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The Poor Plutocrats

by Mór Jókai · English · Gutenberg #18705 · 580,889 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Poor Plutocrats

Author: Mór Jókai

Translator: R. Nisbet Bain


        
Release date: June 27, 2006 [eBook #18705]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18705

Credits: Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POOR PLUTOCRATS ***




Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net






WORKS OF MAURUS JÓKAI

HUNGARIAN EDITION

THE POOR PLUTOCRATS

_Translated from the Hungarian_

_By_

R. NISBET BAIN

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO.




PREFACE


"Szegény Gazdagok" is, perhaps, the most widely known of all Maurus
Jókai's masterpieces. It was first published at Budapest, in 1860, in
four volumes, and has been repeatedly translated into German, while good
Swedish, Danish, Dutch and Polish versions sufficiently testify to its
popularity on the Continent. Essentially a tale of incident and
adventure, it is one of the best novels of that inexhaustible type with
which I am acquainted. It possesses in an eminent degree the quality of
vividness which R. L. Stevenson prized so highly, and the ingenuity of
its plot, the dramatic force of its episodes, and the startling
unexpectedness of its _dénouement_ are all in the Hungarian master's
most characteristic style. I know of no more stirring incident in
contemporary fiction than the terrible wrestling match between strong
Juon the goatherd and the supple bandit Fatia Negra in the presence of
two trembling, defenceless women, who can do nothing but look on, though
their fate depends upon the issue of the struggle,--and we must go back
to the pages of that unsurpassed master of the weird and thrilling
Sheridan Le Fanu to find anything approaching the terror of poor
Henrietta's awful midnight vigil in the deserted _csárda_ upon the
lonely heath when, at the very advent of her mysterious peril, she
discovers, to her horror, that her sole companion and guardian, the
brave old squire, cannot be aroused from his drugged slumbers.

There is naturally not so much scope for the display of Jókai's peculiar
and delightful humour, in a novel of incident like the present tale as
there is in that fine novel of manners: "A Hungarian Nabob." Yet even in
"Szegény Gazdagok," many of the minor characters (e.g., the parasite
Margari, the old miser Demetrius, the Hungarian Miggs, Clementina, the
frivolous Countess Kengyelesy), are not without a mild Dickensian
flavour, while in that rugged but good-natured and chivalrous Nimrod,
Mr. Gerzson, the Hungarian novelist has drawn to the life one of the
finest types we possess of the better sort of sporting Magyar squires.

Finally, this fascinating story possesses in an eminent degree the charm
of freshness and novelty, a charm becoming rarer every year in these
globe-trotting days, when the ubiquitous tourist boasts that he has
been everywhere and seen everything. Yet it may well be doubted whether
even he has penetrated to the heart of the wild, romantic, sylvan
regions of the Wallachian and Transylvanian Alps, which is the theatre
of the exploits of that prince of robber chieftains, the mighty and
mysterious Fatia Negra, and the home of those picturesque Roumanian
peasants whom Jókai loves to depict and depicts so well.

R. NISBET BAIN.




Contents


CHAPTER

    I.  BOREDOM
   II.  A NEW MODE OF DUELLING
  III.  AN AMIABLE MAN
   IV.  CHILDISH NONSENSE
    V.  SHE IS NOT FOR YOU
   VI.  BRINGING HOME THE BRIDE
  VII.  THE CAVERN OF LUCSIA
 VIII.  STRONG JUON
   IX.  THE GEINA MAID-MARKET
    X.  THE BLACK JEWELRY
   XI.  TWO TALES, OF WHICH ONLY ONE IS TRUE
  XII.  THE SOIRÉES AT ARAD
 XIII.  TIT FOR TAT
  XIV.  THE MIKALAI CSÁRDA
   XV.  WHO IT WAS THAT RECOGNIZED FATIA NEGRA
  XVI.  LEANDER BABEROSSY
 XVII.  MR. MARGARI
XVIII.  THE UNDISCOVERABLE LADY
  XIX.  THE SHAKING HAND
   XX.  THE FIGHT FOR THE GOLD
  XXI.  THE HUNTED BEAST
 XXII.  THE SIGHT OF TERROR
XXIII.  THE ACCOMMODATION
 XXIV.  CONCLUSION




POOR PLUTOCRATS

CHAPTER I

BOREDOM


"Was it you who yawned so, Clementina?"

Nobody answered.

The questioner was an old gentleman in his eightieth year or so, dressed
in a splendid flowered silk Kaftan, with a woollen night-cap on his
head, warm cotton stockings on his feet, and diamond, turquoise, and
ruby rings on his fingers. He was reclining on an atlas ottoman, his
face was as wooden as a mummy's, a mere patch-work of wrinkles, he had a
dry, thin, pointed nose, shaggy, autumnal-yellow eyebrows, and his large
prominent black eyes protected by irritably sensitive eyelids, lent
little charm to his peculiar cast of countenance.

"Well! Will nobody answer? Who yawned so loudly behind my back just
now?" he asked again, with an angry snort. "Will nobody answer?"

Nobody answered, and yet there was a sufficient number of people in the
room to have found an answer between them. In front of the hearth was
sitting a young woman about thirty or thirty-five, with just such a
strongly-pronounced pointed nose, with just such high raised eyebrows as
the old gentleman's, only her face was still red (though the favour of
Nature had not much to do with that perhaps) and her eyebrows were still
black; but her thin lips were just as hermetically sealed as the old
man's, when she was not speaking. This young woman was playing at
Patience.

In one of the windows sat a young girl of sixteen, a delicate creature
of rapid growth, whose every limb and feature seemed preternaturally
thin and fragile. She was occupied with some sort of sewing. At another
little sewing-table, immediately opposite to her, was a red-cheeked
damsel with a frightful mop of light hair and a figure which had all the
possibilities of stoutness before it. She was a sort of governess, and
was supposed to be English, though they had only her word for it. She
was reading a book.

On the silk ottoman behind lay the already-mentioned Clementina, who
ought to have confessed to the sin of yawning. She was a spinster
already far advanced in the afternoon of life, and had cinder-coloured
ringlets around her temples and a little bit of beard on her chin. She
was no blood relation of the family but, as an ancient companion to a
former mistress of the house, had long eaten the bread of charity under
that roof. She was now engaged upon some eye-tormenting, fine fancy
work which could not have afforded the poor creature very much
amusement.

The old gentleman on the sofa used to divert himself the whole day by
assembling as many human beings around him as possible and driving them
to desperation by his unendurable nagging and chiding; they, on the
other hand, had by this time discovered that the best defence against
this domestic visitation was never to answer so much as a word.

"Of course! Of course!" continued the old gentleman with stinging
sarcasm. "I know what a bore it is to be near me and about me. I see
through it all. Yes, I _know_ that I am an unendurable old fellow on
whom not a single word should be wasted. I know well enough that you are
not sitting here beside me because you like to be here. Who compels you
to? I certainly shall not prevent anybody's petticoat from going away by
laying hold of it. The gate is not closed. Nothing easier than to be
off. Yet nobody likes the idea, eh? Ah-ha! It is possible that when the
eye of old Lapussa no longer sees, the heart of old Lapussa may no
longer remember. Besides, nobody can tell exactly when the old man may
die. Indeed they are waiting for his death every hour--he is beyond
eighty already. A most awful bore certainly. Ah ha! The old fool is
unable to get up any more, he is not even able to strike anybody. If he
cries out, nobody is afraid of him; but, at any rate, he has strength
enough to pull the bell-rope, send for his steward, tell him to go to
the office of the _alispán_[1] there ferret out and bring back his last
will and testament--and then he can dictate another will to his lawyer
quite cosily at his ease."

[Footnote 1: Vice-lieutenant of the county.]

And in order to emphasize his words more terribly, he there and then
gave a tug at the bell-rope.

Yet for all that nobody turned towards him; the lady kept dealing out
the cards, the young girl continued working beads into her sampler, the
governess went on reading, and the old spinster was still intent upon
some delicate operation with her needle--just as if nobody had spoken a
word.

In answer to the bell an ancient serving-man appeared in the doorway,
and the old gentleman, after waiting a little to see from the
countenances of those present (he could observe them in the mirror
opposite) whether his allusion to his will had produced any effect, and
finding no notice taken of it whatever, said in a sharp, petulant voice:
"Louis!"

The servant approached the sofa and then stood still again.

"My dinner!"

This was the end of the awe-inspiring threat.

The old gentleman observed, or rather, suspected, some slight amusement
in the company present.

"Miss Kleary!" he observed irritably, "don't you observe that Henrietta
is looking out of the window again? I am bound, Miss, to direct your
attention to the fact that I consider such a thing decidedly unbecoming
in a young lady."

"Dear Grandpapa.....!" began the accused.

"Silence! I did not speak to Henrietta, I spoke to Miss Kleary. Miss
Henrietta is still a child who understands nothing. I neither address
her nor attempt to explain anything to her. But I keep Miss Kleary in
this house, I pay Miss Kleary a princely salary, in order that I may
have some one at hand to whom I can explain my educational ideas. Now my
educational ideas are good; nay, Miss, I think I may even say that they
are very good. I will therefore beg you to do me the favour to stick to
them. I know what ought and what ought not to be allowed young girls; I
know that....."

The young girl's face blushed beneath the reproachful look of the old
tyrant, whilst the governess rose defiantly from her place, and in order
that she might wreak her anger upon some one, industriously proceeded to
pick holes in Henrietta's sewing and effectually spoil her whole day's
work.

Thus, it will be perceived, only one person had the right to speak; the
only right the other people had was not to listen to him.

But there was someone else in the background who had better rights than
anybody, and this someone now began to hammer with his fists on the
door, that very door at which the oldest and most trusty domestics
hardly dared to tap--began, I say, to hammer with his fists and kick
with his heels till everyone was downright scared.

This was the little grandson, the old gentleman's spoiled darling little
Maksi.

"Why don't you let in little Maksi?" cried the old gentleman, when he
heard him. "Open the door for little Maksi; don't you know that he is
not tall enough to reach the door-handle? Why don't you let him come to
me when he wants to come?"

At that moment the footman opened the door and the little family prince
bounded in. It was a pale little mouldy sort of flower, with red eyes
and a cornerless mouth like a carp, but with the authentic family nose
and the appurtenances thereof, which took up so much room as to
seriously imperil the prospects of the rest of the head growing in
proportion. The little favourite was wearing a complete Uhlan costume,
even the four-cornered chako was stuck on the side of his head; he was
flourishing a zinc sword and grumbling bitterly.

"What's the matter with little Maksi? Has anybody been annoying him?"

Grandpapa succeeded at last in making out that on running out Maksi had
tripped over his sword, that his tutor had wanted to take it away, that
Maksi had thereupon drawn his weapon and made the aggressor's hand smart
with it, and that finally he had fled for refuge to grandpapa's room as
the only place where he was free from the persecutions of his
instructors.

Grandpapa, in a terrible to do, began to question him: "Come here! Where
did you hit yourself? On the head, eh! Let us see! Why, it is swollen
up--quite red in fact! Put some opodeldoc on it! Clementina, do you
hear?--some opodeldoc for Maksi!" So the family medicament had to be
fetched at once; but Maksi, snatching it from the worthy spinster's
hand, threw it violently to the ground, so that the whole carpet was
bespattered with it.

Nobody was allowed to scold him for this, however, as grandpapa was
instantly ready with an excuse: "Maksi must not be vexed," said he.
"Does not Maksi wear a sword by his side already? Maksi will be a great
soldier one of these days!"

"Yes," replied the lad defiantly, "I'll be a general!"

"Yes, Maksi shall be a general; nothing less than a general, of course.
But come, my boy, take your finger out of your mouth."

The English governess here thought she saw an opportunity of insinuating
a professional remark.

"He who would be a general, must, first of all, learn a great deal."

"I don't want to learn. I mean to know everything without learning it. I
say, grandpapa, if you've lots of money, you will know everything at
once without learning it, won't you?"

The old man looked around him triumphantly.

"Now that I call genius, wit!" cried he.

And with that he tenderly pressed the little urchin's head to his breast
and murmured: "Ah! he is my very grandson, my own flesh and blood."

He was well aware how aggravated all the others would be at these words.

Meanwhile the footman was laying a table. This table was of palisander
wood and supported by the semblance of a swan. It could be placed close
beside the ottoman and was filled with twelve different kinds of dishes.
All these meats were cold, for the doctor forbade his patient hot food.
The old gentleman tasted each one of the dishes with the aid of his
finger-tips, and not one of them pleased him. This was too salt, that
was too sweet, a third was burnt, a fourth was tainted. He threatened to
discharge the cook, and bitterly complained that as he did not die
quickly enough for them, they were conspiring to starve him. They might
have replied that he had ordered all these things himself yesterday; but
nobody took the trouble to contradict him any longer, so gradually the
storm died away of its own accord and the old man, turning towards
Maksi, tenderly invited him to partake of the disparaged dishes.

"Come and eat with me, Maksi, my darling."

"That I will," cried the little horror, grabbing at everything
simultaneously with both hands.

"Oh, fie, fie!" said grandpapa gently. "Take Maksi out for a ride and
let the lacquey go with him instead of his tutor!" The old gentleman
then pushed the little round table aside and signalled to the footman
that he was to put all the dishes carefully away, as he should want to
see them again on the morrow. The footman conscientiously obeyed this
command--which was given regularly every day--and locked up all the
dishes well aware that he would get a sound jacketting if he failed to
produce a single one of them when required to do so.

The old man knew well enough that there was not a servant in the house
who, for any reward on earth, would think of touching any food that had
ever lain on his table; indeed, they held it in such horror that they
used regularly to distribute it among the poor. In order therefore that
the very beggars might have nothing to thank him for, he had the food
kept till it was almost rotten before he let them have it. As for his
own family, he had not dined at the same table with them for ten years.

It was certainly not a sociable family. For example, the old gentleman's
widowed daughter, red-cheeked Madame Langai, did not exchange a single
word with her father for weeks at a time. At first he had expected her
to remain in the same room with him till nine o'clock every evening,
dealing out cards for him or boring herself to death in some other way
for his amusement. She endured it for a whole month without a word; but
at last, one evening, at seven o'clock, she appeared before him in
evening dress and said that she was going to the theatre.

Old Lapussa glared at her with all his eyes.

"To the theatre?" cried he.

"Yes, I have ordered a box."

"Really? Well, I hope you will enjoy yourself!"

The lady quitted him with a shrug. She knew that from that moment she
would inherit a million less than her elder brother; but nevertheless
she went to the theatre regularly every day, and never stirred from her
box so long as there was any one on the stage who had a word to say.

The Lapussa family was of too recent an origin for the great world to
take much notice of it, and the fame of its fabulous wealth went hand in
hand with the rumour of a sordid avarice which was not a recommendable
quality in the eyes of the true gentry. The Lapussas were, in fact, not
of gentle blood at all, but simply rich. Madame Langai's elder brother,
John, was notoriously the greatest bore in the town, whom nobody, from
the members of his own family down to his coffee-house acquaintances,
could endure for a moment. Only his father made much of him. For all his
great wealth, he was very stingy and greedy; he even lent money at usury
to his best friends. Our amusing little friend Maksi was this man's son.
The slender, fanciful damsel, Henrietta, who appeared in that family
like an errant angel specially sent there to be tormented for the sins
of her whole race, was the orphan daughter of another son of old
Lapussa, who had lost father and mother at the same time in the most
tragical manner; they had both been drowned by the capsizing of a small
boat on the Danube. Henrietta herself had only been saved with the
utmost difficulty. She was only twelve years old at the time, and the
catastrophe had had such an effect upon her nerves that ever afterwards
she collapsed at the least sign of anger, and often fell a weeping for
no appreciable cause. Since the death of her parents, who had loved her
dearly, Henrietta had been obliged to live at her grandfather's house,
where nobody loved anybody.

But no, I am mistaken. She had a brother, Koloman by name, who was a
somewhat simple but thoroughly good-natured youth. He used to appear
very rarely among his relations because they always fell foul of him.
The poor fellow's sole fault was that he was in the habit of regularly
selling his new clothes. Still, I am doubtful, after all, whether this
can fairly be imputed to him as a fault at all, for although it was
always being dinned into his ears that his family was immensely rich, he
was never blessed with a penny to spend in amusing himself with his
comrades, and therefore had to do the best he could to raise the wind.
Another failing of Koloman's was that he would not learn Latin, and in
consequence thereof he had to suffer many things. Old Lapussa and his
son John indeed had no notion whatever of the Latin tongue. The former
in his youthful days had never gone to school at all, because he was
occupied in building up a business. The latter had not gone to school in
_his_ youth because by that time his people were already rich and he
considered it beneath him. The consequence was that neither father nor
son had a proper idea on the simplest subjects, except what they picked
up on their travels. Still that was no reason why Koloman should not
learn, but as the tutor had his hands full already with little Maksi,
Koloman was obliged to go to the national school in order to become a
wiser man than his forbears.

Poor Henrietta often slaved away for hours at a time with her younger
brother sitting at the table by her side, helping him to struggle
through the genders, declensions, conjugations, or whatever else the
infernal things were called; and the end of it all was that, at last,
she learnt to know Latin better than Koloman, and secretly translated
all his exercises from Cornelius Nepos and the Bucolics of Virgil for
him.

But we must not linger any longer over these Latin lessons, for a much
more important event claims our attention--Mr. John is coming home, and
we must hasten forward to admire him.

Mr. John Lapussa was a perfect prototype of the whole family. His
extraordinarily lanky pinched figure seemed even lankier than it was by
nature because he always carried his head so high: he peered down from
that elevation upon humanity at large as if there was something the
matter with his eyes which prevented him from properly raising the lids.
In him the dimensions of the family nose were made still more remarkable
by an inordinately tiny chin and thin compressed lips. His moustache was
shaved down to the very corners of his mouth, only a little mouse-tail
sort of arrangement being left on each side, which was twisted upwards
and dyed black with infinite skill. His costume was elegant and
ultra-refined, and only differed from the fashion in being extra stiff
and tight-fitting. Moreover, all the buttons of his shirt and his
waistcoat were precious stones, and he had a plenitude of rings on his
fingers which he delighted to show off by ostentatiously adjusting his
cravat in the course of conversation, or softly stroking the surface of
his superfine coat.

Mr. John entered the room without looking at a soul, and paced up and
down it with his hands behind his back. Then he suddenly caught sight of
his father, kissed his hand and resumed his dignified saunter. It was
evident that he was bursting for some one to speak and ask him what was
the matter.

Clementina was the first to speak.

"Your honour!" said she.

"What is it?" he asked, lifting his head still higher.

"I have finished the embroidery for your shirt front which your honour
was pleased to command."

His honour with a haughty curl of the lip condescended to glance down
upon the proffered embroidery. I am afraid Clementina was a poor
physiognomist, she might have noticed from his face how utterly
indifferent he was to her and her embroidery, which he regarded with
puckered eyes and screwed-up mouth.

"No good. Those flowers are too big; it is the sort of thing the
Wallachian peasants stitch on to their shirts." And with that he took up
Clementina's scissors from the work-table and deliberately snipped into
little bits the whole of the difficult piece of work which the worthy
woman had been slaving away at for a week and more, finally pitching it
away contemptuously while she sat there and stared at him dumfoundered.

"John, John!" said the old man in mild remonstrance.

"To show me such rubbish when I am mad! When I am wroth! When I am
beside myself with fury!"

"Why are you angry, and with whom?"

John went on as if he did not mean to tell the cause of his anger. He
flung himself into an armchair, crossed his legs, plunged his hands into
the depths of his pockets and then, starting up, began to pace the room
again.

"I am furious."

"Then what's the matter?" enquired the old man anxiously.

John again flung himself into an armchair and cocked one leg over the
arm of the chair: "It is all that good-for-nothing Hátszegi!" he cried.
"The fellow is a villain, a scoundrel, a robber!"

"What has he done?"

"What has he done?" cried John, leaping to his feet again, "I'll tell
you. Yesterday he sent word to me by his broker that he would like to
buy those houses of ours in the Szechenyi Square which I have offered
for sale. Wishing to save broker's expenses I went to see him myself at
twelve o'clock. Surely that is the most convenient time for paying
business calls. At least I have always supposed so. I entered his
ante-chamber and there stood a flunkey. He told me I must wait! Told
_me_ forsooth--_me_, John Lapussa--that I must cool my heels in an
ante-chamber, at an inn, to please that wretched Hátszegi. Very well. I
waited. I sent him a message that I _would_ wait. Meanwhile I found I
could not sit down anywhere, for the rascal had piled dirty boots and
brushes on all the chairs. Presently the rascal of a servant came back
and told me that his master could not see me then, would I come back
again in the afternoon--I, John Lapussa, forsooth! Absolutely would not
speak to me, but told me to come again another time! Thou dog, thou
wretched rascal! But wait, I say, that's all!"

