Chapter XXXIV: Good Friday in the Greek Church

A few miles from Grosswardein lies a valley, where, surrounded by undulating tertiary hills, is a mineral spring; and thither, a few days after our arrival, we made an excursion. Our way leads us through the market, where are milk-white oxen by the score, and hundreds of black swine with long noses and high backs, surrounded by swarms of piglings, the funniest little creatures imaginable, each with its back arched like a cat, and its tiny white legs and little black hoofs looking like shoes and stockings. In the centre of the square women are selling _tisch-wein_ and hot soup thickened with macaroni, and wherever one turns there are gipsies selling baskets and wooden utensils.

Forcing our way through the vegetable baskets and the oxen and the pigs, we reach a broad road in which singular conveyances are jogging along. More strange by far than any we have yet seen in Hungary are the vehicles met with here, which, though apparently belonging to a class far above the ordinary peasant, are so different from any found in the rest of Europe, that we might have arrived at an altogether new world. Under the cool shadows of the _robinias_, which grow luxuriantly in the Alfőld--a tree in England erroneously called _acacia_, but which is the “locust tree” (_Robinia pseudacacie_) of the United States, so strongly advocated for English cultivation by Cobbet--the women stand and gossip, whilst resting their heavy burdens on the ground.

By the wayside are characteristic studies. A woman is making bricks, whilst standing beside her, smoking and languidly watching her movements, is her lord and master; for the male Wallach is a creature who loves to take life easily. A little farther on, and we see another woman hoeing away at the hard, sun-baked ground of her cottage garden, as her inferior half, sitting the while on the doorstep, nurses the baby.

In this country it would seem that “women must” not only “weep,” but women must also work; whilst, by an inversion of the order of things, the men remain idle. But we are nearing our destination where there is a bathing establishment, for yonder is a broad still pool formed by the hot spring, in which, surrounded by clouds of vapour, washer-women are wading waist deep, as they hammer away at the visitors’ clothes.

It was a pretty sight that at length greeted our arrival at the Bathing Establishment, and one that reminded us of _Fêtes Champêtres_ in olden times. It is situated in the centre of large grounds, where, standing or sitting, were some two hundred people, with here and there knots of young men and maidens dancing to the inspiriting strains of a gipsy band. Beyond a number of chestnut trees, rises a densely forest-clad hill which birds make merry all day with song, and where numerous nightingales trill. There are so few woods in the Alfőld that where they exist birds congregate in great numbers.

The hotel contains eighty rooms, and the people we here see disporting themselves so gaily, and who appear so completely the reverse of invalid, are but the ordinary visitors to the Baths. The Hungarians, like the Romans, are a bath-loving people, and resort during the hot summer season to places of this kind, just as we do in England to the sea-side.

The source of the hot spring lies at the bottom of a crater-like basin, from which the water comes bubbling to the surface as from a volcano, bringing with it a quantity of small shells of two kinds containing living creatures. Looking down into the water, which is clear as crystal, we see them not only being tossed up to the surface, but lying at the bottom of the crater, as well as round its sides.

The water here forms another broad pool, the surface of which is covered in many places with the lotus (_Nymphæa thermalis_) brought from the Nile and kept alive during the winter by the high temperature of the water. It begins to blossom in the beginning of April, and was in perfection at the time of our visit.

Besides the private baths attached to the hotel, there are large public ones also outside the grounds for the poorer classes, thousands of whom flock here during the season, and parboil themselves simply for the love of it. The charge for the use of these public baths is at the rate of thirty kreuzers (tenpence) for every twenty-four hours, so that the people who resort to them may be said at all events to have plenty for their money. They come hither from great distances. Slávs from Csaba, more than fifty miles away, and others from places equally remote, and simply divesting themselves of their top boots and fur jackets, plunge into the steaming tide, the men in their long-fringed _gatyák_, full white sleeves, and embroidered waistcoats, and the women in their gay bodices and coloured skirts. It is in fact an aquatic pic-nic, for they bring their provisions with them, and take their meals in the water, occasionally even dancing the _csárdás_, whilst some of the bathers, who possess a musical turn, sit on the edge of the bath with their feet and legs dangling in the water, and play their primitive instruments or keep time with the dance by clapping their hands, amidst the ringing and bewildering shouts of the dancers. They generally remain in the bath eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and as our cicerone informed us, all for an “_ausflug_” (outing). Every now and then as they become faint and weak from the effects of the seething, they have recourse to the outer atmosphere for a while, where, lying down on the ground, wrapped in their bundas, they remain until the cool air has revived them, when they return and again join in the aquatic festivities.

