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Dr. Dumany's Wife

by Mór Jókai · English · Gutenberg #18708 · 451,584 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Dr. Dumany's Wife

Author: Mór Jókai


        
Release date: June 28, 2006 [eBook #18708]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18708

Credits: E-text prepared by Steven desJardins and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. DUMANY'S WIFE ***


E-text prepared by Steven desJardins and Project Gutenberg Distributed
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Works of Maurus Jókai
Hungarian Edition

DR. DUMANY'S WIFE

Translated from the Hungarian by F. STEINITZ







New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1891




PUBLISHERS' NOTE.


This, the latest story from the pen of Hungary's great man of letters,
Maurus Jókai, was translated directly from the manuscript of the author
by Mme. F. Steinitz, who resides in Buda-Pest, and was selected by him
for that purpose.

Maurus Jókai is now sixty-six years of age, having been born at Komaróm,
in 1825. He was intended for the law, that having been his father's
profession but at twelve years of age the desire to write seized him.
Some of his stories fell into the hands of the lawyer in whose office he
was studying, who read them, and was so struck by their originality and
talent that he published them at once at his own expense. The public was
as well pleased with the book as the lawyer had been with the
manuscripts, and from that tender age to the present Jókai has devoted
himself to writing, and is the author of several hundred successful
volumes. At the age of twenty-three he laid down his pen long enough to
get married, his bride being Rosa Laborfalvi, the then leading Hungarian
actress. At the end of a year he joined the Revolutionists, and buckled
on the sword of the patriot. He was taken prisoner and sentenced to be
shot, when his bride appeared upon the scene with her pockets full of
the money she had made by the sale of her jewels, and, bribing the
guards, escaped with her husband into the birch woods, where they hid in
caves and slept on leaves, all the time in danger of their lives, until
they finally found their way to Buda-Pest and liberty. This city Jókai
has made his home; in the winter he lives in the heart of the town, in
the summer just far enough outside of it to have a house surrounded by
grounds, where he can sit out of doors in the shade of his own trees. He
is probably the best-known man in Hungary to-day, for he is not only an
author, but a financier, a statesman, and a journalist as well.




CONTENTS.


PART I.

   I.  THE DUMB CHILD
  II.  THE DARK GOD
 III.  THE ENGLISHMAN
  IV.  THE NABOB
   V.  A REPUBLICAN COUNTESS
  VI.  DUMANY KORNEL
 VII.  THE DEAD MAN'S VOTE
VIII.  MY UNCLE DIOGENES
  IX.  A SLAVONIC KINGDOM
   X.  "DEAD"
  XI.  MY DEAR FRIEND SIEGFRIED
 XII.  THE DEVIL'S HOOF
XIII.  THE VALKYRS


PART II.

   I.  THE SEA-DOVE
  II.  "WHAT IS THE DEVIL LIKE?"
 III.  THE FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER
  IV.  THE HISTORY OF MY FRIEND
   V.  HOW ROSES ARE INOCULATED
  VI.  MR. PARASITE
 VII.  A BRILLIANT GAME
VIII.  A BITING KISS
  IX.  WHO IS THE VISITOR?
   X.  AFTER THE WEDDING
  XI.  MY SCHEME
 XII.  SEEKING FOR DEATH
XIII.  MY DISCHARGE
 XIV.  HOME! SWEET HOME
  XV.  VOX POPULI
 XVI.  DAME FORTUNE
XVII.  LIGHT AT LAST




DR. DUMANY'S WIFE.

Part I.


I.

THE DUMB CHILD.


It was about the close of the year 1876 when, on my road to Paris, I
boarded the St. Gothard railway-train. Travellers coming from Italy had
already taken possession of the sleeping-car compartments, and I owed it
solely to the virtue of an extraordinarily large tip that I was at last
able to stretch my weary limbs upon the little sofa of a half-coupé. It
was not a very comfortable resting-place, inasmuch as this carriage was
the very last in an immensely long train, and one must be indeed fond of
rocking to enjoy the incessant shaking, jostling, and rattling in this
portion of the train. But still it was much preferable to the crowded
carriages, peopled with old women carrying babies, giggling maidens,
snoring or smoking men, and hilarious children; so I made the best of
it, and prepared for a doze.

The guard came in to look at my ticket, and, pitying my lonely
condition, he opened a conversation. He told me that the son of an
immensely wealthy American nabob, with an escort well-nigh princely,
was travelling on the same train to Paris. He had with him an attendant
physician, a nursery governess, a little playfellow, a travelling
courier, and a huge negro servant to prepare his baths, besides several
inferior servants. These all occupied the parlour-car and the sleeping
compartments; but the little fellow had a parlour, a bedroom, and a
dressing-room all to himself.

I did not pay much attention to the talk of the gossiping guard, and so
he departed, and at last I could sleep. On the road I am like a miller
in his mill. So long as the wheel turns, I sleep on; but the moment it
is stopped, I start up and am instantly wide awake. We had reached a
smaller station where the train usually stops for a few minutes only,
when, to my surprise, there was a great deal of pushing and sliding of
the cars backward and forward, and we halted for an extraordinarily long
time. I was just getting up to learn what was going on, when the guard
entered, lantern in hand.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but there is something amiss. The
linch-pin of the parlour-car has become over-heated, and we had to
uncouple the car and leave it behind. Now we are obliged to find a
convenient place for the little American, until we reach some main
station, where another parlour-car can be attached to the train. I am
really sorry for you, sir, but this is the only suitable place we have,
and the little fellow and his governess must be your travelling
companions for a while."

"Well, when a thing can't be helped, grumbling is unreasonable, so
good-bye sleep and quiet, and let us prepare to pay homage to the
illustrious youth and his lady attendant," said I, smiling at the
guard's earnestness. But still he hesitated.

"And pray, sir, what is your religion?" stammered he; "I have to tell
the governess."

"Indeed!" My good-humour was rising still, and I continued smiling.
"Tell the lady that I am a Swiss Protestant, and I hope she will not
object, as I shall not try to convert her or her charge if they are of a
different creed. Is there anything else you want to inquire into?"

"Yes, sir. The little gentleman's physician would also like to accompany
his charge, and stay at his side."

"But there is only room for three."

"I know; but, sir, the doctor is a very liberal gentleman, and he told
me that if anybody would be willing to exchange places with him, he
would gladly repay his whole travelling expenses."

"That's liberal, certainly, and I have no doubt the fireman of the
engine will thankfully accept his offer. You can tell him as much. And
now go!"

The man went out, but right after him came the doctor--a very pleasant
and distinguished-looking young man. He apologised for the guard's
bluntness and his misinterpretation of his message. He had not meant to
offend a gentleman, and so forth. He introduced himself as Dr. Mayer,
family physician at the house of the so-called "Silver King," Mr.
Dumany, the father of the little "Silver Prince." After learning that I
did not smoke, and had no objection to children, he inquired my
nationality. My astrachan fur cap and coat-collar made him take me for a
Russian, but, thanking him for his good opinion, I stated that as yet I
was merely a Hungarian. He did not object; but asked if we were free
from small-pox, diphtheritis, croup, measles, scarlet-fever,
whooping-cough, and such like maladies in our country at present. After
I had satisfied him that even the foot-and-mouth disease had by this
time ceased, he finally quitted me, but immediately returned, assisting
a lady with both hands full of travelling necessaries to climb up into
the carriage. After the lady came a grand stately-looking negro servant,
with gold-braided cap and overcoat of white bear's fur, and on his arm,
bundled up in rich velvet and costly fur, he carried a beautiful
five-year-old boy, who looked like some waxen image or big doll.

The lady seemed very lively and talkative, and had a host of languages
at command. With the doctor she conversed in German; to the guide she
spoke French; the negro she questioned in English, and to a maid who
brought in some rugs and air-pillows she spoke Italian. All these
languages she spoke excellently, and I am certain that if a dozen
persons of different nationalities had been present she could have
talked to them in their various dialects with the same ease and fluency.
Of her beauty I could not judge, for she wore a bonnet with a thick
veil, which covered her face to the chin.

Taking her seat at the opposite window, she placed the child between
us. He was a pale, quiet little boy, with very red, thin,
tightly-compressed lips, and great, melancholy dark-blue eyes. As long
as the negro was occupied in arranging the rugs and pillows, he looked
wholly unconcerned, and the smiles from the great black shining face did
not impress him at all; but when the swarthy giant caught the two fair
little hands in his own great black palm and wanted to kiss them, the
boy withdrew his hands with a quick gesture and struck the ebony
forehead with his tiny fist.

At last we were seated. The negro was gone, the guide went out and
locked the door after him. Seeing that the open window was disagreeable
to the lady, I volunteered to close it. She accepted gratefully, and at
the same time expressed her regrets that, in consequence of the accident
to the parlour-car, she had been compelled to disturb me. Of course, I
hastened to say that I was not in the least incommoded, and only
regretted that it was not in my power to make her more comfortable. She
then told me that she was an American, and pretty well used to railroad
accidents of a more or less serious character. Three times she had been
saved by a miracle in railway collisions at home, and she assured me
that in America about 30,000 persons were every year injured in railway
accidents, while some 4,000 were killed outright.

We conversed in German, and, as the lady became more and more
communicative, talk turned upon the subject of the child between us.
She told me that Master James was deaf and dumb, and could not
understand a word of our conversation; hence restraint was unnecessary.
I asked her if he was born with this defect, and she said, "No; until
the age of three he could speak very nicely, but at that age he was
thrown out of his little goat-carriage, and in consequence of the shock
and concussion lost his power of speech."

"Then he will possibly recover it," I said. "I knew a young man who lost
his speech in the same manner at the age of five, and could not speak up
to his tenth year; then he recovered, and now he has graduated from
college as senior wrangler."

"Yes," she said. "But Mr. Dumany is impatient, and he has sent the boy
to all the deaf-and-dumb boarding-schools in Europe. Even now we are
coming from such an institution in Italy; but none of all these
different masters has been able to teach more than sign-talk, and that
is insufficient. Mr. Dumany wants to give the German Heinicke method a
trial. That professes to teach real conversation, based on the
observations of the movements of the lips and tongue."

Of this method I also knew examples of success. I was acquainted with a
deaf and dumb type-setter, who had learned to talk intelligibly and
fluently, could read aloud, and take part in conversation, but in a
piping voice like that of a bird.

"Even that would be a great success," she said. "At any rate, little
James will be taken to the Zürich Institute, and remain there until he
acquires his speech."

During this whole conversation the little fellow had sat between us,
mute, and, to all appearance, wholly indifferent. His little pale face
was dull, and his great eyes half closed. I felt sorry for him, and with
a sigh of real compassion I muttered in my own native Hungarian tongue,
"Szegény fincska!" ("Poor little boy!") At this I saw a thrill of
surprise run through the child's little frame; the great blue eyes
opened wide in wonder and delight, and the closed cherry lips opened in
a smile of joy.

I was struck with surprise, and did not believe my own eyes. The lady
had not noticed anything, since she still kept her bonnet on and the
thick veil tightly drawn over her face.

I took pity on her, and offered to go out into the corridor to smoke a
cigarette, so that she might make herself a little more comfortable
until we arrived at some large station, where she would enter another
parlour-car.

She accepted thankfully, and, to my utter astonishment, the little boy
raised his tiny hand, and caressingly stroked the fur collar of my coat.
I bent down to kiss him, and he smiled sweetly on me; and when I got up
and signed to him that he could now occupy both seats and stretch
himself upon the little sofa, he shook his head, and crept into the
corner which I had quitted. And there, as often as in my walk up and
down the corridor I threw a glance into his corner, I could see the
child's large dark-blue eyes following all my movements with an eager
curiosity; the white little face pressed to the window-pane and the tiny
hand never losing hold of the edge of the curtain, which he had
purposely lifted, for the governess had pulled the curtain down the
moment I left, possibly to take off her bonnet.

Mine was not a very pleasant situation in that corridor. I watched the
rising and sinking of the moon, which phenomenon repeated itself about
twice every hour, according to the serpentine windings of the road. I
looked at the milky mist which surrounded the icy pinnacles of the great
mountains, and grumbled over the intense darkness in the many tunnels,
in which the roar and noise of the train is tremendously increased,
thundering as if Titans were breaking out of their prisons below Mount
Pelion.

As if they had not broken through long, long ago! What if the old
Grecian gods should come to life? should leave their marble temples, and
gaze about on the world as it is at present? If Pallas Athene were told
of America? If Helios Apollo could listen to Wagner's operas, and Zeus
Jupiter might look into the great tube of the London Observatory,
wondering what had become of that milky way which had been formed out of
the milk spilled by Amalthea? If we could show him that we had caught
and harnessed his heavenly lightning to draw our vehicles and carry our
messages, and that, with the help of fire-eyed leviathans, we break
through the rocky womb of his great mountains? And yet, how easy it
would be for them, with a simple sneeze of their most illustrious and
omnipotent noses, to raise such a tempest that earth and sea would rise
and destroy man and his pigmy works at one fell stroke! I wonder if they
never awake? I rather think they sometimes get up and shake their mighty
fists at us. These cyclones look very suspicious to me!

The huge iron leviathan turns and twists itself like a Gordian knot;
disappears and reappears, almost on the same spot, but higher up on the
mountain, and then glides rapidly on along the brinks of fearful
abysses, over long iron bridges looking like some fanciful filigree
work, some giant spider's web, extending across great valleys, chasms,
and precipices, over which great mountain rivers splash down, roaring
and foaming in gigantic falls. What giant power has cleft the way for
these waters--Vulcan or Neptune? Or was it laid down in Euclid's
adventurous age, when the Titans went into bankruptcy?

The train increases its speed to regain the time lost in uncoupling the
disabled parlour-car, and this increased speed is chiefly felt at the
tail of the great iron dragon. I have to cling tightly to the brass rod
in front of the windows. We pass the central station without stopping,
the locomotive whistles, the lamps of the little watch-houses fly past
like so many jack-o'-lanterns, and all at once we are enveloped by a
thick fog rising from beneath, where it had rested above the sea, and
when the train has twice completed the circle around the valley, the
noxious, dangerous mist surrounds us entirely.

But once more the creation of human hands conquers the spectre, and,
puffing and whistling, the locomotive breaks through the dark haze. Once
again the iron serpent disappears into the bowels of the rock, and as it
emerges it crosses another valley and is greeted by a clear heaven and a
multitude of brightly-glistening stars.

We are on the Rossberg. A devastated tract of the globe it seems. Our
eyes rest on barren soil devoid of vegetation. Beneath a large field of
huge boulders, imbedded in snow and ice, the Alpine vegetation thrives.
The whole valley is one immense graveyard, and the great rocks are giant
tombstones, encircled by wreaths of white flowers meet for adorning
graves. At the beginning of the present century one of the ridges of the
Rossberg gave way, and in the landslide four villages were buried. This
happened at night, when the villagers were all asleep, and not a single
man, women, or child escaped. This valley is their resting-place. Was I
not right to call it a graveyard?

Above this valley of destruction the train glides on. Upon the side of
the mountain is a little watch-house, built into the rock; a narrow
flight of steps hewn in the stone leads up to it like a ladder. The
moon, which had lately seemed fixed to the crest of the mountain, now
plays hide-and-seek among the peaks. A high barricade on the side of the
Rossberg serves to protect the railroad track against another landslide.

On the high ridges of the mountain goats were pasturing, and not far
from them a shepherd's fire was blazing, and the shepherd himself sat
beside it. I remember all these accessories as well as if they were
still before my eyes. I can see the white goats climbing up and pulling
at the broom-plants. I can see the shepherd's black form, encircled by
the light of the fire, and the white watch-house with its black leaden
roof, the high signal-pole in front of it, above which all at once a
great flaming star arises.




II.

THE DARK GOD.


I was gazing at that shining red light, when all at once I felt a
concussion, as if the train had met with some impediment. I heard the
jolting of the foremost cars, and had time to prepare for the shock
which was sure to follow; but when it did come, it was so great that it
threw me to the opposite wall of the corridor.

Yet the train moved on as before, so that it could not have been
disabled, as I at first thought. I heard the guards run from carriage to
carriage, opening the doors, and I could see great clouds of steam arise
from the puffing and blowing engines. The friction of the wheels made a
grating noise, and I leaned out of the window to ascertain the nature of
the danger. Was another train approaching, and a collision inevitable? I
could see nothing, but suddenly I beheld the figure of the shepherd, and
saw him raise his staff aloft. I followed the motion of his hand, and
with a thrill of horror I saw a great ledge of rock sliding downward
with threatening speed, while at the same time a shower of small stones
crashed on the roof of the cars.

I did not wait for the guards to open my door. I had it open in an
instant. From the other carriages passengers were jumping out at the
risk of life and limb, for the train was running at full speed.

I hastily ran into the coupé to awaken my travelling companions, but
found them up. "Madam," I said, "I am afraid that we are in danger of a
serious accident. Pray come out quickly!"

"Save the child!" she answered; and I caught the little boy, took him in
my arms, and ran out.

The train was gliding perpetually on, and I bethought myself of the
recommendation of one who is jumping from a running vehicle, to leap
forward, because in jumping sideways or backward he invariably falls
under the wheels. So I followed the recommendation and leaped.
Fortunately, I reached the ground, although my knees doubled up under
me, and I struck the knuckles of my right hand a hard blow. The child
had fainted in my arms, but only from fright; otherwise he had received
no harm. I laid him on the ground in a safe place, and ran with all my
might after the train to help the lady out. She was standing on the
steps, already prepared for the jump. I extended my hand to her,
impatiently crying "Quick!" But instead of taking my proffered hand she
exclaimed, "Oh! I have forgotten my bonnet and veil," and back she ran
into the coupé, never again to come forth.

At that moment I felt a tremendous shock, as if the earth had quaked and
opened beneath me, and this was followed by a deafening uproar, the
clashing of stones, the cracking of wood and glass, the grating and
crushing of iron, and the pitiful cries of men, women, and children.
The great mass of rock broke through the protecting barricade and rushed
right upon the engine. The huge, steam-vomiting leviathan was crushed in
an instant, and the copper and steel fragments scattered everywhere.
Three of the wheels were shattered, and with that the iron colossus came
to a dead stop, the suddenness of which threw the carriages crashing on
top of each other. This fearful havoc was not all. Through the breach
which the great rock had made in the barricade, an incessant avalanche
of stones, from the size of a cannon-ball to that of a wheelbarrow,
descended upon the train, crushing everything beneath into fragments,
pushing the unhappy train into the chasm below, into the valley of death
and destruction. Like a huge serpent it slid down, the great glowing
furnace with its feeding coals undermost, and then the whole wrecked
mass of carriages tumbled after, atop of each other, while cries of
despair were heard on every side. Then I saw the rear car--that in which
I had been sitting--stand up erect on top of the others, while on its
roof fell, with thunderous violence, the awful shower of stones. Mutely
I gazed on, until a large stone struck the barricade just where I stood,
and then I realised that the danger was not over, and ran for shelter.

The stones were falling fast to left and to right, and I hastened to
gain the steps which led to the little watch-house. Then I bethought me
of the boy. I found him still insensible, but otherwise unharmed, and I
took him up, covering him with a furred coat. I ran up the steps with
him, so fast that not a thought of my asthma and heart disease
slackened my speed.

There was nobody in the house but a woman milking a goat. In one corner
of the room stood a bed, in the middle was a table, and on one of the
walls hung a burning coal-oil lamp.

As I opened the door the woman looked up, and said in a dull piteous
moaning--

"It is none of Jörge's fault. Jörge had shown the red light in good
season, and yesterday he specially warned the gentlemen, and told them
that a ridge of the Gnippe was crumbling, and would soon break down; but
they did not listen to him, and now that the accident has come, they
will surely visit their own carelessness upon him. It is always the poor
dependent that is made to suffer for the fault of his superiors. But I
will not stand it; and if Jörge is discharged and loses his bread,
then--"

"All right, madam!" I said, "I saw the red light in time, and I shall
testify for Jörge in case of need. Only keep quiet now, and come here.
You must try to restore this child. He has fainted. Give him water or
something; you will know best what to do."

In recalling these words to my memory and writing them down, I am not
quite certain that I really spoke them; I am not certain of a single
word or action of mine on that fearful night. But I think that I said
the words I am relating, although I was so confused that it is possible
I did not utter a word. I had come out of the house again, and saw a man
running up and down on the narrow rocky plateau, like one crazy. It was
Jörge the watchman; he was looking for the signal-post, and could not
find it.

"Here it is, look!" I said, turning his face toward the high pole right
in front of him. He gazed up wistfully, and then all at once he
blubbered out--

"See! See, the red light! I gave the warning. They cannot blame me; they
dare not punish me for it. It is not my fault!"