At this the old man also grew excited.

"Why did you not box his ears?" cried he.

"I'll do it, and do it well. I'll not stand it. What! send a Lapussa
packing! It cannot be overlooked. I shall immediately go and find two
seconds and challenge him to a duel."

"Nay, John, don't do that! Don't even box his ears in the street, but
give a street-porter ten shillings to cudgel him well as he comes out of
the theatre; that will be best!"

"No, I will kill him. I will shed his blood. He who insults me in a
gentlemanly manner must be shown that I can revenge myself like a
gentleman. I will wipe off the score with pistols--with pistols I say."

The old man and the female members of the family were duly impressed by
this bragging, or rather all except Madame Langai, who was getting ready
for the theatre and took no notice of the general conversation.

Mr. John was much put out by her indifference. "Matilda," he asked,
"what do _you_ say? Ought I not to fight, after such an insult?"

Madame Langai answered the unavoidable question with a cold smile: "I
would only say that if anyone angers you another time you had better
expend your wrath upon him before dinner, for if you nurse your wrath
till after dinner you spoil the whole thing."

Mr. John listened to her in silence and then resumed his promenade with
his hands behind his back snorting furiously. Suddenly he snatched up
his cap and rushed out.

"John, John, what are you going to do?" the old man called after him in
a supplicating voice.

"You'll very soon see, I'll warrant you," and he banged the door behind
him.

The old man turned reproachfully towards Madame Langai. "Why did you
irritate him when he was mad enough already?" he cried. "What will you
gain by his death? He has a son who will inherit everything, you know.
Yes, everything will belong to little Maksi."

Madame Langai calmly went on tying her bonnet strings.

"I know what fiery blood he has," mumbled the old man. "When he is angry
he will listen to nobody, and is capable of facing a whole army. We must
prevent this duel somehow. And you are actually preparing to go to the
theatre when things have come to such a pass? You are actually going to
see a comedy!"

"The actor Ladislaus plays just the same parts on the stage as John does
off the stage," replied Madame Langai bitterly. "And I am as little
afraid of John's rhodomontade as I am of the result of stage duels.
Don't be afraid! He'll come to no harm."

A lacquey now entered to announce that the coach was ready, and Madame
Langai, adjusting her mantilla, went to the playhouse where the actors
were, at least, amusing.




CHAPTER II

A NEW MODE OF DUELLING


Old Lapussa always liked to have under his eye, night and day, some one
or other whom he could plague and worry. Till eight o'clock every
evening he was fully occupied in tormenting the whole family. Then
Madame Langai went to the theatre and Henrietta and the governess had to
sit down at the piano in the large drawing-room till it was time to put
the child to bed. But when Clementina and the domestics had had supper
and there was no longer anybody else with him, the turn of the night
nurse began.

The duties of a night nurse are never very enviable or diverting at the
best of times, yet penal servitude for life was a fate almost preferable
to being the nocturnal guardian of old Demetrius Lapussa. The unhappy
wretch who was burdened with this heavy charge had to sit at Mr.
Lapussa's bed from nine o'clock at night till early the following
morning and read aloud to him all sorts of things the whole time. Old
Demetrius was a very bad sleeper. The whole night long he scarcely slept
more than an hour at a time. His eyes would only close when the droaning
voice of some one reading aloud made his head dizzy, and then he would
doze off for a short time. But at the slightest pause he would
instantly awake and angrily ask the reader why he left off, and urge him
on again.

The reader in question was a student more than fifty years old, who,
time out of mind, had been making a living by fair-copying all sorts of
difficult manuscripts. He was an honest, simple creature who, in his
time, had tried hard to push his way into every conceivable business and
profession without ever succeeding till, at last, when he was well over
fifty, he was fortunate enough to fall in with an editor who happened to
know that Demetrius Lapussa wanted a reader, and recommended the poor
devil for the post. He knew Hungarian, Latin, and Slovack well enough to
mix them all up together; German he could read, though he did not
understand it, but this was not necessary, for he was not expected to
read for his own edification.

This worthy man, then, grew prematurely old in reading, year out year
in, aloud to Mr. Demetrius, one after another, all the German
translations of French novels procurable at Robert Lempel's circulating
library without understanding a single word of them. Mr. Demetrius had,
naturally, no library of his own, for reading to him, in his condition,
was pretty much the same as medicine, and who would ever think of
keeping a dispensary on his own premises? I may add that the reader
received free board and lodging and ten florins a month pocket-money for
his services.

On that particular night when Mr. John flung out of the house in such a
violent rage, Mr. Demetrius was particularly sleepless. I know not
whether Monte Cristo, the first volume of which honest Margari happened
to be reading just then, was the cause of this, or whether it was due to
the old man's nervousness about the terrible things John was likely to
do, but the fact remains that poor Margari on this occasion got no
respite from his labours. At other times Margari did manage to get a
little relief. Whenever he observed that Mr. Demetrius was beginning to
draw longer breaths than usual he would let his head sink down on his
book and fall asleep immediately till the awakened tyrant roused him out
of his slumbers and made him go on again. But now he was not suffered to
have a moment's peace.

Monte Cristo had already been sitting in his dungeon for some time when
Madame Langai's carriage returned from the theatre. Then Mr. Demetrius
rang up the porters to inquire whether Mr. John had also returned home.
No, was the answer. At eleven o'clock Mr. John had still not returned.
Meanwhile Monte Cristo's neighbour had traced the figure on the floor of
the dungeon. Mr. Demetrius here demanded a fuller explanation of the
circumstances. "How was that, Margari?" he enquired.

"I humbly beg your honour's pardon, but I don't understand."

"Very well, proceed!"

Every time a door below was opened or shut, Mr. Demetrius rang up the
porter to enquire whether Mr. John had come in, to the intense
aggravation of the porter, who appeared in the door of the saloon with a
surlier expression and his hair more and more ruffled on each occasion,
inwardly cursing the fool of a student who had not even wit enough to
send an old man asleep, and envying the other servants who at least were
able to sleep at night without interruption.

And still Margari went on reading.

By this time Monte Cristo had had himself sewn up in a sack and flung
into the sea as a corpse.

"Would you have dared to have that done to you, Margari?" interrupted
Mr. Demetrius.

"If I had a lot of money I might, begging your honour's pardon, but a
poor devil like me is only too glad to live at any price," replied
Margari, whose answer naturally had no relation whatever to the text,
not a word of which he understood.

"You are a simple fellow, Margari; but go on, go on!"

Margari gaped violently, he would have liked to have stretched himself
too, but he bethought him in time that his coat had already burst
beneath his armpits, and he had no wish to make the rent still larger,
so he let it alone and proceeded with his bitter labour.

By the time Monte Cristo had swum back to dry land, Margari's eyelids
were almost glued to his eyes and still the old gentleman showed no
sign of drowsiness. Mr. John's threat had kept Mr. Demetrius awake all
night, and consequently had kept poor Margari awake too. Once or twice
an unusually interesting episode excited the old man's attention, and
for the time he forgot all about John's duel--for example, when Monte
Cristo discovered the enormous treasure on the island--and he would then
rouse up Margari and make him go and find a map and point out the exact
position of Monte Cristo's island. Margari searched every corner of the
sea for it, and at last looked for it on the dry land also without
finding it. Tiring at length with the fruitless search he proposed, as
the best way out of the difficulty, that he should write on the
afternoon of the following day to Monsieur Alexander Dumas himself to
explain to his honour where the island used to be and whether it still
existed.

"What a blockhead you are," said the old man, "but go on, go on!"

Margari gave a great sigh and looked at the clock on the wall, but,
alas! it was still a long way from six o'clock. At last, however, while
he was still reading, the clock _did_ strike six. Margari instantly
stood up in the middle of a sentence, marked the passage with his
thumb-nail so as to know at what word to begin again on the following
evening, turned down the leaf and closed the book.

"Well! is that the end of it?" enquired Mr. Demetrius in angry
amazement.

"I humbly beg your honour's pardon," said Margari with meek intrepidity,
"there's nothing about reading _after six_ in our agreement"--and off he
went. Mr. Demetrius thereupon flew into a violent rage, cursed and
swore, vowed that he would dismiss his reader on the spot, and as the
morning grew lighter fell into a deep, death-like, narcotic sleep from
which he would not have awakened if the house had come tumbling about
his ears. When he did awake, about ten o'clock, his first care was to
make enquiries about Mr. John. Then he sent the porter to the police
station to inform the authorities that his son and Mr. Hátszegi, who
were both staying at the Queen of England inn, were going to fight a
duel, which should be prevented at all hazards. A police constable, at
this announcement, flung himself into a hackney-coach and set off at
full speed to make enquiries. Half an hour later a heyduke was sent back
to the porter to tell him that either the whole affair must be a hoax,
as nothing was known of a duel, or else that the two combatants must
already be dead and buried, as not a word could be heard of either of
them. Luckily, towards the afternoon, Mr. John himself arrived in a
somewhat dazed condition, like one who has been up drinking all night.
The members of the family were all sitting together as usual in Mr.
Demetrius's room, listening in silence to his heckling, when the tidings
of Mr. John's arrival reached him. Demetrius immediately summoned him.
He sent back word at first that he was lying down to try to sleep, which
was an absurd excuse for even the richest man to give in the forenoon;
on being summoned a second time he threatened to box the porter's ears;
only the third time, when Clementina was sent with the message that if
he did not come at once, his sick father would come and fetch him, did
he respond to the call and appear before them in a pet.

"Well, thou bloodthirsty man, what has happened? What was the end of
it?"

"What has happened?" repeated John with monstrously dilated eyes. "What
marvel do you expect me to relate?"

"Clementina, Miss Kleary, Henrietta, retire," cried the old man;
"retire, go into the next room. These are not the sort of things that
children should hear."

When they had all withdrawn except Madame Langai, Demetrius again
questioned his son: "Now then, what about this affair, this _rencontre_
with Hátszegi; did you challenge him, did you meet him?"

"Eh? Oh--yes! Naturally. Of course I sought him out, I have only just
come from him. We have been making a night of it together at the Queen
of England. I can honestly say that he is a splendid fellow, a gallant,
charming gentleman. He has really noble qualities. I am going to bring
him here this afternoon. You shall all see him. Even you will like him,
Matilda. But now, adieu, I must really have a little sleep, we were
drinking champagne together all night. Oh, he is a magnificent, a truly
magnificent character."

Mr. Demetrius said not a word in reply, but he compressed his thin lips
and wagged his head a good deal. Nobody made any observation. Mr. John
was allowed to go to bed according to his desire. A little time after he
had withdrawn, however, the old man said to Madame Langai: "What are you
doing Matilda?"

"I am trying to guess a rebus which has just appeared in 'The Iris.'"

"Don't you think that what John has just said is rather odd?"

"I have not troubled my head about it one way or the other."

"I can see through it though. John wants to pay off Hátszegi in his own
coin. He has invited him here this afternoon in order to keep him
waiting in the ante-chamber, and then send him word that he can't see
him till to-morrow. Oh! Jack is a sly lad, a very sly lad, but I can see
through him. I can see through him."

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. John passed the whole afternoon in his father's room; he did not
even go to his club. No doubt he was awaiting his opportunity for
revenge. He amused himself by sitting down beside his niece, stroking
her hand, admiring the whiteness of her skin, and, drawing the
governess into the conversation, enquired how Henrietta was getting on
with her studies, whether she had still much to learn in English and
French, and whether she was not, by this time, quite a virtuoso at the
piano. He insinuated at the same time that it would be just as well,
perhaps, if she made haste to learn all that was necessary as soon as
possible, because she was no longer a child, and when once a woman is
married she has not very much time for study.

"By the way, Henrietta," he added suddenly, "have you chosen a lover
yet?"

Henrietta was too much afraid of him even to blush at this question, she
only glanced at him with timid, suspicious eyes and said nothing.

"Don't be afraid, sisterkin," continued Mr. John encouragingly. "I'll
bring you such a nice bridegroom that even your grandpapa, when he sees
him, will snatch up his crutches in order to go and meet him half-way."
Here the old man growled something which John smothered with a laugh.
"Yes, and if he won't give you up we'll carry you off by force."

Henrietta shuddered once or twice at her uncle's blandishments, like one
who has to swallow a loathsome medicine and has caught a whiff of it
beforehand.

The porter interrupted this cheerful family chat by announcing that his
lordship Baron Hátszegi wished to pay his respects to Mr. Lapussa.

Mr. Demetrius immediately raised himself on his elbows to read from Mr.
John's features what he was going to do. Would he tell the lacqueys to
turn Hátszegi out of the house? or would he send him word to wait in the
ante-chamber, as he himself had waited at Hátszegi's, and then put him
off till the morrow? Oh! John would be sure to do something of the sort,
for a very proud fellow was John.

But, so far from doing any of these things, Mr. John rushed to the door
to meet the arriving guest and greeted him aloud from afar in the most
obliging, not to say obsequious, terms, bidding him come in without
ceremony and not make a stranger of himself. And with that he passed his
arm through the arm of his distinguished guest and, radiant with joy,
drew him into the midst of the domestic sanctum sanctorum and presenting
him in a voice that trembled with emotion: "His lordship, Baron Leonard
Hátszegi, my very dear friend!"

And then he was guilty of the impropriety of introducing his guest first
of all to his father and his niece, simply because they happened to be
the nearest, only afterward he bethought him of turning towards Matilda
to introduce her, whereupon Matilda's face assumed a stony expression
like that of the marble maiden in Zampa, to the great confusion of John,
who felt bound to enquire in a half-whisper: "Why, what's the matter?"

"You dolt," she whispered back, "have you not learnt yet that the lady
of the house should be introduced to her guests not last, but first?"

John's first impulse was to be shocked, his second was to be furious,
but finally he thought it best to turn with a smile to Baron Hátszegi,
who courteously helped him out of his embarrassment by observing: "It is
my privilege to be able to greet your ladyship as an old acquaintance
already. Many a time have I had the opportunity of secretly admiring you
in your box at the theatre."

"Pray be seated, sir...!"




CHAPTER III

AN AMIABLE MAN


Baron Hátszegi was certainly a very amiable man. He had a handsome face
full of manly pride, sparkling eyes, and a powerful yet elegant figure.
He moved and spoke with graceful ease, bore himself nobly, picked his
words--in short, was a perfect gentleman. Mr. Demetrius was quite taken
with him, although Hátszegi hardly exchanged a word with him, naturally
devoting himself principally to the widowed lady who played the part of
hostess. What the conversation was really about nobody distinctly
recollected--the usual commonplaces no doubt, balls, soirees,
horse-racing. Henrietta took no part in the talk; Mr. John, on the other
hand, had a word to say on every subject, and, although nobody paid any
attention to him, he enjoyed himself vastly.

When Hátszegi had departed, John, with a beaming face, asked Madame
Langai what she thought of the young man.

Instead of replying, Madame Langai asked what had induced him to bring
him there.

"Well, but he's a splendid fellow, isn't he?"

"You said yesterday that he was a vagabond."

"I said so, I know, but it is not true."

"You said, too, that he was a robber."

"What! I said that? Impossible. I didn't say that."

Old Demetrius here intervened as a peacemaker.

"You said it, John, you did indeed; but you were angry, and at such
times a man says more than he means."

"So far from being a robber or a vagabond," replied John, "he is one of
the principal landowners in the Hátszegi district. How _could_ I have
said such things! He has a castle that is like a fortress. He is like a
prince, a veritable prince in his own domains. He is just like a petty
sovereign. I must have been downright mad to call him a vagabond. . . ."

"Yet, yesterday, you would have called him out," continued Madame Langai
teasingly.

"Yes, I was angry with him then, but there are circumstances which may
reconcile a couple of would-be duellists, are there not?"

"Oh, certainly, if a man is a man of business before all things, or has
perhaps a valuable house or two on his hands."

"This has nothing to do with business or selling houses. If you must
know," he continued, lowering his voice, "it is about something entirely
different, but of the very greatest importance."

"Indeed?" returned Madame Langai, "a new Alexander the Great, I suppose,
who has gone forth to conquer, and who has come to look not for a house,
but for a house and home perhaps?"

She thought to herself that it was some adventurer whom her brother
John would palm off upon her as a husband so as to get her away from the
old man.

"Something of the sort," replied John. "Yes, you have guessed half--but
the wrong half."

"I am glad to hear it."

"Ah!" put in the old man sarcastically, "Matilda will never marry again,
I'm sure; she loves her old dad too much and feels far too happy at home
to do that."

"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed John scornfully, "I did not mean Matilda, I was
not thinking of her. Ho, ho, ho! Madame Langai imagines that _she_ is
the only person in the house whose hand can be wooed and won."

Dame Langai, with a shrug, looked incredulously round the room to see if
there was anybody else who could possibly become the object of the
baron's sighs. All at once her eyes accidentally encountered those of
Henrietta, and immediately she knew even more than her brother John did.
For she now clearly understood three things: the first was that
Henrietta had taken in John's meaning more quickly than she had done,
the second was that John had brought the suitor to the house on
Henrietta's account, and the third was that Henrietta loathed the man.

She at once bade Miss Kleary give Henrietta an extra lesson on the piano
in the adjoining room, and when they had taken her at her word and
disappeared, she said to John in her usual quiet, mincing tone:

"You surely do not mean to give Henrietta to that man?"

"Why not, pray?"

"Because she is still a mere child, a mere schoolgirl; five years hence
it will be quite time enough to provide her with a husband."

"But the girl is sixteen if she is a day."

"Yes, and delicate, sickly, and nervous."

"She will soon be well enough when she is married."

"And who, may I ask, _is_ this suitor of yours. Is it not your duty,
Demetrius Lapussa, as the girl's grandfather, to make the fullest
enquiries about any man who may sue for your grand-daughter's hand? Is
it not your duty, I say, to find out who and what he is and everything
relating to him? For brother John may be very much mistaken in fancying
his dear friend to be a wealthy and amiable nobleman. Whether he be
amiable or not does not concern you personally, I know; but you ought
certainly to know how he stands, for he may have castles and mansions
and yet be up to the very ears in debt. In such a case if he is a
nobleman so much the worse for you: for he will then have all the
greater claim upon you. It may cost you dearly to admit a ruined baron
into the bosom of your family."

John grew yellow with rage: "How dare you talk like that of anyone you
do not know?" he cried.

"Then, do you know him any better?"

But here the old man intervened:

"You're a fool, John," said he. "Matilda is right. I will send for my
lawyer, Mr. Sipos. He understands all about such things and will advise
us in the matter. We _must_ find out how the baron stands."




CHAPTER IV

CHILDISH NONSENSE


Meanwhile Hátszegi continued to call every day, dividing his attention
equally between the widow and Henrietta; and at the end of a fortnight
everyone was charmed with his personal qualities. It could not be denied
that he was a delightful companion, always merry, lively, frank, and
entertaining. He even made the old gentleman laugh aloud more than once;
in fact Demetrius Lapussa grew quite impatient if Hátszegi was five
minutes late. Mr. John was more delighted with him than ever. They took
walks together, invariably drove in the same carriage to the park, and
John was to be seen every night in the baron's box at the theatre,
talking at the top of his voice so that everybody might become aware of
the fact. Nay, he succeeded, through the courtesy of his new friend, in
making the acquaintance of one or two magnates who subsequently lifted
their hats to John in the street and thus gratified the dearest desire
of his heart.

The enquiries made about Hátszegi also proved extremely satisfactory. He
was certainly sound and solid financially, had never had a bill
dishonoured, had no dealings with usurers, always paid cash and was
never even in temporary embarrassment, as is so often the case with most
landed proprietors when the crops fail. In fact, he seemed to have
unlimited funds constantly at his disposal and to be scarcely less
wealthy than old Lapussa himself.

So far then, everything was as it should be, and everyone was enchanted
with him personally.

But what of Henrietta, the intended bride?

Oh! she was not even consulted in the matter; it is not usual, and
besides she had neither mind nor will enough to have a voice in so
important a matter as the disposal of her hand. Nay, she was not even
told that she was going to be married. She only got an inkling of it
from various phenomena that struck her from time to time, such as the
polite attentions of the baron, the whispering of the domestics, the
altered attitude towards her of the various members of the family--who
now addressed her in the tone you employ when speaking to a baroness
that is to be. And then there was Clementina's chatter! Clementina was
now for ever talking of all the sewing and stitching that had to be done
for the young lady, and of the frightful quantities of linen and lace
and silk that were being made up into dresses and other garments. Six
seamstresses were hard at work, she said, and she was helping them and
yet they had to make night into day in order to get the necessary things
ready in time.