Among the new arrivals we noticed two tall, fine-looking men wearing splendid lamb’s wool cloaks, embroidered at the edges in gay colours, and others in curious blanket-cloaks like those worn by the Arabs.

It was late in the evening, and dark shadows were gathering over the plains when, leaving this singular locality behind, we directed our course homewards. From the cottages along the road now and then came the sound of the nervous little _telinka_, embroidering with fitful and fanciful variations, the hoarse snore of the bag-pipes as they droned out their wild, weird music to the night; whilst from a distance reached us the rich, deep throb of the cymbals. In many of the houses there is dancing and revelry, and accustomed as we are to the quiet and sullen habits of our own peasantry, we regard these pleasure-loving people with astonishment.

The Wallachs, like the Slovaks, belong chiefly to the Greek rite, of which there are two separate bodies, the non-united or “Oriental Greek Church,” which acknowledges the Patriarch of Constantinople as its head, and the “United Greek,” which recognises the supremacy of the Pope of Rome.

The recurrence of a high festival affords us an opportunity during the time we are here of witnessing one of the gorgeous services of the Greek Church, the splendid vestments and the imposing, and to us novel, ritual filling us with a new delight. The music was heavenly, the grand old Ambrosial chants, begun by a long-robed priest whose beard extended far below his chest, being taken up by the fresh young voices of the choir, which, welling upwards in a flood of melody, echoed through the vaulted roof.

It is impossible to give any adequate idea of the imposing ritual of the Greek Church to those who have not witnessed it, or of the apparent devotion and ecstatic adoration of the people as they prostrate themselves until their faces touch the marble floor, whilst the singing of the unseen choir seems to be that of a company of angels come down to earth to join in the Christian worship.

It was this music, the most beautiful and touching in the whole world, that melted the stern, cold heart of the Russian prince of old--the Great Vladimir himself--causing him to give up his Pagan gods, and was the indirect origin of the Greek rite becoming the national church of the northern branch of the Slavonian family.

Our visits to Grosswardein have been well-timed. On our last visit we happened to be here in the latter end of April and beginning of May, and were able to witness another, but a very different, ceremonial of these Eastern churches.

It was Good Friday. This day of penitence and fasting falls nearly a month later in the Greek calendar than in our own, and high up in the open towers of both the “United Greek” and “Oriental Greek” churches, instead of the sweet chiming of bells, men were busy with wooden clappers producing such unearthly sounds, as they kept hammering against a beam to call the faithful to worship, that, until undeceived by a friendly passer-by, we were under the full impression that giants with wooden legs were disporting themselves amongst the clock-work.

Inside the “Oriental Greek” churches the banners, together with the tables on which the sacred relics reposed, were draped with black. Tall tapers burned at sombre shrines erected for the occasion in the centre of the nave, and which were approached by a pathway of trees and flowers growing in large tubs--oleanders, geraniums, roses, lilies, and a variety of other plants, too numerous to mention, but all out of keeping to our thinking, for it was anything but a pathway of flowers which _He_ trod, whose sufferings and death the people were commemorating. At the end of the long pathway was a canopy draped in violet, beneath which, on an altar, rested a silver crucifix and relics, and above a life-size figure of the Saviour hanging on the cross. Towards this men and women, both young and old, pressed reverently, and approaching the table on tiptoe lingered before it with sad faces and sometimes weeping eyes; they kissed the crucifix and relics, and dropped a coin into a bowl, and then stood and gazed again, as if reluctant to turn away; and when they did it was with steps soft and slow. Notwithstanding the immense crowd--for the great nave was as full as it could cram, there was perfect stillness and a hush almost supernatural, and our hearts were moved by the strong faith and love which the people evinced in and for the Holy Hero of the day, as they crossed themselves, and gently and sadly turned away to make room for other worshippers.

There was no sermon here to-day, for their bishop was dead; but crossing the market-place, where men and women were sitting enveloped in black sheepskin cloaks and jackets, we entered the cathedral of the “United” Greek Church, where one was being preached, and where the people were standing and listening attentively to the “old, old Story.”

