Cortrinkau's Blog

This is an excerpt from "On the High Uplands: Sagas, Songs, Tales, and Legends of the Carpathians" by Stanisław Vincenz. This chapter is "The Youthful Swarming," part of a section entitled "The Fight for Freedom." It's about brigands, and contains violence.

The fir-cones are showing red on the uplands;

Brothers, this spring shall we join the robbers?

So the old song sings.

How many stories are told of the spring swarming of the men of the forest! When the beeches began to show green, when the fir-cones began to flame, their chiefs gathered them as the mountain torrents gathered the waters. But there was one way of gathering them in the old times, and another way later.

A rebel like Dobosz, and many another, openly summoned them with the trumpet, and aroused the mountain freedom like water set free from under the ice; but in the end such conditions were established that the farmers farmed in the mountains and the gentry ruled in the lowlands, and such trumpets ceased to sound.

But later, something happened. It is said that by the law of inheritance or by bargaining the Christian Emperor filched all our Highlands and all the Halicz country.¹ That is nothing to do with us, and perhaps it was better so, for the Emperor was even farther away than the king² was. Still, all kinds of serpents crawled out of the Emperor's bosom and settled on us. It is even said that the Emperor himself sent various officers, customs guards, troops and police into the mountains, but it was not so. The poor wretch did not send them; the truth is that in his home in the Palace he had nowhere to keep these packs of hounds. For somehow they were incompetent, stupid... or so it seemed to him. So he packed them off to the mountains, where they did not need much knowledge or intelligence: let them guard the frontiers. And only when they got here did they show that they were not all that stupid. Away in Vienna they had concealed their infamy under a show of stupidity, in order to soften the Emperor's heart; but here they revealed themselves in their true colours.

They were always taking violent action, and sent the governor letters saying what dangerous robbers and insolent people the mountain-dwellers were, in order to extract as much money as possible from him. They built a prison in Kuty, they enrolled dog-skinning executioners into their service, and began to torture, strip and destroy the people. The people remember it to this day. When conscription came, the officials caught the mountain youngsters like dogs, with lassoes, and if any man wanted to be freed from service they took the opportunity to line their pockets. Then they sent out expeditions to catch deserters, and then punitive military expeditions against the villages. Then they introduced gallows law; the black gallows stood in rows at the roadside. Behind them lay serfdom.

From that time anyone who saw the mark of a military boot on the track turned and fled. Both the deserters and those who were evading the press-gangs, those who had already revolted and those who would revolt, they all fled in swarms into the forest. They disappeared into the heart of the highland wilds or settled down in the forest. From many a settlement all the young men fled, scattering in all directions.

In the spring lofty columns of smoke began to rise on the peaks—signs of the youngsters' presence. Communicating from upland to upland with the smoke of their fires, they began to seek one another out. Many of them were entirely without weapons, many of them were hungry, even emaciated, and could hardly drag their feet along. Many of them had lived all through the winter on barley meal without salt, or had eaten the meat of animals they had themselves caught and killed. Very few were well or even warmly clothed, for even if they had plenty of clothing in their cottages they had had no time to snatch anything up to take with them. Their faces were smoke-stained, grimy, their shirts black and greasy, they wore filthy rags round their feet, their worn-out boots were mis-shapen through being dried out by the camp-fire. But they preferred to live in such misery, rather than allow themselves to be tied up in army gaiters or to breed prison fleas in their fetters.³

They came together gradually, peering through the thicket of dwarf pine, cautiously investigating, straining their ears and eyes. For, although the military expeditions rarely ventured into the high uplands, and then only on some carefully planned, large-scale hunt, every one of the youngsters knew all about the gallows procession. Every one knew that the gallows was everywhere on the watch, and every one was determined to avoid running the gauntlet of hazel switches which was the regular punishment for deserters.

As they drew closer, they called to one another three times, with the shrill cry of a hawk or the hoot of an owl, according to the time of day. When they espied one another, if they were not already acquainted they scrutinized one another long and distrustfully, asking questions, calling across the intervening distance, often with pistol in hand, finger on the trigger, or with axe upraised, and would not come within axe-throwing distance. Finally they would strike up acquaintance, and after a time they fraternized. Old acquaintances greeted one another heartily, laughing, almost crying, shaking hands, incessantly questioning and answering. Then they shared out their food, played on their pipes, danced and cheered.

