The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures, and Fancies from Transylvania. E. Smith Gerard
governments has chosen the right road to success. So much, however, is certain—the Hungarians know what they want, and pursue their preconceived line of political action with consistent energy; while the Austrian Government, never knowing its own mind, is swayed at hazard by whichever of the minor nationalities happens to have the momentary ascendancy, and behindhand, as ever, of “an idea and of an army,” may almost be said to deserve the definition of one of its own statesmen,[2] of being the “land of improbabilities.”
CHAPTER IV.
ARRIVAL IN TRANSYLVANIA—FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
The War Office, whose ways are dark and whose mysteries are inscrutable, had unexpectedly decreed that we were to exchange Galicia for Transylvania.
The unaccountable decisions of a short-sighted Ministry, which, without ostensible reason, send unfortunate military families rolling about the empire like gigantic foot-balls—from Hungary to Poland, down to Croatia, and up again to Bohemia, all in one breath—too often burst on hapless German ménages like a devastating bomb, bringing moans and curses, tears and hysterics, in their train, according as the sufferer happens to be of choleric or lachrymose temperament. Only those who have lived in this country, and tasted of the bitter-sweets of Austrian military life, can tell how formidable it is to be forced to pack up everything—literally everything, from your stoutest kitchen-chairs to your daintiest egg-shell china—half a dozen times during an equal number of years.
For my own part, however—and I am aware that I am considered singular in my views—I had little objection to being treated in this sportive fashion, as long as it gave me the opportunity of seeing fresh scenes and different types of people. There are two sides to every question, a silver—or at least a tin-foil—lining to every leaden cloud, and it is surely wiser to regard one’s self as a tourist than as an exile?
What if crockery perish and mirrors be shivered in the portentous flitting? Dry your eyes, and console yourself by gazing at mountains new and lakes unknown. And if furniture be annihilated, and your grand piano-forte reduced to a wailing discord, what of that? Such loss is only gain, for in return you will hear the music of unknown tongues and the murmur of strange waters. If the proceeding be often illogical, the change is always welcome; and on this particular occasion I secretly blessed the playful impetus which had sent our ball of fate thus high up in the air, to alight again in the land beyond the forest.
It was in the beginning of April that we started on our journey, and in Galicia we left everything still deep in ice and snow; but scarce had we passed the Hungarian frontier, and got down on to the broad plains, when a warm, genial breeze came to meet us and tell us that winter was gone. The snow left us by degrees, and with it the poverty-stricken, careworn expression peculiar to Poland; spring flowers ventured out of their hiding-places, singly at first, then in groups of twos and threes, till they grew to extensive patches of gold or sapphire blue, pressing up to the rails on either side of our way. Greasy kaftans began to give place to sheepskin bundas, and pointed mustaches became more numerous than corkscrew ringlets. The air seemed full of joyous music—the voice of the lark and the strains of a gypsy fiddler alternately taking up the song of triumph over the return of spring.
The railway communications are very badly managed, so that it was only on the evening of the second day (fully forty-eight hours) that we arrived at Klausenburg, where we were to stop for a night’s rest. It would hardly have taken longer to go from Lemberg to London.
Coming from the Hungarian plains, the entrance into Transylvania is very striking, as the train dashes along narrow winding valleys, where, below, a green mountain torrent is breaking over gray bowlders; and above, the cliffs are piled up so high and so near that only by craning our necks out of the carriage-window can we catch a glimpse of the sky above. Unfortunately, the early darkness had set in long before we reached Klausenburg, so that I had no opportunity of observing the country immediately round the town.
Fresh from Polish hotels as we were, the inn where rooms had been secured struck us as well kept and appointed, though I dare say that had we come from Vienna or Paris it would have appeared just fairly second-rate. The beds were excellent, the rooms clean; the doors could actually be locked or bolted without superhuman effort; the bells could really ring, and what was stranger yet, their summons was occasionally attended to.
I was somewhat disappointed next morning when daylight came round again and showed me the environs of the town. Pretty enough, but tame and insignificant, with nothing of the sublime grandeur which the entrance into the land had led me to expect. The town itself differed but little from many other Hungarian towns I had seen before, and had indeed an exclusively Hungarian character, being the winter resort of the Magyar aristocracy of Transylvania.
The present town of Klausenburg, or, in Hungarian, Kolosvar, lying three hundred and thirty-five metres above the sea-level, and built on the site of Napoca, a Roman city, was founded by German colonists about the year 1270–1272, and was for many years exclusively a German town, where Hungarians were only tolerated on sufferance and in one restricted quarter. By degrees, however, these latter obtained a preponderance; and finally, when the Unitarian sect made of Klausenburg its principal seat, the Saxons withdrew in disgust from the place altogether.
In the year 1658, Klausenburg was besieged by the Tartars. The Turkish Sultan having deposed George Rakoczy II. for acting against his will, sent hither the barbarians to devastate the land. Burning and pillaging, the wild hordes reached Klausenburg (then a Saxon city), and standing before its closed gates, they demanded a ransom of thirty thousand thalers for sparing the town.
Martin Auer, the Klausenburg judge and a brave Saxon man, went out to meet the enemy with a portion of the required money. The Tartars threatened to murder him for not bringing the whole of what they asked, but Auer divined that not even the payment of the entire thirty thousand thalers would save the town from pillage. The Tartars intended to take the sum, and then to sack the city. So he begged to be suffered to go as far as the town gates in order to persuade his fellow-citizens to deposit the rest of the money; but when he had reached within speaking distance, he cried out to his countrymen,
“Friends and citizens! I have come hither under the feint of persuading you to pay the rest of the fine demanded by the Tartars; but what I really advise is for you to keep your money and resist the enemy to the last; trust them not, for however much you pay, they will not spare you. For my part, I gladly lay down my life for the good of my people.” But hardly had he finished speaking when the Tartars, guessing at the purport of his words, laid hold of the brave Saxon and dragged him off to a cruel death.
A peculiar characteristic of Klausenburg are the Unitarian divorces, which bring many strangers on a flying visit to this town, where the conjugal knot is untied with such pleasing alacrity, and replaced at will by more congenial bonds.
To attain this end the divorcing party must be a citizen of Klausenburg, and prove his possession to house or land in the place. This, however, is by no means so complicated as it sounds, the difficulty being provided for by a row of miserable hovels chronically advertised for sale, and which for a nominal price are continually passing from hand to hand.
House-buying, divorce, and remarriage can therefore be easily accomplished within a space of three or four days—a very valuable arrangement for those to whom time is money. By this convenient system, therefore, if you happen to have quarrelled with your first wife on a Sunday, you have only to take the train to Klausenburg on Monday, become Unitarian on Tuesday, buy a house on Wednesday, be divorced on Thursday, remarried on Friday, and on Saturday sell your house and turn your back on the place with the new-chosen partner of your life, and likewise the pleasant arrière-pensée that you can begin again da capo next week if so pleases you.
I went to visit this street for sale, which presents a most doleful aspect. As the houses are continually changing hands, none of the transitory owners care to be at the expense of repairs or keeping in order; therefore rotten planking, hingeless gates, broken windows, and caved-in roofs are the