Of course, he thought of nothing but himself, and the misfortune of the
others touched him only in so far as he was concerned.

"Don't blubber now!" I said. "There will be time enough to think of
ourselves. Now let us learn what has happened to the others. The whole
train has been swept down into the abyss below. What has become of the
people in it?"

"God Almighty have mercy on their souls!"

"Yet perhaps we could save some of them. Come along!"

"I can't go. I dare not leave my post, else they will turn against me."

"Well then, I shall go alone," said I, and hastened down the steps.

I heard no screams, no cries, not a sound of human voices. The poor
victims of the catastrophe were exhausted or frightened out of their
wits, and gave no utterance to the pain they felt. Only the
never-ceasing clatter of the falling stones was heard, nothing else.
Awful is the voice of the elements, and dreadful their revenge on their
human antagonists! The thundering heavens, the roaring sea, are awful
to behold and to listen to; but most fearful of all is the voice of the
earth, when, quivering in wrath, she opens her fiery mouth or hurls her
rocky missiles at pigmy men.

From the wrecked train a great many travellers had jumped like myself;
but not all with the same happy result. They had mostly reached the
ground more or less bruised, but at the moment of escape from the clutch
of death we do not much feel our hurts. These unhappy victims,
frightened as they were, had managed to creep and hide behind the
untouched portion of the bulwark, and happy to have escaped from
immediate death, sheltered from the tremendous cataract of stones, they
remained quiet, trembling, awaiting the end of the catastrophe and the
ultimate rescue. But what had meanwhile become of those who had stayed
in the falling carriages?

There came a terrible answer to that question, and out of the old horror
arose a new and still more terrible spectre. A demon with a cloudy head,
rising from the darkness below, and with a swift and fearful growth,
mounting up to the sky--a demon with a thousand glistening, sparkling
eyes and tongues, a smoke-fiend!

The great boiler of the locomotive had gone down first. There it fell,
not on the ground, but on a large fragment of rock, which pierced it
completely, so that the air had free access to the fire. Upon the top of
both boiler and tender, the coal-van had been turned upside down, and
these had pulled all the carriages one on top of the other in the same
way, so that the whole train stood upright, like some huge steeple. This
dreadful structure had become a great funeral pile, the altar of a black
pagan idol whose fiery tongues were greedily thrusting upward to devour
their prey.

Then, as the smoke became blacker and blacker, a heart-rending, almost
maddening sound of shrieking and crying rang out from that devilish
wreck, so loud and piercing that it drowned the clatter of stones, the
crackling of the fast-kindling coals, and the crushing noise of the
metals. At the cry for aid of the doomed victims, all who had escaped
and hidden behind the bulwark came forth, creeping or running, shrieking
and gesticulating, forgetful of their own danger and pitiful condition,
thinking only of those dear lost ones there in that abode of hell, and
maddened at the impossibility of rescuing them. It was a wild
hurly-burly of voices and of tongues, of despairing yells, hysterical
sobs, heart-rending prayers; and as I stumbled over the twisted and
broken rails, that stood upright like bent wires, and stooped over the
bulwark, I beheld a spectacle so terrible that every nerve of my body,
every heart-string, revolted at it. Even now they quiver at the ghastly
recollection.

As the fire lighted up the horrible pile I could see that the first
carriage atop of the coals was a shattered mass, the second crushed
flat, while the third stood with wheels uppermost, and so forth to the
top, and out of all of them human heads, limbs, faces, bodies, were
thrust forward. Two small gloved female hands, locked as in prayer, were
stretched out of a window, and above them two strong, muscular,
masculine arms tried with superhuman force to lift the iron weight
above, to break a way at the top, until the blood flowed from the nails,
and even these strong arms dropped down exhausted. Half-seen forms,
mutilated, bleeding, were tearing with teeth and nails at their dreadful
prison. Then for a while the smoky cloud involved everything in
darkness. A moment after, the red fiery tongues came lapping upward, and
a red, glowing halo encircles the fatal wreck. The first and second
carriages were already burned. How long would it take the flames to
reach the top? How many of the sufferers were yet alive? What power in
heaven or earth could save them, and how?

The hollow into which the train had fallen was so deep that, in spite of
the erect position of the ill-fated pile, the topmost car--that
containing the poor foolish American governess, who had lost her life in
running back for her bonnet--was ten mètres below us, and we had not
even a single rope or cord with which to hazard the experiment of
descending. A young man, one of those few who had come forth unharmed,
ran up and down the embankment, shouting madly for a rope, offering a
fortune for belts, shawls, and cords. His newly-married bride was in one
of those carriages, and hers were the tiny gloved hands that were
stretched out of the window. "A rope!" cried he; "give me anything to
make a rope!" But who heeded him?

A young mother sat on the tracks, fondly hugging a plaid shawl in her
arms. Her babe was there in that burning pyre, but horror had
overpowered her reason. There she sat, caressing the woollen bundle, and
in a low voice singing her "Eia Popeia" to the child of her fantasy.

An aged Polish Jew lay across the barricade wall. His two hands were
stretched downward, and there he muttered the prayers and invocations of
his ancient liturgy, which no one there understood but himself and his
God. The ritual prayer-bands were upon his thumbs and wrists, and
encircling his forehead. His forked beard and greasy side-locks dangled
as he chanted his hymns, while his eyes, starting almost out of their
sockets, were fixed upon one of the carriages. What did that car
contain? His wife? His children? Or his worldly goods, the fortune
hoarded up through a life-time of cunning and privation? Who knows?
Forth he chants his prayers, loudly yelling, or muttering low, as the
ghastly scene before him vanishes in smoke and darkness, or glows out
again in fearful distinctness.

Every one shrieks, cries, prays, swears, raves.

No; not every one! There, on the barricade, his logs doubled up
Turk-fashion, sits a young painter with Mephisto beard and grey eyes.
His sketch-book is open, and he is making a vivid sketch of the
sensational scene. The illustrated papers are grateful customers, and
will rejoice at receiving the sketch.

But this young draughtsman is not the only sensible person in the
place. There is another, a long-legged Englishman, standing with watch
in hand, reckoning up the time lost by the accident, and eyeing the
scene complacently.

Some noisy dispute attracts my attention, and, turning, I behold a man,
trying with all his might to overcome a woman, who attacks him with
teeth and nails, biting his hands and tearing at his flesh, as he drags
her close to him. At last he succeeds in joining both of her hands
behind her back, she foaming, writhing, and cursing. I ask indignantly,
"What do you want with the woman? Let her alone!"

"Oh, sir!" he said, showing me a sorrowful and tear-stained face, "for
Heaven's sake, help me! I cannot bear with her any more. She wants to
leap down and kill herself. Pray help me to tie her hands, and carry her
off from here!"

By his speech I knew him for a Pole, and the woman's exclamations were
also uttered in the Polish language. She was his wife; her children were
there in that infernal pile, and she wanted to die with them.

"Quick! quick!" gasped the man. "Take my necktie and fasten her hands
behind her." I obeyed; and as I wound the silken strip tight around the
unhappy woman's wrist, her despairing gaze fixed itself in deadly hate
upon my face, and her foaming lips cursed me for keeping her away from
her children. As her husband carried her away, her curses pierced the
air; and although I could not understand the words, I understood that
she spoke of the "Czrny Bog," or, as the Russians say, "Cserny Boh," the
"Black God" of the Slavs--Death.

By this time the horrible tower was burning brightly, and the night was
all aglow with the glaring light, and still those terrible shrieks from
human voices resounded to and fro.

The young artist had a picturesque scene for his pencil, and kept making
sketch after sketch. The burning wreck, the flying cinders, the red mist
around the black pine woods on the rocky wall of the mountain, and that
small span of star-lit heaven above; all those frightened, maddened,
running, crouching, creeping men and women around, with the chanting
Jew, in his long silken _caftan_ and dangling locks, in the midst of
them, made a picture of terrible sublimity.

But still the god of destruction was unsatisfied, and his fiery maw
opened for more victims. The unhappy young husband had succeeded in
tearing up his clothes and knotting the strips together. A compassionate
woman had given him a shawl, which he fastened to the bushes. On this he
descended into that mouth of hell. The perilous attempt succeeded so far
that, with one mad leap, he landed on the top of the uppermost car with
its pile of stones, and then, with cat-like dexterity and desperate
daring, he scrambled downward to the third carriage. Quickly he reached
the spot, and the poor little gloved hands of his darling were thrown in
ecstasy around his neck. Someone had drawn up the cord on which he had
let himself down, fastened a stout iron rod to it, and suspended it
carefully. Happily it reached him, and with its aid he made a good-sized
breach, widening the opening of the window; he worked with desperate
strength, and we gazed breathlessly on. Now we saw him drop the rod
again. The tender arms of his bride were around his neck, a fair head
was thrust out, the whole form was emerging, when with a tremendous
crash, and a hissing, spluttering, crackling noise, the whole fabric
shook and trembled, and husband and wife were united in death.

The great boiler had burst; the explosion had changed the scene again,
and the young painter might draw still another sketch.




III.

THE ENGLISHMAN.


That long-legged son of Albion whom I had previously observed, strolled
up to my side and asked--

"Do you understand German, sir?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

"Then call for that shepherd. I want him."

I obeyed, and the shepherd, who had complacently eyed the scene as
something that was of no consequence to him, came slowly and wonderingly
up.

He was in no hurry, and my coaxing "Dear friend" and "Good friend" did
not impress him at all; but when the Englishman showed him a handful of
gold coins he came on quickly enough.

"Tell him," said the Englishman, "to run to the next railway station,
give notice of the accident, and return with a relief train for succour.
Tell him to be quick, and when he returns I will give him two hundred
francs."

"Yes," said the man; "but who will take care of my goats meanwhile?"

"How many goats have you?"

"Six."

"And what is the average price of a goat?"

"Fifteen francs."

"Well, here is the price of your goats in cash. I give you one hundred
francs--ten more than your goats are worth. Now run! How far is it?"

"A good running distance, not very far." The man pocketed his money and
turned, when an idea struck him. "Could you not take care of my goats
anyhow, till I return?" he asked.

Smart fellow! He kept the money for his goats, and tried to keep the
goats into the bargain.

"All right," said the Englishman, "I will take care of them. Never fear.
Go!"

"But you must take my stick and my horn; the goats will get astray when
they do not hear the horn."

"Then give it to me, and I will blow it," said the Englishman, with
admirable patience, and, taking the shepherd's crook and horn, he gave
the man his red shawl to use as a signal-flag.

As the shepherd at length trotted on and disappeared, that unique,
long-legged example of phlegm and good sense sat down by the shepherd's
fire, on exactly the same spot where the shepherd had sat, and began
watching the goats.

I returned to the mournful scene which I had quitted when the Englishman
came up to me. It was a terrible one, and no marvel that even the
painter had closed his sketch-book to gaze upon it in silent awe. The
entire valley below showed like a giant furnace, or some flaming ocean
of hell. Huge fiery serpents came hissing and snarling up to the
barricade, and great flakes of fire were flying about everywhere,
scorching and kindling as they fell. The chill, keen, mountain air had
become heavy and warm in spite of the winter, and a loathsome,
penetrating odour arose and drove us away from the horrible place. No
one remained but the Polish Jew. He did not move away. He had risen to
his knees on the barricade wall, and his hands, with their prayer-bands,
were uplifted to heaven. Louder and louder he chanted his hymns, raising
his voice above the thundering roar of the crackling fire, the rolling
stones, and the last despairing cries of the doomed ones. The fur on his
cap, his forked beard and dangling locks were singed by the falling
cinders, and his skin scorched and blistered, yet still he chanted on.
But when at last he saw that his prayer was in vain, all at once he
sprang up, and seemed to strike at the flames with both palms; then,
spitting into the fire "pchi!" he fell down senseless.

By this time the heat was so oppressive that it was dangerous to stand
anywhere near the barricade, and even for the sake of saving a man's
life from such a horrid fate, it was impossible to venture among the
falling cinders and rolling stones. All that the few of us who had
escaped with sound limbs and bodies could do was to carry our less
fortunate, wounded or maimed fellow-travellers up into the little
watch-house.

This we did, and then came those seemingly endless minutes in which we
waited for the relief train. Once the Englishman blew the horn for the
goats, and we thought it was the whistling of the expected train. How
terribly that disappointment was felt! and what sinful, subtle, and
sophistical thoughts crowded into our heads, burdened our hearts, and
oppressed our spirits in those awful minutes!

What terrible thing had these poor victims done to deserve such fearful
punishment? What heinous crime had they committed to be sentenced to
death and destruction by such a painful, torturing process? Whose sin
was visited on the guileless heads of little infants and innocent
children who had perished in those flames? Could not they have been
spared? or that loving and beautiful young couple, just on the brink of
life and happiness, and now sent to eternity together by such a fearful
road, into the mouth of hell when they had thought themselves before the
open gate of Paradise? What had that unhappy mother done? or all these
old and young men and women, in full health and spirits, enjoying life
and happiness, surrounded by happy relatives, full of happy plans and
hopes? What had they done to deserve this fate, those poor servants of
the public convenience, the guards, the engineer, and the other
officials, who could have saved their own lives easily, and in good
time, if they had abandoned their fatal posts, and had not preferred to
die in doing their duty? Why had not these been saved for the sake of
their wives and children, now widows and orphans, abandoned to the
charities of a merciless world? Who and where is that awful Deity into
whose altar-fire that conjuring Jew had spat, because He would not
listen to his invocations? What dreadful Power is it which has pushed
down that rock-colossus to destroy so many human lives? Is it the Czrny
Bog of the Samaritans, the Lord of Darkness and Doer of Mischief, whose
might is great in harm, whose joy is human despair, and who is adored
with oaths and curses?

But if such a power exists--if there is a Czrny Bog, indeed--then his
deeds are befitting his name--dark and black. But why should I, who am
human myself, and have a heart for my brethren and a sense of their
wrongs, why should I in this fatal instant, although full of pity and
commiseration, yet inwardly rejoice that this misfortune has fallen upon
others and not upon me? Why should I feel that although others have
perished, all is well as long as I am safe?

Is this not shameful? Is it not an everlasting stain and disgrace upon
my inner self? What right have I to think myself the chosen ward of some
guardian angel or tutelary spirit? In what am I different from those
lost ones? In what better, worthier than they? And if not, why had I
been saved and not they? Here! Here was the Czrny Bog, the dark god, in
my own breast.

At last day was dawning, and, in the grey morning light, the horrible
picture looked ghastlier still, when, to our intense relief, the
long-expected train came, and physicians with their assistants, firemen
with their manifold implements, police, and all kinds of labourers,
arrived upon it. The train stopped at a safe distance, and then the work
of rescue began. Wounds were dressed, the insensible restored, watchmen
and travellers were interrogated by officials. Ropes and rope-ladders
were fastened and suspended, and brave men, magnanimously forgetful of
the threatening danger, went down into the flames, although the hope of
success was small. True, the two or three uppermost cars had not as yet
caught fire; but who could breathe amid that suffocating smoke, that
lurid loathsome atmosphere, and yet live?

The labourers set to work at the breaches of the barricade and the line
of rails. The engineers discussed the best way in which a protecting
barrier ought to be built so as to shut out every possibility of such an
accident; and from the plateau before the watch-house some men were
incessantly calling for a "Monsieur d'Astrachan."

At last one of the labourers called my attention to these repeated
shouts, and, turning in their direction, I observed that this title was
intended for me. The watchman's wife, not knowing my name, had described
me as wearing an astrachan cap and coat-collar, and accordingly I was
called "Monsieur d'Astrachan." Now for the first time I remembered the
child I had carried thither. I had completely forgotten it, and the
occurrence seemed such an age away that I should not have been surprised
to hear that the boy had grown to be a man.

I hastened up the steps, and observed that some official personage in
showy uniform was expecting me quite impatiently. "Come up, sir," he
said; "we cannot converse with your little boy."

"To be sure you can't!" said I, smiling, in spite of the dreadful
situation. "Neither can I, for the boy is deaf and dumb; but I have to
correct you, sir. The boy is not my own, although I took him out of the
carriage."

"That boy deaf and dumb? About as much as we are, I judge. Why, he is
talking incessantly, only we can't make anything out of his prattle, as
we do not understand the language," said the officer.

"Well, that's certainly a miracle!" I exclaimed, "and it bears witness
to the truth of the old proverb, 'It is an ill wind that blows nobody
any good.' Assuredly, the shock of the accident restored his power of
speech. What is he saying?"

"I told you we can't make it out. It's a language that none of us
understand."

"Then I hardly suppose that I shall be cleverer than all of you."

"Whose child is it, if not yours?"

"Some rich nabob's. I can't at the moment recall his name, although the
governess told me, poor soul! We were thrown together by chance, and the
poor woman perished in the flames. Has no one of his many attendants and
servants escaped?"

"It seems not. But pray come in and listen to him; perhaps you will
understand him."

I went in, and found my practical Englishman beside the child, but
incapable of arriving at a mutual understanding. The injured travellers
and the hysterical women passengers were already snugly stowed away in
the ambulance carriages and well taken care of. The goats were again
under the protection of their legitimate shepherd, and that temporary
official, the long-legged son of Albion, was addressing all kinds of
questions in English to an obstinate little boy.

As I entered, and the child caught sight of me, the little face lit up
at once. He extended both his little arms in joy. "Please come," he
said; "I will be a good boy. I will speak!"

It is marvellous enough when a dumb child speaks; but what was my
surprise when I recognised these words, uttered in my own native
Hungarian tongue! Just imagine the five-year-old son of a wealthy
American, whose entire _cortège_ had been German, French, Italian, and
English, speaking Hungarian!

I took the little fellow up in my arms, and he put both his little arms
around my neck, and, leaning his soft cheek on my bearded face, he said
again, "I will be good, very good; but please take me to my papa. I am
afraid!"

"Who is your father, my child?" I asked. "What is his name?"

As I uttered these questions in Hungarian, he clapped his hands in
gladness, and then, after a little meditation, he answered--

"My father is called the 'Silver King,' and his name is Mr. Dumany. Do
you know him?"

"Oh!" said the Englishman, as he heard the name, "Mr. Kornel Dumany, the
Silver King; I know him very well. He is an American, and very rich. He
lives mostly in Paris. If it is more convenient for you to get rid of
the child, I can take care of him and bring him to his father."

"No, no!" protested the little one, clinging tightly to me. "Please, do
not give me to him! I want to stay with you; I want to go with you to my
papa!"

So he knew English well enough, since he understood every word of the
Englishman's. In this case he could not have been deaf at all, but
obstinate, hearing and refusing to talk. Was not such unheard-of
obstinacy in a child of such tender age some malady of the mind or soul?

"I wonder how this child comes to speak Hungarian?" said I, turning to
the Englishman. "Ours is not a language generally spoken by foreigners,
least of all by the young children of American nabobs."

"I never wonder at anything," said he, coolly. "At any rate, I should
advise you at the first station to telegraph to Mr. Dumany; I will give
you his address. So you will be expected when you arrive in Paris, and
have no further trouble. Since you are the only person able to talk to
the boy, it will be certainly the best thing for him to remain with you.
Now I think it is time for us to take our seats in the carriage, or else
the train will start and leave us behind. Come on, gentlemen!"




IV.

THE NABOB.


The train from Zürich arrived at the Eastern Railway Station at seven
o'clock in the morning. In Paris the day has at that early hour not yet
begun, and but very few persons, mostly travelling foreigners and
labourers, are seen on the streets. Since it has become the fashion to
use the moving train for suicidal purposes, the perron is locked, and
only those travellers admitted whose luggage is undergoing examination
by the customs officials.

I was lucky enough to have sent my luggage one day ahead of me to Paris,
and so it had not been lost in the accident. I had nothing with me but a
small satchel, which I had saved, but which contained nothing to
interest the custom-house officers, and so, taking my little charge in
hand, I stepped out into the hall. I had hardly gone two paces, when the
child dropped my hand, and crying, "Papa! dear, darling papa!" ran to a
gentleman who, with a lady at his side, stood by the turnstile.

I had never before seen the lady, yet I recognised her at once as the
mother of my little charge, so striking was the resemblance between
them. She had the same large, dark-blue eyes, the same dimpled chin,
aquiline nose, and pretty, shell-shaped, little mouth as he, and she
could hardly have been more than four-and-twenty, so young and girlish
did she look. The husband was a large-made, well-shaped, and
distinguished-looking gentleman. His bronze complexion had a healthy
flush, and he wore side whiskers, but no moustache. His head was covered
with a round soft beaver, and a long, rich fur coat was thrown lightly
over his shoulder. In his scarf I saw a large solitaire. The lady at his
side was very plainly attired in black, and wore no jewellery at all.
The age of the gentleman was, according to my judgment, about forty.

