The Pobratim: A Slav Novel

At last they stopped; they were by his bed. Vranic felt the breath of a person on his very face.

Except a person who has felt it, no one can realise the horror of having an invisible being leaning over you, of feeling his breath on your face.

Vranic tried to rise, but he at once came in close contact with the unseen monster; two cold, clammy, boneless hands gripped him and pinned him down; he vainly struggled to get free, but he was as a baby in the hands of his invisible foe. In a few seconds he was entirely mastered, cowed down, overcome, panting, breathless. When he tried to scream, a limp, nerveless hand, as soft as a huge toad, was placed upon his mouth, shutting it up entirely, and impeding all power of utterance. Then the ponderous mass of the ghost came upon him, crushed him, smothered him. Fainting with fear, his strength and his senses forsook him at the same time, and he swooned away.

When he came back to life, the cold, grey light of the dawning day, pouring in through the half-closed shutters, gave the room a squalid, lurid look. His head was not exactly paining him, but it felt drained of all its contents, and as light as an empty skull, or an old poppy head in which the seeds are rattling. He looked around. There was nothing unusual in the room; everything was just as it had been upon the previous evening. Had his struggle with the ghost been but a dream? He tried to move, to rise, but all his limbs were as weary and sore as if he had really fought and been beaten. Nay, his whole body was as weak as if he had had some long illness and was only now convalescent. He recalled to mind all the details of the struggle, he looked at the places where he felt numb and sore, and everywhere he remarked livid stains which he had not seen before. He lifted himself up on his right elbow; to his horror and consternation, there were two or three spots of blood upon the white sheet.

He felt faint and sick at that sight; he understood everything. His had not been a dream; his gruesome visitor was a frightful ghost, a terrible vukodlaki, which had fought with him and sucked his blood. His brother had become a loathsome vampire; he was the first victim.

For a moment he remained bewildered, unable to think; then when he did manage to collect his wandering senses, the terrible reality of his misfortune almost drove him mad again.

The ghost, having tasted his blood, would not leave him till it had drained him to the very last drop. He was a lost man; no medical aid could be of any use; nourishing food, wine and tonics might prolong his agony a few days longer and no more. He was doomed to a sure death. Daily – as if in a decline – he saw himself wasting away, for the vampire would suck the very marrow of his bones.

His was a dreary life, indeed, and yet he clung to it with might and main. The days passed on wearily, and he tried to hope against hope itself; but he was so weak and dispirited that the slightest noise made him shiver and grow pale. An unexpected footstep, the opening or shutting of a door, slackened or accelerated the beating of his heart.

With fear and trembling he waited for night to come on, and when the sun went down – when darkness came over the earth – his terror grew apace. Still, where was he to go? He had not a single friend on the surface of the earth. He, therefore, drank several glasses of spirits, muttered his prayers and went to bed. No sooner had he fallen asleep than he fell again a prey to the vampire.

On the third night he determined not to go to bed, but to remain awake, and thus wait for the arrival of his gruesome guest. Still, at the last moment his courage failed him, so he went to an old man who lived hard by. He promised to make him a new waistcoat if he would only give him a rug to sleep on, and tell him a story until he got drowsy.

The old man complied willingly, above all as Vranic had brought abukara of wine with him, so he at once began the story of

THE PRIEST AND HIS COOK

In the village of Steino there lived an old priest who was exceedingly wealthy, but who was, withal, as miserly as he was rich. Although he had fields which stretched farther than the eye could reach, fat pastures, herds and flocks; although his cellars were filled with mellow wine, his barns were bursting with the grace of God; although abundance reigned in his house, still he was never known to have given a crust of bread to a beggar or a glass of wine to a weary old man.

He lived all alone with a skinflint of an old cook, as stingy as himself, who would rather by far have seen an apple rot than give it to a hungry child whose mouth watered for it.

Those two grim old fogeys, birds of one feather, cared for no one else in this world except for each other, and, in fact, the people in Steino said – , but people in villages have bad tongues, so it's useless to repeat what was said about them.

