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Radisav’s Death by Ivo Andric from: The Bridge on the Drina
An hour before noon the people of the town, for the most part Turks,
had collected on a level space near the bridge. Children were hoisted on to
high blocks of building stone which were lying about. The workmen swarmed
around the narrow benches where the meagre rations which kept them alive were
usually distributed. Chewing at them, they were silent and looked uneasily
about them. A little later Abidaga appeared,
accompanied by Tosun Effendi, Mastro
Antonio and one or two of the more prominent Turks. All stood on a small dry
hummock between the bridge and the stable where the condemned man was. Abidaga went once more to the stable, where he was told
that everything was ready; lying there was an oak stake about eight feet
long, pointed as was necessary and tipped with iron, quite thin and sharp,
and all well-greased with lard. On the scaffolding were the blocs between
which the stake would be embedded and nailed, a wooden mallet for the impalement,
ropes and everything else that was needed. The man from Plevlje was distraught, his
face earthen in color and his eyes bloodshot. Even
now he was not able to endure Abidaga's flaming
glances. "Listen, you! If everything is not as it should be and if you
disgrace me in public, neither you nor your bastard of a gypsy will ever
appear before me again, for I will drown you both in the Drina like a pair of
blind puppies." Then, turning to the shivering gypsy, he said more kindly: "You will get six grosh * for the job,
and another six if he stays alive till nightfall. See to it!" The hodza called out from the main mosque in
the marketplace in a clear sharp voice. Uneasiness spread among the assembled
people and a few moments later the door of the stable opened. Ten guards were
drawn up in two ranks, five on either side. Between them was Radisav, barefooted and bareheaded, alert and stooping as
ever, but he no longer "sowed" as he walked but marched strangely
with short steps, almost skipping on his mutilated feet with bleeding holes
where the nails had been; on his shoulders he carried a long white sharpened
stake. Behind him was Merdzan with two other
gypsies who were to be his helpers in the execution of the sentence. Suddenly
from somewhere or other the man from Plevlje
appeared on his bay and took his place at the head of the procession, which
only had to go about a hundred paces to reach the first scaffolding. The people craned their necks and stood on tiptoe to see the man who
had hatched the plot and destroyed the building work. They were all
astonished at the poor miserable appearance of the man they had imagined to
be quite different. Naturally, none of them knew why he hopped in so droll a
manner and took abrupt little steps, and none of them could see the burns
from the chain which crossed his chest like great belts, for his shirt and
cloak hid them. Therefore he seemed to al those
there too wretched and too insignificant to have done the deed which now
brought him to execution. Only the long white stake gave a sort of gruesome
grandeur to the scene and kept everyone's eyes fixed on it. When they reached the spot on the bank where the excavation work
began, the man from Plevlje dismounted and with a
sort of solemn and theatrical air gave the reins to a groom, then disappeared
with the others in the steep muddy track which led down to the water's edge.
A little later the people saw them again as they appeared in the same order
on the staging, climbing upwards slowly and carefully. On the narrow passages
made of planks and beams the guards closely surrounded Radisav
and kept him very near them lest he should leap into the river. They dragged
their way along slowly and climbed even higher till they reached the top.
There, high above the water, was a boarded space about the size of a small
room. On it, as on a raised stage, they took their places, Radisav, the man from Plevlje
and the three gypsies, with the rest of the guards posted around them on the
platform. The people watching moved uneasily and shifted about. Only a hundred
paces separated them from those planks, so that they could see every man and
every movement, but could not hear words or distinguish details. The people
and the workmen on the left bank were about three times farther away, and
moved around as much as they could and made every effort to try and hear to
see better. But they could hear nothing and what they could see seemed at
first only too ordinary and uninteresting and at the end so terrible that
they turned their heads away and many quickly went home, regretting that they
had ever come. When they ordered Radisav to lie down, he
hesitated a moment and then, looking past the gypsies and guards as if they
were not there, came close up to the man from Plevlje
and said almost confidentially as if speaking to a friend, softly and
heavily: "Listen, by this world and the next, do your best to pierce me
well so that I may not suffer like a dog." The man from Plevlje started and shouted at
him, as if defending himself from that too intimate approach. "March, Vlach! You who are so great a
hero as to destroy the Sultan's work now beg for mercy like a woman. It will
be as it has been ordered and as you have deserved." Radisav bent his head
still lower and the gypsies came up and began to strip off his cloak and his
shirt. On his chest the wounds from the chains stood out, read and swollen.
Without another word the peasant lay down as he had been ordered, face
downward. The gypsies approached and the first bound his hands behind his
back; then they attached a cord to each of his legs, around the ankles. Then
they pulled outwards and to the side, stretching his legs wide apart.
