Gregor von Rezzori - An Ermine in Czernopol

The idea that Uncle Sergei might be particularly susceptible to this disease seemed contradicted by the fact that he was always extremely restrained toward Frau Lyubanarov — and this type of conversation came up primarily in connection with her. Moreover, we would have found it more natural that he were the one to be pitied, if that were the case, just as we found it ungenerous, and even untactful, to criticize his passion for “playing,” just because he was forced to live as a poor refugee at our expense. We couldn’t grasp why they would hold against Uncle Sergei what they were constantly urging in us — mostly when we were following a conversation among the grown-ups with particular interest. Then they would usually shoo us off, with a gesture we hated as the most arrogant grown-up gesture: “You look like you don’t have anything to do, my dears. Don’t you want to go out and play a little?” But when it came to Uncle Sergei, people spoke in muted tones about the sad fact of his “regrettable penchant for playing.”

But from the strange, almost hostile world of the adults we had learned simply to accept certain things that didn’t make much sense, including at times their crass lack of understanding — for instance, when people, in their ongoing efforts to prove Miss Rappaport a Jew, cited as evidence the fact that on an order slip for religious utensils she had misspelled the word for rosary— Rosenkranz— as a Jewish name: Rosencrantz. No one believed us when we explained that the spelling came from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet , which she had read out loud to us in batches. The stubborn assertion of preconceived opinions seemed to be one of those annoying prerogatives claimed by the grown-ups, on the basis of nothing more than an agreement concluded solely among themselves, a convention that was, unfortunately, unassailable, and the occasional vague interest they showed in our own views, always tentatively expressed, had long since demonstrated to us that we were better off keeping our thoughts to ourselves.

We had also learned, however, that there were grown-ups who defied categorization according to the arbitrarily established rules of the grown-up world, or who in fact opposed them — outlaws, or at least people like Uncle Sergei, who were not fully accepted or who had outgrown existing conventions, each in his own way, and had thus acquired the privilege of disregarding them, whether through some particular fate or sheer force of personality, such as Widow Morar or Herr Tarangolian. They participated to a lesser extent in the general conspiracy of the grown-ups who considered themselves keepers of some great seal and who were bent on protecting us from the secrets of the world. On occasion they also served as our interpreters. Not that we would have communicated to them our most intimate concerns, for childhood does not engage in communication. But in addressing the riddles that confronted us, they spoke the way we would have, if we had been equipped to do so. They helped us understand by expanding our imagination. Thus, after Uncle Sergei told us about the vast homeland of the aristocracy, we were no longer plagued by the doubt that Tildy might have some blemish because he came from the same tribe as Professor Feuer, Herr Adamowski, and Schmunzelmann. Nothing was more illuminating than the fact that he belonged to the special nation that formed the substratum of the noble qualities of all the nations, a legitimate descendant of the early-medieval knighthood, united by one God and one ideal image of itself.

Consequently, we were all the more bothered by what Widow Morar told us about Tamara Tildy. We had asked her if she thought it possible that Tildy might be killed in a duel, and whether his wife would then be unhappy. She shook her head. “She is a Paşcanu,” she said. “She is not afraid of anything — only herself. Her father once told her how people in the mountains, where he came from, used to kill wolves: they would set a knife in the snow and let it freeze over so that only the blade was visible. Then they sprinkled blood on it. When the wolves came at night, they licked the blood and cut their tongues. In their greed they did not feel the pain. The taste of the fresh, warm blood coming from their tongues put them in such frenzy that they attacked each other and tore themselves apart.”

IN THOSE days Herr Tarangolian paid regular visits to our house, for reasons that gave the most eloquent proof of his tender sensibilities, but which, given our family’s constant urge to criticize, were interpreted in a less appreciative manner. He had an obvious fondness for one of our aunts, my mother’s second-youngest sister. She was a delicate creature of nervous, girlish charm, with an alluring hint of something unrealized, unawakened, that came from the shadow cast by an early misfortune — a shy, tightly budded blossom that in another place, under more caring hands, might have unfolded into a tender glowing beauty. She had distinct musical talents but never developed them beyond a promising dilettantism, mostly because she suffered from a very painful and persistent ear complaint that later proved much worse than first assumed.

The prefect paid her a chivalrous attentiveness that never went beyond a tender thoughtfulness, but which struck us as all the more conspicuous, because all of us except our mother, who loved her younger sister very much, had grown used to viewing Aunt Aida’s constant poor health as a conceit, and her overly inhibited and supercilious air got on our nerves. And indeed she clearly bloomed under the discreet favors of the prefect, although she had to endure relentless gibes about the age and corpulence and dandyish swagger of her prominent admirer. Although Herr Tarangolian never gave the slightest hint of such an intention, people spoke bluntly about the possibility of a union. This was clearly a case of wishful thinking, because not only did the prefect’s high position win people over — he was also considered rich — but no one believed that Aunt Aida would ever find another suitor, and certainly never a more fitting one.

But as I said: Herr Tarangolian kept his attentions entirely within the bounds of warmhearted fondness and the understanding of an old family friend, and whatever tomcat-like gallantry accompanied this paternal familiarity could be ascribed either to his vanity or to a certain compassion for the unfortunate girl — and perhaps also to a genuine attraction for her faded magic, which would by no means have obliged him in any way. Unfortunately, our aunt’s ear complaint broke out with a ferocity that made it necessary to send her to Vienna to be treated by the great specialist Professor Neumann. But by then it was, sadly, too late. She died half a year later of tuberculous meningitis, in indescribable pain.

There was no reason to doubt the sincerity of the prefect’s grief. They said that his wreath of white camellias covered the entire grave. He asked for Aunt Aida’s photograph, which he placed in his apartment, where, years later, it continued to be decorated with the same tenderly glowing, romantic flowers on every anniversary of her death.

In fact it was unfathomable how the idea could have taken hold that Herr Tarangolian took double pleasure in the role of the prematurely bereaved bridegroom: first to conceal his relief at having escaped the marriage, and second because his sentimental attachment to the deceased provided a welcome barrier against all future endangerments to his long-established bachelorhood.

During Aunt Aida’s illness he had developed the habit of showing up shortly after meals for some black coffee — in other words, at an extremely unconventional hour, which suggested more than a merely casual friendship. His heartfelt expression on those occasions and his compassionately muted voice when he asked our mother, without letting go of her hand: “Do you have any news?” and later, after Aunt Aida’s death, when he continued to visit, his daily exclamation of “ Ma chère! ” uttered in deep sympathy with my mother over their shared grief, while the red carnation of the old playboy flamed in his lapel and faint tinges of green and ruby could be seen in his raven-black, freshly dyed mustache — all that caused us so much wicked pleasure that the tragic death of a near and beloved relative wound up being treated as a highly amusing anecdote.