The priest had a nephew, a smith, a good-hearted, bright-eyed, burly kind of a fellow, beloved by all the village, except by his uncle, whom he had greatly displeased because he had married a bonny lass of the neighbouring village of Smarje, instead of taking as a wife the – , well, the cook's niece, though, between us and the wall, the cook was never known to have had a sister or a brother either, and the people – , but, as I said before, the people were apt to say nasty things about their priest.

The smith, who was quite a pauper, had several children, for the poorer a man is the more babies his wife presents him with – women everywhere are such unreasonable creatures – and whenever he applied to his uncle for a trifle, the uncle would spout the Scriptures in Latin, saying something about the unfitness of casting pearls before pigs, and that he would rather see him hanged than help him.

Once – it was in the middle of winter – the poor smith had been without any work for days and days. He had spent his last penny; then the baker would not give him any more bread on credit, and at last, on a cold, frosty night, the poor children had been obliged to go to bed supperless.

The smith, who had sworn a few days before never again to put his foot in the priest's house, was, in his despair, obliged to humble himself, and go and beg for a loaf of bread, with which to satisfy his children on the morrow.

Before he knocked at the door, he went and peeped in through the half-closed shutters, and he saw his uncle and the cook seated by a roaring fire, with their feet on the fender, munching roasted chestnuts and drinking mulled wine. Their shining lips still seemed greasy from the fat sausages they had eaten for supper, and, as he sniffed at the window, he fancied the air was redolent with the spices of black-pudding. The smell made his mouth water and his hungry stomach rumble.

The poor man knocked at the door with a trembling hand; his legs began to quake, he had not eaten the whole of that long day; but then he thought of his hungry children, and knocked with a steadier hand.

The priest, hearing the knock, thought it must be some pious parishioner bringing him a fat pullet or perhaps a sleek sucking-pig, the price of a mass to be said on the morrow; but when, instead, he saw his nephew, looking as mean and as sheepish as people usually do when they go a-begging, he was greatly disappointed.

"What do you want, bothering here at this time of the night?" asked the old priest, gruffly.

"Uncle," said the poor man, dejectedly.

"I suppose you've been drinking, as usual; you stink of spirits."

"Spirits, in sooth! when I haven't a penny to bless me."

"Oh, if it's only a blessing you want, here, take one and go!"

And the priest lifted up his thumb and the two fingers, and uttered something like "Dominus vobiscum," and then waved him off; whilst the old shrew skulking near him uttered a croaking kind of laugh, and said that a priest's blessing was a priceless boon.

"Yes," replied the smith, "upon a full stomach; but my children have gone to bed supperless, and I haven't had a crust of bread the whole of the day."

"'Man shall not live by bread alone,' the Scriptures say, and you ought to know that if you are a Christian, sir."

"Eh? I daresay the Scriptures are right, for priests surely do not live on bread alone; they fatten on plump pullets and crisp pork-pies."

"Do you mean to bully me, you unbelieving beggar?"

"Bully you, uncle!" said the burly man, in a piteous tone; "only think of my starving children."

"He begrudges his uncle the grub he eats," shrieked the old cat of a cook.

"I'd have given you something, but the proud man should be punished," said the wrathful priest, growing purple in the face.

"Oh, uncle, my children!" sobbed the poor man.

"What business has a man to have a brood of brats when he can't earn enough to buy bread for them?" said the cook, aloud, to herself.

"Will you hold your tongue, you cantankerous old cat?" said the smith to the cook.

The old vixen began to howl, and the priest, in his anger, cursed his nephew, telling him that he and his children could starve for all he cared.

The smith thereupon went home, looking as piteous as a tailless turkey-cock; and while his children slept and, perhaps, dreamt ofkolaci, he told his wife the failure he had met with.

"Your uncle is a brute," said she.

"He's a priest, and all priests are brutes, you know."

"Well, I don't know about all of them, for I heard my great-grandmother say that once upon a time there lived – "

"Oh, there are casual exceptions to every rule!" said her husband.

"But, now, what's to be done?"

"Listen," said the wife, who was a shrewd kind of woman; "we can't let the children starve, can we?"

"No, indeed!"

