocks
of white, grey and rose marble, which merge in the eye to a soft
pale glow.
It happens, however, that I have no great taste for pearls ;
and I did not like Dechani. It represents an inspired moment
in that phase of Christian architecture when Armenian influence
fused with the Byzantine and Lombard schools ; and many
Fiench churches demonstrate what virtue can be in that con-
junction. But with the religious tolerance characteristic of the
Nemanyas Stephen Dechanski had employed a Roman Catholic
370
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
architect, a Franciscan friar, to build this, his chief, and, indeed
his only remarkable foundation ; and this contact with the Western
Church has introjected an element into Dechani which strikes
an eye accustomed, as mine was by this time, to the Byzantine
standard, as soft and impure. In the Roman Catholic faith it
often appears that the partitions between the different kinds of
human activity have been broken down, and that the wor-
shippers often bring to religion desires which could be properly
satisfied only in the sphere of sex or by the exercise of power
or the enjoyment of respect. Hence the Church may often,
through its art or ritual or dogma, speak of voluptuousness or
pomp or respectability ; and it seemed to me that Dechani
spoke of all three. Grachanitsa was built for people who never
thought of sex when they came to church, since they had already
judged its claims in relation to society and had settled them, who
had been assigned their places in the social structure and had
play for their powers within those limits, and who knew that if
they were to earn the respect of their fellows they must be good
soldiers or scholars or craftsmen. But Dechani might have
been built for people who were repressed and sentimentally
lecherous, who were acquiring a nihilist standard of ability and
a negative standard of virtue because an honoured place in the
community could be bought simply by the continued possession
of material goods. It is exquisite, but it is unaustere and
complacent.
At this moment, in any case, it was hard to give it its due of
admiration, although its perfection could not be disguised by
the scaffolding. The trenches and rubble-heaps among which
we walked had a look of more than necessary disorder, as if
nobody had tried to mitigate it out of pride in the place ; and
there had come to stare at us several young monks, students
in the theological college, who were as unkempt as they were
uncouth. Their clothes were dirty and neglected. The cassock
of one had no buttons at the chest, and the gap showed an
equally buttonless shirt, from which there projected a bunch
of matted and lustreless hair. Nobody can blame a monk if
the intensity of his religious life leaves him no attention to spare
for his body. But the lax faces of these young men which were
spongy with boredom, showed that their untidiness was due
to no such preoccupation. Simply they had been removed
from the discipline of their peasant homes and no other dis-
OLD SERBIA
371
cipline had been imposed on them. But they were silent as
they dragged after us, and we were getting on with our inspec-
tion of the outside of the church, until there suddenly ran out on
us from behind a corner the golden-haired little monk we had
seen af the Patriarchate the day before.
“ Do you remember meeting me yesterday ? ” he cried,
clapping his hands and making movements which, though con-
tracted and not particularly agile, nevertheless indicated a feeling
for ballet-dancing. ** I am the monk whom you thought must
be a German because I am so faii, ?nd I told you that I am a
German and not a German ! Well, here I am. I told you that
I receive all visitors because I alone know German, the other
monks know none.” He kept on talking in the same strain of
racial and personal coquetry, while we irritably tried to go on
looking at the church, until an older monk, a man of dignity
and fine manners, came out and wearily rebuked him. He had,
it seemed, been sent out to bid us to come at once to lunch, since
the Abbot had to start on a journey early in the afternoon and
could not wait. The golden-haired monk said immediately,
” That is what I have been trying to tell them, but none of them
understands German very well.” We went into the monastery
buildings which formed three sides of the courtyard, and were
taken to a dining-room where the Abbot, a middle-aged man
with black hair and a multivermiform beard of tight, black
corkscrew curls, sat at a table with four or five monks. He
greeted us in fluent but not very good French, and proposed
the health of our English King in a glass of rakia. When we
had swallowed it and my husband had made a short and suitable
speech, he proposed the health of our Queen ; and before the
meal began we had to toast most of the Royal Family. Fortun-
ately, he had not yet learned of the existence of Princess Mar-
garet Rose.
The occasion was not without liveliness. The Abbot was
far from unintelligent ; as well as his fair French he spoke
Russian, Greek and Turkish, and he talked with some vivacity.
All the monks, except for one of Oriental appearance, across
whose yellow face there passed no shade of expression, hung
on his words and sometimes threw in laughing remarks. These
last phrases would have been used if this had been a meal in a
girls* boarding-school, but they are not therefore inappropriate.
This establishment might easily have been named St. Hilda*s
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
37 «
or St. Winifred's. The most talkative monk, who was plump
and dark and intense in manner, closely resembled many an art
mistress. In spite of this light-hearted and quite innocent
atmosphere the meal was not altogether agreeable. It was
served on a cloth filthier than I have ever seen in any Balkan
inn, and it was gross in quantity and quality. Since it was
Friday this was a fast ; and for that reason we were given
barley soup, a stew of butter beans, a puree of potatoes with
onion sauce, a very greasy stew of sardines and spinach, and a
mess of rice cooked with fried potatoes. Of each dish we were
given enough for a whole meal, and each was cooked without
skill. The wild disregard of this menu for the digestive weak-*
nesses of mankind reminded me of St. Augustine's monastic
friends, mentioned in The City of God ^ who were able to produce
an effect of singing by unusual means.
But there was here a lack of perception about other things
than food. The Abbot politely mentioned Miss Muir Mackenzie
and Miss Irby and their account of their visit to Dechani, and
we tried to return the courtesy by speaking of other foreigners
who had come to the monastery in the last few years. Con-
stantine had sent many on their way from Belgrade, and I too
knew several. We found that not one had made the slightest
impression on the Abbot. He did not remember a single one
of them. Nothing about any of them, no matter of what nation-
ality or rank or profession, had excited his interest. He had
forgotten the British Minister, a distinguished French diplo-
mat who is also a man of letters, an American scholar, and an
Italian philosopher, both eminent. At first we thought that
these people had visited the convent before he had assumed
office, but on examination of the dates we found it was not so.
It may be objected that there was no reason why the head of a
great religious institution should be interested in casual foreign
tourists, but one of the personalities he had ignored was a Dutch
artist who was also a mystic and a devout member of the
Eastern Church.
The truth was, we discovered as the meal went on, thalt
nothing in the West had any meaning for him ; and, by an
unfortunate historical accident, nothing had any meaning any-
where else either. His face was turned, as his repertory of
languages suggested, towards the East, which was natural
enough in an Orthodox priest who had taken orders before the
OLD SERBIA
373
Balkan wars, when his home was Turkish territory and the ally
who promised to alter this was Tsarist Russia, and the new
Turkey had no desire to be seen by him. He was therefore left
isolated in a provinciality that would have been tolerable only if
it had been transformed by spiritual genius. But of that there
was no trace whatsoever. He spoke of the plot which Stoyadino-
vitch had made to placate Italy and the Croatian priests by a
Concordat which gave the Roman Catholic Church an unfair
advantage over the Orthodox Church ; and he used just such
words as might have come to any politician, untempered by
charity or resignation. He spoke of the Montenegrins who
worked on the monaster}^ farmlands and lived in the neighbour-
hood with an unrestrained hostility very different from the
discretion usually observed by priests in this country laid waste
by racial enmities. There was no attempt in anything he said
to improve upon the natural man or his natural state ; and the
effect was of a chattering lethargy, fatiguing to the ear, alarming
to the heart.
It is very interesting,'^ said Constantine ; ** the man with
the yellow face who is so silent and does not laugh, he is the
son of a Turk and a Serbian woman. His mother seemed very
happy with his father, and she grieved very much when he died,
and then she and her son lived very happily. But when she
came to die she had a long illness and often did not know what
she spoke, and then he found out that it had always been
a horrible grief to her that he and his father had not been
Christians, so he promised her that he would become a monk,
and she died happy." There was no difficulty in understanding
why he did not laugh. It would be a mystery past compre-
hending why one’s best-beloved should have known no peace
till she had condemned one to sit in this little room, listening to
littleness.
But the church rerriained, and we went back to it as soon as
the Abbot left. Its interior was far more beautiful than the
exterior, for here the Serbian genius had not commissioned an
alien to make it a masterpiece but had worked according to its
own nature. Though the church had been built by Stephen
Dechanski, it was given its frescoes and its furnishments by his
son Stephen Dushan ; and these bore further witness to the
resemblance between his reign and the Elizabethan age. In
each there was a coincidence between national expansion and a
374 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
flowering of creative art. The flesh and the spirit waxed in a
common beauty. There were several royal portraits, radiant
with a Tudor positiveness, notably one of Stephen Dushan
himself, which showed a tall, hale man of whom it could well be
believed that, as his chroniclers tell, he was sometimes shaken
by tremendous laughter. It is easy to imagine that his people
thought of him as Elizabethans thought of Elizabeth, as a
fountain of plenty, irrigating his land with richness. The
astonishing degree of that plenty, the quality of that richness,
was by an odd paradox supremely illustrated by a fresco depict-
ing a martyrdom. An executioner waits ready to decapitate St.
Barbara, his feet in dancing stance, his long fingers trying his
sword edge. On his head is a high yellow hat, not lower than
a couple of feet ; his mantle is rose, his tunic green. His victim
bows before him, a rose-and-gold mantle swathing her blue
robe. She too has assumed a dancing stance, for they are
performing the well-known dance and counter-dance of sadist
and masochist. This fresco proceeds from an intense experience
of luxury. The painter has seen many kinds of textiles dipped
in many dyes ; he formed part of a society which treated even
its most sinister functionaries honourably, so sure was it of its
own honour ; his kind had outstripped necessity and had
therefore full leisure to examine their uncomprehended hearts.
But I could not look at these frescoes as I wished, for there
was running and jumping around me the little golden-haired
monk, who was talking insistently and, as time went on, im-
pertinently and angrily. As soon as we had come in, Con-
stantine, who was genuinely impassioned for the history and
historical monuments of Serbia, had taken us to see the coffin
lying on the marble tomb before the iconostasis which holds
the masked and silk-shrouded body of Stephen Dechanski, and
the other relics of the church, but now the tiresome little creature
wanted to show them to me all over again. I looked round for
Constantine and my husband, but they were out of sight. When
I started to look for them the little creature ran in front of me,
so I decided to wait where I was till they returned. I had
therefore to look for a second time at the giant candle which was
given to the monastery by the widow of the Tsar Lazar who was
killed at Kossovo, with the direction that it should be lit only
when that defeat was avenged, and which was duly lit by King
Peter Kai*ageorgevitch in 1913. But my eyes ranged round me
OLD SERBIA
375
to such wonders as an astonishing fresco which showed the
martyred St. George, a beautiful creature bearing the signs of
all mundane distinction who neither moves nor speaks because
he is the victim of a murderous death, and two bishops and a
Fury-like angel, who lean over and, by a miraculous power
impersonal and unloving as the force of a magnet, raise him
back to life. “ You are not listening ! * cried the little creature.
Why will you not listen to me ? ** I am listening,’' I said.
But he knew I was not. He had been telling me a story
about his brother, which anparertly made some claim on my
sympathies, and had I been listening I would have been sure
to make certain response's. ** I am afraid I do not understand
German,” I pleaded. ’ You understand it well enough,” he
replied, ” it is simply that you are not attending ; I will say it
all over again.** I saw my husband come back into the church
and I walked towards him, clapping my hands over my ears,
mocked as I went by glimpses of magnificence, here a superb
group of lions fighting with sphinxes, there an Annunciation
that annihilates time by showing a roof-tree throw the shadow
of a cross between the Virgin and the angel, which I should not
see again perhaps for years and could not look at under these
conditions. When I reached my husband I forgot why I had
come to him, for my eyes followed his to the chandelier above
us, which was one of the glorious kind to be found in all Byzantine
churches from the beginning. There is one in St. Sophia, and
in every church on Mount Athos. Chains drop from the drum
of the central dome and support a horizontal ring of metal links,
closely set with candles and ornamented with icons. These
links are very loosely joined, for at a certain point in the great
nocturnal services the chandelier is set slowly swinging, and
this covers the whole church with a shifting pattern of light
and shadow, which is regarded as a symbol of the dance of
the angels and saints before the heavenly throne. ” What
sound, sober work, what sound, sober taste ! ” sighed my
husband. The golden-haired monk pressed in on us, scolding
and complaining, and I cried out, ” What can we do to get
rid of him ? ” My husband said to him severely, in German,
” What is all this yammering about ? ” The little creature
fell silent, looked down at his slippers, and cried out, ” Oh,
dear, I must go and put on my goloshes ! ” As we watched
him run away, my husband said, ” Here is Constantine, I must
376 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
ask him to stop this.” But as Constantine came towards us
he pointed over his shoulder, and again we forgot our irritation,
this time out of interest in the party which one of the older
monks was leading into the church.
There were two men, three women, one holding a baby in a
wicker cradle, and two little boys. They were Albanian Moslems.
The men wore the white skull-caps that are to them as the
fez to other Moslems, and their characteristic white serge
trousers, braided with black about the loins and ankles, and
clinging miraculously to the hip-bone. The little boys wore
tiny skull-caps, tiny braided trousers. The women were
veiled and wore floppy white dresses that fell in deep, limp
frills like old-fashioned lampshades. In the tall multi-coloured
square of painted walls, among the shafts of yellow light that
drove down from the high windows, they looked pale and dusty
like moths. The priest spoke to the men and they took off
their white skull-caps and saw to it that the boys did likewise.
He spoke to the women and they took off the veils slowly and
clumsily, perhaps because they were reluctant to break a lifelong
pious custom, but also for the reason that one strand of Islamic
custom (though not all) seems to insist on lack of fleetness
and grace as part of the feminine ideal. But their faces bore
the slight lubricious smile of those who perform a forbidden
action, and this expression seemed particularly ghastly and
frivolous because one of the women revealed the livid skin and
preoccupied stare of the typical cancer patient. “It is their
Friday,” whispered Constantine, “ that is the Moslem^s holy
day, it is to them as Sunday is to us. And they bring their
sick to be cured by our Christian saints. See what they do.”
They made their way to the tomb of Stephen Dechanski and
stood there in a hushed fluttered group, summoning up their
intention.
The priest withdrew from them and came over to us, mur-
muring with a smile, ” They have worked out this ritual
themselves ; it is entirely their own idea, we have nothing to
do with it.” First the cradle was set down on the floor and
the child taken out of it ; its cry expressed the accumulated
griefs and the final weakness of a nonagenarian ; its mother
pressed its face against the coffin-lid and then knelt down
beside the tomb while one of the men knelt at the end. Trem-
bling, she held the wailing baby under the tomb and the man
OLD SERBIA
377
took it from her and passed it round the end back to her.
Three times the baby was passed under the tomb and back
again. By this tenuous contact with the man whose father had
burnt out his eyes, who had killed his brother and who had
been killed by his son, it was presumed that the baby would now
enjoy physical health. Then it was put back in its cradle, and
one of the little boys kissed the tomb and crawled under it three
times. After that the woman with the livid skin and the stare
slowly performed the ritual, so stiffly and mechanically that it
was as if her own malady were hypnotising her from within.
The third time she could not pass under the tomb by her own
volition. She had to be dragged out by the two men. Even if
the ritual were effective she had come too late ; it was no longer
for her to say if she would dispense with her malady or not, it
was now for her malady to decide when it would dispense with
her. The two men got her on to her feet, and they became
again a huddled, over-awed group. Softly they padded across
the church towards the porch. One of the women and two of
the men looked up at the frescoes with the conscious calm of
tourists who in a tropical island see the natives practising what
in their country of origin would be considered indecent ex-
posure : Islam forbids the representation of living creatures.
We followed them to the archway and watched them in the
sunshine among the trenches and the rubble-heaps, reassuming
their veils and their skull-caps.
At Sveti Naum they had told me that the Moslems brought
them their lunatics to be cured, but I had never seen it for
myself. Of course this was not an actual flouting of the theory
of Islam. We remember only that Mohammed bade his
followers strike off the heads of all misbelievers ; we forget
that in the Koran he alluded to Christ with deep respect, and
held that Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ and himself
were God’s best-beloved. These Moslems had been brought
here by several motives. First, and most piteous, they had
already cried to their own God and found him indifferent. Also
this was a place of great past and present prestige. Before
Dechani was a monastery it was a palace of the Nemanyas ;
though most of this was destroyed by the Turks after Kossovo
an indestructibly solid kitchen still survives. The memory
of its grandeur would certainly have still lingered in this
country where a century seems less than a decade elsewhere ;
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
378
and that the monks who a generation ago lived here in poverty
and fear should now be among the rulers of the land, while the
Sultan and his pashas had been driven out, must have given
the ignorant a sense of phoenix-like resurgence, triumphant
over death. But whatever the motives of the people were, the
visit itself made a painful impression, because they were getting
so little good from it. This crawling under Stephen Dechanski^s
tomb was not a vicious ritual, but it was idiotic. It was a plain
piece of infantilism, purely regressive. The human being pre-
tended it was a child again by going down on its hands and
knees, and by crawling under a symbol of authority enacted a
fantasy of flight from responsibility, of return to dependence.
That was all these people got from a visit to this church which
on its walls bore such strong and subtle evidence of the support
that Christianity can give to the tortured human animal. On
the dome, and again behind the altar, was Christ Pantocrator,
the Ruler of All: that magnificent conception of man which
shows him worn with care, utterly defeated by necessity, utterly
triumphant because he continues to exist under the defeat and
exercise his will. On the wall the Mother of God holds up her
thin and loving hands in prayer ; the folds of her gown are
cut from the very stuff of religion, for in their long fall they
make an image of endurance, continuance. She too is utterly
defeated, she too is utterly triumphant in her refusal to abandon
under that defeat her preference for love. People who grasped
those conceptions would for ever know some measure of comfort.
I think that they, as well as Aberdeen, accounted for the
peculiar sweetness and serenity of our friend the seller of
ready-made clothing. But there seemed to be no force working
in the life of the monastery which would make these conceptions
clear to those who were not prepared for them by their own
tradition. No one could have entered Sveti Naum, not the
wildest mountain Moslem, without receiving some intimation
of what its founders and those who lived under their influence
had believed about life. But though there were several monks
here at Dechani who looked as if they were wise and would have
transmitted wisdom, they all wore an air of helplessness and
frustration.
“ I am taking your husband to look at some carving on the
outer wdl,** said Constantine. “Will you come?” But I
stayed where I was among the frescoes, which the afternoon
OLD SERBIA
379
light was now irradiating and showing more and more mani-
festly superb as pure painting, quite apart from their revela-
tion of the sensibility of a daemonic people. Suddenly the
little golden-haired monk was back at my side. I had thought
that he had said he was going away to put on his goloshes as a
pretext for escaping from my husband, but he had actually
changed into curious flapping footwear of blue cloth. I heard
again Mrs. Mac’s words, I hope you’ll not be shown round
by that wee monk with the awful goloshes.” Apparently such
imbecile scenes were the -isual lot of the visitors to Dechani.
‘‘You must give me your passport,” he sai<!. ‘‘ But why ? ” I
asked. “ It is a rule/’ he said, “ that everybody who comes
to the monastery must give me bis passport.” ” But we are
not staying here,” I objected. “ We are going back to Fetch
quite soon, before evening.” “ That does not matter,’^ said
the little creature, “ everybody who comes here, even for a few
moments, must give me his passport.” This was, of course,
perfect nonsense. “ Give it to me, give it to me,’^ he clamoured.
I knew well that if I handed it over to him I would never see it
again. He would probably take it away, tear it up, and come
back saying that he had never had it. ” I am sorry,” I said,
” I haven’t got it with me. We all left ours at the hotel at
Fetch.” His face screwed up in anger. ” But I know you
have got it ! ” he insisted. ‘‘ I saw it inside your bag when
you took out your handkerchief ! Give it to me at once ! ’* I
made a ridiculous flight out of the church, and since I could
not see my husband and Constantine anywhere, began to run
round it in search of them, jumping over the trenches and
rubble-heaps. Round the first corner I found them talking to
one of the older and more dignified monks. The little monk,
who was scrambling and jabbering at my heels, came to a
sudden halt, and scuttled away, crying over his shoulder, *‘ I
am looking for the Hungarian count I have to show round the
monastery. I cannot think what has happened to him.”
I said angrily, ” It really is not fair to have this disgusting
little pest running about this lovely place, preventing people
from looking at it.” Though I spoke English the monk had
caught my meaning, and, looking distressed and embarrassed,
he suggested that we go down to the stream which runs through
the farmlands a short distance from the monastery and drink
from a famous healing spring that rises on its bank. We followed
38 o black lamb AND GREY FALCON
him down a steep path through an orchard, and met three
Moslem women, coming up, leading a pack-horse. They asked
breathlessly, their black veils shaking and twitching with their
agitation, “May we go into the church ? “ and the monk
answered, “Yes, but you must leave the horse outside. “ The
stream ran shining in and out of the shadows cast by poplars
and oaks, willows and acacias ; like the quite distinct river
which runs through Fetch it is called the Clean One. From the
bridge we looked on a far panorama of operatic picturesqueness,
a nearer composition of water meadows and woodlands that
was limpid and lovely as ideal flute-music. The only touches
in the scene not exquisitely fresh were the filthy black coats
of the young theological students who stood about and gaped
at us.
As we sipped the spring water we found pleasure in watching
some young Albanians who were kneeling between the willows
on the river’s brink and were bathing their faces and heads.
It is a salient difference between the Serbs and Albanians that,
whereas a Serb boy baby looks definitely and truculently male
as soon as it is out of its mother’s arms, the sex of many
Albanians is not outwardly determined until they are in their
late teens, and these boys, who were perhaps thirteen to seven-
teen, might have been so many Rosalinds. They had long
lashes, bright lips, bloomy skins and a nymph-like fluency of
movement. I said, “ Why are they bathing their faces and
heads like that ? It is not so very hot.’’ The monk answered,
“It is a ceremony of purification which they have invented
themselves. They like to come up to the church every Friday,
and always they come here first and wash as you see them doing
now. We never ask them to do it, they do it of their own
accord. I suppose that they feel guilty, for they are not like
the Turks, who have always been heathen. They were Christians
when this monastery was built, in the fourteenth century, and
I think they know they should be as they were then, and should
come back to us.” I thought to myself, “ But the trouble is
that you too are not as you were in the fourteenth century, and
that there is not so much as there ought to be for them to come
back to. This reconquered country is like a chalice waiting to
be filled, and it seems to me that the wine is lacking.*’
At that moment an elbow was thrust into my side, and the
little golden-haired monk forced himself between Constantine
OLD SERBIA
381
and myself. He waved a disparaging hand at the landscape
and cried, ** I too have made sacrifices for my religion. For
this have I left all the pleasures of city life. Hierfiir hab* ich
das schonste Stadtleben aufgegeben.*^ Constantine turned on
him with a shout of rage, and the other monk flung out an arm
at him and told him to gc away. Tossing his head defiantly,
like a character in an old-fashioned book about schoolgirls, he
scampered away and ran up the steep path through the orchard,
sometimes pausing because he had lost one or other of his
goloshes. The Albanian boys tih.cd up the lovely ovals of their
faces towards the bridge, the unkempt students gathered closer
and stared harder, while Constantine kept on shouting, “ For
a Croat, and a Schwab Croat at that, to speak so of one of our
holiest Serbian places ! ’’ he ended, and the monk shrugged his
shoulders wearily.
Let us go away,” I said, ” let us go away at once.” As
we passed through the quadrangle the church was glowing
more brightly than a pearl, like a lily in strong sunlight, in
spite of all the scaffolding and hugger-mugger. ” Do you want
to go in again ? ” asked Constantine. ” Not at all,” I said.
” I only want to walk for a little in the woods outside.” When
we had said good-bye to the monk and given him some money
for the church, we went out to the road and found Dragutin
standing beside the automobile with his arms folded, while the
little golden-haired monk skipped round him. ” Yes,” he was
crying, ” and that is not the end of the famous folk who are
proud to be our guests ! For to-day we have had great news,
we have heard that next Whitsuntide we will have the great
honour of entertaining at Dechani Herr Hitler and General
Goering ! ” ” Drive us a short way down the road,” said
Constantine ; ” the Gospodja does not want to stay here any
longer, she would rather walk in the woods.” ” I don^t wonder,”
said Dragutin ; ” this isn’t my idea of a holy place. If this little
one had a dancing bear Td think we were in the gipsy quarter.”
We found a path through very still and fragrant pinewoods,
leading to a holiday camp for children, not yet opened for the
summer, and we sat down on one of the seats. Soon Constantine
fell into a doze, and I went for a stroll among the trees, and came
back with a handful of peppermint. My husband too was
asleep now, and I sat down between the two men till they
wakened. When Constantine opened his eyes he asked, ” What
382 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
are those things on your lap ? I like those dark-green leaves^
and those sad, middle-aged mauve flowers. Peppermint, you
say ? But what have they to do with peppermint ? Do they
smell like it ? ** “ No,** I said, “ it is peppermint itself.**
What are you telling me ! ” he exclaimed. ‘‘ I am like a little
one who has thought all his life that babies came in the doctor*s
bag and is suddenly told the truth by a cruel schoolmaster.
Always I have thought that peppermint came simply from a
shop, or at furthest a jar in a shop, and now you tell me brutally
that it grows out of the earth, in my own land, in woods such
as I have seen all my life.** I crushed a piece and held it under
his nose. ** Hey, it is truly peppermint,** he cried ecstatically,
for he loved pungent scents and flavours. But suddenly his
expression changed from a grin of delight to a rictus of horror.
He pushed my hand away and groaned. It was as if he suddenly
rebelled against the intensity of sensation, as if he loathed the
acute quality of experience. “ I am very ill,** he sighed. “ I
am in great pain. And there is nothing whatsoever the matter
with me,** he added, more faintly still.
My husband and I put our arms round him because we
were afraid he would fall off the bench. He remained with his
eyes closed for a moment, then said, ** I am quite all right.
It is the sting on my hand that has given me fever. That is
all.** “ No,*’ I said, ** there is more than that the matter with
you. You are very tired.** I paused, at a loss for words. I
did not know how to say that he was dying of being a Jew in a
world where there were certain ideas to which some new star
was lending a strange strength. But my husband said, “ Dear
Constantine, you know you are tired to death. Why do you not
go straight away back to Belgrade and let us find our way over
Montenegro to Kotor ? You think we are English and stupid,
but not a dog could lose its way from here to Dubrovnik.**
“ How bored you are with me,** said Constantine. ** I have
seen that coming for a long time.** ** Dear Constantine, that is
not true,** I said. “ We could not have had a more wonderful
companion,^* said my husband. “ Is it so ? ** asked Constantine
very earnestly. We patted his hand, but he looked away as
if he found our reassurance not so interesting as he had expected.
“ I will come with you,** he said. ** Montenegro is a very in-
teresting country and nobody can explain it to you so well as
myself. Now, let us sit here and enjoy the calm. Breathe,
OLD SERBIA 383
breathe deep ! This is the sweetest air, such as you have not in
England.”
When we returned to Fetch Constantine went to bed at
once, and we sat for a time drinking plum brandy outside the
hotel, watching the Corso. “ Our relations with Constantine
are painful but very interesting,” I said ; ” it is as if we had
ceased to be people, and had become figures in a poet’s dream.”
” I cannot help feeling,” said my husband, ” that there are more
restful ways of taking a holiday than becoming characters in
the second part of Faust.'* Before us streamed the mountain
people, large-boned and majestic, and always tragic when old ;
the trim functionaries moving whippily, as if they were deter-
mined to dodge out of ihe path of destiny likely to work such a
change on them between youth and age : lads ranged in groups
yet loosely, like skeins of wool, as they do in the distressed areas
of our own country ; grave and pallid little boys circled between
the tables selling newspapers and picture postcards, gay little
girls ran through the crowd in their enchanting costumes of
flowered tight jackets and loose trousers.
Suddenly we were jerked out of our contented drowsiness.
Two lads were talking at the edge of the stream that runs down
the roadway ; they drew apart, one struck the other on the
chest, not violently, but with an intention of insult ; before he
had well delivered the blow its answer came to him. He was
struck with a force that had at least thought of murder. His
body pivoted on one heel and fell obliquely, with the arms
windmilling, into the middle of the stream. As he scrambled
out of the water a silence fell on the whole street. Not a shocked
silence ; simply the silence of a circus audience watching the
acrobats as they hang impaled on the climax of their great
trick. Maybe many of the audience thought that the old days
had come back when men were allowed to be men and have
their excitements. But the silence was broken. A sword
rattled. It had not been drawn, it had got caught in the legs
of a chair. The Chief of Police had risen from his table
in the cafe, with a look of extreme exasperation on his hard-
bitten face, and was hurrying across the street to the two lads.
He boxed the ears of the one who was standing on the edge of
the stream ; the other he helped out of the water, and then
cuffed him with just as little tenderness. Then he stood over
them and scolded them in the very pose of a nursemaid. The
384 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Corso shuffled on again, the newsboys once more shouted
‘‘ Pravda ! and “ Politika ! ” Doubtless many hearts were
the heavier as they realised, as they must have done many
times, that the old days were over.
We strolled along the main street, passing some bright
caves in the dim simplicity of the low buildings, where the
functionaries and their wives could buy Kolynos and Listerine,
Coty powders and Lentheric lip-sticks. At length we came to
a point in the road which we had remarked on our way to the
Patriarchate, where objects not in themselves remarkable, a
disused mosque of no great architectural distinction, a square
Turkish tower two or three hundred years old, a patch of grass
and some trees, and a gravelled open space were set at angles
which gave them a mysterious and exciting value. We stood
for a while and enjoyed its challenge to the imagination. Twi-
light was falling. The brilliant sky was bluish and white, lit
with stars that minute by minute grew more immense. The
mountains were the colour and texture of lamp-black and the
woods on the foothills looked liquid as green water. Beside the
mosque a puddle lay pure white. We heard a drumming,
throbbing sound, and thought that the mosque could not be
disused as we were told, since surely this was the chanting of a
service. But when we drew near the mosque the droning grew
fainter, and bats flew straight out of the walls, and our search
for the sound led us to round the open space to a little cottage
with a garden where somebody was giving a party and enter-
taining his guests with very old records played on a very old
gramophone. It must have been a very small party, for it was
the smallest of cottages, I do not think there can have been
more than two or three guests ; but there were the solemn, self-
consciously orgiastic noises of a Slav party.
As we looked and listened there was a scuffle behind us, and
a tug at my coat. One of the little girls in flowered jacket and
trousers was there behind me, panting through her laughter,
“ Parlez-vous fran^ais, madame ? ” The golden patina on her
sun-bleached brown hair shone like a halo through the half-
light. Softly shrieking with laughter, hampered and delayed
by laughter, she fled back to a group of shadows that was hiding
at a corner of the Turkish tower and now scattered, laughing as
she had laughed, into the dusk. Though we called her she
would not come ; but it did not matter, for she had no more
OLD SERBIA
385
need than a kingfisher to break her flight to prove her loveliness.
The town seemed the quieter for this sudden unfolding and
furling of wings in its stillness. We turned at random down a
street, where white houses showed blank and secretive faces,
and were defended by a broad stream that flowed between them
and the roadway. We did not hear a human sound until we
met a Turk, wearing a red-and-white turban of archaic fashion,
and carrying two amphoras ; as he passed us his spectacles
flashed at us but he went on talking contentiously to himself.
I said to my husband, Mtss Kemp says in her book, The
Healing Ritual^ that she met a young mail here who studied
occultism and had in his home two hundred ancient manuscripts
and books dealing with the art.^* If one lived in Fetch one
would do queer things,*' said my husband ; “its dignified decay
makes me feel like a fly walking over velvet.*’
At last we heard voices. On a bridge leading over the
stream from a house stood a young girl in a white blouse and
black skirt, holding a lantern with one hand while her other arm
was. laid about the shoulders of four young children as they all
looked earnestly along the street. “ They are coming ! ** cried
a little boy at the sight of us. “ No, they are not ! ** jeered the
others. “ These people are not they ! Do you not know them
better than that ? ’* That broke the tensity of the children’s
interest, and they ran back into the house, but the young girl
continued to look down the street, even when a glance had told
her that we had come to a stop in front of her, startled out of our
good manners by her incomparable beauty. The slight change
of expression by which she rebuked our impudence was neither
excessive nor complaisant ; she was noble in her manners as
well as her appearance. I thought it probable that she too was
of the strain that had produced the great Katerina Simitch, or
at least her followers, and I hoped that the visitors she awaited
would bring her some food for her splendid appetites, some
opportunity to coerce life into a superior phase by an act
of courage. But, if they came on such an annunciatory
errand, I could not think that they would belong to the same
organisation that had fostered the genius of Katerina Simitch :
I could not think that they would be sent out by the local
church. The Abbot of the Patriarchate was performing his
pious and non-mystical function to perfection ; when this girl
was older his monastery would be a refuge and a refreshment
386 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
to her. But there was no force here to tell her youth, as the
Church had told Katerina Simitch when she needed the lesson,
how to take the Kingdom of Heaven by storm. I looked
nervously over my shoulder lest I should see the only emissary
of the faith that was likely to appear in this place at this hour,
since he was likely to appear anywhere at any hour. I could
well imagine him caponing and curveting down the twilit
street, coquetting with his shadow, while his blond curls swung.
The starlight waxed stronger, and colour drained out of the
world. The stream in its deep channel glittered like a black
snake ; the houses were pale as chalk, as a ghost, as a skeleton.
I might be wrong ; I would be able to check it when I got back
to the high-street, where Fetch was sitting down for its evening
meal, for this was Friday, and a fast-day. When we got back
to our hotel and sat down in the restaurant, I said to my
husband, “ Eat what you like, I want to make an experiment.'*
I asked the waiter what I could eat, and he mentioned dish
after dish containing meat or eggs or butter, or fish cooked in
butter, or cheese or milk, and all these things are forbidden by
the Orthodox Church on fast-days. “ These will not do," I
said ; ** though I am a foreigner I want to keep the fast. Have
you no dish that fulfils the condition ? Haven't you any beans,
or fish fried in oil or boiled in water ? " " No," he said. " Is
that because this is the evening meal ? " I asked. " Perhaps at
midday you had such dishes." " No," he said, " we are never
asked for them." I said, " Very well, then, I must eat some-
where else." My husband by this time had become interested
in the test I was applying. We went up and down the high-
street from inn to inn, and they were all full of people eating
their evening meal, none of whom was fasting. This was a
strange sign in a town which lies in the shadow of Dechani,
which for centuries lived not only in a state of ecstatic faith, but
by it ; for man loves his little abstinences, and he does not
abandon the obscure pleasure of fasting until he actually wishes
to dissociate himself from the belief which is its apparent
justification. If the West had failed to provide Yugoslavia with
a formula for happiness, it could not be pretended that the
failure of new things did not matter, because there were
old things here which were all the country needed. In parts
of the country these old things are as valuable as they ever
were, as they have ever been. In other parts fhey are not
OLD SERBIA
387
valid. The people will no longer accept them as currency ;
and here, since no new currency has been minted there is
bankruptcy. As we went back to the restaurant the wind came
down from the gorge ice-cold, and like a battering-ram ; there
was a sound of splintering wood and the crash of sheet-iron. A
small shop had come to pieces.
1 MONTENEGRO f
f
Road
I WOKE early. Because of my enquiry into the state of
religion in Fetch, I had had to dine on sardines, dry bread,
red wine and black coffee, and the diet had not suited me.
I crept out of my room and along the groaning, grumbling
corridors and down into the street, and took a cab out to the
Patriarchate, because I wanted to have another look at the huge
Madonna and her tiny rebellious and athletic Christ-child. The
Albanian cab-driver brought a friend with him on the box,
who also, he said, wished to enjoy the opportunity of conversa-
tion with me, so I spread out my dictionary on my knee and did
what I could for them. The cab-driver was a sombrely handsome
young man of a type familiar in the Balkans : his friend was a
natural comedian, a Robin Goodfellow, with straight red hair
long about his shoulders, a crowing voice and stiff, signalling
hands. They were Roman Catholics, but I found they knew
nothing of the sayings or doings of Pope Pius X, and most of
their Western co-religionists would have found them not
altogether congenial. The driver was single, but Robin Good-
fellow had married a girl of fourteen seven years ago and had
six children. They were resentful against the Government and
expressed the desire and even an intention to murder as many
of its officials as possible, but their chief grievance seemed
nothing more than the price of sugar. This is indeed high,
owing to the state monopoly, but not so high as to justify this
extreme ferocity. They were very much interested in all sweet
things, and had heard about the superiority of English and
Swiss chocolate, so I had to talk with the pedantry of a wine
connoisseur about Peters and Tobler and Nestle, Cadbury and
388
MONTENEGRO
389
Rowntree and Fry. Jam and spices they wanted to learn about
also ; but I failed to surmount the difficulty of describing curry
in an imperfectly mastered language. They asked me how old
I was, what my husband did, and why he had not come out
with me. When I said he was still asleep they suggested to
each other, not facetiously, but as realists in a world of men,
that he had as like as not been drunk the night before.
The garden of the Patriarchate was golden-green in the
slanting early sunlight, the church was honey-coloured and
filled with the honey of the Abb /i:^? voice. Among the chief
glories of the Orthodox Church are the number of priests who
can sing and speak as the mouthpieces of a god should do. I
had come in for the end of a service which had been attended
by two middle-aged men, who bore themselves like devotees of
unusual fervour, some young women with their children, and
a number of the straight-backed old ladies in trousers whom I
had noticed here before. When the service was over I had half
an hour with the frescoes, which were now still lovelier than I
had thought them. The morning light, striking the windows
of the dome at right angles, was deflected into the softest
possible radiance, as it poured down into the church and
under it the paintings gave up their full gentleness, the elegance
and spring-like freshness that made them kin to much early
Italian art. I looked not so long at the terrible Mother and
Child as at the scenes which showed the Christian legend taking
place in a country that I had thought to be ancient Tuscany,
that I now knew to have wider frontiers. Then I went out into
the sunlight, warm enough now to draw the scent out of the
walnut trees and the pines, and I took a last draught of the
healing water from the fountain before I went to say good-bye
to the priest, who was drinking his morning coffee at a table
under the trees. I stood beside him for a minute before he
noticed me, for his Albanian servant and an old labourer had
laid down before him a plant with fleshy leaves and stem that
had been trampled and broken, and he was staring at it, with
his elbows on the table and his coffee-cup held in his hands. I
think they were debating what animal had been that way.
Their deliberation had an air of essential virtue. By such care-
fulness life survives.
