CHAPTER IV

Spain is one of the countries in which those nomads, scattered all over

Europe, and known as Bohemians, Gitanas, Gipsies, Ziegeuner, and so

forth, are now to be found in the greatest numbers. Most of these people

live, or rather wander hither and thither, in the southern and eastern

provinces of Spain, in Andalusia, and Estramadura, in the kingdom

of Murcia. There are a great many of them in Catalonia. These last

frequently cross over into France and are to be seen at all our

southern fairs. The men generally call themselves grooms, horse doctors,

mule-clippers; to these trades they add the mending of saucepans and

brass utensils, not to mention smuggling and other illicit practices.

The women tell fortunes, beg, and sell all sorts of drugs, some of which

are innocent, while some are not. The physical characteristics of the

gipsies are more easily distinguished then described, and when you have

known one, you should be able to recognise a member of the race among

a thousand other men. It is by their physiognomy and expression,

especially, that they differ from the other inhabitants of the same

country. Their complexion is exceedingly swarthy, always darker than

that of the race among whom they live. Hence the name of _cale_ (blacks)

which they frequently apply to themselves.* Their eyes, set with a

decided slant, are large, very black, and shaded by long and heavy

lashes. Their glance can only be compared to that of a wild creature. It

is full at once of boldness and shyness, and in this respect their eyes

are a fair indication of their national character, which is cunning,

bold, but with “the natural fear of blows,” like Panurge. Most of the

men are strapping fellows, slight and active. I don’t think I ever saw

a gipsy who had grown fat. In Germany the gipsy women are often very

pretty; but beauty is very uncommon among the Spanish gitanas. When very

young, they may pass as being attractive in their ugliness, but once

they have reached motherhood, they become absolutely repulsive. The

filthiness of both sexes is incredible, and no one who has not seen a

gipsy matron’s hair can form any conception of what it is, not even

if he conjures up the roughest, the greasiest, and the dustiest heads

imaginable. In some of the large Andalusian towns certain of the gipsy

girls, somewhat better looking than their fellows, will take more care

of their personal appearance. These go out and earn money by performing

dances strongly resembling those forbidden at our public balls in

carnival time. An English missionary, Mr. Borrow, the author of two very

interesting works on the Spanish gipsies, whom he undertook to convert

on behalf of the Bible Society, declares there is no instance of any

gitana showing the smallest weakness for a man not belonging to her

own race. The praise he bestows upon their chastity strikes me as being

exceedingly exaggerated. In the first place, the great majority are

in the position of the ugly woman described by Ovid, “_Casta quam nemo

rogavit_.” As for the pretty ones, they are, like all Spanish women,

very fastidious in choosing their lovers. Their fancy must be taken,

and their favour must be earned. Mr. Borrow quotes, in proof of their

virtue, one trait which does honour to his own, and especially to his

simplicity: he declares that an immoral man of his acquaintance offered

several gold ounces to a pretty gitana, and offered them in vain. An

Andalusian, to whom I retailed this anecdote, asserted that the immoral

man in question would have been far more successful if he had shown the

girl two or three piastres, and that to offer gold ounces to a gipsy was

as poor a method of persuasion as to promise a couple of millions to a

tavern wench. However that may be, it is certain that the gitana shows

the most extraordinary devotion to her husband. There is no danger and

no suffering she will not brave, to help him in his need. One of the

names which the gipsies apply to themselves, _Rome_, or “the married

couple,” seems to me a proof of their racial respect for the married

state. Speaking generally, it may be asserted that their chief virtue is

their patriotism--if we may thus describe the fidelity they observe in

all their relations with persons of the same origin as their own, their

readiness to help one another, and the inviolable secrecy which they

keep for each other’s benefit, in all compromising matters. And indeed

something of the same sort may be noticed in all mysterious associations

which are beyond the pale of the law.

* It has struck me that the German gipsies, though they

thoroughly understand the word _cale_, do not care to be

called by that name. Among themselves they always use the

designation _Romane tchave_.

