A kőszívű ember fiai (angol fordítás)

MÓR JÓKAI: THE STONEHEARTED MAN’S SONS

PART I. (Chapter 1-18)

Unabridged English Translation by András Tokaji

PART I. CHAPTER 1.
SIXTY MINUTES ALL TOGETHER!

The reverend gentleman was just in the middle of his toast… The nectar foam was trickling down his fat fingers. The already started phrase exceeded the capacity of the lungs, and tried all the ability of the neck muscles. His face turned entirely red with the lofty enthusiasm. Each of the illustrious guests was holding his glass by its slender stem in readiness and, filled with lust for fame, breathlessly waited for the explosion of the perpetual-flight rocket of the peroration; the liveried attendants were hastily refilling the half-emptied glasses to the brim… The leader of the gipsy band, seated at the farther end of the hall, was already holding his fiddle-bow up in mid-air ready to strike up a flourish, as soon as the toast has ended, with a fresh zeal to drown out the clinking of glasses… At this moment, the family doctor entered soundlessly, and whispered a few words in the ear of the hostess, who was presiding at the upper end of the table. As a consequence, the lady immediately left her seat, and, with a hardly discernible apology in her face to the ones sitting beside her, left the hall.

However, the toast, just like a launched grenade, refused to be disturbed in flight by this incident but was hurrying towards its ultimate goal, “…May this glorious man, our Atlas bearing the burden of our country on his shoulders, the consummate model of genuine patriotism deserving to be remembered for ever, the most supreme commander of our comradely party in their march to victory, our pillar, our support, our Pharos, who is not with us in person … live for a thousand years!”

The final words were drowned in the tumult of tinkling glasses, loud cheering and music. The rumble caused by the pushing back of chairs and the clash caused by the dashing of wine-glasses against the wall, all bearing witness to the exaltation, supplied the thunder and lightning to the comrades’ shower of tears. “Long life to him! May he live a thousand years!”

“Lord Casimir Baradlay,^[1] Magnificent and Right Honourable Gentleman, Noble and Gallant Lord, hereditary and actual Chamberlain of the Golden Key, Knight of the Golden Spurs, owner of many lands, lord over vast lands, towns and villages, hearts and hopes, Chieftain and one of the seven Prince Electors for the Alliance of the Mightiest Powers-That-Be… the Dalai Lama itself.”^[2]

The reverend and very reverend, honourable and right honourable gentlemen who are sitting round the triple table in the heraldry hall, are resembling to dipterous insects,^[3] having the glittering lustre of gold radiated by the person fêted and assembled from distant counties for the feast day with the aim of determining, with the assistance of a conference of the wise, a faultless guideline according to which, following the plan, perfect like gold, the destiny of the nations and the world including all the tasks of the descendants, shall be determined for centuries.

The final scene of the conference put together successfully is a banquet, to which Baron Casimir Baradlay was treating a magnificent condensate of leadership skills in the splendid hall of his castle. The only pity is that the hero of the feast could not be present.

The banquet is presided over by the host Lady on his behalf.

As for the conference, his place was taken by the Administrator.

If you look up the entry “administrator”, in the German “Conversations Lexicon”, you will find there a calm, peaceful cleric, who does nothing else but pray, deliver funeral speeches and administer the Holy Communion. On the other hand, its Hungarian counterpart portrays a fairy tale monster, who was sent down to the sinful Earth to unroot forests and crumble rocks, and was a powerful lord who bacame master of lots of servants.

And the name of the Administrator was Mr. Benedict Rigidcastle.^[4]

At the end of the toast, the guests were stretching out their toast glasses only to state that the presiding hostess was missing. The butler, standing behind the empty chair, informed the noblemen that the doctor, who had just been there, whispered a few words to her, whereupon the lady had left he hall. Probably, he said, her husband had sent for her.

Some sensitive minds dared to make inquiry as to what the matter might be with the honoured host. Upon that, the Administrator gentleman, who was seated beside and on the right of the presidential chair, hastened to reassure the whole company (as far as his words could each down the long table) that Baron Baradlay only suffered another attack of his “old illness”.

Some of the better initiated guests revealed the secret, which otherwise was an open one, in a low voice to their less ‘learned’ neighbours: Baron Baradlay had been suffering from the hardening of the arteries in the heart from a long time, perhaps decades; on account of which he had had severe heart complaints very often, but could, leading a healthy way of life, continue to live for decades.

