Wanderlustre

ENCHANTED WOODS--Henry Baerlein-- Simon & Schuster ($2.50).

The mountain sheep are sweeter, But the valley sheep are fatter, We therefore deemed it meeter To carry off the latter.

Thomas Love Peacock wrote the lines, though George Borrow might have written them. Wanderiuster Baerlein might have written them too. It is in this tone, rare in English literature, that he tells of his roamings in Transylvania.

For a long time he is held up, awaiting a traveling-companion, in the fascinatingly dull little town of Saliste. To beguile the time he talks of Transylvanian history with the mayor. This worthy gives him what help he can, but has more immediate matters on his mind. "Round and round,'' says the mayor, "and round and round. Day follows day. It is so difficult!"

Comes along Ilarion Droc of Nikula, where they paint the pictures of the saints that Ilarion peddles through the countryside. The two set off. On the theory that "it is better if one lives . . . than if one does nothing but regard the lives of other people," they have little to do with each other at first. Before the book ends they are bosom friends. Ilarion makes for towns to peddle his pictures in; Wanderluster Baerlein devotes most of his attention to ancient legends and modern lassies.

Queer places, queer people cross their path. There is the waggoner who told of a man with an old and ugly wife. When he discovered another man with her he did not shoot, or even shout. "He only said that he was bound by law to sleep with her, but why the other man was doing it he really could not understand." Then there is Yirgil Cristea, a baker whose reputation as a solid, sober citizen makes him a little sad. To divert his melancholy Author Baerlein persuades him to don a horsetail for a beard, pretend he is a gnome. But as gnomes are known to milk other people's cows, the two of them must milk cows too. Unfortunately the cows in this part of the country are buffaloes; unfortunately the buffaloes will not rise to be milked. But for the first time in many years Baker Cristea has done what he should not do, finds he has never been so happy in his life.

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