Broken April: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

The writer Bessian Vorpsi rides in a carriage with his new bride, Diana, along the Northern Plateau of Albania. It’s not a fashionable place for a well-known writer and his young wife to honeymoon, but Bessian is both fascinated and perhaps a little frightened by the highly traditional local culture. The landscape is barren, and Diana fears that Bessian will think she’s bored.

In the distance, Bessian and Diana see some local mountain people hauling sacks of corn. They keep going past a church until eventually they reach some kullas. Diana sees people with a black ribbon on the sleeve, which can symbolize either that a person is seeking vengeance or that they are the target of vengeance. Bessian starts telling Diana about all the local customs around death and how they seem absurd to him, although a part of him is also fascinated.

Bessian continues to explain to Diana that this region of Albania, called the Rrafsh, is part of a modern European state but has rejected most of the usual laws and institutions of a state. He mentions the Kanun, which covers all aspects of life in the region. They keep traveling until they see a wedding party, and Diana is delighted by the costumes.

The carriage keeps going, and Bessian talks to Diana about the role that hospitality plays in the Kanun. According to the code, it’s possible to pardon someone who kills your father or son but never someone who kills your guest. A guest is like a “demi-god” to an Albanian, according to Bessian.

Bessian tells Diana a story that he heard about a guest who was slain in broad daylight in a marketplace. The murderer went to seek shelter with the victim’s own father. When the victim’s brothers returned, they recognized the murderer, but they respected the Kanun and gave the murderer hospitality, then let him go the next day.

Bessian muses to Diana about how Albania’s unusual customs of hospitality may have originated. He sees the institution as democratic, since anyone can achieve the high status of guest. Diana is starting to get tired, but Bessian assures her that their journey is nearly over for the day. At last, they arrive at the kulla where they’ll be spending the night.

Bessian calls out for the master of the kulla to see if they’re receiving guests. They rest there, and that night, Diana wonders about the Kulla of Orosh, where they are scheduled to be the next day. It’s cold and unpleasant in their current kulla, and Diana wonders why Bessian brought her here in the first place.

The next day, Bessian and Diana get back in their carriage, and Diana admits she didn’t sleep well. Bessian can sense his wife becoming more emotionally distant, but he doesn’t mind it and might even prefer it. A few hours from the Kulla of Orosh, the coachman stops at an inn to rest the horses. Ali Binak has been staying at the inn for a few days to help try to resolve a nearby boundary dispute.

Bessian and Diana observe Ali Binak’s party while the innkeeper brings them food. The innkeeper tells them the boundary dispute involves a place about half an hour’s walk away called Wolf’s Pass, and Ali has been there three times to try to stop the bloodshed in the dispute. Bessian wants to visit this place. Bessian presents his plan to the coachman, who is worried about not reaching the Kulla of Orosh before nightfall, but Bessian argues they have enough time.

Bessian and Diana ride in their carriage to Wolf’s Pass. Diana fears seeing violence, but Bessian assures her that Ali Binak’s involvement means that everyone is trying to resolve things peacefully now. Along the way they see the gravestones of people who died in the boundary dispute.

When Bessian and Diana arrive at Wolf’s Pass, Ali Binak and his party have already made it there. Ali Binak explains to them the local custom with boundaries—because gravestones automatically become boundary markers; men who are mortally wounded in the course of a boundary dispute will crawl onto their rival’s land to move the boundary. When men die simultaneously, it’s possible to create a no-man’s land in between them.

Diana is worried that many of the mountain men who have gathered for the boundary dispute are carrying weapons. Bessian tries to calm her. He points out an old man, who is beginning the boundary-marking ceremony. Per the Kanun, the old man picks up a stone and says some words to himself as he carries it. He drops the stone, and then all the mountain men get to work digging up the old markers. One of Ali Binak’s assistants, a drunk surveyor, complains that the mountain men have such a primitive way of measuring boundaries.

Bessian suggests to Diana that they have coffee at the inn, then continue their journey. At the inn, as they’re about to reenter their carriage, Diana spots a young man with a black ribbon on his sleeve on the road. Bessian asks his name and finds out that he is Gjorg, headed back from Orosh. As they ride on, Bessian comments to Diana how pale Gjorg looked, with a haunted appearance that reminds Bessian of Hamlet. Bessian says the bloody shirts that some households hang during unresolved feuds must be even worse than Hamlet’s father’s ghost.

Diana tells Bessian that something about Gjorg impresses her. She is both thrilled and horrified as she imagines local feuds, then imagines Ali Binak going around to mediate. Bessian explains to her how, in the Kanun, blood feuds are not so different from bank transactions.

Bessian mentions to Diana that the tower at Orosh is the kulla of a prince but that this prince is not actually a relative of the royal family. Still, people call him a prince, and he belongs to a lineage that’s even older than the royal family. Although the prince’s family is mentioned in the Kanun and gets its authority from that code, they’re also the only ones in the region who are outside its jurisdiction.

Bessian and Diana finally arrive at the Kulla of Orosh. They make their way inside and meet the prince and his steward of the blood (Mark). Diana feels unnerved by everything she sees at the isolated tower. Bessian points out the place where people wait to pay the blood tax and says that Gjorg must have just been by recently.

That evening, Diana isn’t tired at all. She looks out the window and imagines she sees Gjorg returning from hell. She’s frightened by the vision but also curious about it and wants to see Gjorg again.