Elegy for Kosovo Read Online Free PDF Page B

they would find the count, and if they did not find him, then his grave, and there at the grave, even if they were the last men standing, they would deliver their message,
    Gjorg followed them with his eyes as they disappeared in a cloud of dust, and an instant later he was convinced that they had been merely an illusion. His spirit was filled with sorrow.
    Outside a large village, Gjorg came across a crowd of fugitives moving toward them. He recognized them by their tattered army tunics and the distinctive darkness of their features. They were surprised that in a single day the sun of the Plains of Kosovo had spared their tousled heads but had completely blackened their faces.
    Disgraced as they were, they seemed even darker. In three or four languages they hurled curses at the peasants who would not let them into the village, at fate, even at heaven.
    â€œWe went to war to save that cross!” they shouted, pointing to the belfry of the village church. “And you won’t even give us a crust of bread and shelter for the night! A curse upon you!”
    The villagers watched them silently with cold, distrustful eyes. Only the dogs, still tied up, barked and tried to hurl themselves at the strangers.
    â€œMay you never live a happy day under your roofs, and may a thornbush blossom by your door!”
    Gjorg turned to see who had uttered the curse. He would have recognized Vladan’s voice, whether speaking or singing, among dozens of others, but the curse had been uttered somewhere between speech and song.
    â€œVladan!” he shouted, when he realized it might well have been him.
    And it really had been Vladan, his eyes burning with rage, now even gaunter than two days before when they had lost each other during their trek.
    Vladan turned around and lifted his hand.
    â€œYou see how they treat us!” he said. “These damned spineless, these vile —”
    â€œHurl curses at them, brother! Hurl curses!”
    a Hungarian stammered. “Curse them; you know how to curse better than anyone!”
    â€œHe knows how to curse because he is a minstrel,” said a man in a tattered tunic, “It is his trade both to curse and to exalt.“
    â€œIs that so? In this disaster, we Hungarians, more than anyone else, get the short end of the stick! Insults, that’s all we get are insults. Yesterday I came across a man, an Albanian I think, who was eating a piece of bread, so I wished him, ‘May you get some often!’ and do you know what he did? He punched me in the face! As Heaven is my witness, we might have killed each other over these words that offended him. He must have thought they were shameful words and become furious, thinking I was making some improper suggestion!”
    Three or four men burst out laughing.
    â€œI think we should head along a different road,” the man in the torn tunic said. “You can’t expect to see eye to eye with these idiotic peasants.”
    â€œThey don’t want us here,” another man said. “But when there is a war to be fought for them, then they want us! When they need to be defended from the Turk or from the devil knows who, then they want us — but ask them for a piece of bread or shelter for the night, and they turn into rabid dogs!”
    Vladan continued cursing. He tapped himself, as if fumbling for something.
    â€œYou were too quick to throw away your gusla,” Gjorg said to himself.
    â€œLet’s go,” said the man with the torn tunic, not taking his eyes off the dogs.
    The fugitives decided to tag along. A little way from the village they sat down to rest beneath some trees.
    â€œYou are a minstrel also?” the Hungarian asked Gjorg, eyeing the lahuta slung over his shoulder.
    Gjorg nodded.
    â€œBoth of us sang in the prince’s tent,” said Vladan, who lay stretched out next to him. “Yes, on the eve of the battle.“
    â€œI have never seen a prince’s tent,’ the