As the child ran toward him, with both his little arms stretched out,
and crying, in Hungarian, "Apám! Drágo édes apám!" ("Papa! dear darling
papa!") the gentleman hastened to meet him, caught the boy up in his
arms, and covered the little face, hands, eyes, and hair with a shower
of kisses. The father sobbed in his joy, while the child laughed,
caressed his father's cheeks, and called him "Édes jo apám!" ("My good,
sweet father!") in Hungarian, and the father called him, crying and
laughing, "My dear little fool"--in English.

Then I saw the father whisper something to the child, and in an instant
the whole little face became rigid and dull, all child-like mirth and
sweetness had vanished. He looked around, and then clung tightly to his
father, as if in dread of something, and I saw his lips move in appeal.
The father kissed him again and carried him to the lady, who all the
while had given no sign of animation or interest, but had looked on,
cool and indifferent.

"Look, my pet, here is your mama!" said the gentleman to the boy,
approaching the lady and holding the boy toward her. Now, according to
the law of nature, according to all human sentiment and experience, we
should expect a mother who receives back her own offspring, saved from a
fate too horrible even to contemplate, her own child who had gone from
her mute and comes back to her speaking, I say we should think it
natural in such a mother to seize this child, and, in the ecstasy of her
love and joy, half suffocate it with her kisses and caresses. Not so
here. I could see no glad tear in the lady's eye, no smile of welcome on
her face. Her hands were snugly stowed away in a costly little muff, and
she did not think it necessary to extend them to her child. She breathed
a cold, lifeless kiss upon the boy's pale forehead, and the tiny hand of
the child caressed the fur trimming on her jacket, just as he had done
with the astrachan lapel of my coat. What a strange behaviour in mother
and child after such a reunion!

I had watched this family scene out of a strange curiosity, which was
wholly involuntary. Presently I recollected the situation, and turned to
leave the perron. Perhaps, if I had saved some honest cockney's son from
a like danger, I should not have avoided him, but, with a friendly
pressure of the hand, expressed my pleasure at having been able to be of
service to him. Then we should have parted good friends. But to
introduce myself to an American nabob as the rescuer of his child was
impossible! Why, the man was capable of offering me a remuneration!

No, I would have nothing to do with aristocrats like these. They have
their child; it is safe; and so good-bye to them!

However, as I turned to leave, I was surprised to hear some one
pronounce my name, and, to my astonishment, I found that it was Mr.
Dumany. He still held the child on his arm, and, coming toward me, he
said in French, "Oh, sir! you do not mean to run away from us, surely?"

"Indeed I must!" said I, bowing. "But, pray, how is it that you know my
name? You cannot know me personally?"

"Well, that is a question which must remain to be answered later on. At
present it is sufficient to tell you that the telegraph service has been
very full and exact, even in personal description. However, I beg you to
revoke that 'I must,' for indeed I cannot allow you to depart. To the
great favour you have done me, you must add the additional favour of
being my guest for the time of your sojourn in Paris. Promise me to
accept of my hospitality--nay, to regard my house as your own. I shall
be ever so happy! Come, pray, do not hesitate, and give me leave to
introduce you to my wife!"

With that he took my arm, and holding it tight, as if in fear I might
break loose and run off, he led me to the turnstile, where the lady was
standing as quiet and composed as before. He introduced me to her by my
proper name and title, naming even the district which I represented in
the Hungarian Parliament; and all these he pronounced perfectly and
correctly, as I never heard them pronounced by a foreigner before. How
could he know all that? True, I had shown my passport to the frontier
officials; but were these also subject to the Silver King?

The lady bowed politely as her husband said, "This gentleman has saved
our little James from being consumed by the flames at the Rossberg
catastrophe"; and for a moment I felt the slight pressure of a little
gloved hand in mine. It was a very slight pressure, the faintest
possible acknowledgment of a duty, and if I had saved her little pet
monkey or dog, instead of her child, she might well have afforded me a
warmer recognition. Indeed, I had seen women go into raptures on account
of such animals before this, but never before had I seen a mother value
the life of her own child so cheap. She did not hold it worthy of a
single expression of gratitude; she had not a word to spare for him or
me. Was this woman a human monstrosity and void of all natural feeling?
or else was it part of the American etiquette to suppress all outward
signs of emotion?

What puzzled me most was the boy. He was so different from the happy,
talkative little fellow he had been with me and with his father some
minutes ago, and he looked just as dull and inanimate as when I had seen
him first on the railway. Was it because he could only speak Hungarian?
But then, how could he speak to his father? Who had taught the boy to
speak that peculiar language, dear to me and my compatriots, but wholly
unintelligible and of very little use or advantage to the world at
large?

I observed that Mr. Dumany held a short conversation with a tall
liveried footman behind him, and I understood that he ordered him to
take out my luggage. I protested and tried to escape. I like hospitality
at home; but when I come into a foreign country, I prefer the simplest
inn or the obscurest hotel to the most magnificent apartments of a
palace of a prince of the Bourse, because independence goes with the
former, and of all slavery I fear that of etiquette the worst.

But Mr. Dumany did not mean to give way to my polite protestations.
"Just surrender nicely, pray!" he said, smilingly. "It saves you
trouble. Look! If you insist upon going to some hotel, I promise you
that all the reporters of every paper we have, daily and weekly, will be
sure to pester you day and night with interviews, besides the reporters
of foreign papers here, of which we also have an abundance. Every word
you speak will by each reporter be turned into a different meaning, and
by to-morrow the papers will be full of your intimations, although you
do not say anything at all. And then the photographers: how will you
escape them? Don't you know that every penny paper will appear with your
picture in front to-morrow, and, wherever you go, it will be thrust
before your eyes? You will hear your name pronounced in all languages,
and in every way, and you will not know how to escape this unsought-for
and unwelcome notoriety. But if you accept my invitation, nobody will be
able to stare at you or interrogate you, and you shall live as quietly
and peacefully as if you were in some herdsman's hovel in Hortobágy at
home."

I stared at him quite stunned. How, in the name of all that was
wonderful, could he have learned of the existence of a herdsman's hovel
in Hortobágy? How could he know that it was my favourite spot? And how
he pronounced that Hortobágy! Just as I myself! He smiled at my
astonishment, but offered no explanation. But now he had caught me in my
weak point--a writer's curiosity--and I gave in, willingly enough.

Mr. Dumany ordered the carriages. In one magnificent landau Mrs. Dumany
was to go with little James, in the other Mr. Dumany and myself. But the
child obstinately refused to leave his father's arms, and clung to him
more tightly than ever. So the lady was obliged to go alone, and we two
men took the boy with us.

I confess that the gentleman puzzled and interested me very much. Not
because people had given him the name of "Silver King." I do not covet,
and I do not admire wealth alone, pure and simple. I know how to
describe a vine-embowered cottage, or even a thatch-roofed hut, with a
garland of gourd blossoms around its small windows, and I can appreciate
the beauties of a picturesque church or castle. But all my descriptive
faculties desert me before the marble and gold luxury of a modern
palace, and its gorgeous splendour has no charm for me. The interest I
felt was due to the man himself, and, most of all, to the connection
existing between him and my own home. How came this American Croesus to
be acquainted with the nomenclature, customs, and topography of my own
country and language? How came the latter upon the lips of his
five-year-old boy? In my childhood I had known a five-year-old boy, the
son of a count, who could speak only Latin, and not a word except Latin.
But, then, Latin is taught throughout the world, and no education is
considered as finished without a more or less perfect knowledge of
Latin. But where in a foreign country is the professor who teaches the
Ugro-Finnish tongue, even if there were some whimsical parent who wished
that his son should learn to speak it?

During the drive Mr. Dumany acquainted me with some particulars
regarding the customs of his house. He told me that the hour for
breakfast was nine, and that for lunch one o'clock. Dinner was
invariably served at six, and I was entirely at liberty to put in my
appearance or stay away. They would not wait for me, but my place at the
table would be kept reserved; and if I was late, I should be served
afresh. The cook should be entirely at my disposal. If the excitement
and fatigue of the journey should make me wish for a day's rest, I was
free to retire to my rooms at once, and should not be disturbed by
anybody.

In answer to all this I said that I had no habits whatever; that I was
able to eat, drink, and sleep at will; was never fatigued, and would
with pleasure put in my appearance at his breakfast-table that very
morning.

"That will be nice, indeed!" he said. "But I must beg your pardon in
advance for my wife. On ordinary days she is up and presides at
breakfast; but to-day she bade me apologise. She has been up all night
from excitement, and now I have told her to lie down and rest a few
hours. After that she usually spends some time in the nursery,
superintending the children's ablutions, prayers, and breakfast, and
only when all these matters are accomplished is she ready for her duties
as hostess and mistress of the household."

"So little James is not your only child?" I ventured to ask.

"Not by many; we have two more boys and two beautiful little
girls--quite a houseful."

"But the lady looks almost too young to be the mother of so many
children. Little James is the eldest, of course?"

"Yes, he is her first-born, and she is not yet twenty-four. We have been
married six years, so christening has been an annual event with us."

Well, I was more puzzled than ever. I had met with a good many English
and American gentlemen before, but all had been rather reserved in
speech and manner, quite different from this Croesus; and, regarding the
lady, I was altogether at a loss, as all my conjectures were entirely at
fault. She was not without feeling; she was apparently a good mother,
and little James was her own child and not a stepson, as I had guessed.
Her behaviour at the station was still an enigma to me.

At last we arrived at the Silver King's residence--a large, well-built,
and rather comfortable than brilliant mansion, filled with a host of
servants, of whom each knew and fulfilled his particular duty. A _valet
de chambre_ showed me into a very splendid and comfortable suite of
rooms, consisting of a reception-room, sitting-room, work-room, bed-,
dressing-, and bathroom, all furnished in the choicest and most
practical way, and I was delighted to see that, although all was rich
and costly, none of the offensive and pretentious pomp of the ordinary
millionaire's house met my eye.

The valet, an Alsacian, who talked to me in German--perhaps with the
notion of paying me a compliment--informed me that he was entirely at my
own service. He showed me a beautiful escritoire in the work-room, with
everything ready for writing purposes, and told me that, in the
reading-room attached, I should find an assortment of newspapers. He
then quickly and skilfully prepared me a bath, unpacked and arranged my
things, and helped me to dress. He was altogether a wonderfully nice
fellow.

When the valet left me, I went into the reading-room, and looked at the
newspapers. I found quite a number of them--French, English, Italian,
and one German; but still I was a little disappointed. I had half
expected to find a Hungarian paper, and there was none.

The library contained a choice collection of books; works of science,
philosophy, history, poetry, and fiction--of the latter, only a small
and select number. Here also was no Hungarian author to be found; not
even the translation of a Hungarian book could I detect, although I
looked into every one--French, German, English, and Italian, and even
some Spanish and Danish ones.

From the reading-room opened the billiard-room, a handsome apartment.
Its walls were covered with beautiful frescoes, betraying the French
school of art in the delicate colours, and in the Norman, Basque,
Breton, and Kabyle scenes and types represented. Of Hungary I could see
nothing. The Hortobágy herdsman's hovel, of which my host had spoken,
was not to be found.

In another room I found a sort of ethnographical museum, full of relics
and rarities from all countries except Hungary; and yet, if that man had
ever been in my country, he would certainly have brought some token of
remembrance with him. Hungary is more rich in curiosities than a good
many of the countries represented here.

Mr. Dumany came in to see if I was ready for breakfast, and I followed
him into the tea-room, passing a little, semi-circular, ship-cabin-like
apartment, with small, round windows, between which, in
beautifully-sculptured, round frames, of the size of the windows, hung
very handsome landscapes, apparently American.

In the breakfast-room I recognised a tiny Meissonier, in a gold frame of
twice its size, and an Alma Tadema. Mr. Dumany, observing my interest in
the pictures, informed me that these two were there only temporarily,
pending their shipment to New York. There, in Mr. Dumany's real home,
was his picture gallery, containing works of art of the highest
standard.

I ventured to observe that we Scythians, barbarians as we were held to
be, had also some painters worthy the interest of a Mæcenas, and not
without fame, too.

"I should think so," he said, smiling. "And in my New York gallery you
will find Munkácsy _genres_, Zichy _aquarelles_, a Benczur, and some
other equally fine Hungarian pictures. Here I keep only French and
German pictures of lesser value."

Our conversation turned to art in general, and Mr. Dumany surprised me
again by an allusion to the Hungarian witticism that when we speak of
Hungarian art we cannot omit Liszt (for the name of the great musician
is also the Hungarian word for _flour_); and Mr. Dumany remarked that
Americans travelling abroad have learned to appreciate both the
Hungarian specialties. The great artist, and the product of the soil and
mill converted into fine cake, are equally esteemed by them.

We talked about commerce and exports, and he observed that although
American wheat was sure to inundate the European market, yet Hungarian
flour was unrivalled in quality, and would increase in consumption
throughout the world. Then we spoke of financial matters, and here Mr.
Dumany was completely at home. The Hungarian rente had at that time just
been introduced into the market, and Mr. Dumany predicted for it a fair
success. He prophesied the rente conversion scheme and the four per
cent. bonds, and from this topic we diverged to politics. He was a very
fair politician, and I was pleasantly impressed by the apparent interest
which he took in Hungary. He admired Andrássy, and spoke well of his
Bosnian policy. Of Tisza he entertained great hopes, and he felt sorry
for Apponyi, because he had allied his great talents with the
Opposition. He spoke of Kossuth, and said it was a pity to see the grand
old man's name misused by the extreme faction. I tried to turn the
conversation to Hungarian literature, but on this point I met with but
little interest. Still, I noticed that he knew more about us than
foreigners in general do. He did not think the Gypsies the ruling race
in Hungary, and he did not believe us to be a sort of chivalrous
brigands, as some foreigners consider us; but he did not show any
particular sympathy with either the country or the people, and certainly
used no flattery on the subject of our special virtues.

Our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Dumany's valet,
who handed his master two letters. "Will you give me leave to read them
at once?" he asked, turning to me. "They are of some importance, being
answers to two dinner invitations I sent out this morning."

"Certainly," I answered; "pray do as you wish."

He opened and read the letters, and, replacing them again on the silver
salver upon which the servant had brought them, he ordered him to hand
them over to the chambermaid so that Mrs. Dumany might receive and read
them.

After the valet had left, Mr. Dumany said to me--

"I have invited these two gentlemen to meet you at dinner. One of them
is secretary of the Department of the Interior, the other an old
Catholic priest, the parson of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. It is very nice
and pleasant that both of them accepted, and so I hope you will not
object to make the acquaintance of two whole-souled and intelligent
gentlemen."

"Quite the contrary," I hastened to say; "I shall be very happy to meet
them."

Just then the valet returned, and, deferentially bowing, he said to me--

"Madame la Comtesse begs to inform monsieur that she would be grateful
if monsieur would be kind enough to see madame in her apartments."




V.

A REPUBLICAN COUNTESS.


"Madame la Comtesse!" A Peruvian or Argentine countess? Or have these
plutocrats of the great republic some special distinguishing titles,
such as "Silver King," "Railway Prince," etc., and was this exotic
countess the daughter of some such lord of the money market? At any
rate, I had to obey her polite commands, so, throwing away my cigar, I
bowed to Mr. Dumany and followed the lead of the valet.

In crossing a long suite of tastefully-furnished rooms, I noticed the
entire absence of family pictures. They had no ancestors, or did not
boast of them. No farthingaled, white-wigged ladies in hooped skirts and
trailing brocade robes; no mail-clad, chivalrous-looking gentlemen, with
marshals' staffs, keys, and like emblems of rank and high station; or
else these, too, had gone over to New York to subdue with their haughty
grandeur the eyes of less high-born mortals.

There was something else I missed in these beautiful chambers--the usual
obtrusive, caressed and pampered pet animal of a great lady. No
paroquet, no monkey, no little, silken-haired lap-dog, no St. Bernard or
Newfoundland dog, no cat, not even a little canary bird, was to be met
with; and not a single flower, real or artificial, greeted the eye.

At last we came to a room with beautiful heavy brocaded draperies,
evidently veiling the entrance into some other apartment. As the servant
stepped up and drew the hanging aside, I could not suppress an
exclamation of admiration and surprise; and for a moment I stood
transfixed at the lovely and exquisite scene, deeming that fairyland had
opened to me, and that Queen Mab was expecting me in her own enchanting
bower.

The room which I now entered resembled to some extent the Blue Grotto of
Capri. It was flooded with a magic blue light. Just opposite to the
entrance was some kind of bower, with honeysuckle, woodbine, and other
blooming and fragrant vines intertwined. This bower was prolonged in the
rear into a spacious and seemingly endless tropical garden, with
wonderful blooming exotic plants and trees; and in this East Indian
paradise, gaily-plumed, sweet-voiced birds of different size and colour
were chirping, hopping, and hovering above their nests, among evergreen
bushes and glorious flowers. The whole winter-garden received its light
from above, and this light, falling through large panes of blue glass,
threw that peculiar, fairy, grotto-like hue over the little boudoir in
front.

To prevent the luscious odour of the winter-garden from pervading the
air of the boudoir and becoming oppressive, a fine, translucent film
separated the bower from the garden. But this film was not of glass or
any other transparent but solid substance; it consisted of a beautiful,
clear waterfall, transparent as a veil, and noiseless as a fine summer
rain. At the touch of a spring, this softly-pouring waterfall might be
shut off and the entrance into the winter-garden thrown wide.

In the little boudoir, at the opening of the bower, stood a couch, and
opposite this a little settee and two small gilded and embroidered
chairs; while two large sculptured frames, one containing a splendid
mirror, the other a life-size portrait of Mr. Dumany, completed the
appointments.

Mrs. Dumany, or, as she was called, the countess, wore a loose
morning-dress of raw silk, with rich embroidery. Her rich, dark hair was
uncovered and wound around her head in three thick coils, like a tiara.

Her graceful figure was as slender as that of a girl, and she looked so
young and childlike that no living man would have supposed her to be the
mother of five children.

In the peculiar blue light of the boudoir her naturally fair face
appeared so white that I was almost startled. It was just as though some
marble or alabaster statue had moved, looked at me with those large
dark-blue eyes, spoken to me with those finely-chiselled, ruby-coloured
lips.

"Pray pardon me for troubling you to call on me," she said, in fluent
and precise French, although with a somewhat foreign accent and manner
of speech; "I should not have done it were you not the only trustworthy
person from whom I can learn the necessary particulars of the terrible
Rossberg accident. My husband, as perhaps you already know, has invited
two gentlemen to dine with us. One is a government officer of high rank,
the other a kind and benevolent priest. My husband's intention is to
spend a considerable sum of money for distribution among those who were
injured in the Rossberg catastrophe, or their destitute relatives. They
shall at least not suffer actual want, and although I daresay that money
is a poor compensation for a lost or crippled husband and father, or son
and brother, still it is the only possible consolation we can offer
them, and in providing for their own future and that of their
dependents, we at least relieve their hearts of one burden. Of this my
husband wants to talk to the government official. The priest was invited
by me, and I want him to hold a requiem for the souls of those who
perished, and to superintend the erection of a memorial chapel at the
place of the terrible accident. Mr. Dumany is ungrudging in his charity,
and ready for any sacrifice of money; but, you see, we know really
nothing about the particulars. How many were lost, and how many died
afterward in consequence of their injuries? Who were they? Of what
nation, faith, quality, and circumstances? How many were saved, and in
what condition? Have they somebody to attend to them, to support them in
case of need? And then those belonging to ourselves, our dutiful
servants, I might call them our true and faithful friends, has not one
of them escaped? Have they all perished together? You can tell me best,
and therefore I made bold to call you to me. Do not hesitate, pray, but
tell me all that happened, and in what manner it happened, from the
dreadful beginning to the pitiful end--the whole catastrophe, with all
the particulars you can recall to memory."

"Madam," said I, "pray do not wish that. These particulars are much too
dreadful to relate--much too horrible for the ear of a lady. It requires
strong nerves and an iron heart to listen to such a tale as that."

"And what that?" she replied. "True, my nerves are not a bit less
sensitive than those of any other woman, but I have learned to suppress
them--to hold them down. Never fear me! Never spare me! If the scourge
hurts me, I shall think it a penance. Go on! You hold the
scourge--strike! Go on, I say!"

There was an impatient, almost fierce resolution in her voice, and I
obeyed.