On the spot, the very reverend gentleman recalled an anecdote of an English physician, who also suffered from the hardening of the arteries in the heart, and had predicted the exact day and hour of his own death years before. By the time the story reached from mouth to mouth the other end of the table, it had been jumbled up with the stories of Georgie Józsa.^[5]

After all, it is only the gentleman’s habitual disease; long live he for many years.

And those “a few” words that the family doctor whispered into the presiding lady’s ear were these three words, “Only sixty more minutes!”

Did the lady become pallider at these words then she had been before? Could she be even pallider, than she used to be? Nobody noticed it.

Upon having entered through the door into the side hall, she grabbed the doctor’s hand, asking, “Is that true?”

The doctor nodded with a grave face.

When the door of another empty room between them and the uproarious company had closed, he reiterated the former sentence. “There are only seventy minutes left for him to live. He said he wanted to see your ladyship. He dismissed everybody else from his side. Please, go in to him. There will be no need for me anymore.”

When at the third door, the doctor fell behind, and let the lady go on alone.

In the fourth room, there stood two life-sized paintings of the aristocratic couple as bride and groom in gilt frames side by side. While passing in front of the two pictures, the cold, marble-faced lady could not help burying her face into her hands. She was about to burst into tears and sobbing that was she had to gulp down. That is not allowed for her. From the sixty minutes this struggle took half a minute. And she would be reproached for that half a minute!

The next was an empty, hollow room, fortified with huge bookshelves on the walls; and then there came the door, behind which the dying husband was waiting for the expiry of the last hour.

There was lying the man whose blood-vessel of the heart had turned to stone. To stone by the terms of pathology and according to the biblical saying.

His head was stacked up high among his pillows, with his features composed, as if he was sitting for that Great Artist, Death, who shall paint a picture of everyone’s face different from the one they have, while alive, and was telling him, “I want you to find my face in the best possible condition”.

The woman hurried to him.

“I have been waiting for you”, the man said. That was reproach.

“I came right away,” faltered the woman. That was excuses.

“You stopped to weep. Though you knew my time was short.”

The woman clenched her fists and lips together.

“No weakness, Marie”, the husband said. His voice was turning colder and colder. “It is the order of nature. In an hour I shall be nothing more than an inert mass. So the doctor told me. Are our guests enjoying themselves?”

A silent nod was the reply.

“Just let them continue to do so. Do not let them become dispersed. Do not let them become scattered. Once they have come together for the conference, let them remain together for the funeral banquet. I have long since made all the preparations for the burial ceremony. From between the two coffins you shall choose the one of black marble. Of my swards, the one, ornamented with platinum, shall be placed on my catafalque. The four tassels of my shroud shall be carried by our four chief justices by the four directions. The funeral anthem will be sung by the Debreczin College chorus. No stage songs of any kind. Only the old psalms tunes. As for the funeral addresses, the one in the church shall be delivered by the superintendent, and the one in the house by the dean. The local priest shall say the Lord’s Prayer, in a plain manner, in front of the family vault, and nothing else. Have you understood every word of what I said?“

The woman was staring into the air.

“I beg you, Marie to bear in mind that what I am now saying I shall be unable to repeat. Be so kind, then, as to sit to this little table by my bed. You shall find all the necessary writing utensils on it. Put down whatever I have said and I am going to say.

The woman willingly carried out the order, seating herself at the table and putting down everything what had been told to her so far.

When she had finished, the husband went on, “You have always been a true and obedient wife, Marie. You have followed my every order. For still another hour, I shall be your Lord and Master. But what I am going to tell you during this hour shall fill in the rest of your life. And I shall continue to be your husband even after my death. Your Lord and Master; your stonehearted Tyrant. Oh, I feel something choking me! May I have six drops of the digitalin,^[6] please?

The woman administered the medicine using a small gold teaspoon.

The sick man was speaking a bit easier again, “Write down my last words! No one but you must hear or see them. I have performed a great scheme, which must not collapse with me. Let the Earth not move but stay. And should the Earth, as a whole, move forward, this piece of land, which belongs to us, let not go with it. There are many who understand me, but only few who can, and even fewer that have the courage to do for it. Put down each and every word that I am saying, Marie.”

The woman was writing without saying a word.