A group of these youthful, ragged exiles sat high up on the Lostun upland, west of the source of the Czeremosz. And up there, somewhere on the verge of the enormous dwarf-pine forests, on the very edge of the upland, they cleared for themselves a small glade in the thicket. On their camp-fire they baked venison which the young hunter Kudil had killed with a club. And they told of their adventures, of their flight, of their wintering. And they took long, long counsel as to the kind of leader they needed.

[...]

There was the youthful Martyszczuk; he was still a child, yet already he had shot a forest inspector who was said to be an imperial officer, because he had given orders that Martyszczuk was to be imprisoned for poaching. There was the young son of Dunia the farmer, who had been reminded by the customs guard to pay dues and then struck with a hunting-crop; he had laid the man low with an axe.

There was young Buliga, who was in grave danger, for outside the church at Jasenowo he had sung bawdy songs poking fun not onle at the Kuty police-court official but at the Emperor Joseph himself.⁴ The two lads Zolop and Gryga of Sloboda had resisted the introduction of serfdom, while the young farmer Biloholowy had wounded a policeman who had been too persistent in his attentions to his wife. The nobleman Grabowiecki of Berezow had felled twenty guards, and the townsman Piskozup of Kolomiyja had been sentenced to a public whipping, but had fled just before it was to be carried out.

Among the refugees there were also two gentlemen named Oswiecimski and Jasielski, taciturn fellows, with a strong sense of their dignity, but courteous. No one knew what they had done, for they did not betray themselves. It was whispered that they, too, dis-agreeing with the Emperor, had fought for some freedom or other, though none of the other lads could understand what more freedom the gentry wanted. Then the servant, Chlupkiewicz, had fled from his master and taken refuge [...] Of the older robbers there was only Klem Bojczuk. The band to which he had belonged had long since been broken up and dispersed, but he had hung on somehow, had survived the winter, and now had crawled out of his lair. Klem was no ordinary old man, but a bold, experienced robber, one of those who remembered Dobosz's declarations. But he had been overcome by the difficulties of the winter and his own weakness; he lay close to the fire and did not stir.

The man who was most active in shouting, jesting and getting the others to talk was a farmer's son, known as Czuprej. In the canvas garb of a hospital patient, with a military cloak round his shoulders, he stood leaning on his carbine with the bayonet fixed, and when he spoke he brandished the weapon above his head. He had been given the name of Czuprej (Tufty) in Zabie, because of his shock of flaxen hair, which always stuck up intractably like an eagle-owl's feathers. His large dark eyes were deep-set, and were always smiling saucily, and he had an extraordinary kind of croaking chuckle, just like an eagle-owl's call. He looked as though he were continually laughing at someone, for he had two large, protruding white teeth. He always talked in a boastful and challenging tone, but when anyone else spoke he looked at them sideways, screwing up his eyes, as though he were the only man in the world who could say anything to the point. Czuprej had fled from the army, inciting the other soldiers in the hospital to revolt, and then had committed several murders in succession. The Government officials were searching for him everywhere, rewards had been set on his head, and it was not even known for certain whether he was really the man they wanted. In his delight at having got into the mountains he was always unnecessarily noisy. He was to some extent cut out for the position of leader, but he was too voluble.

Beside him sat the handsome and phlegmatic young farmer Kudil, with a pipe in his hand. He was tall, rather weakly-looking, with drawn face and grey eyes. His hair was cut in military fashion. He alone of them all was dressed in clean clothes. Under his coloured goatskin coat he had a red caftan fastened with frogs and glittering buttons, red trousers, and a broad leather belt. He always listened closely and seemed to agree with what others said. When conversation flagged he played a little on his pipe, drawing sweet and yearning music from it. He also played the old Dobosz song, both moody and light:

"It is not the icy water that thunders as it flies down from the cliff."

The others all involuntarily listened.

As they talked desultorily and lapsed again into silence Czuprej shouted:

"D'you know what I suggest? Let each of us tell what happened to him, how he came to run away, how he fought and suffered. Then perhaps we shall see who is worth making our chief."

It seemed as though Czuprej had already taken command of the company; before anyone else could say anything he began to tell about himself. Leaning on his army rifle, frequently stroking it, he stood with feet planted wide apart and shouted:

"Here is my weapon, an imperial army carbine. Have a good look at it and you'll know all. I'll tell you its story—and my own too. I was a full seven months in the imperial gaiters, I went about in their mealy coloured uniform like a painted caterpillar. At first I had no wish to run away or part from the army. Oh, it's all superstitious women's talk to be afraid of the army—so I thought. In our home we had a pretty thin time. Let them only put a carbine into my hands, let them take me into the army, oho, then they wouldn't get me out again... I'd see the world, I'd bring back treasures for myself, I'd learn the gentry's art of making war; hah, and then I'd show them, the police officials and the dog-skinners, what they'd done in stirring me up.