So gradually they accustomed her to the idea of it, till at last one
day Madame Langai took her aside and lectured her solemnly as to the
duties of women in general and of women of rank in particular, pointing
out at the same time how much such women owed to their own families for
looking after and providing for them and expressing the hope that
Henrietta would be duly grateful to the end of her days to _her_
family--from all which she was able to gather that any opposition on her
part would not be tolerated for a moment.

The day was already fixed for the exchange of the bridal rings, but the
night before that day, Henrietta suddenly fell ill, and, what is more,
dangerously ill, so that they had to run off for the family physician
incontinently. The doctor was much struck by the symptoms of the illness
and the first thing he did was to make the patient swallow a lot of milk
and oil. Then he drove the servants headlong to the chemist's, and
descending into the kitchen closely examined every copper vessel there
by candle light, scolded the cook and the scullery maids till they were
in tears, and terrified Clementina by telling her she was the cause of
it all to the speechless confusion of the innocent creature. Not content
with this, he made his way at once to Mr. Demetrius's room and there
cross-examined everyone with the acerbity of an Old Bailey judge. What
had the young lady been in the habit of eating and drinking? They must
fetch what had been left over from her meals, he must see and examine
everything. What had she eaten yesterday evening? Preserves? Then what
sort of sugar was used, and where was the spoon? He insisted on seeing
everything.

"But doctor," whined old Lapussa, "you surely don't mean to say that the
child has been poisoned?"

"I do indeed, and with copper oxide too."

"How is that possible?"

"Why, simply because some of her food, preserve, for instance, has been
allowed to stand too long in a copper or silver vessel and copperas has
been developed."

The old man did not know enough of chemistry to understand how copperas
could be developed from silver, but he was seriously alarmed.

"I hope there's no danger?" said he.

"It is a good job you sent for me when you did," replied the doctor,
"for otherwise she would have been dead before morning. Copperas is a
very dangerous poison, and if it gets into one's food in large
quantities there is practically no antidote. A vigorous constitution,
indeed, has a good chance of throwing it off; but, taking into
consideration the state of the young lady's nerves and her general
debility, I should say that her case was downright dangerous; anyhow she
will be ailing for some time."

"Oh, doctor, doctor! and we all love Hetty so much, she is the very
light of our eyes! I cannot tell you how anxious I am, on her account I
should be so glad, doctor, if you could stay with her night and day and
never leave the house. I would richly recompense you."

"I will do all I can, though I can't do that, and unless any unforeseen
accident arise, I think I can answer for the result. But one thing I
must insist upon, all these copper and silver vessels of yours must go
to the devil. I'll come to-morrow and examine thoroughly the whole lot
of them by daylight. The health of the family must not be endangered by
such recklessness. And let me tell your honour something else. Are you
aware that your honour's business-man, Mr. Sipos, who is only a lawyer
and, therefore, can ill afford to do so in comparison with your honour,
are you aware, I say, that he has on this very occasion sent all his
copper vessels to the lumber-room?"

"On this occasion! what do you mean?" enquired the old man eagerly.

"I mean that I have just come from him and a similar case has happened
in his house. His assistant--a fine young fellow, you know him,
perhaps?--has also been poisoned by copperas. I have only this instant
quitted him."

"What an odd coincidence."

"Very odd, indeed. Two exactly similar cases of poisoning at the same
time and all because copper vessels were used and not properly cleaned."

"And how is the young man progressing? Is he out of danger?"

"Fortunately; although at the outset his was an even worse case than the
young lady's. But then he is so much stronger. Well, good-bye! I will
look in again to-morrow."

"But I should be so much easier, doctor, if you never left my
grandchild's side."

"I would willingly do even that if I had not other patients in the town
to attend to."

"Could you not entrust them to someone else?"

"Impossible. My reputation would be at stake. Besides I do not often
have the chance of studying two such interesting parallel cases of
poisoning at the same time."

"Very well, doctor. All I ask of you is to cure our little one."

"I hope to save the pair of them. And now I'll go up and have a look at
her, and then I must return to Mr. Sipos's house. But I shall be here
again in an hour or so."

And with that the old man had to be content.

During the whole course of Henrietta's illness he sent to enquire after
his grandchild every hour. Clementina and an old maid-servant took it in
turns to watch by her bedside. It was strictly forbidden to leave
Henrietta alone for an instant, and Mr. Demetrius gave special orders
that her brother Koloman was not to be allowed to approach within six
paces of her bed because he was sure to bring cold air into the room, or
convey to her surreptitiously something which she ought not to have and
behave like a blockhead generally. So he was obliged to keep his
distance.

At last when weeks and weeks had flown by, God and blessed nature
helped the doctor to triumph over the effects of the poison. Henrietta
slowly began to mend. She was still very weak, but the doctor assured
them that she was quite out of danger and that the little capricious
fancies of convalescence might now be safely humoured.

Madame Langai, in the doctor's presence, asked the sick girl whether
there was anything in particular she would like, any food she fancied,
any pastime she preferred.

The pale, delicate-looking child languidly cast down her eyes as if she
would say: "I should like to lie in the grave--deep, deep, down." But
what she really did say was: "I should like to read something. I feel so
dull."

"That I cannot allow," said the doctor, "it would make your head ache,
but I have no objection to someone reading to you some nice, amusing
novel, Dickens's "Pickwick Papers," for instance, or a story of
Marryat's, something light and amusing, I mean, which will not excite
you too much."

"I should like that," said Henrietta and the choice fell on the
"Pickwick Papers." But as the English governess complained that she
could never read aloud for ten minutes at a time without growing hoarse
and Clementina's eyes were too weak for any such office, it was
suggested that Margari should be asked to submit to this extra
sacrifice, and Clementina succeeded in persuading him to do so by
promising him a liberal reward. So she brought him back with her and
seated him behind a curtain so that he could not see the invalid (that
would have been scarcely proper), and put the book into his hand.

But scarcely had Margari struggled through a few lines when Henrietta
again became fidgety and said she longed for something to eat. The
good-natured Clementina jumped with joy at this sign of returning
appetite, and asked her what she would like and how she would like it.
Henrietta thereupon directed her to have prepared a soup of such a
complicated character (only the morbid imagination of an invalid could
have conceived such a monstrosity), that Clementina felt obliged to
descend to the kitchen herself to superintend its concoction herself,
for it was certain that any servant would have forgotten half the
ingredients before she could get down stairs.

Scarcely had Clementina shut the door behind her when Henrietta
interrupted Margari's elocution.

"For Heaven's sake, come nearer to me," she said, "I want to speak to
you."

The worthy man was so frightened by this unexpected summons that he had
half a mind to rush out and call for assistance. He fancied that the
young lady had become delirious--it was such an odd thing to ask him to
draw nearer. But the sick girl, pressing together her trembling hands,
looked at him so piteously that he could hesitate no longer but
approached her bedside.

Henrietta did not scruple to seize the hand of the embarrassed
gentleman.

"For God's sake, help me, my good Margari," she whispered. "I am plagued
by an anxiety which prevents me from closing my eyes. Even here when I
sleep it follows me into my dreams. You can free me from it. In you
alone have I confidence. You suffer in this house as much as I do. You
have no cause to torment or persecute me. Will you do what I ask you, my
dear, good Margari?"

It occurred to Margari that the young lady was wandering in her mind, so
to humour her, he promised to do whatever she asked him without
hesitation.

"I will be very good to you, I will never forget all my life long the
kindness you are about to do me."

"Your humble servant, Miss! but you have always been good to me. As far
as I can remember, while the others took a delight in vexing me, you
were the only one who always took my part. I don't forget that either.
Command me! I will go through fire and water for you."

"Look, then!" said the girl, drawing from her bosom a little key
attached to a black cord, "this is the key of my toilet casket. Open it
and you will find a bundle of documents tied together with a blue
ribbon, take them. All through my illness I trembled at the thought that
they might ransack my things and find them, and when I came to myself I
was worrying myself with the idea that I might perhaps have spoken about
these papers in my delirium. Oh! it would have been frightful if my
relations had seized them. Take them, quickly, before Clementina
returns. I must conceal everything, even from her."

Margari accomplished the task with tolerable dexterity. He only broke
the looking-glass while he was opening the casket, and that was little
enough for him. There the documents were right enough, nicely tied
together.

And then Henrietta seized his hand and pressed it so warmly and looked
at him with her lovely, piteous, imploring eyes--a very lunatic might
have been healed by such a look.

"I know you for an honourable man," continued she, "promise me not to
look at these papers, but give them to my brother Koloman, he will know
what to do with them. You will do this for my sake, dear Margari, will
you not? It is just as though one of the dead were to come back to you
from the world beyond the grave and implore you, with desperate
supplications, to free its soul from a thought which rested upon it like
a curse and would not let it rest in the grave."

Margari shuddered at these words. A corpse that returns from the world
beyond the grave! This young gentlewoman certainly had a terrifying
imagination. Nevertheless he swore by his hope of salvation that he
would not bestow a glance upon the papers, but would give them to young
Koloman.

"Hide them, pray!"

And indeed it was high time that he should bestow them in the well-like
pocket of his long coat, for Clementina's steps were already audible in
the adjoining chamber. When she appeared, however, he was sitting behind
the curtain again, reading away as if nothing had happened.

When the clock struck four, at which time Koloman usually returned from
school, Henrietta said to Margari that she had had enough of
romance-reading for that day, but thanked him for his kindness and asked
him to come again on the morrow if he would be so good. Margari
protested that he should consider it the highest honour, the greatest
joy. He would willingly read even English to her, if she liked, and
without any special honorarium either, and then off he went to seek
young Koloman.

Now it so happened that young Koloman did not come home at the usual
time that day, and Margari after looking for him in vain became very
curious as to the contents of the packet entrusted to him. What sort of
mysterious letters could they be which Miss Henrietta was afraid of
falling into the hands of her family. Hum! how nice it would be to find
out!

The packet was tied up--naturally! But it was possible to undo and then
retie the knots in just the same way as before, so that nobody would be
any the wiser. To an honourable man, indeed, the mere knowledge that
another's secret was concealed therein which he was bidden to guard
would have been as invincible an impediment as unbreakable bolts and
bars; but the worthy fellow reassured himself with the reflection that,
after all, he was not going to tell anybody the contents of these
documents, and he so very much longed to know what it could be that Miss
Henrietta was so anxious to hide away, and old Lapussa would so much
like to find out. As if he would ever betray the secret of such a nice,
kindly creature to such an old dragon! Why, he would rather have his
tongue torn out than betray it!--but know it he must and would!

So he locked himself up in his little room on the third storey, and very
cautiously opened the bundle which was enwrapped in I know not how many
folds of paper and greedily devoured the contents of the various
documents.

But how great was his fury when, instead of the expected secrets, he
found nothing but dull Latin exercises, wearisome rhetorical
commonplaces on such subjects as the charms of spring and summer, the
excellence of agriculture, the advantages of knowledge, the danger of
the passions, and similar interesting themes. He was just about to tie
the bundle up again, when it occurred to him to read one of these
tiresome dissertations to the end, just to see what sort of style the
young scholar affected. And now a great surprise awaited him, for he
found that after the first five or six lines the theme suddenly broke
off and there followed something altogether different, which though also
written in the Latin tongue had nothing whatever to do, either with the
beauties of spring or the excellencies of agriculture, but was,
nevertheless, of the most interesting and engrossing character.

Now, indeed, he read every one of the exercises from beginning to end,
and, when he had done so, he clearly perceived that if old Demetrius
Lapussa had very particular reasons for ferreting out these things, Miss
Henrietta had still greater reason for concealing them.

After having neatly tied up the packet again, he bethought him what he
had better do next. Miss Henrietta had confided the secret to his
safe-keeping, but Mr. Demetrius had commanded him to keep an eye upon
Koloman and his Latin exercises--which of them had the best right to
command in that house? But was it right to divulge a secret? Ah! that
was another question. It is true that, as a general rule, it is wrong to
betray secrets; yet, it is nevertheless true, that to betray a secret
that ought to be known is at least justifiable. Moreover, was it not a
Christian duty to let the grandfather know as soon as possible what
extraordinary things his granddaughter was turning over in her noddle?
And finally--there was money in it!--good solid cash! If old Lapussa did
not choose to pay a price for it, and a liberal price too, he should be
told nothing at all and Margari would show the old miser that he had a
man of character to deal with. For after all poor Margari had to live,
and this was worth as much as a thousand florins to him or its
equivalent anyhow. Surely Miss Henrietta could not be so unreasonable as
to expect poor Margari to chuck such a piece of good fortune out of the
window, especially as she had given him nothing herself.

At that moment someone knocked at the door and enquired whether Mr.
Margari was there.

Margari was so frightened that he bawled out: "No, I am not!"--so of
course he was obliged to open the door, but he concealed the packet of
letters in his pocket first.

It was the lacquey who came to ask whether Mr. Margari was aware that it
was past seven o'clock; he must come and read to the old gentleman.

Margari could not endure to hear the domestics speaking to him
familiarly.

"Seven o'clock! What do you mean?" said he. "Am I bound to know when it
is seven o'clock? Am I a clockmaker or a bell-ringer? If your master
wants me to know what a clock it is, let him send me, not a lacquey, but
a gold repeater watch!"

And salving his wounded dignity with these and similar effusions,
Margari trotted alongside the lacquey to the room of Mr. Demetrius, to
whom he immediately notified the change in the situation by sinking
down into a soft and cosey arm-chair instead of sitting down on the edge
of the hard leather-chair, expressly provided for him.

Demetrius measured him from head to foot with his terrible eagle eyes
and observed in an even more stridently moral voice than usual: "Well,
Margari, when are we going to have our novel reading?"

"We will have our reading presently, but it won't be a novel to-day."

"What do you mean, sir?"

"I humbly beg to remind your honour that you were pleased to commission
me to lay hands upon certain Latin exercises of your grandson Koloman. I
humbly beg to inform you that they are now in my possession."

"Oh!" said old Lapussa, with a forced assumption of _sang froid_, "you
may give them to me to-morrow, I will look them through."

"Crying your honour's pardon, they are in Latin."

"Well, I can get someone to look them through for me."

"I beg humbly to represent that it would not be well to put them into
anybody's hands, for strange things are contained therein."

"What!" cried the old man angrily, "you don't mean to say _you_ have
looked into them?"

"Yes, I have read them all through."

"I did not tell you to do that."

"No, but you were graciously pleased _not_ to forbid me to do so. Now,
I know everything. I know the cause of the young lady's illness. I know
why she does not wish to become the wife of Count Hátszegi. Nay, I even
know what will happen in case she does. I know all that I say--and here
it is in my pocket."

"And what presumption on your part to read other people's letters!"

"I beg your honour's pardon, but it is not presumption; I only wanted to
know the value of the wares I have obtained for your honour. I wanted to
know whether they were worth one florin, two florins, a hundred florins,
a thousand florins, lest you should do me the favour to say to me:
'look, ye, Margari, my son, here are some coppers, go and drink my
health!'--and so get the better of me."

"You are becoming impertinent! Do you want me to ring for the footman?"

"Pray do not give yourself the trouble! If you are determined to take
the documents away from me by force I will fling them into the fire that
is burning there on the hearth before the footman can come in and there
will be an end to them."

"Then it is money you want, eh? How much?"

This question made Margari still more bumptious.

"How much do I want? A good deal, a very good deal, I can tell you. In
fact I cannot tell at present how much."

But then he suddenly reassumed his obsequious cringing mien and added:
"I tell you what, your honour, procure me some petty office at Count
Hátszegi's. I don't care what it is, so long as I get a life-long
sinecure--suppose we say his bailiff, or his librarian, or his
secretary? A single word from your honour would do it."

An idea suddenly occurred to Mr. Demetrius.

"Very good, Margari, very good. So it shall be. I give you my word upon
it--you shall be Hátszegi's secretary."

"But it must be life-long. I humbly beg of you, it must be till the term
not of his but of my natural life."

"Yes, yes, till the term of your natural life."

"But if he won't have it?"

"I'll pay you myself. You shall receive your regular salary from me
without including whatever you may get over and above from him. Will you
be satisfied with a yearly salary of three hundred florins with your
board and keep?"

At these words Margari's breath failed him. It was not without
difficulty that he put the rapacious question: "Will your honour do me
the favour to give me this promise in writing?"

"Certainly! Bring writing materials and I will dictate it to you on the
spot."

And so an agreement was duly drawn up whereby Mr. Margari, in
consideration of a yearly salary of 300 florins to be punctually sent to
him at the beginning of every quarter, undertook in his capacity of
secretary to Baron Hátszegi, to keep his Honour Demetrius Lapussa
informed of all that he saw and heard at the residence of that
gentleman, Henrietta's future husband, and this obligation of
maintaining Margari was to be transferred on the death of Mr. Demetrius
to his son John. And no doubt Mr. Demetrius knew very well what he was
about.

This document signed and sealed, Mr. Margari, with the greatest
alacrity, produced the Latin exercises in question, first of all,
however, respectfully kissing the hand of his patron.

It took till midnight to read and translate all these documents one by
one. Mr. Demetrius was very well satisfied with the result, that is to
say so far as concerned the fidelity of the translation,--with the tenor
of the original text he had not the slightest reason to be pleased.

When, shortly after midnight, these revelations were concluded, Mr.
Demetrius commanded Margari to go up into his room and have a complete
translation of all this Latin rigmarole written down in honest Hungarian
by the morning and to encourage him in his task he gave him two guldens
and an order on the butler for as much punch as he could drink. By the
morning all the punch was drunk, but the translation also was finished,
to the tune of bacchanalian songs which Margari kept up with great
spirit all night long.

       *       *       *       *       *

Next day, punctually at the appointed hour, the lawyer, Mr. Sipos,
appeared at the house of the Lapussas, with the necessary documents
neatly tied up with tape, under his arm as usual; he was not like our
modern lawyers who carry their masterpieces in portfolios as if they are
ashamed of them. The only persons in the reception room besides the old
man, were Madame Langai and Mr. John. Henrietta, still an invalid, had
been allowed to take a stroll to the woods near the town in order to
visit her favourite flowers once more and possibly take leave of them
for ever. She had received no invitation-card for this lecture. Why,
indeed, should a bride know anything of her bridegroom's biography
before marriage! The lawyer took his place at the table, untied his pile
of documents and began to read.

It appeared from these documents that the founder of the Hátszegi
family, the great grandfather of the present baron, was one Mustafa, who
had been a Defterdar[2] at Stamboul, and had used his unrivalled
opportunities for making money so well that he found it expedient to fly
from Jassy to Transylvania, where he made haste to get baptized and
naturalized. His son, now an Hungarian nobleman, cut a fine figure at
court and gallantly distinguished himself in the Turkish wars against
his former compatriots, his exploits winning for him the estate of
Hidvár and the title of baron. His son again was a miser of the first
water who could be enticed neither to court nor into the houses of his
neighbours. He was continually scraping money together and was not over
particular in the choice of his scraper. By adroit chicanery he acquired
possession of the gold mines of Verespatak, which he exploited with
immense advantage, and by means of money lending and mortgages got into
his hands the vast estate of Hátszegi in the counties of Hunyad and
Feher, so that when he died it took thirty heavy wagons to convey his
ready money in gold and silver alone from the Vadormi caverns, where he
had concealed it to the castle of Hidvár, which his only son, Leonard,
chose as his residence after his father's death. All these details were
certified by unimpeachable documents in schedules B. C. and D.

[Footnote 2: The chief of the financial department in the Turkish
vilagets.]

Moreover, the blood of many nationalities circulated in the veins of
Baron Leonard. The Defterdar himself was a Turk of Roumelian origin,
whose only son was the child of his Hindu concubine. He again married
the daughter of a Polish countess at the court of Vienna. The wife of
Baron Leonard's father was a wallachized Hungarian lady, whom he married
for her wealth. It was not wonderful, therefore, if the noble baron
possessed the qualities of five distinct races. Thus he had something of
the voluptuousness of the Turk, the ostentation of the Hindu, the
flightiness of the Pole, the foolhardiness of the Hungarian, and the
obstinacy of the Wallach.

