XXI. Tornik's Wedding

Eh, Tornik, I am grown old, and your mayrik too is aged; who is to be householder and mistress, to earn and to keep our house? Let me give you glad tidings: the time of your marriage is come. You have passed your twentieth year, I think; and you know the villagers' old patriarchal custom, to marry off their children early, that workers may grow up for the house.

You see that you and I are alone, and manage all our husbandry with hired laborers: is it not better that we should have workers of the household too?

But leave that, Tornik: both I and your mayrik long to see, before we die, your crown and your psak.¹ This is the one longing of grandfathers, of fathers and of mothers: to see their children's children, who are the fruits of God's blessing; for God, when He blessed our first parents Adam and Eve, said: increase and multiply, and fill the earth.² But our house is empty, Tornik: there is not one babe for me to fondle and love. The joy and gladness of a family rests upon those dear and tender young children: children are the house's natural musicians — they play, they chirp, they cry, they laugh; those little living beings are stirring without cease, and know no rest. What delight it is for child-loving parents when they circle round the table — as David says: "Thy children like olive plants round about thy table."³

Do you know, Tornik, marriage is a law God established for the keeping of the human race. Papik's house-name and our family will be blotted out if you do not marry; you must marry, and build up our family life, and keep the line of the house alive.

True it is that for marriage the townsman thinks long; but the peasant people is not used to thinking, though it be poor to the last degree. There is a proverb among us. They tell that a poor villager, who had but one little donkey, taking counsel one day with his wife, says: You see, our boy is come of age; how shall we marry him? And since it is most natural that mothers are the more careful and the more inclined to marry off their children early, she answers her husband and says: Let us sell the donkey and marry the boy. — Ah, what is this you say, wife? Do you not know that donkey is our hope and our stay? We have neither plowing nor sowing; loading brushwood by the basket I carry it to the city and sell it; by that donkey alone we find our daily provision. — Tsk, man, you think too much: God is merciful. Let us marry the boy; God will give his bread; and it may be the fortune of our house will open, and in a donkey's stead we shall be masters of a horse.

Blessed be God, Tornik: our house is full of good things; we have no need to sell donkey or buffalo — everything is of the household. That great ox of ours we shall slaughter, and set harisa⁴ to seethe: let the whole village eat. Do you remember, Tornik, which ox it is? One day at gutan-plowing you said, Papik, the furrow is going crooked; and I said to you: I know, Tornik — the crookedness of the furrow is from our ox. You do not yet know the things of the world: it is not only the dumb oxen that bend the furrow crooked. How many furrow-crooking men there are, whose work and life keep no straight line at all! It is by reason of those crookers-of-furrows that the world's business goes crooked. I will not tell you, simple-hearted Tornik, how many furrow-crookers there are even in our own village. Now, slaughtering our ox, we are quit of the crooked furrow's plague. Let us pray God to deliver us from the plague of crooked men.

I know, Tornik, you are talking now within your own mind: Papik has sat himself down to make my wedding-oration; he says the wedding-feast is ready and all the rest of it; but he has not said where my wedding garments are, nor who the maid may be that is betrothed to Tornik.

Simpleton Tornik! Do you not remember, in the first head of my lessons I told you that, returning from Stambul, I had by me a suit of fine broadcloth, which I have kept in the chest to this day? That, then, shall be your bridegroom's raiment. Only, when the wedding is done, you must take it off and lay it in the chest, and wear it only on feast-days: you are a tilling laborer — trousers of homespun shal become you best.

And of your betrothed let me speak, that your heart may be at rest. You know Murat hamban, our village's householder: he it is shall be our marriage-kin. His house is patriarchal, and the whole family are good and harmless folk. Householder Murat has a daughter of full age, Shushan by name, a most modest, housewifely and brisk-working girl; and surely you have seen her many a time — our village families were alafranga before ever Frankland was,⁵ for the village people's life is a surviving image of the old patriarchal life.