On the way home the cab-driver and his friend enquired
what countries I had visited, and which I liked best. I said I
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
390
had been to the United States and every country in Europe
except Russia, Roumania, Poland and Portugal ; and that I
like Yugoslavia, the United States, France and Finland best
of all. They cried out at the name of France. The French they
could not abide. They had fought against them in the Great
War, they said, and they were glad of it. They liked, they said,
the Germans and the Bulgarians, and they hated the Serbs.
They both agreed that they would thoroughly enjoy another
war if only it would give them the chance of shooting a lot of
Serbs. They held up their left arms and looked along them and
twitched their right thumbs against their left elbows and said
** Boom ! boom ! A Serb is dead ! I said, ** But what have
you against the Serbs ? ** They said, “ After the war they ill-
treated us and took our land from us.” There was some
justification for this, I knew. The district of Fetch was handed
over to an old man who had been King Peter’s Master of the
Horse, and he appears, like our own followers of the Belvoir
and the Quorn, to have offered conclusive proof of the power-
fully degenerative effect of equine society on the intellect.
** But now what do they do to you ? ” I asked. They shrugged
and grumbled. ** We live so poor,** they said ; ‘‘ in Albania
our brothers live far better than we do.** It was as pathetic as
the belief of the Bulgarian schoolboy in Bitolj that Bulgaria
was a richer country than Yugoslavia ; for everybody who comes
out of Albania into Yugoslavia is amazed at the difference,
which is all in Yugoslavia’s favour, of the standard of living.
When they left me at my hotel, I gave the driver a good tip,
and he thanked me in a phrase so remarkable that I made him
repeat it several times. But it was true ; he had really said,
” I am glad of this money, for to-morrow I am going to Paris
to be married.** It sounded such a Sketch and Tatler thing to
do that, though by this time I was exhausted by the strain of
picking a conversation piecemeal out of a dictionary, I made
him explain it. The explanation gave me fresh evidence of the
capacity of France to assimilate strange stuff and make it her
own. “ You must know,’* he said, ” that I am not only the
driver of this, cab, I own it.” ” He is Rothschild ! ** shrieked
Robin Goodfellow, poking him in the ribs, ” he owns a dozen
cabs.” He owned in fact eight. They took the visitors to
Dechani, and anyway no woman of property went about Fetch
on foot except to the market. When he had bought the eighth
MONTENEGRO 391
he had written to his aunt, who had married the Italian pro-
prietor of a small hotel in Paris, and asked her to find him a
wife. She had found him the photographs of several candidates
in the Albanian colony of Paris, which was small but prosperous,
and he had chosen one to whom he was to be married in five
days* time. In a missionary spirit I said, “ Is your aunt happy
in Paris ? ** ‘‘Yes,** he said, “ she and her husband made a
lot of money, and they say they are very free there.** “ And the
Albanians who live there, are they happy ? ** “Yes,** he
answered, “they are all doing veil ** “ But don*t you think
maybe that means the French are good enough people ? ** I
said. But it was not a point that was likely to convince people
who had been brought up to regard as normal a state where
different races grew up in conditions decided by a distant ruler.
To them the idea of a country being directly governed by its
inhabitants is one of abnormal compactness, like a herma-
phrodite.
I went up to our bedroom and found my husband locking
his suitcase. On the middle of my bed there had been built
with offensive ingenuity a little cairn of the things I had forgotten
to pack in mine. “ They are all things,** I pointed out, “ that
I would not mind losing.** “ Packing,** said my husband,
“ belongs to a different category from criticism.** The little
Hungarian chambermaid popped her head inside the door, and
we tipped her fifty dinars, which is four and twopence, and she
thought it so handsome that she kissed my hand furiously.
“ That is a good little one,** said Constantine, as he went
downstairs to breakfast ; “ this morning she helped me to pack
and she said to me, ‘ I tell you, I would have liked to be with
you, you are so charming, so very cultured, it might even have
been that you would have quoted select passages of poetry to
me. So I have been to you every night when I had finished
my work, but each time you had fever, you were red as a lobster,
so I saw it was not written in the stars that we should be
together.* **
We had our breakfast outside the large restaurant, and
presently Constantine left us to say good-bye to the Chief of
Police, who was giving some advice to a man standing with two
pack-horses in the middle of the road, and we were joined by
the Danish seller of agricultural machinery, who regarded us
with a benevolence that was galling. We had the impression
392
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
that he had just received information that we were completely
harmless and unimportant, and that in any case even if we had
some grain of significance we were leaving, so it did not matter.
“ You are going, hein ? ” he said. Over the mountains to
Kolashin and then to Tsetinye ? and up the coast to Split, and
then to Budapest, and home, very nice, very nice.” “ How
kind of you to be so interested in our itinerary as to find out
what it is,” said my husband. “ Oh, the people here talk, you
know,” said the alleged Dane. “ I should think it more likely
that they read,” said my husband darkly. There fell a silence,
which I weakly broke by saying to him, ” Look, do you see that
young man walking along carrying that black portfolio ? Bow to
him, he has greeted us. It is the clerk of the court, who so kindly
offered to show us the sights of the town the first night we got
here.” The alleged Dane burst into laughter. ** That young
Liimmel ! He was fool enough to tell me what he earns. Think
of it, he is a university graduate, and he makes each week twelve
marks — one of your pounds ! Here they’re a starveling lot.”
** Yes, it’s a pity they’re so poor,” said my husband. ” For
they are such nice people,” said I. ” You waste your pity,”
said the alleged Dane, in sudden and brutal passion ; ** these
are Slavs, they have no right to anything, they are as sheep, as
cattle, as swine.”
The hotel tried to overcharge us, but its experience of the
world was so small that its efforts were scarcely perceptible.
However, Constantine and Dragutin were very indignant, and
we did not get clear of the dispute until ten minutes past seven.
Then we started off for the gorge, for Tserna Gora. Now
we will climb like eagles ! ” cried Dragutin. “ And there,” he
said, as we passed a grassy patch under the willows on the
river’s bank on the way to the Patriarchate, “ is where I have
slept each night since we came to Fetch. These accursed
thieves at the hotel tried to charge me, a chauffeur, for my
room at the same rate as you people, and though I knew you
would have paid, I would not have it so, and I came out here
and flung myself down, and it was no sacrifice, for I slept like
a king.”
We left the bosomy domes of the Patriarchate behind us,
and we went into the Rugovo gorge, which would at any time
be superb, and was now a pageant of the sterner beauties
possible in nature and man. It was over the rocks at the mouth
MONTENEGRO
393
of this gorge that the retreating Serbian Army of 1915 pushed
its guns lest the Austrians and Bulgarians should make use of
them, and walked on into ice and famine ; and the scenery is
appropriate to that drama. Its sheer precipices and fretted
peaks show the iron constitution our planet hides under its
grass and flowers ; and down the road there were swinging in
majestic rhythm men and women who showed the core of
hardiness humanity keeps under its soft wrapping of flesh.
They were going down to the market at Fetch, and most were
on foot ; before nightfal- they would return to their homes.
And they were coming from villages, five, ten and even fifteen
miles up the gorge, la fact, they were going to walk ten to
thirty miles in the day. the latter half of the journey up a steep
mountain road. It seemed so Herculean a trip that we got
Constantine to Ciuestion two typical wayfarers, an Albanian
wearing a white turban with its ends brought across his throat,
to hide one of the goitres v^hich are so common in the mountains,
and his wife, a raw-boned woman wearing a black dress which
oddly broke into a flounce just above her knees, with something
of a Cretan air. Yes, they came from that village up there,
about a mile away on the hillside, and they would walk to
Fetch and back by nightfall. There was no question of riding
their pack-pony for it was loaded now with what they were
going to sell, which was wool, and on the return journey it
would be loaded with what they were going to buy, which would
probably be wood, if the price were right ; in any case I doubt
if it could have carried their pylon-like forms. Their leathery
faces slowly split into enormous grins as they grasped our
astonishment. All these people on the road were very deliberate
and stiff and emphatic in their movements and their speech, like
frescoes come to life. One woman, who was sitting in a cart
with her young child under her blue mantle, resembled exactly
one of the Madonnas of Dechani, twisted by the strain put upon
her endurance by her love. Again it seemed that Byzantine
art is not so much stylised as we believe, and that it may be a
more or less naturalist representation of a highly stylised life.
The gorge widened to a valley where snow mountains looked
down on beechwoods, widened and steepened to another
Switzerland ; and so it might be, and may yet become. The
grass grows short and thick as gourmand cows would have it.
Here there might be cheese and tinned milk and milk chocolate,
2 c
VOL. II
394 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
if the population could but afford to buy good cows and knew
how to keep them. In Stephen Dushan's time fat flocks and
herds were driven up here every summer, but under the Turks
such luxurious husbandry was forgotten among Christians,
and only a few nomads cared for pastures in such a disputed
district as the frontier between Montenegro and Albania. Even
those had their movements circumscribed by the definition of
the Yugoslavian frontier, for some of them had their winter
pastures in territory that was assigned to Greece and to Albania,
hence they could no longer pass from one to the other. Also
there might be practised a moderate form of mountaineering,
for there is some excellent rock-climbing and some eternal snow ;
but the tradition of guides and chalets has yet to be created.
There are as good as Swiss flowers. Where the road mounted
to the pass it hairpinned across a slope too high for trees, which
was clouded purple with crocuses, golden with kingcups. On
the razor-edge of the pass we looked, as one may often do in
Switzerland, backward and forward at two worlds. Behind us
the mountains stretched to a warm horizon, themselves not utterly
cold, as if the low hills and plains beyond exhaled a rich, thawing
breath from their fertility. Before us the mountains and valleys
fused into a land cooler than all others, as a statue is cooler than
a living body. It is not, as the school books have it, that
Montenegro is barren : that is a delusion of those who see it
only from the sea. Its inland half, if it has little for the plough,
has many woods and pastures. But they are held in a cup of
rock, they are insulated from the common tide of warmth that
suffuses the rest of earth. What the cup holds is pure. In
summer, they say there is here pure heat : in autumn pure ripe-
ness : in winter pure cold. Now, in this late springtime it
was pure freshness, the undiluted essence of whsit that season
brings the world to renew its youth.
At this pass was the old Turkish frontier,” said Constan-
tine. ** And is no more, and is no more, thank God,” said
Dragutin. Down below, at the end of a valley bright with the
thin green flames of beechwoods and clouds of flowers, we came
on a poorish village and halted at the inn. ” Now I must ask
the way to Lake Plav,” said Constantine, “ for you should cer-
tainly see Lake Plav. Did you ever hear of it ? ” I knew the
name. An unfortunate contretemps occurred here during the
Balkan War. When Montenegro captured the village of Plav
MONTENEGRO
395
from the Turks in 1912, they were greatly aided by a local
Moslem priest, who joined the Orthodox Church and was
appointed a major in the Montenegrin Army. His first action
when left unsupervised was to hold a court-martial on his
former congregation and to shoot all those who refused to be
baptized. They numbered, it is said, five hundred. The in-
cident has the terrible quality of juvenile crime. Little Willie
was told to be a good boy and keep his baby from crying, and
it was precisely because he wanted to be a good boy that he held
a pillow over baby’s fare T had ♦bought of the place where
this happened as a circle of mud huts in a hollow of gleaming
stones below vertical mountains. But two or three miles over
a bumpy road took us to a place that was a perfect and rounded
image of pleasure. A circle of water lay in a square of emerald
marshland, fringed with whitish reeds, and framed by hills
patterned with green grass and crimson earth, with a sheer
wall of snow mountains behind them. The glowing hills and
the shining peaks were exactly mirrored in the lake, and re-
ceived the embellishment of a heavenly bloom peculiar to its
waters. We sat down on a stone dyke, shaded by a thorn which
the winds had whipped to the form of a modest Chinese lady.
Below us a man was cutting turf at the lake edge, and loading
it on a bright-blue cart drawn by a grey pony ; he was as grace-
ful as if he had never known fatigue in his life, and his white
shirt, kilt and trousers and black bolero were white as snow and
black as coal against the emerald marsh. This was as good a
place as can be, if beauty is of any good. ** Lake Plav,” said Con-
stantine, ** means blue lake. Plav is a strange word. It means
blue or fair-haired. All that is beautiful without being sombre.”
Back at the inn, we had an early lunch in distasteful sur-
roundings. A dog that had lost a paw limped about our feet ;
it was still, they said, wonderful at rabbiting, and it looked up
at us with the cold eye and the snarl of one who lives in pain and
by wile. As we* ate, a motor bus which had left Tsetinye at
dawn arrived and disgorged a load of pallid people, holding the
battered yellow hemispheres of sucked lemons and making no
effort to conceal that they had found the remedy against sick-
ness not wholly satisfactory. One demonstrated that in her
case it had been completely ineffectual. ” There is everything
here that Aldous Huxley could desire,” said my husband ; and
it was true, for in the inn garden on the other side of the road
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
396
was a little building like a summer-house, poised high on piles
over a stream, which we were forced to believe was a sanitary
installation of too simple a kind. But squalor is not a Monte-
negrin characteristic. If the country has a blatant fault, it is a
chilling blankness. The typical house stands high-shouldered
on a small base under a steeply raked roof tiled with what looks
like slate but is pine ; its face is singularly inexpressive. It is
often isolated, for as this land was not occupied by the Turks
there was not the same necessity to huddle together for pro-
tection from armed raiders ; but even when such houses are
gathered together in villages they never warm into welcoming
sociability. Andriyevitsa, a village of fifteen hundred inhabi-
tants, which we came to after ten miles* drive through olive
groves and plum orchards, is well set on a ledge above a river
with heaths and pinewoods about it, and has a handsome main
street planted with great trees and lined with substantial stone
houses, which are ornamented with fine balconies, an archi-
tectural feature which marks that one has crossed the cultural
watershed and has come down on the side of Dalmatia and
Venice and the West, for the Oriental cares little for them. In
spite of these advantages its effect on the stranger is cold and
dreary. It is as if the genius of the place lacked emotional and
intellectual pigmentation. And that effect is intensified by the
terrible purity of Montenegrin good looks. The beauty of both
the men and the women is beyond what legend paints it ; be-
cause legends desire to please, and this perfection demonstrates
that there can be too much of a good thing. They are fabulous
non-monsters. Such symmetry of feature and figure, such
lustre of hair and eye and skin and teeth, such unerring grace,
chokes the eye with cream.
Outside the village of Andriyevitsa, on a glassy plateau high
above a river, was a kind of park which contained a new white
church built in the Byzantine style and a war memorial con-
sisting of a black marble needle marked in white letters with a
prodigious number of names. We went to see what this might
be, and a young man who had been asleep in the long grass
beside the memorial rose up in such white immobile handsome-
ness as Disraeli would have ascribed to a duke, and told us that
it commemorated the members of the Vasoyevitch tribe who
had fallen in the wars. The Serbs who took refuge here after
Kossovo split up into tribes, each with its own chief, very much
MONTENEGRO
397
after the order of our Scottish clans, and the Vasdyevitches
were among the most powerful. All four sides of the needle
were covered with names ; there must have been seven or eight
hundred of them. I exclaimed aloud when I saw that the in-
scription gave the dates of the war as 1912-21, but of course
it is true that this country was continually under arms for nine
years. First they joined with the Serbs in the Balkan wars, but
when the Turks were beaten they had to continue a local war with
the Albanians until the Great War came, and then the Austrians
attacked them ; and the peace brought them none, for they
fought against the Serbs in protest against their incorporation in
Yugoslavia. As we stood there we were joined by an elderly
woman, poorly dressed but quite is aristocratic-looking as the
young man ; and they acted as our host and hostess in a tour of
interesting graves Two generals belonging to the tribe were
buried in the park ; and over the road, in the open heathland,
lay two tribesmen who had been hanged on this spot by the
Austrians, and not far off two other members of an earlier
generation who had been inprudent enough to demand a
Liberal constitution from King Nicholas.
The air we breathed was pine-scented and rarefied by
height ; the moorland and mountain and waters about us
enjoyed their elemental innocence ; these marvellously beauti-
ful people, placid as prize animals, showed us the tombs of
their butchered kin. I remembered that this country, with
greater certainty than any other country that I could think of,
might attribute its survival to one single event, and that that
event was loathsome in character. For three hundred years
after Kossovo the Montenegrins fought against the Turks with
unremitting courage, and vanquished them again and again.
But when the Turks were outside Vienna in 1683 and then
were driven out of Hungary they turned their full attention to
this enemy who was weaker and nearer home. They marched
through the mountains, guided by Montenegrins who had
adopted the Islamic faith, and they occupied Tsetinye. There-
after it seemed that the last Christian Slav stronghold must fall,
largely because there were so many of the renegades. Two-
thirds of the Albanian people had been converted during the
seventeenth century, and it looked as if their example had
corrupted their neighbours. In 1702 a Bishop was kidnapped
by the Turks when he was on his way home from the conse-
398 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
cration of a new church and he was held to ransome. The ruler
of Montenegro, Daniel Nyegosh, saw that his people must
strike then or perish. It is told in one of the national ballads
that he called a meeting of the tribes and bade them go forth
on Christmas Eve and offer every Montenegrin Mohammedan
the choice between baptism and death. Five brothers named
Martinovitch alone obeyed him, and though the ballad assumes
that they themselves executed the plan, it is obvious that they
must have used the whole of their tribe. “ The time fixed for
the holy vigil is at hand ; the brothers Martinovitch light their
holy tapers, pray earnestly to the new-born God, drink each a
cup of wine to the glory of Christ. Seizing their consecrated
maces, they set out in the dark.”
I am on the side of the brothers Martinovitch. Having seen
what Turkish conquest meant to the Slav, it is certain they were
justified in their crime. A man is not a man if he will not save
his seed. But the destiny is abhorrent that compelled the
brothers, who may be assumed to have been of flawless and
inhuman beauty, like the Montenegrins of to-day, to go out into
the night and murder the renegades, who also would be beautiful.
” Please give me some brandy,” I said to my husband, ” I feel
rather ill.” But when he poured it out of his flask it was not
what I wanted. I would have preferred a drink that was
enormously strong, that would instantly have clouded my con-
sciousness, that would have smelt of nothing, like vodka. The
bouquet of brandy recalls the pageant of the earth, the lovely
and logical process of flower and fruit that causes man, with
his leaning towards argument by analogy, to harbour such
excessive hopes concerning his own life. It is a subtlety, and
up here subtleties seemed doomed. As we drove out of the
heathland into greener country, where there were farms that
were astonishingly trim, considering they had to stand on end,
we passed churches that had neither within nor without the
faintest air of mysticism. They might have been town-halls
or even, in some cases, blockhouses.
That was natural enough, for in Montenegro Church and
State were till recently not merely welded but identical. In the
sixteenth century the last king of the line of John Tserno, John
the Outlaw, after whom the land was named Tserna Gora,
abdicated and went to live in Venice ; and before he left he
called an assembly of the people and transferred his authority
MONTENEGRO
399
to the Bishop of Tsetinye, who was the head of the Montenegrin
Church. Even so the Emperor Constantine the Great, on
leaving Rome to found Constantinople, transferred his authority
to the Pope, and thus gave the Papacy its claim to temporal
power. Thus it happened that until 1851, when Danilo II fell
in love with a pretty girl and changed the constitution so that
he could marry her and transmit his royalty to their children,
Montenegro was governed by a succession of Prince-Bishops
who passed their power from uncle to nephew. The Church
was, therefore, the Govemnent, r.ad its buildings were therefore
adapted to the State's chief function, which was to resist the
Turk : not here could }:i:oodness be adored and its indestructi-
bility be recognised in »:cstasy. The first and real need was an
altar where the Martinovitch brothers could take a stirrup-cup
before they set out on their pious errand, their truly pious errand,
swinging their consecrated maces. Christianity was still an
inspiration, and one that bad proven its worth, but, like Monte-
negrin houses and good looks, it was too simple, too stark, so
full of one perfect thing that it was as good as empty.
** Have the Montenegrins not made enormous sacrifices to
preserve their independence ? *' I asked Constantine, and he
answered, Greater than you can believe. They have sacrificed
almost everything except their heroism. They are nothing
but heroes. If they eat or sleep it is so that they shall wake
up heroes. If they marry it is so that they should beget little
heroes, who would not trouble to come out of their mothers’
wombs were they not certain that they would grow up in heroism.
They are as like the people of Homer as any race now living :
they are brave, and beautiful, and vainglorious. A soldier must
be vainglorious. He must go into the battle believing that he
is so wonderful a human being that God could not let it be that
the lesser men in front of him should kill him. And since the
men in front of them were Turks who were often really pro-
digious fighters, there was no end to the fairy-tales that the
Montenegrins had to tell to themselves about themselves. You
get it in the two classic stories that are always told about these
people. One is really true ; it was a thing noticed in the Balkan
wars. You know that when soldiers drill they have to number
off — ‘ One, two, one, two ’. In the Montenegrin Army it could
not be done. No man was willing to be second, so the first
man said, * One and the second said, * I-am-beside-him *,
400
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
very quickly. The other may be true, but perhaps only in the
spirit. It is said that a traveller said to a Montenegrin, ‘ How
many of your people are there ? * and he answered, ‘ With
Russia, one hundred and eighty millions \ and the traveller,
knowing there were not two hundred thousand of them, said,
‘Yes, but how many without the Russians ? * and the Monte-
negrin answered, * We will never desert the Russians And
it was not a joke, for the vainglory of these people was necessary
to them lest they should be conquered in battle.
‘‘ This vainglory will not permit them to have any other
characteristics, except a little cunning that is quite simple, like
the cunning of the Homeric heroes, for to be perfectly and
absolutely vainglorious you must hold back from all activity,
because you dare not ever fail at anything. So the Monte-
negrins are not really interested in any kind of work, and that
makes it very difficult to fit them into the modern state of
Yugoslavia. For in earlier centuries they lived by fighting
which always included a lot of looting, and. by foreign sub-
sidies, which were freely given, as this state was an important
strategic point on the Adriatic coast ; and in the late nineteenth
and twentieth centuries they lived very much on these subsidies,
particularly from Russia. And now all that is over, and they
must earn their livings, and they do not want to do anything
at all, for even farming used to be done chiefly by their women,
since they always were at war or resting between wars, and no
work interests them. No child here says, ‘ I would like to be
a builder, or a doctor, or a carpenter though some want to be
chauffeurs because to them it is still a daring and romantic
occupation. So they pester the Government with demands for
posts as functionaries and for pensions, which are of a terrible
simplicity, for there is no need for so many functionaries, and
if there were these people could not perform their functions, and
God Himself, if He had a knife at His throat, could not invent a
reason why they should all have pensions. This is hard on a
poor country like Yugoslavia, and this is not an easy matter to
settle by patience and patriotism, as many things can be settled
in Bosnia and Old Serbia and Macedonia, because the Monte-
negrins are empty-headed except for their wild and unthinking
heroism, which is to say they are often like madmen. I tell it
you, this country is a sacrifice to itself of itself, and there is
nothing left,**
MONTENEGRO
401
There is no way out of the soul's dilemma. Those displeased
by the rite on the Sheep's Field, who would be neither the priest
nor the black lamb, who would be neither converted to Islam
nor defeated on Kossovo plain, are forced to fight the priest.
Since we must live in the same world as those we fight, this
means sharing this upland bleakness, furnished too simply with
its bloodstained monolith. “ Whoso liveth by the sword shall
die by the sword " is only half the damnatory sentence passed
on mankind by war ; the other half reads, ** whoso refuseth to
die by the sword shall Ih^a by ♦he sword." Montenegro was
something like a prison. Though it was airv as heaven, instead
of airless, like other prisons, it was stony like a cell, and it
reeked of heroism as str ongly as institutions reek of disinfectant ;
and the straitened inhabitants were sealed up in space with
the ideas of slaughter and triumph as convicts are in their con-
finement with giiilt and punishment. If one shut the eyes and
thought of any pleasantness but the most elemental, any enjoy-
ment that helped the mind further on its task of exploring the
universe, one had to say on opening them, "It is not here,
nothing but the root of it is here ".
So it seemed. Then the road looped round the mountainside
to a steeper mountain, and wound up to yet another pass, so
high that as we rose the noontide sky showed pale above the
distant peaks, though it was deeply blue above us. The country
which here is highly variable, changed its character again ; it
was Buckinghamshire on this cool northward slope, so tall the
beeches, so dense the woods they drove to the skyline, so
gardenish the grass. Up and up we drove until we had to
stop, to cool the engine. We none of us regretted it, for there
were many gentians on the banks beside the road, and below us
the woods lay like bonfires of green flame on the mild rolling
turf, and further the distant infinity of mountains was blue as
wild hyacinths. We sat there so long that a woman we had
passed on a lower curve of the road overtook us, halted in her
trudging, came up to the car, and laid her arm along the frame
of the open window, looking round at us all. Her face had
once been perfect but was no longer so, and was the better
for it. " Good morning," she said to Constantine, " who are
you ? " "I am Constantine," he said. " I am from Shabats,
and I am a poet." " And who are you ? " she asked my husband
and me. " They are English," said Constantine. " A very
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
402
fine people,” she said. ** Why do you think that ? ” said Con-
stantine. ** Because they are great fighters, and they love
nature,” she said. “ How do you know they are like that ? ”
asked Constantine. She lifted her arm from the window, took
a ball of fine white wool and knitting-needles from her other
hand, and set to work again, as if judging from his question an
indication that the conversation might not be of the first order
and she might as well get on with her material duties. ” Oh,
everybody knows that,” she answered absently. ** And you,”
said Constantine, ” who are you ? Are you a native of this
place ? ” ” No,” she said, ” I live here now, but I was born
by Durmitor.” Durmitor is the great snow mountain, with a
black lake at its foot, on the northern side of Montenegro.
” Who brought you here ? ” asked Constantine.
She laughed a little, lifted her ball of wool to her mouth,
sucked the thin thread between her lips and stood rocking her-
self, her eyebrows arching in misery. ” It is a long story. I
am sixty now,” she said. ** Before the war I was married over
there, by Durmitor. I had a husband whom I liked very much,
and I had two children, a son and a daughter. In 1914 my
husband was killed by the Austrians. Not in battle. They
took him out of our house and shot him. My son went off and
was a soldier and was killed, and my daughter and I were sent
to a camp. There she died. In the camp it was terrible, many
people died. At the end of the war I came out and I was alone.
So I married a man twenty years older than myself. I did not
like him as I liked my first husband, but he was very kind to
me, and I had two children of his. But they both died, as was
natural, for he was too old, and I was too old, and also I was
weak from the camp. And now my husband is eighty, and he
has lost his wits, and he is not kind to me any more. He is
angry with everybody ; he sits in his house and rages, and I
cannot do anything right for him. So I have nothing.” ” Are
you poor ? ” asked Constantine. ** Not at all,” she said.
“ My husband’s son by his first wife is a judge in Old Serbia,
and he sends me three hundred dinars a month to hire a man
to work our land, so we want nothing. Oh, that is all right,
but the rest is so wrong.” “ Oh, sister, sister,” said Constantine,
“ this is very hard.” ** Yes, it’s hard,” she said. ** And can we
do nothing for you,” asked Constantine, “ for we feel very
friendly towards you ? Can we not give you a lift to where
MONTENEGRO
403
you are going ? ** ** That you cannot do, though you mean
so kindly,” she said, ” for I am not going anywhere. I am
walking about to try to understand why all this has happened.
If I had to live, why should my life have been like this ? If I
walk about up here where it is very high and grand it seems
to me I am nearer to understanding it.” She put the ball of
wool to her forehead and rubbed it backwards and forwards,
while her eyes filled with painful speculation. Good-bye,” she
said, with distracted courtesy, as she moved away, “good-bye.”
This woman was of no importance. It is doubtful whether,
walk as she would on these heights, she would arrive at any
conclusion that was of value even to herself. She was, however,
the answer to my doubt She took her destiny not as the beasts
take it, nor as the plants and trees ; she not only suffered it,
she examined it. As the sword swept down on her through the
darkness she threwr out her hand and caught the blade as it
fell, not caring if she cut her fingers so long as she could question
its substance where it had been forged, and who was the wielder.
She wanted to understand the secret which Gerda denied, the
mystery of process. I knew that art and science were the
instruments of this desire, and this was their sole justification,
though in the Western world where I lived I had seen art de-
bauched to ornament and science prostituted to the multiplication
of gadgets. I knew that they were descended from man’s primitive
necessities, that the cave man who had to hunt the aurochs drew
him on the rock-face that he might better understand the aurochs
and have fuller fortune in hunting, was the ancestor of all
artists, that the nomad who had to watch the length of shadows
to know when he should move his herd to the summer pasture
was the ancestor of all scientists. But I did not know these
things thoroughly with my bowels as well as my mind. I knew
them now, when I saw the desire for understanding move this
woman. It might have been far otherwise with her, for she had
been confined by her people’s past and present to a kind of
destiny that might have stunned its victims into an inability to
examine it. Nevertheless she desired neither peace nor gold,
but simply knowledge of what her life might mean. The
instrument used by the hunter and the nomad was not too blunt
to turn to finer uses ; it was not dismayed by complexity, and
it could regard the more stupendous aurochs that range within
the mind and measure the diffuse shadows cast by history. And
404 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
what was more, the human will did not forget its appetite for
using it.
I remembered what Denis Saurat had said about Militsa :
‘‘If there are but twenty people like her scattered between here
and China, civilisation will survive If during the next million
generations there is but one human being born in every
generation who will not cease to enquire into the nature of his
fate, even while it strips and bludgeons him, some day we
shall read the riddle of our universe. We shall discover what
work we have been called to do, and why we cannot do it. If a
mine fails to profit by its riches and a church wastes the treasure
of its altar, we shall know the cause : we shall find out why we
draw the knife across the throat of the black lamb or take its
place on the offensive rock, and why we let the grey falcon nest
in our bosom, though it buries its beak in our veins. We shall
put our own madness in irons. Then, having defeated our
own enmity, we shall be able to face the destiny forced on us by
nature, and war with that. And what does that mean ? What
name is behind nature, what name but one name ? Then there
will be the wrestling match that is worth the prize, then defeat
will be eternal glory, then there can be no issue but magnificence.
That contest may endure a million, million years, seeing the
might of the combatants. And after that, what then ? Could
the mind twitch away the black curtain behind the stars, it
might be dazzled by a brightness brighter than the stars, which
might be the battle-field for another splendid conflict as yet not
to be conceived. It was towards this splendour that the woman
was leading, as we passed her later, leaving the road and
treading a path over the turf among gentians which she did not
see. “ Good-bye ! ” Dragutin cried to her. “ Good-bye,
Mother !
Kolashin
Save for a peppering of graves by the roadside, this might
have been a better Lake District, a lovelier Coniston. About
four in the afternoon we came on the town, which was of the
prim and stony Montenegrin pattern, lying on a plain surrounded
by shapely hills feathered with delicate woodland, and which
greeted us with an inn terrible in its cleanliness, and awe-
inspiring in its landlady. She was one of those widows whose
MONTENEGRO
405
majesty makes their husbands seem specially dead. Her large
Elgin Marble head bore a crown of lustrous black plaits, and
was veiled by a black lace mantilla : her full black gown
draped a massive and dignified body which it was impossible
to imagine as divided into limbs in the usual manner. While
we drank some coffee in the dining-room she bent over us,
directing the immense lamps of her eyes on Constantine, and
addressed us for some stately moments. I asked in amazement.
Is she reciting an ode of welcome ? Not at all,’’ said Con-
stantine, she is telling me that the house is in great disorder
because she is having a bathroom and a wa^er-closet put in, but
that they will not be ready for ten days, so that in the meantime
you will have to wash n a tin basin and use the earth-closet at
the end of the garden.’*
“ But surely,” I interrupted, after a minute or so, ” she is
speaking in Alexandrines.” ” No, in blank verse,” said Con-
stantine, ” there are ten iambs and not twelve in each of her
sentences. All Montenegrins speak so when they are at all
formal, which is to say when there is any but their family listen-
ing. Listen, she is going on to tell us that our Prime Minister,
Mr. Stoyadinovitch, always* stays here, and it is true, for this is
his constituency. You will find that she says it all in blank
verse.” And so she did. ’I had been misled into thinking that
the measure was Alexandrine because of the singing sweet yet
faintly nasal quality of her speech, which recalled a poetry
matinee at the Comedie Fran9aise. Serbo-Croat is, of course,
a language that falls very easily into verse, and until recently
was encouraged to do so on occasions at all exalted above the
ordinary : when the great American foreign correspondent,
Stephen Bonsai, first came to the Balkans in the early ’nineties
he was enchanted to hear the Serbian Minister of Finance
introducing his budget in the form of a long poem in blank
verse. The logic is obvious. A free people who could make
their lives as dignified as they could would naturally choose to
speak in verse rather than in prose, as one would choose to
wear silk rather than linen. There is, of course, a flaw in the
logic, because there are many occasions on which linen and
prose are more convenient to wear than silk and verse.
There called on us presently the Chief of Police, who invited
us to come with him to see a lake that was fifteen miles or so
away. I looked at him with respect, as at a Wild Western
4o6 black lamb AND GREY FALCON
sheriff, for Kolashin is no tender district. Its original name was
Kol i shen, which, tortuously enough, is the Albanian for St,
Nicholas. Though it was a Serb settlement in the days of the
medieval Serbian Empire, it was later invaded by Catholic
Albanians, and in time became a fortified Turkish outpost.
During the eighteenth century it happened here, as in many
other parts of Montenegro, that the Albanians merged with
the Serbs, adopting their language and the Orthodox Faith.
Those Albanians who did not do so often joined with the
Albanians on Turkish territory to attack the Christianised
Albanians. As a climax in 1858 the members of several tribes
in the neighbourhood attacked the town and destroyed all the
inhabitants who had kept their Albanian identity or who were
Moslem. Thereafter there was a kind of surly peace in the
district, but it developed a spirit of resistance, of independence,
tending towards pure negativism, which made them bitterly
resentful after the war when Montenegro was amalgamated
with Yugoslavia.
This disaffection had quieted down, for here there were cer-
tainly no signs of resentment at the Government automobile
as there were in the Macedonian districts where there were
unpacified Bulgarians, but it was improbable that it had yet be-
come the bride of quietness. And indeed nothing in the appear-
ance of the Chief of Police suggested that he would have been
there if it had. He had a face so tough and imperturbable that
one could have played darts on it. But his manners were
excellent, and it was with real courtliness that he led us out to
the local automobile which we were to use for going to the lake,
since ours was too heavy for the road. Like all Montenegrin
automobiles, it was a debauched piece of ironmongery. This
idyllic country, fresh under every dawn as Nausicaa going
down to bathe with her maidens, unmarred by a railway
system and possessing no modern nor indeed even medieval
town, which is but pastures and woodlands and mountains and
primitive villages, set on earth sweet as new bread taken from
the oven, is defiled by the presence on its roads of twisted and
pointless wrecks of automobiles, which might have been sal-
vaged from Slough dump, driven by lads who have an air of
enacting a heroic fantasy. One such, pale and statuesque, with
self-consciously dilated nostrils, stood beside this black and
crooked carcass.
MONTENEGRO
407
In the gold of the late afternoon we drove beside a clear
brawling river, over a cultivated plain into a valley that was like
Coniston Crag, recollected in a dream under an opiate which
let the mind stretch a point in favour of loveliness rather than
probability. We passed into a beechwood and ran on out of
shadow lit by the silver trunks and sunlight stained green, till
we were halted by the strange lateral summer of an uprooted
tree. My husband and I walked off first with the chauffeur as
guide, and Dragutin lingered behind us, looking for animals,
catching us up sometimes to sho' v' us an emerald beetle or some
such creature. Well behind us came Constantine and the Chief
of Police, who like the Chief of Police at Petch, had an air of
being a harassed govei ness in charge of backward and undis-
ciplined children, and was taking the chance to pour out his
grievances. Afte^ a mile or so the chauffeur told us we must
leave the road and take a short cut up the hillside. We turned
and saw Dragutin on his knees beside a tangle of tree roots,
casting a spell on some form of life, and called to him, pointing
upwards to our new path. We found the climb very pleasant,
following the soft track through the beechmast under the flaming
green roof of tree-tops, for we had had little opportunity of late
to take- any real exercise. Once I looked back and could not
see Dragutin anywhere, so I came to a halt, and heard some
shouting down below. It occurred to me that we might have
come the wrong way and that the others might be trying to
recall us, so I asked the chauffeur, “ Is this really the path ?
He replied, “ Yes,” very emphatically, so we shouted to give
the others our direction, and pushed on. The path now swung
from side to side to avoid ^^bme steep stone bluffs, and for a time
I was preoccupied in keeping my footing on it. Then I paused
to look back. Even now there v/as nobody in sight. I shouted
and no answer came.
Though the tree-tops above us were still catching the sun
all the woods below us were in shadow. The sun was setting.
I looked at my watch and said to my husband, ‘‘ Do you know
we have been climbing for half an hour ? This cannot be
right,” But he learned his climbing in Switzerland, and is
indoctrinated with the necessity for trusting the guide. “ The
lad lives here,” he said, ” he must know the way.” I asked
again, ” Are you sure this is the path ? ” He answered strangely,
looking back as if a danger were pursuing us up the hillside,
4o8 black lamb AND GREY FALCON
but impatiently waved us up the path. We worked on for
another five minutes up a patch of hillside so steep that I had
to plod along with my knees bent and my head down. When
I straightened myself my eyes fell on the chauffeur standing
some distance ahead with his back to us, and his hand raised
on a level with his head and pressed flat against a tree-trunk.
This meaningless attitude somehow expressed a definite mean-
ing. I knew that he was lost. I cried out, Let us go down
again ! ” but he turned on me a face dark with sullen terror,
and at once ran away among the thickets and the tree-trunks.
In a second he was lost to me, for the whole wood was in
shadow. I turned and shouted into the darkening valley below
me, and there was no reply. My husband was standing a little
way off, and I went to him, and put my arm in his, saying,
“ Where on earth has that wretched boy gone ? He answered,
I think there is a woodcutter’s hut in the hollow over there,
he has probably gone to see if there is anybody there who knows
the way. It will be all right.” Just then the chauffeur came
back, hurrying so much that he often stumbled, and behind him
were two men and a boy in wild white clothes, who were crying
out to him in tones of warning and anguish. I could not find
any satisfying interpretation of the scene. For a minute it
passed through my mind that we had been led into a camp of
brigands who would hold us for ransom, but this seemed an
unlikely enterprise, since the Chief of Police was one of the
party. And it was away from these people that the chauffeur
led us, when, scrambling up from a fall and brushing the
beechmast off his clothes, he stood up before us and panted,
with the sweat running down his brow. ” This way ! This
way ! ” I looked round to see what danger could be threatening
us from the quarter he wanted us to flee, thinking of landslides
and forest fires, but there was not a grain of earth shifting on the
hill, and the air smelt of nothing but evening.