"For, I speak of his faults first," the lawyer proceeded, "because I
consider that they outweigh his good qualities. That the baron is a
rich man is evident from the accounts and inventories classed under
schedule E; that the baron is a handsome man is evident from the
photograph under schedule H; that the baron is physically sound is clear
from the certificates annexed to schedules I and K, one of which is
supplied by his physician and the other by his hunting comrades. Those
who require nothing from a man save health, wealth, strength, and
beauty, will of course consider him fit and proper to make a woman
happy. Yet having regard to the following facts (1) that the aforesaid
baron is not merely unstable in love affairs but capricious to the verge
of eccentricity, and a winebibber and gourmand to boot; (2) that he is
as vain as an Indian prince who takes unto him a wife for the mere pomp
and show of the thing; (3) that he is violent and brutal, sparing nobody
in his sudden fits of passion and, as the documents testify, has
frequently inflicted mortal injuries on those who have come in his way
while he was in an ill-humour; (4) that he has an odd liking for rowdy
adventures, which do not reflect much credit upon him; and (5) that,
according to the whispers of those nearest to him there is a strange
mystery pervading his whole life, inasmuch as mysterious disappearances,
which nobody can make head or tail of, occupy an incalculable number of
his days and weeks which remain unaccounted for, and make a pretty
considerable hiatus in every year of his life--taking all these things
into consideration, I am constrained to give it as my opinion that I do
not consider such a man a fit and proper husband for such a tender,
sympathetic young lady as the Miss Henrietta in question, and let the
world if it likes consider such a match as the greatest piece of good
fortune imaginable, I, for my part, would nevertheless call it a
calamity to be avoided at any price. And now would you do me the honour
to examine the original documents I have brought with me as exhibits in
corroboration of my statements--though I would mention," he quickly
added, perceiving that Madame Langai had greedily clutched hold of them,
"that among those documents there are sundry by no means suited for a
lady's perusal."

"When I come across any such I will pass them over," said she. Of course
these were the very passages she proceeded to search for straight away.

Meanwhile Mr. Demetrius also had drawn a packet of papers from
underneath the cushions of his sofa and handed them to Mr. Sipos.

"Then you do not advise me to give Henrietta to Baron Hátszegi to wife?
Good! And now, perhaps, while we run through the exhibits and schedules,
perhaps you'll be so good as to cast your eye over these papers. I don't
think they will bore you."

These documents, by the way, were the Latin documents discovered by Mr.
Margari--_in natura_.

Mr. John was marching pettishly up and down the room, and Madame Langai
was reading her documents with the greatest attention so that nobody
observed the surprise, the confusion reflected in the countenance of the
lawyer as he looked through the fatal Latin manuscripts. He kept shaking
his head and twisting his moustache right and left, fidgeted in his
armchair, and the beads of perspiration which stood out on his forehead
gave him enough to do to wipe them away with his pocket-handkerchief; at
last he had read the papers, and then he laid the whole bundle on the
table and stared silently before him like one whose reason for the
moment had no counsel to give him.

Just about the same time Madame Langai had completed the perusal of
_her_ documents, and now she too seemed to be in an extreme state of
agitation. During the course of her reading, she had been unable to
restrain herself from exclaiming at intervals: "the monster! the
scoundrel!"

Mr. Demetrius had been amusing himself all this time by carefully
observing the various mutations of expression in the faces of the
readers, which certainly afforded considerable entertainment to an
onlooker with any sense of humour.

When every document had produced its expression, he remarked in a soft
gentle voice: "Well, my daughter, what do _you_ think of the affair?"

Madame Langai clapped to her eyeglass and, with the air of one who had
made up his mind once for all, replied instantly: "I would not allow a
decent chambermaid to become Baron Hátszegi's wife, let alone a
Henrietta Lapussa."

"And what is your opinion, Mr. Lawyer?" enquired the old man turning to
Mr. Sipos.

"I?" replied the honest man, visibly perturbed, with a voice full of
emotion: "I would advise that the young lady should be married to the
baron as quickly as possible."

Madame Langai regarded him with wide-open eyes.

"What! After all that is in these papers?"

"No, after all that is in those other documents."

"What are they?" cried Madame Langai pouncing upon them incontinently
and extremely vexed, the next moment, to find them all written in Latin.
She perceived that they were Koloman's exercises, and that was all. She
did not understand their connection with the case in point.

"I'll take those documents back please," said old Demetrius, stretching
out a skinny hand towards them. "They will be of use to us though I have
a translation of them besides. Then, you think, Mr. Lawyer, it will be
as well to marry Henrietta to the baron, eh? Very well! Let me add that
on the day when Henrietta goes to the altar with Baron Leonard, I will
make you a present of all this scribble. Till then I shall require them.
Do you understand?"

Mr. Sipos was completely beaten; you might have knocked him down with a
feather. He had never been so badly worsted in his professional
capacity. Madame Langai would have besieged him with questions, but he
avoided her, put on his hat and departed.

Madame Langai thereupon turned to her father: "What is the cause of this
wondrous change?" she cried. "What secrets do those miraculous papers
contain?"

Mr. Demetrius tucked the documents in question well beneath him and
replied: "They contain secrets the discovery whereof will be a great
misfortune and yet a great benefit to the parties concerned."

"Have they any connection with Henrietta's wedding?"

"They have a direct bearing thereupon, and, indeed, necessitate it!"

"Poor girl!" sighed Madame Langai.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Sipos passed by his own dwelling three times before he knew that he
had reached home, so confused was he by what he had just learnt. When he
_did_ get inside the house he walked for a long time up and down his
consulting room as if he were trying to find a beginning for a business
he would very much have liked to be at the end of. At last he gave the
bellrope a very violent pull and told the clerk who answered the bell to
send him his assistant, Mr. Szilard, at once.

Szilard appeared on the very heels of the messenger. His was one of
those faces which women never forget. There was ardent passion in every
feature and the large flaming black eyes, which spoke of courage and
high enthusiasm, harmonized so well with the wan hue of the pallid face.

"Well, my dear fellow, do you feel quite well again now?" asked Mr.
Sipos in a tone of friendly familiarity; "did the doctor call to see you
to-day?"

"I have no need of him, there's nothing the matter with me."

"Nay, nay! Not so reckless! You have been working again, I see. You know
the doctor has forbidden it."

"I only work to distract my thoughts."

"You should seek amusement rather. Why don't you mix in society like
other young men? Why don't you frequent the coffee-houses and go to a
dance occasionally? Why, you slave away like a street-porter! Young
blood needs relaxation."

"Oh, I am all right. My dear uncle, you are very kind, but you worry
about me more than I deserve."

"That is my duty, my dear nephew. Don't you know that your poor father
confided you to my care on his death-bed, bade me be a father to you.
Don't you remember?"

"I do," replied the young man, and catching hold of his guardian's hand
he pressed it, murmuring in a scarcely audible voice: "You have indeed
been a second father to me!"

But Mr. Sipos tore his hand passionately from the young man's grasp and
said in a somewhat rougher tone: "But suppose your dead father were to
say: 'That is not true! You have _not_ watched over my son as a father
should! You have lightly left him to himself. He was in danger and you
were unaware of it. He hovered on the edge of the abyss and you were
blind and saw nothing. And if God and my dead hand had not defended him,
he would have become a suicide and you knew it not--wherefore?'"--

The young man trembled at these words, he grew even paler than before
and gazed with a look of stupefaction at his chief. Then the old man
approached him, and took him by the hand as if he would say: "I am going
to scold you, but fear nothing. I am on your side."

"My dear Szilard," said he, "don't you recollect that when you were a
little child and did anything you should not have done, and your father
questioned you about it, did he not always say to you: 'when you have
done wrong and are ashamed to confess it, keep silence! press your teeth
together! but don't lie, don't deny it, never think of taking refuge
behind any false excuse, for your name is Szilard,[3] and cowardice does
not become the bearer of such a name!' You understood him. You acted as
he would have had you act. And now I also would remind you once more
that you were christened Szilard and I ask you therefore to listen
calmly to what I am about to say to you. Don't interrupt, don't attempt
to deceive me. If you don't want to answer my questions, simply shake
your head! And now sit down, my son! You are still barely convalescent.
Your head is weak and what I have to say to you might very well make it
reel again."

[Footnote 3: Strong, firm.]

Then the old lawyer tenderly pressed the youth into a chair and sighing
deeply, thus continued: "You fell in love with the daughter of a great
family and she with you. You got acquainted at a dance and the intimacy
did not stop there. Every conceivable obstacle intervened between you,
but love is artful and inventive and you found a way. The rich girl had
a neglected brother whom his relations sent to the grammar school and
the rascal frequently took refuge with me, the family attorney, when he
was ill-treated at home, and here you came across him. You cared for him
and explained to him the difficulties in his lessons which he was unable
to do for himself. The boy grew very fond of you. He spoke to you of
your beloved, and he spoke to her of you, and he was always praising
each of you to the other. The grandfather, the uncle, the aunt, the
governess, the domestics who never took their eyes off the girl for an
instant, had no idea that she was already involved in a love affair. But
amazing is the ingenuity of love and lovers! You knew that none of the
older members of the family understood the classical language of the
orators, and the girl loved so dearly that she did not consider it too
great a labour to learn a dead tongue which could be of no further use
to her in order to be able to say to her beloved: _Ego te in aeternum
amabo!_ One must admit that that was a great and noble sacrifice. Every
day you corresponded with each other. Before school time the girl
dictated his lessons to her young brother, beginning with the usual
scholastic flowers of rhetoric but ending in the passionate voice of
love, and after school was over, you, in your turn dictated a similar
lesson for the lad to carry back with him. Naturally, _this_ lesson book
he _never_ took to school with him; you kept the other here, the genuine
one which he had to show to his masters. And this ingenious smuggling
was carried on beneath the very eyes of the family without their
perceiving it. Yet at last it _was_ discovered. This very day, only an
hour ago, the old head of the family placed these papers in my hands
that I might read them, informing me at the same time that he had
already read a translation of them. Terrible were the things I
discovered in these papers. The appearance of a rich and noble suitor
who, according to the notions of the world, was just made for the girl,
frustrated all your plans of waiting patiently for better times. The
family forced this union upon the girl. You, in your despair, racked
your brain as to what you should do. At first you resolved upon an
elopement, but the redoubled vigilance with which every step of the
young girl was watched made this impossible. Then a black and terrible
thought occurred to you both. You resolved to kill yourselves--it was
your one remaining means of deliverance. Yes, you resolved to kill
yourselves at once, on the self-same day, in the self-same manner. For
many days you deliberated together as to the best way of accomplishing
your design. Great caution was necessary. You had to pick your words
lest the little brother who wrote them down from dictation should have
guessed your intentions. The girl asked you, at last, to send her a book
on natural science. You sent it to her. She, with the help of it tried
to find out what sorts of poisons could be most easily procured. For two
whole days you deliberated together as to the best way of obtaining
matches, the phosphorus of which is the most efficacious of poisons. But
in vain. In great houses only the domestics have charge of the matches,
it was impossible to get any. At last the girl hit on an expedient. She
discovered that if you put a copper coin in a glass dish and pour strong
vinegar over it, verdegris will be formed and verdegris is poison. Your
minds were at once made up. The girl prepared poison for herself and
taught you to do the same. . . . Merciful Heaven! what notions children
do get into their heads to be sure."




CHAPTER V

SHE IS NOT FOR YOU


Up to this moment the youth had listened to the lecture in silence, but
now he arose and said in a calm clear voice: "'Tis all true; it is so!"

"I should say it was all very bad, very bad indeed!" said the lawyer
vehemently, as if completing a broken sentence. "What! Children to
meditate suicide because things in this world don't go exactly according
to their liking! Have you never regarded the affair from its practical
side? Did you imagine that the girl's relations would support you? And
would you yourself endure to be their pensioner, their butt, the scorn
of the very domestics, for a poor son-in-law is the standing jest of the
very flunkeys--you ought to know that!"

Szilard's face burned like fire at these words, but the old man hastened
to soothe him.

"No, you could never reconcile yourself to that, I am sure. But you
thought, perhaps, that the girl might descend to your level and share
your poverty. There are in the world many a poor lad and lass who endow
one another with nothing but their ardent love and yet make happy
couples enough. So, no doubt, you argued, and herein lies the fallacy
that has deceived you. If you had been enamoured of a poor girl, I
should have said: it is rather early to think of marriage, but if it be
God's will, take her! Work and fight your way through the world where
there is room enough for every one. The lass, too, is used to
deprivation, and you are also. She will be content with little. She can
sew, she will do your cooking for you, and, if need be, your washing
likewise! She can make one penny go as far as two. When there is a lot
to do she will sing to make the work lighter, and when your supper is
slender, her good humour and her loving embraces will make it more. But
my dear boy! how are you going to make a poor housewife out of a girl
who has been rich? How can she ever feel at home in a wretched,
out-of-the-way shanty, where she will not even have you always by her
side, for you will have to be looking after your daily bread? She will
say nothing, she will make no complaint, but you will perceive that she
misses something. She will not ask you for a new dress, but you will see
that the one she wears is shabby and it would break your heart to
reflect that you have fettered the girl you love to your step-motherly
destiny, and your manly pride would one day blush for the recklessness
which led you to drag her down with you."

"My dear guardian," said Szilard, "to prove to you that I did think of
all these things let me tell you that I have put by from my salary and
commissions enough to enable us to live comfortably for at least a
twelvemonth. For a whole year I have lived on two pence a day in order
to save, and during all that time I am sure you have not heard from me
one word of complaint."

Mr. Sipos was horrified. It was an even worse case than he had imagined.
What! to live for a whole year on two pence a day in order to scrape
together a small capital for one's beloved! It would be very difficult
to cure a madness which took such a practical turn as this!

"But my dear boy!" he resumed, "what is the good of it all? What can you
do now that your secrets are discovered? It would have served you right
if the girl's parents had proceeded against you on a charge of murder,
for you were an accomplice in this poisoning business; but I am pretty
sure they will only threaten to do so in case she refuses the baron. And
what, pray, can you do in case they thus compel her to become his wife?"

"Whoever the baron may be," rejoined Szilard, "I suppose he is at least
a gentleman; and if a woman looks him straight in the face on the
wedding day and says to him: 'I cannot love you because I love another
and always will love another,'--I cannot think he will be so devoid of
feeling as to make her his wife notwithstanding."

"And if she does not say this, but voluntarily gives him her hand in
order to save you from the persecutions of her family, what then?"

"Hearken, my dear guardian! She may be compelled to write to me that
she loves me no more and I must forget her, but I shall not believe it
till she pronounces or writes down a word the meaning of which only we
two understand and nobody else in the world can discover. So long as
this one word does not get into the possession of a third person, I
shall know that she has not broken with me and no power in this world
shall tear her from my heart. She may be silent, because she is not free
to speak; she may speak because she is commanded to speak; yet, for all
that, this religiously guarded word tells me what she really feels--and
what no other human intelligence can understand. If you like, my dear
guardian, you may betray this confession of mine to Henrietta's
relatives and they will torment the girl till they get her to pronounce
the mysterious word which once pronounced will burst the bonds that
unite us. She will be driven to say something. But oh! women who love
are very crafty. The word they will report to me will not be the right
one. It is possible, too, that they may take her far away from me. Let
them guard her well I say, let those who watch over her never close an
eye. And if they give her a husband, they had best pray for his life for
they know not what a fated thing it is to give away in marriage a girl
who bears about in her heart the secret of a third person."

"My dear young friend, I see that we shall not come to an understanding
with each other. You are bent upon plunging into ruin a poor
defenceless girl in the name of what you call love, and will not
renounce, though you have not the slightest hope of winning her--that I
do not understand. I, on the other hand, am the legal adviser of the
young lady's family, and, in that capacity, I considered it my duty to
protest very energetically against the match in question. But when they
placed those precious papers in my hands, I said at once that they must
marry her to this man in any case. Otherwise they would have fancied I
was advocating your crazy hopes, that I was an interested party and
simply opposed the family candidate in order to smuggle in a kinsman of
my own in his stead. That idea I was determined to knock out of their
heads, happen what would. But that of course you do not understand. And
now you had better return to your room. Destiny will one day explain to
all of us what we do not understand now."

       *       *       *       *       *

At about the same hour the second act of this drama was proceeding in
the torture-chamber of the Lapussa family.

Henrietta had returned home from her little tour laden with flowers,
when old Demetrius sent word to her that he would like to see her in his
room. He had taken the precaution of sending Madame Langai away shortly
before and Mr. John was absent at the Corn Exchange.

"My little maid, Hetty, come nearer to me," said the old gentleman,
turning sideways on his couch and ferreting out from beneath his
pillows a concave snuff-box, "pray do not be angry with me for putting
you to inconvenience. Bear with me for the little time I have still to
live. But if you find living under the same roof with me unendurable,
all the greater reason for you to seize the opportunity of releasing
yourself as quickly as possible."

Henrietta was too much used to these choleric outbursts to think of
replying to them.

"Pray, put your hand beneath my pillow. You will find a packet of papers
there. Take them out and look at them."

Henrietta did with stolid indifference what the old man bade her and
drew forth from this peculiar repository--which served as a sort of lair
for snuff-boxes, pill-boxes and odd bits of pastry--a large bundle of
manuscripts which she recognized at the first glance. The apprehended
papers, which during her illness had prevented her from sleeping, which
had made it impossible for her to get well, were now in the possession
of him from whom she had been most anxious to conceal them. The criminal
stood face to face with the witness whose damning evidence was to
condemn her. There was no escape, no defence.

"My little maid," said the old man, exultantly stuffing his eagle nose
full of that infernal heating material which goes by the name of snuff,
"don't be angry with me for directing your attention to this scribble. I
don't want to make any use of it. I know quite enough of it already,
but be so good as to listen to me!"

Henrietta absolutely could not look away from her grandfather's
blood-shot eyes; it seemed to her as if those eyes must gradually bore
through to her very heart.

"You won't marry an eminent and wealthy man who bestows an honour upon
your family by asking for your hand, and yet you would run away with a
worthless fellow who does not even know why he was put into the world,
and when your family steps in to prevent it, you would violently put
yourself to death in order to die with him, to our eternal shame and
dishonour. That was not nice of you. But sit down. I see you are all of
a tremble. I would fetch you a chair myself if it was not for this
infernal gout of mine."

Henrietta accepted the invitation and sat down, otherwise she must have
collapsed.

"Now look ye, my dear little girl! if you had to deal with an
unmerciful, austere old fellow, a veritable old tiger, in fact, as I
have no doubt you fancy I am, he would make no bones about it but pack
you straight off to a nunnery and so cut you off from the world for
ever."

Henrietta sighed. Such a threat as that sounded to her like a
consolation.

"In the second place, an old tyrant, such as I am imagining, would have
sent that rip of a brother of yours, who is not ashamed to lend a hand
in the seduction of his own sister, would have sent him, I say, to a
reformatory. I may tell you there are several such institutions,
celebrated for their rigour, whither it is usual to send precocious and
incorrigible young scapegraces. And richly he would have deserved it,
too."

"Poor Koloman!" thought the little sister. They were tenderly devoted to
each other.

"In the third place, our old tiger would have prosecuted at law that
reckless youth who had a share in this fine suicide project of yours.
For death, my dear, is no plaything and jests with poison are strictly
forbidden. He would certainly be condemned to hard labour for five or
six years, which would be a very wholesome lesson for him."

"Grandfather!" screamed the tortured child. This last allusion dissolved
her voice in tears. She fell down on her knees before him and shed
innocent tears enough on his hand to wash out all the old specks and
stains on it.

"I am glad to see those tears, my dear little girl, they show that you
have confidence in me. I am not a tiger who eats little children, what I
have said _might_ happen but I don't say it necessarily _must_. I don't
want to be cruel and vindictive. I don't want to recollect anything of
the insults showered upon me in that scribble of yours, all I ask of you
is that you will not stand in your own way. Get up and don't cry any
more or you will be ill again. Go up into your own room and ponder
deeply what you ought to do! In two hours' time I shall send for you
again, and in the meantime make up your mind about it. You have the
choice between accepting as your husband an honourable gentleman of
becoming rank and at the same time renouncing and forgetting a fellow
who will never be able to raise himself to your level, or of taking the
veil and bidding good-bye to this world. In the latter case, however,
your brother will be sent to a reformatory and an action will be
commenced against your accomplice. It is for you to choose. You have two
whole hours to turn the matter over in your mind. In the meantime I
shall send for my lawyer and, according to your decision, I shall get
him to draw up a marriage contract or a summons to the criminal court.
It all depends upon you. And now put back those documents beneath my
head. Remember that you will only receive them back from me as a bridal
gift. Go now to your own room and reflect. For two hours nobody shall
disturb you."

