Part 49 (2/2)

”'You have not offended me, dear friend,' she said. 'It is only that I am made miserable by this subject. My relative who is employed in the railway caught this bird a few days since, placed it in a cage, and presented it to me. And if he is a handsome young fellow, am I to be censured for that? I am not his mother nor yet his father; I did not make him handsome! And even so, what is a little bird, to make words and black looks over?'

”'You mean that Gavrilo is annoyed?'

”'Since this bird came,' she returned, 'I have heard of nothing else. He begs me to let it go. He insists that it will die. He says the man who gave it me is cruel and that I am cruel too.'

”'Then why not release it?' I suggested. 'It is dying in the cage, Maro.'

”'Let it die, then!' she cried, and burst into a flood of tears.

”'Now, Maro,' I urged when the paroxysm had abated, 'what is all this about?'

”'Well,' she gulped, wiping her eyes, 'a girl must have a little character, must she not? She must make up her own mind occasionally about some little thing! Is not that true? Is the man she loves to tell her when to draw in her breath and when to let it go again? Is he to tell her when to wink her eyes? Is she to cease to think and do only as he thinks? Here came this young man-with the miserable bird. I desired it not. Then came Gavrilo, black and angry like a storm out of the mountains, ordering me to let the bird go. I wished to do as Gavrilo said, but as my relative had caught it and given it to me I felt I should first speak to him. Besides, he is older and knows a great deal, being in the Government railroads. And what did he say? ”Maro,” he said, ”you do as you wish. If you wish to be a little fool, humor this boy. He is spoiled. He has everything as he desires it. They say you are to marry him. Very well. But if you think always with his mind, and hold no ideas of your own, I tell you you will make a wife no better than one of those stupid Turkish women....” That is why I determined to retain the bird. There is a _kos_ in every second tree. Well, then, is it not better that this one die than that my soul shall wither? Why should I be called Mara if I shall no longer be a separate being, but only Gavrilo in another body?'

”As she finished, we heard Gavrilo calling her name from the street, and a moment later he came in through the garden gate.

”I saw at once that he was agitated.

”'So you have come!' he cried, seizing my hands. 'But, alas, my friend, it is in vain. You have heard the evil tidings?'

”'You mean about-?' I had almost said 'about the bird,' but fortunately he interrupted, exclaiming:

”'Yes, about the festival.'

”'What tidings?' demanded Mara.

”Gavrilo threw his arms above his head in a gesture of helpless fury.

”'Those _proclete shvaba_!' he burst out. 'They issued an edict only an hour ago, forbidding entirely our festival of Vidov-dan!'

”'No!' cried Mara, dismayed, half rising from her seat.

”'Yes. There shall be no celebration-not for the Serbs. Nothing!

Attempts to commemorate the anniversary will result in arrest. It is announced that in place of our festival there will upon that day be extensive maneuvers of the Austrian army and that Grand Headquarters will be here in our city. We are given to understand that the Archduke himself will come and hold the review. Could anything be devised more to insult us upon our national holiday? Oh, of what vile tricks are not these accursed _shvaba_ capable?'

”'I am surprised,' I said, 'that the Archduke would be party to a thing of this kind, for it is understood that he is pro-Serb. Certainly his wife is a Slav.'

”'The more shame to her, then, for marrying him,' said Gavrilo, with a shrug. 'He is the sp.a.w.n, of an autocrat who is in turn the sp.a.w.n of generations of autocrats. Scratch them and they are all the same. They play the game of empire-the dirty game of holding together, against their will, the people of seven races in Austria-Hungary; grinding them down, humiliating them, keeping them afraid. No man, no group of men, should have such power! It is medieval, grotesque, wicked!'

”'More than that,' put in Mara, 'it is unwise. They take a poor way to gain favor with us Serbs. For my part, I do not think it safe for the Archduke to come here.'

”'And there, my _mila_,' he declared, with a shrewd, sinister smile, 'your judgment is perhaps better than even you yourself suppose. Myself, I doubt he will be fool enough to come. At the last we shall be informed, with a grand flourish, that he is 'indisposed.' Not sick, you understand. Royalties are never sick. It is not etiquette. Peasants are sick. The middle-cla.s.ses are ill. The great are only indisposed.

Anything else is vulgar. Well, I hope he will know enough to stay away.

Otherwise he may indeed become indisposed after his arrival.'

”'What do you mean, Gavrilo?' I asked.

”'That the air of this place is not good for Austrian royalties just now,' he said. 'It is Serbian air. There are the germs of freedom in it, and such germs are more dangerous to autocrats than those of _kuga_,-cholera.'

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