” Here I ” said the chauffeur. “ Here ! ” He had brought
us, with the two men and the boy in white clothes at our heels,
to the top of a cliff, where stunted trees leaned into an abyss
they veiled with their foliage. “ Where ? ” He pointed at a
track down the face of the cliff which was no more than a mere
slippery edge, pressed two or three inches out of the level by a
geological fault. I said, ” We cannot go down here in a failing
light.” The chauffeur was moved to agony by my hesitation.
MONTENEGRO
409
“ You must go ! You must go ! ” he groaned. ** He must think
we are in some danger/* I said to my husband, but what is it ? **
“ I have no idea,** he said. I looked back at the people in
white clothes, meaning to ask their advice, and I found the two
men stiffened in attitudes of horror and despair, while the boy,
who alone of his straight-nosed people had a* nose snub as if it
had been pressed against something for most of his life, had
come forward as if following his own goggling gaze. Look ! ’*
I cried to my husband, and he turned and saw them also. But
he speaks even less Serbian than ! do, which is to say he speaks
no Serbian at all. So it was I who had to say to the chauffeur,
** We will not go by that path. Take us back to the Chief of
Police.** But he answ -red through his set teeth, You must
go here 1 Come, come ! **
His resolution weakened mine ; but I turned to look at the
people in white clothes, and found that the relief they were
showing was so great that our refusal to go down the cliff must
have had some enormous implications for them, as enormous,
say, as the difference between us alive and us dead. I said
again, ** Take us back to the Chief of Police! ** But his face
grew desperate, and he stepped towards me as if he were
going to lay hands on me. I realised that I must act as if I
were more dangerous than the unknown object of his fear. It
had to be a dramatic performance, for I keep no fury in stock,
rage makes me silent. I thought of Charlotte Bronte’s descrip-
tion of Rachel in Villette and, modelling myself on those lines,
I waved my arms at the chauffeur and shrieked, To the Chief
of Police ! Down the hill I To the Chief of Police I ** He
gaped, recoiled, and ran helter-skelter down the hill through the
trees, looking back at me and crying, with conciliatory gestures,
** Yes, this is the road 1 ** The breaking of a branch on our
left turned our heads that way, and we saw that the snub-nosed
boy belonging to the woodcutters was running down the hill
along a course parallel to our track, but about thirty yards
away, keeping his face turned towards us as though we were
a great wonder and he could not bear to lose sight of us for a
second. The chauffeur came to a halt, for the reason that I
was out of breath and had not made a minatory sound for some
time ; he folded his arms and looked sullen. But from the valley
below we heard an outburst of panic-stricken shouting and the
thin drill of a police whistle. We were at the top of the line of
2 D
VOL. n
410
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
stony bluffs, and I had no idea of the way down. I could think
of no more Serbian words, so I began to shriek in the rhythm
of the Valkyries, and the chauffeur dived forward again.
When we met they were all white-faced, Constantine and
the Chief of Police and Dragutin. ** But what have you been
doing ? ** screamed Constantine. “ Why did you not come
back ? We have been yelling and yelling and blowing the
whistle till we have broken our hearts ! *' “ Where did you take
them ? ** the Chief of Police shouted at the chauffeur. ** He
took us,” I said, ” to the top of the hill, and then he wanted us
to go down a track across the face of a cliff.” The Chief of
Police threw up his hands. That track ! ” he cried. The
chauffeur who had thrown his head back and was looking very
noble, said something, and Constantine cried, ” But he says
that he did not want to take you anywhere, that you insisted on
climbing the hill, and that he did not ask you to go down the
cliff, but it was your idea.” I exclaimed, ” But what an astonish-
ing liar ! ” but my husband said, ” Wait a minute, there is
something here we do not understand. We may be doing the
lad an injustice. You see, up on the hill he began to look dis-
turbed, and my wife asked him if he had lost his way. Then he
seemed definitely distressed, and we gathered he was afraid of
something. When he wanted us to go down the cliff path, it
was as if it was necessary we should do so, as if ” ” Yes,
it was necessary,” screamed Constantine, ” for a Montenegrin ! ”
He repeated to the others what my husband had said, and they
made signs of impatience and scorn, the Chief of Police holding
his head and groaning, Dragutin spitting between his feet.
” These Montenegrins,” hissed Constantine, ” you have not
listened to what I have told you about them. I say they are
all heroes, they are boastful imbeciles, like the Homeric heroes,
and this little espece de heros could not bear to admit to you
and to us that he had lost his way and had guided you all wrong.
So you had to go down the face of a cliff, you had perhaps to
die, in order to show that after all he was right, there was a
way.” He shook his clenched fists in the chauffeur’s face,
shouting, ” How dared you take them that dangerous way ? ”
He shook back his longish hair and replied haughtily, ” The
way was not dangerous.” ” That it was,” piped a voice behind.
The woodcutter’s boy had silently joined us in the dusk.
We told him how dangerous it was. I cannot go that path,
MONTENEGRO
411
even I in my bare feet, and the lady and gentleman would slip
at once in their shoes. Indeed nobody goes that path. It has
not been safe for years, and since the great storm last winter
trees and lumps of rock fall away from the cliff all the time.
My father and my uncles never work under it if they can help.*’
Shuddering, I said, “ It cannot be so bad. After all, if we had
died, he would have been killed too.” ” Do you think that
would matter to a Montenegrin ? ” spluttered Constantine.
A silence fell. The three men looked murderously at the
chauffeur. His head wert higher and a white tooth bit into
his lower lip. The woodcutter’s boy, regarding him with a
territorial malice that tliorcughly enjoyed what evils might befall
the inhabitant of another village, drew closer to see the fun.
” And now could we possibly see the lake ? ” suggested my
husband. Constantine and the Chief of Police looked at him
as if he were interrupting a trial or a church service. ” It is,
after all, what we came here for,” insisted my husband, and
they gave in to him, because they were not sure whether he was
being quite idiotic, so idiotic that it was useless trying to act
reasonably in his neighbourhood, or whether he was practising
some last exotic refinement of gentlemanliness. We caught the
lake in its last moment of beauty before the dusk took away its
colour ; beechwoods drooped over a mirror, and behind them
pinewoods mounted black over castellated peaks. The trouble
was that we could none of us see it, though we sat down on a
bench facing it. I was violently shaken by the realisation that
my husband and I had just escaped being dashed to pieces in
order that a young man whom we had never seen till then should
not have to admit that he had lost his way. Constantine and
the Chief of Police were shaking with rage, Dragutin was
uneasy as a child who is obliged to be present at another’s
punishment, the chauffeur leaned against a tree-trunk, his chin
up and his arms folded.
Constantine burst out, ‘‘You see how stubborn they are !
They are heroes, they must always go on, they cannot go back,
not even if it is merely an evening promenade that is in question,
and going on means that you must die ! How we are to change
them into reasonable men, men of our times, if we are not to
beat and beat and beat them ? ” ” Well, if they had not been
like this they would not have kept off the Turk so successfully,”
said my husband. ‘‘ Yes, but if what was good has been done
412
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
must it be to do for ever and ever ? ” asked Constantine angrily.
** I have in my time done many things that were excessively
brave, in North Bosnia during the war I have cut myself out
of a valley through the bodies of many soldiers with my bayonet,
in Bulgaria after the peace I have saved my troops by seizing
a railway train tn manu militari. Must I then always be
killing people by my bayonet, must I every day seize a railway
train, because it was good that I did so once ? ” The Chief of
Police and he then carried on a passionate exchange of com-
plaining undertones, until the chauffeur cleared his throat and
made a remark with an air of sense and dignity, in correct
blank verse metre, and they both broke out into angry shouts.
He is saying such fatuities,** cried Constantine ; he is
saying that you wanted to go to the edge of the cliff to look at
the view.** “ Nevertheless,** said my husband, “ I think that
the person concerned in this incident for whom I feel the least
affection is the woodcutter’s boy. Look, he is watching us
from under that elder tree on the left.** ** What have you
against the little one ? ** asked Constantine. ** I feel so strongly,**
said my husband, ** that if we had gone over the cliff he would
have been the first, by quite a long way, to find our bodies.**
When we returned to the inn I was very tired, for it was now
thirteen hours since I had risen to go to the Patriarchate at
Petch, and I thought I would not be able to eat any dinner.
But I ate a great deal, for the stately landlady brought us rich
bean soup, and some home-cured raw ham, and a dish of
lamb roasted with herbs, and a pile of little cakes, made in the
Turkish fashion, of pounded fruit and nuts pressed between
two layers of pastry, very well made indeed. There was
also some good wine from the southern slope of Montenegro.
Dragutin was eating at a table in the opposite corner of the
dining-room from ours, and we and he raised our glasses and
drank to the health of the widow, who stood in the centre of
the room, responding with unexpected animation by contralto
duckings and coy agitations of her black draperies ; it was as
if we had pleased a rookery.
All was drowsy and agreeable, when the door opened, or
rather was thrown open with considerable panache, and the
chauffeur came in, very pale. We all fell still and watched him
as he came across to our table and halted. “ What is it ? what
is it ? ** asked Constantine, and the boy set out on a speech, all
MONTENEGRO
413
in blank verse. Constantine shot out of his chair, he beat the
table with his fist, he screamed at the boy, and Dragutin stood
up, uttering cries of derision and rage. “ Will you believe it ? **
Constantine explained when he had gone, he does not come to
say he is sorry, he is still trying to prove that it was not a fault
to take you to that cliff where you might have been dashed to a
thousand pieces.** He shuddered and took a deep draught
from his glass, wincing at what he saw at the bottom of it.
Then his face was shadowed by sinister recollection, by caution,
by malice. He remembered that we were English, that we
were Liberals, that we liked him ; and the disposition he had
made of his soul required that he should be loyal only to those
who were German, who were Nazi, who despised him. He
snarled, See what trouble you have caused by always being
so independent 1 You two must always do the thing that is
extra ! If you had kept by the Chief of Police and myself we
would have had none of this trouble ! ** There was nothing for
us to say, the charge was so unjust, for we had been sent ahead
with the chauffeur as our guide. When Constantine saw that
we were not going to answer he looked at Dragutin and re-
peated what he had said in Serbian. But Dragutin also said
nothing.
The widow grew sensible of a change in the atmosphere and
began moving about the room on petty errands, tweaking a
curtain straight, taking away an empty salt-cellar. My husband
put a match to a cigar and said over the flame, “ I do not know
why I have never asked you this before, Constantine, for it
has often come into my mind. Did you ever pass through a
phase in your youth when there seemed to you that no writer
existed except Dostoevsky ? ** The sneer, the look of self-
dedication to death vanished from Constantine*s face. He said,
“ For two years it was so with me. But indeed it was more
than so, for I felt that I myself did not exist save as a part of
Dostoevsky’s mind. I would ask myself, whenever I was at a
new thing, * Who are you now ? Are you Stavrogin or Shatov ?
Are you Karmazinov or Alyosha ? * ** He set about defining
the revelation that Dostoevsky had made to all of us, talking as
brilliantly and nobly as I had ever heard him. Turgeniev is
greater than he, the critics say, and they are right, but if we
had not been saved from the pit by Dostoevsky we would not
be here to read Turgeniev. . . .**
414 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Nevertheless I shook with a chill that even his recovered
fire could not exorcise. The chauffeur had been willing to cast
away his life on the hills, and ours also, in order that he should
not be thought foolish enough not to know a certain path ;
Constantine was willing to cast away his self-respect, and indeed
all he cared for, art and philosophy and his country’s life, for a
cause as frivolous : he wished to win the good opinion of those
who had given him a sense of their social superiority by pointing
out that Berlin was a richer city than Belgrade. So one could not
say of the chauffeur, He has erred out of curable ignorance,”
because Constantine, who was one of the most gifted and learned
men in Europe, surpassed him in guilt, and one could not say
of Constantine, ” He would not plan his self-destruction had he
not overstrained our human equipment,” because the chauffeur
had committed the same offence in a state of simplicity. The
woman we had met walking on the mountains that afternoon
seemed not such a consoling portent as I had thought her. On
the great mountains she was so small ; against the black uni-
versal mass of our insanity her desire for understanding seemed
so weak a weapon. Therefore I shuddered, and could take no
pleasure in the genius of my friend, nor in my husband’s kind-
ness to my friend. I was glad when the widow rose from her
seat by the hearth, and, to let us know that hours were getting
late for Kolashin, gave us a message which I think Constantine
failed to translate with his usual felicity. For I am almost sure
that she said she was anxious to do everything she could for us,
and that we had better use the earth-closet while the lantern in
the garden was still alight ; but Constantine announced, ” The
widow says she will give you her all, and hopes you will go to
the closet before you have an accident.”
Podgoritsa
We left the inn early, taking all the remaining little cakes
the widow could give us, and travelled for some miles further
through the beechwoods and streams of this sensuous version
of the Lake District. Then we crossed a pass into the traditional
Montenegro, the land which defies cultivation so that no peasantry
could live there were its breast not bound with oak and triple
bronze. It is an astonishing country, even to those who know the
MONTENEGRO
41S
bleakness of Switzerland and Scotland and the Rockies. There
one sees often enough trees growing askew from the interstices of
a hillside paved with rocky slabs ; but here it is as if a volcanic
eruption had been arrested just at the moment when it was about
to send the whole countryside flying into the air. The hillside
bulges outwards, and slabs and trees jut out at frantic angles to
a surface itself at a frantic angle. The inhabitants of such a
fractured and anfractuous landscape are obliged to alter some
of the activities that might be thought to be unalterably the
same all the world over. There could be no such thing as stroll-
ing a few hundred yards from one point to another ; the dis-
tance could be covered only by jumping, striding and climbing,
unless a track were made.
But the next pass brought us to a district even wilder and
less easily habitaVtle. It could not be accurately called barren,
for there was a certain amount of very rich earth to be seen ; but
again it had suffered an internal assault that had sent it spinning.
We have all seen houses so ruined that only part of the ground-
floor walls were left standing, to define rooms that were now
plots where grass and weeds and flowers grew more lush than
in the wilderness outside. Here it is as if the whole mountain-
side for twenty miles around were covered with such houses, but
the walls were of lilac-blue rock and no mason had built them.
If the plots they defined were more than a few yards across crops
grew there, or stunted trees, for we were drawing nearer the
Adriatic, where timber is precious. But if these plots were
small or inaccessible they flamed with flowers, with thickets of
tall iris and torches of broom, rising out of the blanched helle-
bore. It was a hungry scene, yet it offered distractions to hunger.
As we came down towards the lowlands and the distant sea
we ran within sight of a canyon, cut by a river that flowed a dull
bright-green, clear and yet snake-like, over sand and pebbles.
This colour delights the Yugoslavs very much. It is mentioned
in the folk-songs of the district, and all sorts of people, from
Militsa to an assistant in a Belgrade shoe-shop, had said to me,
‘‘You are going to Montenegro ? Then you must look long at
the water of the Moracha, which runs through Podgoritsa, for it
is very beautiful.” Beyond the canyon were low mountains
ruled into natural terraces so level that the artificial terraces on
the fertile land at their base seemed faultily ruled. Then the
distance flattened out into plains, and before we got to them we
4i 6 BLACk LAMB AND GREY FALCON
halted for a minute or two to hang over a bridge that spanned
a river sent down from the mountains to join the Moracha.
“ This bridge,” said Constantine, ” was fought over again and
again by the Turks and the Montenegrins, again and again it
has run with blood. For this is the key position to these fertile
flatlands, which are the best part of the Zeta, which was Turkish
until the Montenegrins took it from them once and for all in
1876.” ” They are good lands,” said Dragutin, rubbing his
stomach ; ” now others as well as the Turk can eat.” ” God,
why do you speak of eating when we are out here in the country ! ”
exclaimed Constantine. ” Drive us at once to Podgoritsa.”
We travelled fast beside the river in the canyon, which runs
all the way into the town without losing the integrity of its
strange and brilliant colour, and soon we were eating trout in
the dining-room of the principal hotel. We had not wasted
one moment looking at the sights of Podgoritsa, for too evidently
it has none. There are hardly any relics of the Turkish occupa-
tion ; and as a modern town it lacks charm. It is solid, for it
used to be the second town of Montenegro, and it is now the
administrative capital of the district, but it is built without elo-
quence. Stone, which everywhere else imposes a certain rhetoric
on those who build with it, can do nothing against the limitations
of the Montenegrin genius, and expresses nothing but forthright-
ness and resistance. But there was an immense amount of
human sightseeing to be done here, even in this dining-room.
As soon as we sat down, a plump elderly man, with hair
artlessly dyed an incredible piano-black, rushed across the
dining-room and embraced Constantine. ” What are you doing
so far from Belgrade ? ” he cried. ” And you ? I did not know
you could breathe outside the Caf6 Moscow,” cried Constantine.
A beautiful young man, who was sitting at the next table and
had been staring at a letter instead of eating his trout, looked
up at these metropolitan greetings, seemed to recognise both
parties, and broke into bitter silent laughter. Fiercely he
folded up the letter, put it into his pocket, and started on his
fish. The fat man explained that he was in Podgoritsa rehears-
ing the local repertory company in one of his dramas. ” And
a very fine job they are making of it too,” waving his hand in a
courtly gesture ; and we saw that the players were all around
us, eating trout. The men sat at one table ; a couple of spaniel-
eyed juveniles, the pire noble with a toupee that rode higher
MONTENEGRO
417
and higher as he laid down the law with a wagging forefinger,
and the funny man, who had the anxious face of a concerned
mother and a shelving belly. The leading lady ate alone.
Though she was not young she was very handsome and she
had authentic glamour. That is not to say that she resembled
Miss Marlene Dietrich, and announced herself poisoned by
special self-generated sexual toxins, affecting the face like the
heavier sorts of beer. It is to say that while she was well
equipped for love and sensible of its claims, she would be far
more difficult for a lover to s^.bjngate than the most frigid
spinster. For it was inconceivable that the love of a man could
ever matter to her so much as the approval of an audience. No
lover, therefore, could ever feel sure of her, even after he had
physically possessed her ; she would leave any Romeo to play
Juliet. And every man could promise himself the triumph of
breaking down her preoccupation and making himself more
precious to her than applause.
She could not have been more attractive as she sat there,
doubly dazzling with the radiance of a Slav blonde and the
maquillage of her profession, which seemed to proclaim her as
more accessible than other women and actually proved her less ;
for the black on her lashes was designed to convince not a
lover within kissing distance but the man at the back of the
gallery, and her complexion did not aim at freshness but at
transporting into ordinary life the climate of the footlights.
How little she and her kind represented pure passivity was
shown by two older actresses at another table, who illustrated
another phase of their being. Both were elderly, one had been
very beautiful ; about them was neither embitterment nor
despair, only the cynicism of old foxes that had evaded the
hunters a thousand times and found their holes in time. Their
value, real or imagined, in the world of art had given them a
refuge from all the common ills of life, had given them the power
to tell any person who tried to humiliate or disappoint them that
it was not to be done, that they could only be hurt by unknown
people, sitting in rows. As I watched them, one said to the
other, ‘‘ My dear ! What can you expect from such people !
Her darkened eyebrows went up, her rouged lips went down at
the corners, her fine wrist turned and showed a safety-pin
where a button should have been at her cuff. The sight evoked
the disorder I knew would be characteristic of the rooms of all
4i8 black lamb AND GREY FALCON
these three women, of all women like them in every country,
which would proceed not so much from slovenliness as from
defiance of all conventions touching on regularity, and from
refusal to spend one drop of nervous force anywhere but on
the stage. I put down my knife and fork and clapped my
hands, for I had thought of something pleasant that I could
say to Constantine about the Germans.
It took him and his friend some time to part. The spectacle
of their prolonged conversation made the young man at the
next table take out the letter he had put in his pocket and tear
it to pieces. It was typewritten and no doubt administrated a
rebuff to some notable literary ambition ; and no doubt that
was a real tragedy, for there is an astonishing amount of ability
in these small Slav towns. In another Montenegrin town,
Nikshitch, there is published a brilliant satirical journal. At
last Constantine sat down with us, smiling and panting, “ You
see, I have friends everywhere ! ” and I said, ** Listen, Con-
stantine, I have just thought of something that proves you right
and me wrong ! ” ** Aha, such news I love to hear,^* he cried,
beaming and falling on his fish. ** I have sometimes spoken ill of
Goethe in your presence,*’ I said, ** and I take it all back.
There is one thing he did perfectly, and he did it for all time.
I remembered it as soon as I saw your friend’s company waiting
around him. Nobody can see actresses in any country, neither
a touring company waiting at an English railway junction, nor
Comedie Fran^aise pensionnaires rehearsing in a Roman arena,
nor stars lunching at the Algonquin in New York, without
thinking of one thing, B,nd one thing only ! ”
“ And that is ? ” asked Constantine. “ Wilhelm Meister's
Apprenticeship ! ” I said. ** Yes,” said Constantine. ” Yes,
indeed,” I said happily. “ Do you not remember the wonderful
description of the untidiness of the lovely Mariana’s bedroom ?
He has a superb image for the theatrical make-up and costumes
that lay about, as different from what they were in use as the
glittering skin of a fish cast aside by the cook in a kitchen. He
catalogues the other oddments in her room, the plays and pin-
cushions and hairpins and sheet-music and artificial flowers, as
all united by a common element, an amalgam of powder and
dust. And he describes how young Wilhelm, used to the order
of his bourgeois home, was at first shocked when he had to lift
aside his mistress’s bodice before he could open the harpsichord.
MONTENEGRO
419
and had to find another place for her gown if he wanted a seat,
but later came to find a special charm in this chaotic house-
wifery.” “ Yes, yes,” said Constantine.
” What, do you not like Wilhelm Meister ? ” I asked, for he
spoke a little coldly. ” Oh, yes, very much,” he said. But his
eyes stared over my right shoulder, I'^turned to me, examined
me without much interest, then sought space again. ” He does
not believe me,” I thought penitently. ” I have convinced him
too well that I don^t like Goethe.” So I continued aloud, ” I
am sure that if you went home with the leading lady over there
you would find that her room was just like Mariana^s and that
she herself was like M<
pulling down his tie like a dandy, and said, “ Now do I feel an
upright man. I know I am only a clean man, but I feel I am
also upright.” A passing child tripped over his foot, and he
Steadied it by putting his hand behind its neck. It thanked him
MONTENEGRO
/ 4^1
in a strange sing-song. ** The little one is a Czech/* said Con-
stantine, his eyes following it benignly. “ Most of the visitors
here are Czechs/* said Sava, “ and we find them very quiet,
honest people. It is only the poorer kind that come here, trades-
men and clerks, for there is no big modern hotel, but they could
not be better behaved.** “ Yes, the Czechs are good,** said
Constantine, we Yugoslavs laugh at them, but they are very
good, and they are our brothers.** . The two men, nodding in
agreement, looked round at the brown and wholesome people,
who had by now all come out of the water and were lying still
and relaxed under thf thumb of rhe noon. Dragutin burst out
of his box, slapping himself on the chest. “ Now I feel like a
hero ! ** he said. Sho^v me a Tr.rk, show me a Croat, show
me a Schwab ! *’
As we made ou’- way back to the town Sava said, ** Now you
have seen what the Adriatic is like in summer, I hope you will
come back another year and will enjoy yourselves as much as
your King Edward (for I do not know how you stand in this
matter and whether you prefer to call him that or the Duke of
Windsor) did when he came here on his yacht. It was to me
that it fell to make the arrangements for his stay here, since my
district extends to Dubrovnik, and I must tell you that I could
not have had a pleasanter duty. I found him most sympathetic.
I have never had to look after any ruler, or indeed any public
character, who was so anxious to be considerate.’* He told us
how the Duke had taken pains to find out whether his presence
at a garden-restaurant meant that the police forbade people to
dance, and how he had moved his yacht from an anchorage
because the occupants of a villa near the landing-stage were
inconvenienced by the crowds that waited for him. This was
Sava’s form of homage to the day, to the bathe. He said nothing
about his bodily sensations, for that was contrary to the reticence
which is part of the heroic Montenegrin role ; but to show that
he was finding life agreeable he was relating agreeable anecdotes,
and he thought an anecdote would be specially agreeable to us
if it concerned our royal family.
We sat down at our table on the balcony. Roses grew
about the wooden pillars, among the napkins were scattered
pink geraniums, smelling of earth. For aperitif we drank a
wine of the country like a light port, but running thinner over
the tongue Sava’s reminiscences took a melancholy turn which
46 a BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
were entirely sincere, yet at the same time artistic, a phrase in
a minor key that gave an appropriate end to the melody, “ But
he could not be king,’* he said firmly ; “ he was a most admir-
able prince, but it was not right he should be king. That we
all realised one night at Dubrovnik. When he was at table it
happened that a telegram was delivered to him which was not
for him but for his secretary. It was hard for us to believe our
eyes when we saw him look at the telegram and toss it down
the table to the secretary. Do you understand ? He did not
give it to the waiter, he tossed it to his secretary — so.” At the
end of the gesture he shook his head sadly and finished his
glass. ” No, he could not have been king.”
Under my clothes my skin still kept the joy given by the salt
water, the freshness had not left my blood. They brought a
great platter of picturesque fish and another kind of wine. A
wind blew fragrance from the roses, and brought six white
sails scudding towards the town from the open sea. Constantine,
who was sitting next me, stood up. ” But what is this ? ” he
cried. ” Look at those automobiles ! ” Not far from the city
gate is an open space shaded with palm trees, where auto-
mobiles can be parked, and when we had left our own there it
had been alone. Now there were six or seven with it, all of
makes more costly than one would have expected to see at
Budva. ” Look, every one of them has its little flag ! They
are all diplomatic automobiles. Certainly they cannot have
come from the Legations at Belgrade. There is only one place
they can have come from, and that is Tirana, that is Albania.
I wish very much that we knew what it is with Albania.” We
stopped eating and sat with our eyes fixed on the enamelwork
and chromium that gleamed darkly in the shadow of the palms,
the little twitching flags. ” Must it be something important ? ”
I asked reluctantly. ” Certainly, it must be something very
important ! ” exclaimed Constantine. ” The diplomats have
not all come out of Albania merely to swim on the plage at
Budva ! They came into Yugoslavia so that they can telephone
and telegraph to their Governments without the Albanians
knowing what they say. I am afraid it is bad, very bad, with
Albania, for it cannot be good, since Italy has her foot in there.”
Sava said, ” It is again as it was in the time of the Turks.”
“ How can we find out what it is ? ” mourned Constantine, and
added bitterly, ” If I were an official here I would have known
MONTENEGRO
463
long ago, I would have known as soon as it happened.** Sava
marmoreally gave answer, But I am not in the police,** and
there might have been an acrimonious exchange had not Con-
stantine cried, “ Ah, now I can find out ! You see that young
man over there, on the other side of the road ? I know him
well. I tell you I have many friends and they are everywhere,
and he is from Albania, thither people who had some,
and was also almost as sublime a controversialist as Voltaire
when he met with an irr.itionaI fool, but Shaw stands for nothing
but a Socialism which has nothing to it except a belief that
it would be a nicer world if everybody were all clean and well
fed, which is bas ' J on no analysis of man and depends on no
theory of the State, and an entirely platitudinous denunciation
of hypocrisy, which nowhere rises to the level of Tartuffe. Of
course our country has produced better than Shaw and I found
them later, but they are not easy to find, for there is a lack of
continuity about our literature. A man starts up in isolation,
inspired by an idiosyncratic passion to write about a certain
subject, but rarely inspired to read what other people have
written about it. That is why French literature is of such service
to the mind, since each writer is fully aware of his own culture,
and knows when he takes part in an argument precisely to what
stage his predecessors have brought it.”
” But what is this you are saying about French literature ? ”
interrupted the golden-haired girl. I repeated it, and she ex-
claimed in amazement, ” French literature ! But surely all
French literature is trivial and artificial ? ” ” Trivial and arti-
ficial ! ” I echoed. ” Abelard ! Ronsard ! Joachim du Bellay !
Montaigne I Rabelais ! Racine ! Pascal ! La Fontaine ! Vol-
taire ! La Rochefoucauld I Balzac ! Baudelaire ! Victor Hugo !
Benjamin Constant ! Proust ! And Diderot — did you never
read Le Neveu de Rameau ? ” ” I do not read French,” she
said ; ”, hardly any of us learn French. But surely all these
people put together do not equal Goethe ? ” I grieved, for it
seemed to me that any one of them had as much to say as Goethe,
whose philosophy, indeed, boils down to the opinion, Ain*t
Nature grand ? I said, ” It is a pity you cannot read Montaigne ;
he also thought much about nature, though he thought of it not
48 o black lamb AND GREY FALCON
as grand, but as inevitable.*’ She looked at me as if she thought
that was no very great discovery to have made, and I looked
back at her, wondering what words would convey to her the
virtue that lies in the full acceptance of destiny, realising that
my words would convey it to her better than Montaigne’s. For
there was as yet nothing in her which could appreciate what
he meant when he said that nothing in the life of Alexander the
Great was so humble and mortal as his whimsical fancy for
deification, and that it was no use thinking to leave our humanity
behind, for if we walked on stilts we still had to walk on our legs,
and there was no way of sitting on the most elevated throne save
on the bottom. And I found myself smiling as I remembered
how he adds, inconsequently and yet with the most apposite
wisdom, that for old people life need not be so realistically
conceived, ** Or, la vieillesse a un peu besoin d’etre traitee
plus tendrement
Though I was completely preoccupied as I stared at her
face, my eyes eventually pressed some information about it on
my mind. I realised that her brows and her cheek-bones were
cast in a mould that had become very familiar to me in the past
few months, and that she was fair not negatively, like a Nordic
woman, but after the fashion of the golden exceptions to the
dark races, as if she had been loaded with rich gold pigment.
A suspicion made me look at her visiting-card, which I had
been twisting between my fingers, and I exclaimed, ‘‘ But you
are not an Austrian ! You have a Slav name I She answered,
** I have lived in Vienna nearly all my life,” but I did not notice
her tone and objected, ** All the same you must be Slav by
birth.” Miserably, shifting in her chair, with the demeanour
of a justly accused thief, she said, Yes ! Both my parents are
Croats.” I was embarrassed by her manner and said, “ Well,
I suppose you speak Serbo-Croat as well as German and
English, and that is another language for your studies.” She
answered passionately, ** No, indeed, I speak not a word of
Serbo-Croat. How should I ? I am Viennese, I have lived
here nearly all my life, I have not been back to Croatia since
I was grown-up, except for a few days in Zagreb.” ** And did
you not find the people there very clever ? ” I asked. ** I did
not speak to them,” she cried scornfully. I thought it a
horrible little town, so provincial.” ” Are you not at all proud
of having Slav blood in you ? ” I exclaimed. ** Why should I
EPILOGUE 481
be ? What is there to be proud about in being a Slav ? ** she
asked blankly.
Such is the influence that Central Eu|*ope exerts on its
surroundings. It cut off this girl from pride in her own race,
which would have been a pity had her race had much less to be
proud of than the superb achievement of defending European
civilisation from extinction by the Turks. It cut her off from
enlightenment by that French culture which has the advantage
over all others of having begun earlier, branching straight from
the Roman stem, and h.'.ving de'xloped most continuously.
What it offered her instead was sparse, wrs recent. It might
fairly be defined as Frederick the Great and Goethe. In music
it might have offered jnough to compensate for all its other
lacks, but it had annulled the harmonies of Bach and Beethoven,
Mozart and Haydn, by its preference for the false genius,
Wagner. It had left this girl flimsy as a jerry-built house with
no foundation deeper than the nineteenth century, when loyalty
to her Slav blood and adherence to the main current of European
culture would have made her heiress to the immense fortune
left by the Western and Eastern Roman Empire. Not only
Constantine, but this girl and her family, and many others like
them, had made this curious choice. Nothing is less true than
that men are greedy. Some prefer poverty to wealth, and some
even go so far as to prefer death to life. That I was to learn
when I returned to England.
This return meant, for me, going into retreat. Nothing in
my life had affected me more deeply than this journey through
Yugoslavia. This was in part because there is a coincidence
between the natural forms and colours of the western and
southern parts of Yugoslavia and the innate forms and colours
of my imagination. Macedonia is the country I have always
seen between sleeping and waking ; from childhood, when I
was weary of the place where I was, I wished it would turn into
a town like Yaitse or Mostar, Bitolj or Ochrid. But my journey
moved me also because it was like picking up a strand of wool
that would lead me out of a labyrinth in which, to my surprise,
I had found myself immured. It might be that when I followed
the thread to its end I would find myself faced by locked gates,
and that this labyrinth was my sole portion on this earth. But
at least I now knew its twists and turns, and what corridor led
into what vaulted chamber, and nothing in my life before I went
4^2 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
to Yugoslavia had ever made plain these mysteries. This experi-
ence made me say to myself, “ If a Roman woman had, some
years before the sack of Rome, realised why it was going to be
sacked and what motives inspired the barbarians and what the
Romans, and had written down all she knew and felt about it,
the record would have been of value to historians. My situa-
tion, though probably not so fatal, is as interesting.** Without
doubt it was my duty to keep a record of it.
So I resolved to put on paper what a typical Englishwoman
felt and thought in the late nineteen-thirties when, already con-
vinced of the inevitability of the second Anglo-German War,
she had been able to follow the dark waters of that event back
to its source. That committed me to what was in effect some
years of a retreat spent among fundamentals. I was obliged
to write a long and complicated history, and to swell that with
an account of myself and the people who went with me on my
travels, since it was my aim to show the past side by side with
the present it created. And while I grappled with the mass of
my material during several years, it imposed certain ideas
on me.
I became newly doubtful of empires. Since childhood I had
been consciously and unconsciously debating their value, be-
cause I was born a citizen of one of the greatest empires the
world has ever seen, and grew up as its exasperated critic.