The girl mechanically complied with his commands. She put back the
ominous documents in their receptacle and withdrew to her room. There
she stood in front of a vase of flowers and regarded their green leaves
for an hour without moving. In the vase was a fine specimen of one of
those wondrous tropical plants whose leaves never fall off, one of those
plants which the seasons leave unchanged and which, therefore, is such a
beautiful emblem of constancy. This beautiful plant has a peculiar
property. If one of its compact shining leaves be planted in the earth
it takes root and grows into a shrub whose fragrant wax-like flowers
diffuse an enchanting perfume. Three years before at a jurists' ball,
when Henrietta and Szilard met for the first time, he had given her a
bouquet, among the flowers of which was one of these green-gold leaves,
and when she got home she had planted it in a jar and it had taken root,
spread its shoots abroad and grown larger and larger every year. And
Henrietta had called it Szilard and watched over its growth and cared
for it as if it had been a living human creature. For a long time she
stood before this flowering plant as if she would have spoken to it and
taken counsel of it. At last she turned away and with her hands behind
her head, she walked slowly up and down the room, and as often as she
paused before the vase, she behaved like one whose heart is breaking.
But time was hastening on, an hour is so short when one would have it
stay. Alas! nowhere was there any help, any refuge. She was abandoned.
She had nothing in the world but this one flowering plant which she
called Szilard. And the moments swiftly galloping after one another
called for a decision. There must be an end to it. Once more she
approached her darling plant and kissed all the leaves of its beautiful
flowers one by one. And now there came a knock at the door. Mr.
Demetrius's messenger had come and a cold shudder ran through the girl's
tender frame. "I am coming!" she cried. The next moment not a tear was
to be seen on her face, nay, not a trace of sorrow, or fear, but only
snow-white tranquillity.

All the members of the family were assembled together again in
grandpapa's room. Mr. Sipos was also present, he had been told all about
the business.

"Well my dear little grandchild," said Mr. Demetrius, motioning
Henrietta to take her place at the table with the others, "have you made
up your mind?"

"I have."

"Veil or myrtle wreath?"

"I will be married."

"To the baron?"

"Yes," replied the girl in a strangely calm and courageous tone, "but I
also have my conditions to impose."

"Let us hear them."

"In the first place I must be sure that my brother Koloman will not be
persecuted. I suppose you will not let him come with me?"

"No, that one thing cannot be allowed."

"But I cannot let him remain here. Send him to some other town. You are
always talking of your rank and riches, give him an education to
correspond."

The child in those two hours had grown older by ten years, she now spoke
to the other members of the family with the air of a matron.

"Agreed!" cried Mr. Demetrius. "Besides it will be much better if we do
not see him."

"My second request is that I may take the furniture I have been used to
and my flowers along with me to the place where I have to go."

"Granted, a harmless feminine caprice. Be it so!"

"In the third place I should like the papers grandfather knows of to be
given back to him whom it most concerns."

"Certainly," said Mr. Demetrius, "I promised, did I not, that it should
form part of your marriage portion. Mr. Sipos, would you be so good as
to place these documents in the hands--of the proper person?"

Mr. Sipos bowed and promised to carry out the mournful commission.

"And now, my girl, the marriage-contract is before you, the baron has
already signed it and awaits your decision in the adjoining room. Show
us what a nice hand you can write."

And Henrietta did show it. She signed her name there in such pretty
little delicately rounded letters that it looked as if some fairy had
breathed a spell upon the page.

"And just one thing more, my dear young lady," put in Mr. Sipos
politely, "while the pen is still in your hand, would you be so good as
to write down on the cover of the returned documents a particular word,
that particular word, I mean, which is known only to yourself and one
other person in the world, as a proof that your renunciation is genuine
and irrevocable."

The girl fixed her mysterious black eyes for a long time on those of
the lawyer. It was in her power to deceive him if she would and he knew
it well. At last she gently stooped over the bundle of papers and
pressing down the pen with unusual firmness she wrote that barbarously
sounding name of a beautiful bright star: "Mesarthim" and then quietly
laid down the pen. There was not the slightest sign of agitation in her
face. Could it be the right word?

"And now the bridegroom can come in and the necessary pre-nuptial legal
formalities can be carried out."

       *       *       *       *       *

When Mr. Sipos got home he went straight up to the room of his young
protegé.

"My dear fellow," said he, "I have brought you some medicine. As you
know, medicine is generally nasty and bitter, but perhaps none the worse
on that account. As I said beforehand, the young lady reconsidered her
position, chose the better way and consented to the marriage with the
baron. The betrothal is an accomplished fact and they signed the
marriage contract before my eyes."

"Doubtless," returned Szilard coldly.

"My friend, the girl did not make such a sour face over it as you are
doing. She was strong-minded and decided. I was amazed at the composure
with which she addressed her family, she was like the capitulating
commandant of a fortress dictating the terms of surrender. Not a tear
did she shed in their presence and yet I believe she suffered."

"Oh, she has lots of courage."

"I wish you had as much. Here is your absurd scribble, its surrender was
one of the conditions imposed. I am glad these mischievous exercises are
safely in our hands again. Don't bother your head about them any more!
The girl is going away, you will remain here, in a year's time you will
have forgotten each other."

Szilard smiled frostily.

"And that word which binds us together or tears us asunder?" said he.

"Yes, I thought of that, too. She looked me straight in the eyes for a
long time when I asked for it and I told her I wanted the real, the
genuine word. She has written it on the back of these papers, look!"

Szilard stretched forth a tremulous hand towards the papers, seized
them, turned them round, and cast one look at the word written there and
then fell at full length on the floor, striking his head against the
corner of the table so that the blood flowed.

Mr. Sipos, cursing the whole stupid business and wishing the papers at
the bottom of the sea, raised the young man tenderly and bathed his head
with cold water. He did not call for assistance (why should the whole
world be taken into his confidence?), but when the youth came to again,
he soothed and consoled him with loving words. And Szilard, unable to
contain himself any longer, hid his head in the good old man's bosom,
pressed his lips to his hand and wept long and bitterly.

       *       *       *       *       *

A fortnight later the marriage of Baron Hátszegi and Henrietta Lapussa
was solemnized with great pomp and befitting splendour. The bride bore
herself bravely throughout the ceremony, and they tell me that her lace
and her diamonds were fully described in all the fashionable papers.




CHAPTER VI

BRINGING HOME THE BRIDE


In those days there were no railways in Hungary. It took a whole week to
travel post from Pest to the depths of Transylvania, with relays of
horses provided beforehand at every station. On the very day after the
wedding the young bride set out on her journey. She had only stipulated
that they should set off very early before anyone was up and stirring.
They travelled in two carriages. In the first sat the bride and
Clementina, who had begged and prayed so urgently to be allowed to
accompany the young lady that to get rid of her they had at last
consented. The poor thing fancied she would better her position thereby:
it was not from pure love of Henrietta that she had been so importunate.
In the second carriage sat the baron and Margari. Margari was just the
sort of man the baron wanted. He was a scholar who could be converted
into a domestic buffoon whenever one was required. Now-a-days it is
difficult to catch such specimens, all our servants have become so
stuck-up. Henrietta did not dare to ask how far they were going, or
where they were to pass the night, she felt so strange amidst her new
surroundings. Her husband was very obliging and polite towards her,--in
fact he gave her no trouble at all.

Towards the evening they stopped at a village to water the horses and
there Hátszegi got out of his carriage and, approaching his wife's,
spoke to her through the window: "We shall rest in an hour," said he.
"We shall put up for the night at the castle of an old friend of mine,
Gerzson Satrakovich. He has been duly apprised of our coming and expects
us."

But the promised hour turned out to be nearly two hours. The roads were
very bad here and it was as much as the carriage wheels could do to
force their way through the marshy sand. The monotonous _Bucskak_[4]
which extended desolately, like a billowy sandy ocean, to the very
horizon, were overgrown with dwarf firs that looked more like shrubs
than trees. Not a village, not a hut was anywhere to be seen. From the
roadside sedges, flocks of noisy wild-geese, from time to time, flew
across the sky which the setting sun coloured yellow. At last a great
clattering and rattling gave those sitting in the carriage to understand
that they were passing into a courtyard and the carriage door was
opened. Henrietta got out. The young wife looked around with the same
sort of curiosity which a robber condemned to a long term of
imprisonment and conveyed to a distant jail might feel on first
surveying his new environment.

[Footnote 4: Sand hills.]

In the midst of a spacious courtyard, surrounded by stone walls, stood
an old-fashioned mansion with a verandah in front of it, resting on
quadrangular columns which one ascended by a staircase whose brick
parapet served as a lounge both for the gentlemen guests and their
heydukes whenever they wanted to take their ease,--though, of course,
the gentlemen occupied one end of it and the heydukes the other. A
couple of favourite dogs were also accommodated with a place there. But
when the carriages stopped in front of the verandah, every one instantly
quitted this favourite sun-lit resting place and rushed down to meet
them--host, guests, heydukes, and dogs.

The first to reach the carriage door was a peculiar looking man, a more
repulsively mutilated creature it was impossible to imagine. He might
have been fifty, but it was difficult to read his age from his face. His
features were scarred with ancient scars and a piece of his mouth was
missing--and perhaps a tooth or two as well, if one could have seen
through his thick grizzled moustache. An eye was missing on the same
side, and half his face was tattooed with little black points as if from
an exploded musket. His nose was bent sideways and quite flattened at
the top, doubtless owing to a heavy fall. He had only three whole
fingers on the right hand, the other two were fearfully mutilated. As
for the left arm it was horribly distorted from its natural position,
the elbow being twisted right round and the joint immovable. Add to
this that one of his legs was shorter than the other. Yet, in spite of
everything, this fraction of a man was so agile that he anticipated all
the others and was the first to courteously kiss the hand of the
descending lady, who shrank back horror-stricken at the contact of those
crippled fingers.

"My wife--my friend Gerzson," said Hátszegi hastening to introduce them
to each other. The master of the house professed himself delighted at
his good fortune; pressed his friend's hand with his third remaining
finger and presented his arm, the stiff one, to the lady who touched it
as gingerly as if she was afraid of hurting it.

The master of the house laughed aloud at her misgivings.

"Lean on it hard your ladyship!" cried he, "it won't break, it is as
strong as iron. Down Fecske, down sir!" (this to a dog who had expressed
his joy at the sight of Henrietta by jumping on her shoulder.) "I
rejoice that I have the felicity to welcome your ladyship. I have
arranged a great fox hunt in your ladyship's honour for to-morrow. We
are all fox hunters here. I hope your ladyship will take part in it?"

"I don't know how to ride," replied the child-wife simply.

"Oh! that's nothing, we will teach you. I have got a good nag who is as
gentle as a lamb. We won't let your ladyship go till we have taught
you."

When they reached the saloon a number of jackbooted, brass-buttoned,
gentlemen of various ages were presented in turn to Henrietta who forgot
all their names the moment after they were introduced and was quite
delighted when she was conducted to her room and left alone with
Clementina.

She had scarce time to change her travelling dress when supper was
announced. The meal was laid on a large round table in the midst of a
vast hall; there were more wine bottles than dishes; the handles of the
knives and forks were made from the horns of elks and the antlers of
stags,--the principal meats were cold venison, highly spiced and
peppered stews and pickled _galuska_.[5]

[Footnote 5: A sort of large dumpling.]

"I am afraid this is only a hunter's repast, my lady!" opined Mr.
Gerzson conducting Henrietta to the table, at which she and Clementina
were the only ladies present. "Unfortunately this house has no mistress
and an old bachelor like me must serve others as he himself is served."

"Then why don't you marry?" bantered Hátszegi.

"I wanted to once, but it all come to nothing. The bride was already
chosen and the day for the bridal banquet was fixed. My lady bride was a
fine handsome lassie. On the eve of my wedding day, in order that the
business might not escape my memory, I told my heyduke to place by my
bed in the morning my nice bright dress boots instead of my old hunting
jacks. Very well! Early next morning while I was still on my back in
bed, I heard a great barking and yelping in the garden below. 'What's
the row?' I shouted. They told me the dogs had started a lynx out of the
bushes. 'What! a lynx!' I cried, for a lynx, let me tell you, is a rare
beast in these parts. I was out of bed in a twinkling, plunged into the
nice dress boots, snatched my gun from the wall and was off into the
thicket. I soon found the trail and after that lynx I went. The dogs led
me further and further into the depths of the forest and the further I
went the more fiery grew the pursuit. Once or twice I had a sort of
feeling that I had forgotten something at home, and I felt myself all
over, but no, powder horn, pipe case, tobacco pouch, flint,
steel--everything was there. So on I went further and further. Again I
felt bothered, but by this time the lynx quite carried me away with him
and kept appearing and disappearing again in the most distracting
fashion. Only towards evening did I hold its pelt in my hand and home
with it I went straightway. And now, again, an oppressive feeling
overcame me, just as if there was something wrong going on somewhere in
the world which it was in my power to prevent. Only in the evening when
I was pulling off my dress boots did it flash across me that I ought to
have been present at my wedding that very day. And so matters remained
as they were, for my bride was so angry with me for my forgetfulness
that she went away and married a lawyer fellow. No doubt she got the
right man, but since then I have had no desire for matrimony."

The company laughed heartily at this jest, and then attacked the
patriarchal banquet with tremendous appetite, nor did they wait to be
asked twice to fill their glasses. Henrietta, naturally, did not touch
anything. Even at ordinary times she ate very little, but now there was
nothing at all she fancied. Mr. Gerzson was in despair.

"My dear lady," said he, "you eat so little that if I were a day
labourer I could easily support you on my wages."

The company laughed aloud at this. The idea of a day labourer with such
hands and feet as that!

Then Gerzson proceeded to relate to them the exploits or misadventures
in which his various limbs had more or less come to grief. "And now,"
concluded he, "I will tell your ladyship how I came by this scar on my
forehead. A few years ago I was visiting our friend Leonard, your
husband, my dear lady, at his castle at Hidvár, and whilst there we
spent two weeks among the glaciers."

"Night and day?" enquired the astonished Henrietta.

"Well, at night we built ourselves huts out of the branches of fir
trees. If, however, no rain fell we encamped in the open round our
watch-fire snugly wrapped up in our _bundas_[6]. Splendid fun I can
tell you! For two days, when our stores gave out, we lived on nothing
but bilberries and broiled bear's flesh."

[Footnote 6: Sheepskins.]

"You were badly off then."

"No, on the contrary, the paws of a bear are great delicacies, only we
had no salt to salt them with."

"Why did you not return home?"

"We could not, for four days together we had been on the track of a
blood-bear. Do you know what a blood-bear is? A bear is a very mild,
harmless sort of a beast in general, and is quite content with honey,
berries, and roots; but let him once taste blood and he rages about like
a lion, and more than that, he has a decided preference for human blood
before all other kinds of blood. We had been pursuing one of these old
malefactors four days running, as I have said; four times we got within
range of him and four times he broke away. He carried a few bullets away
with him beneath his hide, indeed, but a lot he cared about that! He
gave one or two of our badly-aiming huntsmen a clout on the head which
sent them flying, stripped the skin from the head of one of the beaters
and then took refuge in the wilderness. Friend Leonard and the other
gentlemen now wanted to abandon the chase, for they were frightfully
hungry and the heavy rain and rock scrambling had pretty well torn our
clothes from our bodies, yet I urged them to make another attempt on
the morrow. I assured them that if they beat up the wood once more we
should capture the bear. The whole lot of them were against me. Friend
Leonard insisted that we should not catch him, as a bear never remains
in the place where he has been wounded, but runs on and on night and
day; by this time he would have got right across the border into
Wallachia. 'Very well!' I said, 'What do you bet that he is not quite
near and we shall come upon him to-morrow?' Leonard replied he would bet
me two to one we shouldn't. 'All right!' said I. 'I'll pay you a hundred
ducats if we don't find Bruin to-morrow.' 'And I'll pay you a thousand
if we do,' said he. So the bet was clinched. Next morning in a thick
mist we sent out the beaters while we ourselves stood on our guard.
Leonard and I took up our post near a ravine waiting impatiently for the
mist to disperse. Towards mid-day it began to clear. No end of stags and
foxes ambled slowly past us, but we did not even aim at them; the bear
was our watchword. The beaters had pretty nearly finished their work. We
were standing only fifty paces or so apart, so we began to chat
together. 'I begin to be sorry for your hundred ducats,' said Leonard.
'I am still sorrier for the lost bear's skin,' said I. 'It is in
Wallachia by this time!' he replied. Behind my back, some ten yards off,
was the opening of a narrow hole; there were hundreds such in the rocks
all about. 'Come, now!' I cried, 'suppose my bear has stowed himself
away in this hollow!'--and there and then, like a mischievous little
boy, I poked the barrel of my gun into the hollow and fired off a couple
of shots in quick succession. A frightful roar came from the depths of
the cavern. The wild beast during all this noise, clamour and beating
about the bush was actually behind my back holding his tongue,--and a
splendid big beast he was, two heads taller than I and with tusks like a
wild boar. In a moment he was upon me, and I had already discharged my
two barrels. It is all over with me now, I thought! Why, it will be
nothing at all to a magnificent beast like this to tear such a wretched
creature as myself limb from limb! Erect on his hind legs he came
straight at me, smashing my hunting-knife at a single blow, and,
enfolding me in his terrible arms, he tried to mangle my features with
his teeth. At the last moment I called to Leonard: 'Shoot between us,
old chap! you will hit one of us anyhow!' I preferred being killed by a
bullet to being torn to bits. The next instant a report sounded, and I
was only just aware that the pair of us, still tightly embraced, were
rolling backwards into the bottom of the ravine. There, however, the
thick undergrowth held us up, and I perceived that my bear was quite
done for. The bullet had gone clean through his ear. Yes, a masterly
shot on Leonard's part it was, I must confess--at fifty paces at the
very moment when the bear's head and mine were near enough for kissing.
And I do think it was so nice of Leonard to risk a shot for me, when if
he had simply allowed me to be torn to pieces he would have saved his
thousand ducats, for he lost his bet, you see. Not only did he liberate
me, but he paid a thousand ducats for doing so."

"He acted like a true gentleman!" they all cried. It was the general
opinion.

"Your ladyship will see this splendid bear skin at Hidvár, it is a real
treasure for a hunter, I can tell you. And in fact if I had had the
choice I would much rather have had the bear skin than the thousand
ducats, and the exchange would have been much better for me too in the
long run, for I should have the skin to this day, whereas the thousand
ducats were forcibly taken from me at Dévá by that villain, Fatia
Negra."[7]

[Footnote 7: Black face.]

"Who is that?" enquired Henrietta curiously.

"A famous robber-chieftain in these mountains whom they can never lay
hands upon."

Henrietta cast anxious glances around her.

But here Hátszegi coolly interrupted him by striking his plate with his
fork: "I won't have my wife frightened to death by your highwayman
yarns," cried he, and changed the conversation. Shortly afterwards
Henrietta went to her chamber, leaving her husband with Mr. Gerzson and
his guests.

Such was Henrietta's first night after her marriage. She at least was so
far fortunate as not to be obliged to see her husband. Towards morning
she dozed off, and when she awoke again she found that the whole
company had long ago set off fox-hunting, nor did they return till late
in the evening, tired out, wet through, and dripping with sweat.
Henrietta meanwhile had discovered the remains of a dilapidated library
in an old disused huntsman's hut, had ferretted out of it a few Latin
books, and had amused herself with them,--at least so far as she was
able, for many of the leaves had been torn out and used as tinder.

It is notorious that tired sportsmen are about the dullest dogs on
earth; so Henrietta felt that she would not lose much when her husband
told her she had better go to rest early, as they must be up betimes
next morning. And, indeed, next morning they were off so early that,
except their old host, not one of the hunting party was there to bid
them God speed! But he again conducted his lady-guest to her carriage on
his crippled arm and arranged her cushions comfortably for her with his
three-fingered hand.

It was a very fine day for a journey, and the windows of the two
carriages were let down so that Henrietta was able to view the landscape
stretching out before her. She had never been here before, it was all
new to her. She discovered from Clementina's lamentations that they had
still a three days' journey before they reached home, and that they
would spend the coming night at the castle of Count Kengyelesy. The
coachmen had told Margari so, and he passed the news on to Clementina.
It also appeared that Count Kengyelesy was a very curious sort of man,
who contradicted Baron Hátszegi in everything, yet for all that they
were never angry with and always glad to see each other. The count was
also said to have a young wife who did not love him. So ran the gossip
of the servants. It was all one to Henrietta what they said about Count
Kengyelesy and his consort.

Between five and six in the afternoon they reached the count's castle,
which lay outside the village in the midst of rich tobacco and rapeseed
fields, and enclosed on three sides by a splendid English garden; the
place was arranged with taste and evidently well-cared for.

That the count expected the arrival of the Hátszegis was evident from
the fact that dinner was awaiting them. Kengyelesy was a little puny bit
of a man with very light bright hair, white eyelashes, and a pointed
chin made still more pointed by a long goatish beard. It always pleased
him very much when his friends confidentially assured him that he had a
perfect satyr-like countenance.