Some months ago, I paid a visit to a gipsy tribe in the Vosges country.

In the hut of an old woman, the oldest member of the tribe, I found

a gipsy, in no way related to the family, who was sick of a mortal

disease. The man had left a hospital, where he was well cared for, so

that he might die among his own people. For thirteen weeks he had been

lying in bed in their encampment, and receiving far better treatment

than any of the sons and sons-in-law who shared his shelter. He had a

good bed made of straw and moss, and sheets that were tolerably white,

whereas all the rest of the family, which numbered eleven persons, slept

on planks three feet long. So much for their hospitality. This very same

woman, humane as was her treatment of her guest said to me constantly

before the sick man: “_Singo, singo, homte hi mulo_.” “Soon, soon he

must die!” After all, these people live such miserable lives, that a

reference to the approach of death can have no terrors for them.

One remarkable feature in the gipsy character is their indifference

about religion. Not that they are strong-minded or sceptical. They

have never made any profession of atheism. Far from that, indeed, the

religion of the country which they inhabit is always theirs; but they

change their religion when they change the country of their residence.

They are equally free from the superstitions which replace religious

feeling in the minds of the vulgar. How, indeed, can superstition exist

among a race which, as a rule, makes its livelihood out of the credulity

of others? Nevertheless, I have remarked a particular horror of touching

a corpse among the Spanish gipsies. Very few of these could be induced

to carry a dead man to his grave, even if they were paid for it.

I have said that most gipsy women undertake to tell fortunes. They do

this very successfully. But they find a much greater source of profit

in the sale of charms and love-philters. Not only do they supply toads’

claws to hold fickle hearts, and powdered loadstone to kindle love in

cold ones, but if necessity arises, they can use mighty incantations,

which force the devil to lend them his aid. Last year the following

story was related to me by a Spanish lady. She was walking one day along

the _Calle d’Alcala_, feeling very sad and anxious. A gipsy woman who

was squatting on the pavement called out to her, “My pretty lady, your

lover has played you false!” (It was quite true.) “Shall I get him

back for you?” My readers will imagine with what joy the proposal was

accepted, and how complete was the confidence inspired by a person who

could thus guess the inmost secrets of the heart. As it would have been

impossible to proceed to perform the operations of magic in the most

crowded street in Madrid, a meeting was arranged for the next day.

“Nothing will be easier than to bring back the faithless one to your

feet!” said the gitana. “Do you happen to have a handkerchief, a scarf,

or a mantilla, that he gave you?” A silken scarf was handed her. “Now

sew a piastre into one corner of the scarf with crimson silk--sew half

a piastre into another corner--sew a peseta here--and a two-real piece

there; then, in the middle you must sew a gold coin--a doubloon would be

best.” The doubloon and all the other coins were duly sewn in. “Now give

me the scarf, and I’ll take it to the Campo Santo when midnight strikes.

You come along with me, if you want to see a fine piece of witchcraft.

I promise you shall see the man you love to-morrow!” The gipsy departed

alone for the Campo Santo, since my Spanish friend was too much afraid

of witchcraft to go there with her. I leave my readers to guess whether

my poor forsaken lady ever saw her lover, or her scarf, again.

In spite of their poverty and the sort of aversion they inspire, the

gipsies are treated with a certain amount of consideration by the more

ignorant folk, and they are very proud of it. They feel themselves to be

a superior race as regards intelligence, and they heartily despise the

people whose hospitality they enjoy. “These Gentiles are so stupid,”

said one of the Vosges gipsies to me, “that there is no credit in taking

them in. The other day a peasant woman called out to me in the street.

I went into her house. Her stove smoked and she asked me to give her a

charm to cure it. First of all I made her give me a good bit of bacon,

and then I began to mumble a few words in _Romany_. ‘You’re a fool,’ I

said, ‘you were born a fool, and you’ll die a fool!’ When I had got near

the door I said to her, in good German, ‘The most certain way of keeping

your stove from smoking is not to light any fire in it!’ and then I took

to my heels.”

