An Anthology of Croatian Literature

Ivan Aralica (1930- )

Ivan Aralica (1930– ) A high school teacher originally from central Dalmatia, Aralica achieved first notoriety, with his participation in the “Croatian Spring” movement (1971), and then prominence for several historically inspired novels spiced with “magical realism” between 1979 and 1989, of which only excerpts have been published in English. He is a writer of Catholic faith with an “Orientalist” interest in Bosnia and the civilizational pressures of the Austrian-OttomanVenetian frontier area inhabited by Croatians and others. In independent Croatia, he held political positions in the government of Croatian president Franjo Tudjman. In more recent times, he has been a critic of the regime that replaced Tudjman. The following is an excerpt from what some consider to be Aralica’s best novel, Psi u trgovištu (Dogs in the Market Place, 1979), translated by Ellen Elias-Bursač; it appeared in The Bridge 3–4 (1988): 5–8. An Anthology of Croatian Literature 262 Dogs at Market (Excerpt) To visit the castle, my dear Mihovil, without seeing Corvinus’s library—why that would be as if I’d never been there at all. And for my lowly self, that library means more than a mere passing point of interest to be seen and jotted down in my travel memoirs. It is a place that binds me to memories akin to those reminiscent of the woman of one’s life, an intimate vision or other portentous event. Without that library, all my efforts to broaden my mind and fashion of it the source of a livelihood for my family and myself would certainly have been more tedious and hardly as fortuitous as they have been, though assuredly they would not have been fully wasted, for whoever seeks knowledge must find it somewhere. When I count the time I spent here, the money I spent on candles, the youth I buried among the pages, and when I weigh that sum with all that I have eked from knowledge, it seems that I have lost a great deal. Perhaps this merely appears to be the case, for all my life, to this very day, I have been studying assiduously, yet the gifts I accrue are far from commonplace, and they often change form. I admit that I have more than I’ve deserved, yet I needn’t be held remarkably wise or fortunate. Anyone who has leafed through as many books as I have, regardless of natural intellect, would have achieved at least as much as I, and anyone who has learned as much as I have learned, and who can do as much as I can do, would have been at least as fortunate as I have been. Immeasurably less than those who judge fortune by the number of hurdles a man must overcome from earth to that peak where power is ensconced. At least you, my dear Mihovil, needn’t think such things of me. You, if anyone, are aware full well that the burning away of my life, and the candles, beneath the dark firmament of sky and library hall, beneath the shadow of destiny and random choice, is the only flame I knew how to and was capable of burning. I went to Corvinus’s library to see if that flame was burning yet. I didn’t find it for it has been snuffed forever. The flame of the candle has gone out, but the fragrance of wick and wax lingers still in this majestic hall and in my memories. Vaults arch upwards from the four, white, marble pilasters and join above the middle of the hall, creating a ceiling resembling the firmament. It is painted an azure hue, the blueness of which grows deeper toward the crown and paler towards the side walls, so it is as if you see the night sky above you and glowing horizons at all four corners of the earth. Glowing with a light from some unknown source, at the moment when light is born, suddenly heralding day to all the world in the field of vision. Stars were drawn in gold on the azure ceiling, and they shimmer, pure and laughing. It is as if at some Ivan Aralica 263 magical daybreak you are witness to wonders of white magic that occur only once in a thousand years. If you are no astrologist and are unaware that the stars are hardly scattered at random, you are reminded of the astral order...