If this woman regarded the act of listening to the dreadful tale I had
to tell as a penance, then, indeed, she allowed it to become a torture.
I was obliged to recount the smallest incident of the ghastly event, and
she drank in every word, shuddering as at some deadly poison. Again and
again she questioned me with the skill and zeal of a professional
cross-examiner. Nor would she let me omit a syllable. And when at the
most fearful and heartrending point, her soft, dimpled chin sunk down on
her breast, and her fair, babyish hand knocked at the tender bosom "_Mea
culpa_! Oh, _mea culpa_!"

When she heard that the uncoupling of the parlour car had caused a
delay, she groaned. "Then all this terrible mishap is due to our own
vanity?" she cried. "A consequence of our own presumptuous pride! If our
dependents had sat with the boy in a common carriage with other decent
travellers, the train would have passed the fatal spot long before the
landslide was in motion! But, of course, the Silver King's son is far
too precious a creature to breathe the same air with other creatures of
God's making. He must needs have a separate parlour to himself! And this
sinful, detestable vanity of ours must cost the lives of so many good,
brave, happy, and useful persons. Oh, hell itself must mock at our
folly!"

Now this commination, unexpected as it was from a lady of wealth and
position, was not altogether unwarranted, and so I went on.

As I drew near to the catastrophe I could hear the beating of her heart,
and her breath came short and gasping. When I related how I had caught
hold of the governess's hand, she was trembling, and an almost deadly
pallor overspread her white face. "Alice! oh, Alice!" she cried; and
when I told her how the lady ran back to the coupé for her bonnet, just
at the last moment for escaping, she broke out into a painful hysterical
laugh. "Just like her! Her bonnet! Yes; ha! ha! She would have come down
to dinner in her bonnet, the foolish pride! She was so afraid to show
her bare ears to a man! Oh! oh! Alice!"

At last the tears came to her relief, and she sobbed pitifully. "If you
had only known her goodness," she cried, "her self-sacrificing devotion,
her pure, kind heart! She was the best friend I ever had, and how she
loved that unhappy boy! She was more his mother than I, for she gave him
all a mother's love and all a mother's care and attention. Why did I let
her go with him? Why did I not keep her back from him?"

I told her how the poor woman's first thought had been the safety of the
child.

"And you have not seen her again? You do not know what has become of
her?"

I denied having seen her again. I could not describe to her the horrid
spectacle of the poor woman as I had seen her last, when taken by the
brave firemen from that infernal pile; for, strong as she forced herself
to appear, this would have been more than she could bear; so I told her
that the relief train started with the rescued before we could learn
anything of the rest; but of the certainty of their death there could
not be the slightest doubt.

"What a misfortune!" she sighed, wringing her hands. "Why, that boy had
an escort with him like a prince royal! The honest Dr. Mayer, such a
refined, generous young man; and Tom, the negro, my best servant, and
the truest! He saved me from an alligator once, and killed him with an
iron bar. He was severely wounded by the ferocious reptile, yet he
laughed at his pains."

I remembered the grin on his broad black face in the moment of death,
as I had seen him at the carriage window. He had laughed then also.

"And poor little Georgie?" she asked again, "James's playfellow and
foster-brother? Georgie's mother was James's nurse. How she begged of me
to take care of her darling, to bring him up well, to make a priest of
him! And how well I have kept that promise! I have made more of him than
a priest: he is a saint, and a martyr. Oh, _mea culpa_! _mea culpa_!"

When I had explained to her the circumstances which had made all
attempts at rescue impossible for us, and afterward futile, she nodded.
"I know it," she said. "On that evening I had not said my prayers. We
dined out late, and spent the evening there. I could not come home to
pray with my children, and I could not say my prayers there. I felt the
heavy load on my heart, and once for a moment, when I was not observed
by anybody, I heaved a sigh and said, 'God bless us!' It must have been
at the moment of the catastrophe, for my heart ached with some vague and
gloomy presentiment. Oh, me! our neglected prayer, and such a fearful
chastisement! Tell me! Who is that terrible being that watches us so
relentlessly, and if he catches us napping but once, hurls down those we
love into death and destruction?"

Her marble-white face, her large wide-open eyes, gave her the look of a
spirit.

"Perhaps," said I, "the single blessing you asked saved the life of
your dear child. Let this thought comfort you."

"James?" she said. "This child of sin and misfortune? Why, it was
because he was on that train that all those pure and good people had to
die! Oh, accursed was the hour of his birth! No, no; he is not accursed.
I--I, his mother, that gave birth to him, I am guilty! He is innocent;
he could not help it. Oh, _mea culpa_! _mea culpa_!"

She was beating her breast, and rocking herself to and fro, uttering her
incessant "_Mea culpa_!" "Tell me more," she said again, presently;
"show me more dreadful sights, that I may suffer more. I yearn for it;
it will do my soul good--it is like purgatory. Go on!"

I took good care not to feed this religious frenzy further. On the
contrary, I spoke of the practical Englishman and his performances, and
of the artist who had sat there among all the terrible havoc and had
drawn sketch after sketch.

"That picture we must secure, at whatever cost," she said, eagerly. "It
shall be the altar-piece of the chapel which we are about to raise in
memory of the tragic event and of the souls of the slain."

I had formed my own opinion of Mrs Dumany's state of mind. No doubt she
was mentally deranged, and her special craze was religious monomania.
From this arose the deep melancholy which held her own innocent babe
responsible for the misfortune of others. This made the child repugnant
to the mother, and, no doubt, this was at the bottom of that remarkable
mutual estrangement between mother and child.

I tried to quiet her. I told her that in a very short period a great
many serious catastrophes, such as frequent earthquakes, great
inundations, and similar unfortunate and most terrible events, had
shocked the world and buried whole cities, destroyed the lives and
fortunes of thousands upon thousands of happy and innocent persons. Even
this Rossberg catastrophe had been preceded by another at the same spot,
about the beginning of the present century. Such catastrophes were by no
means to be considered as a punishment from God Almighty, Who is far too
magnanimous to visit the sins of the guilty upon the heads of the
innocent, but simply as the outcome of geological and meteorological
phases of our globe, depending upon natural laws. If anybody was really
to be blamed for the present misfortune, it must be the engineer who had
planned and erected that insufficient barrier instead of a strong
bastion.

Mr. Dumany's entrance interrupted our painful conversation. He came on
the pretence that letters and newspapers had arrived for me, and with
that he handed me a copy of the _Hon_.

"But I had them addressed to the Hôtel d'Espagne," I said.

"They have been already informed that you are here," he answered; and
then, turning to his wife, he said--

"Have you drunk deep enough of the bitter cup? or do you thirst for
more of its contents?"

His voice was soft and tender, and the wife threw both her arms around
the husband's neck, and, burying her face on his breast, she wept
bitterly.

I took my journal, and, without making my excuses to the lady, I
silently stole out of the room.




VI.

DUMANY KORNEL.


At dinner I was punctual, but nevertheless the two gentlemen of whom Mr.
Dumany and his wife had spoken were already present and discussing the
question of Mr. Dumany's munificent offer. After a hurried introduction
I was soon informed of all that had been agreed on. The Secretary of
State had received bonds for 1,000,000 francs, to be taken by the two
Governments, the French and the Swiss, for distribution among the
injured or maimed of the Rossberg catastrophe and the poor dependents of
the slain. The old railroad watchman, who had been discharged by the
company, and the canny shepherd, who both sold and kept his goats when
he ran for the relief train, each received 10,000 francs, and a
considerable sum went to the officials of the relief train as a
remuneration for their services. The rest of the million francs was set
aside for a memorial chapel on the site of the accident, and for the
celebration of masses and a grand requiem in the church of St Germain
l'Auxerrois on the following day--a ceremony which was to be repeated
annually.

I have forgotten to mention that although the dinner was sumptuous, and
the dishes and wines were excellent, yet it was as stately, solemn, and
unsociable a meal as a funeral banquet, and Mrs. Dumany presided in
deep mourning. The only jewel she wore was a large cross studded with
dark-blue diamonds, only recognisable as such by the rays of blue,
yellow, red, and green light which darted from them. This cross was
suspended on a chain of black beads resembling a rosary, and giving to
the black-robed figure the appearance of an abbess. The Spanish lace
mantilla which she had thrown over her beautiful hair served as the
veil, and made the resemblance perfect.

At nine o'clock the government official and the priest took their leave,
and Mrs. Dumany retired, to put her babes to bed, as she said--a duty
which she always fulfilled herself, saying her prayers with them, and
watching them until they slept. After the lady had retired, Mr. Dumany
told me that even when he and his wife dined out, or were going to the
opera, my lady invariably went home at nine o'clock to put her children
to bed--a duty which she never omitted; but on the evening of the
catastrophe she had been compelled to stay by the company present, and
this had given rise to her self-accusations. She was nowhere happy but
in the company of her children, who afforded her the greatest delight
and amusement. I sighed, and, yes--I think I was actually guilty of the
remark that Hungarian ladies of quality were equally good and dutiful
mothers.

We went over to Mr. Dumany's bedroom for a cup of tea and a cigar. It
was a grand room, lofty and spacious as a church, and if I had been a
Chauvinist, I should have said that the rays of light in this room
composed a tricolour of the same hues as the Hungarian flag. The
beautiful hanging-lamp shed a green light, the glowing coals in the
grate threw a reddish tint over the surrounding objects, and the large,
richly-sculptured bed-canopy was all ablaze with white electric lights,
arranged like a chain of diamonds above the heavy purple velvet hangings
which encircled the couch and gave it a cosy and well-shaded effect.

We had hardly finished our first cigar, when Mrs. Dumany, or, as I
should call her, the countess, came in. She wore a white wrapper,
covered with costly lace and leaving her beautiful arms bare below the
loose lace-trimmed sleeves. She led little James into the room, and,
turning to her husband, she said--"This boy obstinately refuses to sleep
anywhere but with his father, just as before we sent him to the
Institute."

The little fellow was simpering, and tottered drowsily to and fro. He
was evidently very sleepy. Mr. Dumany took him up on his lap, unbuttoned
his little boots, and pulled off the tiny socks. The mother stood there,
looking on unconcerned, and presently she said, "Good-night!" and went
out of the room.

The father undressed the child, and put him to bed; then he drew the
curtains aside; the child knelt in bed, folded his little hands, and
evidently said his prayers, for I saw his lips move; but I could not
hear a word. After he had finished, his father kissed him tenderly,
covered him up with the angora rug, and, letting down the curtains,
returned to me.

He had hardly sat down, when the bed-curtains moved, and the cherubic
little head peeped out. "Papa! Papa!" said the child.

"What is it, darling?" his father asked, going back to him.

"I want you to kiss me again," he said, with a little mischievous smile.

After the boy had had his wish, he crept below the covering, and was
soon fast asleep. Mr. Dumany observed that my cigar had expired, and
that I looked rather drowsy. "You are tired," he said; "let me lead you
to your room."

"I have not slept for the last two nights," I replied; "but I shall not
trouble you, as I can find my room easily, or else I can ask the valet.
Pray stay and rest yourself."

"Well then, good-night and sleep well!"

But however sleepy I had been the moment before, these few words were
enough to drive sleep from my eyes for ten nights to come, and to raise
my curiosity to the highest pitch, for they were spoken in clear,
well-pronounced Hungarian.

I gazed at him in utter astonishment, and he smiled. "You did not
recognise me," he said, "but I knew you at once. I knew you very well,
too--at one time: we have been colleagues once."

"Indeed? And how is that possible? Pray where was that?"

"In Budapest, in the Sándor Uteza Palace, the House of Commons."

"You have been a member of the Hungarian Parliament? When? And what
name did you then bear?"

"The name I bear now, which is my own. Only I used to write it in
Hungarian, Dumany Kornel."

"Still I don't remember. Neither your name, nor yet your face is
familiar to me."

"Naturally enough. I was in Parliament for only one day; the next day
they conducted me out again."

"Ah, now I know you! You were the dead man's candidate."

"Yes, you have hit it; I was the man."

Well, this was indeed a surprise. All the drowsiness had entirely gone
from me, and, turning back into the room, I asked, eagerly--

"Sir, have I some claim on your generosity?"

"Oh sir! my dear friend!" he cried, extending both hands to me, "I am
your most grateful and obedient servant for ever. I hand you a blank
sheet, and, whatever you may be pleased to write upon it, I shall most
willingly subscribe to."

"Then tell me how the right honourable Dumany Kornel, a member of the
Hungarian landed gentry, and also of the medical profession, if I
rightly remember, a rather fast-living bachelor, and rejected Commoner,
has been metamorphosed into Cornelius Dumany, the Silver King, the South
American nabob, the matador of the Bourse, husband of a beautiful
countess, and father of five children, within such a short period. Tell
me this, for it is the only gratification I shall accept."

"And let me tell you, dear friend, it is the highest I could give," was
his reply. "In fact, you have presented me such a draft that, in spite
of all my wealth, I am unable to pay it at sight. I have to ask my
wife's permission first. The story you want me to tell is but one half
my own, the other half belongs to my wife, and you must allow me to ask
her leave;" and, bowing to me, he left the room.

I was alone. No, not alone. From behind the bed-curtains issued a heavy
groaning, as if the little sleeper were troubled with bad dreams. I went
to him and lifted the hangings. The glare of the light awakened him, and
he cried out, "Apa!" ("Papa!")

"Papa will come presently, my little one," I said in Hungarian, and he
smiled happily.

"Oh, the Hungarian uncle!" he said, "that's nice;" and, taking hold of
my hand, he caressingly laid his little, soft cheek on it.

"Have you been troubled in your sleep?" I asked.

"Yes," he said; "I was dumb again, although I wanted to speak and tried
very hard. A snake was coiled around my neck, and choked me. There is no
snake in this room? Or is there?"

"No. Don't be afraid of anything. Try to sleep again."

"You will stay with me?"

"Yes, until your papa comes back."

"Stay always. Papa would like it. He always used to say, 'Speak to me,
my boy, only to me! I have nobody but thee to speak to me in our own
Hungarian;' and now he has you also. How glad he must be of it! You will
stay?--promise!"

I promised him to stay a long time, and, holding fast to my hand, he
fell asleep again.

When Mr. Du Many, or rather Dumany, returned to me, I was sitting before
the grate, musing over what the child's innocent prattle had revealed to
me--the tender, loving recollection this man had of his home and the
sweet sounds of our beloved mother tongue.

He came in with an animated face. "My wife has consented," he said. "She
told me that it was confession-time. To-morrow she will confess to
Father Augustin, and this evening I shall make you my confessor. Now
that I have made up my mind to it, I really think that, even from a
practical point of view, it would be much better if the truth should be
known about us, rather than those wild, fanciful stories reported by
gossiping American newspapers."

With that he rang the bell for the servant, and gave his orders for the
night. Tea with mandarin liqueur at once, at twelve o'clock punch and
fruits, at two in the morning coffee _à la Turque_, and at five o'clock
a cold woodcock and champagne, were to be served.

"I hope you will be able to stand being up all night?" he asked.

"I think so. I am chief of the campaign committee at home."

"I beg your pardon. Then I know your quality. But it will possibly
interest you to learn that the bill of fare I have issued consists
entirely of products of my own raising. The tea comes from my own garden
in Hong Kong. The mandarin is decocted from the crop of oranges grown in
my Borneo orchard. The coffee comes from my Cuban plantation, as well as
the 'gizr' spirit, obtained from the coffee bean. The woodcock is from
my own park; and it is only the flour for the cakes that I have to buy,
for that comes from Hungary, and there I own nothing."

"How is that? If I remember rightly, you had a handsome property there."

"Have you not heard that it was sold to pay my debts?"

"And you consented to that?"

"Well, first hear my story. However, I have told you an untruth. I am
yet a landed proprietor at home; I own a cabbage-garden in the rear of
my former castle. That garden is the only bit of soil I kept, and in
this garden fine cabbages grow. Year after year the whole crop is sliced
up, put into great barrels, and converted into sauer-kraut. This they
send after me, wherever I happen to be--whether at New York, Rio de
Janeiro, Palermo, or Paris--and from this, after a sleepless night, my
wife prepares me a delicious 'Korhely-leves'" (a broth made from the
juice, and some slices of cabbage, with sour cream and fresh and smoked
ham, and sausages. This broth is in Hungary frequently served after a
night of dissipation; hence its name, "Korhely-leves," which means
"Scamp's-broth").

"And the countess understands how to prepare the old-fashioned Hungarian
delicacy?" I asked.

He laughed. "Ha-ha-ha! Why, she is as good a Hungarian as you or I. If
she speaks French, she only imitates our ladies at home, who think
themselves so much more refined when they speak bad French instead of
good Hungarian."

This was another revelation, and upset the other half of my fictitious
combination. I had imagined that my countryman had won the love of some
South American magnate's daughter, and in this way had become the
possessor of his innumerable millions. Mr. Dumany might have read my
thoughts in my face, for he smiled and said--

"You will presently understand that I did not rob, did not cheat, and
did not marry for money, and yet I did not acquire my present great
wealth by my own good sense and management, either. I'll show you by
what road I have reached it, as a warning to others. May no other man
ever do as I did! But I do not believe that such events are ever likely
to happen again. I do not believe that there can ever be born another
such a pair of thick-skinned, iron-nerved human beings as the heroes of
this story, or two other persons able to endure what we endured. I will
venture to say that the worldly wealth I have won is not worth the price
I paid for it; but I have gained another prize, whose value can never be
expressed in figures."

Thereupon we sat down at the little tea-table. Mr. Dumany threw a few
logs of odorous cedar wood upon the fire and began his tale. So, from
this point, the present romance is not written by me, but by him.




MR DUMANY'S STORY.

VII.

THE DEAD MAN'S VOTE.


I do not think it necessary to particularly describe the borough for
which I was nominated as a candidate for Parliament. If you know one,
you know all. There were factions, of course, ranged into parties, one
of which drank deep, while the other drank deeper still. There are a
good many nationalities in this particular district, and they are
distinguished by the liquor they prefer. The Slavs drink whiskey; the
Suabians or Germans, beer; the Ugro-Fins or Hungarians, wine; and the
more intelligent and cultivated of all the races show their agreement in
matters of taste by drinking, alternately, wine, beer, or whiskey, with
equal relish. Jehovah's own chosen people, considering it much more
prudent and hospitable to serve the liquid to others than to drink it
themselves, furnish all parties with the wished-for fluid, according to
individual taste, and find the transaction even more satisfactory and
profitable than drinking in itself.

If Dante had visited Hungary, and had seen my particular borough in
election-time, he would not have omitted it in his description of hell.

Yet the highly respectable voters expect a substantial confirmation of
their patriotic convictions, and some of them are not fully persuaded
until four or five angels (golden, of course) come to enlighten their
minds. Others refuse to listen even to the sweet voices of these angels,
and wait obstinately for the mightier spirits, emblazoned on fifty and
one hundred florin bank-bills. Others, again, are to be had only _en
bloc_--that is, in company with their friends and connections, and only
just at the last moment, when the bidding is highest; and so tender is
their conscience that they listen to the persuasions of all parties with
equal earnestness, and it takes much to convince and win them over.

It is a matter of course that the nominated candidate of each party is
far above such negotiations, and, although he owns that it has come to
his knowledge that his antagonist actually stooped to bribery in order
to defend his weak cause, yet he himself will never condescend to meet
the man on that ground. If his own moral integrity, the lofty standing
of his party, and his party's principles, will not secure the victory
for him, why, then there is no honesty and patriotism in this decayed
age, and the patriotic cause is lost!

At every election, as you well know, are a number of kind,
disinterested, active, and zealous party members, indefatigably busy in
securing and collecting votes, or, what is more essential, trying to win
over the votes of the enemy. These very useful and highly respectable
gentlemen are leaders or drum-majors, and they have a number of
subalterns, not less useful, painstaking, and persuasive, only a little
less gentlemanlike and less scrupulous, and perhaps not wholly
disinterested as regards pecuniary gain. These are the election
drummers, plain and simple.

Now at the election of which I am speaking there were two factions. I,
as the champion of the Clerical-National-Conservative party, stood in
opposition to the champion of the Panslavonic-Liberal-Reform party, and
you may believe that we did all that was possible to defeat the opposing
faction. My own party emblem was the red feather, that of my adversary
the green feather; the national cockade we sported in common.

At six o'clock p.m. the green feathers were one vote ahead of us. "This
is not to be endured!" shouted my head drummers, and "This is not to be
endured!" was the war-cry of the subordinate drummers. But how could
they help it? The lists were scrutinised again, and it was found that
Tóth János, the potter, had not voted. "Where is Tóth János, the potter?
and why did he not vote?" added my chief drummer. "Beg pardon," said one
of the subalterns, "but the man was buried the other day."