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I have travelled in many lands, but it is in Hungary alone that I have observed such intense devotion of the people. To them the religion they profess is no mere shadow, but a deep, great, and abiding reality. It is, however, principally amongst the Greek Catholics of both rites that this earnestness in devotion is seen. Although the Greek Church is in mourning and its devotees are fasting, it is the vigil of a high festival day in the Roman Catholic.

To-morrow is the first day of May, a month of rejoicing, so the churches are decorated with flowers, whilst in the streets young girls are carrying offerings to lay at the Virgin’s shrine. Following them we enter the church of the San Franciscan Friars, a gorgeous edifice all tinsel and gold, with life-size, gaudily-painted figures of the twelve Apostles, the Virgin, and the Holy Women, all so natural that they seem endowed with sound and motion. Round the ledge of the pulpit are smaller ones in almost every attitude, some of which are poised on one leg, whilst others are hanging to the cornice, all of them so marvellously life-like that as we look at them we tremble lest they should break their little necks by toppling over on to the floor of the nave below. On the sounding-board there is another crowd of puppets, no less bewildering to the devout mind; but near the north entrance hangs a figure of our Saviour upon the cross, the blue lips, the livid face, and the expression of agony all so wonderfully depicted as to be painful to look at.

As we left the church the bells were chiming and the people flocking to the “Benediction;” whilst in another part of the town devout Jews were hastening to their synagogue, for it was the beginning of their Sabbath.

Not far from the hospital of “St. John of God” a funeral passed us. First came a small boy in a white surplice and black cassock bearing aloft a gilt cross veiled in white muslin, accompanied by other small boys; after whom came the priest, followed by several men in the ancient costume of the Magyars, in light blue embroidered _mentes_ and caps of the same colour adorned with white feathers, the last of whom carried on a large white satin cushion a chaplet of flowers. Then came the bier, painted in blue and silver, and drawn by white horses draped in light blue cloth. Resting on the coffin, which was in the shape of a sarcophagus and looked as though it was made of silver, there lay at either end a beautiful wreath of flowers, the whole being covered with a white lace pall. Carriages followed, in which were ladies, but none of them were in mourning.

Meeting a gentleman we asked him whose funeral it was.

“Only that of some citizen,” he replied, and without doing more than turn his head, went on his way.

I never saw such a place as Grosswardein for clocks: almost every church steeple possesses four dials; but none of them agree as to the time, all maintaining a particular one of their own, and none of them being right!

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May Day has come. We were awakened at five o’clock by the strains of a military band which according to ancient custom ushers in this golden morning by playing in front of the Palace of the Catholic Bishop, situated not very far from our own sylvan retreat. Everything wears a joyous appearance, even the trains, which are decked with robinia boughs, and full of holiday-makers on their way to a village a few miles from Grosswardein.

In the evening the _cafés_ are full to overflowing, and the gipsies playing in one of them such an exquisite melody as we pass that, after listening outside, we enter softly and take our seat.

Like nearly all in Hungary the _café_ in question was kept by a Jew; whose young and handsome wife sat beside us. So soon as she had ascertained that we were foreigners she sent for her four children and made them dance the _csárdás_ to the music of the gipsies, who immediately began a lively air. The children were between the ages of four and nine, and it was the prettiest and most amusing sight possible to see the little creatures now advancing, now retiring coyly, then pouting with offended dignity as, pretending to make love, they went through all the phases of the dance.

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But to return after this digression to the period included in our present visit to Hungary. We get on “swimmingly” in our modest little quarters, and enjoying the quiet and repose which they temporarily afford us, regard them as an oasis in our travels--a brief rest in which to review our past experiences and make plans for the future. All is tranquillity until the fourth day of our residence in our little Wallach’s rustic dwelling, when her husband, who had been absent on our arrival, returned. He was much older than his “better-half,” and, were it not that the Wallachs never intermarry with the Jews, one would unquestionably have said from his general appearance that he belonged to the family of Israel.

From that moment our peace of mind grew less and less. It was quite astonishing the quantity of wine we managed to get through. Our tea also dwindled most unaccountably. I ventured to hint this to the little woman one morning, upon which, throwing her skirt over her head and bursting into tears, she exclaimed in broken accents, “_Es war immer so-o-o!_” and her sobs were quite overpowering.

