An Anthology of Croatian Literature

Dinko Simunovic (1873-1933)

Dinko Šimunović (1873–1933) A Dalmatian school teacher, with postings in some of the poorest villages of that province, Šimunović used his considerable literary talent to depict the beauties and miseries in the lives of common people, to illustrate how they were oppressed by the powers of the day and how they fought their oppressors . Eventually he was awarded a position in Split, the principal city of Dalmatia , and he finished his days in Zagreb. But his focus was always on his native region. The following story, “Kukavica” (1919) in the original, is from Yugoslav Short Stories, Svetozar Koljević, ed. and trans. (London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1966): 66–83. 114 An Anthology of Croatian Literature The Coward So beautiful is this shade and so rich the scent of walnut leaves that I’ve almost fallen asleep. But as you’ve asked me, I’ll tell you the whole story of my strange coming to this ancient monastery. Look at the bridge, with the water rustling below—but I cannot see it glittering in the sun: it was over this bridge that Abbot Tanasije brought me in his lap, and ever since I’ve served my people to the glory of God. I’ll relate to you everything I can call to mind of how I came here, so that you will not believe young monks when they make conjectures about me and tell lies. The other day, that old peacock and wiseacre Tanasije told you that they called me “the Coward,” but he did not say why. Where I come from every child, before it can walk, gets a nickname: chance gives a nice one to some, an ugly one to others, as it did to me. It is true that I was a timid boy, but I’ll tell you what happened so that you will know what life was like in the old days. But I do not mean to justify myself or boast of courage and knowledge—let them call me what they like. I do not know how to write, and there is no reason why I should, but the late Abbot Tanasije, now blessed in God’s peace, taught me to repeat the church book and the liturgy, and the Metropolitan received my vows as he did theirs. I was only a miller’s son, my father a Turkish serf, but I want the newly fledged Solomons to know that I have also seen and heard something in my long lifetime. They don’t believe anything that is not written down in that schoolboy history of theirs, and they laugh even at the old exploits, because they’ve never seen what I have. I may be over ninety, and I’ve been blind for more than ten years now, but my mind is clear and I do not want to blemish my soul by lying on the eve of my death. I only fear I won’t be able to relate everything minutely and clearly as it happened, but I hope for help from Christ who can bring light even into the darkness of my childhood. I’ve told this to them as well, these young monks of ours, but they don’t believe it, saying that this is just how the story has it, and that this has happened to me only in my imagination! But is it possible that those events have wormed their way into my memory just by themselves, considering I remember many things as if they happened last year, though some others seem like dreams? This is not surprising, I was so small then, and now I am over ninety, and it is ten years that I have seen neither God’s sun nor human face. I was not like my father or my elder brother Spasoje, for they were never afraid of anything, whereas I suffered great fear even when sleeping. As soon as I dropped off, terrible snakes, dragons, and vampires used to appear before my eyes, ready to devour me! Dinko Šimunović 115 So I turned timid in my earliest childhood, when I was two-and-a-half or three-years-old. I don’t remember clearly but I’ve been told how I disappeared in a strange way. I only remember making a house of flat stones and splinters in the meadow, when all at once I felt a violent wind and...