There — I have made everything known to you; perhaps it had never crossed your mind, for you are a simple-hearted and straight-thinking child, and Papik's sharp eye kept watch over you always. Now bestir yourself, Tornik: what I say, do quickly. Only six days are left: on Monday morning coming, in our village church, before the holy altar, over against the Liturgy, with Gospel and with cross, the mystery of your crowning shall be performed. Send word this day to Mkho the naghara-drummer and Mrdo the zurna-piper:⁶ you know our village wedding has no savor without those things. And take now, Tornik, our big donkey and two wineskins; go quickly to the village of Shahpaz, to our known friend, and buy twelve litras⁷ of wine and bring it — but look to it that they mix no water with the wine. The Shahpaz folk are not simple-hearted like us: being near the townsfolk, they have learned to adulterate. And what should the poor souls do? When the townsman heaps the interest higher, they too mix water — when it is wine they give in the interest's stead.

The turn has come round; let me tell you a thing to wonder at. One day at autumn's end I went to the Prelacy of Van, and found there a judgment between townsman and villager. I too sat down and listened. That townsman had brought a little jug of wine; he filled a cup and gave it to the Prelate: Holy Father, said he, drink and see — is this wine, or water? The Prelate tasted it: Brother, said he, it appears that a good deal of water is mixed in it. The usurer townsman told his tale: I have upon such-and-such villagers so many thousand dahekans of money; that debtor villager brings me now flour, now shira — grape-must — in the interest's stead, and I receive it on the interest's account. This autumn he brought fifty litras of must, and I in my simple-heartedness filled my jars with it. You must know, Holy Father, I am a man that loves his wine; I wait impatient for the must to come down from its seething, to drink the new wine; I go often and look at the jars, and I see they do not seethe. What thing is this? say I; new wine must needs seethe. Then I understood how simple I had been: the peasant has cheated me and mixed water with the must. I am no man of letters, but this much I know — watered must does not seethe. This then is my complaint; I beg you, Father Prelate, see my cause judged straight.

The villager was called, and at the first he confessed after this manner: I mixed no water; it may be the water mixed itself; for under the wall of our must-house the water passes by that channel, and we have a drain-hole for washing out the must-house; it chanced to be open, and the water ran into the must-pit. — You tell your tale well, my son, but you do not speak straight, said the Prelate: if the water had run in of itself, of a surety all the must had turned to water; but in this wine the water is mixed by measure. And leave that: if you knew such a mischance had befallen, why did you bring water-mixed wine to your agha?

Holy Father, may I die for your soul, give ear, that I may confess my sin straight, and I beg you likewise, see the judgment straight.

Last year I brought the agha fifty litras of flour. I had already weighed the flour myself. You know that the weighing-stones of the villages are a good deal heavier than the city's stones; we have done this of set purpose, knowing that when our goods go to the city they always reckon them short. And what does our agha do? He fetched from the courtyard a shapeless rough stone, set it on the balance, and told me, This is one litra. You know the simple-hearted peasants believe the townsman quickly. The agha began weighing the flour, and weighed it heavy, heavy; and see now — the unrighteous balance brought it out five litras short. For the love of God, agha, said I, my flour is fifty litras full weight. — No! do I deal unjustly with you? — so said he, and reckoned five and forty litras. That conscienceless wrong was a grief at my heart; I could not forget it; I set it in my mind to take its like out of the agha again. So I mixed water into the must — and I did well, for our agha drinks his wine watered, that it may not take his head.

There, Father Judge: I have confessed my sin with a straight heart; do you likewise make judgment with a straight mind. Who is the guilty one, I or the agha? In this alone am I guilty, that I did not bring the question of the flour before your tribunal; for I know by trial — when townsman and peasant come to judgment, who does not know that the townsman wins the suit? And the causes of that you know well, Holy Father. What more shall I say?