Never at any time was I fool enough to condemn man for con-
ceiving the imperial theory, or to deny that it had often proved
magnificent in practice. In the days when there were striking
inequalities among the peoples of the earth, when some were
still ignorant of agriculture and the complex process that lies
behind the apparent simplicity of nomadism, and were therefore
outrageously predatory in their hunger, when some were still
candid in their enjoyment of murder, those further advanced
must have found the necessity to protect their goods and their
lives turn insensibly into a habit of conquest. In those times,
also, it could well be that barbarians might possess a metal or
a plant for which more cultured peoples had invented a bene-
ficial use, and might refuse them access to it from sheer sullen-
ness ; and then, should one hold a communist theory of life and
believe that all things are for all people, an attempt to break
down that refusal must be approved. It is true that long ago
it became untrue that peoples presented any serious damage
EPILOGUE
483
because of backwardness ; the threat of savagery has for long
lain in technical achievement. For many centuries, too, a war
waged by the civilised for access to mate:rials unused by their
primitive owners has failed to remain absolutely justifiable for
long, since the inequality between the parties involved tempted
the stronger to abuse. Bu<- -1918="" -="" -he="" .445="" .="" .men="" .nd="" .rs="" 025-7="" 1.="" 101="" 102="" 103="" 104="" 107="" 114.="" 114="" 118="" 121="" 122="" 123="" 124="" 125="" 1273="" 128="" 129="" 12="" 13-14="" 130-="" 130="" 131="" 132-4="" 133="" 134="" 135-7="" 135="" 1389="" 138="" 139="" 13="" 141="" 144="" 14="" 150-51="" 1516="" 151="" 153="" 154="" 155-6="" 155="" 156="" 157="" 159="" 15="" 160="" 161="" 162="" 165-6="" 165="" 166-7="" 1672-4.="" 16="" 17-18="" 170="" 171="" 172="" 175="" 177="" 179="" 17="" 180="" 181-3="" 183="" 1848.="" 184="" 185="" 1865="" 1867.="" 186="" 1875="" 1876="" 1887="" 1896.="" 1899.="" 18="" 1904.="" 1905="" 1906.="" 190="" 1911.="" 1911="" 1913.="" 1914-18="" 1914.="" 1914="" 1915.="" 1917.="" 1918.="" 1918="" 191="" 1920.="" 1920="" 1921.="" 1922.="" 1927.="" 1928.="" 1929.="" 1929="" 1930.="" 1931="" 1932.="" 1933.="" 1934.="" 1934="" 1936="" 1937.="" 1937="" 1938.="" 1938="" 1939.="" 1939="" 1940.="" 1940="" 1941.="" 1941="" 194="" 195="" 196="" 197="" 199="" 19th="" 1="" 2-3="" 200="" 201-3="" 202="" 204="" 206-7="" 206-8="" 206="" 209="" 210="" 213="" 217="" 219="" 21="" 221="" 222="" 224-6="" 224="" 226="" 227="" 228="" 229="" 22="" 231="" 232="" 233="" 234="" 235="" 236="" 237="" 238-9="" 239="" 23="" 241="" 243-9="" 243="" 244-5="" 244="" 245="" 246="" 251-3="" 253="" 255="" 256="" 257="" 258="" 259="" 25="" 261="" 263="" 264-5="" 264="" 265="" 267="" 26="" 271="" 272-3="" 273="" 275-6="" 276="" 278="" 27="" 281-2="" 281="" 286="" 287-9="" 28th="" 28tii="" 291="" 295="" 298="" 299="" 29="" 2="" 300="" 301="" 304-8="" 307-8="" 308="" 310="" 313-15="" 314="" 316-18="" 317-18="" 317="" 319="" 322-3="" 322="" 324="" 325="" 326="" 33-4="" 337-8="" 337="" 340="" 341="" 342="" 343-4="" 343="" 344="" 346="" 347="" 348-50="" 348="" 349="" 34vs="" 351-2="" 352="" 354="" 359="" 35="" 360="" 361-3="" 363="" 364="" 365="" 366="" 368="" 369="" 372-3="" 374="" 375="" 376="" 377="" 37="" 382="" 383-4="" 383="" 390="" 391="" 393="" 394="" 396="" 399-401="" 399-="" 399="" 3="" 401-4="" 401="" 403="" 404="" 405="" 406="" 407-8="" 407-9="" 407="" 41-2="" 41-3="" 412-13="" 412="" 413="" 414="" 416="" 417="" 418="" 419-20="" 41="" 42-3="" 420="" 421="" 424-5="" 427="" 432="" 438="" 440="" 442="" 445="" 446="" 447="" 448="" 452-3="" 453="" 455-6="" 455="" 456="" 457="" 459.="" 459="" 45="" 461="" 463="" 466="" 467="" 469="" 470-71="" 471-3="" 473="" 475-6="" 475="" 476="" 477="" 478-9="" 478="" 479="" 47="" 480="" 481-="" 481="" 482="" 483="" 484="" 485="" 486-7="" 486="" 487="" 488-9="" 488="" 489="" 490="" 491="" 492="" 493="" 494="" 495="" 496="" 497="" 498="" 499="" 49="" 4="" 50-51="" 500="" 502="" 503="" 504="" 505="" 506="" 507="" 508-9="" 509-10="" 509="" 50s="" 511="" 512="" 513="" 514="" 516="" 517="" 518="" 519="" 51="" 52-3="" 520="" 522="" 523-5="" 523="" 524="" 525="" 526="" 527-8="" 527="" 528="" 529="" 52="" 530="" 531="" 532="" 533="" 534="" 535="" 536="" 537="" 538="" 539="" 53="" 540="" 541="" 542="" 543="" 544="" 545="" 546="" 547-="" 547="" 548="" 549="" 54="" 550="" 551="" 552="" 553="" 554="" 555="" 556="" 557-9="" 557="" 559="" 55="" 561="" 563="" 567="" 568="" 569-70="" 569="" 577="" 578="" 58-9="" 580-81="" 581="" 582="" 585-6="" 585-7="" 585="" 588="" 589="" 58="" 591="" 593="" 595="" 596="" 598="" 599="" 59="" 5="" 5o8="" 5s6="" 5x0="" 600="" 601="" 602="" 603="" 605="" 606="" 608="" 609="" 610="" 612-13="" 612="" 613="" 617-20="" 617="" 61="" 62-3="" 620="" 621="" 623="" 624="" 628-9="" 62="" 630-31="" 630="" 631-3="" 631="" 632-3="" 633="" 634="" 635="" 636="" 637-8="" 637="" 638="" 640-41="" 640="" 641-2="" 642="" 651-2="" 651="" 66="" 67="" 72="" 73="" 74="" 75="" 77="" 7="" 83="" 85="" 89-90="" 89="" 8="" 91="" 92="" 95="" 96="" 97="" 98="" :3="" :="" a.="" a="" abandon="" abandoned="" abandonment="" abandonments="" abased="" abasement.="" abasement="" abdicated="" abdication="" aberdeen="" abhorrent.="" abhorrent="" ability="" abjec-="" able.="" able="" ably="" abominable="" abortive.="" abounds="" about="" above="" abroad="" abscess="" absence="" absolute="" absolutely="" absolution="" absolutism="" absurd="" abundance="" abundant="" acacias="" accept="" acceptable="" accepted="" accepting="" access="" accession="" accident.="" accidentally="" accommodation="" accompanied="" accomplice="" accomplished="" according="" account="" accredited="" accuracy="" accuses="" accusing="" accustomed="" aces.="" achette="" achieve-="" achieve="" achieved="" achievement.="" achievement="" acknowledge="" acknowledged="" acmillan="" acquaintance="" acquainted="" acquiesced="" acquire="" acquired="" acquiring="" acquit="" acres="" across="" act="" acted="" acting="" action.="" action="" actions="" active="" actively="" activities="" activity="" acton="" actors="" actresses="" acts="" actual="" actually="" actuate="" actuated="" ad-="" adam.="" adam="" adamantine="" adamic.="" adapted="" add="" added="" addressed="" adeney="" adequate="" adherents="" administer="" administered="" administra-="" administration="" administrative="" administrators="" admir-="" admirable="" admiration="" admire="" admirer="" admit="" admitted="" adolf="" adopted="" adorable="" adrianople="" adriatic="" adult="" adults.="" adults="" advance="" advantage="" advantages="" adventure="" adventurers="" adverse="" advisable="" aegean="" aehrenthal="" aerial="" aeroplane.="" aeroplanes="" aesthetic="" affairs="" affect="" affected="" affects="" afford="" afraid.="" africa.="" africa="" african="" africans="" after-="" after="" aftermath="" afterv="" afterwards="" again="" against="" agathias="" age-old="" age.="" age="" agent="" ages.="" ages="" aggression="" aggressive="" ago="" agony="" agram="" agrarian="" agreeable="" agreement="" agricultural="" agriculture="" ah="" ahead="" aid="" aided="" aimed="" air-="" air-war-="" air="" airfield.="" airfield="" airfields="" airplanes="" airports="" alarmed="" alas="" albania="" albanian="" albanians.="" albanians="" albert="" albigenses="" alchemy="" alcohol="" alert="" alex-="" alexander="" alexis="" ali="" alien="" alienated="" alienating="" aliens="" align="" alike.="" alike="" all-fours="" all.="" all="" allegation="" allegations="" alleged="" alliance="" allied="" allies="" allocated="" allotments="" allow="" allowance="" allowed="" allowing="" allusion="" ally.="" ally="" almost="" alone.="" alone="" along="" alongside="" alpine="" already="" also="" altar="" altdorf="" alteration="" altered="" altering="" although="" always="" am="" amazed="" amazing="" ambassador.="" ambassador="" ambitious="" ambridge="" ambrose="" amenable.="" america.="" america="" american="" americans="" amity="" among="" amp="" amplitude="" amuse="" amusement="" amusing.="" an-="" an="" analogues="" anarchy="" anastasia="" ance="" ancestors="" ancient="" and="" ander="" andrassy="" andreis="" andrews="" andriyevitsa="" andronicus="" angela="" angelina="" angels="" anger="" angry="" angular="" animal="" animals="" anjou="" anna="" anne="" annexa-="" annexation="" annexed="" annihilate="" annihilated="" annihilating="" annihilation="" announced="" announcement="" announcements="" announcing="" annoyed.="" another="" anschluss="" anstalt="" answer="" answered="" antagonism="" ante="" anti-aircraft="" anti-democratic="" anti-nazi="" anti-semitic="" anti-semitism="" anti-slav="" anticipation="" anton.="" ants="" anxious="" any-="" any="" anybody="" anyone="" anything="" anywhere="" aocialist="" apart="" apartments="" apis="" apotheosis="" apparent="" apparently="" appeal="" appealing="" appear-="" appearance="" appearances="" appeared="" appears="" appeasement="" appetite="" apples="" application="" applied="" applies="" apply="" applying="" appointed="" appointing.="" appositeness.="" appreciate="" appreciated="" apprehension="" apprehensions="" apprenticeship="" appro-="" approach-="" approach="" appropriate="" approximations="" april="" apt="" ar="" arabian="" arc="" archbishop="" archduke="" archi-="" architect="" architectural="" architecture="" archives="" ardently="" ards="" are.="" are="" area="" argument.="" arisen="" aristocracy="" aristocrat="" arm="" armed="" armenian="" armexed="" armies.="" armies="" arms="" army="" arnold="" around="" arrange-="" arranged="" arrest.="" arrest="" arrival="" arrived="" arsenev="" arsenius="" arsons="" arstetten="" art.="" art="" arta-="" artamanoff.="" artamanoff="" arthur="" artillerymen="" artisans.="" artisans="" artist="" artistic="" artists="" artless="" artlessness="" as="" ascension="" ascertained="" ascribed="" aseff="" asia.="" asia="" asiatic="" aside="" ask="" asked.="" asked="" asking="" aspalaton="" aspects="" aspirations="" ass="" assail="" assailants.="" assassina-="" assassinated.="" assassinated="" assassination="" assassinations="" assassins="" assault="" assell="" asser-="" assertions="" assistance="" assisted="" associa-="" associated="" associates="" association.="" assume="" assumed="" assurance="" assured="" aston-="" astonish-="" astonished.="" astonishing="" astra="" astray="" astute="" at="" ataturk="" ate="" ated="" atheism="" athens="" athos="" atmosphere="" atom="" atonement="" attach="" attache="" attack="" attacked="" attacks.="" attain="" attained="" attainment.="" attempt="" attempted="" attempting="" attend="" attended="" attentat.="" attentat="" attention="" attila="" attitude.="" attitude="" attribute.="" au="" aubrey="" audacity="" audience="" audiences="" august="" augustine.="" augustine="" augustus="" ause="" austen="" austere="" austria-hungary="" austria.="" austria="" austrian="" austrians.="" austrians="" austro-hungarian="" author="" authorities="" authority="" authors="" automatism="" automobile="" autonomy="" avail="" avala="" avars="" averse="" aviator="" aviators="" avoids="" avzi="" await="" awaiting="" awake="" awakened="" awakes="" aware="" awareness.="" away="" axe="" axis.="" axis="" ayot="" b.="" b="" babel="" babuna="" babunsky="" baby="" back.="" back="" backs="" backward="" backwards="" bad="" bade="" badge="" badia="" baerlein.="" bags.="" baker="" balance="" balanced="" balbus="" balcony="" baldwin="" balkan="" balkans.="" balkans="" ballads="" balloon="" baltic="" balts="" banalisation="" band="" bandit="" banditry="" bands="" bankers="" bankrupt.="" bankrupt="" bankruptcy="" barbares="" barbarian="" barbarians="" barbarity="" bard="" bardovtsi="" bare="" baroque="" barracks.="" barrage="" barred="" barren="" barricaded="" barriers="" barthou="" basaricheck="" base="" based="" baseless="" baser="" bases="" bashkirtseff="" basil="" basis="" basket="" bath="" bather="" battalions="" battery="" battifol="" battle-field="" battle="" battlefield.="" battlefield="" battue="" baynes="" be-="" be="" beak="" bear="" bearded="" beardsley="" bearing="" bears="" beasts="" beat="" beaten="" beating.="" beautiful="" beauty="" became="" because="" become="" becomes="" becoming="" bedevilled="" been.="" been="" befallen="" befell="" before.="" before="" beforehand="" began="" beget="" begetting="" beggar="" beggars="" begin="" beginning="" beginnings="" begot="" behalf="" behave="" behaved="" behaviour="" beheld="" behest.="" behind="" behold="" being="" beings.="" beings="" bejn="" bektash="" bektashi="" bel-="" bela="" belgium="" belgrade.="" belgrade="" belief="" believe="" believed="" belittle="" bell="" belligerent="" bellirn="" belonged.="" belonged="" belonging="" belongs="" below="" belts="" belvedere="" bemadotte="" benefactors="" benefit="" benefited="" benevolently="" benign="" bent="" bequeathed="" berchtold="" berdyaev="" berenson="" berg="" bergson="" berlin.="" berlin="" bernard="" bersagliere.="" bertrand="" beset="" beside.="" beside="" besides="" best="" betraying="" better="" between="" beust="" bewilderment="" beyond="" bhtish="" bias="" bible="" bibliographical="" bibliography="" bigger="" bilinski="" bind="" binds="" binye="" bird.="" bird="" birds="" birmingham="" birth.="" birth="" birthday="" bis="" bishops="" bismarck="" bitolj.="" bitolj="" bitter="" bitterness="" black="" blackened="" blackmailers="" blackwood="" blake="" blame="" blanche="" blanched="" bland="" blatant="" blazed="" bleak="" bleating="" bled.="" bleed="" bleeding="" blessing="" blessings="" bliite="" blind="" blindfolded.="" blindish="" bliss="" block="" blocks="" blonde="" blood-="" blood-feuds="" blood.="" blood="" bloodiest="" bloodshed="" bloom="" bloomsbury="" blossoms="" blotted="" blow="" blown="" blue="" boarded="" bocka="" bocklin="" bodies="" body.="" body="" boer="" bogolyub="" bogomils="" bohemia="" boisseva="" bolsheviks="" bolshevism="" bolshevist="" bomb.="" bomb="" bomba="" bombard-="" bombarded="" bombardment="" bombay="" bombed="" bombs="" bondage="" boniface="" bonsai="" book.="" book="" books.="" books="" bookshop="" booty="" border="" borders.="" bore="" bored="" boris="" born="" boscovitch="" bosna="" bosnia.="" bosnia="" bosnians="" bosniaque="" bosom="" both="" bought="" bound="" bourgeoisie.="" bourgeoisie="" bowed="" bowels="" bows="" box="" boy="" boys.="" boys="" br.ttle="" brailsford="" brains="" branding="" bread="" breaking="" breed="" brehm="" brenner="" bresnitz="" breweries="" bribes="" bridge="" bridgehead="" brief="" briefest="" bright="" brighter="" brightness="" brilliant="" bring="" bringing="" brings="" britain="" british="" broad="" broadcasting="" broke="" broken="" brooding="" brother="" brothers="" brought="" brown="" browne="" bruised="" bruno="" brushed="" brutality="" brutish="" brutishness="" bryennius="" bucharest="" budapest="" buddhist="" buds.="" budva="" buf="" buik="" build="" builders="" building="" buildings.="" buildings="" built="" bulgaria.="" bulgaria="" bulgarian="" bulgarians="" bulk="" bully="" burden="" bureaucracy="" bureaucrats="" buried.="" buried="" burn="" burned.="" burned="" bursts="" bury.="" bury="" business.="" business="" bustling="" busy="" but="" butchered="" butcheries="" butchery.="" buy.="" buy="" by-path="" by:ant-ne="" by="" byron.="" byzantine="" byzantines.="" byzantines="" byzantium.="" byzantium="" c.="" c="" cabaret="" cabinet="" calculations="" caliban="" call="" called="" callousness="" calls="" calumnies="" cam-="" cambridge="" came.="" came="" campaign="" campaigns="" campanile="" camps.="" camps="" can="" canal.="" cannebiere.="" cannot="" cantacuzenus.="" cantacuzenus="" capable="" capacity="" capital="" capitalism="" capitalist="" capitulated="" capitulation.="" captivity="" care.="" care="" cared="" careless="" carillon="" carlyle="" carol="" carried.="" carried="" carries="" carry="" carrying="" case.="" case="" cases="" cast="" casualties="" catacombs="" cataleptic="" catalogue="" catastrophe="" catastrophic="" category="" cathedral.="" cathedral="" catherine="" catholic="" catholicism="" catta.="" cattaro="" cattle="" caught="" cause="" caused="" cavalry="" cavernous="" ceased="" ceded="" celebrated="" celebrates="" cell="" ceme-="" cemetery="" cent.="" cent="" centage="" central="" centres="" centuries.="" centuries="" century.="" century="" cepting="" ceremony="" cerned="" certain="" certainly="" certainty="" cetcrmination="" cettinje="" ch="" chabrinovitch.="" chahi="" chamberlain="" chance.="" chance="" chancellor="" chandeliers="" change="" changed="" changes.="" chant="" chaplet="" chapman="" chaque="" character-="" character.="" character="" characterise="" characteristic="" characteristics="" characters="" charge="" charged="" charles="" charm="" charming="" chat="" chattering="" chauffeur="" cheap="" check="" checked="" cheddo="" cheer="" cheerfully="" cheering="" cheers="" cherry="" chestnuts="" chief="" chiefly="" child-="" child="" childish.="" childish="" children="" chill="" chimneys="" chinese="" chivalrous="" chivalry.="" choice="" choked="" choose="" chop-chop="" chorus="" chose="" chosen="" chotek="" chris-="" christian="" christianity="" christians="" chronicling.="" church.="" church="" churches="" churchill="" ciano="" ciency="" cigarette-butts="" cing="" circle="" circled="" circumstance="" circumstances="" citation="" cited="" cities="" citizen="" citizens="" city.="" city="" civil="" civilian="" civilians="" civilisation.="" civilisation="" civilised="" civilising="" claimed="" claiming="" claims="" class="" classes.="" classes="" classic="" clause="" clauses="" clean="" cleansed="" clear="" cleared="" cleavage="" clench.="" clenched="" clericalism="" clever="" cliff.="" climb="" clique="" cloak="" cloaks="" clock="" close-knit="" close="" closed="" closing="" clothed="" clothes="" clubs="" cluded="" clue="" coarser="" coast="" cockney="" cod="" code="" coerce="" coffee.="" coffin.="" coffin="" cognisance="" coin="" coincide="" col-="" cold="" collaborate="" collaborated="" collaborating="" collaboration="" collapse="" colleagues="" collected="" college="" colossal="" colour="" coloured="" colours.="" colours="" column="" com-="" combination="" combined="" come.="" come="" comedy="" comes="" comfort-="" comfort="" comfortable="" comic="" comical="" comically="" coming="" command="" comment="" commission="" commit="" commits="" committed="" common="" commonly="" commonplace="" communicants="" communicate="" communications.="" communications="" communion="" communist="" communities="" community="" comnena="" compact="" company="" compared="" compatriots.="" compelled="" competent="" competition="" complacency="" complaints="" complete="" completed="" completely="" complex="" complexity="" complicated="" complicity="" composed="" composer="" comprehensible="" compulsion="" comrade="" comrades="" comradeship="" con-="" conceived="" concentrating="" concentration="" conception="" conceptions="" concerned="" concerning="" concession="" conciliated="" conclusion="" concorde="" condemned="" condition="" conditions="" conduct="" conducted="" conference="" confessing="" confidently="" confined="" confirm="" confirmed="" confirming="" conflict="" confronting="" confuse="" confused="" confusion.="" confusion="" confusions="" congregations="" congress="" conirol="" connected="" connection.="" connivance="" connoisseur="" conquer="" conquered="" conquering="" conquerors="" conquest.="" conquest="" conquests.="" conrad="" conscientiously="" consenting="" consequences="" conservative="" considerable="" considerably="" consideration.="" consideration="" considerations.="" considering="" consistently="" consolation="" conspicuous="" conspiracy="" conspirators.="" conspirators="" conspired="" constantine="" constantinople="" constantly="" constc.ntinopie="" constitution="" constrained="" constrains="" consul-general="" consult="" consulted="" consume="" consumed="" consumes="" consummating="" contact="" contacts="" contained="" containing="" contemned.="" contemplating="" contemplation="" contemporaries="" contended="" contending="" content="" continent="" continue="" continued.="" continued="" continues="" continuing="" continuity="" continuous="" contrary.="" contrary="" contrasts="" contributed="" contribution="" contrived="" contriving="" control="" controlled="" controversialists="" controversies="" controversy="" convenient="" conversations="" convert="" converted="" convey="" convince.="" convinced="" cooperate="" cooperation="" cope="" copied="" cordon="" core="" corporeal="" corpse="" corpses.="" corpses="" correct="" corrective="" corresponded="" corrupt="" corrupted="" corruption="" cost="" costes="" cots="" could="" council="" count="" counter-argument="" counter-forces.="" counterfeit.="" counterpoint.="" countless="" countries.="" countries="" country.="" country="" countrymen="" countryside="" counts.="" county="" coup="" coupe="" courage="" course="" court.="" court="" courteously="" courtesy="" courts.="" courts="" cousin="" covered="" covering="" covld="" cowardice.="" cowardice="" cowards="" craft="" craftsman="" create="" created="" creation="" creative="" creature="" credibly.="" credit="" creditable="" credulous="" crept="" crests="" cried="" cries="" crime.="" crime="" criminal.="" criminal="" criminals="" cringing="" crise="" crisis.="" crisis="" critical="" crms="" croat="" croatia="" croatian="" croatians="" croats="" crops="" crossed="" crosses="" crowd="" crowded="" crowds="" crucial="" cruel="" cruelly="" cruelty="" cry="" cryi="" crying="" crystal="" culti-="" cultivate="" cultivated="" culture.="" culture="" cultured="" cum="" cumont="" cupboard="" cupiscence="" curious="" curiously="" curled="" currency="" current="" curtailing="" curtained="" curtains="" curve="" cust="" custodian="" custody="" customer="" customs-="" customs="" cut-throats="" cut="" cycle="" cynic="" cynical="" cynically="" czech="" czecho-slovakia="" czechs="" d.="" d="" daddy="" daemonic="" daldy="" dalmatia="" dalmatian="" dalmatians="" dalmatie="" damnation="" dance="" dandalos="" danger="" dangerous="" dangers.="" danilo="" dans="" danube.="" danube="" danubian="" dared="" daring="" dark="" darker="" darkly="" darkness.="" darkness="" darzad="" das="" date="" david="" dawn="" day.="" day="" daybreak="" days.="" days="" ddvorde="" de-="" de="" dead="" deal="" dealer="" dealing="" dealings="" deals="" dealt="" dean="" dear="" death-wish="" death.="" death="" deaths="" debates="" debt="" decade="" decadence="" decamp="" decay.="" decay="" decency="" decent="" dechani="" decisive="" deck="" declar-="" declaration="" declare="" declared="" declaring="" decline="" decoration.="" decrepit="" ded.catior="" dedicated="" dedinye="" deduce="" dee="" deed="" deeds="" deep="" deeper="" deeply="" defeat.="" defeat="" defeated.="" defeated="" defeats="" defec-="" defence.="" defence="" defencelessness.="" defences="" defend="" defending="" defensive="" defiant="" defied="" defiled="" defining="" definite="" definition="" deflected.="" degeneration="" degradation="" degrading="" degree="" deh="" delayed.="" deliberate="" deliberately="" deliberations="" delicacy.="" delicate="" delicious="" delight="" delighted="" delightful="" delighting="" delights="" delirium="" deliverance="" delivered="" delivering="" delusion="" demain="" demand="" demanded.="" demanded="" demanding="" demands.="" demands="" democrat="" democratic="" democrats.="" democrats="" demonstrated="" demonstrators="" demoralised="" denkmal="" denounced="" density="" depend-="" dependency.="" deplorable="" deplore="" deporting="" deposit="" deposition="" depravation="" depraved="" der="" dercroyed.="" derived="" derives="" descendant="" descended="" descent="" describe.="" described="" describes="" describing="" desert="" designed="" designs="" desire="" desired="" desires="" desirous="" desolate="" desolation="" despair="" desperate.="" desperate="" despised="" despises="" despoilment="" destinies="" destiny.="" destiny="" destitu-="" destitute="" destroy="" destroyed.="" destroyed="" destroying="" destruction="" detached="" detachment="" details="" detected.="" deter-="" determination="" determinations="" determine="" determined="" determines="" determining="" detested="" devastated="" developed="" development="" devil="" devoted="" devotion="" devoured="" devourer.="" dgcy="" di="" diabetic="" diadem="" dictators.="" dictators="" dictatorship="" did.="" did="" die.="" die="" died="" diehl="" dienstzeit="" difference="" differences="" different="" differentiation="" difficult="" difficulties="" difficulty="" difflcult="" dignified="" dignity="" dilemma="" diminishment="" dimitriyevitch="" diners="" diocletian="" diplomacy="" diplomat="" diplomatic="" direct="" directe="" directed="" direction="" directions="" directly="" dirty="" dis-="" disadvantages="" disaffected="" disagreeable.="" disagreeable="" disappeared="" disappointed="" disappointment="" disaster="" disastrous="" disciples="" discipline="" disclose="" disclosed.="" discomfort="" discordant="" discouragement="" discover="" discovered="" discoveries="" discovery="" discretion.="" discussing="" discussion="" disease="" disfigured="" disgrace="" disguise.="" disgusted="" disgusting="" disharmony="" dishonour.="" disliked="" dismembering="" dismissed="" dismisses="" disorder="" disordered="" disorganisation="" dispensation="" dispensing="" dispersed="" disposal="" disposition="" disputes="" disregard="" dissent="" dist="" distances="" distant="" distinct="" distinguishable="" distinguishes="" distract="" distracted="" distraction="" distressed="" distribution="" district.="" district="" districts="" distrust="" divergence.="" divergent="" diverse="" diverted="" divide="" divided="" divides="" dividually="" dividuals="" divine="" dl.="" do="" doctor="" doctors="" doctrine="" document="" documented="" does="" doing="" dollfuss.="" dollfuss="" dom="" dombrievitch="" domes="" domestic="" dominant="" dominantly="" domination.="" domination="" domineering="" dominions="" don="" done="" donn="" doom.="" doom="" door.="" door="" douanier.="" double="" doubt.="" doubt="" doubted="" doubtful="" doubts="" down="" dozen="" dr.="" draft="" draga.="" draga="" dragged="" dragutin="" drama="" dramas="" dramatic="" drastic="" draw="" drawn="" dreadful="" dream="" dreams="" dress="" dressed="" dresses="" drin="" drink="" drinking="" drive="" driven="" driving="" dropped="" dropping="" drops="" drought="" drove="" drowsy="" drudgery="" drug="" drugged="" drunk="" drunken="" drunkenly="" du="" dual="" dubious="" dubrovnik="" ducas="" duchess="" due="" dug="" dullards="" dumb="" dung="" during="" dushan="" dust="" dutat="" dutaty="" duty="" dwarf="" dwarfed="" dweller="" dwelling-houses.="" dwellings="" dwindling="" dyavod="" dying="" dynamic="" dynastie="" dynasty="" e.="" e3="" e="" each="" eader="" eager="" eagerly="" ear="" earlier="" earliest="" early="" earn="" earnest.="" earnest="" earnestness="" ears.="" ears="" earth.="" earth="" earthly="" ease.="" ease="" easier.="" easier="" easily="" east.="" east="" eastern="" easy.="" easy="" eat="" eating-houses="" echoes="" eclipse="" economic="" economy="" ecstasy.="" ed="" edge="" edict="" edition="" educated="" education="" edwards.="" effect.="" effecting="" effi-="" efficacious.="" efficacy="" effort.="" effort="" efforts="" egypt="" eight="" eighteen="" eighteenth-century="" eighteenth="" einemann.="" einemann="" einer="" einst="" either="" elaborately="" elderly="" elected="" electors="" element="" elementary="" elements="" elephantines="" eleventh="" elijah="" eliot="" elizabeth="" elizabethan="" ell="" elle="" else="" elsewhere="" em="" embarrassed="" emblematic="" embraces="" embroider="" embroideries="" embryo="" embryos.="" embryos="" emerge.="" emerged="" emergence="" emergency.="" emferor="" emli="" emotion="" emperor="" emperors="" empire.="" empire="" empires="" employed="" empress="" empty="" empyrean="" emulsions="" en-="" enable="" enabled="" enacted="" enactment="" ence.="" ence="" ences="" encies="" encircled="" enclose="" enclosed="" enclosing="" encountered="" encouraged="" encouragement="" end="" ende="" ended="" ends="" endure="" enemies="" enemy="" energy="" enforced="" engaged="" engendered="" engenders="" engineered="" engineers="" england.="" england="" english="" englishmen="" enjoy="" enjoyed="" enjoying="" enjoyment="" enlightenmc="" enlightenment="" enn="" enough="" enquire="" enrico="" enslavement="" ensued="" entangles="" enter-="" enter="" entered="" enterprise="" entertained="" enthusiasm="" enthusiastic="" entirely="" entourage="" entrenched="" entrusted="" entry="" envy.="" epilogue="" equal="" equality="" equalled="" equally="" equals="" equerry="" equipoise="" equipped="" equivalent="" eration="" erbigny="" erected="" error.="" erstevens.="" ery="" erzherzog="" es="" escaped.="" escaped="" especially="" essay="" essence="" essential="" essentially="" est="" estab-="" establish="" established="" estate="" estates="" este="" esteem="" estimate="" estonia="" et="" etat="" etc="" eternal="" eternity="" ethuen="" eucharist="" eugene="" eurofe="" europe.="" europe="" european="" europeans="" evans.="" even="" evening="" event.="" event="" events="" ever.="" ever="" every="" everyone="" everything="" everywhere="" evidence="" evil.="" evil="" evzones="" ex-="" exact="" exactly="" exaggerate="" exaggerated="" exalt="" exaltation="" exalted="" examination="" examined="" example.="" example="" exceedingly="" excellence="" excellency="" except="" exceptional="" exceptions="" excess="" excessive="" exchange="" excited="" excitement.="" excitement="" excuse="" execu-="" executed.="" executed="" executioners.="" exercised="" exercising="" exhibiting="" exhilarated="" exhilarating="" exile.="" exile="" exiles="" exist="" existed="" existence="" existing="" expatriate="" expectant="" expectation="" expected="" expeditions="" expenditure="" expense="" expensive="" experi-="" experience.="" experience="" experienced="" experiences="" experiment="" expert="" experts="" explained="" exploitation="" explosions="" exporter="" exposed="" exposition="" express="" expressed="" expressing="" expression.="" exquisite="" extending="" extension="" extermination="" extinct.="" extinction="" extortion="" extra-="" extracted="" extraordinarily="" extraordinary="" extravagance="" extreme.="" extreme="" extremely="" exultant="" eye-witness="" eye="" eyelashes="" eyes.="" eyes="" f.="" face="" faced="" faces="" facile="" facing="" fact.="" fact="" factions.="" factious="" factor="" factories="" factors="" facts="" factually="" facturer="" faculties="" faded="" fading="" failed="" fails="" failure="" failures="" faint="" faintest="" faintly="" fair="" fairer="" faith.="" faith="" faithful="" falcon="" fall="" fallen="" falling="" falls="" false="" falsely="" fame="" familiar="" families.="" families="" family="" famine="" famous="" fancies="" fancy="" fantasies="" fantastic="" fantasticating="" fantasy="" far="" fare.="" farm="" farmer="" farms="" fascinating="" fascination="" fascism.="" fascism="" fascist="" fashion="" fast="" fat="" fate="" father="" fathers="" fault="" faults="" fausts="" favour.="" favour="" favoured="" favouritism="" fay="" fealty.="" fear.="" fear="" feared="" fearless.="" fearlessness.="" feat.="" feathers="" feature="" features="" february="" feckless="" fecundating="" fed-="" fed="" federation="" feel="" feeling="" feet="" felicity="" fell="" fellow-="" fellow-countrymen="" felt="" ferdi-="" ferdinand.="" ferdinand="" ferocious="" ferocity="" ferred="" fertile="" fervent="" feud.="" feud="" feudal="" feuds="" few="" fey="" ff.="" fic-="" ficial="" fieice="" field-="" field="" fielding="" fields="" fiercest="" fifteen="" fifty-eight="" fifty="" figaro.="" fight="" fighters="" fighting.="" fighting="" fights="" figure="" figures="" fiihrer.="" filial="" fill="" fills="" fin="" finance="" financial="" financiers="" find="" finding="" finds="" fine="" finest="" finger="" finish.="" finish="" finland="" finns="" fire-eater.="" fire="" firm="" firmly="" first="" fisheries="" fishermen="" fist="" fists="" fitted="" fitting="" five="" fix="" fixed="" flabby="" flag="" flagged="" flame.="" flames="" flanders="" flanks="" flats.="" flats="" flaws="" fled="" flee="" fleets="" flesh.="" flesh="" fleshless="" flew="" flies="" flight="" flimsy="" flinch="" flood="" floor.="" floor="" floors="" florists="" flow="" flower="" flowers="" flown="" fodor="" fold="" folds="" folk-medicine="" folk="" follow="" followed="" followers.="" followers="" following="" folly="" fomented="" fomenting="" fond="" food="" foodstuffs="" foolish="" foot="" footman.="" footman="" for-="" for="" forbidden="" forbids="" force="" forced="" forces.="" forces="" forcing="" fore-="" fore="" foreboding="" forefathers="" foreign="" foreigners="" foresaw="" foreseen="" forestalled="" forests.="" forests="" foretold.="" forgave="" forged="" forget="" forgetfulness="" forgive="" forgotten="" form="" formea="" formed="" former="" formidable="" forms="" formulating="" forth="" fortified="" fortress="" fortresses="" fortunate="" fortune.="" fortune="" forty="" forward.="" forward="" forwards="" fostered.="" fought="" foul-smelling="" foul="" found="" founda-="" foundations.="" foundations="" founded="" fountains="" four="" fourteen="" fourth="" fraction="" fragilities="" fragments="" framework.="" france.="" france="" frank-="" frantically="" franz="" free-="" free-thinking="" free.="" free="" freedom="" french.="" french="" frenchman="" frenrh="" frenzy="" frequented="" frequently="" fresco.="" fresco="" frescoes.="" frescoes="" friend.="" friend="" friendly="" friends.="" friends="" friendship="" frightened="" frivolous="" fro="" from="" front-line="" front="" frontal="" fronted="" frontier.="" frontier="" frontiers.="" frontiers="" frost.="" frozen="" fruit.="" fruit="" fruiting="" fruitless="" frushka="" frustrate="" frustration="" fsar="" ft="" fugitives="" ful="" fulfil="" fulfilled.="" fulfilled="" fulfilment="" full="" fullest="" fully="" fulness="" fundamental="" funeral="" furnished="" furniture="" furter="" further="" furtive="" furtively="" fury="" fused="" futile="" future.="" future="" g.="" g="" gain="" gained.="" gained="" gallantry="" galleries="" game="" games="" ganda="" gang="" gangs="" gap="" garded="" garden="" gardens="" gardner="" garrison="" garvilo="" gastein="" gates="" gathered="" gathering="" gathers="" gauleiter="" gave="" gavrilo="" gay="" gene="" general.="" general="" generally="" generals="" generation="" generations="" generous="" genius.="" genius="" geniuses="" gentil="" gentle="" gentleness="" genuine="" georgevitch="" ger-="" gerda="" germain="" german-dictated="" german.="" german="" germans.="" germans="" germany.="" germany="" geschichte="" gesture="" get="" getting="" ghastly="" ghostly="" ghosts="" gibbering="" gibbon="" gif.="" gifted="" gifts="" gilbert="" gilded="" gin="" giovanna="" gipsies="" gipsy="" gird="" girl="" girls="" girths="" gishly="" give="" given="" gives="" giving="" glad="" gladness="" gladstone="" glassy="" gloat="" gloomiest="" glorified="" glorious="" glory="" glowing="" glutted="" gnaw="" go.="" go="" goaded="" goal="" god.="" god="" gods="" goebbels="" goering="" goes="" goethe="" going="" golden-haired="" golden="" gone.="" gone="" good.="" good="" goodness="" goods="" gora="" gorievitch="" gospel="" got.="" got="" gotha="" gothic="" gotten="" govern-="" govern="" governed="" governing="" government.="" government="" governor="" governors="" gr="" gra.ed="" grachanitsa="" grade="" graded="" gradient="" grado="" gradually="" graham.="" graham="" grain="" gramo-="" granaries="" granary.="" grand="" grandfather="" grandsons="" grant="" grasping="" grasps="" grass="" grasses="" grateful.="" gratification.="" gratify="" gratitude="" gratuitous="" grave.="" grave="" graves="" gre-="" great-grandmother="" great="" greater="" greatest="" greatly="" greatness="" grecs="" greece.="" greece="" greed="" greediest="" greek="" greeks.="" greeks="" green="" greta="" grew="" grey="" grieve="" grieved="" grimace="" grimly="" grin="" grinning="" grinzing="" grip="" gripped="" groaned="" grol="" gross="" grosser="" grossmacht="" grotesque="" ground.="" ground="" grounds="" group="" grovel="" groves="" grow="" growing="" grown="" growth="" grudges="" gruity="" grumble="" grumbling="" guaranteed="" guard="" guardians="" guards="" gucirdians="" guerilla="" guess="" guessed="" guide="" guides="" guilt="" guise="" gulf="" gun="" gunmen="" guns="" gunther="" gusto="" guy="" h.="" h="" ha="" habits="" habsburg="" had="" hair-splitting="" haji="" half-comprehended="" half-for-="" half-past="" half-smiling="" half="" hall="" halls="" hallucinated="" ham.="" hamlet="" hamstrung="" hand.="" hand="" handed="" handicap="" handing="" handling="" hands.="" hands="" handsome="" handsomer="" hankey.="" hans="" happen.="" happen="" happened="" happening.="" happening="" happens="" happier="" happily="" happiness.="" happiness="" happy="" hapsburg="" hapsburgs="" hard-hearted="" hard="" hardened="" harder="" hardly="" hardships="" hare="" harmonious.="" harmony="" harn="" harnack="" harnessing="" harrison.="" harrying="" harsh="" harvest.="" harvest="" has="" hatchet="" hated="" hater="" hatever="" hatred="" haunches="" have="" having="" he="" head="" headless="" heads="" healthy="" hear="" heard="" heart.="" heart="" hearth.="" hearths="" hearthstones="" hearts="" heave="" heaven="" heavenly="" heavy="" heights="" heil="" heimwehr="" held="" helen="" hell="" hells="" help="" helpless="" hen="" hence.="" hence="" henceforth="" henceforward="" henry="" her.="" her="" heracleia="" herbert="" herds="" here="" heresy="" heroes="" heroic="" heroism="" herr="" herrings.="" herself="" herzegovina="" herzegovinian="" herzegovinians="" hesitate="" hesitated="" heuriger="" hiatus="" hidden="" hideous="" hieiatic="" hier="" high-explosive="" high-road="" high-roads.="" high="" highest="" highly="" hilandar="" hill="" hills="" hillside="" him.="" him="" himself.="" himself="" hinted="" hinterland="" hints="" hiroshige="" his="" histoire="" historian="" historical="" histories="" history.="" history="" hit="" hitherto="" hitler.="" hitler="" hitlerism="" hive="" hobble="" hodges="" hof="" hoisted="" hold="" holding="" holds="" hole="" holic="" holiness="" holland="" hollow="" holocaust="" holy.="" holy="" home.="" home="" homeless.="" homeless="" homes="" honest="" honey="" honour="" honourable.="" honourable="" hood="" hoop="" hope.="" hope="" hoped.="" hoped="" hopeful="" hopeless="" horde="" hore="" horrible="" horribly="" horrifying.="" horror="" horsemanship="" horses="" hospitable="" hospitals="" host="" hostile="" hostility="" hotel="" hotzendorf.="" hour.="" hour="" hours="" house="" houses="" housing="" how-="" how="" however="" hrebelianovitch.="" huckstering="" huge="" human="" humanity.="" humanity="" humble="" humbug.="" humbug="" humbugging.="" humiliated="" humiliating="" humiliation="" humorous="" hun="" hundred="" hung="" hungarian="" hungarians="" hungary="" hunger="" hungr="" hungry="" hunting-lodge="" husband="" hy="" hypocrisy="" hypocritical="" hypothesis="" hysterical="" i-="" i.="" i.m.r.o.="" i4="" i55="" i8q="" i8th="" i933="" i="" ib="" ibly="" ice="" icts="" icy="" idea="" ideas="" identical="" identity="" idiosyncrasy.="" idiot="" ienna="" if.="" if="" ig="" ignominy="" ignorance.="" ignorance="" ignorant="" ignore="" ignored="" igo8="" ii.="" ii="" iic="" iignificance="" iii="" il="" ill-="" ill-equipped="" ill-health="" ill-judged="" ill-served="" ill-timed="" ill3rria="" ill="" illegal="" illiterate="" illness.="" ills="" illuminates="" illusion.="" illyria.="" illyria="" illyrian="" illyrians="" ily="" im-="" image="" imaginable="" imaginary="" imagine.="" imagined="" imagines="" imbecile="" imbeciles="" imbu="" imitated="" immediate.="" immediate="" immediately="" immemori-="" immense="" immensely="" imminent="" immoral="" immortal.="" imparted="" impassioned="" impeded="" impera="" imperial-="" imperial="" imperialism.="" imperialism="" imperialist="" imperialists="" impersonal="" imperturbable="" impetus="" importance.="" importance="" important.="" important="" imposed="" impossible.="" impossible="" impression="" impressions="" imprisoned="" imprisonment="" improb-="" improbable.="" improbable="" impulses="" impunity.="" in-="" in="" inability="" inaccuracies="" inaccuracy="" inaccurate.="" inaccurate="" inactivity="" inalienable="" inappropriate.="" incantation="" incapable="" incapacitating="" incarnate="" inchoate="" incident.="" include="" included="" includes="" including="" incoming="" incompatible="" incompetence.="" incon-="" inconsistent="" inconvenient.="" incred-="" incredulity="" indeed="" independence="" independent="" index="" indian="" indictment="" indignation="" indirectly="" indispensable="" indisputable="" indistinguishable.="" indistinguishable="" individual.="" individual="" individualists="" individuals.