"Well, that was a calamity. Is there no other Tóth János in the village?
The name is rather a common one."

"There is indeed, and he happens to live in the same house with the
deceased, only he is not a voter, as he does not pay taxes; he is only a
poor poultry-dealer. Still he is on the list as a carter, and the thing
could be managed."

Tóth János, the poultry-dealer, was sent for, but his voting in his own
right was out of the question. So the drummers talked with him a long
time, and they had glib tongues, and the aid of the ever-welcome angels.
Tóth János the poultry-dealer, who could not vote in his own name, voted
as Tóth János, the potter, but he had a great sacrifice to make. The
deceased potter was nick-named the "gap-toothed," because he had lost
his front teeth in a brawl. Now the poultry-dealer's front teeth were as
sound as ivory, yet so great and effective were the persuasions of the
"angels" that, in half an hour's time, Tóth János, the poultry-dealer,
so closely resembled Tóth János, the potter, in outward appearance that
no question concerning his identity was raised, and his vote was
recorded.

Still, this was insufficient. True, we were now even with the foe, but
we were compelled to show a majority, even if it consisted only of a
single vote. If Richard III could offer "a kingdom for a horse," why
should not we offer "1,000 florins for a vote?"

Somebody made the discovery that on the outskirts of the village, in an
old tumble-down shanty of his own, lived a poor Jew with a lot of
half-starved, forlorn-looking children, and a half-crazed, careworn,
hard-working wife. The husband and father had been laid up with
consumption for the last few months, and was daily expected to die. This
poor wretch, who never in all his life had been the owner of an entire
suit of decent clothes--for when he had a hat, he invariably lacked
shoes, or when in possession of a coat, he was in sore want of a pair of
trousers--this poor fellow had yet a fortune at his call, for he could
bequeath to his family the 1,000 florins which we were willing to pay
for his vote. All his life he had been as honest as he was poor, earning
a miserable livelihood by setting glass panes in the village windows.
Nobody had ever thought of getting his vote, still less had he himself
thought of attaching any importance to the right he possessed as a
taxpayer. Our drummers found the poor fellow just in the act of taking
leave of this vale of care and sorrow; but they would not have been the
smart fellows they were if they had not succeeded in defeating Death
himself, and robbing him of his prey for as long as they needed. The
dying man stared vacantly into their faces when they offered him this
enormous sum of ready money, while his wife and children broke into a
howl of despair that the offer had not come earlier, for how could a
dying man leave his bed to vote? But my drummers were not to be beaten.
They caught up the bedstead with the sufferer on it, and hastened with
it to the tent where the votes were collected. The dying man had been
made to understand that the bill of 1,000 florins which he saw would be
given to his wife, if he would only pronounce my name when asked to whom
he gave his vote, and he hold tight to his wife's hand, and met her
appealing glance with something like assurance. Happily, he was still
alive when brought to the urn, and the drummers announced that "the poor
man was troubled in his conscience, and could not die unless the
opportunity of fulfilling his patriotic duty was afforded him, so that
he had begged them to bring him to the tent and allow him to vote." This
touching little piece of news was received in the spirit in which it had
been given, and just as the poor fellow in his agony was asked the name
of his chosen candidate, Death came to claim his own. With a last look
of sorrow and affection at his wife he sighed with his dying breath, "Du
mein liebel"[1] ("Thou, my love!"), and expired.

[Footnote 1: The Jews in Hungary usually speak German among themselves.]

"'Nelly Dumany! Dumany Nelly!' he said," cried my drummers--"Nelly"
being an abbreviation of Kornel, my Christian name--and since the "Du
meine" really sounded like "Dumany" and not at all like "Belacsek," the
candidate of the other party, and since the dead man could not be made
to repeat his vote, whereas my drummers were ready to take their oath of
the correctness of their assertion, the vote was credited to me, and I
was declared elected by a majority of one vote, my suffrages being 1,501
in number, whereas my adversary had received only 1,500.

The case was afterward contested, and some witnesses endeavoured to
prove that the dying man had not said, "Dumány Nelly," but "Du mein
liebe"; yet there was the sworn statement of my drummers to the
contrary, as well as the evidence of his wife and children that the man
had been a devout and religious Jew, incapable of offending Jehovah by
uttering German words with his last breath. He had simply pronounced my
name in Jewish fashion, and eased his patriotic heart by voting for me.
Itzig Maikäfer's vote was as sound as a nut and could not be rejected.

Not quite so sound, however, was the other dead man's vote--that of Tóth
János, the potter. We had sent his substitute, the poultry-dealer, with
a cartload of odds and ends to Galicia, just to have him out of the way.
We managed to make it difficult to prove which of the two men named Tóth
János had been buried two days before election-day by providing for the
dead man's family, and sending them off to a remote place; and as the
poultry-dealer (who was a widower without any family) did not return
from Galicia for many weeks to come, everything seemed secure. But we
had reckoned without our host, and did not take into consideration a
possible treachery. The barber, a miserable wretch, whom we thought to
be a true red-feather man, and who had been more than liberally paid for
extracting the poultry-dealer's front teeth, and trimming his hair and
beard into the semblance of those of the dead potter, went and blabbed
of his work. A strict examination followed, the body of the potter was
exhumed, and his identity proved to a certainty. Of course, no one dared
to accuse me of foul play, but a new election was found necessary, and
the day after I had first taken my seat as a member of the Hungarian
Parliament, I was politely but firmly given to understand that I had no
legal right to its possession, and had better go. This is the story of
how I became to be called "the dead man's representative," and how I was
a colleague of yours for a single day.

Yet this story I have told you cannot give anyone a fair or true
estimate of me, or my character, or ability. Anybody who heard or read
this story would suppose me to have been a vain, good-for-nothing sort
of fellow, who had missed his degree at college and lacked the ability
to fill any decent position, and therefore plunged into politics to make
his living, or perhaps to squander the inheritance he had received from
his ancestors. But, in reality, I had already, at the age of
six-and-twenty, occupied the position of a well-qualified assistant
physician, and at two-and-thirty the newspapers spoke of me as a famous
specialist and a great light of the profession. As I was established in
Vienna, where the competition is great, and Hungarians are pushed into
the rear if possible, my reputation could not have been without some
foundation at least. I was respectable and respected, very much in love
with my profession, and did not care a straw for politics. So, in order
to make you understand the change--nay, the entire revolution--which my
outward and inward man, my entire existence, had experienced, I must
acquaint you with a portion of my family troubles and domestic
relations, and I shall have to speak of my Uncle Diogenes.




VIII.

MY UNCLE DIOGENES.


First of all, I must inform you that my father was a very zealous
patriot, and mingled largely in state and political affairs. Of course,
in the great insurrection of the year 1848 he took an active share, and
after the catastrophe of Világos he was seized and imprisoned at Olmütz.
At that time I was a lean, overgrown youngster of sixteen. I was
compelled to take charge of the household, and behave as head of the
family, for which dignity I had no inclination and but little talent.
Study was the great object of my life. After my father's release from
prison I was just of an age to decide as to my future career; but that,
at the time, was rather a difficult thing for a Hungarian youth, all
offices and positions being filled by Germans and Bohemians. I did not
wish to follow in my father's footsteps, for I saw that what with his
neglect of business matters, what with his liberality in furnishing all
patriotic enterprises out of his own pocket with the necessary means,
and in extending a wide hospitality to all political refugees, our own
circumstances were getting worse and worse, and we were deeply in debt.

So one day I took courage to speak to my father upon the subject, and
told him that I thought it was time for me to select a profession.

"Oh! you are going to hunt for some paltry office in the district
courts?" he said, with a snarl.

"No! I am going to study as a physician," I replied.

"What? Do you want to be a barber or a veterinary surgeon, or one of
those curs who pretend to look after the wounded so that they themselves
may keep out of danger when their betters fight? Imagine a scion of the
Dumanys, and the last one, too, wanting to be a sick nurse instead of a
man! I have a notion to shoot you on the spot!"

"That you can't, for our present ingenious Government takes precious
good care that such dangerous persons as my father shall not be left in
possession of a rifle or any other shooting-iron; and surely you will
not butcher me? Come, father, be reasonable! You know well what I mean
to become, and that the calling I have selected is honourable and
respected."

"It is not fit for the son of a gentleman and a Dumany. If you dare to
follow such an insane course, you may be sure of my malediction, and,
besides that, I'll discard you--disinherit you!"

"I am very much afraid, papa, that if our present course lasts awhile
longer, there will not be much left to bequeath to your heirs. So I am
not afraid of that threat; and as to maledictions, you are much too kind
and good-natured to utter such stuff; and, besides, curses are just as
harmless and useless as blessings. The Frauenhofer lines tell us all the
secrets of hell, and so I am not at all afraid of them. But I am
terribly afraid, dear father, that the road which you have pursued will
lead us to ruin in a very short time."

I had taken precise accounts of all that we possessed and all that we
owed. I had computed these accurately, and showed him the result, which
was rather alarming; but he waved the document away with his hands, and
said, "Don't be foolish; don't worry about these little inconveniences,
which can't be helped, and will soon cease to trouble us. Why, there is
your uncle Dion, with eighty-seven winters on his head (may God rest
him!) and not a soul to leave his large fortune to, but you, his only
nephew! Bless my soul! what a nuisance is this boy! Instead of going to
this paragon of an uncle, and trying to get into his good graces, as his
next of blood and kin, he talks of becoming an apothecary, smearing
plasters, mixing poisons, and setting sprained joints. Go to thy uncle,
I say, like a dutiful nephew, and doctor him, if doctor you must!"

"I have been to him already, and have told him of my intentions."

"'Pon my word! And then?"

"He gave me the money to pay my preliminary expenses, and I hope to get
along afterward by myself."

"Well, to think of Dion giving away anything but advice! It's a treat!
And what did he say?"

"That I was right and sensible in providing against the future; for he
knows of your difficulties."

"Stuff and nonsense! He can't last for ever, and then where is the need
for your troubling yourself about my difficulties or studying for a
profession?"

"You are mistaken: he will not leave us a penny; neither do I care for
his money. All I wanted of him I have got, and there is an end of it."

"Then don't say that I am an unnatural or unfeeling father. I'll give
you thir--no, twenty florins!" But he never said whether these twenty
florins were meant to be given monthly, or only once for good and all.
However, as I did not ask for them, I never got a penny, and soon
learned to do without my father's money by giving lessons, coaching less
diligent and capable fellow-students, and contriving to live upon almost
nothing.

But I wanted to speak to you of my Uncle Diogenes, as he was generally
called, although his Christian name was Dion. He was my father's
brother, but by no means like him. Rather an odd sort of a fellow, and
as keen as a razor. He went even beyond the old classical types; he was
more cynical and more of a philosopher than they. Not the oldest
inhabitant remembered the time when the cloak that covered his stooping
shoulders on the street was new. Daily he went to church, never into
church. There, on the sacred threshold, among the beggars and outcasts,
he paid his homage to his Maker, and then returned to his desolate home.
There was a large public well in the village. To this he himself went
with a large pitcher for his drinking-water. This water he poured into a
large boiler, boiled and strained it, and then drank it, because then
he was sure of the bacilli. He kept no attendant or housekeeper, for
fear of being murdered; and he was so much in dread of poison that he
never ate cooked food or anything made of flour, not even bread. He
lived on baked potatoes, nuts, honey, raw fresh eggs, and all sorts of
fruits and vegetables which might be eaten raw, and which grew in his
own orchard and garden. Out of his large herd of cattle he selected a
cow for his stall. This cow he attended to with his own hand, carefully
examining each stalk or haulm she ate, in order that no poisonous weed
might be consumed by her, and thus poison the milk. Each morning and
evening his own hands milked her, and he churned all his butter, and
made all his cheese himself. He never ate anything but what I have
mentioned, and he never went out without two loaded double-barrelled
pistols in his boots. He never read any other newspaper than the
Slavonic _Narodne Novine_, which he got from the village parson; but,
before reading it, he held it over a charcoal fire, on which he had
thrown some juniper berries, to kill possible malarial germs. His land
was all farmed out, and the rent had to be paid to him in gold or
silver, which he locked away in a great old iron chest. Occasionally,
through auctioning off some poor debtor's effects, he came into
possession of bank bills, 50, 100, 1,000 florin notes. These he rolled
up separately, and pushed one by one into a hollow reed. Of those
stuffed reeds he made bundles, which he stowed away in a corner of his
room. He never lent a penny of his money; he never put a penny into any
savings-bank, for he called them all humbugs; and he never gave a penny
for charity or friendship. Such was my Uncle Diogenes or Dion; and now I
will tell you what he had given me. You remember I told my father that
my Uncle Dion had furnished me with the means of paying my preliminary
expenses. That was true, but I had earned the money, little as it was,
in ciphering, writing, and riding about to my uncle's tenants at a time
when he was ill with a cold, and would have been obliged to pay a
stranger for the work which I did for him. I said it was little he gave
me. I have not told the whole truth, for he gave me his advice, and put
his own example before me, and that made a small sum go a long way.

Well, to make a long story short, let me tell you that I was an
established physician when my father died, and immediately after his
death his estate was seized in bankruptcy proceedings.

I did not care. I was satisfied with my position in Vienna, and as I had
no mother nor sisters or dependent younger brothers, and had long ago
relinquished the hope of coming into possession of our family estate, I
tried to forget my former home and live only for my profession.

After my efforts had made me a name as a clever and skilful specialist,
I was occasionally called to visit some wealthy patient in Hungary, and
then the papers gave accounts of the diagnosis I had given, and
mentioned the generous fee I had received. I did not approve of this
sort of advertisement, but I found that it could not be checked, and so
grew indifferent to it. One day I received a registered letter
containing money. It was stamped all over with the cheapest kind of
sealing-wax, and, on opening the envelope, I was surprised to find a
letter from my Uncle Dion, with an old, crumpled hundred-florin bill, of
a kind that had long gone out of circulation, and which showed every
mark of having issued from one of the hollow reeds. The letter ran about
as follows:--

     "MY DEAR NEPHEW, DR. DUMANY,--Knowing well that physicians will not
     move a step without being well paid, I send you the enclosed
     bank-bill, and pray you to take the trouble to visit me for a few
     days here in my house.

                                                          "DUMANY DION."

I took the bank-bill, put it into a fresh envelope, and wrote the
following lines:--

     "MY DEAR UNCLE,--One hundred florins will not induce me to leave my
     patients, and so I return the bill; but if you are really in need
     of a physician, and want me in that capacity, then please let me
     know, without enclosing money, for I should consider it my duty as
     a near blood-relation to give you my professional assistance
     without delay.--Yours,

                                                        "DUMANY KORNEL."

By return of post came the answer--"Yes, I want you immediately."

I went at once. It was ten years since I had seen him last. He was
eighty-seven then; he must be ninety-seven now. A rare age, indeed!
When last I saw him, his long and thick white hair had reached to the
middle of his back, and his long untrimmed beard flowed down to his
girdle, and was the colour of hemp. His eyes were as sharp as those of
any young man, and he did his reading and writing without an eye-glass.
Even his grafting he did without an artificial help to his vision. I
remembered well the old custom for guests arriving at his house: coach
and servants had to be left at the inn, and dinner had to be ordered
there. Whoever came to visit the lord of the château, quite a
magnificent old-fashioned country seat, had to enter through a narrow
garden-gate, just wide enough to admit a single person. The great gate
was never opened, no vehicle of any kind was admitted to pass through
it, and a thick growth of horse-sorrel, both without and within the
great oaken wings, bore witness to the fact. There was a turnkey at the
little gate, and an old man--the only servant my uncle ever kept, who
served for porter, gardener, and all other purposes--opened the door.

There was yet one tender spot in my uncle's heart, one sprinkle of
poetry in his nature. He adored flowers, especially roses, and he did
not even grudge money to secure rare specimens. His flower-garden was a
real fairy bower, and the old man, with the flowing snow-white hair and
beard, pruning and grafting continually, resembled some sorcerer who,
with a single touch of his withered hands, could create or destroy all
the beauty around him.

I found him there among his roses when I came. He recognised me at
once, although the last ten years had considerably changed my
appearance. He was looking just the same as he did ten years ago; not
altered in the least. He was as dry, as wrinkled, and as white as when I
had last seen him, and his eyes appeared by no means less sharp than at
the time I speak of.

"Happy to see you, my dear fellow!" he said. "I should have known you
wherever I met you. You look like the old boy you were."

"So I do, because of my clean-shaven face, uncle. I do not care for the
manly beauty of a moustache and beard. But I must return your
compliment. You have not aged in the least, and I can hardly believe in
your wanting a physician at all. You do not look like it."

He chuckled. "Well, well, I don't think you are much mistaken; but sit
down here in the bower: my room is not quite so pleasant and orderly a
place. I must call the gardener--"

"Don't take the least trouble, uncle," I said. "I shall not stay with
you, as I ordered a room at the inn and also my dinner. I had a hearty
lunch half an hour ago, and so you need not worry about my comfort. Now
tell me what ails you, pray, and then I'll see what I can do for you."

"Nothing in the least with regard to my health, for I am not a bit worse
than I was ten years ago, and far better than most others at my age. I
am ninety-seven, as you know, and that's no trifle. It would be foolish
to expect anything better, and you could not prevent my dying about this
time next year."

"Oh! you are hypochondriac, I see, and give way to fancies! Come in, and
let me examine you professionally, for such fancies are always the
result of some serious disorder."

"There you are mistaken, my boy. My heart, lungs, liver, and the rest of
it are all right, and I am not melancholy. Neither am I weak-minded or
nervous, and you need not look into my eyes or feel my pulse. I have
known these four years that I am to die at the time I mentioned,
although I am sure, when I tell you how I came to know it, you will call
me superstitious. For you fellows of the present day are so sceptical
and matter-of-fact that you refuse to believe in anything that cannot be
proved by optical inspection or by evidence. It was, as I said, just
four years ago, on my ninety-third birthday, when St. John the Nepomuc
appeared to me in a dream, and said--'Dionysius, my good fellow, make
the best of your time! There are only five more years for you in store,
and then you must die! no help for it!' Since that time he comes to me
every year regularly on the night of my birthday, and repeats his
warning, each time giving me one year less. Last week was my birthday,
and he gave me the last warning. Next time he comes I shall have to go.
So--"

"But, my dear uncle," I said, rather vexed, "if you are so much
convinced of the certainty of your death, then it was not at all
necessary for me to come. You want the priest, and not the physician. I
can cure bodily diseases, and release you from the clutches of cholera,
or sometimes even of death; but if the saints have got hold of you, and
such a tight hold, too, then you had better go to your confessor, for it
is his business to be in close connection with all of them. I give you
up. Good-bye! I have patients in Vienna, and cannot afford to waste my
time on a pleasure trip."

"Good God! what a hot-tempered fellow, and what admirable rudeness!
Stay, you unmannerly specimen of honesty, who don't think it worth your
while to cajole an old fool for the sake of his money! What do you think
that I summoned you for? But none of your impudence, if you please!"

I was amazed, and must have looked so, for the old man broke into a
merry laugh, that sounded like two pieces of cracked iron rubbing
together. There was a merry twinkle in his eye even after his laugh, and
he regarded me with a humorous expression which was entirely new to me.

"Well," he said, "I see that you are somewhat slow of apprehension; not
at all as sharp as others of the family. So I must help you out. I am
going to make my will. There!"

"Well then, you had better consult a lawyer or a notary. I am neither of
the two, and cannot be of the least use to you."

"That's gospel truth. But as you are the only sensible person of the
whole family, the only one who is not a prodigal, and have made shift to
live decently upon your own earnings, I rather think that I may be of
use to you. I like you, because you browbeat me and do not flatter me,
and I will tell you the truth; that bank-bill which you returned to me
strongly interested me in your favour. There was a time when I was not
the shrewd hard fellow that I am, but a true Dumany and a spendthrift. I
can show you a heap of signatures from nearly all the members of our
family--that is, the elder members--every one given me as security for
money I have lent them; but that money was never returned to me, and
although I have always believed that spirits will break their bonds and
return to their former home, I never believed in a bank-note's return
until you showed me the miracle. Therefore I have decided to make you my
heir, and I have called you to witness the will and--"

"Not a word more," I said. "I never speculated upon anybody's death, and
do not intend to change my habit. I never took the trouble to inquire
how much of my poor father's fortune was swallowed by the lawyers,
although I know that, after paying all of his debts, there must have
been a handsome penny left, and I could have recovered that money if I
had cared to see about it. I have earned for myself a respected position
and a decent living, and I expect to do better yet. So thanks to you for
your kind intention, but I am not the man you want."

