Armenian Literature Part 7

"That betrothal day was the last happy day of the poor wretches. I never afterward saw smiles on their faces, for from that day their circ.u.mstances grew worse and worse and their business became very bad.

They lost house and ground, moved about for several months from one rented house to another, until finally they disappeared from the city.

"The day after the betrothal Hemorrhoid Jack sent word to Sarkis by his clerk that Sarkis must pay 2,700 rubles for the tobacco and tea and 184 rubles for the manufactured goods. I have forgotten to tell you that among the latter were old-fashioned dress-goods, taxed cloth, linen, satin, and some silk. The clerk also said that if Sarkis did not pay the 184 rubles the ring and watch would be retained.

"Poor Sarkis was completely dazed.

"'Have I bought the goods?' he asked.

"'Certainly you have bought them,' answered the unscrupulous clerk.

'Otherwise you would not have sold a chest of tea and a bale of tobacco.

Beside, the coat your boy is wearing was made from our cloth.'

"This was true. On the third day after receiving the goods, Sarkis had sold a bale of tobacco and a chest of tea, and had cut off several yards of cloth. It was very singular that in the course of three months Sarkis had not once caught sight of Hemorrhoid Jack to call him to account for the delivery of the goods. He had been several times to his house, where they said, 'He is at the store.' At the store they said Jack was at home. It was very evident that he wished to defraud Sarkis. After much talk back and forth the matter came into the courts, and since Sarkis had sold part of the goods and had given a receipt for them, he had to pay the sum demanded.

"For several months past business had been going very badly with the poor fellow and he could not raise the required sum, so he had to give up his property. First they drove the poor man out of his house and emptied his store and his storehouse. Then they sold the tobacco and the tea, for which no one would give more than fifty rubles, for both were half rotten. The store and all that was in it were then auctioned off for a few hundred rubles, and finally the house was offered for sale. No one would buy it, for among our people the praiseworthy custom rules that they never buy a house put up at auction till they convince themselves that the owner sells it of his own free-will. The household furniture was also sold, and Sarkis became almost a beggar, and was obliged, half naked, to leave his house, with his wife and children.

"I proposed that they should occupy my house, but he would not have it.

'From to-day the black earth is my dwelling-place,' he said, and rented a small house at the edge of the town near where the fields begin.

"When the neighbors found out the treachery of Hemorrhoid Jack, they were terribly angry, and one of them threw a note into his yard in which was written: that if he took possession of poor Sarkis's house they would tear or burn it down. That was just what John wished, and he immediately sent carpenters to tear down the house and stable and then he sold the wood.

"At this time I became very sick and lay two months in bed. When I got up again I thought to myself, 'I must go and visit the poor wretches!' I went to their little house, but found the door locked and the windows boarded up. I asked a boy, 'My child, do you know where the people of this house are?' 'Two weeks ago they got into a wagon and drove away,'

answered the lad. 'Where are they gone?' I asked. 'That I don't know,'

he said.

"I would not have believed it, but an old woman came up to me on the street, of her own accord, and said:

"'They all got into a wagon and have moved away into a Russian village.'

"What the village was called she could not tell me, and so every trace of them was lost.

"Many years later a gentleman came from Stavropol to our city, who gave me some news of the poor wretches. They had settled in a Cossack village--he told me the name, but I have forgotten--where at first they suffered great want; and just as things were going a little better with them, Mairam and Sarkis died of the cholera and Takusch and Toros were left alone. Soon after, a Russian officer saw Takusch and was greatly pleased with her. After a few months she married him. Toros carried on his father's business for a time, then gave it up and joined the army.

So much I found out from the gentleman from Stavropol.

"Some time later I met again one who knew Takusch. He told me that she was now a widow. Her husband had been a drunkard, spent his whole nights in inns, often struck his poor wife, and treated her very badly. Finally they brought him home dead. Toros's neck had been broken at a horse-race and he was dead. He said also that Takusch had almost forgotten the Armenian language and had changed her faith.

"'That is the history of the Vacant Yard."

ARMENIAN POEMS

[_Metrical Version, by Robert Arnot, M.A._]

ARMENIAN POEMS

A PLAINT

Were I a springtime breeze, A breeze in the time when the song-birds pair, I'd tenderly smooth and caress your hair, And hide from your eyes in the budding trees.

Were I a June-time rose, I'd glow in the ardor of summer's behest, And die in my pa.s.sion upon your breast, In the pa.s.sion that only a lover knows.

Were I a lilting bird, I'd fly with my song and my joy and my pain, And beat at your lattice like summer-rain, Till I knew that your inmost heart was stirred.

Were I a winged dream, I'd steal in the night to your slumbering side, And the joys of hope in your bosom I'd hide, And pa.s.s on my way like a murmuring stream.

Tell me the truth, the truth, Have I merited woe at your tapering hands, Have you wilfully burst love's twining strands, And cast to the winds affection and ruth?

'Twas a fleeting vision of joy, While you loved me you plumed your silvery wings, And in fear of the pain that a man's love brings You fled to a bliss that has no alloy.

MUGURDITCH BESHETTASHLAIN.

SPRING IN EXILE

Wind of the morn, of the morn of the year, Violet-laden breath of spring, To the flowers and the la.s.ses whispering Things that a man's ear cannot hear, In thy friendly grasp I would lay my hand, But thou comest not from my native land.

Birds of the morn, of the morn of the year, Chanting your lays in the bosky dell, Higher and fuller your round notes swell, Till the Fauns and the Dryads peer forth to hear The trilling lays of your feathery band: Ye came not, alas, from my native land.

Brook of the morn, of the morn of the year, Burbling joyfully on your way, Maiden and rose and woodland fay Use as a mirror your waters clear: But I mourn as upon your banks I stand, That you come not, alas, from my native land.

Breezes and birds and brooks of the Spring, Chanting your lays in the morn of the year, Though Armenia, my country, be wasted and sere, And mourns for her maidens who never shall sing, Yet a storm, did it come from that desolate land, Would awaken a joy that ye cannot command.

RAPHAEL PATKANIAN.

FLY, LAYS OF MINE!

Fly, lays of mine, but not to any clime Where happiness and light and love prevail, But seek the spots where woe and ill and crime Leave as they pa.s.s a noisome serpent-trail

Fly, lays of mine, but not to the ether blue, Where golden sparks illume the heavenly sphere, But seek the depths where nothing that is true Relieves the eye or glads a listening ear.

Fly, lays of mine, but not to fruitful plains Where spring the harvests by G.o.d's benison, But seek the deserts where for needed rains Both prayers and curses rise in unison.

Fly, lays of mine, but not to riotous halls, Where dancing sylphs supply voluptuous songs, But seek the huts where pestilence appals, And death completes the round of human wrongs.