="" individuals="" induced="" indulge="" indulgence="" industrial="" industrialised="" industrialists="" industrially="" industries="" industry="" inefficient="" ineluctable="" ineptitude.="" ineptitude="" inequalities="" inert.="" inertia="" inevit-="" inevitable="" inevitably="" infamy="" infancy.="" infect="" infected="" inferior="" infinite="" infinitely="" inflict="" inflicted="" influence="" influences="" influential="" information="" informed="" ing="" ingenious="" inhabit="" inhabitants.="" inhabitants="" inhaling="" inherited="" inhospitable="" inhumanity="" initiate="" injured="" injury="" injustice="" inkling="" innocence="" innocent="" innumer-="" innumerable="" inoffensive="" inoperative="" insane="" inscribe="" inscribed="" insecurity="" inserted="" inside="" insight="" insist="" insisted="" insistent="" insolence="" inspec-="" inspired="" inspiring="" instead="" insti-="" instincts.="" instituted="" institutions="" instruct="" instructed="" instruction="" instructions="" instrument.="" instrument="" instrumentality="" instruments="" insurrection="" int="" integrity="" intellectual="" intellectuals="" intelligence="" intemperately="" intense="" intensified.="" intensify="" intensity.="" intensity="" intention="" inter-="" intercepted="" intercourse.="" interest.="" interest="" interested="" interesting="" interests="" interfere="" internal="" international="" internationalism="" internationalist="" interned="" interrogated="" interrupting="" intervene="" intervening="" intervention="" intimate="" into="" intolerable="" intoxication="" intractable="" intricate="" intrigues="" invader="" invaders.="" invaders="" invading="" invaluable="" invasion.="" invasion="" invasions="" inven-="" invented="" inveterate="" invisible="" invitation="" involuntary="" involve="" involved.="" involved="" involves="" ir:tnicted="" ir="" irak="" irby.="" irby="" ireland="" iron="" ironical="" irony.="" irony="" irregular="" irrelevant="" irrespective="" irritate="" irritated="" irritating="" is.="" is="" ish="" ished="" islamic="" island="" isle="" islfiiid="" ism="" isolated="" issue.="" issue="" issued="" issues="" istically="" istria="" it.="" it="" italian="" italians="" italo-gieek="" italy="" itat="" itiniraire="" itman="" its="" itself.="" itself="" iv.="" ivan="" j.="" j="" jackson="" jahrzehnte="" jail.="" jailers="" jamaica="" jan="" jane="" janin="" january="" japanese="" javarek="" jde="" jealously="" jerusalem="" jest="" jetsam="" jetzt="" jevo="" jewel="" jewelled="" jewish="" jews="" jingoism="" jirechek.="" jirechek="" joan="" john="" join="" joined="" joins="" joint="" joked="" jones="" josef="" joseph="" jostled="" journal="" journalist="" journalists="" journey.="" journey="" joy="" jt="" judases="" judge="" judged="" judgment="" judice="" jugoslavie="" july="" jump="" june="" jungle="" jusgu="" just="" justice="" justification="" justified.="" justified="" jy="" kaimakshalan="" kalemegdan="" kampf="" karageorge="" karageorgevitch="" karageorgevitches="" karl="" katorska="" keep="" keeping="" keeps="" kemal="" kenya.="" kept="" kerr="" key-="" key="" ki="" kick="" kicked="" kidneys="" kill="" killed.="" killed="" killing="" kin="" kind="" kindergarten.="" kindness="" kinds="" king="" kingdom.="" kingdom="" kingliness="" kitchen="" knees.="" knees="" knell="" knew="" knife="" knights.="" knock="" knocked="" know-="" know.="" know="" knowing="" knowledge.="" knowledge="" known.="" known="" knows="" ko="" kolashin="" konstantin="" koran="" korchula="" koroshets="" kossovo.="" kossovo="" kostitch.="" kostitch="" kralyevitch="" kretschmayr.="" kutzo-vlachs="" l.="" l="" la="" labour="" labourer="" labourers="" laced="" lacerated="" lack="" lacked="" lackwell="" lad="" lady="" laffan.="" laid="" lain="" lake="" lamb.="" lamb="" lambs.="" lambs="" lamented="" lancashire="" land="" landowners="" lands.="" lands="" landscape="" landward="" lank="" lapidary="" lapsed.="" laquelle="" large="" largely="" larger="" largest="" lassitude="" last="" lasted="" lasting="" lastly="" lasts="" late="" later.="" later="" latter="" latvia="" laugh.="" laughing-stock="" launched="" laundry="" laurie="" lavish="" law-abiding="" law.="" law="" lawn="" lawns="" laws="" lawyers="" lay="" lays="" lazar.="" lazar="" lazarovitch="" le="" lead="" leader.="" leader="" leaders.="" leaders="" leaf="" league="" lear="" learn="" learned="" learning="" least="" leave="" leaves="" leaving="" led="" ledge="" leering="" leery="" left.="" left="" legacy="" legal="" legatees="" legation="" legend="" legitimate="" leipzig="" lems="" lent="" leo="" leopold="" ler.ier="" les="" less="" lesser="" lesson.="" lessons="" lest="" let="" lethargic="" letter="" letting="" letzte="" level="" lfred="" libellous.="" liberal="" liberalism.="" liberalism="" liberated="" liberating="" liberation="" library="" licit="" licked="" lickerish="" lie.="" lie="" lies="" life.="" life="" lift="" light.="" light="" liia="" like="" liked="" likely="" likeness="" lilacs="" limit="" limitations="" limited="" limits="" line.="" line="" lines="" lingered="" lips="" lisbon.="" lisbon="" lishes="" list="" listen="" listening="" listless="" lists="" literature="" little="" live.="" live="" lived="" lively="" lives.="" lives="" living.="" living="" llen="" lo="" loathed="" loathing="" local="" locked="" lofty="" logic="" loi="" loin.="" loins="" lom-="" london="" long.="" long="" longed="" longer.="" longer="" longest="" lood="" look="" looked="" looking="" looks="" loose="" looted="" lope="" lord.="" lord="" lorga="" los="" lose="" loss="" lost="" lot.="" lot="" louder="" loudly="" louis="" loutish="" love.="" love="" loved="" lovely="" lover="" lovers="" loves="" low.="" low="" lowe.="" lowlands="" loyal="" loyalty="" luccheni="" luckless="" lueger="" lunatics.="" lustrated="" lying-in-state.="" lying.="" lytising="" lyublyana="" m.="" m="" macedonia.="" macedonia="" macedonian="" machine-gun="" machine="" machinery="" mackenzie="" mad-="" mad.="" mad="" maddened="" made.="" made="" magazine="" magic.="" magic="" magical="" maginot="" magnificence.="" magnificent="" magyar="" mailed="" maimed="" main.="" main="" mainland="" mainstay="" maintain="" maintained="" maintaining="" majesty="" major="" make="" makes="" making="" maladministration="" malady="" man.="" man="" manageable="" management="" manager="" mania.="" manifest.="" manifest="" manifestly="" manifesto="" mankind="" manner="" mannered="" manoff="" mans="" manu-="" manufactured="" manuscript="" many="" map="" maps="" mar="" marble="" march="" marched="" marchettis.="" margaret="" margin.="" margin="" marginal="" maria="" marichal="" marie="" mark="" marked="" market.="" market="" markovitch="" marmont="" marriage="" marseilles="" marshal="" martyrdom="" marx="" marxist="" mary="" masochism.="" mass.="" mass="" massacre="" massacres="" master="" mastered.="" masterpieces="" masters="" mastery="" masturbation="" matchek.="" matchek="" material="" matke="" matter="" mattered="" matters.="" matters="" mature="" maur="" maw="" may="" mayerling="" mayor="" maze.="" mce="" me="" meals.="" meals="" mean="" meaning="" meaningless="" means.="" means="" meant="" meanwhile="" measure="" mechanical="" mechanised="" medicined="" medieval="" mediocre="" mediocrity.="" mediocrity="" mediter-="" mediterranean="" medium="" meet="" meeting="" meetings="" mein="" meiner="" melody="" melt="" member="" members="" memorandum="" memorial="" memory="" men.="" men="" menace="" menander="" ment="" mention="" mentioned="" ments="" mephistopheles="" merchant="" merciless="" mercy="" merely="" message.="" message="" method="" methodically="" methods="" mi="" michael="" michaers="" middle-aged="" middle="" might="" mihailov="" milan="" milder="" mildly="" miles="" military="" militsa="" milked="" million="" millions.="" millions="" milosh="" mimoires="" mination="" mind="" mindless.="" mindless="" minds="" mines.="" mines="" mining="" minister="" ministers="" minor="" minorities="" mirrors="" mis-="" misapprehension="" misapprehensions="" misery="" misfortune="" misfortunes.="" misgoverned="" misgovernment="" mishandling="" miss="" missal="" mission.="" mission="" missionary="" mist="" mistreated="" misunderstanding="" misuse="" mithraism="" mitting="" mixed="" miyatovitch.="" mmes="" modem="" moderate="" moderately="" modern="" moment.="" moment="" monarch="" monarchy="" monasteries="" monastery="" monastic="" money="" mongol="" mongols="" monk="" monks="" monsieur="" monstration="" monstrously="" montene-="" montenegrin="" montenegro="" month.="" month="" months="" mood="" moral="" more="" moreover="" morning="" mosaic="" moslem="" moslems="" mosques="" most="" mother="" motion="" motions="" motive="" motives.="" motives="" moumfulness="" moun-="" mountain="" mountainous="" mountains.="" mountains="" mounted="" mourning="" mousset.="" mouth="" move-="" move="" moved="" movement.="" movement="" mover.="" moyen="" mozart="" mr.="" mrs.="" mt.="" much.="" much="" mud="" muir="" mulberry="" mumbling="" mummy="" mundi="" munication.="" munich.="" munich="" municipal="" murad="" murder-="" murder.="" murder="" murdered="" murderers="" murdering="" murmur-="" murmured="" murray="" muscles="" museum="" music="" musicians="" mussolini="" must="" mutual="" my="" myself="" mystical.="" mystical="" mystique="" myth="" n.="" n.y.="" n="" naissance.="" naive="" naked="" nales="" name.="" name="" named="" names="" naming="" nand="" napoleon="" narrative="" nastiness="" nation.="" nation="" national="" nationalism="" nationalisms="" nationalist="" nationalists.="" nationals="" nations="" native="" natural="" naturalist="" naturally="" nature.="" nature="" natures.="" natures="" naum="" navies="" navy="" nay="" nazi-ism="" nazi="" nazis="" nd="" ne.="" ne="" neale="" near="" nearly="" necessary.="" necessary="" necessity="" neck.="" neck="" neditch="" need="" needed.="" needed="" negative="" negativism="" neglected.="" neglected="" neighbourhood="" neighbouring="" neighbours="" neither="" nem="" nemanyan="" nephew="" ness="" nether-="" nets="" neutral="" never="" nevertheless="" neville="" new="" news="" newspaper="" newspapers.="" nexation="" next="" niany="" nice.="" nicephorus="" nicetas="" niece="" niedergang="" niggardly="" nigger="" night.="" night="" nightmare.="" nights="" nikshitch.="" nikshitch="" nineteenth-century="" nineteenth="" nineties="" nintchitch.="" nintchitch="" ninth="" niversity="" nny.="" no="" noble="" nobody="" nocturnal.="" non-intervention="" non-slav="" non="" none="" nonpareil="" nonsense="" nonsensical.="" noon="" nor="" normal="" norman="" north.="" north="" nostrils.="" nostrils="" not="" note="" noted="" nothing.="" nothing="" notice="" nourishing="" novel="" novelty.="" now="" nowhere="" nt="" nullity="" number="" numbered="" numbers="" numerous="" nurse="" nursemaids.="" nursery="" nutshell="" o="" oath="" obedience="" obey="" object="" objected="" objectionable="" objects="" obligation="" obliged="" obrenovitch.="" obrenovitch="" obscurantism="" observations="" observed="" observer="" observers="" obsolete="" obstinately="" obstructed="" obvious.="" obvious="" occa="" occasion="" occasionally="" occupation="" occupied="" occupies="" ochrid="" october.="" october="" octopus.="" odder="" oddly="" odysseus="" of.="" of="" off="" offences="" offensive="" offensively="" offer="" offered="" offering="" office="" officer="" officers:="" officers="" offices="" officials="" often="" og="" oh="" ohannes="" oi="" oil="" oilfields="" old="" older="" ollancz="" om="" ome="" omitted="" omniscience="" on.="" on="" onastir="" once.="" once="" ondon="" one="" ones="" ongman.="" only.="" only="" onstable="" ooze="" open-="" open="" opened="" opening="" openly="" opera="" operate="" operation="" opinion="" opinions="" oplenats="" opportunities="" opportunity="" opposed="" opposite="" opposition="" oppressing="" oppression="" opprobrium="" optimistically="" or="" orbit="" orchards="" ordained="" ordeal.="" order="" ordered="" orders="" ordinances="" ordinary="" ordre="" organised="" organiser="" organising="" oriental="" origin.="" origin="" original="" origins="" ornament="" orthodox="" ostrog="" ot="" otb="" otha="" othello="" other.="" other="" others="" otherwise="" otto="" ottoman="" ought="" our="" ours.="" ours="" ourselves="" out="" outdone="" outflanked.="" outledge="" outlet="" outside="" outstays="" outward="" over-night="" over-reach="" over-vimplified="" over.="" over="" overpass="" overruled="" overrun="" overthrow="" ovt.i="" owe="" owed="" owing="" own.="" own="" owners="" ox="" p.="" p="" pace="" pachymeres="" pacific.="" pacific="" pacification="" packed="" pact="" pagan="" paganism.="" page="" pages="" pagodas="" paid="" pain.="" pain="" painful="" paint="" painted="" painting="" palace="" palaces="" pale="" palimpsest="" pall="" pamphlet="" pan-german="" panegyric="" pany="" paolo="" paper="" papers="" par="" paradoxical="" paradoxically="" paragraphs="" parallel="" paralleled="" paramount.="" parasites="" parentage="" parents="" parfit="" paris.="" paris="" parity="" park.="" parliament="" parliamentary="" part="" parti-="" partially="" particular="" particularly="" parties="" partly="" partners="" parts="" party.="" party="" pasha="" pashas="" pass="" passage="" passages="" passed="" passes="" passim="" passing="" passion="" passive="" passports="" passwords="" past.="" past="" pasts="" path.="" path="" pathetic="" patience="" patient="" patriarch="" patriarchate="" patrick="" patriot="" patriotism="" pattern.="" paul.="" paul="" pause.="" pavelitch="" pay="" paying="" peace-time.="" peace="" peasant="" peasants.="" peasants="" peculiar="" peculiarly="" pedlars="" peeling="" peguy="" pencil="" pendulum="" penetrated="" penetration="" peninsula.="" peninsula="" penitence="" penniless="" pensions="" people.="" people="" peoples="" peopuy="" peppered="" per="" perceive="" perfect="" perfectly="" performance="" performed="" performing="" perhaps="" perialists="" peril="" period="" periods="" periphery="" perish.="" perish="" perished="" permanent="" permission="" permit="" perpetual="" perpetuated="" perplexed="" persist="" persisted="" persistence="" persistent="" person="" personal="" personality.="" personality="" personally="" persons.="" persons="" perspiring="" persuaded="" pertained="" perverse="" petain="" petch="" peter="" petitioners="" petticoated="" phantoms="" phase="" phases="" philanthropists="" phone="" photographs="" phrase="" physical="" pi="" pick="" picked="" picnic="" picture="" pictures="" piece="" pieces="" pierce="" piercing="" piety="" pigeon-hole="" pigeon-holed="" pilgrimage="" pillage="" pillow="" pilot="" pin="" pirates="" pistols.="" pistols="" pit="" pitiable="" pity="" placate="" placated="" place-hunters.="" place="" places="" plagues="" plain.="" plain="" plains="" plaits="" plan="" planation="" plane="" planes.="" planes="" plank="" planned="" plans.="" plantations.="" plants="" plateau="" platform="" play="" played="" pleasant="" pleased="" pleasing="" pleasure.="" pleasure="" pleasures="" pledge="" plenti-="" pliant="" plots="" ploughed="" ploughs="" ploughshares="" plunged="" poached="" poe:="" poem="" poet="" poetical="" poets="" point.="" point="" pointed="" pointless.="" pointlessness="" points="" poland="" polemic="" poles.="" poles="" police="" policemen="" policy.="" policy="" polished="" polite.="" political="" politician="" politicians="" politics="" politique="" polychrome="" pomp="" pondered="" poona="" poor.="" poor="" poplar="" popped="" popula-="" populaire="" popular="" popularity="" population="" populations="" ported="" portion="" portions="" ports="" posed="" position="" positive="" positivism="" possessed="" possesses="" possession="" possessionless="" possessions="" possibility="" possible.="" possible="" possibly="" post-="" post-war="" post="" posted="" postponed="" posts="" postured="" potent="" pouched="" pounds="" pour="" poured="" poverty="" power.="" power="" powerful="" powers.="" powers="" practical="" practice="" practitioner="" praise="" prayed="" prayer="" pre-1667="" pre-="" pre-war="" preached="" precautionary="" preceded="" precisely="" predestined="" predicted="" preface="" prefer="" preference="" preferential="" prefers="" preliminary="" premier="" preoccupation="" preoccupied="" preparation="" preparations="" prepared="" preparing="" prescience="" prescription="" presence="" present.="" present="" presentation="" presented="" presently="" preserve="" preserved="" presided="" presidency="" press="" pressed="" pressure="" pretence="" pretences="" pretend="" pretended="" pretending="" pretends="" prettify="" prevented="" previous="" priately="" pribichevitch="" pribitche-="" pribitchevitch.="" pribitchevitch="" price="" prices="" pride="" priest.="" priest="" priests="" prig-="" prilep="" prime.="" prime="" primitive="" prince="" princes="" princess="" princip="" prints="" prishtina="" prison.="" prisoner.="" pristine="" private="" privilege="" privileges="" pro-="" pro-axis="" pro-bulgarian="" pro-croat="" pro-fascist.="" pro-german="" pro-nazi="" prob-="" probability="" probable="" probably="" problem="" problems="" problenis.="" proceed="" proceedings="" process.="" process="" processes="" procession="" proclaim="" proclaimed="" proclaims="" proclamation="" proclaniations="" procopius="" procure="" procurers="" prodigious="" produce="" produced="" production="" proeure="" profane="" professed="" professional="" professor.="" professor="" profound="" profounder="" programme.="" programme="" proletariat="" prolongation="" prolonged="" promise="" promised="" promises="" promising="" promote="" prompted="" proofs="" propa-="" propaganda="" propagandist="" proper="" properties="" property="" prophecy="" proportion="" proportions.="" propose="" proposed="" propped="" proprietors="" prose-="" prose.="" prospect.="" prospect="" prosperity.="" prosperity="" prosperous="" prostitute="" protect="" protecting="" protection="" protectionist="" protective="" protest.="" protest="" protestant="" proud="" prove="" proved="" provided="" providing="" province="" provinces.="" provinces="" provincial="" provocation="" provoke="" provokes="" pseudonym="" public="" publication="" pulses="" pumpkin="" punic="" punish-="" punishes="" pupil="" puppet="" pure="" purism="" purity.="" purpose="" purposes="" pursued="" pursues="" put="" putting="" puzzled="" qualities="" quality="" quantities="" quarnero="" quarrelsome="" quarter="" quarters="" que="" queasy="" queen="" quered="" question="" quick="" quickly="" quickwitted="" quiescence="" quiet.="" quietness="" quired="" quished="" quite="" quoted="" r.="" r.a.f.="" r="" rab="" race-religion="" race.="" race="" races="" rachitch="" racial="" racketeers="" radial="" radiant="" radiates="" radio="" raditch="" raged="" rages="" raguse="" raided="" raids="" railway="" railways="" raining="" raise="" raised="" raising="" ran="" random.="" ranean="" rang="" range="" rank="" ranke.="" rankly="" ranks="" raped="" rapine="" rapturous="" rarer="" rarest="" raschid="" rasset="" rat-holes="" rate="" rather="" ratification="" ratified="" ratio="" rationalist="" raven-="" re-="" re-enacted="" re-living="" re:="" reach="" reached="" reaction.="" reaction="" reactionaries="" reactionary.="" reactionary="" reactions="" read="" reader="" readers="" reading="" ready="" real="" realise="" realised="" realising="" realist="" reality.="" reality="" really="" realm="" reared="" rearguard="" rearmament.="" reason.="" reason="" reasonable="" reasons.="" reasons="" rebel="" rebellion="" rebels="" rebuild="" rebuilt="" recalled="" receding="" receive="" received="" receiving="" recent="" recently="" recognisably="" recognise="" recognised="" recognises="" recoil="" recollection="" recommended="" reconciled="" reconstitu-="" record="" recorded="" recover="" recovered="" recreation="" recruit="" red="" refer="" reference="" references="" referred="" refinement="" reflected="" reflection="" reform="" reforms="" refrained.="" refugees="" refusal="" refuse="" refused="" regard="" regarded="" regarding="" regency="" regenera-="" regenerated="" regeneration="" regent="" regicides="" regime="" regretted="" rehearsal="" reich.="" reign="" reigning="" reinforced="" reiter-="" rejected="" rejoiced="" relate="" relation="" relations="" relationship="" relatives="" relax="" released="" relevant="" reliable="" relic="" relied="" relieve="" religion="" religious="" relinquish="" reluctantly="" rely="" remain="" remained="" remarkable="" remarked="" remember="" remembered="" remembrance="" reminded="" reminiscent="" remnants="" remote="" removed="" remunerative.="" rendered="" reopened.="" reorganisation="" reorganises="" repainted="" repeat="" repeated="" replace="" replaced="" replied="" reply.="" reply="" report="" repre-="" representa-="" representative="" representatives="" represented="" represents="" reproduce="" reproduced="" republics="" repugnant="" repulsive="" required="" researches.="" resemble="" resembled="" resentment="" reserve="" reserved="" resident="" residents="" resigned="" resist-="" resist="" resistance.="" resistance="" resisted="" resisting="" resolute="" resolution="" resolve="" resolving="" resort="" resorted="" resources="" respect="" respected="" respite.="" respite="" responsibility.="" responsibility="" responsible="" rest="" restaurant="" restaurants="" rested="" restitutores="" restrained="" result="" resulted="" results.="" ret="" retain="" retaining="" reticent="" retort="" retreat="" retreated="" retrieved="" retrogression="" return.="" return="" returned="" returning="" reveal="" revealed="" revenge="" review="" revising="" revival="" revolt.="" revolt="" revolted="" revolu-="" revolution.="" revolution="" revolutionaries="" revolutionary="" revolutionist="" revolutiony="" revulsion="" reward="" rhythm="" ribbentrop="" rich="" rid="" riddle="" right.="" right:="" right="" rightly="" rights="" rigid="" ring="" rings="" riots="" rise="" risen="" rises="" rising="" rite="" ritten="" rival="" river="" rnold="" road.="" road="" roads="" roadway="" robbed="" robbers="" robert="" rock.="" rock="" rocks.="" roger="" rogue="" roguery="" rogues="" rolling="" rolls="" rom="" roman="" romanoff="" romans="" rome.="" rome="" room="" roomier="" rooms="" root-="" root="" roots.="" roots="" rose-beds="" rose-garden="" rose="" roses="" rotten="" rotterdam="" rotting="" rough="" roumania="" roumanian="" round="" rounded="" royal="" rr.ight="" rude.="" rudoi="" rudolf="" ruffian="" ruin.="" ruin="" ruined="" ruins.="" ruins="" rule="" ruled="" ruler="" rulers="" rulership="" ruling="" rumour="" run="" runciman.="" runciman="" running="" runs="" rushed="" russia.="" russia="" russian="" russians="" s-maid="" s6o="" s="" sack="" sacramental="" sacred="" sacrifice.="" sacrifice="" sacrificed="" sacrifices="" sacrificial="" saddle="" safe.="" safe="" safeguarded="" safely="" safer="" safety="" said="" sailors="" saint="" saintly="" saints="" sake.="" sake="" salaville="" salonica="" salt="" salute="" salva-="" salvation.="" salvation="" same="" san="" sanatorium.="" sanctified="" sanctions="" sane="" sank="" sar="" sara-="" sarai="" sarajevo="" sat="" satisfaction="" satisfactory="" satisfied="" satisfy="" savage="" save="" saved="" savina="" saving="" savoy="" saw="" saxons="" say="" saying="" says="" sc="" scampering="" scandinavia="" scandinavian="" scar="" scarecrow="" scarlet="" scattered="" scene="" scenery="" scent="" sceptic="" scepticism="" scheme="" schemes="" schlamperei="" schlumberger="" schmitt.="" scholar="" schonerer="" school="" schools="" schwabs="" scious="" sciously="" scorned="" scourge="" scrabble="" scrupulous="" scrupulously="" scurrying="" sea-power="" sea.="" sea="" search="" seas="" seasons="" seat="" seats="" seaward="" second="" secondary="" secret="" secretly="" secrets="" sectaries="" section="" secure="" secured="" security="" sedu-="" seduced.="" seduced="" see="" seed="" seedling="" seeking="" seemed="" seems="" seen="" seize="" seized="" self-conscious="" self-destruction="" self-government="" self-immolation.="" self-preservation="" self="" sells="" selves.="" selves="" semi-="" send="" sending="" sense.="" sense="" sensibility="" sensual="" sensuous-="" sensuous.="" sensuousness="" sent="" sentatives.="" sentatives="" sentence="" separate="" september.="" september="" serb="" serbe="" serbeiy="" serbia.="" serbia="" serbian="" serbians="" serbiay="" serbie="" serbo-byzantine="" serbs.="" serbs="" serene="" serenity="" serfdom.="" sergeant="" series="" serious="" servants="" serve="" served="" servia="" servian="" service="" services="" set="" seton-watson="" seton="" setting="" settled="" settlements="" sev="" seven-eighths="" seven="" seventeen="" seventh="" seventy="" several="" severed="" sex="" sexual="" shades="" shadow="" shadows="" shakespeare="" shaking="" shall="" shallow="" shame.="" shame="" shamelessly="" shape="" shaped="" shapes="" share="" shared="" sharp="" sharply="" shattered="" she="" shed="" sheep="" sheer="" shelter="" shestinye="" shifting="" shining="" shocked="" shocking="" shook="" shoot="" shops="" short-lived="" short="" shortly="" shot.="" shot="" should="" shoulder="" shoulders.="" shoulders="" shouts="" show="" showed="" showering="" showing="" shown="" shows="" shrewd="" shrinkage="" shroud="" shrugged="" shumadiya="" si6="" sicily="" sick="" sickness="" side.="" side="" sides="" sidney="" sieghart="" sighed="" sight="" sign="" signals="" signed="" significance="" signing="" signs="" silence="" silk="" silver="" similar="" simo-="" simovitch.="" simovitch="" simple.="" simple="" simplest="" simplicity="" simply="" simultaneous="" simultaneously="" sin="" since="" sincere="" sing.="" singing="" single="" singular="" sink="" sinks.="" sins="" sir="" sirens="" sis="" sisted="" sister="" site="" sitting="" situation="" sixteenth="" sixth="" sixty="" size.="" skiers="" skies="" skill="" skimming="" skin.="" skin="" skoplje="" skopska="" sky="" slain="" slanting="" slaughter="" slaughtered="" slav="" slave-trade.="" slave.="" slavery="" slavia="" slavian="" slavonia.="" slavonic="" slavs.="" slavs="" slay="" sleep.="" sleep="" sleeper="" sleeping="" slices="" slight="" slightest="" slip="" slipped="" slobodan="" slopes="" sloughed="" slovene="" slovenes="" slovenia.="" slovenia="" slow="" slowly="" slump="" slums="" sluttish="" sly="" small.="" small="" smaller="" smallest="" smell.="" smell="" smelling="" smile="" smiled.="" smiled="" smiling="" smithereens="" smoke="" snakes="" snatch="" sneering="" snow.="" snow="" snowfall="" snows="" snubbed="" so-and-so="" so.="" so="" soa="" sober="" sobieski="" sobriety="" social-="" social="" socialism="" socialist="" society="" soft="" softly="" soha="" soi="" soil.="" soil="" soit="" sold="" soldier.="" soldier="" soldiers.="" soldiers="" solemn="" solemnly="" solid="" solidly="" solitary="" solved="" solvent="" sombre="" some-="" some="" somebody="" something.="" sometimes="" son="" song="" songs="" sons="" soon="" sooner="" sophie="" sordid="" sorrowful="" sort.="" sort="" sorts="" sosnosky="" soubbotitch="" sought="" soul.="" soul="" souls="" sound="" sounded="" sounds.="" sounds="" sour="" sources.="" sources="" sourly="" south="" southern="" southwards="" soviet="" sown="" space.="" space="" spain="" spalato="" spanish="" spare="" spat="" spatchcocking="" speak="" speaking="" speci-="" special="" specialist="" specially="" specifically="" specimen="" specimens="" spect="" spectacle="" spectacles="" speculation="" speech="" speeches.="" spell="" spending="" spends="" spent="" sphere="" spiessbiirgery="" spindling="" spine="" spinka.="" spires="" spirit="" spiritual="" spite="" spitting="" splendid="" splendour="" splendours.="" splint="" split="" spoiled="" spoke="" spontaneous="" spot="" spots="" sprang="" spread="" spreading="" spring.="" spring="" springs="" spurt="" squalor="" squawking="" squeezed="" squirrel="" ss8="" sso="" st.="" st="" stabilise="" stable="" staff="" stage="" stages="" stain.="" stair-="" staircase.="" staircase="" stairs="" stalin="" stamp="" stamped="" stamping="" stand="" standard.="" standard="" standards="" standing="" standpoint="" stands.="" standstill="" stanley="" star.="" star="" starhem-="" starhemberg="" starred="" start="" started="" starvation.="" starvation="" starve="" starving="" state.="" state="" statement="" states="" statesman="" statesmen="" station="" stations.="" statue="" statute="" stay="" stayed="" steady="" steal="" stealthy="" steed.="" steel.="" steely="" steep="" stefano="" step="" stephen="" stepped="" steps.="" steven="" stiff="" stiffly="" still="" stillness.="" stillness="" stirred.="" stitution="" stock.="" stock="" stoical.="" stoically="" stone="" stones="" stood="" stop="" stored="" story.="" story="" stoughton="" stout="" stoyadinovitch="" stoyan="" stoyanovitch.="" stoyanovitch="" straight="" strain="" strands="" strange="" strangers="" strasser="" strategy.="" street.="" street="" streets="" strength="" stretched="" stretching="" strewing="" strikes="" striking="" stroke="" strong="" stronger="" strongly="" strove="" struck="" structure="" struggles="" student="" students="" studied="" studies.="" studies="" study.="" study="" stuff="" stultified="" stunned="" stupid="" stupidity="" sturdy="" stuttgart="" stylised="" sub-="" subdivided="" subdued="" subject="" subjected="" subjective.="" subjects.="" subjects="" subjugated="" subjugation="" submerged="" submission="" submit="" subordinate="" subordinates="" subordination="" subotitch="" subscribe="" subsequent="" subservi-="" substance.="" substantial="" subtle="" subtlety="" suburban="" success="" successes="" successful="" successor="" successors="" succumbed.="" such="" suddenly="" suetonius="" suffer="" suffered="" suffering="" sufferings.="" suffers="" sufficient="" sufficiently="" sugar="" suggested="" suggestion="" suggests="" suicidal="" suicide.="" suicide="" sum="" summer="" summoned="" sung="" sunset="" sunshine.="" sunshine="" super-="" superb="" superficial="" superimposed="" superintended="" superior="" superiority="" supersense.="" supersession="" supine="" supineness="" supplying="" support="" supported="" supporting="" supposed="" supposes="" suppressed.="" suppressed="" suppression="" supremacy="" supreme="" sur-="" sur="" sure="" surely="" surfeit="" surplus="" surprise="" surprised="" surrender="" surrendering="" surreptitious="" surround="" surrounded="" surrounding="" survey="" survival="" survive="" surviving="" susanna="" suspect="" suspicion="" suspicions="" sveti="" svetozar="" swallow.="" swallowed="" swan="" swarm="" swastika="" sweeter="" sweetness="" swept="" swift="" swimming="" swine="" swing="" swings="" switzerland="" swollen="" sword="" swords.="" swore="" symbol="" symbolic="" sympathetic="" sympathies.="" sympathy="" symphony.="" symphony="" syria="" system.="" system="" systematic="" systeme="" t.="" t="" tactics="" tain="" taining="" tains="" take="" taken="" takes="" taking="" tale="" talians="" talk="" talked="" tall="" tankositch="" tanks="" tar="" taranto="" tardar="" tarian="" tariff="" tart="" task="" taste="" tastelessness="" taught.="" taught="" tax-collector="" taxation="" taxes.="" taxi-driver="" taxi-man="" tb="" te="" tea-party="" teach="" teachers="" teaches="" teacups="" tear.="" tearing="" tears.="" technical="" technique="" tectural="" ted="" telegraphed="" teleki="" telephone="" tell="" telling="" tells="" tempei="" temperament="" temperamental="" temperley.="" temptation.="" ten="" tenacity="" tenant="" tenants.="" tenants="" tend="" tended="" tendency="" tendentious="" tender="" tenderness.="" tenderness="" tending="" tenements="" tenure="" terest="" teries="" term="" terms="" ternal="" terraced="" terrible="" terrifying="" territories="" territory="" terror="" terrorism="" terteri="" tessentiel="" test="" testimony="" tests="" text="" th.="" th="" than="" thank="" thanking="" thanks="" thanksgiving="" that="" thaw="" thdi="" the.="" the="" theft="" thefts="" their="" theirs="" theixi="" them-="" them.="" them="" theme="" themes="" themselves.="" themselves="" then="" theophylactus="" theory="" there-="" there="" thereafter="" therefoi="" therefore="" theresa="" these.="" these="" they="" thick="" thickening="" thin="" thing.="" thing="" things.="" things="" think="" thinking="" third="" thirtic="" thirtieth="" thirty-four="" thirty-seven="" thirty="" this="" thorax.="" those="" thou="" though="" thought="" thoughts.="" thousand="" thousands.="" thousands="" threat="" threatened.="" threatened="" three="" threepenny="" threshold="" threw="" thrir="" throat="" throbbing="" throne.="" throne="" thrones="" thronged="" through.="" through="" throughout="" throw="" thrust="" thumb-print="" thus="" tian="" tide="" tight="" tighten="" tiic="" till="" time="" times.="" times="" timid="" timurlane="" timurlanes="" tinted="" tion.="" tion="" tional="" tioners="" tions="" tire.="" tire="" tired="" tires="" tive="" tne="" to="" tode="" toed="" together.="" together="" told="" tolerance="" tomb="" tombs="" tones="" tongue="" tongues="" too="" took="" tool.="" tool="" top="" torious.="" torture="" tory="" toss="" total="" totali-="" totally="" toteninsel="" touch="" touches="" tourist="" tourists="" towards="" tower="" town.="" town="" towns.="" towns="" townsmen="" toys="" tr.="" tr="" trace="" traced="" tracing="" trade.="" trade="" tradi-="" tradition.="" tradition="" traditionless.="" traditionless="" traditions="" traffic.="" tragedy="" tragic.="" trailing="" train="" training="" trains="" traitors.="" traitors="" tram-drivers="" tramping="" trams="" tranquillity="" trans-="" transcend="" transcending="" transcends="" transferred="" transformation="" transformed="" transforming="" transitory="" translates="" translation="" trapped="" traps.="" travagance="" travel="" travelled="" traveller="" travellers="" travelling="" travels="" tre-="" treacheries="" treacherous="" treachery="" treasury="" treat="" treated="" treaties="" treatmei.i="" treatment="" treaty="" trees="" tremely="" tri-partite="" trial.="" trial="" trianon="" tribe="" tribesmen="" tricked="" tried="" trilogy.="" triune="" trivial="" trod="" trodden="" trooping="" troops.="" troops="" trouble="" troubled="" troubles="" troy="" true.="" true="" truest="" truly="" trump="" trussed="" trust.="" trust="" trusted="" trustees="" trusteeship.="" truth="" trying="" tsar="" tschuppik.="" tserna="" tsetinye="" tsintsar-="" tsintsar-marko-="" tsintsar-markovitch="" tsvetkovitch="" tuberculosis="" tumbled="" tunics="" turk-="" turkey.="" turkey="" turkish="" turks.="" turks="" turned="" tuted.="" tutelage="" tween="" twelve="" twentieth="" twenty-fifth="" twenty-five="" twenty-four="" twenty-sixth="" twenty="" twi="" twice="" two-="" two="" type="" typed="" typical="" tyranny="" u:e="" uckworth="" ugoslav="" uhistoire="" ulster="" ultimate="" ultimately="" ultimatum="" umbrella="" un-="" unable="" unaccustomed="" unanswerable="" unappreciated="" unashamed="" unavailing="" unaware="" unawares.="" unbloody="" uncertain="" unchallenged="" unchangeable="" unchecked="" uncles="" unclouded="" uncritical="" und="" undeclared="" undefended="" under-="" under="" underlies="" understand="" understanding.="" understanding="" understood="" undifferentiated="" undo="" undue="" unemployment="" unending="" unendurably="" unexpected="" unfamiliar.="" unfavourable="" unfinished="" unfits="" unfortun-="" unfortunate="" unfortunately="" unfurled="" unfurnished="" ungrateful="" unhappy="" uni-="" unified="" unimpeded="" unimportant="" uninformed="" union="" unionist.="" unionists="" unions.="" unique="" united="" units="" unity.="" unity="" universal="" universally="" universe="" univershv="" university="" unkind="" unknot="" unknown="" unless="" unlikely="" unluckily="" unlucky="" unmeasured="" unnatural.="" unnecessary="" unoccupied="" unprecedented="" unpredictably="" unprepared="" unremitting="" unsacred="" unstained="" unt="" until="" untrue="" unwin="" unwise.="" up-="" up="" upland="" upon="" upper="" uprising="" urban="" urges="" urging="" us.="" us="" use="" used="" useful="" useless="" users="" uskoks="" ustapha="" usual="" usually="" utchinson="" utmost="" utter="" utterly="" uttermost="" v:ould="" v="" vacated.="" vache="" vague="" vain.="" vain="" vainglory="" vainly="" vakuf="" valet="" valetta="" valid.="" valuable="" value="" van-="" vandals="" vanity.="" vanquish="" vanquished="" vantage="" vantages="" vardar="" variation="" various="" varsi="" vasilev.="" vassal="" vast="" vastest="" vated="" vaunting="" vehement="" vehicles.="" velop="" ven="" venal="" venedig="" venetian="" vengeance="" venice.="" venice="" veniently="" venomous="" venture.="" venture="" vera="" veracity="" veray="" verlag="" versailles="" versaillesque="" version.="" versity="" vertiginous="" very="" vestigate="" vetsera="" vic-="" vice-chancellor="" vice-premier="" victim="" victims="" victoria.="" victoria="" victorian="" victories="" victorious.="" victorious="" victors="" victory.="" victory="" vied="" vieni="" vienna.="" vienna="" viennese="" view="" viewfe="" views="" vigorating="" vile="" vileness="" villa="" village.="" village="" villagers="" villages="" villas="" vinced="" vines.="" violated="" violence="" violent="" virtually="" visible="" visit.="" visit="" visited="" visitor="" visitors="" vital="" vitally="" vitations="" vitch.="" vitch="" vitus="" vivian="" vivid="" vodyu="" voice="" voices="" voinovitch="" vol.="" vols.="" volume.="" volume="" voluntarily="" von="" vote="" voters="" voyeslav="" vukashin="" w.="" waged="" wages="" wait="" waiters="" waiting="" waits="" wald="" walk="" walked="" wall.="" wall="" walls="" wander="" wandering="" want="" wanted="" wanting="" wants="" war-material="" war.="" war="" wards="" warfare.="" warfare="" waring.="" warm="" warmest="" warmth="" warn-="" warning="" wars.="" wars="" was.="" was="" washington="" waste="" wasted="" watched="" water="" waters.="" waters="" watson.="" watson="" way.="" way="" wayfarer="" waylaid="" ways="" we="" weak="" wealth="" wealthy="" weapon="" weapons="" wear="" wearing="" weather.="" weather="" weatherbeaten="" weed="" week.="" week="" weekly="" weeping="" welcome="" welcomed="" well-being.="" well-spring="" well="" wemer="" went="" wept="" were="" west="" western="" westminster="" westwards="" weygand="" what="" whatever="" whatsoever="" wheel="" whelmed="" when="" whence="" where="" whereas="" whether="" which="" while="" whimpered="" whispered="" white-slavers="" white.="" white="" whitehall="" whiteness="" who="" whole="" wholesome="" wholly="" whom="" whoop-="" whose="" why.="" why="" wickham="" wide-awake.="" wide.="" wide="" wien="" wiener="" wife.="" wife="" wifely="" wiil="" wild="" wildly="" wilkinson="" will.="" will="" william="" willing="" willingness="" wills="" win="" window="" windows.="" windows="" wine.="" wine="" wing.="" wing="" wings="" winning="" winston="" winter="" wiped="" wisconsin="" wisdom.="" wisdom="" wish="" wished="" wishes="" wishing="" wiskemann.="" wiskemann="" wit="" with="" withdrawn.="" withered="" withers="" within="" without="" witless="" witnessed="" woe.="" woe="" woke="" wolves="" woman="" womb.="" womb="" women.="" women="" wondering="" wood.="" wooden-faced="" word="" wordm="" words="" work.="" work="" worked="" workers="" working-class="" working="" workmen="" works="" world-wide="" world.="" world="" worn="" worse.="" worse="" worsened="" worshipped="" worshippers="" worst="" worth="" would-be="" would="" wounded="" wreaths="" wreck="" wrecks="" wrestled="" wretch="" wretched="" write="" writer="" writers="" writhe="" writhing="" writing="" written="" wrong.="" wrong="" wrongs="" wrote="" xford="" xii.="" xriovements="" y8="" y="" yaitse="" yanina="" yanitch="" yao="" year.="" year="" years.="" years="" yeasty="" yell="" yelled="" yellow-haired="" yellow="" yes="" yesterday="" yet="" yevtitch="" yield="" yielded="" yoke="" yorkshire="" you.="" you="" yougoslavie="" young.="" young="" younger="" your="" youth="" yovanovitch="" yugo-="" yugoslav="" yugoslavia.="" yugoslavia="" yugoslavian="" yugoslavs="" zagreb.="" zagreb="" zest="" zoo="" zum="">5), i. 306;
(19th cent,), 8, 416 ; Turkish pro-
tection of, 306-7 ; importance of,
under Turkey, 255 ; Janissaries
recruited from, 308-11 ; Turkish
destruction of, 457 ; Turldsh migra-
tion from, ii. 14 ; Turkish remains
in, 414
mentioned, i. 85, 102, 107, ii. 230
Bosnians, i. 332-3 ; women rayas, 333 ;
their lot contrasted with Serbs^ 427 ;
their liking for photographs, 430-3 1>
434 ; Michael’s plan including,
551 ; blond types of, ii. 358
Bozhidar, i. 585-7, 608
Brankovitch, George, i. 252, 447, ii, 215
Brankovitch, George (nephew of fore-
going), ii. 216
Brankovitch, Vuk, ii. 284, 294
British Empire : Statute of West-
minster, ii. 483. {And see England
and Great Britain)
Broniewsky, M., ii. 432
Brown, Mrs. Catherine, ii. 555
Brown, Peter, ii. 555
Buchanan, Sir George, i. 517-1S
Budapest, i. 550, 646, ii. 471, 472
Budva, ii. 435, 4SS> 45^ ff.