"So I thought; but I was a fool.

"For you see, it's easier for the likes of us to hold out under the ground, in hell itself, than in those gentry's toils. Now if they'd only sent us to war! I'd be the first to fling myself on a bayonet, to climb into a fort, to take something by storm. What are cannon to me? I've seen how they fire: let them fire, they don't fire on their own. Give the gunner a good whacking and it's yours.

"But those gentry and imperial dogs, instead of making war, imprison and torture a Christian in dark cells, their barracks and stone courtyards. Behind walls, behind high enclosures, with no light, nor a single tree, nor even a blade of grass. From the barrack window all you can see is the bare wall. And what if they had given me a carbine? It's pretty, there's no denying it, look how it laughs, baring its steel teeth! And take this steel, broad-snouted knife, what they call a bayonet; you thrust with it, and you'll let out not only a bear's but even a police official's entrails. But instead of that, for a whole six months it was 'left-right, left-right, left-right' from morning till night as if the place were a mill.

"I didn't recognize myself. Was it a fever that was eating at me? Or was the devil himself showing me the gentry's little arts? [...]

"In the same way something happened to me, me, and they put me behind walls. I myself couldn't tell you now whether my soul just went off on its own and looked on from a distance, while my body remained there. I couldn't get a word out of my mouth. I often wanted to say something, but somehow I just couldn't manage it. Often I burst into a laugh. I sat by the window, gazing out at that wall; I heard someone come and talk to me, but what to answer I didn't know. They knocked me about with rifle-butts, they jabbed me with a bayonet to make me speak, but all in vain. The major himself came. But I said nothing. I didn't stand up, I just stared at the grey wall, and I felt even more inclined to jump out of the window.

"The major said in Czech:

"'Oho, so the mountain madness has got hold of this one too? They're a sorry lot, these brigands. Pity!'

"So he said; and then he gave the order: 'To hospital.'

"I was completely dried up, I couldn't take a step. They carried me by force to some white house. They dressed me in a white death-gown—let death come and make an end. There were quite a lot of our lads there. And every one of them was as green as a ghost, every one of them dumb like me, their eyes flashing out of the grave. And many of them vomiting blood, choking with blood.

"The hospital was on the first floor, there was a white wall all round it, and from the window you could see a small garden below. Something let go of me a little. Spring was coming, and and in in the day-time I stared through the window at the grass, watching it growing all green, and at once I felt better. At night I saw cows and sheep. Next morning I felt like talking; but when those guards, those corporals, those doctors entered, and when they began to fuss and jabber, oho, my mouth was walled up again.

"On the ground floor, below the hospital, lived a regular sergeant with his wife and children. They were going to celebrate their Easter festival. So they were continually bringing out their bedding, their feather-beds, pillows and blankets. They shook them and cleaned them, fussed with them all over the garden, jabbering away in German, the devil knows what. I saw all this through the window. Then they brought out a large iron sheet loaded with flowers, each flower in a separate clay pot.

"That was a sight worth looking at. Flowers white and blue, cupped like our orchids, but thicker and fuller. And the scent they had! When it flew up to me, believe it or not, all my inside turned over. I was as though thunderstruck. And my soul came back to me, pierced me like a wind. It's the truth I'm telling, in a moment I was high on an upland. How I shouted, how I laughed, like Dobosz's horse neighing on Czornohora! I began to dance, to stamp my feet, to sing, to bawl until the hospital windows rang.

The fir-cones are showing red on the uplands;

Brothers, this spring shall we join the robbers?

"And then all the others began to stir, to fidget, to laugh, to roar, to kick up a shindy. Lord! Just as though someone had lit a fire under-neath them. But I ran to the door, tore down a cloak, this very one, for myself; some invalid soldier was on guard and tried to stop me. I gave him one on the snout, and took his loaded carbine. Then I returned to the hospital room, and in one bound I leapt through the window. And all the others, well or ill, followed me one after another, they poured out of the window like apples out of a sack. We flew straight at the wall. But meanwhile the doctors, the corporals and the guards raised the alarm. They overtook us just by the wall and began to lay about them with butt-ends, catching us, holding us, even pulling us down from the wall by our legs. They managed to pull down the weaker ones, but not me. Two particularly aggressive devils hung on to me. I gave one a crack with my rifle-butt on his head, and the other I bayoneted in the belly [...] but meantime we were already on the other side. I flew on. I shouted terribly, I don't know why or what for. A dozen and more lads followed me. And all the civilians who saw us turned and flew, screaming that they were being murdered by brigands.