“Now the shaft is dropping out of the machine,” went on the dying man, “and I seem already to hear the rumble of the falling pieces of debris on the top of my coffin. But I do not want to hear them to do so. I have three sons, who will take my place when I become dust. Write down, Marie, what my sons are to do after my death. But even before that, will you please hand me one of the musk pellets… Thank you. Please sit down and continue doing it”.

The woman went on writing.

“All my sons are still too young to take my place. Let them first finish the school of life; until then, you must not see them. Do not sigh, Marie. They are big boys now; too big to be under mom’s wings of protection.

“My eldest son, Edmund^[7], is to remain at the St. Petersburg Court. Now he’s only secretary of legation; in the course of time he shall be destined for a higher position. It’s a good school for him. Nature and bad inclinations have fostered in him too much exaltation, which is not salutary for our stock. There he shall be cured of all that. The Russian court is a good school. It will teach him to distinguish between men born with rights, and those born without. It will teach him how to stand on the heights and not tumble down onto the ground due to dizziness. There, he shall learn what a man and a woman is worth as opposed to the other. There, his exaltation shall fade, and, upon his return back, he as a whole of a man shall be able to take over the helm, from which my hand has fallen. You are to supply him with money enough to make him able to stand the competition with the young nobles of the Russian court. Let him drain the cup of pleasure to the dregs. Leave him to his extravagances; all that must be experienced by anyone who wants to get to the heights of indifference.

The speaker glanced at the clock; it urged him on. Time is too short; there are too many things left to say.

“That young girl,” the sick man continued in a low voice, “on whose account he had to be sent away from home, do take pains to give in marriage. Spare no expense. There are men enough suitable for her. We will provide a fortune to her. Should the female prove obstinate in her resolution, please bring about her father’s removal to Transylvania. We have plenty of connections there. Edmund is to remain abroad until his family has moved away, or Edmund himself has married out there. Do not be anxious about anything. It has only happened once in Russia that the tsar married the daughter of a priest; and, as for him, he was also only a Russian tsar, not a Hungarian noble man.

At the last words the dying man’s cheeks slightly turned red, and, within no time, the redness was gone.

The woman was silently writing what she was instructed to do.

“My second son, Richard, shall remain a month longer in The Royal Body Guard. But it isn’t a career. However, for a start, it’s good. He should leave it and join the cavalry, where he is to serve another year, and then exert himself to try to get into the General Staff. Skill, Valour and Fidelity are the three great steps for a man in making his way upward. All three are brought about by practice. We have an entire region still unconquered in front of us. All we should do is place our feet onto it in order to have it as a whole. It is preposterous arrogance that gets in its way. My son is to open new paths in front of the others. When, some day, the earthquake starts, Europe will see a war. Previously inert springs shall collide the countries head-on. But an Honourable Sir Richard Baradla^[8] shall have a lot to do. His fame shall cast its glory over us all. Richard must never marry. A wife would only be in his way. Let his part be to promote the fortunes of his brothers. For their advancement, what an excellent recommendation would be their brothers’ heroic death on the battle-field!… But you are not writing, Marie. Oh, you are not crying, are you? Please do not be weak now; we have only forty minutes left, and I have yet so much to say. Put down what I have dictated to you so far.”

The woman did not dare to display her grief, and was writing without a word.

“My third and youngest son, Eugéne,^[9] is my favourite. I don’t deny that I have loved him the best of the three. He shall never know it. No wonder, I have treated him as if I had been his stepfather. You continue so to treat him. Let him remain in the Vienna civil service and learn how to make his way upward step by step. This struggle shall train him to become smooth, clever and shrewd. Let him learn to steal a march on the others by reason and kindness. Let him always be forced to please those whom he is afterward to use as ladders to rise higher and higher. There is no need to spoil him so as he learns how to make use of the strangers, and to judge each man’s value. His ambition must be fostered; he must be encouraged to start, maintain and nurture new acquaintances with powerful and influential men; they may build new valuable family relationships. Of course, without indulging in idle poetic daydreams.”

A momentary distortion of his face bore witness to the infinite agonies the man had to endure while speaking. It lasted but a second. The noble will overcame the peasant mentality, and enabled him to continue his testamentary disposition.

