Prve horor priče u mom životu bile su – priče koje
sam čuo od svog dede i svoje babe. Deda Vasa mi je priču „Dedino jarence“
pričao kao anegdotu, kao nešto što se njemu desilo. Baba Slavka mi je priču „Milkino
crevo okol' koló“ pričala kao – priču, jer imajući u vidu njen stravični završetak,
kao anegdotu je ne bi prihvatilo čak ni dete od 7 godina, koliko sam imao kad
sam je prvi put čuo. Ovom dedi i ovoj babi posvetio sam svoj drugi roman, ZAVODNIK,
u kojem su obe priče navedene u celosti, sa mojim neznatnim doradama.
Pošto sam rano naučio da čitam, još pre polaska u
školu (i to – čitajući stripove), ne znam kada sam tačno, tj. sa koliko godina
pročitao svoju prvu priču strave, ali verujem da je to bilo otprilike tada, sa
8-9 godina najkasnije. I vrlo dobro pamtim koja je to bila. Baš kao i u slučaju
usmenih, koje sam čuo od dede i babe, i ova „horor“ priča je zapravo bila bajka.
Dobro, strogo gledano, prvi horor momenat u nekoj
bajci koji mi se urezao u sećanje potiče iz naše narodne priče „Baš Čelik“,
kada mlado momče u onom mračnom podrumu daje vode Baš Čeliku, a ovaj sa svakim
gutljajem kida nove obruče, dok se sasvim ne oslobodi okova. To pamtim kao baš
creepy shit; ali, ipak je to samo jedna izolovana scena strave u generalno vedro
obojenoj bajci, sa srećnim krajem itd.
To se, međutim, ne može reći za jednu manje poznatu
i ređe antologizovanu Andersenovu
bajku, koju sam ja čitao prevedenu kao „Ružin
vilovnjak“ u jednoj staroj knjizi lektire koja je pripadala mojim tetkama.
Ta bajka je od početka do kraja ispunjena strepnjom, napetošću, stravom – pa čak
i izrazitim grozomornim body horror i nekrofilskim detaljima. Ona mi se snažno
urezala u pamćenje, i još tada, na samim mojim počecima knjigofilije i
pričofilije – bila mi je omiljena u toj knjizi. Da, rano sam ja, vrlo rano,
postao posvećenik strave i užasa...
Inače, veoma volim i druge Andersenove bajke i
priče: one su mi definitivno bile i ostale najomiljenije od svih klasičnih,
upravo zato što su prožete mrakom, hladnoćom, patnjom i stravom više od Peroovih
ili braće Grim. Da, znam da u izvornim verzijama ovih potonjim ima još više
SADIZMA, sakaćenja tela, itsl. ali ne govorim o tome. Uprkos ponekoj krvavoj
kazni za prestupnika, u Poorvim i Grimovim bajkama je opšta slika sveta
pozitivna, plus strašno gnjave sa eksplicitnim moralizatorstvom, što nikad nisam
voleo. Kod Andersena, međutim, svet je ovaj tiran tiraninu a kamoli duši
blagorodnoj; mrak prožima sve, nedužni stradaju i levo i desno, a ako zlikovci
i budu kažnjeni, to najčešće bude prekasno, a popovanja i pridikovanja ima vrlo
malo...
Da ne dužim više, sa vama želim da podelim dve
stvari.
Kao prvo, upečatljivu i jezovitu ilustraciju priče „Ružin vilovnjak“, i to baš iz knjige u
kojoj sam je prvi put i pročitao, a koju na svu sreću još čuvam.
Kao drugo, svima koji mogu da čitaju na engleskom,
evo prevoda ove divno jezovite priče na engleski koji je uradio ni manje ni
više nego – M. R. DŽEJMS,
prvorazredni majstor priča o duhovima, čija je knjiga ZAZVIŽDI
I JA ĆU TI DOĆI (moj izbor njegovih najboljih priča, kod
Orfelina) već rasprodata. Uživajte!
