Along the Enchanted Way Quotes

“The poetic gentleness of the flowery slopes was all too deceptive in obscuring the wildness of the deep forests.

As we sat in the gloaming, the yellow moon climbing up over the Transylvanian hills, mist in the valleys and the Saxon church steeple just visible on its mound above the village, you could sense the nearby forest coming alive. It seemed to awaken, to be alert, listening.

Winter, despite occurring regularly each year, always seemed to catch the gypsies by surprise. When it came to their own preparations, they had a distinctly Micawberish attitude: something would always turn up.

We are gypsies. If you wanted less dancing and more potatoes you should have chosen to live with a Romanian or a Saxon girl.

Even though most of the gypsies were no longer nomadic and had been more or less settled for the last ne or two hundred years, they had still not accustomed themselves to conventional settled living. They hoped to survive the winter with occasional jobs, by borrowing or begging or simply by not eating very much.

In The brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky had written of the Russian peasants: "First give men bread, then ask them to be virtuous.”
― William Blacker, Along the Enchanted Way: A Romanian Story

“At the far end of the room two gypsies were playing, one a violin and the other an accordion. Their music flowed easily and effortlessly, between drinks, smiles and chat, each one improvising in harmony with the flourishes of the other. The instruments seemed to be a part of their body, so naturally did they play and the music , although not sophisticated, has a strange Eastern rhythm which created an hypnotic effect.

Down into the green and shaded valleys of the Maramures, the cool air smelling sweetly of newly cut grass. An old peasant told me how he had once been away from the Maramures. Reaching the pass and coming down the track through the forest towards Breb was, he said, like returning to paradise.

The traveling and transitory nature of things was in her blood. She travelled through books like a journey and when she had finished them they were no longer there. Books as heirlooms for future generations were for settled people. For her they were passing moments of pleasure, like dancing.

They never asked where I was from. The outside world was a glorious irrelevance. They were only interested in the horse.”
― William Blacker, Along the Enchanted Way: A Romanian Story

“Pendant que des amis en Angleterre s'efforçaient de maîtriser les dernières technologies informatiques, j'apprenais à faucher. « Ça », comme je l'écrivis à un ami, « c'est ce que moi, j'appelle le progrès. »

[While friends in England were mastering the latest computer technology, I was learning how to mow. 'This', as I wrote to a friend, 'is what I call progress.'] (p. 51)”
― William Blacker, Along the Enchanted Way: A Romanian Story

“In Transylvania the keeping of sheep involves constant vigilance and a pack of large and well-trained dogs. The dogs are not for herding but for protection against wild animals. In the British Isles bears were wiped out by the sixteenth century, and the last wolf was said to have been shot by Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel in 1686. But here wolves still carry off sheep by the scruff of their necks and bears tear pigs in half like loaves of bread. As Gregor Von Rezzori wrote in one of his beautiful memoirs of Romania, 'The poetic gentleness of the flowery slopes was all too deceptive in obscuring the wildness of the deep forests.' (p. 221)”
― William Blacker, Along the Enchanted Way: A Romanian Story

“Owing to the hardships experienced both during and after the war, many Saxons had lost the will to continue living in Transylvania. So when in 1960s and 70s President Ceaușescu had begun selling exit permits to Saxons for a few thousand Deutschmarks many people took the offer, and the idea of emigration as an option was lodged in Saxon minds. Following the 1989 Revolution, when the borders became easier to cross, and, as I had first heard from Gerhilde's family, Germany was willing to give citizenship to all Saxons, the floodgates were opened and within a couple of years the Saxon population had dwindled. Only a few thousand now remained and a unique 850-year-old culture was on the point of extinction. (p. 65)”
― William Blacker, Along the Enchanted Way: A Romanian Story

“It was from him that I learnt of the modern-day Fagins of Italy, and how the more innocent Gypsies fell into their nets. (…)
Instead of Germany, after a long journey in a van, they found themselves in the city of Salerno in southern Italy. There they were brought by their 'Boss' to the empty shell of an unfinished apartment block. Inside there were hundreds of Romanian beggars sleeping on rags and mattresses which had been salvaged from rubbish dumps. There were rats everywhere. (…)
The next morning they were pushed out on to the streets to beg. Romi was in tears. But in his tearful state he earned good money, especially outside the churches. He pocketed over a hundred euros on the first day and in the evening he tried to conceal some of it from the 'Boss'.He was told to strip. They found the money and beat him. They beat Dumitru as well because he had earned only ten euros. (p. 286)”
― William Blacker, Along the Enchanted Way: A Romanian Story

“Les gens du village essayaient toujours de nous séparer, seulement ils utilisaient maintenant des moyens différents, plus subtils. Ils prenaient Marishka à part et lui chuchotaient à l'oreille. Je me souvenais des vers de Byron dans « Don Juan » :
Il avait un amant, on disait deux
Mais pour les scènes, un c'est presque mieux

[People in the village were still trying to separate us, only they were now using different, more subtle means. They would take Marishka aside and whisper into her ear. I remembered Byron's lines from « Don Juan » :
They whispered he had a lover, some said two ;
But for domestic quarrels one will do. (p. 287)]”
― William Blacker, Along the Enchanted Way: A Romanian Story