"Then follow my advice. I know of a grass that, given to a horse, or an ox, or a sheep, or a goat, makes the animal fall down, looking as if it were dead."

"Well, but you don't mean to feed the children with this grass, do you?" said the smith, not seeing the drift of what she meant.

"No; but you could secretly go and give some to your uncle's fattest ox."

"So," said the husband, scratching his head.

"Once the animal falls down dead, he'll surely give it to you, as no butcher 'll buy it; we'll kill it and thus be provided with meat for a long time. Besides, you can sell the bones, the horns, the hide, and get a little money besides."

"And for to-morrow?"

"I'll manage to borrow a few potatoes and a cup of milk."

On the next day the wife went and got the grass, and the smith, unseen, managed to go and give it to his uncle's fattest ox. A few hours afterwards the animal was found dead.

On hearing that his finest ox was found in the stable lying stiff and stark the priest nearly had a fit; and his grief was still greater when he found out that not a man in the village would offer him a penny for it, so when his nephew came he was glad enough to give it to him to get rid of it.

The cook, who had prompted the priest to make a present of the ox to his nephew, hoped that the smith and all his family would be poisoned by feeding on carrion flesh.

"But," said the uncle, "bring me back the bones, the horns, and the hide."

To everyone's surprise, and to the old cook's rage, the smith and his children fed on the flesh of the dead ox, and throve on it. After the ox had all been eaten up, the priest lost a goat, and then a goose, in the same way, and the smith and his family ate them up with evident gusto.

After that, the old cook began to suspect foul play on the part of the smith, and she spoke of her suspicions to her master.

The priest got into a great rage, and wanted to go at once to the police and accuse his nephew of sorcery.

"No," said the cook, "we must catch them on the hip, and then we can act."

"But how are we to find them out?"

After brooding over the matter for some days, the cook bethought herself that the best plan would be to shut herself up in a cupboard, and have it taken to the nephew's house.

The priest, having approved of her plan, put it at once into execution.

"I have," said the uncle to the nephew, "an old cupboard which needs repairing; will you take it into your house and keep it for a few days?"

"Willingly," said the nephew, who had not the slightest suspicion of the trap laid to catch him.

The cupboard was brought, and put in the only room the smith possessed; the children looked at it with wonder, for they had never seen such a big piece of furniture before. The wife had some suspicion. Still, she kept her own counsel.

Soon afterwards the remains of the goose were brought on the table, and, as the children licked the bones, the husband and wife discussed what meat they were to have for the forthcoming days – was it to be pork, veal, or turkey?

As they were engrossed with this interesting topic, a slight, shrill sound came out of the cupboard.

"What's that?" said the wife, whose ears were on the alert.

"I didn't hear anything," said the smith.

"Apshee," was the sound that came again from the cupboard.

"There, did you hear?" asked the wife.

"Yes; but from where did that unearthly sound come?"

The wife, without speaking, winked at her husband and pointed to the cupboard.

"Papshee," was now heard louder than ever.

The children stopped gnawing the goose's bones; they opened their greasy mouths and their eyes to the utmost and looked scared.

"There's some one shut in the cupboard," said the smith, jumping up, and snatching up his tools.

A moment afterwards the door flew open, and to everyone's surprise, except the wife's, the old cook was found standing bolt upright in the empty space and listening to what they were saying.

The old woman, finding herself discovered, was about to scream, but the smith caught her by the throat and gave her such a powerful squeeze, that before knowing what he was doing, he had choked the cook to death.

The poor man was in despair, for he had never meant to commit a murder – he only wanted to prevent the old shrew from screaming.

"Bog me ovari! what is to become of me now?"

"Pooh!" said the wife, shrugging her shoulders; "she deserves her fate; as we make our bed, so must we lie."

"Yes," quoth the smith, "but if they find out that I've strangled her, they'll hang me."

"And who'll find you out?" said she. "Let's put a potato in her mouth and lock up the cupboard again; they'll think that she choked herself eating potatoes."

The smith followed his wife's advice, and early on the morrow the priest came again and asked for his press.

"Talking the matter over with the cook," said he, "I've decided not to have my cupboard repaired, so I've come to take it back."