Meanwhile Merdzan placed the stake on two small
wooden chocks so that it pointed between the peasant's legs. Then he took
from his belt a short broad knife, knelt beside the stretched-out man and
leant over him to cut away the cloth of his trousers and to widen the opening
through which the stake would enter his body. This most terrible part of the
bloody task was, luckily, invisible to the onlookers. They could only see the
bound body shudder at the short and unexpected prick of the knife, then half
rise as if it were going to stand up, only to fall back again at once,
striking dully against the planks. As soon as he had finished, the gypsy
leapt up, took the wooden mallet and with slow measured blows began to strike
the lower blunt end of the stake. Between each two blows he would stop for a
moment and look first at the body in which the stake was penetrating and then
at the two gypsies, reminding them to pull slowly and evenly. The body of the
peasant, spread-eagled, writhed convulsively; at each blow of the mallet his
spine twisted and bent, but the cords pulled at it and kept it straight. The
silence from both banks of the river was such that not only every blow but
even its echo from somewhere along the steep bank could be clearly heard.
Those nearest could hear how the man beat with his forehead against the
planks, and, even more, another and unusual sound,, that was neither a
scream, nor a wail, nor a groan, nor anything human; that stretched and
twisted body emitted a sort of creaking and cracking like a fence that is
breaking down or a tree that is being felled. At every second blow the gypsy
went over to the stretched-out body and leant over it to see whether the
stake was going in the right direction and when he had satisfied himself that
it had not touched any of the more important internal organs he returned and
went on with his work. From the banks al this could scarcely be heard and still less seen,
but all stood there trembling, their faces blanched and their fingers chilled
with cold. For a moment the hammering ceased. Merdzan
now saw that close to the right shoulder muscles the skin was stretched and
swollen. He went forward quickly and cut the swollen place with two crossed
cuts. Pale blood flowed out, at first slowly and then faster and faster. Two
or three more blows, light and careful, and the iron-shod point of the stake
began to break through at the place where he had cut. He struck a few more
times until the point of the stake reached level with the right ear. The man
was impaled on the stake as a lamb on the spit, only that the tip did not
come through the mouth but in the back and had not seriously damaged the
intestines, the heart or the lungs. Then Merdzan
threw down the mallet and came nearer. He looked at the unmoving body,
avoiding the blood which poured out of the places where the stake had entered
and had come out again and was gathering in little pools on the planks. The
two gypsies turned the stiffened body on its back and began to bind the legs
to the foot of the stake. Meanwhile Merdzan looked
to see if the man were still alive and carefully examined the face that had
suddenly become swollen, wider and larger. The eyes were wide open and
restless, but the eyelids were unmoving, the mouth was wide open but the two
lips stiff and contracted and between them the clenched teeth shone white.
Since the man could no longer control some of his facial muscles the face
looked like a mask. But the heart beat heavily and the lungs worked with
short, quickened breath. The two gypsies began to lift him up like a sheep on
a spit. Merdzan shouted to them to take care and not
shake the body; he himself went to help them. Then they embedded the lower,
thicker end of the stake between two beams and fixed it there with huge nails
and then behind, at the same height, buttressed the whole thing with a short
strut which was nailed both to the stake and to a beam on the staging. When that too had been done, the gypsies climbed down and joined the
guards, and on that open space, raised a full eight feet upright, stiff and
bare to the waist, the man on the stake remained alone. From a distance it
could only be guessed that the stake to which his legs had been bound at the
ankles passed right through his body. So that the people saw him as a statue,
high up in the air on the very edge of the staging, high above the river. A murmur and a wave of movement passed through the onlookers on the
banks. Some lowered their eyes and others went quickly home without turning
their heads. But the majority looked dumbly at this human likeness, up there
in space, unnaturally stiff and upright. Fear chilled their entrails and
their legs threatened to give way beneath them, but they were still unable to
move away or take their eyes from the sight. And amid that terrified crowd
mad Ilinka threaded her way, looking everyone in
the eyes and trying to read their glances to find from them where her
sacrificed and buried children were. Then the man from Plevlje, Merdzan and a pair of guards went up to the impaled man
and began to examine him more closely. Only a thin trickle of blood flowed
down the stake. He was alive and conscious. His ribs rose and fell, the veins
in his neck pulsed and his eyes kept turning slowly but unceasingly. Through
the clenched teeth came a long drawn-out groaning in which a few words could
with difficulty be distinguished. "Turks, Turks, ..." moaned the man on the stake, "Turks
on the bridge ... may you die like dogs ... like dogs." The gypsies picked up their tools and then, with the man from Plevlje, came down from the staging to the bank. The
people made way for them and began to disperse. Only the children on the high
blocks of stone and the bare trees waited a little longer, not knowing if
this were the end or whether there would be more, to see what would happen
next with that strange man who hovered over the waters as if suddenly frozen
in the midst of a leap. The man from Plevlje approached Abidaga and reported that everything had been carried out
correctly and satisfactorily, that the criminal was still alive and that it
seemed that he would go on living since his internal organs had not been
damaged. Abidaga did not reply but only gave a sign
with his hand to bring his horse and began to say good-bye to Tosun Effendi and Mastro
Antonio. Everyone began to disperse. Through the marketplace the town-crier
could be heard announcing that the sentence had been carried out and that the
same or a worse punishment awaited anyone who would do the like in the
future… … |