The Elf of the Rose
by
Hans Christian Andersen
(from _Hans Andersen
Forty-Two Stories_ [1930], translated by
M. R. James)
In the
middle of a garden there grew a rose tree which was quite full of blossoms, and
in one of these, the prettiest of them all, lived an Elf: he was such a little
tiny thing that no human eye could see him. Behind every petal in the rose he
had a bedroom. He was as well shaped and as handsome as any child could be, and
had wings reaching from his shoulders right down to his feet. Oh! what a sweet
smell there was in his room! And how bright and pretty were the walls of it!
They were the pale pink, delicate rose leaves.
All day he
enjoyed himself in the hot sunshine, flying from flower to flower, dancing on
the wings of the butterfly as it flew, and measuring how many steps it took to
go over all the roads and paths on a single lime-leaf. It was what we call the
veins of the leaf that he reckoned as roads and paths: an enormous distance he
had to go, and before he had finished, the sun set. He had begun very late for
another thing.
It got very
cold, the dew fell, the wind blew. It would be best to go home. He made all the
haste he could, but the rose was shut, and he could not get in, not a single
rose was open. The poor little Elf was terribly frightened: he had never spent
the night out of doors before, but had always slept sweetly, snug among the
rose leaves. Oh dear! It would be the death of him for certain!
At the other
end of the garden, he knew, there was a summer-house with beautiful honeysuckle
on it, whose flowers looked like large coloured horns: he would get into one of
them and sleep till morning. Thither he flew. Hush! There were two people
inside, a handsome young man and the prettiest of girls. Side by side they sat,
and wished they might never be parted, so fond they were of each other, far
fonder than the best of children can be of its father and mother.
"Yet we
must part," said the young man; "your brother wishes us no good: that
is why he is sending me on a mission far away beyond mountains and lakes.
Farewell, my sweetest bride, for my bride you are!"
They kissed
one another: the young girl wept and gave him a rose, but before she put it in
his hand she printed a kiss on it so fond and tender that the flower opened, and
into it the little Elf flew and nestled his head against the delicate fragrant
walls. But he could plainly hear "Farewell, farewell!" said, and feel
that the rose was placed in the young man's bosom. Oh how the heart in it beat!
The little Elf could not get to sleep, so fast it beat. Not long did the rose
lie quiet on his heart: the young man drew it out, and as he went alone through
the dark wood he kissed it so often and so hard that the little Elf was in
danger of being squeezed to death. Through the leaf he could feel how the man's
lips burned: the very rose had opened itself as under the hottest sun of
noonday.
There came
another man, gloomy and passionate, the fair girl's evil brother. He drew a
long sharp knife, and while the other kissed his rose the wicked man stabbed
him to death, cut off his head, and buried it, with the body, in the soft earth
under a lime tree.
"He's
gone and forgotten now," said the wicked brother; "he will come back
no more. A long journey he was to go, over mountains and lakes, where a man can
easily lose his life; and he's lost his. He won't come back, and my sister will
never dare ask me about him." With that he spread the dead leaves over the
disturbed earth with his foot, and went home in the dark night, but not alone,
as he supposed. The little Elf kept him company, sitting in a withered
rolled-up lime-leaf that had fallen on the bad man's hair as he dug the grave.
His hat was over it now, and very dark it was in there, and the Elf quivered
with horror and wrath at the foul deed.
The bad man
got home at dawn. He took off his hat and went into his sister's bedroom. There
she lay, the pretty young maid, dreaming of him whom she held so dear, who now,
she thought, was travelling over hills and through forests: and the wicked
brother stooped over her and laughed horribly, as a devil might laugh. The
withered leaf fell from his hair upon the counterpane, but he did not notice
it; he went out to sleep—he too—for a little in the early morning. But the Elf
stole out of the withered leaf, crept into the ear of the sleeping girl, and
told her, as in a dream, of the frightful murder; described to her the place
where her brother had killed him and laid his body, told of the flowering lime
tree hard by, and said: "That you may see this is no dream that I have
told you, you will find a withered leaf on your bed." And so she did when
she awoke.
