After breakfast the following day the Count proposed that I should take
a walk with him. The object in view was to visit a _kapas_ (the name
given by the Lithuanians to tumuli, called by the Russians _kourgâne_),
a very noted one in that country, because formerly poets and magicians
(they are one and the same thing) gathered there on certain special
occasions.
"I have a very quiet horse to offer you," he said. "I regret that I
cannot take you by carriage, but, upon my word, the road we go by is not
fit for carriages."
I would rather have stopped in the library taking my notes, but I could
not express any wish contrary to that of my generous host, and I
accepted. The horses were waiting for us at the foot of the steps in the
courtyard, where a groom held a dog in leash.
"Do you know much about dogs, Professor?" said the Count, stopping for a
minute and turning to me.
"Hardly anything, Your Excellency."
"The Staroste of Zorany, where I have property, sent me this spaniel, of
which he thinks highly. Allow me to show him to you." He called to the
groom, who came up with the dog. He was indeed a beautiful creature. The
dog was quite used to the man, and leapt joyfully and seemed full of
life; but when within a few yards of the Count he put his tail between
his legs and hung back terrified. The Count patted him, and at this the
dog set up a dismal howl.
"I think he will turn out a good dog with careful training," he said,
after having examined him for some time with the eye of a connoisseur.
Then he mounted his horse.
"Professor," he said, "when we were in the avenue leading from the
château, you saw that dog's fear. Please give me your honest opinion. In
your capacity of savant you must learn to solve enigmas.... Why should
animals be afraid of me?"
"Really, Your Excellency does me the honour of taking me for an
Oedipus, whilst I am only a simple professor of comparative philology.
There might--"
"Observe," he interrupted me, "that I never beat either horses or dogs.
I have a scruple against whipping a poor beast who commits a mistake
through ignorance. But, nevertheless, you can hardly conceive the
aversion that I inspire in dogs and horses. It takes me double the time
and trouble to accustom them to me that it would other people. It took
me a long time before I could subdue the horse you are riding, but now
he is as quiet as a lamb."
"I believe, Your Excellency, that animals are physiognomists, and detect
at once if people whom they see for the first time like them or not. I
expect you only like animals for the services they render you; on the
other hand, many people have an instinctive partiality for certain
beasts, and they find it out at once. Now I, for instance, have always
had an instinctive liking for cats. They very rarely run away from me
when I try to stroke them, and I have never been scratched by one."
"That is very likely," said the Count; "I cannot say I have a real
affection for animals.... Human beings are so much more to be preferred.
We are now coming into a forest, Professor, where the kingdom of beasts
still flourishes--the _matecznik_, the womb, the great nursery of
beasts. Yes, according to our national traditions, no one has yet
penetrated its depths, no one has been able to reach to the heart of
these woods and thickets, unless, always excepted, the poets and
magicians have, who go everywhere. Here the beasts all live as in a
Republic ... or under a Constitutional Government, I cannot tell which
of the two. Lions, bears, elks, the _joubrs,_ our wild oxen or aurochs,
all live very happily together. The mammoth, which is preserved there,
is thought highly of; it is, I believe, the Marshal of the Diet. They
have a very strict police force, and if they decide that any beast is
vicious they sentence him to banishment. It falls thus out of the
frying-pan into the fire; it is obliged to venture into the region of
man, and few escape."[7]
"A very curious legend," I exclaimed, "but, Your Excellency, you speak
of the aurochs, that noble animal which Cæsar has described in his
_Commentaries_, and which the Merovingian kings hunted in the forest of
Compiègne. I am told they still exist in Lithuania--is that so?"
"Certainly. My father himself killed a _joubr_, having obtained
permission from the Government. You can see the head in the large
dining-hall. I have never seen one. I believe they are very scarce. To
make amends we have wolves and bears here in abundance. To guard against
a possible encounter with one of these gentlemen I have brought this
instrument" (and he produced a Circassian tchékhole[8] which he carried
in his belt), "and my groom carries in his saddle-box a double-barrelled
rifle."