Bulbul, the, i. 327-30 ; her family, 408-
41 1 ; her party, 451 ff.
Bulgaria :
Balkan mischief made by, i. 482
Balkan Pact joined by (1934), i. 633 ;
Macedonian reaction to, ii. 460
Boundaries of, under San Stefano
Treaty, i. 556
British and French errors regarding,
i. 603-4
Communists in, i. 616
Early kingdom of, i. 5
S6l
Exarchate established, i. 592, ii. ii-i2
Fascists in, i. 616, 632
Ferdinand’s evil influence in, i. 595-6
Germanised (early 20th cent.) i. 603 ;
German occupation of (1941), ii. 530
I.M.R.O., see Internal Macedonian
Revolutionary Organisation
Independence secured by (19th cent.),
Janissaries rec»-uited from, i. 308
Macedonian grievance of, i. 615;
Macedonian nostalgia for, ii. 162 ;
attitude to Balkan Pact, 46 ;
Ochrid*s attitude, 124-5
Mongol a'xck of, i. 183
Serbian victory over (14th cent.), ii.
257 ; Serbian alliance with, planned
by Michael, i. 551 ; Serbian cus-
toms agreement with (1905), 482,
591; Serbian victory over, 364;
Serbian frontier armed, 616
Turkish rule over, ii. 216; Turkish
war (1912), i. 594-5
Yugoslav relations with, i. 631-3, ii, 46
mentioned, i. 40, 255
Bulgarian language, ii. 1 1
Bulgarians :
Atrocities by, ii. 51 ; savagery in war
of 1914-18, 125
British attitude to, i. 22
Fidelity of, to Orthodox Church, ii. 217
Frontiers demanded by, ii. 167
German insolence to, i. 530 ; in-
trigues with, ii. 367
Macedonian attitude to, ii. 46
Ochrid, at, ii. 86
Racial origin of, i. 48
Serbians treacherously attacked by
(June 1913), i. 597; Serbian atti-
tude to, ii. 165-6
Bulitch, i. 159, 166
Burchell, Mrs., i. 581
Buxton, Lord, ii, 165-6
Byzantine Empire :
Art of, see under Art
Balkans benefited by, ii. 488
Enemies of, ii. 262
Feudalism introduced into, ii. 252
Governmental system of, ii. 261-2
Influence of, in Serbia, i. 523, 550 ; in
Macedonia, ii. 6-7, 9
Languages in, ii. 253
Mutilation a punishment in, ii. 238
Pannonia under, i. 479
Serbia influenced by, i. 523, 550 ;
menaced by, ii. 258 ; relations in
14th cent., 259
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
562
Byzantines, ii. 5C»-5oi
Byzantium :
Fall of (i 4S3)» 2^7
Museum treasures from, i. 642
Cadmus, legend of, i. 259-60
Calvin cited, i. 180
Cambridge Medieval History cited,
ii. 222
Candidianus, i. 150-51
Capitalism, i. 493-4, ii. 484
Cardinal, the, i. 210 ff., 227 ff.
Carlyle, Thomas, cited, ii. 484
Carol, King of Roumania, ii. 529
Catherine, Queen of Bosnia, i. 246
Catherine the Great, Tsarina of Russia,
i. 256, ii. 429
Cats, ii. 133
Caulaincourt quoted, ii. 309
Cavour quoted, i. 223
Cecil, Viscount, ii. 295
Cesarini, Cardinal Julian, ii. 216
Chabrinovitch, i. 375, 378 ; his attempt
to assassinate Franz Ferdinand,
338, 368-70 ; efforts at suicide, 370,
381 ; his capture, 381 ; his fabri-
cations, 383 ; his trial, 384-6, 437 ;
his death, 388 ; his sister, 424 ff.,
43H, 455; Ws mother, 429*3i»
433-4; his father, 431-5, 437-41 ;
estimate of, 366 ; his sister’s ac-
count of him, 420
Chagalle, Marc, ii. 58
Chalaii, Prince of Tartary, ii. 233-4
Chamberlain, Neville, ii. 514, 517-18,
522, 535
Chandeliers, ii. 375
Charles II, Emperor of Austria,
ii. 491
Charles V, Emperor, i. 249, ii. 491
Charles VI, Emperor, i. 51
Charles, Archduke, i. 372
Charles, King of Naples, i. 49-50
Charles de Valois, ii, 236
Chartres Cathedral, i. 243, ii. 223
Child marriage, ii. 233
Children as wealth, i. 217
Chippitch family, i. 184
Chotek, see Sophie
Christianity, i. 420, ii. 205, 298, 548
Chubrilovitch, i. 369-70
Churchill, Winston, ii. 522 ; quoted on
the Princip tablet, i. 360
Ciano, Count, ii. 533
City men, i. 495 ; urban proletariat,
635> ii- 499» 5oo» 5^6-8
Civilisation, i. 152
Class distinctions, i. 161, ii. 113 ; class
conflict, 251-2
Clement VI, Pope, ii. 259
Clerisseau, i. 142
Climate, i. 297
Coloman, King of Hungary, i. 48
Communism, Vatican terror of, i. 99
Communists : misapplication of term,
i. 492, 499 ; Alexander’s attitude to,
613 ; in Bulgaria, 616
Concordat of 1801, i. 292
Conflict of opposites in human beings,
ii. 496-7
Confraternities, i. 212-13
Conrad, see Hotzendorff
Conrad, Joseph, i. 58
Conscripts of Yugoslavia, i. 226-7,
412, ii. 148
Constantine, Emperor, i. 147, ii. 399
Constantine, King of Greece, i. 379
Constantine (Serb poet) : description of,
i. 39-40 ; at Zagreb Cathedral, 56-
57 \ expedition to two castles, 67 ff. ;
in a tragic situation, 113 ; at Sara-
jevo, 312, 317, 323, 327, 337, 359-
361, 371, 380; at Ilidzhe, 396-9;
at Kiselyak, 406 ; at Travnik, 410 ;
at Yaitse, 415-16, 421, 422-3; with
two huge friends, 441-4; at the
Bulbul’s party, 453 ff. ; at Franz-
stal, 511-12; at Karlovtsi, 514-15,
517-19; at the Frushka Gora,
519 ff. ; at the monastery, 524, 528 ;
his tea-party, 642, 644-6 ; the start
for Macedonia, 648 ; at Easter
ceremony, ii. i ; encounter with
the chambermaids, 63-4 ; en-
counter with Gerda at Gostivar,
67-8 ; at the monastery near Gosti-
var, 71, 72; at the Church feast,
95-7 ; at Resan, 121 ; at Ochrid,
123-5 » suggests leaving for Bel-
grade, 132; at Bitolj, 135, 137,
155, 160 ; at Kaimakshalan, 144-5,
148 ; at Prilep, 165, 166 ; dis-
gruntled, 21 1-12 ; at Kossovo, 213,
282-7 ; at Prishtina, 250, 251 ; at
Murad’s tomb, 291 ff. ; at Kos-
sovska Mitrovitsa, 309-10; at
Dechani, 373, 381-2; at Fetch,
346, 348^5 1 » 357; his fever, 346-8,
360,391 ; conversation with woman
from Durmitor, 401-2 ; his fears for
Albania, 419-20, 434 ; with children
on the mountain-side (Scutari), 423-
426, 435 ; at Riyeka, 426 ; at Tsetinye,
454-5 ; argument with Sava, 456-
INDEX
563
Constantine (Serb poet) — continued,
457 ; at Budva, 459-62 ; his observa-
tions — on Bergson, i. 42 ; on guides,
42-3 ; on being a Slav, 83-7 ; on
the English, 88, 91, 137; on dan-
cing, 93-4 ; on Montenegrins, 95,
399-400, 4IO-II; on the terrible,
226-7 ; love, 394-6 ; on Yugo-
slavia, 403-4, ii. 26 ; . on mysticism,
i. 403, ih 245 ; on Moslems, i.
406 ; on allegation againsw an
egoist, 439-41 ; on his first love,
467-9 ; on lus studies with Bergson,
469 ; on the Ludovisi Venhs 497 ;
on men of the Skopsk? Tsema (jrora
ii. 47 ; on husband-poisoners, 61 ; on
Tolstoy, 102 ; on frontier soldiers,
131 ; on his wife, 139; .a Serbian
rebels, 170; on Insids Europe ^ 212 \
on mining rights, 327-8; on politi-
cal Frenchwomen, 357; on Ger-
mans, 367; on Dostoievsky, 413;
on banalisation, 421-2 ; on Italian
music, 428 ; his story of rhe St.
Luke body, i. 447-8 ; story of the
Shabats couple, 463 ; his children,
643 ; his mother, 497, 643-5 > I'ls
mother-in-law, 459-60 ; popular re-
actions to, 401 ; his large circle of
acquaintance, ii. 224 ; his attitude
to Valetta, i. 83 ; controversy with
him, 84-9 ; Dragutin’s relations
with, ii. 340, 347-8 ; his attitude to
Gerda, 176, 465 ; scenes with her,
i. 637, 646, ii. 32 ; his loyalty to
her, i. 646, 648-9, ii. 32, 35, 95-6;
Gerda’s effect on him, i. 646, ii. 79-
80, 300, 302, 340, 351 ; estimate
of, i. 415; his ceaseless talk,
459 ; his excessiveness, 468 j his
naive Uf 494 ; his perversity, ii.
309-10; his malice, 413; his
patriotism, i. 40, 403-4, ii. 124, 129,
149 ; his admiration of Stoyadino-
vitch, i. 491, 493; nature of our
estrangement from, ii. 465 ; his
wife, see Gerda ; mentioned, i. 62,
425, ii. 21, 44, 56, 88, 90-91, 116,
12:, 183, 187, 278-9, 299, 376, 378,
394, 416, 44S
Constantine (son of Milutin), ii. 255-6
Constantinople, ii. 275 ; its character,
1 19, 500-501
Constantins Chlorus, i. 150
Conversation, i. 335
Corfu, i. II, 606
Crimean War, i. 547
Croat, connotation of term, i. 15
Croatia :
Austrian rule over, i. 50-51, 104
Autonomy question, i. 40, 103 ; Home
Rule granted (1939), ii, 530-31
Barons of, i. 49, 51
Censorship in, i. 97
Chetnitsi, i, 630, ii, 25
Cbss distinction in, i. 102
Cleri'^al Party of, i. 97-9
Clubs in, ii. 467
Co.stumes of, i. 64-5
Discontent of, i. 223
Federal solution for, question as to,
i. 114
Franz Fendnand’s plan for, i. 343-5
German influence in, i. 47, 67
Hospital patients, i. 76, 78-9 ; treat-
ment, 77 ; food and regimen, 80
Hungarian rule over, i. 48, 50 ; later
as partes adnexae^ 51-4 ; Kossuth’s
policy, 52; revolt of 1848, 547;
Hungaro Croatian compromise, 86 ;
effects of Hungarian control, ii. 485
Intellectual level in, i. 57
Military Confines, i. 51
Mussolini’s evil influence in, i. 615,
626, 630 ; trade pact with Italy, 87 ;
Italian occupation of (1941), ii. 546
Papal rule over, i. 47
Peasants’ Rising (end i6th cent.) i. 51
Political confusion in, i. no
Political discussion in, i. 83, 104-5
Poverty of, i. 46, 51 , 82, 1 10
Race and religion in mutual antagon-
ism in, i. loi
Raditch’s influence in, i. 617-18
Serbian excesses in, i. 87, 629
Sympathy with, from Western intel-
lectuals, ii. 495
Tragic history of, i. 54
Turkish wars of, i. 50, 54
Croats ;
Alexander’s efforts to conciliate, i. 62-6
Characteristics of, i. 48, 87-8, 101,161;
in revolt, 629
Dragutin’s views on, ii. 148
Forged evidence sold by, to Austrians,
i. 363
Future status disregarded by, i. 103-4
German- Austnan itude to, i. 5
Hapsburgs supported by, i. 103, 225,
ii- 474 ,
Macedonian attitude to, ii. 162
Non-cooperation by, i. 622
Origin of, i. 47
Serb relations with, i. 67, 83, 86, 88,
564 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Croats — tontinued.
96,99, 104, ii. 287, 3x4-15; their
spiritual separation, i. 16, 98
Terrorists among, i. 364-5 ; trained
in Italy, 20, 365, 629
Crucifixion of Christ, ii. 205 ff.
Crusaders, ii. 9
Cunningham, Mr., ii. 319
Cyril, Slav tribes Christianised by,
i. 106, ii. 81
Cyrillic script, i. 626
Czecho-Slovakia, ii. 494 ; Sudeten Ger-
mans of, i. 16 ; Sokols of, 99
Czechs :
Austrians seeking preference over, ii.
179
Budva, at, ii. 461
Croats akin to, i. 48
Forged evidence sold by, to Austrians,
»• 363
German-Austrian attitude to, i. 5
mentioned, i. 16, 224
Dalmatia (Illyria) :
Angry young men of, i. 118, 123, 129,
204-5
Austrian rule over, i. 191
Bosnian refugees to, i. 185
Capital of old Illyria, i. 264. {And
see Rishan)
Carving in, i. 267
Caste system in, i. 248-9
Churches and chapels of, i. 230, 240, 267
Cities of; their constitution, i. 201-2,
247, 250-51
Coast of, i. 1 1 5
Confraternities in, i. 164
Corso, the, i. 241-3
Culture and civilisation of, i, 215, 233
Franz Ferdinand’s plan for, i. 343-4
French rule over, i. 121-3, 186
Greatness of, in Roman times, ii. 81,
486-7
History of, i. iig, 169-70 ; De Regno
Dalmatiae et Croatiae^ i86 ; Voino-
vitch cited, 194-5 > Jackson cited,
205
Independence of, before Byzantine
rule, i. 165
Italian Societies in, i. 193 ; Musso-
lini’s grudge regarding, 614 ;
his designs, 193, ii. 500; Italian
occupation (1941), 546
Koroshets interned in, i. 628
Littoral, the, i. 625
Macedonia jealous of, ii. 161 ; con-
trasted with, 458
Montenegrin exiles in, ii. 442
Politics in, i. 237
Poverty of, i. 199, 261, 275, 292
Priests of, i. 271
Quarry village in, i. 234-6
Rome’s long struggle with, i. 126, 479,
ii. 486-7 ; Roman conquest of, 169 ;
Rome’s destruction of, 147
Sea-captains’ town, i. 264
Textile industry of, i. 153-4
Turks repelled by, i. 123, 139, 198,222,
263
Uskoks from, i. 275
Vendetta in, i. 185
Venice at war regarding, ii. 259;
Venetian purchase of, i. 50, 306;
Venetian exploitation, ii. 485
Dalmatians :
Characteristics of, i. 157, 185, 235-6
Deforestation by, i. 116
German-Austrian attitude to, i. 5
Serbs spiritually separate from, i. 16 ;
their differences, 224
Yugoslavia the deliverer of, i. 223
Dalmatic, i. 154
Dancing: Cabaret, i. 313-14
Folk (kolo), danced by officers, i.
576; gipsies and soldiers, ii. 29-
31 ; peasants, 43-4 ; general popu-
lace at Tsetinye, 429
Westernised, i. 93-5
Dandolo, Governor of Dubrovnik, i. 292
Daniel, Archbishop, ii. 239, 257, 260
Danilo Nyegosh I, Prince- Bishop,
ii. 398, 429, 440
Danilo Nyegosh II, King of Montenegro,
ii. 399 ; his courageous foreign
policy, 440-41 ; his assassination,
441,498,506
d’Annunzio, i 120, 124
Darinka (wife of Danilo II), ii. 441
Dawson, Douglas, i. 563
De la Cava, Onofiio, i. 240
de Maintenon, Mme, i. 246
Death, meaning of, i. 262 ; among
mourners, 473 ; ideal moment for,
531 ; of the old, ii. 139; idea of,
363-4
Debar, ii. 76-7
Dechani monastery, ii. 257, 339, 365-6,
368ff. ; the Abbot, 371-3; the
Turkish monk, 373; church in-
terior, 373 ; the yellow-haired
monk, 358, 371, 374-5, 378-81 ; the
frescoes, 374 - 5 » 378-9> 389; the
sick Albanian moslems, 376-7
Defeat, i. 531
INDEX
DexnidofI, Aurora, i. 586*7, 640
Dengue fever, i. 24
Deubler, Konrad, ii. 6
Dictators : pointlessness of their doings,
ii. 508 ; their perfect tool, 509*10
Dietrich, Marlene, ii. 417
Dimitriyevitch, Dragutin (“ Apis ”) :
implicated in Sarajevo murde.s. i.
378-80, 575, ii. 554; popularity of,
i* 590 ; death of, 620, ii. 141 ; esti-
mate of, i. 368, ii. 498 ; Hitler com-
pared with, 502
Dimitrov, i. 616
Diocletian, Emperor : escabliibe ^ ^he
Tetrarchy, i. 149-50 ; his court
ceremonial, 152-3 ; reforms of, 32 ;
Code of, ii. 499-500 ; p#»r^ecutions
by, i. 10, 149, ii. 245 : agony of,
i. 151-2 ; death of, i. 151, ii. 499;
estimate of, i. 147, ; legends
of. 194*5. 203-4; family of, 150;
palace of, 140-41, 143-5 J Adam’s
book on it, 141-3 ; the mausoleum,
145, 147-8, 153, 156, 158; Hun-
garian royal tombs in it, 183 ; the
sarcophagus, 155-6
Djakovo, see of, i. 105-6
Dobrota, i. 266
Dolgoruki, Prince, ii. 430, 431
DoUfuss, Chancellor of Austria, subservi-
ence of, to Italy, ii. 504-5 ; murder
of, 507-8 ; its pointlessness, 508
Donatists, i. 9
Donnersmark, Count Henkel, i. 341
Dostoievsky, i. 178-80, ii. 101-2, 413
Draga, Queen : story of her life, i. 566 ;
photographs, 567 ; her relations
with young Alexander, 564-5, 572,
popular hatred of, 565, 568, 572,
579 ; its mysterious nature, 582-4 ;
Alexander’s devotion to, 569 ; her
exile demanded, 571 ; her sterility.
573 ; rumour as to pregnancy, 572-
574; her last evening, 575, 579'8o;
“ Queen Draga’s kolo,” 576 ; her
assassination, I2, 368, 376, 580-
581, ii. 498, 506; conspirators in-
volved in, i. 576-7 ; concomitant
murders, 12, 584 ; estimate of, 526,
582 ; her two brothers, 12, 570*7
S75» 584
Dragutin (chauffeur) : at Kaimaksha-
Ian, ii. 147-8; at Kossovo, 213-14,
282, 283-7 ; at Grachanitsa, 249 ;
at Murad’s tomb, 290 ff. ; at
Trepcha, 310, 340; at Fetch, 351,
392 ; on the MU climb, 407, 41 1 ;
565
at Budva, 459-61 ; observations on
Dechani, 381 ; his relations with
Constantine, 340-41 , 347-8 ; quarrel
with him over petrol, 454-5 ; plea-
sure in animals, 103 ; attitude to
water, 118; his gossip, 128; men-
tioned, 64, 67, 73-6, 87, 91, 102, 105,
.31 *37, 138. 170. 173, 412.
4I.,’ 4*b
Dragutin, King of Bosnia, ii. 228, 230,
255.
Drama, i. 60
Dress :
/Ibanian, ii. 15; head-dress, 15,
297
Byzantine tradition in, ii. 159
Child’s (for school recitation),
i* 433
Embroidery, see that heading
Fez and turban, i. 461
Gipsy, i. 401, ii. 29, 31
Herzegovina, in, i. 282
Hospital patients’, i. 76
Lika cap, ii. 314
Moslem, i. 281, 297-9
Pacifists’, ii. 296
Peasants’, i. 46, 93, 94, 281, ii. 213
Persian ceremonial robe, i. 330
Fetch, at, ii. 349
Sandals, i. 504
Sarajevo, at, i. 332-4
Varsi Vakuf, at, i. 448
Women’s : at Zagreb, i. 46, 64 ; at
Shestine, 64, 69 ; the veil, 281 ; in
Herzegovina, 287 ; Moslem, 297-9 ;
Bosnian, 334 ; Debar headdress,
ii. 4, 76; Macedonian, 15-16; at
Skopska Tserna Gora, 43 ; in Bitolj,
133. 157 J wedding dress composite,
159
Drin River, ii. 108, 1 18
Dubrovnik (Ragusa) :
Asylum in, right of, i. 252
Caste system, i. 248-9, 275-6
Churches of, i. 254, 257 ; Cathedral
treasury, 270-74
Description of, i. 238
Dominant personalities, fear of emer
gcnce of, i. 250
Educational system of, i. 251
Governing class of, i. 248-9, 275
Intolerance of, i. 256
Meaning of its name, i. 259
Napoleon’s treatment of, i. 290-92
Origin and history of, i. 244
Piety of, i. 254
Puritanism of, i. 253
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
566
Dubrovnik (Ragysa) — continued.
Rector of, i. 250-51 ; his palace, 234,
243, 245
Route from, to Constantinople, i. 267
Russian treaty with, i. 256
Sack of, by Russians and Montene-
grins, i. 291
Salamancans and Sorbonnais of, i. 249
Scientific bent of, i. 253
Silver model of, i. 245
Turks, relations with, i. 254-6 ; the
tribute envoys, 255
View of, ii. 464
Dumas, ii. 478
Durmitor, i. 613, ii. 402
Dushan, meaning of name, ii. 258.
{And see Stephen Dushan)
Dushitsa, ii. 238-9
Earthquakes, i. 245, 264, 266
Economic paradoxes, i. 234
Edward VI, King of England, ii. 258
Edward VII, King of Great Britain, i. 12
El Greco, ii. 248
Eliot, Sir Charles : Turkey in Europe
quoted, ii. 180, 291, 485
Elizabeth (wife of Louis the Great),
i- 49) 50
Elizabeth, Empress of Austria,!. 3-II,
239 ; founder of Dual Monarchy, 5,
107; her death, 9, 635, ii. 499,
506
Elizabeth of Hungary, Queen of Serbia,
ii. 231, 237
Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England, ii.
275, 279 ; Stephen Dushan of
Serbia compared with, 239, 258, 259
Elizabethan age, ii. 240, 373-4
Embroidery : at Yezero, i. 446-7 ;
famous Serbian pieces, 532; at
Skopska Tsema Gora, ii. 42 ; at
Ochrid, 87 ; at Bitolj, 157 ; East-
ern European, 158; symbolic
nature of, 160 ; habit of ornament
lost, 278; Slav peasant women’s,
157. 493
Eminent personalities, fear of emergence
of, i. 250-51
Emotion, expenditure of, i. 475-6
Empire, corrupting influence of, i. 292,
ii. 485 ff.
England, see Great Britain
English, characteristics of the, i. 452,
ii. 147. 478
Epidaurus, i. 244, 260. {And see
Tsavtat)
Erasmus cited, ii. 233 .
Estonia, ii. 494
Eudocia, Princess, ii. 231-2
Eugene, Prince of Savoy, i. 310, 347,
479, ii- 49L 532
Euphemia, Princess, i. 532-3
Euphrosyne of Byzantium, ii. 234, 237
Exarch, connotation of term, ii. 1 1
Faganeo, Jacopo, Bishop of Korchula,
i. 211
Fascism, i. 10, 20 ; Chetnitsi, ii. 25 ;
I.M.R.O. representing, i. 616
Federalism, i. 114
Ferdinand II, Emperor of Styria, ii.
491
Ferdinand of Hapsburg, King of
Croatia, i. 50
Ferdinand Charles, Archduke, i. 346
Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria, i. 379, 595-
596, 631 ; hig treachery, 596-7
Fertility rites, ii. 191-3 ; at the Sheep’s
Field, see Sheep’s Field
Feudalism, ii. 25a
Fey, Major, ii. 476, 505
Filipovitch, i. 536
Finality in knowledge, belief as to, i. 272
Finance, international, ii. 338
Finns, i. 48, ii. 494 ; their nationalism,
220
Fisher, H. A. L., i. 162, ii. 295
Fisher, Admiral Sir William, i. 162
Fiume, i. 120, 123, 124
Floods, i. 467, 483
Flowers, symbolic, i. 649
Fodor, M. W., cited, ii. 554
Food and drink : Slav superbness in, i.
32-3 ; plum brandy, 70 ; at Trav-
nik, 408 ; white beer, 460 ; at
Belgrade, 484 ; at Franzstal, 510 ;
sheep’s cheese, ii. 38 ; four meals
in four hours, lOl ; at Resan, 131 ;
chickens, 253 ; Dobosh and Sacher
Torten, 303 ; Scottish, 305 ; cook-
ery a lost art after Kossovo, 308 ;
at Dechani, 970 ; fast disregarded
at Petch, 386 ; at Kolashin, 412
Footman, David, ii. 555
Fortis, Abbe, cited, il. 159
Fouch6, Duke of Otranto, i. 122-3
France :
Balkan League plan snubbed by, i.
551
Dalmatia refused aid by, against
Turks, 246; Napoleon’s rule of,
I2I-3, 186
. Fascist triumph in (Feb. 1934), ii. 505
’ Literature of, ii. 479, 481
INDEX
France — continued,
Marseilles murder, reaction to, i. 638-
639. {And see Alexander Kara-
georgevitch)
Mehmedbashitch's treatment in , ii. 1 42
Nationalism and imperialism of, dis-
tinct, ii. 496
Nicholas of Montenegro in, ii. 445
Portrait-painters of, i. 513
Priests of, i. 271
Roman influence on, i. 168
Serbian market in, i. 591
Tragedy of (1940), ii. 520-21, 526
Francis I, Emperor of Austria, i. 52
Francis I, King of France, i. 249
Frank, Dr. Josef, i. 98
Frankopani family, 1. 119-20, ^3! , their 1
castle, 1 17-19; Count Ivan, 120
Franz Ferdinand of Este, Archduke :
his relationship to i. 343;
his embittering youth, 341 ; his
plan for a Triune Monarchy, 343-
344; his marrirjge, 344-6, 352-3; his
Viennese home, /47 ; relations with
Conrad von Hulzendorf, 348-50 ;
the Bosnian manoeuvres, 14, 351,
356 ; his hotel at Ilidzhe, 397 ; two
crimes against, ii. 143 ; his last day,
i- 33 ‘. 338 - 9 > 343 . 353 . 355 - 7 .:
tive attempts at his assassination,
338, 370 ; murder of, 14, 301, 358,
380, 598, ii. 499; repri.sal assassina-
tions after, i. 287 ; vengeance
wreaked, 419-20; trial and deaths '
of conspirators, 384-9 ; their graves,
391 ; false allegations regarding the
assassinations, 375 ; funeral of the
Archduke, 371-4, ii. 506 ; estimate
of him, i. 343, 345-8 ; his lust for
killing, 340-43 ; his disgusting
furies, 342-3 ; his abnormality, 354-
355; his statue, 371
Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria : his
court, i. 347 ; attitude to, in N.
Italy, 4 ; Empress Elizabeth's de-
parture, 5, 7 ; insults Strossmayer,
107 ; Strossmayer’s loyalty to, 1 10 ;
reaction of, to Franz Ferdinand’s
marriage, 344, 346, 371 ; Milan’s
legatee, 526 ; his divide et intpera
policy, 317-18; his betrayal of
Serbia and Croatia, 548 ; von Hbt-
zendorf’s memorandum to (1907),
349 ; his visit to Sarajevo, 356 ; to
Bosnia, 365 ; withstands Berchtold
(1913), 350 ; Bulgarian Ferdinand’s
pact with, 597 » blamed unjustly
567
after funeral of Archduke, 371 , 374 ;
quoted, ii. 491 ; mentioned, i. 9, 1 1,
35 i» 365, 456, 525
Franzstal, i. 509-11, 521
Frederick, Archduke, i. 344
Freemasonry, i. 383, 385 ; Freemasons
in Serbia, 623
French, the, iw 290
Frescoes : at Oplenats, i. 507-8, 533 ; at
Matka monastery, ii. 34 ; at Neresi,
58-60 ; at Ochrid, 82 ; at Gra-
chiitnitsa, 237, 242-3, 248 ; at Fetch,
355-7, 359 ; M Dechani, 374-5, 378-
379, 389 ; mutilation of, 108
Friedjung, Dr., i. 593
Friendship, i. 477, 483
F ushka Gora, i. 519 ff., 539, 547;
meaninr of name, 498, 519; Mo-
zart symphony at the restaurant,
521, ii. 524; monasteries of, i.
523 ff., 534, 594; vision of, 613,
633 ; Serb pilgrimages to, ii. 493
Furniture, see under Austro-Hungarian
Empire
Gachinovitch, i. 368, 369, 378
Galerius, i. 149-50
Gapon, Father, i. 363
Gavrilo, Patriarch, ii. 534, 538
Gazi Mestan, ii. 284-5
Gelasius, Pope, ii. 187
Genoa, ii. 262
George V, King of Great Britain, i. 17
George,David Lloyd, i. 124, 254, 518,11.74
George Karageorgevitch, Crown Prince
of Serbia : leader of pro-war party,
i. 592 ; barred from succession, 593 ;
not made regent, 598 ; relations
with his father, 608-9 ; character-
istics of, 587 ; his violence, 593 ;
his fate, ii. 446
George of Laodicea, Bishop, ii. 188
George (of Serbia), ii. 229
George, St., ii. 187-8 ; eve of, ii. 186-210
George Terteri, Emperor of Bulgaria, ii.
231
George the Dalmatian (Orsini), i. 158,
181, 243
George (the statesman’s despair), ii, 129
Georgevitch, Vladan, i. 567
Gerda (wife of Constantine) : first meet-
ing with, i. 470-71 ; her attitude to
Constantine’s friends, 476-8 ; the
Avala excursion, 497, 499 - 50 o> 5^2,
505 ; her remarks on Constantine,
510; at Franzstal, 510-11 ; her
hostile attitude, 512 ; at Karlovtsi,
568 BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Cerda (wife of Constantine) — continued. 1 Gide, Andr^, ii. 205
5I4> 517 ; Frushka Cora,
520-21 ; scene with Constantine,
637 ; her tea-party, 642, 645 ; the
start for Macedonia : red roses,
648; journey to Macedonia, 648,
653 ; her effect on Constantine, i.
646, ii. 79-80, 300, 302, 340, 35 1 ;
her philosophy, ii. 23 ; her con-
tempt, 25, 30; on gipsies, 28, 30-31;
her insult to the poor old man, 32 ;
blight of her presence, 60-62 ; ex-
pe^tion to Ochrid, 63 ; at Ochrid,
77, 123-4, 127; at the Church
feast, 93-4; at Resan, 130; her
persistent hatred, i. 512, ii. 13 1-2;
scene at German war memorial,
136-8; at French cemetery (Bitolj),
140, 493 ; at Kaimakshalan, 144-5,
148; her departure, 174; her letter,
357 ; Henry Andrews* estimate of,
175 ff. ; an international phenome-
non, 179; Dragutin*s estimate of,
282 ; mentioned, i. 643, ii. i, 2, 38,
90-91, 121, 279, 302, 367, 465, 554
German language enforced on Hun-
garians, i. 52
Germans :
Agents, ii. 367
Croat-** Dane ** at Fetch, ii. 347
Intrigues of, in Balkans, ii. 529-30
Pan-German movement, ii. 501
Rope-ways made by, ii. 309
Slavs hated and despised by, i. 5, 13-
14, 50, 77, 174, 456, ii. 493, 545
Swabian, i. 269, 511
Tourist fellow-travellers, i. 26, 35-8,
173-4, 204
Germany ;
Austrian customs-union with, not
allowed, ii. 503
Banking history in, post-war, ii. 180
** Blood bath *’ of 1934, ii. 507
Bulgaria debt-fettered to, i. 597
Conditions in, i. 31-4
Croatia, influence in, i. 47, 74
Czecho-Slovakia annexed by; British
reaction, ii. 517-18
Gipsies despised in, i. 66
Hitlerismus, i. 31-2
Mosaic-maker in, i. 498
Nazi rule in, effects of, in conquered
countries, ii. 528-9
Slavs in, i. 521
Thirty Years War, ii. 491 , 497
Yugoslavia invaded by, ii. 545-6
mentioned, i. 501, ii. 250
Giovanna, Queen of Bulgaria, I. 634
Gipsies : Constantine’s observations on,
i. 66 ; in Bosnia, 300, 301 ; at
Treboviche, 401 ; in Belgrade, 646-
647; Gunfiowder, ii. 26, 201; Hindu,
26, 28 ; the kolo dance, 29-30 ;
their facility, 30-31 ; near Matka,
42 ; at Ochrid, 88-9 ; at Struga,
103 ; in Bosnia (1941), 546 ; men-
tioned, 141, 192, 198
Gladstone, W. E., i. 23, 106, 254, ii. 70-
71,489; cited, 490
Goethe, i. 43, 94, 158, ii. 479
Goluchowsky, Count, i. 569, 641
Gorazd, ii. 81
Gostivar, ii. 66-7
Goths, i. 170, 368, 370, 375, 378, 383, 388
Grachanitsa church, ii. 21 1, 223-4, 243,
248, 370 ; frescoes at, 237, 239, 242,
243-8
Graham, Stephen, cited, i. 385, 438,
ii* 554
Granovo, battle of, ii. 440
Graves, care of, i. 391
Great Britain ^
Balkan League plan snubbed by,
i* 551
Georgian houses of, i. 282
Government of, ii. 335
Inertia of, under Baldwin, ii. 511-12,
5H
Marseilles murder, reaction to, i. 638-9
** Munich ** period in, ii. 514-15
National faith of, ii. 453
Nonconformist Liberals in, i. 254
Serbian market in, i. 591
Society in, dominant feature of, ii. 80
Spanish war (1936-38), policy during,
ii. 513
Statute of Westminster, ii. 483
Unemployment problem in, ii. 317
Greece ;
Balkan League including, planned by
Michael of Serbia, i. 551
Balkan Pact (i933)» i- 633
British and French alienation of
(1915), i. 604
Climate of, i. 137
Ethnike Hetaira, i. 540
Macedonian possessions of, i. 615
Poverty in, i. 474
Serbian successes in (14th cent.), ii.
