The Writings of Prosper Mérimée/Volume 5/Lokis/4
IV
The dinner was very lively. The General gave us a most interesting account of the dialects spoken in the Caucasus, some of which are Aryan, and others Turanian, although between the different peoples there is a remarkable uniformity in manners and customs. I had to talk of my travels because Count Szemioth congratulated me on the way I sat a horse, and said he had never met a minister or a professor who could have managed so easily such a journey as the one we had taken. I explained to him that, commissioned by the Bible Society to write a work on the language of the Charruas, I had spent three and a half years in the Republic of Uruguay, nearly always on horseback, and living in the pampas among the Indians. This led me to relate how, when lost for three days in those boundless plains, without food or water, I had been reduced, like the gauchos who accompanied me, to bleed my horse and drink his blood.
All the ladies uttered a cry of horror. The General observed that the Kalmouks did the same in similar extremities. The Count asked me what the drink tasted like.
"Morally, it was most repugnant," I replied, "but, physically, I found it rather good, and it is owing to it that I have the honour of dining here to-day. Many Europeans, I mean white men, who have lived for a long time with the Indians, accustom themselves to it, and even get to like the taste. My good friend Don Fructuoso Rivero, President of the Republic, hardly ever missed a chance of gratifying it. I recollect one day, when he was going to Congress in full rmiform, he passed a rancho where a yotmg foal was being bled. He got off his horse to ask for a chupon, a suck; after which he delivered one of his most eloquent speeches."
" Your President is a hideous monster," cried Mademoiselle Ioulka.
" Pardon me, my dear Pani," I said to her, "he is a very distinguished person, with a most enlightened mind. He speaks several very difficult Indian dialects to perfection, specially the Charrua, the verbs of which take innumerable forms, according to whether its objective is direct or indirect, and even according to the social relations of the persons who speak."
I was about to give some very curious instances of the construction of the Charrua verb, but the Count interrupted me to ask what part of the horse they bled when they wanted to drink its blood.
"For goodness' sake, my dear Professor," cried Mademoiselle Ioulka, with a comic expression of terror, " do not tell him. He is just the man to slay his whole stable, and to eat us up ourselves when he has no more horses left!"
Upon this sally the ladies laughingly left the table to prepare tea and coffee whilst we smoked. In a quarter of an hour they sent from the drawing-room for the General. We all prepared to go with him; but we were told that the ladies only wished one man at a time. Very soon we heard from the drawing-room loud bursts of laughter and clapping of hands.
"Mademoiselle Ioulka is up to her pranks," said the Count.
He was sent for next; and again there followed laughter and applause. It was my turn after his. By the time I had reached the room every face had taken on a pretended gravity which did not bode well. I expected some trick.
"Professor," said the General to me in his most official manner, " these ladies maintain that we have given too kind a reception to their champagne, and they wiU not admit us among them until after a test. You must walk from the middle of the room to that wall with your eyes bandaged, and touch it with your finger. You see how easy it is ; you have only to walk straight. Are you able to keep a straight line? "
"I think so, General."
Mademoiselle Ioulka then threw a handkerchief over my eyes and tied it tightly behind.
" You are in the middle of the room," she said ; " stretch out your hand. . . . That is right ! I wager that you will not touch the wall." "Forward, march! " called out the General.
There were only five or six steps to take. I advanced very cautiously, sure that I should encounter some cord or footstool treacherously placed in my path to trip me up, and I could hear stifled laughter, which increased my confusion. At length I believed I was quite close to the wall, when my outstretched finger suddenly went into something cold and sticky. I made a grimace and started back, which set all the onlookers laughing. I tore off my bandage, and saw Mademoiselle loulka standing near me holding a pot of honey, into which I had thrust my finger, thinking that I touched the wall. My only consolation was to watch the two aides-de-camp pass through the same ordeal, with no better result than I.
Throughout the evening Mademoiselle Ioulka never ceased to give vent to her frolicsome humour. Ever teasing, ever mischievous, she made first one, then another, the butt of her fun. I observed, however, that she more frequently addressed herself to the Count, who, I must say, never took offence, and even seemed to enjoy her allurements. But when, on the other hand, she began an attack upon one of the aides-de-camp, he frowned, and I saw his eyes kindle with that dull fire which was almost terrifying. "Frolicsome as a kitten and as white as cream." I thought in writing that verse Miçkiewicz must surely have wished to draw the portrait of the panna Ioulka.