"At a river we were overtaken by mounted dragoons, but I shot one down with my carbine and got across the river into the forest. We were surrounded by green young beeches. On the road to Jasenowo I was again attacked; but I stabbed a couple of local police with my bayonet, and the others changed their minds about chasing us.

[...]

"And now you others can talk. Do any of you know how to hunt like that? Ha-ha-ha!" Czuprej roared.

The lads quietly pondered on Czuprej's story.

"Kudil," he went on, "you're the finest hunter we've got. But are you any good at hunting such animals? Tell us, Kudil."

Kudil was silent for a while; then, gazing at the fire, he pulled a wry face, and answered quietly: "Yes, but are they animals worth hunting?" Then he added: "What is there to tell? I didn't like it in the army so I ran away. And that's all there was to it."

He stopped and turned to his pipe again.

Now Lyzun felt like talking. He was cheerful and open, he talked jestingly, easily, without strain. He liked to laugh, and he liked others to laugh too. As he told his story the others laughed until the echoes went roaring far through the dwarf pines.

"I haven't killed anyone," he said; "I didn't know who to kill or what for. That's not my business. But on the other hand, how they knocked me about! Oh! Whenever there was a stick to hand they used it on my poor backside. I tell you it's a genuine holy martyr, not a backside at all. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been only once or twice: but it was all the time... Your own comrades stand in two rows, and you have to run along this sort of street [called a Gasse]. They had sticks and were under orders, they had to let you have it hot. "And all that, they said, was because of my insolence. Let the back-side suffer for the tongue. But if the truth must be told, it was for running away too. For I swore to myself: you go one way, I go another.

"One day I had to run through the Gasse, and before I began to run I called out to my comrades so loud that all the superior officers heard: 'Beat the dog hard, lay it on, for your father will eat bread if you do. Miss my backside, and at home in your cottage your father will have dirt to eat.' And some of them did lay on as they were told, for orders are orders. But others only swung their sticks and pretended to hit me. They weren't a bad lot of boys, there were very few who hit with all their hearts. But some Herod with a shako⁵ and horsetail stood over them and bawled: 'Lay it on, lay it on, you sons of dogs, or you'll go down the Gasse yourselves.'

"My backside swelled up, the poor martyr, like a mountain. After-wards they gave me some physic and bandages, that's all according to their rules and regulations. But as soon as I got into hospital I began to think out how I could get away. I thought to myself: you may break your sticks, and, God grant, your legs and teeth, too, but I'll get away. And I did. But I wasn't trained sufficiently in that game, and they caught me again. Not far from here. The local police in Jasienowo. And they beat me up, and in the regiment I had to run down the Gasse again. That time I spat up blood in earnest, all their courtyards are stained with my blood. But it wasn't so bad after all, for it taught me sense. I didn't run away blindly any more, I did the exercises cheerfully. But in my head I was always thinking my own thoughts. I prepared everything, arranged it all exactly, where I'd go at night, where I'd go in the day, where to wait, where to rest. Well, and here I've been ever since the winter."

Lyzun had told his story fierily and gaily; but, although his audience laughed not a little, they were all silent and moody. He was rather surprised at their reactions, for, after all, he had not told a mournful sort of story. After a moment some of them began to question him about the Gasse.

Gigantic old Klem Bojczuk threw some more dwarf pine on the fire, and took a coal for his pipe from it. Now he spoke for the first time. They all lapsed into silence, and listened attentively. Klem puffed at his long, brass-bound pipe, adjusted the coals, and said with a spit: "I'm grieved for you, youngster; my heart breaks as I listen, little brother. My son, you jest that your backside is sacred, but I tell you solemnly that you must be a monk or an ascetic, and not a brave lad. But above all, somehow you're half silly. Who of the former people and the former brave lads would have allowed such a thing to be done to them? In the old times no one would have dared to raise a finger against one of our men. They could trick him, they could cheat him from afar; but close up—hands off!

