P. Jones - The Pobratim - A Slav Novel

There was quite a bustle at Budua, because Janko Markovic and Milos Bellacic had just come back from Cattaro that very morning, and – what was really surprising – they were both getting shaved.

Now, it has always been a most uncommon occurrence amongst us for a man to get shaved on a Friday.

Mind, I do not mean to say that I consider this operation as being in any way unlucky if performed on that day. We, of course, cut our hair during the new moon; but there is no special time for shaving. Cutting one's nails on a Saturday brings on illnesses, as we all know; and I, without being superstitious, can name you lots of people who fell ill simply out of disregard to the wisdom of their elders. Nay, I myself once suffered a dreadful toothache for having thoughtlessly pared my nails on the last Saturday of the year.

Shaving on Saturday, however, cannot be considered as harmful either to the body or to the soul. Still, as we all go to the barber's once a week, on Sunday morning, it has hitherto been regarded as part of our dominical duties.

There was, therefore, some particular reason that made these prominent citizens shave on a Friday; could the reason be another change in the Government?

Quite a little crowd had gathered, by ones and by twos, round the hairdresser's shop; some were standing, others sitting, some smoking, others eating dried melon seeds – all were gravely looking at the barber, who was holding Bellacic by the tip of his nose and was scraping his cheek with a razor which kept making a sharp, stridulous noise as it cut down the crisp, wiry stubble hair of almost a week's growth. Then the shaver left the nose, for, as a tuft of hair in a hollow spot under the cheek-bone was renitent to the steel blade, he poked his thumb in his customer's mouth, swelled out the sunken spot and cleaned it beautifully. He was a real artist, who took a pride in doing his work neatly. He then wiped the ends on his finger, cast the soap to the ground with a jerk and a snap, then he rubbed his hand on the head of an urchin standing by.

The barber, who was as inquisitive and as loquacious as all the Figaros of larger towns, had tried craftily and with many an ambage to get at the information we were all so anxious to know; but nothing seemed to induce our clients to speak.

"I suppose," said he, with a pleasant smile, "I'll soon have new customers to shave?"

"Yes? Who?" quoth Markovic.

"Why, your sons, Uros and Milenko."

"No, not yet; they'll not be back before some months."

All conjectures and guesses, all suppositions and surmises were at last at an end. The barber, although he had been a long time about it, had finished shaving Bellacic; Markovic was now sitting down with the towel tied round his neck.

"This afternoon we start for Cettinje," said Bellacic, wiping himself.

An "Ah!" of satisfaction and expectation was followed by a moment of breathless silence. The barber stopped soaping his client's face and turned to look at Bellacic.

"On a diplomatic mission, of course?" he asked, in a hollow whisper.

"On a diplomatic mission."

"To the Vladika, eh?"

Everyone looked significantly at his neighbor, some twisted their long moustaches, others instinctively lifted their hands to the hafts of their knives. They all seemed to say: "It is what we have been suspecting from the very beginning. Montenegro will take back Cattaro and Budua." Thereupon every face brightened.

It was natural to surmise such a thing in those times, inasmuch as in the course of a few years we had been shifting from hand to hand. The French had taken us from the Venetians; then we became Russians; the English drove the Cossacks away, and gave us over to the Austrians, our present masters.

"Of course, nobody goes to Cettinje without doing homage to the Vladika. Still, our mission is not to the Prince."

We all looked at Bellacic and at Markovic in blank astonishment.

"You might as well tell them," said one of the friends to the other.

"Besides, it is a thing that all the town will know in a few days."

"Well," quoth Markovic, "our mission is not a political one. We are deputed by Radonic – "

"By Radonic?" interrupted the shaver. "But he is not in Budua."

"No, he is at Perasto with his ship. We saw him at Cattaro."

"Well?"

"And he is going to get married."

"Married?"

"But he is too old," said a youth, without thinking.

"We have only the age we look," retorted an elderly man, snappishly.

"Well, but Radonic looks old," answered the young man.

"But to whom is he going to be married?"

"To Milena."

"What! Milena Zwillievic?"

"Exactly; to the prettiest girl of Montenegro!"

Many a young face fell, more than one brow grew cloudy, and a bright eye got dim.

"It is an impossible marriage," said someone.

"A rich husband, a horned bull," quoth another.

"But he is much older than she is."

"We marry our sons when we like, and our daughters when we can," added Figaro, sententiously.

"Still, how could Zwillievic consent to take for his son-in-law a man as old as himself?"

"A hero of the Kolo ."

"And yet Zwillievic is a man with a gold head, a wise man."

"Yes, but he has also gold hands," replied Markovic.

"He did not follow the proverb – " added Bellacic, "'Consult your purse, then buy.' His passion for arms ruined him; debts must be paid."

"We were once on board the same ship with Radonic," said one of the friends; "so he asked me to be the Stari-Svat ."

"And I," added the other, "as Zwillievic is a kinsman of mine, I must be voivoda ."

"Ah, poor Milena! the year will be a black one to her."

"After all, she'll henceforth be able to sit in flour."

"And we all have our Black Fridays."

By this time Markovic had been shaved, the two friends wended their way homewards, and the crowd dispersed.

"And now," you evidently ask, "who is this Milos Bellacic and his friend, Janko Markovic?"

Two well-to-do citizens of Budua, the last of all Austrian towns, two gospodje , but, unlike most of the Buduans and the other Dalmatians, they were real Iugo-Slavs, Illyrians of the great Serbian stock.

As children they had clung to one another on account of the friendship that existed between their fathers; as they grew older this feeling, of almost kinship, was strengthened by the many trials they had to undergo in common, for Fate seemed to have spun their lives out of the selfsame yarn. At fourteen they had left home, on a schooner bound for distant coasts; later, they got shipwrecked, and swam – or rather they were washed – ashore, clinging to the same plank. Thus they suffered cold, hunger, "the whips and scorns of time" together.

From America, where they had been cast by the waves, they worked their way to Trieste, hoping from thence to return to their native place, ever dear to their hearts. This ill wind, so fatal, not only to the ship, but to the remainder of the crew, proved to be the young men's fortune. Trieste was, at the time, in the very beginning of its mushroom growth, before that host of adventurers had flocked thither from every part of the world with the hopes of making money.

It is not to be wondered that, after the hard life these young men had undergone, they understood the full strength of the Italian proverb – "Praise the sea, but keep to the shore." Sober and hard-working as they were, they made up their minds to try and acquire by trade what they could hardly get by a rough seafaring life – their daily bread and a little money for their old age.

Strongly built, they started life as porters. Like beasts of burden, they were harnessed to a cart the whole of the long summer days, or else they helped to unload the ships that came in port.