"No; we have quite lost the art of _dorriki_. {61} None of us know
anything about it. But we hear that you Romanichals over the Black Water
understand it. Oh, _rya_," she cried, eagerly, "you know so
much,--you're such a deep Romany,--can't _you_ tell fortunes?"
"I should indeed know very little about Romany ways," I replied, gravely,
"if I could not _pen dorriki_. But I tell you beforehand, _terni pen_,
'_dorrikipen hi hokanipen_,' little sister, fortune-telling is deceiving.
Yet what the lines say I can read."
In an instant six as pretty little gypsy hands as I ever beheld were
thrust before me, and I heard as many cries of delight. "Tell _my_
fortune, _rya_! tell mine! and _mine_!" exclaimed the damsels, and I
complied. It was all very well to tell them there was nothing in it;
they knew a trick worth two of that. I perceived at once that the faith
which endures beyond its own knowledge was placed in all I said. In
England the gypsy woman, who at home ridicules her own fortune-telling
and her dupes, still puts faith in a _gusveri mush_, or some "wise man,"
who with crystal or magical apparatus professes occult knowledge; for she
thinks that her own false art is an imitation of a true one. It is
really amusing to see the reverence with which an old gypsy will look at
the awful hieroglyphics in Cornelius Agrippa's "Occult Philosophy," or,
better still, "Trithemius," and, as a gift, any ordinary fortune-telling
book is esteemed by them beyond rubies. It is true that they cannot read
it, but the precious volume is treasured like a fetich, and the owner is
happy in the thought of at least possessing darksome and forbidden lore,
though it be of no earthly use to her. After all the kindness they had
shown me, I could not find it in my heart to refuse to tell these gentle
Zingari their little fortunes. It is not, I admit, exactly in the order
of things that the chicken should dress the cook, or the Gorgio tell
fortunes to gypsies; but he who wanders in strange lands meets with
strange adventures. So, with a full knowledge of the legal penalties
attached in England to palmistry and other conjuration, and with the then
pending Slade case knocking heavily on my conscience, I proceeded to
examine and predict. When I afterward narrated this incident to the late
G. H. Lewes, he expressed himself to the effect that to tell fortunes to
gypsies struck him as the very _ne plus ultra_ of cheek,--which shows how
extremes meet; for verily it was with great modesty and proper diffidence
that I ventured to foretell the lives of these little ladies, having an
antipathy to the practice of chiromancing as to other romancing.
I have observed that as among men of great and varied culture, and of
extensive experience, there are more complex and delicate shades and
half-shades of light in the face, so in the palm the lines are
correspondingly varied and broken. Take a man of intellect and a
peasant, of equal excellence of figure according to the literal rules of
art or of anatomy, and this subtile multiplicity of variety shows itself
in the whole body in favor of the "gentleman," so that it would almost
seem as if every book we read is republished in the person. The first
thing that struck me in these gypsy hands was the fewness of the lines,
their clearly defined sweep, and their simplicity. In every one the line
of life was unbroken, and, in fine, one might think from a drawing of the
hand, and without knowing who its owner might be, that he or she was of a
type of character unknown in most great European cities,--a being gifted
with special culture, and in a certain simple sense refined, but not
endowed with experience in a thousand confused phases of life. The hands
of a true genius, who has passed through life earnestly devoted to a
single art, however, are on the whole like these of the gypsies. Such,
for example, are the hands of Fanny Janauschek, the lines of which agree
to perfection with the laws of chiromancy. The art reminds one of
Cervantes's ape, who told the past and present, but not the future. And
here "tell me what thou hast been, and I will tell what thou wilt be"
gives a fine opportunity to the soothsayer.
To avoid mistakes I told the fortunes in French, which was translated
into Russian. I need not say that every word was listened to with
earnest attention, or that the group of dark but young and comely faces,
as they gathered around and bent over, would have made a good subject for
a picture. After the girls, the mother must needs hear her _dorriki_
also, and last of all the young Russian gentleman, who seemed to take as
earnest an interest in his future as even the gypsies. As he alone
understood French, and as he appeared to be _un peu gaillard_, and,
finally, as the lines of his hand said nothing to the contrary, I
predicted for him in detail a fortune in which _bonnes fortunes_ were not
at all wanting. I think he was pleased, but when I asked him if he would
translate what I had said of his future into Russian, he replied with a
slight wink and a scarcely perceptible negative. I suppose he had his
reasons for declining.
Then we had singing again, and Christopher, the brother, a wild and gay
young gypsy, became so excited that while playing the guitar he also
danced and caroled, and the sweet voices of the girls rose in chorus, and
I was again importuned for the _Romany_ song, and we had altogether a
very Bohemian frolic. I was sorry when the early twilight faded into
night, and I was obliged, notwithstanding many entreaties to the
contrary, to take my leave. These gypsies had been very friendly and
kind to me in a strange city, where I had not an acquaintance, and where
I had expected none. They had given me of their very best; for they gave
me songs which I can never forget, and which were better to me than all
the opera could bestow. The young Russian, polite to the last, went
bareheaded with me into the street, and, hailing a sleigh-driver, began
to bargain for me. In Moscow, as in other places, it makes a great
difference in the fare whether one takes a public conveyance from before
the first hotel or from a house in the gypsy quarter. I had paid seventy
kopecks to come, and I at once found that my new friend and the driver
were engaged in wild and fierce dispute whether I should pay twenty or
thirty to return.
"Oh, give him thirty!" I exclaimed. "It's little enough."
"_Non_," replied the Russian, with the air of a man of principles. "_Il
ne faut pas gater ces gens-la_." But I gave the driver thirty, all the
same, when we got home, and thereby earned the usual shower of blessings.
A few days afterward, while going from Moscow to St. Petersburg, I made
the acquaintance of a young Russian noble and diplomat, who was well
informed on all current gossip, and learned from him some curious facts.
The first young gentleman whom I had seen among the Romanys of Moscow was
the son of a Russian prince by a gypsy mother, and the very noble
Englishman whose photograph I had seen in Sarsha's collection had not
long ago (as rumor averred) paid desperate attentions to the belle of the
Romanys without obtaining the least success. My informant did not know
her name. Putting this and that together, I think it highly probable
that Sarsha was the young lady, and that the _latcho bar_, or diamond,
which sparkled on her finger had been paid for with British gold, while
the donor had gained the same "unluck" which befell one of his type in
the Spanish gypsy song as given by George Borrow:--
"Loud sang the Spanish cavalier,
And thus his ditty ran:
'God send the gypsy maiden here,
But not the gypsy man.'
"On high arose the moon so bright,
The gypsy 'gan to sing,
'I gee a Spaniard coming here,
I must be on the wing.'"