Oh what
bitter tears she wept! Yet to no one dared she confide her trouble. The window
stood open all day, and the little Elf might easily have gone out into the
garden to the roses and all the other flowers, but he cared not to leave her in
her sorrow. In the window stood a tree of monthly roses, and in one of these he
sat and watched the poor girl. Several times her brother came into the room: he
was in high spirits, and unkind—but she dared not say a word of her great
sorrow. As soon as night came she stole out of the house and into the wood to
the place where the lime tree stood: she cleared the leaves away from the soil,
dug down into it and found the murdered man. Oh, how she wept and prayed God
that she might die soon! She longed to bear the body home with her, but that
she could not. So she took the pale head with the closed eyes, kissed the cold
mouth and shook the earth from the fair hair. "This shall be mine!"
said she. So when she had laid earth and leaves over the dead body she took the
head home with her, and a little branch of jessamine which was flowering in the
wood where he was killed. As soon as she was in her room again, she fetched the
largest flower-pot she could find, and in it she laid the dead man's head, put
earth over it, and planted the sprig of jessamine.
"Farewell!
farewell!" whispered the little Elf; he could not bear to look on all this
sorrow any longer, and flew out into the garden, to his rose. But it had faded;
only a few pale petals hung to the green fruit. "Ah, how quickly passes
all that is fair and good!" sighed he. At last he found another rose,
which became his house; among its delicate scented leaves he could live and
make his home.
Every
morning he would fly to the poor girl's window, where she would always be
standing by her flower-pot, weeping. The salt tears fell on the sprig of
jessamine, but day by day as she grew paler and paler, the sprig grew yet more
fresh and green; one twig after another was put forth, and little white buds
came and turned to flowers, and she would kiss them. But her wicked brother
reviled her and asked if she were going crazy: he could not bear it, and could
not understand why she was always weeping over the flowerpot. He little knew
what closed eyes, what red lips, had turned to earth there: and she would bow
her head over the flower-pot, and there the little Elf found her slumbering.
Into her ear he crept, and told her of the evening in the summer-house, and of
the sweet smell of the roses and the loving kindness of the Elves, and she
slept sweetly, and while she slept her life faded: a quiet death was hers, and
now she was in heaven with him whom she loved.
The
jessamine flowers opened their great white bells and gave forth a perfume of
wonderful sweetness: it was the only way they had to mourn over the dead.
But the
wicked brother looked at the beautiful flowering shrub and took it for himself
as a legacy, and put it in his room, near the bed, for it was pleasant to look
at, and the smell was sweet and fresh. The little Elf went there too, and flew
from one flower to another—in each of them dwelt a little soul—and to them he
told the story of the murdered youth whose head was now earth in earth, and of
the wicked brother and the wretched sister. "We know it!" said each
of the souls in the flowers. "We know it! Did we not grow out of the slain
man's eyes and lips? We know! We know!" and they nodded their heads in a strange
fashion. The Rose Elf could not understand how they could be so calm, and he
flew out to the bees, who were gathering honey, and told them the story of the
wicked brother; and the bees told their Queen, who gave orders that next
morning they should join and kill the murderer.
But the
night before—that is, the first night after the death of his sister, as the
wicked brother slept in his bed close by the sweet-smelling jessamine—every
flower cup opened, and, unseen, but each one bearing a poisoned spear, the
flower souls came forth: and first they settled at his ear and told him
dreadful dreams, and then they flew to his lips and pricked his tongue with the
poisoned spears. "Now we have avenged the dead!" they said, and home
they went into the white bells of the jessamine. When morning came and the
window was all at once thrown open, the Rose Elf hastened in with the Queen Bee
and all the swarm to kill him. But he was dead already, and people were
standing about him saying: "The smell of the jessamine has killed him."
Then the Rose Elf understood the vengeance of the flowers and told it to the
Queen of the Bees, and she hummed about the flower-pot with all her swarm. And
as the bees could not be driven away, a man took the flowerpot, and one of the
bees stung him on the hand, and he let the pot fall and it broke.
Then they
saw the white skull; and they knew that he who lay dead in the bed was a
murderer.
And the
Queen Bee hummed in the fresh air and sang of the vengeance of the flowers and
the Elf of the Rose, and how behind every least petal dwells one who can tell
of evil deeds and avenge them.
*
* *