"Your cook is right," said the smith's wife; "she's a wise old woman, your cook is."

"Very," said the priest, uncomfortably.

"There's more in her head than you suppose," said the wife, thinking of the potato.

"There is," said the priest.

"Give my kind respects to your cook," said the wife as the men were taking the cupboard away.

"Thank you," said the priest, "I'll certainly do so."

About an hour afterwards the priest came back, ghastly pale, to his nephew, and taking him aside said:

"My dear nephew – my only kith-and-kin – a great misfortune has befallen me."

"What is it, uncle?" asked the smith.

"My cook," said the priest, lowering his voice, "has – eating potatoes – somehow or other – I don't know how – choked herself."

"Oh!" quoth the smith, turning pale, "it is a great misfortune; but you'll say masses for her soul and have her properly buried."

"But the fact is," interrupted the priest, "she looks so dreadful, with her eyes starting out of their sockets, and her mouth wide open, that I'm quite frightened of her, and besides, if the people see her they'll say that I murdered her."

"Well, and how am I to help you?"

"Come and take her away, in a sack if you like; then bury her in some hole, or throw her down a well. Do whatever you like, as long as I am rid of her."

The smith scratched his head.

"You must help me; you are my only relation. You know that whatever I have 'll go to you some day, so – "

"And when people ask what has become of her?"

"I'll say she's gone to her – her niece."

"Well, I don't mind helping you, as long as I don't get into a scrape myself."

"No, no! How can you get into trouble?"

The priest went off, and soon afterwards the smith went to his uncle's house, and taking a big sack, shoved the cook into it and tied the sack up, put it on his shoulders and trudged off.

"Here," said the uncle, "take this florin to get a glass of wine on the way, and I hope I'll never see her any more – nor," he added to himself – "you either."

It was a warm day, and the cook was heavy. The poor man was in a great perspiration; his throat was parched; the road was dusty and hilly. After an hour's march he stopped at a roadside inn to drink a glass of wine. He quaffed it down at a gulp and then he had another, and again another, so that when he came out everything was rather hazy and blurred. Seeing some carts of hay at the door which were going to the next town, he asked permission to get on top of one of the waggons. The permission was not only granted, but the carter even helped him to hoist his sack on top. The smith, in return, got down and offered the man a glass of wine for his kindness. Then he again got on the cart and went off to sleep. An hour or two afterwards, when he awoke, the sack was gone. Had it slipped down? had it been stolen from him? – he could not tell. He did not ask for it, but he only congratulated himself at having so dexterously got rid of the cook, and at once went back home.

That evening his children had hardly been put to bed when the door was opened, and his uncle, looking pale and scared, came in panting.

"She's back, she's back!" he gasped.

"Who is back?" asked the astonished smith.

"Why, she, the cook."

"Alive?" gasped the smith.

"No, dead in the sack."

"Then how the deuce did she get back?"

"How? I ask you how?"

"I really don't know how. I dug a hole ten feet deep, half filled the hole with lime, then the other half with stones and earth, and I planted a tree within the hole, and covered the earth all around with sods. It gave me two days' work. I'll take and show you the place if you like."

The priest looked at his nephew, bewildered.

"But, tell me," continued the smith, "how did she come back?"

"Well, they brought me a waggon of hay, and on the waggon there was a sack, which I thought must contain potatoes or turnips which some parishioner sent me, so I had the sack put in the kitchen. When the men had gone I undid the sack, and to my horror out pops the cook's ugly head, staring at me with her jutting goggle-eyes and her gaping mouth, looking like a horrid jack-in-the-box. Do come and take her away, or she'll drive me out of my senses; but come at once."

The smith went back to the priest's house, tied the cook in the sack, and then putting the sack on his shoulders, he carried his load away. He had made up his mind to go and chuck her down one of those almost bottomless shafts which abound in the stony plains of the Karst.

He walked all night; at daybreak he saw a man sleeping on the grass by the highway, having near him a sack exactly like the one he was carrying.

"What a good joke it'll be," thought he, "to take that sack and put mine in its stead."