"Yes, you are, and the more so because you do not worship the golden
calf, and do not want to hurry me into my grave as the others do. To
tell you all: I wish to settle everything on you while I live, the
estate, the house, the money, and all--no, don't run away! I am not
crazy, and you need not be afraid that I want you to live here with me
in this old hall as it is, mouldy and dirty and desolate. Neither do I
want you to share my diet of fruits and raw vegetables, eggs and milk,
and baked potatoes. On the contrary, I want you to come to me and live
like a gentleman, as a Dumany should, and let me enjoy life with you."




IX.

A SLAVONIC KINGDOM.


"You see, my dear boy," continued the old man, fondly taking my hand and
pressing it, "it is a princely domain that I offer you, and a princely
income. The station I invest you with is that of a king in its way, and
not a small way, either. Now listen to me! For a great number of years I
have lived here on this spot, like one of those hermits of bygone times,
living on roots and other primitive food, and never tasting of a decent
cooked meal, because I have never ceased to fear that those who wished
to get my money would try to poison me in order to get it sooner. This
fear I know no longer. I know well that my time expires next year; but
of this one year of life I am assured, and I am resolved to make the
best of it. I want to eat nice roasts, good cakes, and other delicate
dishes, and I want to drink wine. I have not tasted wine since 1809,
when I was studying law and attached as juratus to the Personal. For
many years I did not seem to care about it; but now I long for it, and I
remember how delicious it used to taste."

"But, my dear uncle, this would not be wise. Such a change would
absolutely kill you."

"Tut! tut! Never fear! I am sure of the one year, and am not going to
bargain with Death for more. Give me the one year, and let me enjoy it
according to my wishes--that is all I ask for. But for a safeguard
against extravagances, should not I have a skilled and renowned
physician living with me and looking after me daily? Don't you see that
your professional attendance will prevent all evil results, so that I
shall be perfectly safe? I could not have lighted upon a better plan
than making you my heir, and letting you live with me. Of course, I
could have taken a housekeeper; but I know womankind. In less than half
a year she would have persuaded me to marry her and settle all my
belongings on her, and this would not do for a Dumany. But if you come
to live with me, everything will be different. I'll let you have the
whole mansion, and keep nothing but my old room, of which I am fond,
because I am used to it and to the old, dingy, broken furniture that's
in it. You should marry, and bring your pretty little wife into the
house, and she would sing to me and play the piano or the organ, and
would keep pretty little chambermaids that I could pat on the cheeks,
and your little wife would let me kiss her fair, soft little hands; it
would be delicious! Then I should hear a little scolding and quarrelling
in the house, and you would take care that your little lady-wife should
not spoil me by too much fondness, and you would order my dinners and
select my wearing apparel according to my health. Perhaps I might sleep
a little after meals at the open window--a luxury I always longed for,
but did not dare to indulge in. This would be life for me, and a slow
and sweet transit from the cares and troubles of this world into
heaven."

The old man became quite excited over this ideal picture of happiness.
"I speak of heaven," he continued, "and this reminds me of the church.
Do you know why I say my prayers outside among the beggars, and never go
into the church? Not out of humility, but because at present there is
only a simple Slav minister here, and I am not over-anxious to listen to
his orations. Besides, the church is always so full of the Slav peasants
that you cannot breathe inside of it, such an infernal odour is diffused
by them. But if you would come to live here, and bring a gentle little
Hungarian lady with you, perhaps the bishop could be induced to send
some nice Hungarian priest to preach to us; and I am very fond of a good
sermon, especially if I could listen to it comfortably in my pew, as you
may wager that not one of these burly peasants would go inside the
church if the service were held in Hungarian. And then just fancy the
happiness if there should be a christening in the family, and I should
be godfather to your son! Would not that be glorious? Oh, if I could
live to see it! You must make haste and marry, or I'll put speed into
you, you may rely on that!"

I was ready with my diagnosis by the time he had finished his last
sentence. Hallucinations born of religious frenzy; idiosyncrasies with
allotriophagical symptoms, a consequence of his ascetical mode of
living; nymphomania of old age; hypochondriacal fancies: all symptoms
that are frequently found together. To second his morbid intention of
changing his diet and habits would be sheer lunacy; nay, worse, it would
be actual murder. Yet first I must win his confidence as a physician, so
that he may trust me and take my advice. I embraced him, and thanked him
most heartily and tenderly for his kind intentions, which I should never
forget and should always feel grateful for; but I said, brilliant and
splendid as it was, I could not accept his proposition, I could not give
up the career I had entered, the profession I had embraced and which I
loved, and the independent and honoured position I was proud of. My
calling was everything to me--life, happiness, fortune, and ambition;
and to give up my profession in order to till my farm, to exchange my
study, laboratory, and dissecting-table for the petty cares and troubles
of a country squire and a county member, would be physical and mental
death to me.

The old man smiled. "You talk so because you cannot comprehend the
importance of the position you will fill as the lord of my Slavic
kingdom, because you cannot guess the amount of the wealth I offer you.
You shall know it, and you are the only person alive to whom I have ever
spoken, or shall ever speak about it. You think this old mansion looks
as dreary and rotten inside as out; but you are mistaken. This residence
of the so-called Slav King is a princely seat, and it hides treasures
that monarchs and potentates would be proud to possess. If any one of
the family calls on me, he finds me in my dingy little hole of a room,
which, with an old rotten table, broken chairs, mutilated chest of
drawers, and coarse bed with bear-skin coverlet, looks poor and
inhospitable enough, and my visitors are generally glad to escape into
the open air again, thinking that the whole house resembles this room in
appearance; whereas, were I to throw the doors open, and show them the
splendour of the rooms and halls, they would stare in amazement. Every
one of the rooms is a perfect museum, and contains precious rarities.
One is full of carved furniture of costly woods, inlaid with ivory,
mother-of-pearl, gold and silver, and rich stones of the time of
'Ulászló.' The next contains all sorts of pottery of past
centuries--Roman and Etruscan, Chinese and Japanese, Sèvres and Dresden,
old Hungarian, and so forth. The third room is full of weapons of all
ages--panoplies, coats of mail, shields, bucklers, saddles. In the
fourth room are gowns and trains and coats of brocade, and artistic
embroidery and tapestry. The fifth room is a picture-gallery of
unlimited value; and then comes a library that has not its equal on this
continent, nor, I may say, on any other. High up to the ceiling the
large hall is filled with precious and rare old products; books with
clasps that are themselves curiosities of rare beauty. But those books!
If your medical colleagues had the privilege of entering this library
and peeping into those books, I doubt if they would be willing to part
with them ever after. Why, there is actually a book to invoke the devil
with! I did not dare to look into it, but you young fellows are such
sceptics that you will deny the existence of God and Devil presently,
and you will take the risk of reading that book.

"All these treasures were hoarded together by my father--may God bless
and rest his soul! He was called a miser throughout his life, and he
denied himself all comfort in order to spend his income in replenishing
his collection of rarities. Shortly after the birth of his second son,
your father, our mother grew tired of his mania and the sacrifices she
had daily to make, and left him, taking us boys with her, while he
remained alone among his beloved curiosities, which became dearer to him
on account of the high price he had to pay for them. When we boys--your
father and I--grew up, your father grew daily more like our mother,
while I became strangely infatuated with the old man and his store of
curiosities. He was also fond of me, showed me all his treasures,
dwelling upon the particular beauty of each. Miser as our father was, he
occasionally gave money to his younger son, but he never gave any to me,
and I had to consider this as an especial favour, for had I not the
privilege of sharing the main interest of his life?

"When my father died, there was hardly enough ready money in his desk to
pay his funeral expenses, and he had left a very strange will. He had
kept minute accounts of the amount he had spent each day and year for
different objects. All the money he had given to my mother and my
younger brother was reckoned up and subtracted from their share under
his will. He wrote that, as he knew that his wife was well provided for,
having a considerable fortune of her own, he left her a life-estate in
such one of his many domains as she might select. With regard to his two
sons, one had never shown him any love, and visited him only when in
want of spending-money; the other had never asked for a penny, although
he had received less from his mother than her favourite, the younger.
Yet, as a dutiful father, he did not wish to be partial; therefore his
sons were to divide his lands, goods, and chattels in the following
manner:--One was to take all his ready money, bonds, and objects of
gold, silver, and jewellery of recent workmanship (meaning the present
century), besides his horses and cattle, and the wine in the cellars;
while the other was to take possession of all the lands and the
residuary estate, on condition that he should reside in this particular
mansion and take charge of the museum therein, that he should never
marry, never accept any public office, in order that the treasures under
his care might receive the full benefit of his resources. He was
required to pledge himself to live in exactly the same secluded and
frugal way as his father, and to take his oath that during his lifetime
and stewardship he would not sell or give away one particle of the
estate, whether real or personal, which he received under the will.
Further, he must give up all claim on his mother's estate for ever, and
must relinquish all that she might give or bequeath him to his brother.

"To say that your father was furious would hardly express his state of
mind. I have already said that the whole amount of cash left was barely
enough for the funeral expenses. The bonds which were found proved to be
so many worthless pieces of parchment. The jewellery of recent
workmanship consisted of a set of valueless shirt-studs and a watch that
would not have fetched ten florins at auction. Of silver there was a
tablespoon, a teaspoon, a ladle, and two or three pieces of tableware,
bent, crooked, and broken, hardly worth the mentioning. Of horses there
were two lean and decrepit-looking animals, and the cattle consisted of
a diminutive black cow and her calf, neither of much value, yet forming
no doubt the most valuable part of the whole bequest. This was your
father's portion, for as to his taking the other part, giving up the
prospect of our mother's goodly store of money and other property, and
living a secluded life as guardian of a museum, that was entirely out of
the question.

"To tell that I felt pleased or glad on taking possession of the immense
wealth my father had left me would be a falsehood. I was young, and not
altogether devoid of the passions and inclinations pertaining to that
age. But I had interpreted the true spirit of my father's will, and I
knew that all this seeming spite and injustice was really a token of his
great love for me and of his great wisdom. Had he not stipulated such
hard conditions, my brother would have taken and squandered these lands
and goods as he squandered our mother's fortune, and I should not have
been able now to say to his only son, 'Stay with me, and receive at my
hands the undiminished fortune which your grandfather entrusted to my
care.' How immense that fortune is you may guess, when I tell you that
one year's income, large as it is, was not sufficient to pay the
legacy-taxes. But come, let me show you everything, and give you an idea
of the Slavic kingdom to which I invite you."

We entered the mansion, an old château built in the time of King Albert,
under the dynasty of the Mazures. Strong walls of cut stone, like the
ramparts of a fortress; great projecting, mullioned oriel windows;
everywhere the Dumany coat-of-arms hewn in stone, wrought in iron,
carved in wood. The main entrance was walled up; the middle portion of
the building contained but one storey; the wings, too, were low, but in
the rear of the house there was a large, high turret.

A heavy oaken door, beautifully carved, gave access to this turret, and
as this was at present the only approach to the interior of the house,
we had to cross halls and corridors until we reached the floor of the
main building. As we entered, my uncle locked the massive portal and put
the key in his pocket. When, in order to do this, he lifted the lapel of
his long zrinyi dolmány (old-fashioned Hungarian coat), I could see the
butts of his pistols, which were always loaded and ready to his hands.
He noticed the smile on my lips, and said testily, shrugging his
shoulders, "What can I do? I have to think of my personal safety at all
times. Wickedness has not died out of the world, and a poor lone old man
is rather a temptation to robbers. To keep a manservant for protection
would not do. He would be the very person to kill me, having me at his
mercy all the time; and as to keeping a dog for the purpose, I could not
think of it. A dog may bite, and there is danger in that; and, besides,
his keep costs just as much as a man's. He will eat up a fortune in
time. But when you are here, you will have servants and dogs, and all
the rest, and there will be no more need of my pistols."

My uncle took me directly to his treasures. With all he had said to
excite my curiosity, he had not said enough. For here were treasures
indeed, and I could readily believe that in these luxurious creations of
long-forgotten ages and races a strong witchcraft was pent, and that a
man might grow to give his heart and soul to them. My uncle could give
me the date of every object. This statuette is a Praxiteles; this
picture a Guido Reni; Benvenuto Cellini was the owner of this goblet;
and this sword was that of Sultan Soliman.

It was dusk, and the shadows of night were falling fast when I quitted
the museum. My uncle and I returned to the narrow turret-room in which
he had taken up his abode for the last seventy years and more. This room
of itself was a sight to see, and I was slightly faint and dizzy from
bewilderment at what I had already beheld. "You see, my boy," said the
old man again, "I have not lied to you; and when you are once
established here, and open these rooms to your visitors, all the barons,
and counts, and princes will stare at them with open mouth, and will
cajole you, flatter you, and bring their handsomest daughters for you to
choose a wife from; for such is the power of wealth. But do not believe
that the rarities I have shown you are all that I can give. For what
would be the good of the offer if I gave you nothing else? You would
have to lead a miserable existence like mine, for you could not soil
those things--no, not to save your life. If once you come to take
possession of them, you will find that you belong to them as much as
they to you. You will cling to them and neglect the present, only to
live in the forgotten past. The beauty of women you will admire in these
pictures only; the beauty of Nature in these stones and minerals. For
politics you will not care, and home will mean to you this mansion,
which encloses your treasure. Oh, the air of these rooms is poisonous to
youth, and mirth, and love!"

"Yes, uncle," I said, earnestly, "and to ambition and independence, and
all good and right purposes, also; and therefore I cannot stay with you,
for I have chosen my path in life, and I will adhere to it in spite of
these powerful temptations."

"Oh, you are afraid that they will convert you into a miser and a
hermit, as I have become! But I can give you a potent antidote, which
was never given to me; that is, ready money. Come, and I'll show you
what you have never seen, and assuredly never dreamed of. You see this
large iron chest, itself a rare piece of workmanship, and stronger and
safer than any of your new inventions? Come, let me show you how to
unlock it, for it is difficult; and one who was unacquainted with the
secret of this lock might try until Doomsday to force it open, and all
to no purpose. See, it turns this way, and at this point you must stop.
If in all three locks the keys have been turned to this point, the chest
will open. The contents will rebuild this old castle, will buy you
horses and carriages, and all the home luxuries of modern times, and
will enable you to keep up with the richest and the noblest of them all.
Keep up, I say--nay, go ahead of them; and still you will have what
money cannot buy for them--your museum. Oh, the Dumanys shall be a
powerful race once more, and I shall live to see it!"

He lifted the heavy lid of the chest, and I saw a number of linen bags
and an equally large number of bladders. The linen bags, my uncle
explained, were full of silver coins, the bladders of gold coins.

"You see," he continued, "there are fourteen hundred acres of ground
belonging to this estate--rather a handsome piece of property in this
part of the country. It has all been leased out to farmers for many,
many years, almost a century, and it has greatly deteriorated. But this
money will help you to improve the soil also, and it will yield you more
than the twelve thousand acres of Count Vernöczy's estate can do, for
half of that land has been turned into a deer-park, and the other half
is imperfectly cultivated. Look at the bundles of reeds there in the
corner. You have wondered at them, no doubt; and at all those pipes on
the shelf yonder. You asked me if I was a smoker. I am, but I do not
smoke out of those pipe-stems. Both they and the reeds are money-boxes,
every one of them. In them I keep the bank-notes which I have had to
take during the last seventy years. They represent a fortune in
themselves. I hardly know myself how much money they contain. You can
split them, and find out when you come to live with me. I'll settle it
all on you in legal fashion, and keep nothing but my own room. You can
do with the rest as you please; build and rebuild, buy and furnish, to
suit your fancy. Only let me live the one year that remains to me
pleasantly and in plenty, and promise me three things: Never to till
your acres after the ideas you will get from the text-books; never to do
a kindness to a great lord; and never to quarrel or get vexed with a
woman."

"I promise you whatever you wish, dear uncle," said I; "but, since I
have listened to you for quite a while, you must now listen to me. You
have called me in the capacity of a doctor, and as such I must speak to
you."

"Do you know a remedy for old age?" was his sarcastic inquiry.

"I do, to grow older still. You do not look a bit older or feebler than
you did ten years ago, and there is no positive reason why you should
not live for ten years longer, or even more, provided you do not change
your course of living in the least degree. The slightest change of
habits, of diet, or of dress, may prove fatal at your age. I know that
you are not afraid of death, and that you also have taken St. John the
Nepomuc's word for the remaining year. But, my dear uncle, saints are
sometimes ambiguous, and there is something that resembles a living
death, a prospect too horrible to dwell upon, yet dreadfully near. A
single meal of some heavy, unwonted food, one glass of liquor, may bring
it on. It is called paralysis, and when it comes, St. Nepomuc may stick
to his word and give you a year, but what a year that would be!"

He looked at me with a troubled face, and I pressed his hands and said,
"Yes, dear uncle; you have to stick to the old, long-travelled road, and
then I may hope to see you ten years hence as hearty as you are now, or
as you were ten years ago. For you are in perfect health otherwise, and
there is no need whatever of my staying with you. Only beware of
indigestion, and you will be all right. As for myself, I shall never
cease to remember your kindness and to feel grateful for it, but to
accept your offer would be moral death to me. I have to go back to my
profession, and if you, dear uncle, dislike our other relatives, and do
not want to leave them your property, then give it to such patriotic and
charitable institutions as deserve patronising, and you may be sure that
your memory will be blessed by thousands. Of me you need not think. I am
not the man to speculate on another man's death, and build my future on
a grave."

The old man looked curiously at me; then he sighed, and embraced me.
"Thank you, my dear fellow!" he said; "I see you are a truly honest man
and no hypocrite. I won't offer you any money: on the contrary, I'll ask
a further favour. Before you leave, I'll give you a letter, which you
will personally hand to the Prefect at his residence at the county seat,
which is on your way to Vienna. I am afraid to entrust this letter to
the mail, as there are very valuable papers in it, and you will have to
take a receipt for it from the magistrate. This receipt you need not
send me, but keep it safe; and if you come to this house again, you may
bring it with you."

With that the old man showed me out into the garden, carefully unlocking
and re-locking the door, and securing the key. "Thank you for coming to
me, my dear fellow," he said. "And since you decline to take anything of
actual value from me, let me offer you something that has only fanciful
value, yet is dearer to me than all the treasures within the house. See
these Remontan roses in their second bloom--for instance, this Sultan of
Morocco, the most perfect specimen of its kind? I gave a _Napoléon d'or_
for the scion, and this is its first year of flowering. Here, take it!"

With that he actually cut the blossom from the stalk, and handed it to
me. It was a magnificent flower, and almost black, with but a slight
purple tinge. It was the darkest-hued rose known at that time. Later on
the "Deuil d'Alsace" came out of Pandora's box. At the time I speak of,
that box was in Benedetti's pocket, and more is the pity that the pocket
held it so tight.




X.

"DEAD."


Hardly three months after I had taken a tender and affectionate farewell
from my Uncle Dion a newspaper item informed me of his death. My
prediction that a fit of indigestion would prove fatal to him had come
true. His confidence in St. John of Nepomuc had been greater than his
prudence, and it was a mercy that the stroke of apoplexy had killed him
outright, instead of making a living corpse of him, as is so often the
case.

About a fortnight after I had read of the death of the celebrated Slav
King, I received a package by mail, containing an official and a private
letter. The official letter informed me that the Honourable Dionysius
Dumany had recorded a last will and testament in the county archives, in
which last will and testament he nominated me, Dr. Kornel Dumany, as his
sole heir, upon condition that I should take possession of the property
and live in Dumany Castle. But if I should stubbornly refuse to fulfil
that condition, lands, goods, and chattels should forthwith pass over to
the "Maticza" (Slavic and ecclesiastical literary fund, employed for
Panslavonic ends).

The private letter came from the Governor of the county, and referred to
the same subject. The Governor declared that it was my unmistakable
duty, as a Dumany and a son of Hungary, to take possession of the home
of my ancestors, and not to allow such an anti-patriotic and dangerous
institution as the "Maticza" to do her a mischief on the strength of
Hungarian funds, and to turn the ancient halls of my patriotic
forefathers into a meeting-place of daring conspirators.

I shrugged my shoulders, but had not the faintest notion of accepting. I
did not care for politics, and knew of the "Maticza" as a purely
Slavonic literary society. If this society was to hold future meetings
in my uncle's museums, I could bear it; there was very little of
Chauvinism or even patriotism left in me. I was rather cosmopolitan in
tendency; and as to giving up my profession and becoming a country
squire, that was simply ridiculous.