259 ; Serbia’s ally (1912), i. 594-6
Turkish fear of, ii. 11-12
War against Italy (1940-41), ii. 528-9
Greek language, tlnee kinds of, ii. 253
INDEX
569
Greeks : their ancient rite of incubation,
ii. 193 ; Trepcha mines worked by,
306 ; in Constantinople (i8th cent.),
lO-II
Gregoras quoted, ii. 253*4
Gregorievitch, Marko : at Zagreb
station, i. 39, 41 ; description of,
40 ; his career and views, 40-41 ;
his ethical standard, 44-5, 59 ; his
significance, 67 ; expedition to two
castles, 67 ff. ; remar l^s on ^he
Austrians, 62-3 ; his apartment and
family, in; contretemps of the
poodle, 1 12-13
Gregorievitch, wife of, i. 1 1 1-13
Gregory XIII, Pope, i. 127
Grey, Lady Jane, ii. 273
Grey Falcon poem, ii. 293-4, 516-17,
544; and black lamb, 297-^, 301.
S>8. 52 «
Grey of Fallodon, Earl, i. 124
Grogan, Lady, i. 641
Gruda, i. 269
Griinewald, Mattnias, ii. 35
Gruzh, i. 238, 289, 291
Guides, i. 42-3
Gunther’s Inside Europe y ii. 212
Hadji Mustapha Pasha, i. 480, 534
Hadshi Ibrahim, i. 266
Haiduks, i. 332, 446, 503, 534, ii. 170
Hapsburgs :
Austrian attitude to, i. 345
Crisis of 1848, i. 52
Croat conspiracy against (1670), i. 51
Croat devotion to, i. 51-3, 103, 225 ;
Raditch’s veneration for, 617
Estimate of, i. ii, ii. 490-91
Rule and system of, i. 3-5, 7-8, 98,
354 ; its police tradition, 629
Sudeten Germans pampered by, i. 16
Harems, i. 325, 4^5
Harrach, Count, i. 357
Hassanovitch (of Dubrovnik), i. 330
Hassanovitch (of Sarajevo), i. 330-31
Hatred, i. 456, ii. 544-5
Heine, i. 39 j cited, 64
Helen of Bulgaria, Queen of Serbia,
ii. 259, 269, 280-81
Helen of Montenegro, i. 587
H^lfene of Anjou, Queen of Serbia,
ii. 228, 230
Helfferich, i. 34
Henderson, Sir Nevile, i. 630
Henry VIII, King of England, Milutin
of Serbia compared with, ii. 226-7,
231, 232, 239-41, 258
Heracleia, ii. 138
Heraclius, Emperor, i. 47, 165-6
Heresies,!. 172,174-81. {And see names
of cults)
Hertseg Novi, i. 29, 262
Herzegovina, i. 277 ff. {And see
Trebinye) :
Austria presented with, by Congress
of Berlin, i. 482 ; Austrian annexa-
tion of, 14, 348; Serbian reaction
to this, 591
Bogomil defence of, i. 306
Franz Feidinand’s plan for, i. 343-4
Importance of, under Turkey, i. 255
Montenegrins’ relations with, ii. 438-9
Pc /erty of, ii. 485
Refugees froi , in Dalmatia, i. 185
Turks driven out by, i. 8
Herzegovinians, Balkan League includ-
ing, planned by Michael of Serbia,
i- 551
Hilandar monastery, i. 532
Ililarion, St., legend of, i. 260-61
Hitler, Adolf : his pleasure in murder,
ii. 502 ; his mass murders, 507 ; the
Vienna rising (1934) and murder of
Dollfuss, 507 ; his threats against
British Empire, 512, 519 ; estimate
of, 501 ; an abbot’s estimate, 70 ;
Mein Kampf 501-2; men-
tioned, i. 494, ii. 163, 381, 526
Ilohe Tauem Mts., i, 29
Holy House, the, i. 117
Horace, i. 166 ; quoted, 409
Hotzendorf, Conrad von, i. 14, 348-50,
356 > 372. 374 . SOI
Hrbelianovitch, Prince Lazarovitch,
i. 561
Hungarians (Magyars), i. 141 ; char-
acteristics of, 48, 65 ; origin of, 48 ;
Bulgarians akin to, 550 ; Turkish
wars, 50 ; Dalmatia secured by
Venice from, 116, 141
Hungary :
Austrian relations with, i. 4-5, ii. 491
Balkan terrorists trained in, i. 20, 365,
626-7
Croatia a coequal Kingdom with, i.
48 ; later as annexed territory, 51-
54; Kossuth’s policy, 52 ; Hungaro-
Croatian compromise, 86 ; Croatia
maladministered by, ii. 485
Dalmatia under, i. 202
Franz Ferdinand’s attitude to, i. 343-5
Jews in, ii. 474
Magyar rebellion against Austria
(1848), i. 225, 547
2 O
VOL. II
570
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Hungary — continued,
Mongol attack on, i. i8i
Neighbour, as a, ii. 258-9
Policy of, ii. 495
Precarious position of, between Ger-
many and Italy, ii. 473
Preoccupation of, ii. 472
Slavs under, i. 5, 83-4, 174, 185, 202,
479 j Serbian migration to (1690),
il 300-309, 355 ; Serbian revolt
against (1848), i. 547 ; Serbs put
under, by Austria, 548 ; Serb
prisoners in (1914), 383
Slovenes under, i. 628
Treachery of, to Yugoslavia (1941), ii.
545-6
Turks expelled from, ii. 397 ; Turkish
rule of, 276
Vassalage of, to Nazi Germany, ii. 530
Voivodina lost to, i. 626
mentioned, i. 267, ii. 241, 250
Huns, i. 141, 153, 165, 170, 177, 479
Hunyadi, John, ii. 216
Hvar, i. 204-6 j massacre at, 248
I.M.R.O., see Internal Macedonian
Revolutionary Organisation
Ibsen, ii. 478
Ilidzhe, i. 352, 355, 396-9; its race-
course, 399-400
Hitch, Danilo, i. 367-9, 378, 380, 383,
386, 387
Illiteracy of Yugoslavia, i. 235, 335
Illyria, Illyrians, see Dalmatia, Dal-
matians
India, British rule in, i. 88, ii. 61
Industrialism, ii. 316-17
Ineunue, Ismet, i. 322-3
Inglis, Dr. Elsie, i. 603
Innocent VI, Pope, ii. 259-60
Intellectuals, i. 613-14
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Or-
ganisation : in Macedonia, i. 615,
632, ii. 6, 24, 73 ; in Croatia, i. 626 ;
in Bulgaria, 617, 632, ii. 530, 546,
547,
International socialism, ii. 502
Internationalism, Left Wing miscon-
ception of, ii. 495
Irak, coup d'Hat in (1941), ii. 548
Irby, Miss, ii. 489 ; cited, ii. 352, 353,
368-9
Ireland (Eire) : politics in, i. 82 ; ideal
of, ii. 49S
Irritability, ii. 19
Islam, ii. 18 1, 190, 377
Istanbul, i. 324
Isvolsky, i. 565
Italians : Dalmatia’s attitude to, i. 220 ;
Serbia feared by, i. 605-6
Italy {see also Mussolini) :
Albanian penetration by, ii. 420
Alexander’s policy of Balkan unity in
face of, i. 633
Balilla and Avanguardisti in, i. 99
Bulgarian insurgents financed by, i. 6 1 7
Condition of, pre-Fascist, ii. 499
Croatian trade pact with, i. 87
Dalmatia and Croatia invaded by
(194«). ii. 545-6
Danger from, to Balkan countries, i.40
Danubian Federation prevented by,
ii. 496
Furniture of (19th cent.), i. 219
Kotor’s trade with, i. 267
London, Treaty of (1915), i. 124
Macedonia, relations \vith, ii. 46, 47
Poverty of, ii. 499
Priests of. i. 271
Serbia’s attitude to, ii. 125
Slav terrorists trained in, i. 365
Slovene minority of, i. 99-100
Wreath from, at Mestrovich me-
morial, i. 501
Yugoslavian Pact with, ii. 46
Zara ceded to, i. 124, 144, 197
Jackson cited, i. 205
Jacob, Archbishop, ii. 232
Jacobinism, i. 222, 225
Jajce, see Yaitse
Jamaica, rebellions in, ii. 484
Janissaries, see under Turkey
Japan, ii. 490
Jerome, St., i. 172, 260, ii. 246
Jews :
Anti-Semitism : in Croatia, i. 8, 98 ;
Strossmayer's opposition to, no;
in Russia, 363 ; a cause of, ii. 348 ;
Jewish attitude to, in Hungary,
474; in Bosnia (1941), 546;
Bosnian landlady, i. 449-51
Bulbul’s family, i, 408-11
Gerda’s reaction to, i. 478
Germany, exiles from, i. 204 ; Ger-
man treatment of, 326
“ Revolver journalists ”, ii. 475
Spain, from, i. 318, 328, ii. 151 ; re-
fugees at Sarajevo from Ferdinand
and Isabella, i. 302-3
Types of, i. 452, ii. 96 ; Sephardim
and Ashkenazi, i. 318, 408
Yugoslavia, a stable body in, i. 623
mentioned, i. 180, 405
INDEX
571
John XXIII, Pope, i. 306
John, Duke of Neopatras, ii. 230
John Cantacuzenus, Emperor of By-
zantium, ii. 261 ff.
John Oliver, ii. 273
John Palaeologus, Emperor of By-
zantium, ii. 254, 264-5,
John Sobieski, King of Poland, i. 247,
ii. 491 ; cited, i. 309
John Tsemo, King of Montenegro, ii. 398
Joseph, Emperor of Austria, i. -12
Joseph, H. W. B., ii. 362-3
Julia Hunyadi, Princess of Serbia,
i- 550, 552
Julian, Camille, cited, i. 168
Julius Nepos, Einperoi, i. 154 ^
Junot, Duke of Abrantes, i. 122
Kaimakshalan, i. 606, il. ^44 7
Kara Mustapha, Vizie-, i. 246-7, 308-9,
479
Karageorge : hif. career, i. 534*5 i
reforms, 536-7 his rebellion, 480,
503-4, 538 ; his desertion of his
troops, 538-9 ; his handicap, 539 ;
his death, 540 ; estimate of, 534-5 ;
characteristics of, 587 j fresco of,
651-2 ; picture of, ii. 195
Karageorgevitch family, i. 13, 368, 546 ;
their mausoleum, 497, 506. {And
see Alexander and Peter)
Karlovtsi, i. 513
Katarina, cousin of Prince Michael,
i. 551, 552
Keglevitch, Peter, i. 422-4
Kemp, Patience, i. 470-7 1 ; cited, ii. 385,
553
Kerensky, i. 518
Kharkov, i. 536
Khuen-H^dervary, i. 98
King Alexander (liner), i. 140
Kiselyak, i. 405-6
Klish, i. 182
Klopstock, ii. 466
Kolashin, ii. 404 ff- \ ff® history, 406 ;
climb to the mountain lake, 407-12
Kolashin, Chief of Police of, ii. 405-6,
410-12
Kollwitz, K&the, pictures by, i. 614
Korchula : first visit to, i. 25 ; its beauty,
207 ; episode at first visit, 209 ; its
architecture, 210-12; the Cathedral,
211-12; the orphanage, 218; the
conscripts, 226-7 ; women of, 222,
331 ; view of, from the water, 228 ;
its jewellers, 232 ; Greek colonists
of, 233-4
Koroshets, Father Anton, i. 622-3, 628
Kossovo ; nature of, ii. 214 ; church at,
213,218; orphanage, 218; poppies,
283
Kossovo battles : four, ii. 215-17 ; re-
fugees from, i. 233-4, 252 ; results
of Slav defeat, ii. 249, 282 ; reason
for the defeat, 298-9 ; parallel
from, for ** Munich ** period in
Greet. Britain, 514-15 ; poems of,
h 508-9, 533-4 ; Grey Falcon poem,
11. 293-4, 516-17; anniversary of
first (1914), i. 14, 351 ; Serbian
army's last stand on field of (1915),
604; mentioned, 306, 524, 528,
530» 563, 587, ii. 239
Kossovskp Mitrovitsa, ii. 301, 310-11
Kossuth, Lajos, i. 254, 343 ; his ob-
session as to language question,
52-3 t his race, 98 ; anti-Slav, 225 ;
Magyar revolt led by (1848), 547
Kostitch (of Dedinye), ii. 538
Kostitches (of Skoplje), ii. 128
Kotor, i. 183, ii. 431, 455, 464 ; sailors'
pageant in, i. 267-8 ; Danilo mur-
dered at, ii. 441
Kraguyevats, i. 652
Krk Island, i. 120, 126, 184
Krushedol, i. 524-5, 572
Kumanovo, i. 351, 364, 596
Kustendil (Velbuzhd), ii. 257
Kutzo-Vlachs, ii. 492
Lachan, Dr. (banker), i. 312-13, 316-20,
324-7, 391, 454-7
Ladislas IV, King of Hungary, i. 50,
ii. 230, 231
Lamartine, ii. 437
Lambs in sacrifice, ii. 200-202, 298, 330
Landowska, Wanda, i. 41, 466
Landscape and scenery ; at Shestine,
i. 63, 69; under snow, 1 15 ; Bosnian,
300, 402, 405; at Yaitse, 415;
from Sarajevo, 458-9 ; the Frushka
Gora, 520; from Sveti Naum
monastery, ii. 1 1 1 ; at Ovche Polye,
199; at Kossovo, 214; at Stan
Trg, 318, 325 ; at Tsema Gora,
342-3 ; at Dechani, 380 ; Rugovo
gorge, 393 ; at Scutari Lake, 423
Lansdorff, i. 641
Larpad, i. 289, 291
Latin, i. 109, 159, 160, 167
Latvia, ii. 494
Lazar, Tsar : at Kossovo, ii. 215, 293-4 ;
his body at Vrdnik, i. 530-31, ii*
292, 493 ; embroidered letter to,
2 0 2
VOL. II
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
572
Lazar, Tsar — continued,
i. 532-3 ; mentioned, 524, 534, 539-
540, 562» 594, 595, ii- 281-2
Leadership, i. 16
League of Nations, i. 637, 639
Lear, Edward, ii. 130
Left Book Club, i. 529
Left Wing movements : tendency of, i.
418 ; Alexander’s attitude to, 613 ;
critical attitude of British, towards
Slav States, ii. 495 ; opportunity
lost by, 499
Lenin, i. 17, 518, 618
Leo X, Pope, i. 355
Leo XIII, Pope, i. 106
Leopold, Emperor of Austria, i. 512,
ii. 308
Lepanto, i. 184
Leskovats, i. 494
Liberalism, i. 612*13
Lika, i. 94
Literary culture, limitations of, ii. 113
London, Treaty of (1915), i. 124, 606
Long views v. short, i. 473-b. \And see
Grey Falcon)
Loretto, Holy House at, i. 117
Louis XIV, King of France, i. 246
Louis the Great, King of Croatia and
Hungary, i. 48, 49
Louis Philippe, i. 543
Lovchen, Mt., i. 263, ii. 445, 454-5
Love, i. 394-6
Luccheni, i. 9-10, 19, 635, ii. 499,
506
Ludovisi Venus, the, i. 497
Lueger, Dr. Karl, ii. 493
Lunyevitsa, Nikola, i. 566
Lutchitch, Yovan (Giovanni Lucius),
' i. 186
Luther, Martin, ii. 207
Lyubitsa, Princess, i. 543*4
Lyubibratitch, i. 278
Lyublyana, Junot at, i. 122; German
Consul-General of, ii. 542
Lyubostinya monastery, i. 532
Mac, Gospodin, ii. 249, 304 ff., 312, 314-
3i5» 318, 324-7, 330, 334, 338-40;
description of, 305
Mac, Mrs., ii. 305, 329-30, 332, 338 ;
quoted, 307-8, 330-31
Macedonia ;
Aged people in, ii. 97
Beauty of, ii. 75
Byzantine traction in, ii. 6-7, 9
Comitadjis in, ii. 10, 24-5
Dogs of, ii. 164
Epitome of, in Skoplje peasant, ii. 6,
12, 13
German intrigues in, ii. 367 ; Nazi
massacres in, ii. 547
Greek tyranny in, ii. ii-i2
Highway robbery in, ii. 126-7
History of, i. 496
Hydro-electric plant, ik 36
Illyrian ties with, i. 169
I.M.R.O., i. 615-16 ; its collapse,
u. 342
Janissaries recruited from, i. 308
Journey to, i. 648 if.
Matka monastery, ii. 33 ff.
Miirzsteg Agreement (1903), i. 641
Mussolini’s evil influence in, i. 615,
ii. 69
Personal preoccupation with, ii. 481
Quality of, ii. 339
Rice-growing in, ii. 170
Schoolboy of, talk with, ii. 161-4
Serbs in, i. 592 ; Serbian liberation
of, 593-4, ii- 170, 172 ; Stephen
Dushan’s conquests in, ii. 259
Turkish rule and occupation of, i. 85,
ii. 6, 7 ; seclusion under Turkish
rule since Kossovo, i. 496 ; expul-
sion of Turks, 13; Turkish Mos-
lems in, 281, ii. 14
Violence of, causes of, ii. 46-7
Women of, ii. 182
Woods of, ii. 66
Macedonians ; Italian training of terror-
ists among, i. 20, 365 ; I.M.R.O.
discountenanced by, 632 ; Old
Serbians compared with, ii. 222
Mackensen, General, i. 604
Madness, ii. 108, 116
Magic, ii. 92 ; Orthodox Church’s func-
tion of, 9, 85, 1 19
Magyar revolt (1848), i. 547. {And see
Hungarians)
Mahmud II, Sultan, i. 310
Mahomet, see Mohammed
Mani cited, i. 175, 176
Manichaeism, i. 172, 175-9, 189, 304
Marcellinus, i. 154
Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria,
treatment of Croats by, i. 51 ;
Swabian settlements of, 269, 51 1 ;
estimate of, ii. 491
Marie, Queen of Serbia, i. 61 1
Marie Louise, i. 346
. Marigan, Dr. (judge), i. 3 * 2- 1 3, 3 1 7, 3 1 9,
391
Marits, General, i. 322
Mariya, Queen, i. 493
INDEX
573
Mark Antony de Dominis, Archbishop,
i. 158.9
Marko, King (legendary), i. 239, 562,
ii. 167.9
Marko, Prince, monastery of, ii. 165, 167
Marmont, Marshal, go^ work of, in
Dalmatia, i. 121-2, ii. 486; his
relations with Napoleon, i. 189 ;
his efforts frustrated by Napoleon,
191, 292 ; Montenegrin Peter's re-
tort to, ii. 439 ; his 1 »elvedere, i. 187,
189; cited, 73, 138; mentioned,
249, 291
Marriage : risks of, i. 336 ; caste sys-
tem as affecting, 249 ; c hild, ii. 233
Martinovitch, five brothers, ii. ''98, 399
429
Mary, Queen Hungary, a. 49, 50
Mary Tudor, Queen of England, ii. 237,
239. 258
Marya of Byzantium, wUe of Khan of \
Tartary, li. 234
Marya of Byzantium, vdfe of Stephen
Dechanski, ii. 257
Masaryk, President of Czecho-Slovakia,
i. 628
Mashin, Colonel Alexander, i. 567-8,
576, 580, 589
Mata of Krema, prophecies of, i. 553*4
Matchek, Dr. ; his refusal to sit- in the
Skupshtina, i. 622 ; his hesitations
in face of Nazi demands, ii. 539 ;
imprisoned, i. 628, ii. 548 ; estimate
♦ of, 531; mentioned, i. loi, 103,
625, ii. 495
Matchek movement, i. 223, 224
Matthew, son of John Cantacuzenus,
ii. 265
Maximian, i. 150
Maximin Daia, i. 151
Mayerling tragedy, ii. 505
Mazzini, i. 254
Mehmed, ii. 182 ff.
Mehmedbashitch, Mehmed, i. 369, 370;
ii. 141-3
Merkus, Jeanne, i. 278-9
Mestrovitch ; statue of Strossmayer by,
i. 105 ; bas-relief by, 239 ; mauso-
leum by, 261-2 ; memorial by, at
Avala, 500 ; wreaths on the model,
501 ; statues by, at Belgrade, 479,
482; at Split, 146-7
Metchnikoff cited, i. 263
Methodius, St., i. 106-7, 626, ii. 8i
Metkovitch, i. 293-4
Mettemich, i. 52
Michael, King of Roumania, ii. 529
Michael, Prince of Serbia ; struggle of,
against Vutchitch and withdrawal,
i. 544-6 ; his return, 548 ; his reign
and policy, 549-51 ; his death, 552,
ii. 498, 506 ; his murder engineered
by Austria, i. 636 ; estimate of, ii.
440-41.
Michael, Tsar of Bulgaria, ii. 257
Michael Palaeologus, Emperor, ii. 227,
233
M:^helozzi, i. 243
Mihailov, Ivan, ii. 547
Milan, Prince of Serbia : prophecies re-
garding, i. 553-4; his marriage,
554-5 ; failure as a ruler, 555 ff. ;
.subservience to Austria, 556-7 ;
proclaimed King, 557 ; his abdica-
tion, j44, 558; his recall — Com-
mander-in-Chief, 560-61 ; his rela-
tions with Mashin, 568, 576 ; at-
tempt on his life, 568 ; his recall
demanded, 571 ; Alexander’s rela-
tions with, 572 ; his secret passage,
579 ; his tomb, 525 ; bequests by,
to Franz Josef, 526 ; popular atti-
tude to, 527
Mileshevo, i. 508
Militchevitch, Sava, ii. 427, 432-5 ; at
Tsetinye, 436, 441, 446, 451-2, 454 ;
arguing with Constantine, 456-7 ;
at Budva, 459
Militsa, Princess, ii. 448
Militsa (wife of Mehmed), ii. 182 ff. ; her
significance, 494
Militsa, Tsaritsa, i. 532
Milkovitch, i. 578
Millet, Gabriel, ii. 359
Milosh Obrenovitch, Prince of Serbia:
his murder of Karageorge, i. 505,
540 ; his aims, 540-41 ; dealings
with the Turks, 481, 541, ii. 218;
achievement of Serbian independ-
ence, i. 542 ; his despotism, 542-3 ;
his abdication, 544, ii, 440; his
return, i. 548
Mllutin, King of Serbia (son of Stephen
Urosh): founded thirty -seven mon-
asteries, i. 651 ; his ambition, ii.
229; hisprosperousreign, 230, 240;
his statesmanship, 240-41 ; his mar-
riages, 230-36 ; his treatment of his
son, 237-8, 257, 334 ; reconcilia-
tion, 239 ; death of, 239 ; estimate
of, 240-41 ; Grachanitsa founded
by, 225, 242 ; compared with Henry
I VIII, 226-7, 231, 232, 241
I Milutinovitch, ii. 437, 439
574
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Minarets, i. 277, 294
Mines, code of, ii. 321
Mining engineers, ii. 321 ff.
Mining machinery, ii. 325
Mishitch, General, i. 589, 602
Mistra, ii. 243
Mitchitch quoted, i. 476
Mithraism, i. 419-20
Mithras; legend of, i. 409-10; temple
of, 442-3
Miyatovitch, Chedomile, i. 562, 581
Mohacs, battle of, i. 50, 479
Mohammed II, Sultan, i. 246, 538, 543,
ii. 178
Mohammed the Prophet, i. 324, ii. 377
Monarchy, i. 48-9
Monastir, see Bitolj
Mongols ; European invasion by (1241),
i. 181-3, ii. 228 ; the Golden Horde,
490 ; easy prey for, 487 ; their legal
code, 241
Monica, St., ii. 138, 206
Monks and pirates, i. 232
Montaigne, ii. 479-80
Montenegrins : characteristics of, i. 95,
ii. 399-400 ; their love of independ-
ence, i. 16; ii. 399; a Homeric
people, i. 362, ii. 400 ; their rela-
tions with Serb villages, i. 621-2;
their sack of Dubrovnik, 291 ;
as chauffeurs, ii. 349 ; their good
looks, 396
Montenegro :
Alexander’s camp in, i. 613
Architecture of, ii. 396
Automobiles in, ii. 406
Christian colony at, after Kossovo,
ii- 343
Church and State identical in, ii. 398
Frontier pass, ii. 394
Michael’s dream for, i. 551
Name, meaning of, ii. 342-3
Nature of the country, ii. 394, 396,
406, 415 ; compared with Switzer-
land, 393-4
Russian relations with (l8th cent.), ii.
429-30 ; difficulties of being situ-
ated between Russia and Austria,
440
State Museum of, ii. 448-9 ; its cura-
tor, 449-p
Travel in, ii. 349
Turkish treatment of, ii. 438
Wars of (1912-21), ii. 397
Montenuovo, Prince, i. 345-6, 371-4, 380
Moossa Arbanassa, ii. 168
Moracha River, ii. 415
Moscow, spirit of, ii. 119
Moslems. {And see Islam and Turks) :
Austrian ffivouritism to, i. 318
Bosnian, ii. 306
Cemeteries of, i. 294, 303, 391
Characteristics and tradition of, i. 295,
303, 406 ; their manners, ii. 190
Christian churches attended by, i. 308
Houses of, i. 397, 451
Influence of, strong in Sarajevo, i. 338
Vakuf, the, ii. 285, 414
Worship rites performed by, i. 425
Mosques, i. 295-6 ; light and spacious,
ii. 23
Mostar, i, 294-6, ii. 481 ; dresses of,
i. 296-9
Mostar, Vizier of, ii. 438
Mozart, i. 26, ii. 355 ; his music, i. 25,
521-2, ii. 209, 524; “The Magic
Flute”, i. 417-18; Susanna, ii. 465
Muir Mackenzie, Miss, ii. 489 ; cited,
352, 353, 368-9
Murad II (Amurath), Sultan of Turkey,
i. 252, 524-5, ii. 286; his tomb,
288-9
Murray, Gilbert, ii. 295, 552
Mussolini, Benito ; compared with
Luccheni, i. 19 ; his rise, ii. 499 ;
his imposition of the Code of
Diocletian, 499-500 ; his foreign
policy, i. 20 ; his miscalculation,
21; Concordat of 1929, 100;
Royalties’ revolt against, 634 ; his
action against Yugoslavia, 193 ; his
evil influence there, 614-15; in
Montenegro, 621 ; in Croatia, 626,
630, ii. 69, 500 ; in Macedonia, 69,
500 ; approached by Dollfuss and
Starhemberg, 504 ; decrees de-
struction of Austrian Social-Demo-
crats, 505, 506 ; his threats against
the British Empire, 512, 519; his
moral imbecility, i. 636 ; his esti-
mate of values, ii. 500 ; mentioned,
i. 225, 494, ii. 261, 526. {See also
Italy)
Mustapha Kemal, see Ataturk
Mustapha Pasha, i. 503
Mystery, ii. 306, 321, 325
Mysticism, Eastern and Western,
ii. 245-6
Naples, i. 140
Napoleon Bonaparte : Austria defeated
6 y, i. 538 ; his dealings with Mar-
mont over Dalmatia, 121-2, 189-91,
ii. 486; Fouch^’s attitude to, i.
INDEX
575
Napoleon Bonaparte — continued,
122-3 > treatment of Dubrovnik,
267, 290-92 ; defeated by Russia,
307, 310; Code Napoleon, 122;
estimate of, 12 x, ii. 496 ; Elizabeth
of Austria compared with, i. 4, 5 ;
mentioned, 539
Nastitch, ii. 447-8
Natalia, Queen, i. 526 and 554-5,
SS7-60, 563, 564
National history, i. 55
Nationalism v. imperialism, ii. 220
Nature, man in relation to, ii. 2i.,-i5,
220
Naum, see Sveti Naum
Nazism, Hungarian attitude to,
ii. 473-4
Neditch, General, ii. 532
Neipberg, Baron, i. 346
Nemanya family, i. 479, y; ,, 602, 611,
642, 651, ii. 82, 223, 226, 257, 260,
274, 281, 369, 377 ; greatness of, i.
263 ; legend and history of, 529 ;
their period, ii. .■'>5-6
Neresi, ii. 56*60, 167 ; frescoes at, 244,
355
Neuestadt, i. 512
Nicholas, King of Montenegro : his
career, ii. 443-8; his treachery
against Serbia, i. 605, ii. 445 ; his
daughters, 446 ; his abandoned
property, 454 ; estimate of, 443 ;
Peter’s estimate of, i. 586 ; men-
tioned, 379, 555, ii. 397
Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, i. 543
Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia : approves
marriage of Alexander and Draga,
i. 571 ; Karageorgevitch children
brought up by, 587 ; his assassina-
tion, 610
Nicodemus, Archbishop, ii. 239, 256
Nicolai, Bishop of Zhitcha and Ochrid,
ii. 79-80, 83, 85, 106, 1 12, 339; the
Church feast, 91-6; visit to,
I2I-2
Night clubs, i. 313
Nikshitch, ii. 547
Nilufer, ii. 288
Nish, ii. 251
Nish, Bishop of, quoted, i. 562
Nobles, village of, i. 71
Nogai, ii. 234, 237
Novi Sad, i. 512, 539, 547, 550, ii. 109 ;
its housewifery tradition, 184
Nugent, Marshal, i. 118
Nyegosh, see Danilo
Nyegosh village, ii. 455
Obilitch (Kobilitch), Milosh, ii. 288,
290-91
Obod monastery, ii. 427
Obrenovitch family : relations of, with
Karageorge family, i. 546; question
as to Milan’s membership of, 554,
(^nd see Alexander and Milosh)
Ochrid :
Antiquity of, ii. 81
Bulgarian family at, ii. 86-90
Churches and monasteries of, ii. 80 ;
Sveti Kliment, 81-2, 83, 122 ; Sveta
Sophia, 82 3; Sveti Yovan, 63, 83 ;
service here, 84*5 ; Serb doctor at
Sveti Naum monastery, 109-12, 1 16;
the Church feast, 91 ff.
Excursion to, ii. 62 ff.
History « f, ii. 81
Inn manageress, ii. 77-8
Old ladies of, ii. 41, 80, 87
Political discussion at, ii. 124-5
Remoteness of, ii. 77
Search for the Bishop, ii. 78-80
See of, ii. 261
Ochrid, Lake, i. 25, ii. 106, 108, 130
Odoacer, i. 155
Old Serbia, see Serbia, Old
Ombla River, i. 292
Oplenats, i. 505, 533, 61 1 ; Mausoleum
at, 497 > 506-9
Opportunism, ii. 240
Opposition, concentration on, i. 198
Orebice, i. 231
Orestes, Governor of Gaul, i. 155
Orkhan, Chief of Ottoman Turks, ii.^’265
Orloff, Admiral, i. 256, ii. 430
Orsini, George, see George the Dal-
matian
Orsini, St. Giovanni, i. 181
Orthodox Church :
Angels as conceived by, ii. 247
Bulgarian Exarch of, ii. 11-12
Darkness of its buildings, ii. 81, 82, 85
Easter ritual of, ii. 5, 8, 10, 12-13
Essential character of, i. 519
Fiscal system, as a, ii. ii
Funeral office of, ii. 139
Heresy, attitude to, i. 180-81
Magic its chief function, ii. 9, 85, 1 19
Mass, the, ii. 85
Milutin’s attitude to, ii. 242
Mysticism in, ii. 245
Nazi treatment of (1941), ii. 546
Patriarchate at Karlovtsi, i. 514-19
Roman Catholic Church contrasted
with, i. 268, 355 ; enormous
difference from, 609
576
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
Orthodox Church — continued,
Serbian national spirit kept alive by,
i. 533 ; Serbian ardour in, 242*3, 256
Social institution, as a, ii. 74
Ostrog monastery, ii. 547
Ovche Polye, ii. 197 fF.
Oxford, Lord, i. 124
Oxford University, Ragusans at, i. 251
Ozalip, Kazim, i. 322
Pachymeres cited, ii. 227
Pacificism, ii. 146, 149 ; pacifists, 294 ff.
Pain, pretence regarchng, ii. 205
Pali, i. 383
Palladius quoted, i. 253
Palmerston, Viscount, i. 543
Pan, cult of, i. 259, 260, 262
Pannonian Plain, i. 479
Pan-Slavism, i. 592
Papacy {see also Roman Catholic
Church) : >
Bosnia’s plotting with, ii. 258
Communism a terror to, i. 99
Concordats of 1929 and 1938, loo
and n.
Croats under suzerainty of, i, 47
Intrigues of, against Byzantium, ii.
262
Milutin’s attitude to, ii. 241-2
Stephen Dechanski’s overtures to,
ii. 256
Temporal claims of, ii. 399
Turkish occupation of S.E. Europe
due to, i. 306
Parachin, i. 480, 537
Pascal quoted, i. 24
Pashitch, Nicholas, i. 376, 378, 598-9,
600, 603
Paul, Prince : his upbringing, i. 586-8 ;
his work with the Prince Regent,
608 ; as Regent, 639-40, ii, 531 ;
in the public eye, i. 493 ; his actions
in March 1941, ii. 531, 534-42;
estimate of, i. 639 ; his artistic
temperament, 613, ii. 536, 541
Paul, St., i. 522, ii. 206
Paulicianism, i. 172
Pausanias cited, ii. 40
Pavelitch, Ante, ii. 546
Pa)me, Humfry, quoted, i. 236
Peasants :
Art of, ii. 158-9
Careers open to, in Serbia, ii. 274
Croatian, i. 46
Dress of, i. 46, 93, 94, 281, ii. 213
Guerilla warfare disliked by, ii. 500
Illusions regarding, i. 458
P^guy, Charles, ii. 496 ; quoted, 520
Pelyesatch, i. 229
Perast, i. 264-6 ; islands off, 265-6 ;
boatman’s dog, 265-6
Persa, Aunt, ii. 40-41
Persia, i. 1 53
P 4 tain, Marshal, ii. 521
Petch, ii. 343 ff. :
Cab-driver at, ii. 390-91
Corso, the, ii. 383 »
Dechani monastery, see that heading
Description of, ii. 343-4
Fast-day disregarded at, ii. 386
German-Dane at, ii. 347, 366, 391-2
Hungarian chambermaid at, ii. 345,
348, 391
Patriarchate of, archbishopric raised
to, ii. 260 ; transferred to Karlovats,
355; Sokolovitch Patriarch, 225;
the Church, 351-4; the frescoes,
355 * 7 , 359
Stagnation of, ii. 366
Traveller in ready-made clothes,
ii. 341, 364-6
Petch, Abbot of, ii. 357-60
Petch, Chief of Police of, ii. 349-50, 383
Peter I, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro,
ii- 432. 437 , 445 : quoted, 439
Peter II, Bishop-King of Montenegro,
ii. 184, 436-9
Peter Karageorgevitch I, King of
Serbia; family and career of, i.
585-6 ; Serbian attitude to, 558,
571, 608 ; ignorant of plot against
Alexander, 13, 584-5 ; elected King
of Serbia, 588, ii. 498 ; his dealings
with the assassins, i. 589 ; his re-
forms, 590 ; church built by, 506 ;
in the 1914-18 war, 602, 604 ; tak-
ing of Kaimakshalan, ii. 141 ;
crippled by rheumatism, i. 585,
598 ; appoints his son as regent,
377 ; conversation with a peasant,
462 ; his last years, 607-9 ; esti-
mate of, 585 ; bas-relief of, 239 ;
fresco of, 651-2
Peter Karageorgevitch II, King of Yugo-
slavia : overshadowed by Prince
Paul, i. 493 ; popularity of his por-
trait, 402 ; in crisis of March 1941,
ii* 537-8 ; assumes the kingship,
542 ; his escape, 547-8
Peter, St., of Alexandria, fresco of,
ii. 245
Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, i. 264,
ii. 429
Peter III, Tsar of Russia, ii. 430
INDEX
577
Peter Thomas, St., ii. 272*3
Petka, i. 289
Petronievitch, i. 544, 547
Petronius cited, i. 174-5 i the Satyricon^
174, 184
Petrovitch, Mme., i. 573
Petrovitch, Anastasia, ii. 139
Phanariots, ii. 10, 84
Pictures in Serb houses, ii. 195
Pisa, ii. 262
Pius VII, Pope, i. 292
Pius X, Pope, ii. 388
Pius XI, Pope, i. 100
Plague, i. 192, 218, ii. 280
Plav Lake, ii. 394-5
Plehve, i. 363
Plitvitse Lakes, ii. +64-5
Podgoritsa, ii. 416
Poland, ii. 241, 467
Poles, Croats akin to, i. 48
Polybius quoted, i. 169
Pompadour, Mme., i. 210
** Poona”, ii. 485
Potemkin, i. 396
Potiorek, General, i. 339, 35 S’ 8 j 369 >
383
Poverty :
Bosnian, i. 432 ; of Sarajevo, 302 ;
Travnik, 407, 412, 413-4
Byzantine Empire, in, li. 252
Dalmatian, i. 236, 241, 292
Essential workers, of, 251
Greece, in, i. 474
Italian, ii. 499
Macedonian, ii. 6, 6l^ old man at
Skoplje, 32
Old Serbian, ii. 222
Prishtina, at, ii. 251, 278
Problem of, in Yugoslavia, i. 624
Purse-pride of, i. 205
School and college pupils’ age affected
by, i. 364
Powell, Dilys, i. 473
Prespa, Lake, ii. 118, 130, 132
Pressburg, Peace of (1806), i. 290
Pribitchevitch family, i. 528
Pribitchevitch, Stoyan, ii. 554
Pribitchevitch, Svetozar, i. 627-8, ii. 555
Prilep, ii. 164-5
Princip, Gavrilo : his family, i. 361-2;
his career, 365-8 ; his inspiration,
ii. 498 ; his journey to Sarajevo, i.