"And now I'll tell you something. As soon as the imperial law was passed, now nigh on forty years ago, they took me too off to the army. I never said a word to anybody, I didn't seek any provocation. And they gave me some shako, or whatever they call the wretched thing, for my head. I put it on just how I felt it was comfortable. And some skinny… little officer comes up and tries to clap this shako on my head. I was a towering sort of fellow, and this little officer, the poor creature, didn't come above my navel. And he went and seized hold of my nose, unluckily for him. Well, that was the last thing he ever got hold of. I split his head open with a crank, his brains spattered all over the place. And our field company went flying in all directions, they were so frightened. But I went off without hurrying. Why should I hurry? I had plenty of time. In my uniform and with my carbine I got right back here.

"And over many years of forest life I chased them. But now, as you see, for the moment they've chased us out. I say for the moment, because this isn't just today's story and it won't end with today. But I tell you my old heart is troubled when, instead of sweeping them right out of here, smoking them out, chasing them at every step—as that other lad well said—you flee into the mountains like wolves before the hunter—no, not that, but like lousy, beaten curs. And then you rejoice because you've fled. And God sees it, yet He doesn't strike with His thunder, doesn't give a sign."

It was noonday. The air in the dwarf-pine forest grew sultry. As they were talking, from the west a spring storm announced its coming with distant thunder. It came flying on its swift, cloudy wings. Faint lightnings crackled in the sky. The rain was so heavy that it would soon have put the fire out, but the youngsters hastily covered the embers with pine branches, and then took shelter deep amid the dense pines. A blinding flash, then a dry thunder-crack rent the air. Evidently it had struck quite close, for they all felt that it scattered in sparks around them; several of them had the feeling that they had been pricked by pins, and for a moment they were all deafened. They waited silently to see whether it would strike again. But next time the thunder sounded farther off. It was moving eastward, more and more distant, towards Palenyca and Hostow.

The storm passed quickly; after a few hours the rain ceased altogether. The sky cleared, the sun was warm, on the upland the grasses and flowers danced in the gentle breeze. From the dwarf-pine forest came the light scent of resin, and from the upland the dewy freshness. But when Czuprej went out to see where the lightning had struck, to look for the thunderbolt, amid the grasses and the flowers on the upland he descried a naked man lying as though in a deep sleep. Czuprej went up to him, calling back to his comrades as he went. And then the man slowly began to stir, stretching his stiffened legs and arms.

It was Dmytryk Wasyluk.

In his spring frenzy he had been running half naked over the uplands, and the storm had struck him lightly with a thunderbolt, tearing the remnants of his ragged clothing off him in order to cure him, that the spring madness might leave him, that he might sleep quietly on the grass beneath the warm rain.

The swarm of youngsters swiftly gathered round him. And when Dmytryk, a little singed and blue, began to open his eyes, to straighten his limbs, rubbing the dew off his body, he found himself surrounded by a ring. Some of them recognized him. He had already achieved great renown among them, though none knew what had happened to him of recent days. Now those who knew him told the others about him.

Dmytryk rose, stretching himself and laughing, and now they all knew that the thunder had singled him out as their chief, that the old bearded saint had sent him here. They welcomed him with a chorus of: "Peace be with you, Dmytryk! Peace to you, Chief!"

At once they were dominated by a different mood, and Dmytryk himself knew of the change. He stretched out his hands in front of him, smiled at them as though seeing a vision in sleep, swept back his hair. Standing naked, he spoke quietly, pointing with one finger to heaven:

"I have been cured of my frenzy, I have been borne on the wings of the storm, have been carried to the thunder palace, and with a fiery finger have been shown the treasures. The word said that you would come, that our rights, our beauty and freedom would return. Glory to the Lord, glory to you, my brave lads."

"Glory through the ages and glory to you, Dmytryk, godson of the thunder."

The thunder spirit took possession of them. They had already forgotten that several of them wanted to be the chief. One of them, instead of a long and thick cloak, was wearing a white wedding-wrap with a hood. He threw it round Dmytryk.

They spent the night by the fire, in the Lostun upland, amid the dwarf-pine forest. They gnawed the remains of the stag-bones, boiled them, and drank the broth. They told stories, talked, and dreamed aloud, until sleep mastered them.

Next morning at dawn they hurried across to Lodowa Baba (Ice Woman) peak, to Dmytryk's cave, where he still had stores of provisions, a reserve of gunpowder, and clothing. That was a procession such as no one had ever seen before. Dmytryk, naked under the wedding-wrap, ran in front with dishevelled hair, and behind him hurried a swarm of ragged, grimy youngsters. Many a man would have laughed heartily at the sight of them. They were in fine spirits, for now they had a chief sent by the thunder.

From that time Dmytryk always went about in the white wedding-wrap, he always had it with him.

The section that immediately follows this one is "Fighting with a bear."