His wife was a young, chubby, lively lady with smiling blue eyes
unacquainted with sorrow, whom her husband on the occasion of a _bal
paré_ at Vienna had seen, fallen in love with, and carried off, although
the girl's father, a retired Field-marshal, was quite ready to surrender
her--they preferred, however, the romance of an elopement.

The countess received her lady-guest with the most effusive heartiness,
called her by her Christian name on the spot, and invited her to do that
same with her. She told Henrietta she was to feel quite at home, dragged
her all over the castle, and showed her in rapid succession her rare
flowers, her Parisian furniture, her Japanese curiosities; played
something for her on the piano, made her parrot talk to her and
incontinently popped on her finger a large and beautiful opal ring,
which she told her she was to keep as an eternal souvenir.

Then the countess seized the hand of the child-wife and led her into her
bed-chamber. On the wall hung a fine large battle-piece, a splendid oil
painting by a Viennese master.

"A magnificent picture, is it not?" enquired the countess with a broad
smile.

"Yes," replied Henrietta absently.

"How do you like the central figure? I mean the hero on horseback with
the standard in his hand?"

"He is handsome, but it seems to me that, situated as he is, he smiles
too much."

The countess laughed loudly at this remark.

"That," said she, "is the portrait of a young hussar officer who for a
long time paid his court to me. I could not, of course, keep his
portrait in my room, for there everyone would know all about it, so I
had a battle-piece painted in all round, and nobody suspects anything.
Oh! my friend, if women were not so inventive, they would often be very
unhappy. But that, mind! is a secret; not a soul must know about it."

Henrietta grew pensive. She also had her secret, but she would tell it
to nobody, not even on her death-bed. She also had a portrait written in
ineffaceable characters in her heart, yet between him and her stand two
infinite obstacles, the one a betrayed star whose name is Mesarthim, the
other that unbetrayable thing, whose name is--woman's honour!

"_Madame est servie!_" cried the epauletted lacquey, and the countess
drawing her arm through Henrietta's, led her into the dining-room, where
the gentlemen already awaited them.

After dinner the humorous young countess entertained Henrietta for a
long time with her amusing chatter. She told her, at the very outset,
things that young wives, as a rule, only confide to their most intimate
friends. She told her, for instance, how very jealous her little
Squirrel was (she called her husband by this pet name) and how he would
never take her to Vienna or Pest, because he suspected that she might
find someone there to interest her. Anything like correspondence on her
part was of course impossible; a wise woman will always have sense
enough never to part with a line of writing. Everything else, she
witnesses, treacherous servants, for instance--can always be disowned;
but there is no defence against a letter which has fallen into the wrong
hands. Oh no! she knew a trick worth two of that. Whenever the Squirrel
went to Vienna, she gave him a list of articles required by her from a
modiste in the town, on this list are set down hats, head-dresses,
muffs, and other similar articles. Squirrel always reads this list over
ten times at least, but finds nothing in it to excite his suspicions.
But it regularly escapes his attention what day is indicated by the date
at the head of the list, for he can never tell for the life of him on
what day of the month such or such a day will fall. Now at the head of
this list stands, instead of the date on which the goods are to be sent,
the date up to which the Squirrel intends to divert himself at Vienna.
This list the Squirrel in person conveys to the modiste, who
communicates with the person whom it most concerns, and the Kengyelesy
_puszta_[8] will not seem the end of the world to whomsoever has a
magnet in his heart to draw him thither.

[Footnote 8: Heath. But also, as in this place, used to designate the
uncut terated land forming part of a nobleman's estate.]

Henrietta was amazed and confounded by this new science, the very
alphabet of which was unknown to her. Even when she lay in bed she
ruminated for a long time how it was possible that certain things which
break the hearts of some people are nevertheless regarded by other
people as mere frolics all their lives.

The next morning everyone arose late. The gentlemen had been up till the
small hours and were hard to wake. They all met together in the
breakfast-room. Hátszegi and his host were preparing for the journey.
The count asked the young wife what she had dreamt about, "for," added
he, "whatever one dreams about the first night in a strange place is
sure to come true."

Henrietta did not like to speak of her dreams; her waking thoughts were
too often interwoven with them.

"And you, you great silly," said the countess to her husband in a
bantering tone, "did you dream anything of me?"

"Yes, darling, I dreamt that we shall spend the coming winter in Vienna.
Don't put so much sugar in my tea!"

"What! not for such a nice dream as that. Will it really come to pass?"

"Most certainly, pussy. We will go there together after the bathing
season is over."

The countess possessed sufficient self-control to conceal her delight.

"By the bye," said Kengyelesy, turning to Henrietta, "how does your
ladyship like the Kengyelesy _puszta_?"

"Very well."

"And the castle?"

"That is nice too."

"Don't you think it a good joke that yesterday your ladyship and your
honoured husband were my guests, whilst to-day we are your ladyship's
guests and that, too, without our having to move out of the house?"

"How?" enquired the astonished Henrietta.

"Why, we made an agreement this very morning whereby friend Leonard is
going to take over the whole property and everything belonging to
it--not you, my dear, of course," this to his wife, "I mean the nags and
the cows--and henceforth this house belongs to you."

"Don't forget to invite the countess to Hidvár for the vintage
festival," whispered Hátszegi to his wife.

Henrietta accordingly made the effort, and when they rose from the
breakfast she timidly expressed the wish that the Kengyelesys would do
them the honour to return their visit at Hidvár.

"Oh, we will be sure to come!" the fair countess hastened to reply,
"Squirrel will bring me to you in the autumn and we will remain a whole
month."

Kengyelesy also courteously accepted the invitation and then taking
Henrietta's little hand between his own palms so that he could just
manage to kiss the tips of her fingers, he said to her in a strange and
piteous sort of voice: "But then you must promise to love our friend
Leonard here a little better than you have done hitherto."

A shudder ran through Henrietta's body at these words. The very air of
the room was all at once difficult to breathe, and she only felt better
when she sat in the carriage again. But even there she was haunted by
some unendurable, undefinable, torturing feeling which struck her still
more unpleasantly when Clementina remarked: "Yes, there is nothing but
good land on this _puszta_."

Why, what could it matter to the honest creature whether the land was
good or not, it was surely all one to her?

"Two thousand acres in one lot, nothing but first-class land."

"How do you know that?" asked Henrietta.

"Margari told me he drew up the agreement and witnessed it, and yet no
money was paid down."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Did not your ladyship then understand the allusion the count made just
now when he asked you to love your husband a little more than hitherto?"

"What has such nonsense to do with me?"

"He meant by that that he who is unlucky in love is lucky at play; for
last night my lord baron played cards with my lord count and won from
him the whole Kengyelesy estate straight off."

Henrietta felt like one who is in the embrace of the boa-constrictor and
unable to defend himself. She had not expected this.

But Clementina was only too delighted to have something to chatter
about. "And do you know, your ladyship," she continued, "the baron and
the count have been rivals for a long time, and each has always been
trying his hardest to ruin the other--in a friendly way, of course. The
chambermaid told Margari, and Margari told me. 'I will not be content,
comrade,' my lord baron used to say to my lord count, 'till one of us is
reduced to his last jacket, and as soon as one of us is absolutely
beggared, the other will hold himself bound to maintain him, in a way
befitting a gentleman till the day of his death.' Strange men these,
madame, eh!"

Perceiving, however, from Henrietta's looks that there was something
depressing to her young mistress in her narration, she tried to soften
the effect of her words by intimating that the count had another
property besides, although not such a nice castle, and also that it was
open to him to buy back the former estate in thirty years' time if he
could find the money.

"That will do, Clementina, my head aches badly!" said Henrietta. She
wished to rid herself of this uncalled-for gabble, in order that she
might devote herself to her own thoughts.

And what thoughts! She had had no idea that such things could be. How
was it possible that two men who called themselves friends, could ruin
one another thus in cold blood? How was it possible that a man could
enter the house of an affectionate host as a welcome guest in the
evening, and by next morning leave him not an inch of land on which to
put his foot, or a roof to cover his head! "And one has to get
accustomed to such things!" thought she.

All the day long their journey lay through that brain-wearying plain
whose endless flatness oppressed soul and body with its monotony and
soon drove her back to her own thoughts. Towards evening there were
signs of rain. Clouds were rising and then, at least, there would be
something new to point at in the eternal monotony of the sky.
Unfortunately clouds have the bad habit of bringing tempests along with
them, and tempests are evil travelling companions on the steppes of the
_Alföld_.[9] The towers of the town they were trying to reach were still
only dimly visible on the horizon. In ordinary weather it would not have
mattered if they had arrived late, for they had reckoned upon the
moonlight; but there could be no moon to-night, instead of her a storm
full of angry lightnings was approaching. Already from afar they could
hear it rumbling as it drove dust-clouds before it, could hear that
peculiar, continuous, roar as of some giant hand playing uninterruptedly
on the keys of some terrible organ. Whoever has been caught on the
_Alföld_ in a storm knows the meaning of that wind; it means that the
tempest is bringing hail with it.

[Footnote 9: The great Hungarian plain.]

One thing was now certain: they must turn aside somewhere. All that
Henrietta observed, however, was that her carriage stood still for a
moment, and then Hátszegi's carriage went on in front, the baron himself
seizing the horses' reins and shouting to the coachman behind him:
"After me as hard as you can tear!" With that they left the road and
plunged right across country through ditches and swamps and low, marshy
ground till the water came up to the very axles of the wheels and
Clementina shrieked that they were perishing. But there was no need to
be afraid. Hátszegi was a skilful coachman, who could ever find his way
even where there was no way at all. About a four hours' journey off, a
pump now became visible, and beyond it a little hut loomed white and
high, there they must seek a refuge from the tempest as it passed over
them. And indeed they had only just reached the small courtyard when the
first lumps of ice as big as nuts, began bombarding the windows of the
carriages.

"Quick, quick, into the house!" cried Hátszegi. The baron himself helped
his wife and Clementina to descend and hurried them in beneath the
verandah, which was made of crooked branches and hung over the kitchen
door like a shade over the forehead of a weak-sighted man.

On their approach the woman of the house emerged from the kitchen with
her head tied up in a red handkerchief. She was no longer young, but
ruddy, robust, bright-eyed, and bustling, and as full of sparkle as if
she had just sprung out of the fire.

On perceiving her guests she clapped her hands together.

"Lord deliver us, if it isn't his lordship! And only just married now,
eh!--after all these years! But which is the bride, your lordship?
Surely not this one (pointing to Clementina) for she is an old
dear!--and yet the other is but a child!"

The baron hastened to interrupt this uncalled-for outburst.

"Come, come, my good woman! No chatter now, please, for the hail will be
upon us in a moment; but take these ladies into a room and see that it
is clean and comfortable. Henrietta! pray get out of the rain."

The _csárdá_[10] woman kissed Henrietta's hand with great familiarity
and kept on saying in a quavering voice: "Oh, thou tender little
creature! to think of giving them to husbands so early!" cried she. But
Clementina, who was always nervous in strange places, called the baron's
attention to the fact that loud masculine voices were proceeding from
somewhere within the _csárdá_.

[Footnote 10: Inn.]

"Have you anyone here now?" enquired the baron of the _csárdá_ woman.

"Yes, three or four lads and _Ripa_. The old fellow has just been
released from the prison at Arad. I don't know whether he served his
full time. Pray walk in!"

"They are not robbers, are they?" asked Clementina hesitating.

"No, dear heart alive, there are no robbers in these parts, but only
poor vagabonds. You will not find robbers nearer than the Bakony forest.
These poor fellows hurt nobody, least of all ladies. I don't count old
Ripa at all, but only the other three. It would be another thing if
Blackey were here, for he is a fine gentleman and likes to amuse
himself with the ladies. But don't think, dear soul, that his features
are black, oh, dear, no! I call him 'Blackey' because he always wears a
mask of black velvet lest he should be recognized, only his eyes and
mouth are ever visible."

And with such comforting assurances she escorted Henrietta and
Clementina up the narrow staircase.

They had to pass through the long tap-room before they came to the inner
parlour. At the guest table were sitting three hardy looking young
fellows and an old pock-marked man, a foxey-eyed rascal who drank out of
the others' glasses from time to time and kept the conversation going.

"Come! shut up, Ripa!" said the landlady to the old man. "This is no
Jew-Madame, but the spouse of my lord, Baron Hátszegi. Show your manners
if you have any and thank her for the honour."

The old rascal rose from his bench with cunning humility and twisting up
both ends of his gray moustache, politely kissed Henrietta's hand, and
would have paid the same compliment to Clementina if the landlady had
not prevented him by shouting: "Leave her alone, she is only a sort of
servant!"

With that she led the ladies into the inner room, where were two lofty
bedsteads reaching to the beams above, covered with bright bedding and
prettily painted over with tulips and roses. In the window screens were
wide-spreading rosemary and musk plants. In front of one of the great
chests stood a spinning wheel. From this the landlady, winter and
summer, spun off that fine thread from which were woven those bright and
gay handkerchiefs which could be seen bobbing about in the doorway of
the inn from afar. One would never have expected to find such ease and
comfort in a _csárdá_ of the _puszta_.

The landlady very politely divested Henrietta of her travelling clothes,
made a soft resting place for her with cushions in an arm-chair, put a
stool beneath her feet, and in less time than it took to draw a breath,
totted up ten different kinds of dishes that she might choose from them
the one she liked best. Perhaps she would like some leaf-cake? It was
just cooking and would be served up immediately, and she began spreading
the table with a nice horse-cloth. Clementina whispered Henrietta to
beware of poison, whereupon Henrietta told the landlady that she _would_
have a bit of that nice dish, and when it came she really enjoyed it,
though she did not know what it was, at which the landlady was
infinitely pleased.

Meanwhile Hátszegi came in after seeing that the carriages were put into
a dry place. He took no notice of the poor vagabonds, but hastily
demanded a change of clothes, as his own were soaking, and was amazed to
see Henrietta handling her knife and fork so well; it was the first time
on the whole journey that she had eaten with appetite. Henrietta said
that this peasant roast suited her taste.

"And now, Dame Kardos, will you put the ladies up for the night?" said
Hátszegi to the woman of the _csárdá_.

"Certainly," returned the worthy woman, "I have feather mattresses
enough and bedsteads enough for as many guests of quality as your
lordship likes. This bed will be my lord baron's and this my lady's, and
this the lady attendant's!"

"Not so quick, not so quick! I shall not lie here."

"Not lie here?" cried this child of the _puszta_. "Why, pray?"

"Oh! I'll find some place or other in the tap-room outside."

"It's a way great folks have, I suppose," murmured Dame Kardos,
shrugging her shoulders, "but I never saw or heard the likes of it
before."

"But, my lord," lisped Clementina, greatly agitated, "won't those wild
vagabonds outside disturb you?"

"Me?" exclaimed Hátszegi, "how the devil can they disturb _me_?"

"They are such wicked men, surely?"

"I don't care what sort of men they are." And with that he went out with
the utmost _sang froid_; nay, as Clementina herself noticed, he drew
forth his pocket pistols and left them behind him on the table.

"His lordship has no need to fear such men," the landlady reassured the
ladies, "for he can talk to them in their own lingo."

Henrietta did not understand. Did robbers then speak a dialect peculiar
to themselves? She became quite curious to hear how Hátszegi would speak
to the robbers in their own language.

But the landlady knew exactly what to do. She filled a _kulacs_[11] for
the baron and placed it on the table before him. Hátszegi took a good
pull at it, dried the mouth of the _kulacs_ and passed it on to the old
pockmarked vagabond who, after raising his cap, took a little drop
himself and then passed it on to the others.

[Footnote 11: A wooden field-flask.]

"Well, old fellow, is the wine good?"

"Wine is always good."

"Have you had enough?"

"One can never have enough."

"Then God grant you plenty!--By the way, does the wind still blow
through the crevices of the prison door at Arad?"

"It blows for him who lists to it. Let him who likes it not close his
ears to it."

"Have many children been born to the governor of the jail lately?"[12]

[Footnote 12: Whenever a new convict arrives at the jail, the governor
is said to have another son born to him.--_Jókai_.]

"Yes, lots have been born there--and christened too."[13]

[Footnote 13: _i.e._, with stripes.--_Jókai_.]

"Has the daughter of the cord[14] been married lately?"

[Footnote 14: A flowery expression for the gallows.--_Jókai_.]

"Only Marczi Csendes has been elevated lately. He was a fool. He took
the crime of two comrades on his shoulders in order to let them go free.
They were caught in the act, but he swore he did the deed. They were
young bloods, you see, and he had nobody to care for him. And yet it was
they who presented the empty pistol at the Jew's head. The Jew himself
pointed them out, but Marczi steadfastly maintained that it was he who
frightened the fellow."

"So they made him cold against the winter time?"

"Yes, but he didn't very much care. The hour before his execution he
took an affectionate leave of his comrades, and to me he bequeathed his
warm old sheepskin. When the priest asked him whether he had anything
upon his conscience, he merely said the only thing that grieved him was
the thought that he would never again be able in this life to eat his
fill of well peppered _gulyás_[15] such as old Ripa knew how to cook.
They humoured him, and I was sent into the kitchen to prepare it. My old
friend ate with a good appetite and wanted me to take a bit too; but my
throat felt as cramped as if they had already taken my measure round it
with the gallows rope. He gave each of the two heydukes who accompanied
him in the felon's car, one on his right, the other on his left, a
silver coin apiece. The heydukes told us afterwards that when he got
outside he rose up in the car and addressed the people. He was a tall,
handsome fellow with red cheeks, long black hair and a fine sonorous
voice like any chaplain's. His last words were: 'Well, I now look upon
this fair world for the last time.'"

[Footnote 15: Hungarian pilau.]

"Did he leave behind him any new songs," enquired Hátszegi. "He was
always a famous singer."

"Yes, one he made in jail, and a splendid song it was too, I can tell
you. Bandi! pipe it to his lordship on your _tilinka_ as I have taught
you." At these words one of the youths drew forth from his sleeve one of
those flutes made of elder-wood, which in Hungarian goes by the name of
a _tilinka_, and which with its poor six holes is able to give forth as
many variations as the throat of a lark; then, without any virtuoso airs
he simply piped the plaintive melody.

The baron was immensely pleased. "Margari," cried he, "go to the
carriage, look for my fiddle and bring it hither!"

At this command poor Margari had a veritable ague fit of terror. All
this time he had remained ducking down in the carriage firmly persuaded
that the robbers in this lonely place would cut down every mother's son
of them at nightfall. In such a case he was prepared to swear that he
had never belonged to the party at all, but would pretend he was only a
poor tramp, and so escape that way. And now the baron had ruined his
little plan by ordering him to come forth! The robbers would now
absolutely believe that he also was a swell. Oh, it is a frightful
situation when a poor devil has managed to get a 100 gulden into his
purse for the first time in his life and is obliged the very next
evening to put up at an inn full of robbers! What the devil did the
baron want with the fiddle at all? And then what sort of a thing _was_ a
fiddle? When a man is terrified he easily mistakes one thing for another
and Margari's first experiment was to carry in to the baron a long
leaden box containing the territorial chart of the Kengyelesy
estate--was that what his lordship wanted?

"Have you lost your wits, Margari? How could you possibly get a fiddle
into that? Or has the fellow never cast eyes on a fiddle? Bandi, you go
and look in the carriage for the fiddle!"

But this was not at all to Margari's liking. What, send that vagabond to
the carriage to ferret about there! His lordship must have clean taken
leave of his senses. Why, in the carriage was Margari's own brand-new
mantle, for which he had paid nine and twenty gulden. The vagabond would
be sure to lay his hands upon it. No, he would rather go to look for the
fiddle himself. So he found the violin case at last somehow, and handing
it to the baron through the _csárdá_ window (for he durst not trust
himself inside), he retired again beneath the coach-house, although the
rain was now splashing down upon it.

Baron Leonard took from its morocco case his splendid Straduarius, that
relic of the greatest master of fiddle-making, for which he had paid a
small fortune, and following the lead of the young vagabond's _tilinka_
played the bitter-sweet melancholy air on the sonorous instrument, and
at the third trial he enriched it with so many variations as to astonish
everyone. Then Ripa became enthusiastic and chimed in with his hoarse
old voice.

When the baron once had the violin in his hands, he was not content with
playing a single song, one melody enticed another forth, and so, one
after another, his fiddle-bow ran through all those rhapsodies of the
last century, those compositions of the "Gipsy-Beethoven," Bihari, and
other great popular masters, with the most classical variations. Princes
listen not to such a concert as now resounded through that wretched,
desolate _csárdá_. Even Henrietta arose from her couch the better to
enjoy these melancholy airs. If ever in her life, it was at this moment
that she beheld her husband in an aureole of dazzling light which
irresistibly attracted, overpowered, subdued.