Do you see, Tornik, how the villagers' eye has begun, softly, softly, to open? But I give you counsel, Tornik: lest you too, taking example from this history, follow the cunning villager and set fraud against fraud; for that is dead against God's commandment. And leave that: if once you learn to defraud, it will become in you a craft and a habit; then you will study to trick not the defrauder only, but perhaps deal so even with the honest man. Far better that you suffer wrong and take loss, than that you wrong another and do him harm. But best of all, be wakeful and clear-eyed: neither cheat, nor be cheated.

I know, Tornik: I speak counsel to you, and you commune with yourself in your mind — Papik has forgotten the matter of our wedding; out of the wine question he has drawn another question, and preaches me long, long orations over my head. No, Tornik, no: he that is to marry has need of much counsel. You thought your old Papik doddered, perhaps, and forgot the wedding's great matter? No: today is Saturday, and you have brought the wine and delivered it; so all is ready.

This evening is the aghpanstum — the bridegroom's eve: all the new-grown braves of the village shall gather, and taking the new bridegroom into their midst, they shall play and rejoice and make merry until the light. In the morning it is Sunday: all the village people, great and small, men, wives, brides, girls, old women, with their little ones, shall fill our wedding house. The villagers' wedding is after this manner — the door stands open; it is no townsfolk's wedding, where they shut the door and hold the wedding so that the mice under the rafters do not hear of it.

Today toward evening we go for the bride — I and all the great hambans of the village. We shall bring the bride and set her down in the house; veiled she shall sit upon the takht; the harsnkuyr — the wedding-sister — beside her, even so, like a guardian angel.

When the sexton strikes the kochnak,⁸ in the dark of the dawn, we shall go to church all together with all the neighbors. And you must so believe, that the church is for you a paradise of Adam, where God is come down: He shall set your crown and bless it by the hand of the priest. And count it so, that until this day you were asleep in your life, and suddenly you wake, you open your sleep-heavy eyes, and a new Eve — a Shushan-lily — has blossomed at your side. The priest lays hand in hand and says: "Taking the hand of Eve, He gave her into the right hand of Adam,"⁹ and the rest; and do you also speak within your mind, like our great forefather Papik Adam: "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,"¹⁰ and the rest. The priest will begin to read the other mystery-laden prayers over you; he will take promises from your mouth and the bride's; all the people will stand witness; and you two, by God's written law, will be bound so fast to one another that death alone can unbind it — the world's hand cannot untie it. Jesus by His Gospel made the bond of God the Father faster yet, and said: "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."¹¹

When the crowning is ended, we come out of the church; then comes the turn of rejoicing. The zurna and the naghara strike up, and like a town-crier they cry the news to the world, that Tornik and Shushan are wed, and this day is their marriage feast. Our brave young men begin the dry-stick play — eh, Tornik, in the old steel shield's stead each one wraps his aba-cloak or his short jacket about the one arm, and two by two they play all the way home. Before the door they slaughter a sheep: that is a matagh — a votive offering — for the bridegroom's and the bride's long sunlit days.

It comes to my mind here, Tornik, to tell you: forty years ago, when Hayrik was marrying, I too, as is the villagers' custom, took a butter-cake, roasted meal, and a yearling lamb, and went to the wedding. When Hayrik the bridegroom was returning home from church, straightway I bethought me to make my lamb a matagh before him. I set the lamb on the ground to slaughter it. Hayrik called out from his horse's back, Do not kill it! do not kill it! But that day Papik had drunk, his head was turned; he had become a crooked peasant. I drew the knife; the blood spurted; and then I repented, for I saw Hayrik's eyes fill, and he began to weep like a boy. They brought him down from the horse and took him to a chamber, where he was sorely shaken and wept; the wedding-house became for him a house of mourning. From that day I understood how great a tenderness Hayrik has over the beasts. And who had filled his heart with so much compassion? He himself confesses this thing in a dedicatory address of his Discourse of the Cross: that his schooling was of his departed uncle, Khachik agha Khrimian.¹² And who had filled that man's heart? — the Gospel, which he read continually, and knew no other book.