We began to penetrate into the forest. Soon the narrow track that we
were following disappeared altogether. Every few moments we were
obliged to ride round enormous trees whose low branches barred our
passage. Several of these, which were dead of old age and fallen over,
looked like bulwarks crowned with a line of _chevaux-de-frise_
(impossible to scale). Elsewhere we encountered deep pools covered with
water lilies and duckweed. Further on we came to a clearing where the
grass shone like emeralds; but woe to those who ventured on it, for this
rich and deceptive vegetation usually hides abysses of mud in which both
horse and rider would disappear for ever.... The arduousness of the
route had interrupted our conversation. All my attention was taken up in
following the Count, and I admired the imperturbable sagacity with which
he guided his way without a compass, and always regained the right
direction which had to be followed to reach the kapas. It was evident
that he had frequently hunted in these wild forests.
At last we perceived the tumulus in the centre of a large clearing. It
was very high and surrounded by a fosse still clearly recognisable in
spite of the landslips. It looked as though it had recently been
excavated. At the summit I noticed the remains of an erection built of
stones, some of which bore traces of fire. A considerable quantity of
ashes, mixed with pieces of charcoal, with here and there fragments of
coarse crockery, attested that there had been a fire on the top of the
tumulus for a considerable time. If one can put faith in popular
tradition, human sacrifices had been offered several times in the kapas;
but there is hardly any extinct religion to which these abominable rites
have not been attributed, and I imagine one could justify a similar
theory with regard to the ancient Lithuanians from historic evidence.
We came down from the tumulus to rejoin our horses, which we had left on
the far side of the fosse, when we saw an old woman approaching us,
leaning on a stick and holding a basket in her hand.
"Good day, gentlemen," she said to us as she came up, "I ask an alms for
the love of God. Give me something for a glass of brandy to warm my poor
body."
The Count threw her a coin, and asked what she was doing in the wood, so
far from habitation. For sole answer she showed him her basket filled
with mushrooms. Although my knowledge of botany was but limited, I
thought several of the mushrooms looked like poisonous ones.
"My good woman," I said, "you are not going to eat those, I hope."
"Sir," the old woman replied, with a sad smile, "poor folk eat all the
good God gives them."
"You are not acquainted with Lithuanian stomachs," the Count put in;
"they are lined with sheet iron. Our peasants eat every kind of fungus
they find, and are none the worse for them."
"At least prevent her from tasting the _agaricus necator_ she has in her
basket," I cried, and I stretched out my hand to take one of the most
poisonous of the mushrooms, but the old woman quickly withdrew the
basket.
"Take care," she said in a frightened tone; "they are protected ...
_Pirkuns! Pirkuns!_"
"_Pirkuns_," I may explain in passing, is the Samogitian name for the
divinity called by the Russians _Péroune_; it is the Jupiter _tonans_ of
the Slavs. If I was surprised when I heard the old woman invoke a pagan
god, I was much more astonished to see the mushrooms heave up. The black
head of a snake raised itself at least a foot out of the basket. I
jumped back, and the Count spat over his shoulder after the
superstitious custom of the Slavs, who believe that in this way they
turn away misfortune, as did the ancient Romans. The old woman put the
basket on the ground, and crouched by its side; then she held out her
hand towards the snake, pronouncing some unintelligible words like an
incantation. The snake remained quiet a moment, then it curled itself
round the shrivelled arm of the old woman and disappeared in the sleeve
of her sheepskin cloak, which, with a dirty chemise, comprised, I
believe, all the dress of this Lithuanian Circe. The old woman looked at
us with a little laugh of triumph, like a conjurer who has just executed
a difficult trick. Her face wore that mixture of cunning and stupidity
which is often noticeable in would-be witches, who are mostly scoundrels
and dupes.
"Here you have," said the Count in German, "a specimen of local colour;
a witch who tames snakes, at the foot of a kapas, in the presence of a
learned professor and of an ignorant Lithuanian gentleman. It would make
a capital subject for a picture of natural life by your countryman
Knauss.... If you wish to have your fortune told, this is a good
opportunity."