The Best Short Stories of 1921 | Page 9

talked in the fog he crushed the life out of his companion. It may be
that the dog like the workman's wife and her unborn child is now dead.
The leaves of the trees that line the road before my window are falling
like rain--the yellow, red, and golden leaves fall straight down, heavily.
The rain beats them brutally down. They are denied a last golden flash
across the sky. In October leaves should be carried away, out over the
plains, in a wind. They should go dancing away.

FANUTZA[3]
By KONRAD BERCOVICI
(From The Dial)
Light and soft, as though the wind were blowing the dust off the silver
clouds that floated overhead, the first snow was falling over the barren
lands stretching between the Danube and the Black Sea. A lowland

wind, which had already hardened and tightened the marshes, was
blowing the snow skywards. The fine silvery dust, caught between the
two air currents, danced lustily, blown hither and thither until it took
hold of folds and rifts in the frozen land and began to form rugged
white ridges that stretched in soft silvery curves to meet other growing
mountains of snow. The lowland wind, at first a mere breeze playfully
teasing the north wind, like a child that kicks the bed-sheets before
falling asleep, increased its force and swiftness, and scattered huge
mountains of snow, but the steadily rising drone of the north wind soon
mastered the situation. Like silver grain strewn by an unseen hand the
snow fell obliquely in steady streams over the land. A great calm
followed. The long Dobrudgean winter had started. In the dim steady
light, in the wake of the great calm, travelling towards the Danube from
the Black Sea, the "marea Neagra," four gipsy wagons, each drawn by
four small horses, appeared on the frozen plains. The caravan was
brought to a standstill within sight of the slowly moving river. The
canvas-covered wagons ranged themselves, broadwise, in a straight line
with the wind. Between the wagons enough space was allowed to stable
the horses. Then, when that part of the business had been done, a dozen
men, in furs from head to toe, quickly threw a canvas that roofed the
temporary quarters of the animals and gave an additional overhead
protection from the snow and wind to the dwellers of the wheeled
homes.
While the unharnessing and quartering of the horses and the stretching
of the canvas roof proceeded, a number of youngsters jumped down
from the wagons, yelling and screaming with all the power of their
lusty lungs. They threw snowballs at one another as they ran, some in
search of firewood and others, with wooden pails dangling from ends
of curved sticks over the left shoulder, in search of water for the horses
and for the cooking pots of their mothers.
Soon afterwards, from little crooked black chimneys that pointed
downwards over the roofs of the wagons, thick black smoke told that
the fires were already started. The youngsters came back; those with
the full water pails marching erectly with legs well apart; the ones with
bundles of firewood strapped to their shoulders leaning forward on

knotted sticks so as not to fall under the heavy burden.
When everything had been done, Marcu, the tall gray-bearded chief,
inspected the work. A few of the ropes needed tightening. He did it
himself, shaking his head in disapproval of the way in which it had
been done. Then he listened carefully to the blowing of the wind and
measured its velocity and intensity. He called to his men. When they
had surrounded him, he spoke a few words. With shovels and axes they
set energetically to work at his direction, packing a wall of snow and
wood from the ground up over the axles of the wheels all around the
wagons so as to give greater solidity to the whole and to prevent the
cold wind from blowing underneath.
By the time the early night settled over the marshes, the camp was quiet
and dark. Even the dogs had curled up near the tired horses and had
gone to sleep.
Early the following morning the whole thing could not be distinguished
from one of the hundreds of mountains of snow that had formed over
night. After the horses had been fed and watered, Marcu, accompanied
by his daughter, Fanutza, left the camp and went riverward, in search of
the hut of the Tartar whose flat-bottomed boat was moored on the shore.
Marcu knew every inch of the ground. He had camped there with his
tribe twenty winters in succession. He sometimes arrived before, and at
other times after, the first snow of the year. But every time he had gone
to Mehmet Ali's hut and asked the Tartar to row