“Three such strong supports shall uphold and preserve the Work created by me. A diplomat, a soldier, and a high government official. Alas! Why am I unable to continue to build it any longer, until they become strong, and keep their ends up? Marie! My wife! Mrs. Baradlay! I beg you; I force and compel you to obey my behests. Every fibre of my nature is wrestling with death, but in this last struggle of death I do not care for the fact that what is dust in me now shall turn to dust again in several minutes. The cold sweat on my forehead is caused not by the death agony but the dread that I have been exerting myself in vain. The labour of a quarter of a century shall be for naught. Daydreaming fanatics put diamond into fire without knowing that it shall become decomposed into its inferior elements there and shall never re-crystallise. This is our eight-century diamond-nobility! This is the eternal, en-livening and reviving force of the whole nation. The talisman of our existence full of mystery. And this is what they want to sacrifice, to annihilate. For the sake of false creations of an overheated brain, which, like plague, carry the whole nation off through some all-contaminating breath produced by alien bodies at the time of a pestilence. Ah, Marie, if you but knew, how my Stone Heart pains me! No, no more medicine! Do not give me medicine. That cannot help me against it. Can you please hold my sons’ portraits in front of my eyes? That will bring me some relief.”

The woman took the three-part folding with the miniature pictures there, and opened it in front of him. The Stonehearted Man looked at them one after the other, and his pains soothed. He forgot to fight with the Death. Pointing with his wizened, bony forefinger at the portrait of the eldest, he whispered: “He could be most like me, I believe.”

Then he pushed the portraits aside, and continued, coldly, “No sentimentality now; the time is short. I shall soon be gathered to my fathers, and leave to my sons what my ancestors bequeathed to me. But my house shall remain the fortress of the Principles. Noble Hill remains part of history. It shall be the centre, the fireplace and the sun of the orbit of the revolving idea. And you will remain here after I am gone.”

The Lady stopped writing and stared in the face of the speaker. He noticed his wife’s staring at him.

“You are looking at me sceptically. What can a woman, a widow accomplish in a task under the burden of which a man has broken down? I will tell you. Six weeks after my death you are to marry again.”

The pen fell from her hand.

“I want it,” continued the stone-hearted man sternly. “I have already chosen a man for you to marry. You will give your hand to Mr. Benedict Rigidcastle.”

At this point, she could no longer contain herself any more. She left the table, ran to her husband’s bedside, got on her knees and, having seized her husband’s hand and wet it with her hottest tears.

The stonehearted man closed his eyes and counselled Darkness. And he was counselled.

“Stop it please, Marie. There is now no time for tears. I am in a hurry. I have a way ahead of me yet. My orders must be obeyed. You are young; still in the right side of forty. You are beautiful, and you will remain so forever. Twenty-four years ago, when I married you, I found you no more beautiful than you are today. Your raven-black hair and bright eyes are the same. Your sweet temper and blushing nature have not changed. I have always loved you warmly. But you know that very well. In the first year my eldest son, Edmund, in the second Richard, and in the third my youngest, Eugene was born. Then God visited me with an almost fatal sickness, from which I recovered but have been crippled ever since. The doctors said I was doomed to death, and that a single kiss from your sweet lips would kill me. And I have been dying at your side for already twenty years, doomed, sentenced. The flower of my life has faded in front of your eyes, and for the last twenty years, you have been merely a dying man’s nurse. And I managed to live day by day. Because I was possessed by a great idea, which was dominating over all human passions, and forced me to survive, preserve a life amid the most grievous tortures and abandonment. Oh, what a life! Constant denial of everything that is joy, feeling or pleasure! I accepted it. I despaired of everything a man’s heart is beating for. I cut the poetic illusions of youth, which every young soul is enslaved by, out of my heart. Became cold, calculating and inaccessible. I lived only for the sake of the future. A future, which to be the Eternity of the Past. For that I have trained my all three sons. For it I have exhausted my vital force. It is how I have immortalized my Name. This name is lying under the curse of the Present, but it will be glorified by the radiance of the Future. For this name you have suffered so much, Marie. You must be happy some time.”

Her sobs were kind of protest against his words.

“This is how I want it,” said the man, and snatched his hand from her grasp. “Walk back to the desk and write as I am saying. ‘This is my Last Will and Testament. Six weeks after my death, my wife shall marry Mr. Benedict Rigidcastle, who is the man most worthy to follow in my footsteps. Only thus shall I rest easily under the Earth and be blessed in the Heavens.’ Have you written down everything I have dictated to you, Marie?”

The pen fell from her hand. She put both hands upon her forehead, and kept silent.