What could we do but beg her to think no more about it? assuring her that it must be the cat, or the rats, or the mice, all of which are well known to have a weakness for such beverages. How could we bear to see her sweet face distorted by weeping? and peace was once more restored.

At length, our sojourn ended, the day of reckoning came. The bill, which was made out in German characters, was both exorbitant and a marvel of ingenuity. The number of eggs we managed to get through in one week would have sufficed for a banquet of Hannibal. It was surprising, too, the quantity of bread and butter we consumed; and as to our behaviour we must have been the most riotous of lodgers, for we broke three panes of glass, the backs of two chairs, and wrenched a castor off a leg of the sofa; all of which misdemeanours were charged as separate items on the bill.

It was amusing to witness András’s energy as he did battle with our miscreant host, whose wife did not appear upon the scene. It is only fair, however, to say that we saw her more than once during the stormy interview, standing behind the door bathed in tears. At length, after much expenditure of lungs, András came off victorious, the bill was settled to our entire satisfaction, and we were soon rattling over the uneven roads on our way to the station.

Here we were detained some considerable time whilst a train was leaving with a crowd of emigrants on their way to the United States. We had read that morning in a Wallach newspaper that 8000 Slovaks had also started from the north of Hungary for the same happy region, after having sold their property for a mere nothing. But our own train is ready at last, and entering the blazing Alfőld, the heat becomes almost suffocating, the sun shining fiercely as it only does on plains. The sheep-dogs pant as they throw themselves down on the parched ground; in the distant horizon, however, long bands of dark cloud, extending perpendicularly to the thirsty earth, show that a gracious rain is falling. The cattle turn their heads to face the breeze which the storm brings with it. In the marshes the tall pampas canes bow their plumes and rock to and fro, and there is a grateful smell of earth refreshed by falling showers. The water ripples in the pools, and scuds before the wind, which soon increases to a gale. The storm overtakes us and the rain comes pattering down, but it is too fierce to last; in less than an hour it passes over, and the sun shines bright as ever, whilst to our left a rainbow embraces with its splendid arch half the circuit of the plains.

In the carriage with us was a gentleman, a native of Szegedin, returning to that ill-starred city, after having been to Pest on matters connected with its rebuilding.

A thriving place of seventy thousand inhabitants, it is difficult to realise that it has virtually passed away; that interesting city memorable as being near the spot where the first Hungarian Diet under Arpád was held, and which consequently received the name of “The district of organisation;” for here, on the establishment of the Magyar camp, a grand assembly was held, composed of heads of families and the chieftains of the various tribes, and at which the political affairs of the clans were discussed, and their relative positions determined; that strange city of pure Magyars, with its mixture of races; Germans, Christianised Jews, Nazarenes, and ennobled Greeks; above all, that city of Radicals, upon which Kossuth profanely declared he would build his dynasty; the words with which he ended his memorable speech, that was the immediate cause of the civil war of 1848, being, “_De én is mondom néked: Te Szeged vagy, és ezen a kősziklán épitem fel az én egyházamat: és a pokol kapui nem vehetnek azon diadalmat._” (“And I say also unto thee that thou art Szegedin, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”)

But the foundations of that “rock” on which he was to build his dynasty--so much for the prophecies of the wisest of dictators--long undermined, have now crumbled to the dust, and Szegedin--the Szegedin that is that _he_ knew, with its one-storied houses, white gables, and long wide streets, built, one would think, on the model of the camp of the Magyar’s warlike ancestors--is now no more, and a new Szegedin is fast rising like a phœnix from its ashes, a finer and better city with nobler houses, but one that will lack much of the historical interest of the former. Active measures have already been taken for its complete restoration, and the Dual-Monarchy is endeavouring to raise a loan of ten millions of florins to be lent to the inhabitants to enable them to rebuild their unfortunate capital.

Not many years ago this ill-fated district, which has so often been the sport of nature, suffered fearfully from a severe drought which occasioned a terrible famine, and in 1863 from the ravages of cholera. In fact its dwellers have always existed on the confines of two impending calamities, which might occur at any moment--absence of rain, causing the destruction of their crops, and inundation, which might at any time not only overwhelm the surrounding country, but render their city a heap of ruins.