Lavengro - George Borrow (nice books to read TXT) 📗

all this long time?”

“Here and there,” said I, “and far and near, going about with the soldiers; but there is no soldiering now, so we have sat down, father and family, in the town there.”

“And do you still hunt snakes?” said Jasper.

“No,” said I, “I have given up that long ago; I do better now: read books and learn languages.”

“Well, I am sorry you have given up your snake-hunting; many’s the strange talk I have had with our people about your snake and yourself, and how you frightened my father and mother in the lane.”

“And where are your father and mother?”

“Where I shall never see them, brother; at least, I hope so.”

“Not dead?”

“No, not dead; they are bitchadey pawdel.”

“What’s that?”

“Sent across⁠—banished.”

“Ah! I understand; I am sorry for them. And so you are here alone?”

“Not quite alone, brother!”

“No, not alone; but with the rest⁠—Tawno Chikno takes care of you.”

“Takes care of me, brother!”

“Yes, stands to you in the place of a father⁠—keeps you out of harm’s way.”

“What do you take me for, brother?”

“For about three years older than myself.”

“Perhaps; but you are of the Gorgios, and I am a Rommany Chal. Tawno Chikno take care of Jasper Petulengro!”

“Is that your name?”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Very much, I never heard a sweeter; it is something like what you call me.”

“The horseshoe master and the snake-fellow, I am the first.”

“Who gave you that name?”

“Ask Pharaoh.”

“I would, if he were here, but I do not see him.”

“I am Pharaoh.”

“Then you are a king.”

“Chachipen, pal.”

“I do not understand you.”

“Where are your languages? You want two things, brother: mother sense and gentle Rommany.”

“What makes you think that I want sense?”

“That, being so old, you can’t yet guide yourself!”

“I can read Dante, Jasper.”

“Anan, brother.”

“I can charm snakes, Jasper.”

“I know you can, brother.”

“Yes, and horses too; bring me the most vicious in the land, if I whisper he’ll be tame.”

“Then the more shame for you⁠—a snake-fellow⁠—a horse-witch⁠—and a lil-reader⁠—yet you can’t shift for yourself. I laugh at you, brother!”

“Then you can shift for yourself?”

“For myself and for others, brother.”

“And what does Chikno?”

“Sells me horses, when I bid him. Those horses on the chong were mine.”

“And has he none of his own?”

“Sometimes he has; but he is not so well off as myself. When my father and mother were bitchadey pawdel, which, to tell you the truth, they were, for chiving wafodo dloovu, they left me all they had, which was not a little, and I became the head of our family, which was not a small one. I was not older than you when that happened; yet our people said they had never a better krallis to contrive and plan for them and to keep them in order. And this is so well known, that many Rommany Chals, not of our family, come and join themselves to us, living with us for a time, in order to better themselves, more especially those of the poorer sort, who have little of their own. Tawno is one of these.”

“Is that fine fellow poor?”

“One of the poorest, brother. Handsome as he is, he has not a horse of his own to ride on. Perhaps we may put it down to his wife, who cannot move about, being a cripple, as you saw.”

“And you are what is called a Gypsy King?”

“Ay, ay; a Rommany Kral.”

“Are there other kings?”

“Those who call themselves so; but the true Pharaoh is Petulengro.”

“Did Pharaoh make horseshoes?”

“The first who ever did, brother.”

“Pharaoh lived in Egypt.”

“So did we once, brother.”

“And you left it?”

“My fathers did, brother.”

“And why did they come here?”

“They had their reasons, brother.”

“And you are not English?”

“We are not Gorgios.”

“And you have a language of your own?”

“Avali.”

“This is wonderful.”

“Ha, ha!” cried the woman, who had hitherto sat knitting at the farther end of the tent, without saying a word, though not inattentive to our conversation, as I could perceive by certain glances which she occasionally cast upon us both. “Ha, ha!” she screamed, fixing upon me two eyes, which shone like burning coals, and which were filled with an expression both of scorn and malignity, “It is wonderful, is it, that we should have a language of our own? What, you grudge the poor people the speech they talk among themselves? That’s just like you Gorgios, you would have everybody stupid, single-tongued idiots, like yourselves. We are taken before the Poknees of the gav, myself and sister, to give an account of ourselves. So I says to my sister’s little boy, speaking Rommany, I says to the little boy who is with us, ‘Run to my son Jasper, and the rest, and tell them to be off, there are hawks abroad.’ So the Poknees questions us, and lets us go, not being able to make anything of us; but, as we are going, he calls us back. ‘Good woman,’ says the Poknees, ‘what was that I heard you say just now to the little boy?’ ‘I was telling him, your worship, to go and see the time of day, and, to save trouble, I said it in our own language.’ ‘Where did you get that language?’ says the Poknees. ‘ ’Tis our own language, sir,’ I tells him, ‘we did not steal it.’ ‘Shall I tell you what it is, my good woman?’ says the Poknees. ‘I would thank you, sir,’ says I, ‘for ’tis often we are asked about it.’ ‘Well, then,’ says the Poknees, ‘it is no language at all, merely a made-up gibberish.’ ‘Oh, bless your wisdom,’ says I, with a curtsey, ‘you can tell us what our language is without understanding it!’ Another time we meet a parson. ‘Good woman,’ says he, ‘what’s that you are talking? Is it broken language?’ ‘Of course, your reverence,’ says I, ‘we are broken people; give a shilling, your reverence, to