This happened to be the very period when, after years of degradation and
suffering, the Hungarian national spirit was first allowed to lift its
head and show its colours. Germans and Bohemians, who for many years had
filled all the public offices in Hungary, were compelled either to learn
the Hungarian language or surrender their places to natives. In most
cases the latter was unavoidable, and these aliens, furious at being
driven from their prescriptive sinecures, went up to Vienna and did
their best to make it hot for the Hungarians. As every war has its
origin in an inkstand, students are, naturally, the greatest
Chauvinists, and I was to find that out with a vengeance. All my friends
and colleagues became more and more averse to me, and even went so far
as to take my patients from me by incensing them against me in every
possible manner. Soon they began to drag my name into professional
polemics, into professional newspapers; and when I had defeated and
silenced them in one place, they began to annoy me in another. At home,
in Hungary, the reorganisation of the counties was begun. For twenty
years constitutional life in Hungary had been extinct, and now it had to
be resuscitated. This was a hard task, and at first it was not even
known who were entitled to vote at the meetings.

And now I received another letter from the Governor, again reminding me
of my duty, clearly describing the situation of affairs, and telling me
how much good every honest and right-minded man could effect, and how
much mischief I should be able to prevent. "But," he closed, "if you
stubbornly and positively adhere to your unpatriotic resolution, and
finally decline to accept your deceased uncle's legacy, I must trouble
you to come down in person and give a definite renunciation, with the
necessary affidavit, such being your uncle's strict demand."

There was no help. I had to go to get rid of the annoyance. Arriving at
the county seat, I paid my respects to the Vice-Governor, the same
dignitary to whom I had given the letter which my uncle had entrusted to
my care, and which, as I now learned, proved to be the very will in
question. I announced my firm resolution to adhere to my principles, and
the magistrate replied that that was all right, but before we talked
further on the subject, I had better go to the county meeting, which
was to be held that day.

"But what right have I to be there?" I asked.

"Why, as the present head of the ancient Dumany family, of course," was
the reply. "There is not one of us provided with a better claim."

So I let myself be persuaded, and went. The great Hall of Meetings was
crowded to suffocation, and among the local celebrities I recognised a
few of those compatriots who had kindly assisted my poor father to get
rid of his money by feeding them and keeping their pockets full. There
were others who were quite young men, old schoolfellows of mine;
somewhat bad students at the time, but, since Providence had furnished
them with strong voices, they had taken advantage of the gift so as to
make a noise in the world, and played the _rôle_ of leading partisans.
One of them in particular, a good-for-nothing sort of fellow who had
never come near his degree in any school, was recognised as a bright
particular star, and quite too smart for anything. If I remember
rightly, he was the head of the Radical wing.

After much deliberation and a good deal of talk, of which I did not
comprehend anything, it was decided to read the names of the present
county members. A long list was handed to an official, who was
instructed to pronounce each name clearly; and each name, as it was
read, was followed by a loud cheer "Éljen!" All at once there came,
instead of the "Éljen!" after one of the names, the unanimous shout
"Dead!" and the person named had to rise from his seat and leave the
room, and his name was erased from the list. This was repeated a number
of times, and behind me stood a Slav nobleman, who after each of these
utterances of "Dead," added the Slavonic word "Smrt"[2]--a beautiful
word, as bony as the spectre "death" itself.

[Footnote 2: "Dead."]

There was a priest, with a broad red sash, who made himself especially
obnoxious to me; for, as often as the "dead" sentence was pronounced, he
laughed, and pointed conspicuously with his fat fingers at the expelled
man, who, with bent head, made his way to the door. I inquired the
reason of these demonstrations, and was told that these men were
traitors, who had filled offices under the absolutist government of the
Austrians.

Immediately after one of these shouts of "Dead," an old gentleman who
sat just in front of me, and of whom I had up to this moment seen
nothing but his bald head, which showed an immense scar, evidently an
old sword-cut, got up from his seat at the green-covered table, and as
he turned I beheld an aged and careworn but honest face, with two big
tears slowly rolling down the furrowed cheeks. "That is for the seven
wounds I received at Nagy Sarló!" said he, with choking voice; and
raising his trembling hand to his eyes, he moved away.

"Seven children the poor fellow has at home, and he had to earn daily
bread for them, somehow, so he served as surveyor, and that was his
treachery," said one of my neighbours in an undertone. As the banished
man passed out, I sat down on the seat he quitted. "It is ill luck to
sit in a traitor's chair," said a well-meaning man at my elbow; but I
smiled and kept my seat.

"Who may that smooth-faced stranger be? and how comes it that he is
here?" I heard some of the bystanders ask, referring, of course, to my
clean-shaven visage. Nobody in the whole congregation knew or recognised
me, except the Vice-Governor, and the fellow-student of whom I have
spoken. But, of course, he kept at a distance. Presently my own name,
"Dumany Kornel," was pronounced, and "Dead! Dead! Smrt!" was the shout
of all around. I had caught the infection, and as the red-sashed priest
smilingly and playfully raised a threatening fat finger at me and said,
"He is turned into a German, an Austrian," down came my fist upon the
green cloth of the table. Philosophy, _sang-froid_, and political
indifference were blown to the winds, carrying forethought and
resolution with them. I jumped up, pushed the chair away from behind me,
and shouted--

"He is not dead! He is here! And what is more, here he shall stay! I am
a landed gentleman, as well as the best of you, and as pure a Hungarian
as any in this meeting, or in this country either. I am that Dumany
Kornel whose name has been read, and I am not dead, but alive, as you
shall soon find out!"

There was a dead silence at these words, and some heads were nodded in
acknowledgment that I was right. Then there was a whispering and
consulting and questioning, until the honourable Vice-Governor said,
"Silence, gentlemen! the honourable Dumany Kornel has the floor upon a
personal question."

"Hear! hear!" shouted all, some in good earnest, some in order to
embarrass me, and the red-sashed parson said, maliciously, "If you are a
Hungarian, sir, as you claim, where is your moustache?"

"Out hunting for yours, your reverence," said I, with a grin.

"I am a priest!" was the haughty reply; but that was just what I
expected, and looking around at the portraits upon the walls of the
room, portraits representing the most celebrated heroes of our national
history, I gave them then and there such a barbological sermon, _ex
tripode_, that they listened to me in mute astonishment. I told them
that the great national high-priests and patriots, Peter Pázmány, Prince
Cardinal Esterházy, and Thomas Bakács, there portrayed, had worn
moustaches, although they were priests; whereas Mathias Corvinus, our
glorious, never-to-be-forgotten hero-king, wore a clean-shaven face like
mine. The famous Palatinus Illésházy had pronounced Hungary free and
independent with smooth hairless lips, and Thomas Nádasdy had carried
the Hungarian tricolour to immortal triumphs although his face was as
beardless as mine, as everybody might see by his portrait there present.
I told them that I did not speak for myself, as I did not care a straw
for their opinion, and felt sufficiently strong in my own self-respect
and clear conscience, which, perhaps, was more than a good many present
could say of themselves. But I was not going to look on when patriotism
was made the monopoly of certain people, whereas decent and deserving
men were hooted at because they had dared to earn their own bread and
that of their family, instead of living upon the bounty of friends and
driving them to ruin and death. And then I told them that it was not a
time to inaugurate a policy of jealousy and persecution. We had had
enough of that under the absolutist government; what we wanted was
honest, energetic co-operation for a common purpose, the welfare of
country and nation.

I had spoken with all the bravery of a simpleton, who has no idea that
if he throws a glowing tinder into a barrel of gunpowder he may blow the
house up and himself also. For some seconds I ran the risk of being
thrown out of doors, or of getting my hands full of private quarrels and
duels, but the concluding sentences met with such unanimous applause
that I was heartily congratulated on the success of my maiden speech,
and had the additional satisfaction of seeing the majority of those
formerly pronounced "dead" restored to the list again, and I was able to
give back the seat which I occupied to its former owner, the old
gentleman with the seven scars and as many children.

Among those who had congratulated me was one conspicuously handsome and
distinguished-looking young man. He fairly embraced me, and said, "You
are the man we wanted! Let me welcome you, and consider me your friend;
I am Count Vernöczy. Siegfried Vernöczy is my name!"

The Vice-Governor invited me to dinner, and just as we were pushing our
way out of the hall, I heard the red-sashed priest and the Slav
nobleman, who had always added his "Smrt" to the cry of "Dead!" speaking
together in Slav, of which language they supposed me ignorant. The
nobleman said to the priest--

"What folly it was of you to vex and excite this blockhead by
pronouncing him dead! Had you left him alone, he would have gone off,
and left the Maticza in possession of the old miser's fortune. Now we
may go and hunt for other fools; this one has escaped us for ever."

"Well, how could I know that the milksop had turned into a fighting
bull?" was the reply.

The reverend gentleman was wrong. I was not a bull, but an ox; and a
moment's excitement had made me give up fame and ambition, profession
and independence, and here I was in the kingdom of Swatopluk, taking
possession of my Uncle Diogenes's legacy. It was very foolish, but if I
had to do it again--why, I should do it. I was a Hungarian and a Dumany,
in spite of my cosmopolitan tendencies and in spite of modern equality.




XI.

MY DEAR FRIEND SIEGFRIED.


So I must needs call him, for dear was his friendship to me; at least, I
have paid for it dearly. At our first meeting he told me that henceforth
we should stick to each other like the Siamese twins. And the man whom
he thought worth catching was clever indeed if he could extricate
himself from the meshes which encircled him. He was altogether a
wonderful fellow. Of athletic build, striking beauty, great agility and
versatility in all bodily exercises, an unrivalled fencer, and a perfect
marksman. What a soldier he would have made! But Mr. Schmerling knew a
good many fine tricks, and one of the prettiest was the prevention of
Hungarian youths from entering the army. He took advantage of the
prevalent Chauvinistic sentiments, and put them forward as a bait. One
thousand florins, paid down, protected a Hungarian youth from serving in
the hated army, and he was free to ride his own horses instead of the
king's. Yet what a general that Siegfried might have been! He was born
to command and direct other people. All who adhered to him and did his
bidding were his soldiers; all who declined to follow his lead, he
regarded as enemies. The former he compelled to serve him, the latter he
defeated and slew. He was sometimes high-spirited to eccentricity. At
other times he was discreetly prudent. He spoke almost every existing
language, and was a brilliant orator. His addresses were admirably
delivered, and he took an independent and imperative tone. His talk was
always fluent; and if a Hungarian or a German word failed him, he
substituted for it a French, English, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Turkish,
or other foreign phrase, never stopping for a moment to consider or even
to explain. His Hungarian speeches were rhetorical gems, yet they could
hardly be styled Hungarian, for they were delivered in a perfect
Volapük--that is, in a medley of all possible languages. He was a strong
personality, and a "grand seigneur." His purse was always open, and he
spent his money with a liberal hand. He must have been a very rich man,
for I never knew him in even a momentary embarrassment for money. When I
first felt the pressure of his iron arm, I knew at once that he would
dominate me. But such was the fascination he exercised that I submitted
at once.

It was at the close of that memorable meeting, and after he told me to
consider him my friend. The Vice-Governor had invited me to dine with
him, and I wanted to go to my rooms for a change of attire, or at least
a white tie and a pair of light gloves. "Nonsense!" he said, "these
rustics will take you as you are, _en plein parade_. Come at once. We
will order them to lose no time, but to take up your status in your new
domain to-morrow, and have you put in possession of your rights and
privileges without delay."

"But to-morrow I shall not be here," I remonstrated; "I have to go to
Vienna and provide for my patients."

"What would you provide for them? _Qu'ils attendent, les pauvres bêtes_;
death will not escape them. 'We can wait,' is the Austrian parole; don't
worry about them. To-morrow you will have the board of commissioners
meet on your new premises, and put you in possession of your
inheritance, so that you may be placed on the list of voters. This must
not be postponed, for if you miss that you are dead indeed--'Smrt,' as
that honest Maticza champion said."

Siegfried lost no time, and the Vice-Governor said that he was right.
"Yes," he said, "to-morrow you shall have the keys of your castle."

"And that of the famous iron chest," said Siegfried.

"No, that cannot be yet," replied the officer; "the iron chest is under
an official lock as yet, for the 'Maticza' has put in a claim to the
inheritance. The Slav parish priest in Dumanyfalva, as well as his
housekeeper and his sacristan, affirm that your deceased uncle, on the
eve of his death, dined with them (in parentheses, the fat pork he
partook of and the strong wine he drank brought on the fatal stroke),
and there at the table he declared that, even in case you, his nephew,
should accept of the inheritance, the Maticza should not be left
empty-handed, but should receive all the ready money found on the
premises."

"Franca, franca! It's all a lie!" said Siegfried.

"So I think, too. But we have no evidence to prove it. It all depends on
the decision of the court, because the Maticza has no documentary
evidence, and so the court will decide the question."

"And where is the chest at present?"

"There at the castle, under guard."

"And why did you let it remain there? It ought to be here under your own
care."

"Yes; but it is so riveted to the wall that we could not remove it
without tearing up the wall also."

"Then why have you not taken the money into your own custody? Some
unknown person or persons may force the lock."

"That lock? Why, we tried it in every way, for the tax-commissioner
would have liked to examine its contents to make sure as to the amount
of taxes due. But we could not find a locksmith capable of using the
three keys belonging to the locks in the proper way."

At this I spoke out. "If," I said, "my uncle has indeed willed away his
ready money to the Maticza, he must assuredly have instructed them how
to get at their money. To me, at least, he disclosed the secret of the
lock, and I know how to apply the keys properly."

"Bravissimo! That settles the question. A clearer piece of evidence
cannot exist. The court cannot decide otherwise than in your favour."

"Then try to expedite the formalities. You can do it."

"I can't. The parties must be informed at what time the court holds its
session; they have to appear before the court, and introduce testimony.
All this takes a month at least."

"And how is he to manage until then? Is there nothing in old Diogenes's
casket to make money out of?"

"Oh yes, a lot of old rubbish! I daresay it would bring something at
least. We have taken an inventory of it, and taxed it; here it is."

With that he took from the shelf an official-looking document, and
handed it to me. I was curious to know at what they had appraised my
uncle's precious treasures, and looked at the inventory. I was more than
surprised--I was amused beyond everything. The contents of the two large
halls, ante-chamber, and five chambers were valued at three hundred and
seventy-nine florins and forty-five kreutzers. The kreutzers were for an
old Gobelin hanging--a rare piece of tapestry.

"Why, this is ludicrous!" said I laughingly. The Vice-Governor smiled
knowingly, and Siegfried took the paper out of my hand, and read the
items. A Palissy-cabinet was described as a wooden chest, worth three
florins; precious old majolica as old earthenware, the suits of armour
as old iron, and so forth. "Now this is a masterpiece!" said Siegfried;
but I was indignant. "It is hyper-barbarism!" I said. "This inventory
enumerates the contents of some dime museum--not of my uncle's valuable
collections. If you had looked for it, you might have found an exact
schedule, made by my uncle, with the name of each object, statement of
cost, etc."

"We could not find anything of the kind," said the Vice-Governor. "But I
forgot. Attached to the will was a package, sealed; and addressed to
you--'Dr. Cornelius Dumány.' Here it is."

I took the package, opened it, found the inventory within, and handed it
to the official. "Here it is. You see I was right! Here you can see the
actual worth of my uncle's museum."

"I have no curiosity whatever," said the Vice-Governor; "this is a
private document addressed to you, and, therefore, I have no business to
inquire into it."

"But--"

"But it is time for you to go," said Siegfried, slapping me on the
shoulder; "never mind that old inventory of your uncle's."

"But I do mind it," I insisted. "I can't have something that is actually
worth two hundred thousand florins appraised at three hundred, all in
all."

"But can't you see that on the three hundred florins the amount of tax
would be seventeen florins, and on the two hundred thousand you will
have to pay nine thousand florins as legacy taxes?"

"Is that the law?"

"Of course it is, clear and distinct."

"Then I shall pay according to law. I do not intend to cheat the
Treasury."

The Vice-Governor broke into a laugh, and Siegfried took hold of both my
ears and gave them a hard pull. "Oh! you, you, you doctor!" He would
have said you fool, or you simpleton, but he found the "doctor" more
explanatory, and a good deal more to the purpose. Why, did I not
understand that it was the patriotic duty of a Hungarian citizen to
cheat the Treasury whenever an opportunity to do so was offered?

"Just you let him alone," said the Vice-Governor, laughing. "He is an
innocent, honest fellow, with a tender conscience, and nothing so tough
and hardened as you. Come, friend Kornel! tell me, what do you think of
the rate at which the other things are estimated? For instance, your
uncle's private room? The whole furniture is valued at twenty-three
florins. Do you think that underestimated? No? Well, here are his
pipes--old clay pipes, stuck into cane stems. They are valued at ninety
kreutzers."

I laughed. "The pipes are hardly worth more, but the stems would be well
worth the money, for they and the old reeds in my uncle's room were his
bank-note receptacles, and for all I know they may be full of hundred-
or even thousand-florin bills."

"Well, if you are not the greatest ass in Christendom, then I am--and no
doubt about it," said Siegfried, vexed. "Here is this fellow actually
denouncing his own money to the police. If you are such an imbecile, and
really do not care for your own profit, then at least do not talk
without being asked."

"Hadn't you better use more civil language?" I asked. "I really am not
used to such strong expressions."

"Oh, of course; I beg your pardon! Only I should like to know what you
will do without ready money? Because you have compelled our friend, the
Vice-Governor here, to take all the money on the premises, that is, all
the contents of the reeds and pipe-stems, of which you blabbed, into his
own custody, whereas you might have kept your own counsel, and culled
the money out at your leisure, without anybody having an idea of its
existence."

"Yes; but that would not be honest. If anybody finds a pocket-book full
of money he cannot keep it for himself, but must give it up to the
authorities."

"Not if it is his own pocket-book, I should think. But, as you have done
it, it is too late to quarrel about the policy of the act."

The Vice-Governor called in one of his office clerks, and drew up a
statement containing all I had said about the reeds and pipes, and the
actual value of the museum. I had to put my signature at the foot of the
document, and then I was allowed to go.

Next day Siegfried took me out in his own chaise, to which four
beautiful horses were attached, to Dumanyfalva, and there, with all the
ceremony belonging to the occasion, I was inducted into my legal rights
as landlord. I was conducted into the mansion, the keys were put into my
hands, then they took me out into the field and gave me a handful of
soil of each individual plot, or meadow, or pasture. After that they
split the reeds and pipe-stems, and ten bills of one thousand florins
apiece, two hundred bills of one hundred florins, and sixty-four
fifty-florin bills were found, flattened out, made into a package, upon
which each of the persons present put a seal, with his own name. Then
the Vice-Governor wrote on its cover, "Legacy of the Late Honourable
Dionysius Dumany," and handed it over to the trustee.

"Now you see what has come of your blabbing," said Siegfried. "How will
you manage now?"

"Well enough. I have some money in Vienna, and I am going to fetch it. I
have to go up to Vienna, anyhow, to arrange my belongings there."

"And I'll go with you, for, thorough Æsculapius as you are, there is
danger of your escaping us yet."

He kept his word, and we went by his own chaise and four to Nagy
Szombat, where we took the train for Vienna. In Vienna he never moved
from my side, hardly allowing me time for any business transactions, but
taking me to theatres, dinners, cafes, and all sorts of variety-shows
and music-halls. I had lived soberly and industriously up to this time,
rarely going to the opera or to private entertainments; but I was young
and naturally jovial, and did not object to a few days of dissipation,
enjoying the manifold diversions which the Austrian metropolis offered.

On the last day, Siegfried helped to pack and send off my furniture to
Dumanyfalva, and, as I could not sleep in my empty rooms, he carried me
off to a hotel; but not to sleep, for we never closed our eyes that
night, and it was with a dizzy head and a confused brain that I found
myself in the railway carriage, travelling homeward. Happily, my
faithful old servant had gone with the furniture ahead of me, and, on my
arrival at home, I found that the practical old fellow had made the best
of his time. A bedroom and sitting-room had already been furnished and
the old dining-room made serviceable. He had also procured a cook, and
for the first time in my life I enjoyed the sensation of sitting at my
own table and playing the host, for that Siegfried did not leave me yet
will be readily understood.

While at dinner, Siegfried laid down a plan of how the old mansion might
be renovated without and within, and I had to acknowledge that his taste
was perfect; but--very expensive, as I remarked.

"How much ready money have you?" he asked.

"Something over four thousand florins," I replied.

