Elegy for Kosovo by Ismaíl Kadaré

Gjorg’s hand, which was clenching the hilt of his dagger. “In their land,” she continued, “insulting a guest is a black calamity, blacker than a lost war.”
    Silence descended on the banquet.
    â€œTake your hand off your dagger,” Vladan whispered. “This can cost us our necks.” Entreaties and pleas rained down on Gjorg’s head like an avalanche of rocks: “Don’t do anything foolish that will cost us all our necks!” On the verge of tears, he pulled his numb fingers from the hilt of his dagger,
    â€œAt our table no man shall offend another!” the lord of the castle said.
    The old woman’s eyes became even kindlier.
    â€œIf you cannot sing or do not want to, then why do you not tell us a tale?” she asked. “I have heard that there is much of interest in the lands from which you come. Tell us of the living, of the dead, of those hovering in between.”
    Vladan looked at Manolo and then at the Croat, as if he were seeking help, but both men shrugged their shoulders. It was not surprising that they wavered — the one could only tell folktales, the other only mimic the calls of birds and wolves. To ask these minstrels to talk of their lands was like asking a cavalryman to take a broom and sweep the road. And yet, a large crowd of Balkan fugitives outside the castle gates had placed all their hope in them.
    Vladan began speaking spontaneously. He himself was amazed that he could. It was the first time that he did not sing before listeners, but speak. It seemed ridiculous, shameful, and sinful, all together. Two or three times he felt that his mouth was about to dry up. “Do not stop, brother!” the others urged him with their eyes, but he signaled to them that he was at the end of his tether. The others came to his rescue. The first to speak was Manolo the Walachian, then the Croat, and finally Gjorg, who, after the insult he had suffered, had seemed determined not to open his mouth, even on pain of death.
    Their tales were wondrous, at times cruel and chilling and at times filled with sorrow. Everyone listened, but the great lady most intently. Her face was still a mask, but her eyes were on fire. “These tales bring to mind the Greek tragedies,” she said in a low voice. “They are of the same diamond dust, the same seed.”
    â€œWhat are these Greek tragedies?” the lord of the castle asked.
    She sighed deeply and said that they were perhaps the greatest wealth of mankind. A simple treasure chest, like the one in which any feudal lord hides his gold coins, was big enough to hold all these tragedies. And yet, not only had they not been preserved, but over the centuries they had been scattered, these tragedies that would have made the world — in other words, its spirit — twice as beautiful.
    The lord of the castle shook his head, dumbfounded at the thought of such negligence. The old lady smiled sadly. How could she explain to him that she, too, had always felt the same way about the negligence of the erudite men, the monastic librarians, the scribes and abbots? She had written countless letters to princes, cardinals, even to the pope. The responses she received had been increasingly cool, until finally she was openly reproached: instead of devoting herself to Jesus Christ, she, an erudite lady, possibly the most erudite lady of all the French and German lands, was obsessed with pagan gods.
    For days in a row she had swept through her vast library like a shadow. But it became rapidly clear that there was no place in heaven for ancient deities.
    Now, after so many years, she had heard as if in a trance these thunderclaps from that distant world, brought by these destitute fugitives with faces wild from war. Thunderclaps like fragments of the crown fallen from the ancient sky. Rites of death, changes of season, sacrificial customs, tales of blood feuds — all carrying the malediction for a thousand years,