I was less successful in solving my puzzles concerning the nature of light. Kos, the Slovenian, my first guide and teacher in the study of physical phenomena, told me the story that a wise man of Greece with the name of Aristotle believed that light originates in the eye, which throws out feelers to the surrounding objects, and that through these feelers we see the objects, just as we feel them by our sense of touch. This view did not agree with the popular saying often heard in Idvor: “Pick your grapes before sunrise, before the thirsty sunbeams have drunk up their cooling dew.” Nor did it agree with Bishop Nyegosh, the greatest of Serbian poets, who says:
“The bright-eyed dewdrops glide along the sunbeams to the heavens above.”
The verse from Nyegosh I obtained from a Serbian poet, who was an arch-priest, a protoyeray, and who was my religious teacher in Panchevo. His name, Vasa Zhivkovich, I shall never forget, because it is sweet music to my ears on account of the memories of affectionate friendship he cherished for me.
According to this popular belief a beam of light has an individual existence just like that of the melodious string under the guslar’s bow. But neither the poet, nor the wise men of Idvor, nor Kos the Slovenian, ever mentioned that a beam of light ever quivered, and if it does not quiver like a vibrating body how can the sun, the moon, and the stars proclaim the glory of God, and how can, according to David, their voice be heard wherever there are speech and language? These questions Kos would not answer. No wonder! Nobody to-day can give a completely satisfactory answer to questions relating to radiation of light. Kos was non-committal and did not seem to attach much importance to the authorities which I quoted; namely, the Serbian poet Nyegosh, the wise sayings of Idvor, and the Psalms of David. Nevertheless, he was greatly interested in my childlike inquiries and always encouraged me to go on with my puzzling questions. Once he invited me to his house, and there I found that several of his colleagues were present. One of them was my friend the poet-priest, and another was a Hungarian Lutheran preacher who spoke Serbian well and was famous in Panchevo because of his great eloquence. They both engaged me in conversation and showed a lively interest in my summer vacation experiences as herdsman’s assistant. The puzzling questions about light which I addressed to Kos, and the fact that Kos would not answer, amused them. My knowledge of the Bible and of the Psalms impressed them much, and they asked me quite a number of questions concerning my mother. Then they suggested that I might be transferred from the school in Panchevo to the famous schools of Prague in Bohemia, if my father and mother did not object to my going so far away from home. When I suggested that my parents could not afford to support me in a great place like Prague, they assured me that this difficulty might be fixed up. I promised to consult my parents during the approaching Christmas vacation. I did, but found my father irresistibly opposed to it. Fate, however, decreed otherwise.
The history of Banat records a great event for the early spring of 1872, the spring succeeding the Christmas when my father and mother agreed to disagree upon the proposition that I go to Prague. Svetozar Miletich, the great nationalist leader of the Serbs in Austria-Hungary, visited Panchevo, and the people prepared a torchlight procession for him. This procession was to be a protest of Panchevo and of the whole of Banat against the emperor’s treachery of 1869. My father had protested long before by excluding the emperor’s picture from our house. That visit of Miletich marks the beginning of a new political era in Banat, the era of nationalism. The schoolboys of Panchevo turned out in great numbers, and I was one of them, proud to become one of the torch-bearers. We shouted ourselves hoarse whenever Miletich in his fiery speech denounced the emperor for his ingratitude to the military frontiersmen as well as to all the Serbs of Voyvodina. Remembering my father’s words on the occasion mentioned above, I did not hesitate to shout in the name of the schoolboys present in the procession: “We’ll never serve in Francis Joseph’s army!” My chums responded with: “Long five the Prince of Serbia!” The Hungarian officials took careful notes of the whole proceeding, and a few days later I was informed that Panchevo was not a proper place for an ill-mannered peasant boy like me, and that I should pack up and return to Idvor. Kos, the Slovenian, and protoyeray Zhivkovich interfered, and I was permitted to stay.
On the first of May, following, our school celebrated the May-day festival. The Serb youngsters in the school, who worshipped Miletich and his nationalism, prepared a Serbian flag for the festival march. The other boys, mostly Germans, Rumanians, and Hungarians, carried the Austrian yellow-black standard. The nationalist group among the youngsters stormed the bearer of the yellow-black standard, and I was caught in the scrimmage with the Austrian flag under my feet. Expulsion from school stared me in the face. Again protoyeray Zhivkovich came to my defense and, thanks to his high official position and to my high standing in school, I was allowed to continue with my class until the end of the school year, after promising that I would not associate with revolutionary boys who showed an inclination to storm the Austrian flag. The matter did not end there, however. In response to an invitation from the protoyeray, father and mother came to Panchevo to a conference, which resulted in a triumph for my mother. It was decided that I bid good-by to Panchevo, a hotbed of nationalism, and go to Prague. The protoyeray and his congregation promised assistance if the financial burden attached to my schooling in Prague should prove too heavy for my parents.
When the day for the departure for Prague arrived, my mother had everything ready for my long journey, a journey of nearly two days on a Danube steamboat to Budapest, and one day by rail from Budapest to Prague. Two multicolored bags made of a beautifully colored web of wool contained my belongings: one my linen, the other my provisions, consisting of a whole roast goose and a big loaf of white bread. The only suit of clothes which I had I wore on my back, and my sisters told me that it was very stylish and made me look like a city-bred boy. To tone down somewhat this misleading appearance and to provide a warm covering during my journey for the cold autumn evenings and nights, I wore a long yellow overcoat of sheepskin trimmed with black wool and embroidered along the border with black and red arabesque figures. A black sheepskin cap gave the finishing touch and marked me as a real son of Idvor. When I said good-by to father and mother on the steamboat landing I expected, of course, that my mother would cry, and she did; but to my great surprise I noticed two big tears roll down my father’s cheeks. He was a stern and unemotional person, a splendid type of the heroic age, and when for the first time in my life I saw a tear in his luminous eyes I broke down and sobbed, and felt embarrassed when I saw that the steamboat passengers were taking a sympathetic interest in my parting from father and mother. A group of big boys on the boat took me up and offered to help me to orient myself on the boat; they were theological students returning to the famous seminary at Karlovci, the seat of the Serb Patriarch. I confided to them that I was going to the schools of Prague, that I never had gone from home farther than Panchevo, that I had never seen a big steamboat or a railroad-train, and that my journey gave me some anxiety because I could not speak Hungarian and had some difficulty in handling the limited German vocabulary which I learned in Panchevo. Presently we saw a great church-tower in the distance, and they told me that it was the cathedral of Karlovci, and that near the cathedral was the palace of his holiness, the Patriarch. It was at this place that the Turks begged for peace in 1699, having been defeated with the aid of the military frontiersmen. Beyond Karlovci, they pointed out, was the mountain of Frushka Gora, famous in Serbian poetry. This was the first time I saw a mountain at close range. One historical scene crowded upon another, and I had some difficulty to take them all in even with the friendly assistance of my theological acquaintances. When Karlovci was reached and my theological friends left the boat, I felt quite lonesome. I returned to my multicolored bags, and as I looked upon them and remembered that mother had made them I felt that a part, at least, of my honey-hearted home was so near me, and that consoled me.