“The hour is drawing to its end, “stammered the dying man, fighting with the worms of Death. “But ‘non omnis moriar!’ The work that I have begun shall survive me, Marie! Will you lay your hand on mine and leave it there until you feel it is frozen. No sentimentality, no tears; I do not want you to weep now. We shall not take leave of each other. I have bequeathed my soul upon you, and it shall not ever leave you. Every morning and evening it shall demand an account of you how you have executed my will I have entrusted to you in this my last hour. I shall be here! I shall always be here. Forever.”

The woman was trembling from head to foot.

And the dying man folded his hands calmly, and muttered in broken accents, “The hour is drawing to its end… The doctor was right… I no longer feel any pain… Everything is darker and darker… Only my sons’ portraits are still gleaming… Who are you there coming toward me out of the darkness? Halt there! Advance no farther! You obscure figure! I have yet more to say here!”

But the grim spectre, which appeared from the darkness of Becoming Nothing, was approaching irresistibly without waiting for the great, Stonehearted Man to tell what else he had in store to command in this world, and laid its invisible hand over his face.

Then the great, powerful Stonehearted Man, upon realising that he had to obey to an even mightier Lord then himself, without calling on any one to help him die as do ordinary, fallible mortals, willingly closed his eyes and pressed his lips together, and, without reluctance, as becomes a nobleman, he surrendered his great, indomitable soul to the Big Master Jailer, Death.

And the woman, upon seeing that the last minute passed, and her husband was dead, fell upon her knees by the table, and, folding her hands upon the written page before her, stammered forth, “Hear me, Lord God, and be merciful to his forsaken soul, as I now vow to execute the very opposite of all the wicked commands he has with his last breath enjoined upon me. O my God, relying on Thine almighty power, I hope to obtain the Help of Thy Grace!…

In the silence, there came an unearthly and unimaginably weird cry.

The startled woman glanced in terror at the deceased lying on his bed.

And see! His previously closed lips were parted, his closed eyes were fixed into the air, and his right hand, which had been folded in his left upon his breast, was raised up above his head.

Maybe, the departing soul encountered the vow sent after it in the Heaven, and, having turned back once more from the gate of the Heaven, from the Orbits of the Stars, came back to his mortal remains to declare, with an after death cry, his last, protesting will of iron.

CHAPTER 2
THE PRAYER AT THE GRAVE

The stonehearted man’s funeral took place only a week later. During that time his mortal remains were displayed publicly, embalmed, like those of a prince. Time had to be given to the numerous high-ranking acquaintances to make their appearances, the reverend and the Reverend gentlemen to write their funeral addresses, the carpet makers and the emblazoners to get their ornaments ready, and the college cantus praeses to teach the chorus quite new music to the honour of the great dead man.

I have seen many a funeral in my life. When a little schoolboy, I was a descant with a nice voice; and three humaniorum classises^[10] had to accompany all the deceased persons of our denomination with singing; the rich and the poor, equally. I have seen many a costly and many a poor funeral, where now an oration, now a sermon or just a pray was delivered, but I cannot give a description of any of them. Because I did not see anything else there but those usual weeping figures, who are ambling behind the coffin, whether helped or left alone which is always the same sight. The pain of the rich is just as humble as the one of the poor, and I cannot remember anything else.

All I know is that the Right Honourable Ggentleman’s funeral oration lasted rather long. It is still on hand somewhere in the archives, printed in silver letters on a glossy black paper, and the baroness wept through the burial just like a poor peasant’s widow.

“Finally, the poor baroness will have her cry out,” a personage of rank whispers to the other sitting in the first pews, “she wasn’t allowed to during his lifetime anyway”.

“The deceased was indeed a very hard-hearted man,” answered the other, “he didn’t even allow her to shed a drop of tear when she was suffering with something.”

“However, for those twenty years she might’ve suffered with all kinds of things.”

“That’s what I know best.”

“Have you been, Right Honourable Administrator, a most intimate friend of the family?”

“United in body and soul,” answered the addressed person, omitting, owing to the discourse, the most beautiful period in the Reverend Father’s exordium, who was, at the moment, disclosing the relation between body and soul to the listeners.

The Right Honourable Lady removed her tear-moistened handkerchief from her face occasionally and sought to compose her features.

“She’s really a beautiful woman still,” one of the gentlemen whispered to the other.

“She’s been put on ice for twenty years.”

“I doubt whether she remains a widow when this year of mourning is over.”