"That is almost nothing--hardly sufficient to furnish a few rooms, and
what becomes of the building? Then there is the grange, the stable,
etc., and then you will want to buy two pair of horses; one for your
chaise, the other for work. You will have to buy cattle, and grain, and
hay, and a good many other necessaries, and you will have to take the
distillery away from the lessee, for what will you do with your cattle?
What you want is at least twenty thousand florins, and these you have
fooled away. It will take months to get hold of them again, and then
half of them will be gone, and the time for making all necessary
arrangements will have passed. I'll tell you what, you cannot sit here
and do nothing, and I am not going to let you waste time. I'll lend you
these twenty thousand florins." I was surprised at the offer. "Yes," he
said, "I have the money ready, for I intended to buy a piece of
property, but could not make a bargain with the owner. Now the money is
of no use to me at present, and you may have it until your money is
restored to you. Happily, I have the money with me now. Here it is!"

With that he took out a portfolio, and handed me twenty bank-notes of
one thousand florins each. I wanted to give him a bond, but he would not
hear of it "The idea!" he said; "why, we are no Jews, but gentlemen.
Just write upon your card: 'Good for twenty thousand florins, which I
will pay upon receipt of my legacy.' Here, take my lead-pencil; that
will do."

I was rather embarrassed, but his face showed so much sincere friendship
and regard that I did not venture to refuse the offer, and, considering
the circumstances, he was right, and he had behaved nobly. Still, I did
not like the obligation he had put me under, and should have preferred
to pay interest on the sum even to a common usurer. I had some faint
presentiment that the interest on such a loan as this would be much
higher than the usual percentage taken by the professional money-lender;
but I had done it, and could not undo it, as you might say.

With the money in hand I attended to business. Siegfried, indefatigable
in his endeavours to be of use in me, assisted me with his practical
versatility in business matters, and with his good taste in the
domestic sphere. He purchased the horses for my carriage, he bargained
with the mason about the buildings, he made the contracts with my
tenants, and he bought my grain and other household necessaries. I could
never have got on without his help--at least, not so profitably--and I
was naturally very grateful to him.

"You can't pay any visits to your neighbours until you have made your
own house fit to receive company; but, as it would be rather hard upon
you to live like a hermit until that time, you might drive over to the
county town and put in an appearance at the casino. I'll introduce you
to the whole set."

The county town was two hours' drive from Dumányfalva. Siegfried drove
me over, and my own brand-new and very "pshutt"-looking cab was to wait
for me at the casino door. In the casino Siegfried introduced me to
about a dozen of young and old local celebrities, and one or two great
lights of national reputation. Party divisions there were none; all
parties agreed harmoniously, and played with each other their whist,
their games of chess or dominoes. I was very cordially received, and in
the ensuing conversation I took a very lively and active share, and
stood my ground without any of the usual bashfulness of a novice.
Siegfried seconded me in all my remarks with an occasional nod and a
"Very true, my friend," or "You have hit it exactly," or "You have
expressed my own opinion;" "My friend, you are an excellent debater,"
and other observations of the kind, and soon we were unanimously called
"the Dioscuri," for we were never found apart.

At a county banquet Siegfried spoke of me, in a brilliant toast-speech,
as of a newly risen star, or rather "a great shining planet," and there
was a universal "Éljen!" and shouts of acclamation. It was wonderful how
many friends I found, and how much I was sought after! I had a dozen
different invitations at once. One invited me to his shooting-box in the
mountains, another to inspect his model farm and dairy, a third invited
me on a fishing excursion, and so forth.

While driving home from the casino, Siegfried said to me--"I wonder you
are not vexed at my never inviting you over to Vernöcze, but I must tell
you the truth. I am not the master of my own house and home at present.
An aunt of mine is here with my two cousins, half-grown young girls,
staying until the bathing-season begins. So the lady has control of the
house, and I live in a little pavilion in the park. My aunt will be very
much pleased to make your acquaintance--too much pleased, I should say,
for she is one of those spirited women who have an opinion of their own,
and let you know it. She is never tired of arguing, and you are the very
person for her. I verily believe that the two little girls have caught
the infection from her, and you would be surprised to hear what a flow
of nonsense issues from the aristocratic little mouths. And the number
of questions they ask is astonishing! Sometimes I give them an answer in
language such as I would not venture to use to a variety singer; but
the little innocents stare at me, and laugh without the faintest blush;
they do not understand the hidden impertinence. I'll some day introduce
you to all of them, my aunt and the two girls; but your house must first
be put in order. For I find it hard, even now, to keep them from rushing
in upon you unawares, and introducing themselves. They are positively
dying for a peep at you and your museum. Well, I have done enough to
excite that curiosity. I am incessantly talking of you."

"Then it will be your fault if their ladyships are shocked at finding
out the deception. I am too commonplace a fellow not to disappoint them
cruelly."

"Vederemo!" he said. "The Devil is never at rest!"

     INTERMEZZO.

     The Devil?

     "Do you believe, then, in the existence of a personal Devil?" you
     ask.

     "Has not this story been terribly dull and tedious up to this
     moment? You have not shown us a single Devil as yet. No, not even a
     woman."

     "Well, I'll show you three of the latter species presently--a
     strong-minded, argumentative aunt, and two little nieces."

     "You won't say that these two little countesses or their
     aristocratic aunt, or either of them, is an incarnation of the Evil
     One? Or are you speaking of your dear friend, Siegfried? Why, he is
     a perfect guardian angel, the personification of goodness and
     benevolence!"

     "Do you know the story of St. Anthony? How he was tempted by the
     Devil in the semblance of a lovely sylph, until all at once he saw
     the fiend's hoof appear from under the robe?"

That night, as Siegfried took leave of me, to drive home to Vernöcze, he
embraced me and kissed me on the cheek. It is many years since that
night, but many a night since then I have lain sleepless in my bed and
rubbed that eternally burning and smarting spot, and felt an almost
unconquerable temptation to take the operating-knife and cut out the
part which had been contaminated by that foul kiss.




XII.

THE DEVIL'S HOOF.


One morning my dear friend, Siegfried, came. "My dear Nell," he said,
"we held a party meeting yesterday, and it was decided that you should
be a candidate for Parliament. In fact, we have nominated you already."

"You are in a jocular mood, I suppose?" said I. "I do not understand an
atom of legislation and politics."

"Neither do I; yet I fill my place in the House of Lords, so will you
fill yours in the House of Commons. You need not stare at me, for I am
not joking. I am fully in earnest, and, now that the chalice is set to
your lips, you are bound to drain it."

"But I can't see why," said I. "I am not in the least fit for the
position, and am not going to make a fool of myself. I am a doctor of
medicine, not a legislator."

"And what does that matter, pray? The department of public health is
very much in need of a radical reform, and you are the very man to
advocate sanitary measures in Parliament. But this is all nonsense.
Hungary is not yet in a position to have all departments represented by
experts; what she wants at present is firmness to principle, strict
party fealty. The demagogues, the heretics, and the Panslavonians of
our country are preparing for a strong contest at the coming electoral
struggle, and we Conservatives must strain every nerve to defeat them,
and cause patriotism, religion, and aristocratic rights to triumph. Our
party believes that you are the man to represent these principles, and
you can't decline to accept such an honourable mission. Do you not love
your country? Do you want her to become a prey to infidels, or
Panslavonic conspirators, or to the mob? You would not have the
descendants of the Hussites dominate Hungary? Are you not a Catholic
Christian? You are brave; you have strong principles, and you are an
excellent orator. You are the man we want, and there is an end of
arguing."

"Very good! But there is a practical side to the question."

"Yes. If the other parties come off victorious, the agrarian movement
will grow too fast for us. The Socialist rabble is preaching the
assessment of all land, the abolition of the congrua taxes,[3] and the
abolition of our feudal privileges. This is the prose or practical side
of the question, my friend."

[Footnote 3: Congrua taxes are the taxes paid by the parish members to
their curates or priests.]

"There is another still," I persisted, "and I must speak plainly. You
know that I have no money for political enterprises. My own money is in
official custody; but, even if it were not, and I had so much money at
my disposal that I did not know what to set about in order to get rid of
it, I should not waste it in buying myself a seat in Parliament. I
remember well what politics did for my father, and how much it cost him.
But, besides this recollection, the idea of corrupting the minds of the
electors and of making drunken animals out of decent and intelligent
labourers for two or three weeks is repulsive to me. It is entirely
against my conscience."

"Now listen to me. In the first place, no one asks for a penny of your
money, so it is no business of yours to inquire or care about it. What
is the use of party funds, I might ask? Then, what have you to do with
the details of the campaign? I am head-drummer, manager of the canvass.
You need not give a single bottle of wine to anybody, unless you want to
regale your friends here in your house; but that is quite a different
thing, and has nothing to do with the election. There is one thing you
must remember. If you offer venison and champagne to your electors, it
is called a banquet, and the papers speak admiringly of your bountiful
hospitality; but if you boil a sheep and open a barrel of sixpenny wine
or beer for them, then you are bribing voters, and corrupting the minds
of the innocent. So never trouble your head with a thought about these
things. I have made a bargain with every hotel-keeper or inn-keeper in
the whole county for that one day, and the voters may revel as they
please--at their own expense; that is, a dinner may be had for two
kreutzers, a supper for three, and the wine will be included in that
price. Who can forbid an inn-keeper to sell cheap viands? You will have
nothing to do with the whole business. Only, if some decent elector gets
his head broken in the spree, you will plaster him up, or sew him up, as
may be necessary. Up to the day of election you will not show yourself,
and only put in your appearance when they come to fetch you with music
and flags and all that flummery, and beg you to come and kindly accept
the mandate, which the chairman of the party is dying to hand over to
you. Then at the banquet you offer a toast to his Majesty the King, and
afterward you will accept of the torchlight serenade, which your voters
will give you, and perhaps speak a few gracious words; but that is not
essential, and you may hold your peace. At any rate, with that serenade
all your duties are ended."

"I should think they began with that--at least, according to my notion.
No, I can't accept. I can't afford to loiter about in Budapest, and have
everything here go to the dogs."

"What a greenhorn you are! You need not live in Budapest at all. If the
chief of the party telegraphs you that some great division is coming on
with respect to some important question, you go up, find the seat with
your name on it, sit down, and, when your name is called, you shout
'yes' or 'no,' according to the party's views, and then you travel home
again, and make your famous 'Lipto cheese.'"

"I have no intention of becoming a voting machine."

"There you are right. You are too spirited and much too talented for
that. You will deliver your maiden speech amid universal applause, and
become famous at once. You will be hated by the opposite parties, hated
and feared, and that will only stimulate your courage. You will be a
great man, and a blessing to your country. You can engage a trustworthy
man to manage your estate, and do well under such an arrangement; and
you will give your talent and your faculties to your country and your
party. It is your duty, and you are not the man to shrink from an
acknowledged duty. Besides, out of friendship for me, you cannot refuse.
I have positively staked my word on your acceptance; and then there is a
request from the party, with a hundred and twenty signatures. Look
here!"

He showed me a sheet of writing, with a long list of badly-scrawled
names underneath a few lines of writing. I still hesitated, when
Siegfried smiled, and, taking from his pocket a little bit of a letter,
perfumed with heliotrope, handed it to me.

"My aunt sends you this."

I broke the rose-coloured wax, and drew out a tiny piece of
bristol-board with the signature of Countess Diodora Vernöczy. Its
contents were as follows:--

"Pray accept the nomination."

That was all. But what all the persuasions, all the allusions to
country, race, patriotism, and religion had not effected, these few
Hungarian words, written in a fine, aristocratic hand, did at once. They
persuaded me, and I accepted. Yet I had never seen the lady who had
written these words, and did not even know whether she was young or old,
beautiful or ugly! She was a woman, and that sufficed. No! the Devil is
not dead; here is his hoof.

How I triumphed and how I fell I have told you already. If I had the
gift of Virgilius Maro, and could speak or write in hexameters, in such
verses I would compose the "Æneid" of my career as a belligerent. As it
is, you can read it all, described in somewhat unflattering language, in
the Hungarian newspapers of the period. There is a whole history of
bribery, corruption, intimidation, and similar crimes committed in my
name, related in those papers, and you may read of the horrible fraud
that was practised in offering the vote of a dead man. The epithets
"cheat," "deceiver," "liar," and so forth were freely and frequently
attached to my name; and then followed the shameful annulment of the
election, and I was sent home--a broken, disgraced, snuffed-out
wretch--a dead man, indeed!

There is something fearful, something terribly cruel and unjust, in such
a moral cudgelling to death, for those who cast the stones are not a
whit better than their victim. A common criminal, murderer,
counterfeiter, or forger may procure a pardon, and rehabilitate himself
in time; but a man that has furnished society with amusement and been
laughed to death is never again allowed to hold up his head and show his
face. I was nearly mad with shame and disgrace. What should I do with
myself now--now that I was nothing but a broken tool--I, who might have
been a scientific celebrity, a light in the profession? I could not go
back to Vienna for very shame. A flouted, ridiculed man cannot be a
doctor. A doctor must be respected, trusted, even revered, like a
priest. For me there was nothing but to hide myself in my own house,
shut the doors against everybody, and live the life of a hermit--the
life of my Uncle Diogenes.

I need not have shut my doors; not a soul demanded admittance. I really
think my dear friends made a circuit around my château when they had to
pass through my village.

The first day I remained shut up in my room; the second I paced the
garden walks in a furious rage; the third I noticed that I had
shamefully neglected my uncle's dearly-cherished garden since I had
abandoned myself to the mania of politics. The carefully tended Isabella
grapes wound their tender twigs up and around an apple tree; the roses
were full of water shoots; the American lilies choked up with dead
nettles. Wasps' nests were hanging from the branches of the trees, and
giant ants had built their pyramids on the foot-path; and the hedgehogs
boldly invaded the lawn as I passed. As I strolled, my eye fell upon a
little flower which I recognised as a favourite from my dear mother's
garden; I observed a glowing alkermes, an Oriental corn-rose, then again
an artichoke, overgrown with vile weeds. All at once I found myself
working away with garden-knife, shovel, and spade, pruning, weeding, and
tying up the twigs and branches, just as Uncle Diogenes had done.

By night I had smoked out the wasps, put the little bower to rights,
and, hardly knowing how or why, I had gone into my uncle's
turret-chamber instead of my own bedroom. And why not be as he had been?
I asked myself. Here at least I could meet with no shame, no
disappointment, and no deception. All was well. I should be a gardener
in summer and a museum-keeper in winter, and so the time would pass with
me as it passed with him. No doubt, in time, this solitary, secluded
life would not be so irksome to me as now. The social instinct would die
out; and, left to rural pleasures and occupations, the polish would be
rubbed off me, and in appearance also I should be as my Uncle Diogenes
had been. I gave up shaving, dressed shabbily, and ordered a dinner of
pork and potatoes, which disgusted me. I ceased to drink wine, because I
was no toper to enjoy drinking alone, and in the course of two or three
days I had a hearty indigestion, which at least recalled me from my
self-tormenting course so far as my inward man was concerned. In outward
appearance I had a beard of a week's growth, wore a pair of coarse
breeches and high top-boots, because in low boots I could not ramble
about in garden and field as I did.

My valet was in despair; the good old man had known me for years, and
was very faithful to me. Of course, he dared not ask questions, but he
threw me such appealing glances that I was strongly tempted to pour out
all my burning shame and rage to him, since I had nobody else to make a
confidant of. It was a very, very miserable time, and it lasted
something more than a week--a week, I say! I thought it a century at the
least.




XIII.

THE VALKYRS.


It was about ten or twelve days after my discomfiture, and a beautiful
afternoon. I was standing in my front garden, attired, as I usually had
been of late, in coarse breeches, muddy top-boots, a not very clean
linen blouse, and a broad, rough straw hat on my head. My face was rough
and adorned with bristles. I do not think that anybody coming upon me
unawares would have taken me for anything but a Slav garden labourer.

Presently I heard the gallop of horses, and, looking through the new and
very handsome iron trellis in front of the building, I saw three Amazons
riding up to the house. I did not know them, and supposed them to be
strangers in the country, approaching in order to admire the curious old
building. They wore long black riding-habits, all three alike, with blue
veils tied around their high beavers and entirely concealing their
faces. One of them was a real Zenobia figure: tall of stature, regal in
gait, a magnificent creature! The second was tall and slender, and slow
and stately in movement. The third was a tiny little figure, but full of
nervous vitality and energy. Opposite to the verandah of my house they
checked their horses, and looked through the trellis at me as if they
expected me to run out, and give them the desired information. The
tall, slender lady rode nearer to the gate and looked haughtily in,
while the little girl-rider cried out:

"_Tu y serais_!" Then she beckoned the groom, who was waiting behind
them, to come nearer and hand her a little wooden case with a round
glass set in at the front--a little photograph-apparatus.

"Well," thought I, "these are amateur photographers, and Dumany Castle
has apparently pleased their eye, and they want to immortalise it in the
pages of their albums--an interesting object!"

I was standing near the fence, by the side of a flowering rose-bush. I
held a spade in my hand, and was just in the act of putting it to its
proper use when the lady directed her camera toward me. I thought it was
rather a clever performance for a person on horseback.

"_Ne remuez pas, mon cher_!" cried the lady, as I lifted the spade. Of
course the Slav gardener, whom I resembled, was bound to understand her
French prattle. So there I stood, with uplifted spade in hand, until the
lady had finished her picture, and then she released me with a "_Merci,
mon garçon_!" and I, hardly able to keep my composure, answered in Slav,
"_Dobri nocz, mladi panyicska_," which means "Good night, miss!"

The ladies broke out into a merry laugh, returned the apparatus to the
groom, and rode off, laughing because the slender lady had been included
in the picture. I laughed also as I looked after them, and I said to
myself, "Now I shall not utterly die, '_non omnis moriar_.' The Valkyrs
have come to pick up the fallen hero and carry him into their Walhalla,
which in all probability is bound in morocco leather with silver
clasps."

The same evening I had another surprise. My friend Siegfried drove up to
my house, sprang from his barouche, and, seeing me, he ran up and
embraced me tenderly.

"So you know me still?" asked I.

"Know you? It would be no wonder if I had not recognised you as you look
now! Do you know that with a week's growth of beard and moustache a man
looks like a gorilla?"

"Well then, I look like the progenitor of mankind, if Darwin is to be
believed."

"I say, it's high time I came! otherwise you would cease to be a
Christian, and become one of those detestable naturalists." With that
Siegfried ordered his coachman to walk the horses about, feed them,
water them, and prepare for the drive home after supper. So I had to
give orders for a supper, and remember that I was not yet my Uncle
Diogenes, but his nephew and a gentleman, and this friend of mine a
veritable Count, who expected me to give him a good supper. "After
supper you must come with me," said Siegfried, decidedly.

"I! Where?"

"To Vernöcze, to visit me! Have you not got my letter?"

"I received a letter. I have it in my blouse-pocket yet, but--"

"You have not opened it, nor looked at it yet?"

"No. I thought that if anybody wrote to me now, he either wanted to
insult me or call me to some kind of a reckoning. I thought there was
time for both."

"Oh, you stupid fellow! Where is that letter? I want you to read it at
once!"

I took out the letter, opened it, and read:--

     "DEAR NELL,--Our party decided at yesterday's meeting to support
     your name at all odds against the ensuing new election, and carry
     you through at any cost. My aunt wants to inform you of some very
     serious matter, so she begs you to pay her a visit on Wednesday
     next.--Yours, as ever,

                                                              "SIGID."

The previous day had been Wednesday, and the letter had been in my
pocket for the last four days. I confess that I felt a glow after
reading these lines. Something like joy, like exultation, filled me,
that after all I was not dead and buried there in that house, not an
utter laughing-stock, and that my name was not hooted by friend and
enemy alike. I still had noble friends. They remembered me, acted for
me, endeavoured to avenge me, and rehabilitate me. It was an intense
feeling of relief, of pride, of happiness; but I tried to hide my
sensations and play the Cincinnatus a little longer. When Siegfried
said, "We expected you all day yesterday; but as you did not come I
concluded to come over and look after you," I replied, "I had not read
the letter; but if I had, it would hardly have been otherwise. I cannot
go from home at present."

"Why! what is the matter with you? You are not going to play Uncle
Diogenes, are you? Simple civility might have induced you to come over
to Vernöcze. You are due there for ever so long."

"You are very kind; but, you see, the Vice-Governor does not send his
sentinels to guard the iron chest with the money, and so I have to guard
it myself; and then, you see, I am busy budding my 'Marshal Niel' and
'Sultan of Morocco' roses--it is their season."

Siegfried broke into a merry laugh. "The dear boy is actually trying to
live after the pattern of that exemplary old uncle of his. Now, don't
make a fool of yourself, old fellow, and don't make believe that you
like baked potatoes and curds. I tell you I want a good supper, and
after that I'll take you with me. You can take your rose-scions with
you. My gardener will be thankful for them. We have a lot of
water-shoots in our garden."

We had a

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