written all
about him and the villain? I mean are there signs, letters for
everything; for laughter, cries, love gestures? Tell me."

I explained as best I could and he marvelled. I had to give an example,
so I read a full page from a storybook.

"And is all that written in the book, my son? It is better than I
thought possible, but not so good as when one tells a story.... It is
like cloth woven by a machine, nice and straight, but it is not like the
kind our women weave on the loom--but it is good; it is better than I
thought possible. What are the stories in the book you are reading? Of
love or of sorrow?"

"Of neither, Murdo. Only about all the great heroes that have lived in
this world of cowards."

"About every one of them?" he asked again. "That's good. It is good to
tell the stories of the heroes."

He returned to the fireplace to light his pipe; then he came to me
again.

"If it is written in this book about all the great heroes, then there
must also be the record of Ghitza--the great Ghitza, our hero. The
greatest that ever lived. See, son, what is there said about him?"

I turned the pages one by one to the end of the book and then reported,
"Nothing, Murdo. Not even his name is mentioned."

"Then this book is not a good book. The man who wrote it did not know
every hero ... because not Alexander of Macedon and not even Napoleon
was greater than Ghitza...."

I sat near him at the fireplace and watched his wrinkled face while
Murdo told me the story of Ghitza as it should be written in the book of
heroes where the first place should be given to the greatest of them
all....

* * * * *

About the birth of people, I, Murdo, the chief of the gypsy tribe which
was ruled by the forefathers of my great-grandfather (who each ruled
close to a hundred years)--about the birth of people, I, Murdo, can say
this: That the seed of an oak gives birth to an oak, and that of a pine
to a pine. No matter where the seed be carried by the winds, if it is
the seed of an oak, an oak will grow; if it is the seed of a pine, a
pine. So though it never was known who was the father of Ghitza, we knew
him through his son. Ghitza's mother died because she bore him, the son
of a white man--she, the daughter of the chief of our tribe. It was
Lupu's rule to punish those who bore a child begotten from outside the
tribe. But the child was so charming that he was brought up in the tent
of one of our