The Administrator, only twirling the tip of his moustache at the squabbling remark, said, “Let’s listen to the Reverend Father; he’s speaking so kindly.”

That was right; he was speaking very kindly, indeed. He was peerless in homiletics.

Nevertheless, the noblemen of rank keenly wondered what kind of decorations might be painted on the lower part of the funeral courts of arms. It was the Administrator who was able to inform the ones sitting nearby about who gave which one to the deceased man for which of his services and when. They are to be given back, anyway. Anyway, they must be handed back.

However, the funeral oratory came to an end, leaving everybody in the firm belief that no better oratory over anyone’s mortal remains had been delivered since long and will be delivered long.

Then the dirge followed. The village church could boast of an organ, the generous gift of the deceased. The choir sang, splendidly, with their usual precision, one of the most beautiful of funeral melodies, known from the opera “Nebuchadnezzar,” with words, of course, adapted to the occasion.

Hmm, I wonder what if the lamented heard that an opera choral song is being sung over him, and he, calling up from the coffin, said to the cantus praeses, “You are a perfect ass!” The remark was passed by the Administrator, turning to his neighbour.

“Don’t you think he liked staged operatic arias?”

“He was always highly incensed when stage frills and fancies were mixed in dirges. As for his will, he went so far as to give express directions that no stage tunes should be sung at his funeral.”

Is your honour, then, familiar with the deceased’s will?

The Honoured Gentleman, having lowered his eyelids, and pulled up his moustache to his nose, nodded mysteriously implying thereby that it was a secret though an easy-to find out one.

However, the dirge did not close the service. Side by side in the pew near the platform sat three priests, who were evidently there not without a purpose. After the second song, the Reverend Father mounted the rostrum.

“I wonder if the third priest will also preach,” said one of the noblemen of rank to the other, embarrassed.

That’s the local pastor; he’s to offer a short prayer outside the vault.”

“Ahh, is he that one?” And the two gentlemen leaned to each other; near enough that not a word could be overheard by the ones behind them.

“I wonder whether ‘that one’ is present,” one of the noblemen of rank whispered to the other.

“I myself have been looking for her among the people for a long time now but my eyes fail to find her.”

Finally, the Honoured Gentleman discovered who he had been looking for.

“Lo, she’s there. She’s standing in that corner behind the platform, leaning close to the wall, holding a handkerchief with both hands, lifted up to her lips. Cannot you see there? When the attendant holding the torch shifts the body weight from the right to the left foot, you’ll catch sight of her behind him.”

“Ahh, I can see, I can see her now. Is she the one in a neither grey, nor brown dress?

“That’s she.”

“A lovely girl, truly!. No wonder that…”

And they continued whispering.

However, it was a pity to omit the splendid funeral sermon read out by the Reverend Father because, if the first sermon was a masterpiece of dialectics and prosody, the latter was a model of an award-winning poetry, full of fascinating metaphors and similes and lachrymose figures of speech; moreover, mixed with poetic cites both from classical and modern authors. The beautiful introduction was followed by a personalized sermon of the deceased, whose corpse was surrounded by the glow of flaming torches. And it was when the Reverend Father proved his intelligence by determining the correct sequence of the Distinguished and Excellent gentlemen, the Honourable and the Right Honourable gentlemen, the Misters and the Mistresses, the Noblemen, the Magnificent and Right Honourable gentlemen, the Reverends, the Very and the Most Reverends, the Pastors, the Highly Esteemed Gentlemen, the Men of Merit, the Respectable and Erudite Gentlemen along with their wives and their descendants on both on the male and female lines without making a single mistake to cause any serious resentment. Moreover, in the name of the deceased, he handed over so appropriate and well-chosen farewell sentences to each outstanding person, and thereafter to groups of mourning people that they, according to their ranks respectively, might be fully satisfied.

When, in the list of the enumerated people, the Reverend Father reached the name of the one “who is now wandering on the snow-covered fields of remote northern homelands hundreds of miles away from your motherland, and who is, in the brilliance of the polar aurora, thinking of the loving-hearted Father, who is looking down upon you from above…” it seemed to the two noblemen of rank that the young girl dressed in brown over there, in the corner, had lifted the white handkerchief up to her eyes.

“Poor thing,” they whispered to each other (saying to themselves, “Surely enough, you won’t see him again!”)