He at once stepped lightly on the grass, put down the cook, took up the other sack, which was much lighter than his own, and scampered back home as fast as his weary legs could carry him.

An hour afterwards the sleeping man awoke, took up his sack, which he was surprised to find so much heavier than it had been when he had gone off to sleep, and then went on his way.

That evening the priest came back to his nephew's house, looking uglier and more ghastly, if possible, than the evening before. Panting and gasping, with a weak and broken voice:

"She's back again," he said in a hoarse whisper.

The smith burst out laughing.

"It's no laughing matter," quoth the priest, with a long face.

"No, indeed, it isn't," replied the nephew; "only, tell me how she came back."

"A pedlar, an honest man whom I sometimes help by lending him a trifle on his goods – merely out of charity – brought me a sack of shoes, begging me to keep it for him till he found a stall for to-morrow's fair. I told him to put the sack in the kitchen, and he did so. When he had gone, I thought I'd just see what kind of shoes he had for sale, and whether he had a pair that fitted me. I opened the sack, and I almost fainted when I saw the frightful face of the cook staring at me."

"And now," asked the smith, "am I to carry her away again, for you know, uncle, she is rather heavy; and besides – "

"No," replied the priest; "I'll go away myself for a few days; during that time drown her, burn or bury her; in fact, do what you like with her, as long as you get rid of her. Perhaps, knowing I'm not at home, she'll not come back. In the meanwhile, as you are my only relation, come and live in my house and take care of my things as if they were your own; and they'll be yours soon enough, for this affair has made an old man of me."

The priest went home, followed by his nephew. Arriving there, he went to the stable, saddled the mare, got on her, gave his nephew his blessing, bade him take care of his house, and trotted off. No sooner had he gone than the smith saddled the stallion, then went and took the cook out of the sack, tied her on the stallion's saddle, then let the horse loose to follow the mare.

The poor priest had not gone a mile before he heard a horse galloping behind him, and, fearing that it was the police coming to bring him back, he spurred the mare and galloped on; but the faster he rode, the quicker the stallion galloped after him.

Looking round, the priest, to his horror and dismay, saw his cook, with her eyes starting wildly out of their sockets, and her horrid mouth gaping as black as the hole of hell, chasing him, nay, she was only a few yards behind.

The terrified priest spurred on the mare, which began to gallop along the highway; but withal she flew like an arrow, the stallion was gaining ground at every step. The priest, fainting with fear, lost all his presence of mind; he then spurred the mare across country. The poor animal reared at first, and then began to gallop over the stony plain; no obstacles could stop her, she jumped over bushes and briars, stumbling almost at every step.

The priest, palsied with terror, as ghastly pale as a ghost, could not help turning round; alas! the cook was always at his heels. His fear was such that he almost dropped from his horse. He lashed the poor mare, forgetful of all the dangers the plains of the Karst presented, for the ground yawned everywhere – here in huge, deep clefts, there in bottomless shafts; or it sank in cup-like hollows, all bordered with sharp, jagged rocks, or concealed in the bushes that surround them. His only thought was to escape from the grim spectre that pursued him. The lame and bleeding mare had stopped on the brink of one of these precipices, trembling and convulsed with terror. The priest, who had just turned round, dug his spurs into the animal's sides; she tried to clear the cleft, but missed her footing, and rolled down in the abyss. The stallion, seeing the mare disappear, stopped short, and uttered a loud neigh, shivering with fear. The shock the poor beast had got burst the bonds which held the corpse on his back, and the cook was thus chucked over his head on the prone edge of the pit.

A few days afterwards some peasants who happened to pass by found the cook sitting, stiff and stark, astride on a rock, seemingly staring, with eyes starting from their sockets and her black mouth gaping widely, at the mangled remains of her master's corpse.

As the priest had told the clerk that he was going away for a few days, everybody came to the conclusion that his cook, having followed him against his will, had frightened the mare and thus caused her own and her master's death.

The smith having been left in possession of his uncle's house, as well as of all his money and estates, and being, moreover, the only legal heir, thus found himself all at once the richest man in the village. As he was beloved by everybody, all rejoiced at his good luck, especially all those who owed money to the priest and whose debts he cancelled.