IVO ANDRIC
A Letter from
1920
M
ARCH OF 1920.
The railroad station in Siavonski Brod. Past
midnight. The wind blowing from an undefined direction
seems colder and stronger than it really is to the weary trav–
elers longing for sleep. High above, stars pass among the stirred clouds.
Far away, yellow and red lights move faster and slower along the invis–
ible tracks, along with the piercing sound of the conductors' whistles or
drawn-out howling of the locomotives into which we, the passengers,
bring the melancholy of our tiredness and the gloom of our long, sullen
waiting.
In front of the station, next to the first train track, we sit on our suit–
cases and wait for the train of which we know neither the arrival nor
the departure time; the only thing we do know is that it will be crowded,
stuffed with passengers and luggage.
The man sitting next to me is an old friend I'd lost track of for the
last five or six years. He is Maks Levenfeld, a doctor and a doctor's son.
He was born and raised in Sarajevo. His father had left Vienna as a
young doctor and settled in Sarajevo, where he organized a large prac–
tice. They are of Jewish descent but have long since converted to Chris–
tianity. His mother was born in Trieste, the daughter of an Italian
baroness and an Austrian naval officer, descendant of French emigrants.
In Sarajevo, two generations of people remember her figure, her gait,
and her elegant dressing style. She had the kind of beauty that even the
most insolent and the most vulgar people watched with a respect and
regard they did not usually demonstrate.
We attended high school together in Sarajevo, except that he was
three classes my senior, which was considerable at that age.
I remember vaguely that I had noticed him as soon as I began school.
He was in the fourth grade at the time, but still dressed as a child. He
was a strong boy, a
Svapce,
in a navy blue sailor suit with anchors
embroidered at the corners of the wide sailor collar. He still wore shorts.
On his feet he wore perfectly shaped sha llow black shoes. Between the
short white socks and his short pants-naked strong calves, ruddy and
already dotted with light hairs.