One thing, however, struck her as strange, incredible--how could a
fashionable man brought up in the atmosphere of elegant saloons, find
any pleasure in playing _bravoura_ pieces in the tap room of a miserable
_csárdá_ to an audience of half-tipsy vagabonds? Was this an habitual
diversion of these wealthy magnates, or was it only Hátszegi's bizarre
humour?

However, when "the lads" began to chime in a little too vigourously,
Hátszegi restored the violin to its case, took out his pocket-book,
opened it before them all and nonchalantly displayed as he did so the
bundles of thousand-gulden notes which it contained. Nay, he searched
among them for stray ten-gulden notes and gave one to each of the four
vagabonds "for the fine song they had taught him"--that was the way he
put it--at the same time requesting them to quit the tap-room, as the
ladies in the adjoining chamber wanted to sleep and must not be kept
awake by any further noise. The vagabonds must seek a couch elsewhere.

The vagabonds, without the slightest objection, arose, drank up the
dregs of the wine, pocketed the bank-notes without so much as a "thank
you!" and settled down for the night on the roof of the coach-house--to
the great terror of Margari, who was concealed in one of the coaches and
did not have a wink of sleep all night, his teeth chattered so.

But Hátszegi, when the drinkers had withdrawn, spread out his hunting
pelisse on the long table, laid down thereon and quietly fell asleep. He
did not even shut the door, nor did he have his pistols by him.

In the adjoining chamber, meanwhile, the _csárdá_-woman had brought out
her spindle, set all its many wheels a-working and began to tell her
ladyship a lot of those wondrous tales that have neither beginning nor
end, _puszta_ adventures, the atrocities of vagabonds and their
fellows, the sad love stories of poor deserted maidens and such like.
And all the while the wheels of the spindle whirr-whirr-whirred
monotonously, and Henrietta felt like a little child whose nurse sits
beside her bed and lulls her to sleep with fairy tales. For weeks she
had not enjoyed so quiet and dreamless a slumber as she had that night
beneath the roof of the _csárdá_ in the midst of the lonely _puszta_.

Next morning Clementina, after first making quite sure that nobody had
had his or her throat cut during the night, was moved by curiosity to
ask what sort of connection his lordship had with this _csárdá_ since he
seemed to know everybody in it. And then she learnt that not only this
_csárdá_ but the whole of the surrounding _puszta_ also was the property
of his lordship, for which the people who lived upon it paid very little
rent, inasmuch as his lordship did not look upon it as a source of
income but chiefly valued it on account of its numerous reedy lakes
where he was wont every year to hunt water-fowl and beavers on a grand
scale. Moreover, from this spot to his own house, a good two days'
journey by foot, everything belonged to his lordship's estate. Nay, his
lordship, if he liked, could traverse the whole kingdom from Deva to
Pest, and be on his own property the whole time, it was only like moving
from one of his houses to another.

The next day the Hungarian plain came to an end and the Transylvanian
Alps drew nearer and nearer. In the evening they descended into a little
mining town whose forges and furnaces were all illuminated in honour of
the arriving guests. Henrietta then learnt that this mining town also
belonged to her husband.

On the third day, quite early in the morning, they crossed the
Transylvanian frontier. The whole of that splendid region seemed to
smile, but the faces of its inhabitants are sad and mysterious.
Henrietta had a peculiar sense of anxiety during her stay among these
angry looking people who spoke a language she had never heard before. At
intervals of a mile all along the road a roughly carved cross shot up,
covered with clumsily carved letters, which did not in the least
resemble those we are accustomed to. Clementina once asked the coachman
what these crosses might mean and repented doing so immediately
afterwards, for he informed her that they marked the places where
unlucky travellers had come by an untimely death; the inscriptions were
the records of the tragic romances through the scene of which they were
passing.

The valleys grew narrower and narrower, the road wound upward among
precipices, and the loquacious coachman attached horrible stories to
every rock and ruin. Each valley seemed to have its own particular
ghost.

Here and there by the roadside stood silent houses not one of which had
an inviting appearance, it would never have occurred to a human soul to
knock at any of them, even at midnight, to ask for a night's lodging.
They were all of them sooty dilapidated shanties, which might easily
have been taken for stables, consisting of a single room in which the
whole family lived, livestock and all. The church often lay far away
from the settlement as if it belonged to two villages equally.

Then the road rose again between bare and barren cliffs, where only here
and there a solitary bush seemed to cling to the rocky wall. There was
no trace of a garden, but here and there was a fenced in space in which
the Roumanians are wont to unload their hay, with a long pole sticking
up in the midst of the hay ricks to prevent the wind from carrying it
away, or else the hay was piled up on the branch of a living tree like a
bird's nest.

Down-pouring mountain streams traversed the path at intervals, over
which never a bridge is built, all cars and coaches must cross by the
fords. From the depths of the wooded mountain slopes was reflected the
blood-red glare of iron works and foundries, and the droaning monotonous
din of the machinery scares away the stillness till it loses itself in
the loud murmuring of the mountain torrents.

At every fresh mile, Henrietta felt how lonely she was in this strange
world, whose giant mountains shut her out from the very prospect of the
familiar places from which she had come and from every possibility of
returning; and whose inhabitants would not even be able to answer her if
she were to ask them: "Which is the way back to my native place?"

They travelled onwards till late at night by the light of the moon.
Hidvár was now close at hand. As the prospect opened out on both sides,
at the turn of a narrow defile, suddenly, like a picture in a black
frame, between two mountain slopes, thickly covered with dark
beech-trees, the castle of Hidvár came full in view, standing lonely and
isolated on the summit of a hill. The mountain torrent shot swiftly down
beneath a shaky bridge. The round moon stood straight over the tower of
the castle, as if it had been impaled on the point of it, and painted
everything with its silvery light, the tower, the bastions, the brook
and the valley--only one thing it brightened not, the heart of the young
wife.




CHAPTER VII

THE CAVERN OF LUCSIA


Not so very long ago there was in Transylvania a wide-spreading society
of coiners which, it is now notorious, had carried on its nefarious
business undetected for more than half a century. The science was an
inheritance descending from father to son, people married and were born
into it. Careful parents trained their children to follow it, and a very
lucrative profession it proved to be. That it should have remained
undiscovered for so long a time, that it should have been plied
successfully for more than fifty years under the very noses of the
authorities--all this was capable of a very simple explanation, _these
men coined gold pieces_.

Yes, genuine ducats, of full weight, out of real three-and-twenty carat
gold, without any admixture of baser metal, so that they absolutely
could not be distinguished from the royal ducats of the authorized
minting towns, Körmöcz and Gyulafehervár. If they fell into the hands of
a goldsmith, and he melted them, he found that they did not contain half
a grain more silver than the genuine ones. Indeed the public lost
nothing by their fabrication, though the state treasury suffered
considerably.

The whole region, in fact, from Zalathna to Verespatak abounded in that
precious metal which some fool or other has called "a mere chimera," and
the gold mining was farmed out to private individuals, the yearly output
from the shafts being twelve hundredweights. These private diggers are
bound to deliver the gold they obtain to the minting towns at Abradbanya
or Gyulafehervár and there receive coined money in exchange.
Nevertheless, during some fifty years, only about six hundredweights
were delivered annually at these places; the rest disappeared, though at
first nobody could suspect it. The State pays to the diggers 441 guldens
for every pound of gold dust, which quantity when coined is worth 720
guldens. But it occurred to the mountaineers that they also might
profitably engage in coining and circulate the money so coined. So they
provided themselves with all the necessary implements and machinery
(there were skilled workmen among them) and issued false ducats to their
very great advantage. Their existence was not even suspected except by
the parties interested in the concern, and they had every motive in the
world for preserving the secret.

       *       *       *       *       *

Travelling from Abradbanya up towards Bucsum, one might have seen two
riders toiling up the mountain along the stream overshadowed by dark
alders; one of them was a grey-haired, gigantic Roumanian, the other a
proud-looking young woman. The old man wore a lambskin mantle, on his
head he carried a tall pointed cap, also of lambs' wool, drawn down over
his eyebrows, his body was carelessly girdled with a golden girdle. His
rich grey locks were plaited into two thick pig-tails which reached down
to his broad shoulders, and his snow-white moustache hung down from his
mouth like two seamew's wings. A coarse sack lay in front of him across
his saddle, both ends of which appeared to be full of something heavy;
across the sack lay his fowling-piece.

The fair cavalier was sitting on a small, wild, shaggy horse, which
constantly evinced a praiseworthy endeavour to overtake the rider in
front of him; his mistress with difficulty held him in. She was one of
those famous Roumanian beauties. Her features, the cut of her lips, her
full chin could have stood as a model beside any antique statue. And
then those sparkling eyes, that vividly red complexion, those coal-black
eyebrows--they made an ideal beauty of her. And the picturesque
Roumanian costume enhanced her charms. Her black hair, twisted into a
double plait, was bound round with a flaming-red scarf, and on her head
she wore a round hat, trimmed with pearls and garnished in front with a
row of gold pieces which reached down to her marble-white forehead.
Moreover, her fine cambric shirt embellished with bright flowers and
gold ornaments fitted so closely as to betray the outlines of her
harmonious figure. Wound ten times round her neck she wore a necklace
of gold coins extending down to her bosom. As she rode along (and she
sat astride her saddle like a man), every now and then one could catch
glimpses beneath her variegated girdle of her red morocco boots and of a
Turkish dagger, with a massive silver handle, gleaming forth from their
shafts. On each side of her holsters peeped forth a double-barrelled
pistol with an ivory handle.

When the old man stopped to water his horse at the spring gushing forth
from the black slate rock, he said to the girl: "Anicza, when did you
speak last with Fatia Negra?"

"Just a month ago. It was at the time of the full moon, like it is now.
He then said that he was going away on a long journey."

"And yet he has already been at home these two days. I saw his sign over
against my window."

"Impossible. It cannot be," cried the girl passionately.

"What cannot be? Do you think I am dreaming or lying?"

"If he were at home, he would have come to see me ere this."

The old man shrugged his shoulders.

"And yet he did not come. But the day before yesterday, about midnight,
I found the three owl-feathers there in the window."

"The wind carried them thither."

"The wind did not carry them thither for they were stuck fast in putty.
And only we three know what that means. Fatia Negra would speak with us
and we are going to meet him in the Lucsia cavern."

"It cannot, cannot be--three days at home and never to come to me--to
_me_!"

"Who knows?" said the old man coolly, tightening his saddle girth, "a
whole month is a long while, long enough for the moon herself to change
four times. There are many pretty wenches on the other side of the
mountain."

"O no! such a one as I am he will not find there," said the girl
proudly, glancing into the tremulous water-mirror which threw back a
distorted likeness of her defiant face--"and besides he knows very well
that I should murder him were such a woman to mock me."

"Ah, ah!" mocked the old man, "so Fatia Negra is afraid of you,
eh?"--and with that he swung himself back into his saddle with
youth-like agility. "Black Face fears nobody, I tell you. He is not even
afraid of the commandant of Gyulafehervár, nor of the lord-lieutenant of
Krasna, and they have no end of soldiers and heydukes. Nay, he fears not
the devil himself."

And with that he urged on his horse which ambled forward meditatively,
whilst the girl's little nag whinnied in the rear.

"He may not fear the great gentlemen, he may not fear the devil, but I
tell you that he would be afraid of the girl he made to love him, if he
proved false to her."

"So you really think he loves you violently?" said the old man casting a
backward glance at her.

"He swore he did."

"To whom? the priest?"

"Go along with you! No, to me!"

At this the old man chuckled--"little fool!" said he.

"And if he breaks his oath now, the devil shall have him. I'll murder
him."

"Very well, I suppose you know him. Yet you have never seen his face. If
he were to tear the black velvet mask from his face you would never
recognize him."

"But that he cannot do as to that mask he owes all his power."

"Well, you are a comical wench--to be enamoured of a man whose face you
have never seen!"

"I recognize him by his voice, by the beating of his heart."

"Well, if I were a girl and had a lover, I would insist on seeing his
face. He should not come to me in a mask anyhow."

"He cannot put off his mask, I tell you. His oath forbids him to. The
moment he removes his mask from his face his power is gone, and neither
the devil nor the good angels will obey him any longer."

"That is true," returned the old man solemnly. "When he likes he can
make himself invisible. I know it. He has always escaped pursuit even
when the whole country was out after him, and when they thought they had
him fast he always disappeared in the earth or in the air. Yet, for all
that, if I were his love, see his face I would."

"He told me I should die of fright if I beheld it."

"Then I _would_ die of fright--but I would see it."

"His eyes are very fine,--they glow like coals."

"Like coals? Perhaps he is the Dracu[16] himself. Have you ever tried to
make him kiss the amulet on which is the image of St. George and the
Dragon?"

[Footnote 16: Dracu-dragon, _i.e._, devil.]

"Yes he has kissed it and was none the worse."

"Have you tried to get him to lay his three fingers on a copper
crucifix?"

"He laid his fingers thereon and yet they were not burnt."

"Can he say the prayer of condemnation without trembling?"

"He has said it hundreds of times."

"Nevertheless, I maintain he is no mortal man."

"If he should love another woman, I swear that he will very soon find
out that he _is_ mortal."

Talking thus the riders had descended into the depths of the valley, and
when the mountain stream again crossed their path they quitted the usual
footpath and followed the bed of the stream. And a very good road it is
for such as do not wish to leave foot-marks behind them. The rapid
current swiftly fills the traces of the horses' hoofs with leaves and
pebbles.

The ravine grew ever deeper and narrower, and the stream at intervals
formed small cataracts which the horses, who had been trained thereto,
had to cross. Finally, at a sudden declivity, the water took an
unexpected leap of four yards, and when the riders reined up at this
very spot, it was plain that here a mill had been built into the
hillside, whose wheel it was which drove the swiftly plunging water
along.

If a stranger saw this mill he would certainly say: "What foolish man
the miller must be who has built his mill here," (----) and that for
three reasons. Firstly, because it was so concealed beneath the thick
alders that even if one sees it one cannot get at it. Secondly, because
it is built exactly under the water-fall which drives the wheel as
rapidly as a spindle, so that the millstone must needs be red hot
beneath it. Thirdly, because the way to this mill is so peculiar,
passing right through the mountain torrent and then winding down to the
door by way of a foot-path hewn in the naked rock, and inaccessible to
horses. Well, such a miller will surely get but little grain to grind!

When the two riders reached this spot they sprang from their horses, led
them into a little dry islet formed by the alders and tied them by
their halters to the branches. Then the old man lifted the sack from
the saddle.

"Give me a lift up, Anicza!" said he.

One would hardly have supposed that an old fellow of such a colossal
build would have required any help at all in order to get this sack
across his shoulders, nor would one have supposed from the size of the
sack that it would have been so heavy to lift or that it would have
weighed so heavily on the old man's shoulders that he had to plant his
hand firmly on his hip in order to carry the load.

Then the girl drew both pistols forth from her holsters, stuck them into
her girdle, threw the long fowling-piece across her shoulder and
springing fearlessly across the stream from boulder to boulder followed
behind the stooping old man along the narrow foot-path which led to the
mill. In the doorway of the mill stood a youth clad in the usual coarse
cloth "_guba_" and half concealed by the door post. In one hand he held
a double-barrelled musket, an implement not absolutely necessary for a
miller. The old man addressed him while still a good way off:

"_Che timpu?_"[17]

[Footnote 17: What sort of weather?]

"_Luna plina._"[18]

[Footnote 18: Full moon.]

A strange sort of greeting, more like an exchange of pass-words.

Then both the new arrivals entered the mill in the midst of which a
dilapidated grinding machine was revolving, the central wheel was minus
a couple of teeth.

"Plenty of grinding going on, Paul?" asked the old man.

"Quite enough."

"Help me down with this sack."

"It is heavy certainly," said the other, panting beneath the strain,
"how much does it hold?"

"A hundredweight and eighty pounds."

"No mere Turkish maize, eh?"

"Stop the wheel!"

The young man at once obeyed by driving an iron beam clean through the
wheel which brought the machinery to a standstill. Then he raised the
central revolving disc which was in connection with the millstone, hung
in the hook of the millstone an iron chain which was wound round the
beam and this done, laid the sack and its contents on the bolting-hutch.
Then the old man himself, sat down on the hutch and extended his hand to
the girl. "Jump on Anicza." And the girl jumped on without help for she
was as agile as a chamois.

"Paul," said the old man to the young journeyman, "was not Fatia Negra
here before us?"

"He has not been through here either to-day or yesterday. It has been my
turn to watch these last two days."

"I am right you see; he is not here," said the girl.

"He _is_ here, I tell you."

"Come Onucz," said the youth, "can Black Face make himself invisible
then? He could not pass here without my knowing it!"

"What do you know about it?" answered the old man, adjusting himself on
the bolting-hutch. "Let the mill go!"

As now the revolving disc or platform began to move, the machinery stood
still, yet the millstone together with the bolting-hutch began slowly to
sink downwards together with those sitting upon it, and after some
moments, disappeared entirely into a dark gulf, the chain unwinding and
rattling after it. Suddenly from the depths below resounded the old
man's voice: "Halt!" Then Paul stopped the mill, hung the chain in an
iron ring and the machinery once more set in motion, raised the
millstone up, Paul fastened the revolving disc to it and it began to
rattle round again so furiously that sparks flew out of it. Now whoever
had any meal to grind might come, he was quite ready for them.

It was a huge subterraneous cavern into which Onucz and Anicza had
descended. At the bottom of this hollow flowed a branch of the mountain
stream which turned the mill and indeed was diverted thither by means of
wooden pipes. Here, however, it flowed in its regular bed, glistening
here and there in the light of two oil lamps which burnt on both sides
of a small iron bridge that traversed the stream.

In the background of this hollow stood a peculiar, roofless, stone
building, whose two round little windows, like the eternally watchful
eyes of some underground worm, shone with a red glare which dazzled the
eyes, while the slate-covered chimney belched forth a thick smoke filled
with sparks into the subterranean midnight.

From the interior of the building resounded heavy thuds and the din of
grinding as of machinery in perpetual motion which made the very
foundations of the rocks quiver. On the bridge stood another armed man
with whom the new arrivals exchanged watchwords and the same thing was
done at the door of the stone building where the old man made the girl
stop.

"Now Anicza," said he, "while I go in, you sit down on that stone bench
and wait for me."

"Why cannot I go into the house as well?" enquired the girl,
impatiently.

"No more of that. Once a year we come here and every time you ask again
if you can come in, and every time I tell you that cannot be. And now I
tell you once more: _it cannot be_--and there's an end on't."

"But why may others go in and I not?"

"Why--why! because you are a girl, of course. Leave me in peace. Women
have no business in there, they are always so inquisitive, want to know
everything and then blab it all out--it is their nature so."

"I'm not like that."

"And then whoever enters here has to swear a frightful oath that he
will divulge nothing that he sees. I myself shudder all over when I have
to repeat it; it is not fit for the mouth of a woman."

"As if _I_ were afraid of any oath!" cried the girl defiantly. "I would
say any thing that a man might say."

"Don't be a fool, Anicza. A girl cannot come in here, because everyone
has to strip himself stark naked before he goes out, before the
watchman, and then dress himself again. So you see it won't do."

This difficulty appeared insuperable even to the iron will of Anicza. It
was a test even she could not submit to. She stamped her foot with rage
and uttered again and again the word Dracu, which in Roumanian means
nothing less than his highness the devil himself.

Old Onucz and the watchman thereupon laughed heartily, and the same
instant the iron door of the building opened and the girl exclaimed
joyfully: "Fatia Negra!"

Onucz and the watchman immediately tore their caps from their heads. It
was, indeed, Fatia Negra.

How could he get hither invisibly through all the ambushes set for him?
Who could tell? Who had the courage to ask him? Not even Anicza. All she
thought of at that moment was to rush forward, fall upon the neck of her
mysterious lover and cover his eyes and mouth, which the mask left
exposed, with kisses.

"Let Anicza come in!" said the black-masked man, "I'll answer for her,
and she shall, like myself, be exempted from undressing."

"It is well, Domnule,"[19] said the watchman, "but let her at least take
the oath which everyone here must swear."

[Footnote 19: Master.]

"I am ready," cried the girl boldly.

"No, Anicza," replied Black Mask, "you shall swear to me a stronger oath
even than that, you shall swear--by our eternal love."

The proud maiden, trembling with joy, fell at the feet of Fatia Negra at
these words, and pressing one of her hands to her heart, raised the
other aloft, and, raising her lovely eyes--which reflected the infernal
glare of the windows--aloft, towards the smoking canopy above her head,
she swore by her eternal love to her beloved that she would never, not
even on the rack itself, betray a word, a syllable of what she was about
to learn.