The history of the gipsies is still a problem. We know, indeed, that

their first bands, which were few and far between, appeared in Eastern

Europe towards the beginning of the fifteenth century. But nobody can

tell whence they started, or why they came to Europe, and, what is still

more extraordinary, no one knows how they multiplied, within a short

time, and in so prodigious a fashion, and in several countries, all

very remote from each other. The gipsies themselves have preserved no

tradition whatsoever as to their origin, and though most of them do

speak of Egypt as their original fatherland, that is only because they

have adopted a very ancient fable respecting their race.

Most of the Orientalists who have studied the gipsy language believe

that the cradle of the race was in India. It appears, in fact, that

many of the roots and grammatical forms of the _Romany_ tongue are to

be found in idioms derived from the Sanskrit. As may be imagined, the

gipsies, during their long wanderings, have adopted many foreign words.

In every _Romany_ dialect a number of Greek words appear.

At the present day the gipsies have almost as many dialects as there are

separate hordes of their race. Everywhere, they speak the language of

the country they inhabit more easily than their own idiom, which

they seldom use, except with the object of conversing freely before

strangers. A comparison of the dialect of the German gipsies with that

used by the Spanish gipsies, who have held no communication with each

other for several centuries, reveals the existence of a great number of

words common to both. But everywhere the original language is notably

affected, though in different degrees, by its contact with the more

cultivated languages into the use of which the nomads have been forced.

German in one case and Spanish in the other have so modified the

_Romany_ groundwork that it would not be possible for a gipsy from the

Black Forest to converse with one of his Andalusian brothers, although a

few sentences on each side would suffice to convince them that each was

speaking a dialect of the same language. Certain words in very frequent

use are, I believe, common to every dialect. Thus, in every vocabulary

which I have been able to consult, _pani_ means water, _manro_ means

bread, _mas_ stands for meat, and _lon_ for salt.

The nouns of number are almost the same in every case. The German

dialect seems to me much purer than the Spanish, for it has preserved

numbers of the primitive grammatical forms, whereas the Gitanos have

adopted those of the Castilian tongue. Nevertheless, some words are an

exception, as though to prove that the language was originally common

to all. The preterite of the German dialect is formed by adding _ium_

to the imperative, which is always the root of the verb. In the

Spanish _Romany_ the verbs are all conjugated on the model of the first

conjugation of the Castilian verbs. From _jamar_, the infinitive of “to

eat,” the regular conjugation should be _jame_, “I have eaten.” From

_lillar_, “to take,” _lille_, “I have taken.” Yet, some old gipsies

say, as an exception, _jayon_ and _lillon_. I am not acquainted with any

other verbs which have preserved this ancient form.

While I am thus showing off my small acquaintance with the _Romany_

language, I must notice a few words of French slang which our thieves

have borrowed from the gipsies. From _Les Mysteres de Paris_ honest

folk have learned that the word _chourin_ means “a knife.” This is

pure _Romany_--_tchouri_ is one of the words which is common to every

dialect. Monsieur Vidocq calls a horse _gres_--this again is a gipsy

word--_gras_, _gre_, _graste_, and _gris_. Add to this the word

_romanichel_, by which the gipsies are described in Parisian slang.

This is a corruption of _romane tchave_--“gipsy lads.” But a piece of

etymology of which I am really proud is that of the word _frimousse_,

“face,” “countenance”--a word which every schoolboy uses, or did use, in

my time. Note, in the first place, the Oudin, in his curious dictionary,

published in 1640, wrote the word _firlimouse_. Now in _Romany_,

_firla_, or _fila_, stands for “face,” and has the same meaning--it

is exactly the _os_ of the Latins. The combination of _firlamui_ was

instantly understood by a genuine gipsy, and I believe it to be true to

the spirit of the gipsy language.

I have surely said enough to give the readers of Carmen a favourable

idea of my _Romany_ studies. I will conclude with the following proverb,

which comes in very appropriately: _En retudi panda nasti abela macha_.

“Between closed lips no fly can pass.”