Jacob no longer urged him. He saluted, and said farewell, in the valley of Jehoshaphat. The German said adieu to his acquaintance of the day before without much regret. At the bottom of his heart he feared that the Pole was a dangerous revolutionist, a republican conspirator, an admirer of Garibaldi and Mazzini. If so, he was wise to renounce in time such a compromising acquaintance.
He had hardly disappeared when the Tsigane presented himself; smiling as ever, he fanned himself with his handkerchief; his waistcoat was unbuttoned, but the heated temperature seemed, nevertheless, very agreeable to him. He was in good spirits, and his expression was as joyful as was possible to one with such features.
"Well," cried he, "how do you like Genoa? For my part I find too much noise, too many asses bearing casks, and too few men by comparison, and the air is full of bad smells. It has the colour of the Orient, but the Orient is lacking. I will concede to you that Genoa possesses the perfumes of Constantinople. Oh! my poor olfactory nerves! What torture! Were we presented to each other yesterday? I have a bad memory, but you already know that I am a Tsigane, and, perhaps, my race will inspire you with aversion."
"You are wrong there," said Jacob, "for I have no aversion to any race."
"My name is Stamlo Gako," said the Tsigane. "My father was at the head of his tribe. But I have abandoned the collective wandering life for solitary vagabondage. I am thus, as you see, alone in the world. I would have been still using the same old pans and kettles had it not been for my beautiful bass voice, which gained me a place at the theatre. I saved some money, and invested it for the first time in the lottery. I won a large sum of money. Some of this I scattered in extravagance, but I kept enough to place me above want for the rest of my life. It is agreeable to me to live in idleness. I go or I stay, as I choose, but my forehead is marked indelibly. No one sympathizes with me, and I am indifferent to the world. A stupid life, if you will; but I would not change it for any other, for I am attached to it. I have no duties; that is to say, I am freed from everything,--from all belief, all hope, and all occupation. I weary myself comfortably, and my idleness is well ordered. In winter I go north; one suffers less there from the colds, on account of the houses being well warmed. I live in hotels, I eat well, I make passing acquaintances, I frequent the theatres, and in summer I go to Italy and sometimes return to my people in Hungary. There are yet there some individuals of my race and of my blood, but fortunately I have not a single near relative to persecute me. Hungary is for me a sort of home. I have learned to read, and a book with well-turned phrases serves me admirably to kill time, but in general I consider literature as useless. The best books contain more folly than reasonable thoughts. All human wisdom can be written on the palm of the hand."
"I am without country, like you," said Jacob, who had perceived that the Tsigane had drunk a little too much, "but I look on life differently. I have an aim, for I have brothers among men. You, who are better-informed than other Tsiganes, you can do much for your people if you will. It would be a grand thing for you to become a reformer and benefactor to your people."
"What would you do with the Tsiganes?" replied Gako showing his white teeth. "We are only a handful of living beings that God or the devil has thrown on the earth. What would you do with a cursed race without ambition or place? At least, do not ask me to conduct them to the Ganges, whence it is said they originally came. 'You shall perish!' such is the sentence against us. And we are perishing slowly. We shall disappear in time. Look at our women! At Moscow, singers and dancers, fortune-tellers and jades, always among the ragamuffins and beggars. In what language shall I speak to them of the future? Do the brutes understand anything? Like fruit that falls from the tree, we are a decayed people without root."
"Then change your nationality."
"Petrify myself! never! We will be Tsiganes as long as it pleases God. In the night of the ages," added Gako in a mysterious voice, "there was a terrible crime which we expiate, some fratricide of which we cannot wash our hands. I possess all that can make man happy on this earth, yet I shall never be happy. I have counted the number of days that I have to live. I will submit to my destiny."
Just then the two Italians arrived--Alberto Primate and Luca Barbaro.