Now it is the dinner hour: the time of the wedding harisa is come; the wedding-guests are hungry. Spread the felts — let them sit: child, great and small, rich man and poor; there is no upper or lower rank here — this is Papik's house. Great mistress of the house, give order that they fill the harisa into the great matrat-bowls; bring them, set them on the table. My dear neighbors, friends, all the people of the village! old Papik reads you an oration. Give me a cup of wine. Papik is bound to drink this cup first to the life of the king our sovereign of this land, who cares for, governs and keeps his faithful subject people. Then let us drink to the life of our king Tornik — who today is made a king,¹³ and tomorrow shall be a plowman. Nor let us forget the life of our bride Shushan, who now is made a queen, and tomorrow shall be the house-building, brisk-headed bride of Papik's house.

There remains the cup to your lives, my dear wedding-guest villagers: I thank you that you have honored Papik's house and glorified my Tornik's wedding. I pray that the like may be upon your children and your grandchildren.

Now the harisa dinner is done, and the wedding too is ending. Out with you to the yard; form your motley gyond-ring. Boys — fill that great stone mortar of ours with wine, set the big earthen jar upon it; let them circle round the mortar, dance the round and sing, the braves of our village:

Long life to you too, my courtly villager brothers! You have eaten the wedding-meal, and at the end you would eat my soul-meal too — the hogechash, the funeral repast? You are much in the right. Our city men of learning suppose that peasants know nothing of philosophy. How natural is your longing for my soul-meal! for it is ever the natural sequel of the wedding-meal. With the wedding-meal men come into the world; with the soul-meal they go out of it. God grant it be even as your kind wish.

But Papik gives you counsel, friends: labor with your own sweat, that every day upon your family table you may eat a full meal; the wedding-meal and death's soul-meal will not fill the belly. Leave the soul-meal to the poor wretches — and above all to the priests, who, since you grudge them their dues and do not give them, are always waiting for your soul-meal. To speak straight, our priests live more by the dead than by the living.

Eh, my dear wedding-guests, the wedding is ended, and the meat and drink are done. The wineskins are emptied; the mistress of the house sends word that no bread is left in the trough, nor butter in the vessel — only in the harisa cauldron a little rests at the bottom, and that is the portion of the poor.

Now, with all courtliness, come kiss old Papik's hand; wish Tornik and Shushan long sunlit days; say your farewell and go to your houses. I know you have gone sleepless, and drunk deep too — see, you have drained the huge mortar of its wine! He that goes home from a wedding, they say, is heavy-headed. Sleep sound this night; and at morning, the moment the dark turns to dawn — to the field! to the field!

Consider: if you do not labor at plowing and sowing, and bring home the field's yield, you cannot crown your children when they are grown. Can there be a wedding from an empty house? Papik prays that God make your labor fruitful and fill your houses with plenty, that you too may make weddings, and see the crown and psak of your sons and your grandsons, and be comforted.

See, Tornik, the wedding-guests are scattered; there remain I, you, Mamik, and the new-come bride Shushan: upon the little number of our family one single grain has been added. God has sown that single grain like a grain of wheat in our family field; and you shall see, Tornik, from that one mother-seed how many child-grains shall spring. One day you will see the house filled with boys and girls, who like the young of the birds, cheeping chiu-chiu with open mouths, will clamor: Papo! bread! we want bread! True it is that men believe and say, the Creator Lord gives every creature of His making its allotted portion. Yes, so we believe; but the Lord God first made ready the portion and the bread, and after created man; and that portion is this earth and soil we dwell on, whereof He said to work it and to keep it. Therefore without working, without labor, without plowing and sowing, there is for man neither bread nor portion.

Make ready then, Tornik: let not the time of the autumn gutan go by. Tomorrow at morning we go to the field and begin our labor. Now off with those bridegroom's broadcloth garments; put on the workman's trousers of shal. And let Shushan too lay off her wedding ornaments, take the besom in hand at Mamik's bidding, set the house to rights, sweep it, clean it, and order everything in its own place. Thus, Tornik in the field and Shushan in the house — if they labor, God gives bread.