Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric

Author:Ivo Andric
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: War, Historical
ISBN: 9780226020457
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1944-12-31T19:00:00+00:00

XIV

Life in the town beside the bridge became more and more animated, seemed more and more orderly and fuller, assuming an even pace and a hitherto unknown balance, that balance towards which all life tends, everywhere and at all times, and which is only rarely, partially and temporarily achieved.

In the far off cities unknown to the townsmen whence at that time the power and administration over these districts originated, there was —in the last quarter of the nineteenth century—one of those short and rare lulls in human relationships and social events. Something of that lull could be felt even in these remote districts, just as a great calm at sea may be felt even in the most distant creeks.

Such were those three decades of relative prosperity and apparent peace in the Franz-Josef manner, when many Europeans thought that there was some infallible formula for the realization of a centuries-old dream of full and happy development of individuality in freedom and in progress, when the nineteenth century spread out before the eyes of millions of men its many-sided and deceptive prosperity and created its lata morgana of comfort, security and happiness for all and everyone at reasonable prices and even on credit terms. But to this remote Bosnian township only broken echoes penetrated of all this life of the nineteenth century, and those only to the extent and in the form in which this backward oriental society could receive them and in its own manner understand and accept them.

After the first years of distrust, misunderstanding and hesitation, when the first feeling of transience had passed, the town began to find its place in the new order of things. The people found order, work and security. That was enough to ensure that here too life, outward life at least, set out 'on the road of perfection and progress'. Everything else was flushed away into that dark background of consciousness where live and ferment the basic feelings and indestructible beliefs of individual races, faiths and castes, which, to all appearances dead and buried, are preparing for later far-off times unsuspected changes and catastrophes without which, it seems, peoples cannot exist and above all the peoples of this land.

The new authorities, after the first misunderstandings and clashes, left among the townspeople a definite impression of firmness and of permanence (they were themselves impregnated with this belief without which there can be no strong and permanent authority). They were impersonal and indirect and for that reason more easily bearable than the former Turkish rulers. All that was cruel and grasping was concealed by the dignity and glitter of traditional forms. The people still feared the authorities but in much the same way as they feared sickness and death and not as one fears malice, misery and oppression. The representatives of the new authority, military as well as civil, were for the most part newcomers to the land and unskilful in their dealings with the people and were themselves of little importance, but with every step

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