But old Onucz scratched his poll.

"Domnule, it is not wise of you to let women swear on such useless
things. It is just as if one of us were to hold a penny in his hand and
swear by that. It binds nobody."

"It is enough for me," replied the Mask, "and my head is no cheaper than
yours. Let him who trusts me not keep away from here."

And holding the girl in his arms, he carried her with him into the
building while old Onucz had to dress himself from head to foot in other
clothes and leave those he had brought with him outside. He would have
on his return to put on his own again and leave these others behind.
Thus smuggling was impossible.

The first room was for the smelting.

Here there was nothing to be seen of the blazing fire which illuminated
the dark hollow through the windows, in one corner of the room was a
simple cylinder shaped iron furnace which radiated a burning heat, on
the top of which stood a round graphite crucible covered in at the top
and provided with a lateral pipe.

"Here the gold is remelted after it has come out of the purifying oven,"
said Fatia Negra to the girl who pressed close up to him. "Heretofore it
required a whole apparatus of boilers and loads and loads of wood to
bring it to smelting heat, but since I got that cylinder-stove, ten
hundredweights of metal can be melted in ten minutes."

"But where does the fire come from?" enquired the girl.

"From the earth, my beloved."

The girl shrank back with horror, and yet Fatia Negra did not mean hell
but that furnace whose powerful bellows drove the melting heat into the
double cylinder.

He looked at his watch, the moment had come. At a single whistle a
couple of workmen appeared, each of them stripped to the waist on
account of the great heat; they held in their hands large iron moulds
and stood facing each other opposite the crucible. Then by means of an
iron tap Fatia Negra turned the pipe of the crucible and immediately a
pale glare began to spread through the room--the liquid gold ran in a
thin jet out of the crucible and that was the cause of the light.
Actually genuine pure gold made liquid in the fire like wine in a glass
and emitting on every side of it a glowing white radiance! Each of the
two workmen held his mould beneath it and the girl surveyed the scene
with bated breath.

When the operation was finished Black Face turned to the girl again and
embraced her saying: "So you see, darling, that is how gold is melted."
The girl smiled back at him; what a pity the Black Mask could not smile
in return. And now old Onucz came up with his sack for the purifying
furnace.

"How much have you in your sack?" asked Fatia Negra.

"A hundredweight and eighty pounds."

"Now we'll see into how much pure gold it will work out."

"The dross mixed with it is only a few pounds in weight."

"Of what quality is it?"

"Well, they purify it very incompletely you know. It is only
two-and-twenty carat gold."

"It doesn't matter: we will coin Prussian ducats out of it."

"But where's the mould?"

"I brought it with me, to-day; we'll adjust that also to the machine.
We shall gain a hundred florins in every thousand."

Old Onucz kissed Fatia Negra's hand. "Domnule," said he, "you are a man
indeed. Domnule, since you became our chief our gains have doubled and
the ducats are so good that one cannot distinguish them from the
Imperial ones."

Meanwhile the girl felt her head going round to hear them talk of
nothing but money, gold, gain!

"Come Onucz, let us look at the new machinery," said the Mask.

"When did you bring the new machinery here?"

"A long time ago; we have coined a great deal of money since it first
came. The work is all the quicker and we need fewer men to work it."

They went into the next room through a low door, all three of them
having to bow their heads as they entered, and there they saw a gigantic
machine at work between whose revolving cylinders depended the long gold
ingots which were gradually reduced to the proper thinness for making
gold coins.

"Don't you see, Onucz? Hitherto we wasted too much time and labour in
cutting the gold plates thin enough and the edges were always too thick
to our great loss. Now the machine rolls them all out uniformly. It only
cost 10,000 ducats."

"Very cheap indeed!" cried the old man, who was wearing a ragged
sheepskin and yet considered ten thousand ducats a moderate price for a
rolling mill.

The Mask took up one of the little glistening plates.

"Do you know, my friend, the name of this?" said he.

"No."

"Its name is Zain. In order that you may not forget it I will wind it
round your arm." And as if it were merely hard paper he lightly bent the
gold plate round the girl's wrist and then pressed the ends of this
improvised bracelet together with his steel-like fingers. "Don't forget
that this is called Zain and that you got it from me."

The girl looked doubtfully at him as if she would have said: "Is it
lawful for you to give away everything here as if it were your own."

But the old man could not look on at this in silence. "Alas! alas!
Domnule, give not away uncoined gold. Rather squander coined gold in
heaps. The other is of itself a witness against us and thereby we shall
furnish a clue to our enemies."

"It is in a good place," replied Fatia Negra; "it is on Anicza's arm and
there it will keep silence."

Anicza replied to this apology with ten kisses. And she calculated
rightly. This necklace weighed exactly ten double ducats--but the kisses
also were double ones.

Then Fatia Negra led them to another machine which cut round gold
pieces out of the rolled out "Zain." He showed the girl how every
clipper, how every screw beneath the impulsion of the piston did its
proper share of the work, and how the whole process was set going by
steam power from without and could therefore be directed and controlled
by one man with another man to relieve him at intervals.

"Dumnezu!"[20] sighed old Onucz, "when I think that fifty years ago we
did all this with only our hammers and chisels! We sweated two whole
days over a piece of work which this marvel can do in an hour. And how
many hands we employed too!"

[Footnote 20: My master.]

Then they went to another machine. This was a small table whose steel
wheels notched the ducats before they passed beneath the stamping
machine. Perpetually moving elastic springs pushed the gold pieces
forward one after the other, turned them round and jerked them away. You
saw no other motive power but a large wheel revolving under a broad
strap; the strap disappeared through the floor, it was underneath there
that the man who set it in motion lived.

Old Onucz sighed aloud. "What things they do invent now-a-days," said
he.

But Anicza, full of superstitious fear, clung silently to the arm of
Fatia Negra whom all these speechless marvels served and obeyed.
Finally, descending six stone steps they entered the actual minting
room.

A gigantic screw press stood in the midst of the low vaulted chamber.
Through the head of the screw was driven a long moving bar, with leaden
bullets at both ends and two strong fellows were pushing this bar
backwards and forwards; the weight of the machine, as it turned, forced
the screw sharply down and in a second it pressed the two round gold
pieces laid in the steel matrix into the stamping dies, on one of which
was the image of the Mother of God and on the other the cuirassed
likeness of the reigning monarch. Immediately after the two matrices
recoiled again of their own accord and the two powerful men repeated the
pressure. Then a little steel ring shifted suddenly, flinging aside the
coined ducat, and a fresh gold piece took its place. The coined ducats
already lay in a heap in front of the machine and the workmen, now and
then, kicked them away with their feet.

There was something impressive in the spectacle. Here were two poor men,
working hard perhaps for their daily bread with little hillocks of
seductive gold piled up all around them, gold of which everyone is
enamoured in the earth above them, gold for which so many men gladly
give up everything, even to their hope in Heaven!

Now and again a third man comes in and pitches the gold into a linen
sack with a wooden shovel.

"Let us stamp a few ducats ourselves by way of souvenirs," said Fatia
Negra. Anicza assenting, the workmen stepped aside, and Fatia Negra and
the girl placed themselves on either side of the leaden bullets on the
turning bar.

The Mask bade his sweetheart be careful to avoid the recoil of the
machine for should the handle hit her the blow might prove fatal,
whereupon the girl, burning to show off her great strength, did not wait
for the end of the bar to recover its normal position, but seizing the
iron rod when it was only half way round, tore it back again, with the
result that the steel clapper did not cast the gold piece between the
matrices in the usual way and it thus received a double impression,
being stamped with a two-fold figure of the Mother of God on one side
and a two-fold figure of the royal profile on the other.

Old Onucz rushed towards Anicza and angrily tore her away:

"You little fool, be off!" cried he, "you will spoil the machine, it is
not for the likes of you."

But Fatia Negra now picked up the ducat which had fallen to the ground
and showed it with a smile to Anicza: "Look," said he, "there is now a
double picture on it."

The girl turned it curiously between her fingers.

"And what will happen to it now?"

"It will go into the smelting furnace again."

"Ah, don't destroy it, give it to me!"

At this the old man fairly lost his temper.

"Are you out of your mind to ask for such a thing? What! a ducat with a
flaw in it, which, if seen in your hands would saddle us with the
vengeance of the whole government! Domnule, be not so mad as to let her
have that ducat! If she has no sense, you at least be sensible. You
might ruin the whole lot of us with it."

"Well, Anicza will not wear it on her head, I suppose, or even on her
neckerchief, but will fasten it to a little bit of thread and wear it
next her heart, there nobody will find it but myself."

Onucz would very much have liked to say: "Neither have you any right to
look there, Domnule, for you have not yet spoken to the priest about
it"--but this was the one thing he durst not say.

But Anicza gratefully kissed Fatia Negra's hand like a child who has
received a gift, not indeed for the ducat, but for the boundless
confidence he had shown in giving it to her, which was the surest token
of his love. Then she drew forth a little Turkish dagger, bored a hole
with it through the ducat and fastened it to a little piece of thin
black cord by the side of her little crucifix which she wore upon her
bosom--and hid both of them away again.

"Well Domnule," remarked Onucz sulkily, "since we have placed our heads
in the girl's hands we must beware of ever offending her."

But now the assayer came up, bringing with him a nice elaborate
calculation on a black slate, showing exactly how much pure gold Onucz
had handed in to the coining department, how much it would be worth when
coined and deducting three per cent for expenses, how much he was to
receive in cash by way of exchange.

"And now go and let the cashier pay you what is due to you, Onucz," said
Fatia Negra.

And so while he remained behind for the purpose of settling his account
Anicza and Fatia Negra retired to a little adjoining chamber. There
would be plenty of time for two lovers to talk over their love affairs
while so many gold coins were being counted out.

"Where have you been? it's a whole month since I saw you?" asked Anicza
sitting on the adventurer's knee. "Do you know how long a month is to
me? First quarter, new moon, full moon, last quarter, all this have I
watched through and never saw you once, where have you been?"

"I have been abroad for those new machines. That is a business one
cannot entrust to another."

"Are there pretty girls abroad?--Might you not fall in love with them?"

"Hush! Those are not the questions that men should be asked."

"Why not?"

"Because men are not in the habit of answering them."

"But suppose a girl wants to know?"

"Then it will go badly with her. Besides, what do you want me to tell
you? Would you like to know that I'm such a block, a clod, that no
other eye but yours takes any pleasure in looking at me? Or would you
like to hear that I am a sort of hermit who has wandered in disguise
through seven kingdoms and casts down his eyes whenever he encounters a
petticoat? Or that I cross myself and turn away whenever a woman looks
at me? Or shall I tell you: in such and such a place I nipped the white
cheeks of a pretty blonde, and in such and such a place the coquettrie
of a pair of blue eyes made me forget myself, and in such another place
I bedded my intoxicated head in the arms of a brunette?--and that after
wandering through seven kingdoms I have found no lovelier girl than my
own enchanting Anicza?"

The girl could neither reply nor scold, for her mouth was closed fast
with kisses.

"You know I am very jealous," she said at last, when she was able to
tear herself free. "I do not love as others love. I can only think of
you and your love. I am neither hungry nor thirsty but only--in love. I
am never weary, I scarcely know that I am working, for love makes me
sing and sing all day. I dream only of you. I care not what is going on
in the whole world so long as I only know what is happening to you. I
know that you love me and that you are mine so long as you are here. But
how often you are far away! How often I do not see you for weeks, for
months at a time! Then I get nearly mad. I am determined to find out
where you are and what you are doing, with whom you are speaking and
then I say, I feel quite mad."

"Indeed! Then let me tell you, my dear girl, that it would do you no
good to know where I am, for I am much more exposed to the fire of
pointed rifles than to the fire of pretty eyes."

"Are you then a robber chieftain, a mountain smuggler?"

"I am a lot of things."

"Then take me with you into your band"--she spoke with heaving bosom.

But Fatia Negra stamped his foot.

"It cannot be, Anicza," said he; "think no more of it! I will never take
you with me."

"Why not?" asked the girl and her eyes flashed like a wild cat's.

"Because then I should become jealous of you and that would be bad for
us both. Remain in your father's house; there you are safe."

The girl drew from her bosom the defaced ducat she had just received
together with the crucifix.

"Hearken, Fatia Negra! my father says that this badly coined piece of
gold places your life in my hand. And know, besides, Fatia Negra, that I
have sworn on this Crucified One here that if ever you betray me I will
kill you in my fury without thinking twice about the how or where. It is
not well that two such dangerous objects should repose on my heart.
Look! I give them both to you."

"Wherefore, Anicza?"

"Take the things, I say, and keep them, for my guardian angel knows, I
have told him, that with me they are not in a safe place. You do not
know me yet."

The girl burst out crying, and Fatia Negra could no longer soothe her
with kisses, and then old Onucz poked his gray shaggy head through the
doorway and said: "I have been paid already, Domnule, have you?"

Fatia Negra stroked the girl's hair and face and whispered her not to
take on so.

The stitches of the old Roumanian's patience now, at last, gave way
altogether. "Domnule," said he, "would you not, if I earnestly besought
you to do so, begin to think of the day on which you intend to become my
daughter's husband?"

For a moment Fatia Negra seemed thunderstruck; then he recovered himself
and replied in a calm but menacing voice: "If ever it occurs to you to
put the question to me again, your head will reach home an hour earlier
than yourself."

The old man made no reply, but he seized the girl by the hand and led
her away with him, returning to the mill with her by the same way that
he had come. They found their horses by the alder trees and remounted.
It was a fine clear night, and Onucz told his daughter to ride in front.
They had now divided the coined gold into two portions. When they had
once more reached the ridge of the mountain the old man pronounced
Anicza's name in a low tone. The girl looked, backwards and perceived
that the old man's long-barrelled rifle was pointed directly at the back
of her head. In her terror she covered her face with her hands. "What
would you do?" cried she.

"Fear nothing, I only want that piece of gold which Fatia Negra gave
you. I'll not stake _my_ head on _your_ whimsies!"

The girl had anticipated something much worse than this, so she quietly
answered: "You can spare yourself the trouble, I have already returned
it to Fatia Negra. I would not carry it about with me any longer."

"You have acted wisely," said the old man, lowering his musket. "Now you
can ride on."

The early dawn was breaking as they reached home. When Anicza entered
her room she found hanging up beneath the ikon that gleamed and shone
over her bed both the damaged ducat and the little cross which she had
given to Fatia Negra two hours before. He must indeed be in league with
the devil--else how could he have got there, invisibly, so long before
them?

Anicza said not a word about it to anybody, but she hid both the amulets
safely away in her bosom again--and now she was right proud of her Fatia
Negra!




CHAPTER VIII

STRONG JUON


Henrietta's married life was not a happy one. Her husband was polite,
complaisant, and conventionally correct in his behaviour towards her,
and that was all. And then she saw so little of him. He was frequently
absent from Hidvár for weeks at a time, and when he returned he
regularly brought in his train a merry company of comrades, in whose
pastimes Henrietta could take no sort of pleasure.

During those long days when she had Hidvár all to herself and was left
entirely to the company of her sad thoughts, she would sometimes walk
about till late in the evening in the shady alleys of the home park,
listening to the songs of the girls working in the fields. At the end of
the park was a church, and in front of it a small clearing fenced around
with stakes and looking like a cabbage garden. It surely belonged to
some poor man or other. It did--and the poor man was the parish-priest.

Henrietta often saw him, a tall, grey-bearded man in a long black
cassock, hastening to his little garden; there the reverend gentleman
would divest himself of his long habit, produce a rake, and work till
late in the evening. Henrietta fancied at first that was merely a
dietetic diversion, but afterwards, when she found him there the next
day and the day after that, and at every hour of the day; when she saw
him wiping the sweat from his brow in the burning afternoons and leaning
wearily at intervals on his rake to rest a while from his labour, then
she was persuaded that this work was not a pastime, but a bitter toil
for daily bread.

Often times she would very much have liked to ask him how this was, but
she was a stranger in these parts and did not understand his language;
at last, however, the priest, perceiving the lady one day, peered at her
through the palings and wished her good-day in the purest Hungarian,
thereby giving her to understand that the language of the gentry was
well known to him.

Henrietta begged the old man to leave his labour and come to her.

"It cannot be, your ladyship; his lordship has forbidden me to appear in
his courts."

"Why?"

"I am always a nuisance."

"How so?"

"Because I am always on some begging errand. At one time the wind
carries off the roof of the church; at another, something is broken in
the belfry. It is a year ago now since the school was burnt down, and
since then the walls have become overgrown with thistles; the
schoolmaster too has gone away, and there is nobody to teach the
children, so that they grow up louts and robbers, to the great hurt and
harm of the gentry."

"But why is not all this put to rights?"

"Because the poor folks are lazy and drunken, and his lordship is
stingy."

Henrietta was astonished at the old man's words.

"Yes, stingy, that's the word," continued the priest. "I do not pick my
words, for I am a priest and used to hunger. And he who is used to
hunger is free from the yoke of servility. I told his lordship that to
his face, and that was why he forbade me the castle."

Henrietta could not continue the conversation, so upset was she at the
idea of Hátszegi's stinginess. What! the man who raked in hundreds of
thousands at a time with the greatest ease, and no doubt scattered them
as recklessly, could shut his door in the face of a poor priest who
begged for the house of God and the education of the people! She hastily
wished the priest good-night and returned to the castle.

The same evening she sought her husband, who had just come home wearied
from the chase, "I have a favour to ask of you," said she. Hátszegi
looked astonished: it was the first favour the wife had ever asked her
husband.

"Command me!" said he. "Whatever you like to ask is as good as granted
already."

"I should like to learn the language of the people in the midst of whom
we dwell. I am like a deaf-mute among them at present."

"That will not be difficult. The Wallachian tongue is easily acquired,
especially by anyone with a knowledge of French or Latin."

Henrietta blushed scarlet. Was there a covert allusion behind these
words? Did Hátszegi know that she understood Latin?

"I should like to have a master who can put me in the way of it. The
parish priest here would be a suitable person."

For an instant Hátszegi's eyebrows contracted.

"You shall have your way," he said at last. "It is true that he is the
one man in the world who insults me to my face with impunity whenever he
meets me, and even presumes to chalk upon the walls of my own castle
denunciations against me from the book of the Prophet Nehemiah, so that
I was obliged to forbid him ever to appear before me under pain of being
thrown headlong out of the window; yet to show you what an obedient
servant I am of yours, madame, I will not baulk you of your desire, or
desire you to choose another master, but will send and invite him to
come up here at once. Everyone shall see that in my house, my wife is
the master." And with that Leonard kissed his wife's hand and withdrew.

Early next day the pastor arrived. Margari informed him of her
ladyship's desire to learn the Roumanian language, and the words almost
stuck in his throat when he added that his Reverence would receive a
hundred florins every month for it. Fancy! a hundred florins a month for
teaching a lingo only spoken by bumpkins.

Todor Rubán--that was the priest's name--was at once conducted to her
ladyship. He was an elderly man, of an open, cheerful countenance; his
fine, long white hair fell in thick locks on his simple black cassock,
which showed considerable signs of wear.

Henrietta was not in time to prevent the old pastor from kissing her
hand.

"This is no slavish obsequiousness towards a great lady," said he, "but
the respect of a poor pastor for an angel whom Heaven by a peculiar act
of grace has sent down to us. This is no empty compliment, your
ladyship. I am not very lavish of such things myself, but I feel bound
to address you thus because I am well aware that it is not merely to
learn our poor language that you pay me so well for so little trouble.
No, I recognize herein the good will which would do what it can to raise
and help a poor neglected population: for I certainly shall not exchange
my simple maize-bread for better, but will employ your ladyship's gift
in the service of God and of our poorer brethren."

From that day Henrietta believed that a call from on high had summoned
her to Hidvár to be the guardian angel, the visible providence of a
poor, forsaken people, and her most pleasant occupation was now to go
from village to village,--often in the company of the priest, and at
other times accompanied by a single groom or quite alone. Thus she
visited one after the other all the surrounding parishes like any
archdeacon, enquiring after and helping their necessities, distributing
money for school-buildings and service books, collecting all manner of
stray orphans and bringing them home with her to be fed and instructed;
nay she erected a regular foundling hospital at Hidvár for the benefit
of the sprouting urchins of the district, and had the liveliest debates
with the priest as to the best method of managing it. Her benevolent
enthusiasm cost Hátszegi a pretty penny.

"She is a child; let her play!" he would only say when Margari and
Clementina represented to him that Henrietta had pawned her jewels at
Fehervár in order to teach some more little Roumanian rag-a-muffins how
to go about

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