368 ; his assassination of Franz
Ferdinand, 14-15, 301, 343, 358,
380 ; his attenipts at suicide, 381 ;
his arrest, 331 ; tortured, 383 ; his
trial, 384, 386-7 ; his death, 358-9
Prishtina : inn of, ii. 224, 251 ; squalor
of, 250, 276; situation of, 279;
Cantacuzenus’ visit to, 266 fiP.
Prochaska, Mr., i. 22-3
Professor, the, 159-64, 166, 170, 18 1,
185-7 ; his hill plantation, i. 163
Protestantism, i. 258, ii. 181
Proust cited, i. n, ii. 34
Psychotherapy, ii. 116
Puritans, i. 258, 303-4
Pushara, i. 367
Pusi kin, i. 60-61
Piitna monastery, i. 532
Rab Island, i. 125, 184, 192; the
Cathedral, 131-2; campanile, 133;
poverty of, 134-9 ; climate of, 137 ;
beauty of, 130
Rachitch, Punisha, i. 619-21
Raditch, Anton, i. 102
Raditch, Stefan : his relations with the
King, i. 617-18, 620; advises a
military dictatorship. 619, 623;
murder of, 95-6, 620 ; estimate of,
102-3 5 his contradictions, 103, 618 ;
baseless suspicions as to his murder,
96, 620
Radovan, i. 178-80, 188
Ragusa, see Dubrovnik
Ragusa Republic, i. 246, 248-52.
see Dubrovnik)
Ragusa Vecchia, see Tsavtat
Raschid Ali, ii. 548
Rasputin, ii. 448
Rauch, Baron, i. 98
Ravanitsa monastery, i. 531
Ravenna, Exarchate of, ii. 1 1
Redl, Colonel, i. 350
Refugees, i. 127, 144, 153, 185
Religion, ii. 348
Renaissance, i. 184 ; Renaissance
Europe, i. 128, 13 1
Resan, ii. 129
Ribbentrop von, ii. 532
Richard Coeur de Lion, i. 245
Richmond, Countess of (mother of
Henry VII), ii. 233
Rishan, i. 264-6
Roman Catholic Church. (And see
Papacy) :
African Fathers, the, ii. 487
Bogomils, crusades against, i. 305-6
Bosnian conversion, efforts for,
i. 407-8
Character of, i, loi
Dalmatian prelate’s attack on, i. 159
Great Schism, the, i. 305
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
578
Roman Catholic Church — continued.
Inquisition, the, i. 159; Venetian
Inquisition’s plot against Stephen
of Montenegro, ii. 432
Intolerance of, i. 180
Milutin’s attitude to, ii. 241-2
Mysticism in, ii. 245
Orthodox Church, attitude to, i. 256-
257 ; contrasted with, 268, 355 ;
enormous difference from, 609
Perfidy against Turks urged by,
ii. 216
Propaganda for, i. 257-8
Slovenes, attitude to, i. 99-100
Ultramontanism of, i. 99, 106
Universal brotherhood of, i. 107
Waldensian persecutions by, i. 305
Yugoslavia, attitude to, i. 99
Roman Empire : military genius de-
veloped by, at expense of adminis-
trative, i. 168 ; Illyria destroyed by,
i. 147, 169, ii. 486-7 ; ruinous influ-
ence in N. Africa, i. 169, ii. 487-8 ;
conditions in (4th cent.), i. 32 ;
period of its decadence, 47 ; bar-
barian invasions of, 149, 170, 479,
ii. 487 \ rottenness of, 148-9 ;
collapse of, 165
Romans : deforestation by, i. 1 16 ; esti-
mate of, 148 ; rubbish taught about,
167 ; their work at Trepcha mines,
ii. 306
Romanticism, i. 422
Rome : Capitoline Museum, i. 153 ;
sack of, 153 ; spirit of, ii. 1 19
Romulus, Emperor, i. 155
Roosevelt, President, i. 17
Rothschild, i. 206
Roumania : Balkan League including,
planned by Michael, i. 551 ; British
and French alienation of (1915),
604 ; subservience of, to Germany
(1940), ii. 529-30
Rudoi, Mrs., ii. 555
Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, i. 7-9,
1 1 ; his tutor, 264
Rudolf of Hapsburg, King of the
Romans, ii. 490
Rugovo, George, ii. 392
Runciman, Steven, ii. 551, 553
Russell, Lord John, i. 481
Russia, Imperial ;
Crimean War, i. 547-8, ii. 440
Denunciation to police in, i. 440
Exiles from, in Yugoslavia, ii. 167
Foreign interventions by, under Tsars,
h 53
Heretical influence on, i. 181
Karageorge’s policy regarding, i. 535
Mac^onian policy of, ii. 46
Mongol conquest of, i. i8x
Montenegro, relations with, ii, 429-30
Nature of, ii. 489-90
Novelists of (19th cent.), i. 181
Revolutionary literature fostered by,
i. 362 ; revolutionary movement
riddled with treachery, 363 ; theories
as to Revolution of 1917, 517-18
Serbian alliance with, i. 538 ; policy
towards Serbia, 481, 482, 547, 549,
S5S» 592
Russia, Soviet :
Bulgaria influenced by, ii. 124
Exclusiveness of, i. 639
German designs against, ii. 548
Support by, essential to the Balkans,
i- 633
Russians: Croats akin to, i. 48; Du-
brovnik sacked by, 291 ; Napoleon
defeated by, 307, 310; quality of,
ii. 310
Ryeka Tcheiniyevitsa, ii. 426
Sacraments, i. 355
Sacrifice, infatuation for, ii. 205-6, 294-
301
St. Anton, ii. 493
St. Germain, Treaty of, i. 10, ii. 494
Salonae : situation of, i. 140 ; descrip-
tion of, 166, 170 ; fugitives from,
141, 153, 244; legend of Valeria’s
ghost, 203
Salonica, i. 606, ii. 243, 259
Salonica conspiracy, ii. 141-4
Salzburg, i. 26
Samuel, Tsar of Bulgaria, ii. 130-31, 167
San Stefano Treaty (1878), i. 556, 595-6,
ii. 167
Sanitation, ii. 277-8, 313
Saracens, i. 174, 175, 178
Sarajevo :
Bells of, 405
Brothels of, established by Austria,
i. 456
Cemetery of, i. 389-91
Character of, i. 302 ; Constantine’s
conception of, 393
Church of St. Anthony of Padua, i. 308
Destruction of, by bombs (1941),
ii. 546
Franz Ferdinand murdered in, i. 14,
358; riots and pogrom after, 382
{And see Franz Ferdinand)
Independence of, i. 309-11
INDEX
579
Sarajevo—
Jews of, i. 327
Journey from, i. 458-9
Market of, i. 332
Moslems in, i. 321, 338 ; nobles, 308-
31 1 ; Moslem but not Turkish, ii. 16
Mosques of, i. 25, 312
Origin of, i. 304
People of, i. 332-3
Pleasure its keynote, i. 537, 541
Poverty of, i. 302
Red river of, i. 301
Roads of, i. 393-4
Town hall of, i. 337
Tradition of good looks in, 1. 452
Turkish ministers* visit to, i. 316 ff,
Saul of Tarsus, i. 522, ii. 206
Saurat, Denis, quoted, ii. 184, 404
Sava, Prince- Bisli op of Montenegro,
ii. 430, 432
Sava, St., i. 529, 562, ii. 226
Savina monastery, ii. 437
Saxon mine-workers in Serbia, ii. 274,
306, 321
Schiller, i. 497
Schonerer, ii, 501
Schratt, Katherina, i. 7
Schumann songs, i. 453-4
Scotland, educational ideas in, i. 167
Scriabin, i. 644
Scutari, Lake, ii. 422-4 ; children on the
mountain-side, 423-6, 435
Selim, Sultan, i. 178
Selim III, Sultan, i. 310, 537
Selim (hieratic Jew), i. 327
Senj : Uskoks at, i. 125, 127, 128 ; kill-
ings at, ii. 467 ff.
Serb, Serbian, connotation of terms, i. 1 5
Serbia :
Aristocracy of, ii. 242
Austrian fear of, i. 13-14; Austrian
rule over, 480 ; the pig war, 591 ;
pacific approach to Austria (1913),
349 ; Austrian ultimatum, 599 ;
accepted with three reservations,
600 ; Austrian, Bulgarian and Ger-
man invasion of, ii. 146
Ballads of, i. 533-4
“ Black Hand ”, i. 368, 375, 378, 379
Bulgaria, relations with, i. 597 ; Bul-
garian agreement with, 591 ; Bul-
garian frontier of, armed, 616
Class distinction non-existent in, i. 102
Constitution of (14th cent.), ii. 274
Constitution arranged for (1838),
h 543 ; democratic constitution
granted to (1901), 574
Cyrillic script in, 1. 626
Dubrovnik*s relations with, i. 255
Early Kingdom of, i. 5
Famine in, ii. 280
Franz Ferdinand’s fear of, i. 345, 349 ;
warning to him, 352 ; no com-
plicity in his assassination, i. 375-8
French attitude to (1854), i. 549
Frushka Gora, see that heading
Greater Serbia rather than Yugo-
slavia Alexander’s dream, i. 609-10
Gr Vvance of, under Treaty of Berlin,
i. o
Hospitality in, i. 645-6
Hungarian rule of, i. 548
Independence secured by (19th cent.),
5 » 12
Janissaries recruited from, i. 308
Karageorge’s revolt, i. 480
Kossovo, see that heading
Kumanovo, i. 351, 596
Legal code of, i. 536 ; code of Stephen
Dushan, ii. 274
“ Liberals *’ and “ Radicals ** in, i. 559
Macedonia contrasted with, i. 496 ;
Macedonian possessions of, 615
Man-power loss in, through wars,
i. 612
Military conspiracies in, i. 483
Mongol sack of, i. 183
Montenegrin treachery to, ii. 445
Narodna Obrana, i. 367
Nazi system of extermination applied
in, ii. 546-7
Nemanya family, see that heading
Refugee boys from, benefactress of,
ii- 364*5
Resurrection of, under Peter Kara-
georgevitch, i. 590-91
Russian attitude to, i. 481, 482, 547,
549, 555, 592 ; Russian alliance, 538
Schools of, i. 537
“ Serbian Queen Bee ”, i. 512
Shumadiya, i. 480
Skupshtina, i. 536-7, 549
Slava custom, ii. 125-6
Soldiers of, ii. 249
Threat to, by Treaty of London, i. 124
Turkish rule over, i. 84, 224, ii. 146,
350; constant fighting by Serbia,
i. 506 ; freedom secured by
Brankovitch, ii. 216 ; Turkish
victory of Varna, 216; revolt of
1689, i. 512 ; rising of 1804, i. 534 ;
Turkish victory (1813), 538-9;
practical independence achieved by
Milosh, 542 ; Turkish garrisons,
58 o black lamb AND GREY FALCON
Serbia : Turkish rule over — cantinued,
481 ; expelled, 85, 549 ; defeat of
Turkey and Bulgaria (1912, 1913),
84, 224, 364, 594-5
Villages of, i. 502
Violence familiar to, i. 583
War of 1914-18, i. 601 ff. ; typhus,
603; the retreat (1915), 604-6, ii.
322-3, 392-3 ; Montenegrin bar-
barity, ii. 445
Serbia, Old ; misery in, ii. 222 ; banditry
a result of Turkish rule in, 342
Serbian Empire, mediaeval ; Byzantine
origins of, 530 ; its legal code, ii.
238, 241 ; destroyed by Turks, i.
267. (And see Kossovo)
Serbian language : negatives in, i. 87 ;
Greek campaign against, ii. ii
Serbo-Croat language, i. 134, 622, ii. 405
Serbs, Serbians :
Austrian hatred of, i. 482. (And see
under Slavs)
Blind Stephen banished by, i. 525
Bosnian, ii. 217
Bulgarian treatment of, in 1915, ii.
125 ; attitude to Bulgarians, 165-6
Characteristics of, i. 96, 161, 424
Conditions of peasants contrasted with
those of Bosnians, i. 427
Country life preferred by, ii. 273-4
Croats, relations with, i. 67, 83, 86, 88,
96, 99, 104, ii. 287, 314-15 ; religion
the only difference between, 98
Dalmatians, differences with, i. 224
Distinction between Serb and Serbian,
j- 15
Family feeling among, ii. 46
Forged evidence sold by, to Austrians,
h 363
Frontiers demanded by, ii. 167
Grievances of, i. 22
Kossovo, see that heading
Macedonian attitude to, ii. 162 ;
efforts for Macedonian liberation,
i. 593-4, ii. 170, 172
Mass executions of, after Sarajevo
murder, i. 287
Migration of, to Hungary (1690),
ii. 308-9, 355
Retreat of (1915), i. 604-6, ii. 125, 322-
323, 392-3, 445
Slovenes, Croats and Dalmatians
spiritually separate from, i. 16
Tribes of, after Kossovo, ii. 396-7
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Kingdom of,
proclaimed, i. 607 ; renaming of,
by King Alexander, 625
Serge, Grand Duke, i. 363
Seton- Watson, Prof., i. 23 ; quoted, 224 ;
cited, 437, U. 553, 554
Shabats, i. 42, 453, iL 286 ; Constan-
tine^s story of, i. 462-6
Shakespeare : King Lear 519-20, 522
Shaw, G. B., ii. 479
Shaw, Jane, tomb of, i. 118
Sheep’s Field, ii. 273 ; rite of the slain
lamb, 200 ff., 204 ff., 238, 298 ;
analogy from black lamb ceremony
in British attitude (i934“39), 518;
in French tragedy (1940), 521
Shestine, i. 63-5, 81
Shumadiya, ii. 536, 539
Sigismond of Luxemburg, Emperor of
Hungary, i. 50, 306
Silvio, Doge of Venice, ii. 228
Simeon (brother of Stephen Dushan),
ii. 281
Simeon, St., i. 529
Simeon, Tsar of Bulgaria, ii. 167
Simitch, Kateiina, ii. 353, 385-6
Simonis, Princess, ii. 233, 234-9
Simovitch, General Dushan, ii, 536-7,
540-41, 548
Sisu^ i. 208
Sitwell, the, i. 210 ff., 227 ff,
Skanderbeg, i. 525
Skoplje :
Church of the Holy Saviour at, 505,
ii. 3*5> 171 J fi'c Easter ceremony,
ii. I, 5, 8, 10, 12-13
Character of the town, ii. 16
Court held at, ii. 250
Ecclesiastical Council at (14th cent.),
ii. 260
Greatness of, under Stephen Dushan,
ii. 271
Kolo dancing, ii. 29-30
Night clubs of, i. 313
Old town of, ii. 16
Promenade of, ii. 28-9
Roses of, ii. 21-2
Tsema Gora, ii. 15, 42 ff.
mentioned, i. 315, 459
Slav language, i. 550
Slavs (see also Croatians, Dalmatians,
etc.) :
Art of, Turkish sterilisation of, i. 261
Austrian rule over, i. 5, 50-51, 62, 83,
98, 160, 222, 267, 404, 556 ; ten-
dencious education, 366 ; Austrian
hatred and contempt of, 5, 13-14,
77> 98, 340, 456, 482, ii. 493. 545
British guilt regarding, ii. 522
Capable administrators among, ii. 281
INDEX
Slavs — cantinued.
Character of, as modified by Orthodox
and Roman Catholic Churches, i.
268
Characteristics of, i. 5, 179-80, 300,
390-91 ; analytical and speculative
bent, i. loi, 179, 203, ii. 496;
soldierliness, i. 90; love of travel,
103 ; Constantine’s estimate of,
424 ; suicidal tendency, ii. 142 ;
curiosity, 190
Dancing of, i. 93, ii. 44
Difference between We.st Europeans
and, i. 179
Disunity of, ii. 181
Embroidery designs of, i. 47
Food and cookery of, 1. 32-3
Freedom an ecstasy to, ii. 4.94
Frontier ideas of, ii. 166-7
Frustration, cases of, ii. .'*9, 363, ,90
German hatred and (X)ntcmpt for, i.
5, 13-14, 50, 77 > 174, 45 ^>» li- 4 Q 3 »
545
Hungarian rule o xr, i 5, 83-4, 176>
185, 202, 479 ; Hungarian attitude
to, ii. 473-4
Kossovo, see that heading
Marmont’s estimate of, i. 121
Mystical faith of, i. 275
Nationalist struggle of, i. 158
Physical features of, i. 165 ; blond
types, u. 358
Senescence of, i. 69
Social system of, basis of, i. 502
Sokols, i. 99
Soldiers, i. 226-7, 4^2, ii, 148
Tuberculosis among, i. 77
Turks contrasted with, i. 307, ii. 16-17,
20 ; Turkish relations with, i. 31 1 ;
Turkish rule over, ii. 172. {And see
under Serbs)
Two kinds of, problem of including,
in one State, i. 625
Union of South Slavs a dream of King
Michael, i. 551
Venetian Rej^ublic against, ii. 259 ;
under Venetian rule, i. 5, 119, 120,
175, *85-6, 222, 245
Water held sacred by, i. 415, ii. 37, 1 18
Slave trade, i. 252
Slovaks, i. 5, 16
Slovene language, i. 622
Slovenes ;
German-Austrian attitude to, i. 5
Home rule demanded by, i. 622
Hungary and Italy, in, i. 99, 628,
ii. 261
S8i
Liturgy of, i. 100, 106
Serbs spiritually separate from, i. 16
Slovenia, “ Eagles ” started in, i. 99
Small nations, i. 547, 549, 637
Smilaz, Emperor of Bulgaria, ii. 237
Smuggling, ii. 155-6
Sobieski, see John Sobieski
Sofia, i. 632, 633
Sokolovitch brothers, ii. 225, 354-5
Sokols, i. 99
Songs, Balkan, i. 445
Sopli.e, Archduchess (wife of Emperor
Franz Josef), i. 6-8
Sophie (Chotek), Archduchess (wife of
Franz Ferdinand), i. 338-9,344, 346-
347, 3S4-S, 357, 397 ; description of,
353 ; death of, 358 ; her funeral,
371-4; statute of, 371
Sorrowing Women (village), ii. 68, 75 ;
Abbot of monastery near, 68 if.
Soubbotitch, Dr. and Dr. Anna, ii. 556
Spaho, Mr., i. 319, 321
Spain, i. 458, 495 : Jews from, 318,
328 ; German and Italian war in,
ii. 510 ; British policy during, 513
Spas of Yugoslavia, i. 397
Split :
Beginning of, i. 156
Bela in flight at, i. 182
Cathedral, i. 158
Character of, i. 140
Diocletian’s palace, see Diocletian
Dock strike at, i. 225
Legend of ghost procession to, i. 203
Park on Mt. Marian, i. 162-3
Population of, i. 146
Profanity, i. 163
Temple of Aesculapius, i. 165
mentioned, i. 199, 251
Splitchani, i. 143-4, 157, 159, 161
Stalin, Joseph, ii. 535
Stambulisky, i. 616
Stan Trg, ii. 313-14
Starchevitch, Anton, i. 65, 97-8
Starhemberg, Prince, ii. 504-5
Statesmanship, ii. 240-41
Stead, W. T., i. 581
Steed, Wickham, i. 617, ii. 554
Stephanie (widow of Prince Rudolf),
i- 372
Stephanopoli, Monsieur, ii. 463
Stephen (of Serbia), i. 524-5
Stephen II, King (brother of St. Sava),
i 529, ii. 226
Stephen Dechanski, King of Serbia : his
relations with his father, ii. 237-9 ;
first marriage, 237 ; overtures to
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
58a
Stephen Dechanski, King of Serbia —
continued.
the Papacy , 256 ; imitation of his
father, 257 ; Ws menaced life, 257,
334 ; second marriage, 256 ; his
foundation of Dechani, 257, 369-70 ;
his death, 257, 334 ; his tomb at
Dechani, 374 ; ritual connected
with, 376-8.
Stephen Dushan, Tsar of Serbia : his
childhood, ii. 238-9 ; his rebellion
against his father, 257, 273 ;
strangles his father, 257, 334 ; his
surrounding enemies, 258, 275 ; his
marriage, 258-9 ; establishes Patri-
archate at Petch, 354; crowned
Emperor, 258, 260, 271, 275 ; his
court, 271 ; his glorious and success-
ful reign, i. 527, 61 1, ii. 259, 394;
relations with the Papacy, 259-60 ;
meetings with Cantacu2enus — at
Prishtina, 266-7 ; outside Salonica,
270-72 ; his work at Dechani, 373 ;
his legal code, 274 ; his death, 276,
300-301 ; his characteristics, 273 ;
tolerance, 261, 275 ; his confession
of fear, 271-2; compared with
Elizabeth Tudor, 258, 259; his
period with hers, 274, 373 ; his
portrait, 374 ; disintegration of his
Empire, 167, 279 ; mentioned, i.
562, ii. 16, 169
Stephen Nemanya, i. 529
Stephen the Little, ii. 430-32
Stephen the Scribe, i. 538
Stephen Urosh, King of Serbia, ii. 227 ;
his marriage, 228, 230 ; fidelity to
Orthodox Church, 228 ; his acces-
sion, 280 ; exiled and murdered,
281 ; estimate of, i. 528-9
Stoyadinovitch, Dr. : his regime, i. 490,
ii. 185 ; his unpopularity, i, 191-3,
490 ; dismissed from office, ii. 531-
532 ; contrasted with Mme Tabouis,
i. 403-4 ; mentioned, 317, 499, 638,
640, 649, ii. 174, 186, 192, 405
Strashimir Ivo the Black, ii. 343
Strasser, Otto, cited, ii. 554
Strossmayer, Bishop, i. 99, loi ; his
career, 105-6 ; his outstanding
quality, 160; statue of, 105, iii
Struga. ii. 102-3, 164
Strzygowski, i. 168
Studenitsa, i. 508
Subotitch, Dr. Dragutin, ii. 556
Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of
Turkey, i. 479, ii. 178
Suleiman, Pasha of Belgrade, i. 541
Sushak, i. X17, 209, ii. 464
Sveti Naum, ii. 81, 107-14; his portrait
107-8
Sveti Naum Monastery: spirit of the
place, ii. 119-20, 339, 378; situa-
tion of, 105-6 ; the Church, 106-7 ;
ceremony of loaves at, 118-19;
idiot child at tomb at, 121, 493;
visit clouded by Gerda, 176-7 ;
German agent at, 367
Sveti Naum Monastery, Abbot of, ii. 95,
109
Swabian chauffeur, i. 269-70, 280, 301,
314,319
Syria, German designs on, ii. 548
Szeps, Moritz, i. 8
Taaffe, Count, i. ii
Tabouis, Mme Genevieve, i. 403, ii. 357
Tankositch, Major, i. 368, 375, 379-80,
584, 599, 141 ; quoted, 554
Tartars, Byzantine marriage treaty with,
ii- 233
Tchekov cited, i. ill
Teleki, Count, ii. 545
Temperley, Professor H. W., quoted,
i. 546 ; cited, ii. 553
Tetovo, mosque at, ii. 65
Teiita, Queen, i. 169, 264
Theodore the Conscript, i. 171-2
Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths,
i- 155
Thessaly, ii. 261
Thomas, Archdeacon, of Spalato, i. 158
Thomson, Philip, i. 143, 162
Tidiness, i. 216, 426-7, 497 ; untidy hair,
334; cleanliness not a necessary
concomitant of, ii. 22
Tin Pan Alley, ii. 157
Tolstoy, i. 59, ii. 102 ; cited, 158
Topola, i. 504 ff.
Townsfolk, see City
Trade unionism, i. 494
Tragedy, ii. 221
Travnik, i. 309, 408 ff.
Trebinye :
“ Harem girls in, i. 284-5
Market at, i. 277, 280-81
Mass executions at, after Sarajevo
murder, i. 287
Peasants of, i. 281
River of, i. 292
Route to, i. 277
Turkish rule over, i. 277
Trebizond, ii. 243
Treboviche, i. 401, 405
INDEX
Trepcha mines, ii. 249, 301 ; antiquity
and construction of, 306 ; polyglot
personnel at, 302, 314, 333 j bene-
fits from, 310, 315
Trianon, Treaty of, ii. 494
Trieste, hinterland of, i. 124
Trogir :
Bela’s flight to, i. 182
Cathedral, i. 178, 184, 188 ; the
baptistery, 184
Description and history of, i. 174-5
Feuds in, i. 186
Italian seizure of, i. 191-2
Legend as to, i. 192-4, ii. 474
Venetian rule of, i. 185, 221 ; Vene-
tian levy for bribery of Turks. 184-5
Trsat, i. 117, 129
Tsavtat (Epidaurus, Ragusa Vecchia),
i. 260-61
Tschuppik cited, i. 347
Tsema Gora, ii. 342-3. {^And see Monte-
negro)
Tsetinye :
Episcopal palace oi, ii. 436
Girls’ school at, i. 302, ii. 429
Monastery at, ii. 437
Royal residence at, ii. 446
Situation of, ii. 429
State Museum at, ii. 448 9 ; its cura-
tor, 449*52
Turkish occupation of, ii. 397
Tsiganovitch, Milan, i. 367, 368, 375,
379*80, 599, ii- 141
Tsintsar-Markovitch, General, murder
of, i. 575. 579, 580, ii. 531
Tsintsar-Markovitch (nephew of the
general), ii. 531-3, 537
Tsintsari (Vlachs), i. 619, ii. 24
Tsvetkovitch, ii. 532-4, 537 ; his memo-
randum to Prince Paul, 540
Turgeniev, ii. loi, 413
Turkey :
Administrative bankruptcy of,
ii. 485-6
Austrian treaty with (1791), i. 480
Balkan policy of ii. Balkans
occupied by, i. 177-8, 180, 185;
effects of the occupation, 294 ; ruin,
180, ii. 459, 485 ; Balkan Pact
(1933). >• 633 . .
Bosnia, relations with, i. 306-7 ; its re-
sistance, 8, 416, 555 ; Bosnia con-
sumed by, 457 ; Turkish remains
in Bosnia, 414
Bulgarian Exarchate founded by,
i. 592
Christian subjects of, i. 21, 121, 139
583
Constantinople seized by (1453), i. 50
Crimean War, i. 547-8 ; Montenegrin
neutrality in, ii. 440
Dalmatian resistance to, i. 123, 139,
198, 222, 263
Flag of, old, i. 322
Harem system, i. 415
Hungary, expelled from, ii. 397
Kossovo, see that heading
Kossuth a fugitive in, i. 53
Kumanovo, i. 351, 364, 596
Jam.'jsaries, i. 308-11, 480, 537-8;
Slavs taken as, 308-9, 633 ; revolt
of (1831), ii. 217
Lepanto, i. 184
Macedonia under, i. 14, 85, ii. 6, 7;
in perpetual revolt, i. 615 ; rising
of 1903, *i. 129
Menace of, ii. 7
Mohacs, i. 479
Ragusan relations with, i. 244, 246,
254-5 ; mistreatment of envoyS;^
247
Refugees from, i. 125
Reorganisation of, by Selim, i. 538
Serbian wars against, i. 84, 506 ;
Serbia under, i. 84, 224, ii. 146, 350 ;
banditry resulting from, 342; de-
struction of Serbian Empire, i. 267 ;
Serbian success under Brankovitch,
ii. 216 j Varna, 216; Serbian re-
volt of 1689, i. 512 ; rising of 1804,
534; Turkish victory (1813), 538-
539 ; Serbian independence under
Milosh, 542 ; King Alexander
recognised by, 547 ; garrisons in
Serbia, 481 ; expelled, 85, 549 ;
Serbian conquest of (1912, 1913),
84, 224, 364, 594-5 ; Serbian re-
gents appointed by, 544-5
Slav revolt against (19th cent.), U 5,
12 ; Slavs a terror to, ii. 172
Taxation under, ii. 55, 220
Uskoks’ successes against (1532-37),
i. 125-6
Venetian relations with, i. 184-5, 254
Vienna attacked by (1685), i. 62, 181,
247, 308 ; Turkish defeat, 247,
ii- 397
Visitors “ entertained ” in, i. 427
Young Turk movement, i. 594, ii. 129
Turkish Empire : characteristics of, i.
393 ; collapse of, 323 ; foreign ad-
ministrators of, ii. 180; foreign
advantage from existence of, 181 ;
hollowness of, 180
Turkish language, i. 414, ii. 121
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
584
Turks :
Aphrodisiac drink of, i. 325
Belgrade massacres by, i. 480
Byzantine Empire eroded by, ii. 262
Characteristics of, i. 314-15, ii. 121 ;
luxuriousness, 309 ; lack of staying
power, 17-18 ; aristocratic out-
look, 290, 291 ; sensuousness, 486
Fears (economic) felt by, ii. 178
Fresco mutilation by, ii. 108
Houses of, i. 282, 451, ii. 52-3, 301
Kinship of, with Magyars, i. 48 ; with
Bulgarians, 550
Modem, ii. 452
Montenegrin reprisals on, ii. 438
Police tradition among, i. 629
Sarajevo attitude to, i. 309-11
Skoplje, in, ii. 14
Slavs contrasted with, i. 307, ii. 16-17,
20 ; Slav relations with, i. 31 1
Tvrtko, King of Bosnia, ii. 281-2
Twain, Mark, ii. 477
Uglyesha, ii. 281
Uliz Ali, i. 222
Ulster, ii. 495
United States of America :
Balkan migrants from ii. 105, 132,
156
Cynicism in, ii. 147
European civilisation’s retreat to,
ii. 252
Guerrillas of the Civil War, ii. 25
Political corruption in, formerly,
ii. 162-3
Slump in, ii. 317
Young girls of, ii. 80
Urosh, see Stephen Urosh
Uskoks, i. 125-9
Cskub, see Skoplje
Uzhitse, i. 553
Valeria, i. 150-51, 203-4
Valetta (Croatian lecturer in mathe-
matics) : description of, i.' 40 ; a
federalist, 40 ; attitude to, of Gre-
gorievitch, 41 ; of Constantine, 83,
96 ; expedition to two castles, 67 ff.;
controversy with Constantine, 84-9 ;
» on premature discussion, 101-2 ; on
the Croat- Serb situation, 104 ; his
problem, 114; estimate of, 104,
1 13 ; mentioned, 39, 42, 1 1 1
Values : standards of beauty or interest,
i. 447-8 ; creation v. purchase, 645-
646 ; question as to pleasure, ii. 23
Vandals, i. 153, 154, ii. 488
Vanity, i. 186
Vardar River, ii. 2, 16 ; promenade at
Skoplje, 28 ; at Veles, 17 1
Vareshanin, General, i. 365, 391
Varna, i. 633, ii. 216
Varsi Vacuf, i. 414, 448
Vasili, Bishop, ii. 430
Vasoyevitch memorial, ii. 396-7
Vatican, see Papacy ^
Veils, i. 299
Velbuzhd (Kustendil), battle of, ii. 257
Veles, ii. 171 ff., 273 ; lawyer of, 164,
173^4
Venetian Republic :
Byzantium, relations with, ii. 262
Character of, ii. 259 ; its inefficient
administration, i. 116
Dalmatia sold to, i. 50, 116, 306;
exploited by, 222, ii. 485
Deforestation by, i. 116, 214
Rab’s annual tribute to, i. 132
Ragusan constitution modelled on,
.i. 250
Slavs under, i. 5, 119, 120, 175, 185-6,
222, 245
Stephen Dushan’s relations with,
ii. 259, 272, 275
Turks, appeasement policy towards,
i. 125, 126, 139, 184-5, 254
Uskoks, treatment of, i. 128
mentioned, i. 4, 267
Venetians, i. 141, 163, 213
Venice : Dubrovnik compared with,
i. 239 ; St. Mark’s, ii. 355
Versailles, Treaty of : effect of, ii. 494;
propaganda against, 518
Vetsera, Marie, i. 7, ii, ii. 505-6
Victoria, Queen, i. 61 1
Victorian Age, ii. 239
Vienna :
Belvedere in, i. 243
Court of, i. 4, II
Croat propaganda office in, i. 627
Culture of, i. 62
Fears of, in Austrian Empire, ii. 179
Frivolity of, ii. 502
Furniture exhibition in, i. 73
Golden-haired Slav of, ii. 477-81
Kurhaus in, i. 2
Philharmonic orchestra of, i. 346
Tradition of, ii. 501
Turkish thrust towards (1241), i. 181,
308 ; Turkish siege of (1685), 62 ;
Turks defeated, 247, 310, ii. 397
Working-class tenements of, ii. 503-4 ;
the butchery of Feb. 1934, 505-6
mentioned, i. 550, ii, 475
INDEX
585
Vienna, Congress of, i. 257
Villach, i. 30
Village, soul of a, i. 393
Viollis, Andr^e, ii. 357
Vishegrad, i. 46.1
Visok, i. 310
Vitus, St., i. 351, 380
Vlachs (Tsintsari), i, 103, ii. 24
Vladislav, King of Poland, ii. 216
Vladislav, son of Dragutin Nemr.nya,
ii. 255-6
Voinovitch, Count, cited, i. 194, 203,
ii- 553
Voivodina, i. 449-50, 626, 628, ii. 25
Vrdnik, ii. 281, 292 ; monastery, i. 530
Vukashin, ii. 281
Vukotitch, ii. 446
Vutchitch, i. 544-8
Wagner, i. 454, 481
Wallachia, i. 255
W^ar, American beliefs as to origin of,
ii. 146
War of 1914-18 :
Good things brought by, i. 161
Inevitability of, i. 404
Instigators of, the true, i. 349
Memorial statues of, at Belgrade,
i. 479, 482
Reason for, a secret of the Slavs, i. 405
Repercussions of, ii. 498
Serbia’s experiences in, i. 601 ff. ;
Serbian retreat, 604-6, ii. 322-3
Start of, i. 15
Wells, H. G., i. 462, ii. 479
Wends, i. 521
Werfel, Franz, i. 389
Weygand, General, ii. 521
Wied, William of, i. 350-1
Wildgans, i. 62
Wilhelm II, Kaiser, friendship of, with
Franz Ferdinand, i. 348, 349 ; the
boar-hunt, 340
Wilkinson, Sir Gardner, ii. 437-9
Wilson, President Woodrow, i. 124
Windsor, Duke of, ii, 461-2
Women :
Ambivalence in regard to, ii. 269
Anaemia among, in Yugoslavia, ii. 86
Bosnian rayas, i. 333
Church at Kossovo built by, ii. 218
Consideration for, learned in America,
ii. 105
Contempt for, with individual excep-
tions, ii. 47-8
Dancing by, i. 93, ii. 44
Dress of, see under Dress
Education of, in Scotland, i. 167
Gipsy, ii. 29
Girls of Gruda, i. 269-70
Guileful abjection of, i. 336
Harem life of, i. 325
Husband-poisoners, ii. 61
Idiocy of, i; 3, ii. 471
Korchula, of, i. 331
Macedonian, ii. 182
Men contrasted with, ii. 48 ; belief of
'P.trasted with men’s, i. 443
Miners’ superstition* regarding,
ii. 306-7
Mithras cult’s exclusion of, i. 419
Montenegrin, ii. 427 ; code regarding,
441
Moslem, i 281-2, 297-9; inability to
cook, ii. 308
Novi Sad, of, ii. 184
Old ladies of Ochrid, ii. 80
Oithodox Church’s views on, i. 268
“ Protection ” of, i. 151 ; not what
women want, ii. 434
Resistance of, by yielding, i. 306-7
Sex-appeal of, i. 216, 220
Skopska Tserna Gora, of, ii. 44, 47-50
Subjection of, in Yugoslavia, i. 333,
ii. 276-7, 331
Trebinye peasants, i. 281
Turkish, of Macedonia, ii. 49
Veil for, significance of, i. 299
Worship, i. 63-4, 81
Worther See, i. 30
Wotton, Sir Henry, i. 158
X. , Mr. and Mrs., i. 195 ff.
Y. , Dr. and Mrs., i. 197-8 *
Yablanitsa, i. 300
Yaitse (lajce, jajee) :
Constantine’s story of, i. 422-3
Dentist at, i. 424 ff., 438-9, 455 ; her
family, 429 ff. ; her brother, see
Chabrinovitch
Description of, i. 415-22
Importance of, i. 304, 416
Landslide at, i. 444
Sacred treasure of, i. 447-
Yanina, ii. 547
Yanka Puszta camp, i. 20
Yazak monastery, ii. 281
Yelena, Princess, i. 608, ii. 447
Yellatchitch, i. 547; statue of, 47, 53
Yezero, i. 445-6
Young, Brigham, ii. 323
Yovanovitch, Lyuba, i. 376
Yovanovna, ii. 67
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
586
Yugoslavia :
Albanians of, ii. 37
Army of, popular attitude towards,
i. 412, u. 331
Constituent elements of, not a pre-
destined harmony, i. 508
Desperate position of (1941), ii. 530 ;
resistance to Nazi demands a de-
liberate choice, 534-5, 542-3; its
results, 548
Ideal of, i. 201
Name : its meaning, i. 16 ; its adop-
tion, 625
Necessity for, i. 40
Penal tradition of, i. 491-2
Political instability in, i. 618
Politics in, i. 490
Problem of, chief, i. 624-5
Yugoslavia, Miss, ii. 188
Yugoslavs : legend of their barbarity,
i. 192 ; their vigour, 485
Zadruga, i. 502
Zagreb :
Agram trial, the (1909), i. 98, 593
Alienation of, by Peasants* Party
Government, ii, 531
THE
Bela’s stand at, i. 182
Cathedral, i. 56 ; the treasury,
90-92
Description of, i. 45-6
Materialism of, ii. 466
Population of, i. 46
Representative day in, i. 55-61
Riot in, ii. 467-9
St. Mark’s Church, i. 95
Statue of Yellatchitch, i. 47, 53
Terrorist atrocities in, i. 627
University of, i. 106
Zagreb-Sava, i. 38
Zara: Italian possession of, i. 124,
144, 197 ; Montenegrin exiles at,
ii. 442
Zealots, the, ii. 280
Zemun, i. 511
Zheraitch, i. 365, 391
Zhikovitch, General, i. 620, 623-4, 628
Zhitcha : church and monastery of, i.
508, ii. 112 ; frescoes, i. 557 ; ex-
posure of, to invasion, ii. 354
Zistler, Dr. Rudolf, i. 387
Zorka, Princess, ii. 447
Zoroastrianism, i. 175
Zvechan, ii. 334
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