At long last, the dirge, the funeral oratory and the funeral sermon came to an end, and twelve attendants, fully dressed from head to toe, lifted the coffin on their shoulders, the most distinguished friends of the house were holding the heavy tassels of the mortuary cloth; the administrator reached out his hand to the mournful widow, and the procession set forth from the church to the family vault.

There was one brief ceremonial act left. Upon depositing the coffin in its eternal resting-place, it is customary for the local pastor to offer a last prayer over it.

Many were curious at least, to see the old man of mettle’s exterior, as Bartholomew Fiery^[11] pastor was respected for his sanguine temper. The old man was wont to harangue on the rostrum like Abraham or Santa Clara in their days, and, in the county assembly, like Lawrence the “Club-bearer”.^[12] Luckily, it was arranged so that he was charged only with delivering the prayer, and not with the deceased’s funeral oration, otherwise it would have taken a long time for all the survivors of the ceremony, to forget.

After the third dirge, a space was cleared for the preacher before the entrance to the vault, where he took his stand with bared head, surrounded by the people. On each side of his forehead, which was high and bald, hung a few thin locks of hair; his face was smoothly shaven, as was then the custom in the Church, and the heavy eyebrows over the keen, dark eyes gave his countenance a look of resolute determination. Folding his hands, he prayed as follows:

“O Thou True Judge of the Living and of the Dead, Almighty God, incline Thine ear to our prayer in this hour… Lo! With much earthly pomp and splendour the ashes of one of Thy servants are approaching to the marble hollow prepared for their reception, while, at the same time, his soul is standing naked and trembling, pale-faced at Heaven’s portals and sues for admission into Heaven… What are we to take our departure from This World amid such glare? We, whose brothers are the worms and whose mother is the clod of earth? … The memory of a single good deed lights our path better than the flare of a thousand torches, and the unspoken benison of our patriots is a fairer ornament for our coffin than all the coats of arm and orders in the world.”

O Lord, be merciful to those who in their lives never showed mercy. Ask not too sternly of the trembling soul before Thee, ‘Who wast thou, who led thee hither, and what can be heard about thee from down yonder?’ Do not let the earthly soul go beyond the earthly clouds, be it a Curse or a Blessing. Thou stand high up over hem. For to what but Thy infinite mercy can he appeal who, though great and powerful in His earthly life, yet stands before Thee stripped of his earthly glory and answers to Thy formidable questions:

Casimir, didst thou ever give help to the miserable?

No, thou didst not!

Didst you ever raise up the fallen?

No, thou didst not!

Didst thou ever protect the prosecuted?

No, thou didst not!

Didst you ever lend thy ear to those that appealed to Thee in despair?

No, thou didst not!

Didst you ever wipe away the tears of the sorrowing?

No, thou didst not!

Didst you ever pardon the defeated?

No, thou didst not!

Didst you ever repay love with love?

No, no, thou didst not; never ever!

And, when Thou askest the owner and master of many lands and property, who is standing disarmed in front of Thou now, ‘’What use didst thou make of the power which I entrusted to thee? Didst thou give happiness to those under thy charge? Didst thou build anything for the rising generation, which looked to you for its future? Didst thou truly serve thy country, or didst thou crawl in the dust before alien idols? Didst thou devote thyself to the service of your country or sold its altars on which the offerings sacrificed in my name were smoking?’ What can he answer then? To whom turn for help? With which escutcheon or orders shield his breast? Whom to call upon for help, whom as his intercessor? Which king, which emperor shall protect him there, where the gold from crowns are made of, is nothing else but mud and ash?… “

The priest’s face had glowed, and he seemed to increase in stature. As he shook his head, his thin locks of hair, as if they wanted to fly with him, were waving around his head. All what they had heard sent a chill down the spines of those assembled.

“Oh, Lord,” the priest continued his prayer, “hath mercy on him instead of sitting in judgement upon him! Avert Thy scrutiny from what the mortal man was, but reckon that he used to walk in darkness saw not Thy face.

Weigh not his errors and his failings; consider that he believeth that he wast doing Good, while doing Wrong.

Forgive Thou him in Heaven, even as those against whom he sinned forgive him here on Earth.

Blot out the remembrance of his works, that none may thereby be reminded of him.

But if the sinner must atone for his sins, if Thou art inexorable toward the Bad Work of a finished life, and wilt not let his heavily charged soul unpurged before Thee, O, My Lord, then let his atonement be the return of his soul, which now sees all things clearly and not as if in a mirror, let his soul, we pray Thee, return to Earth and take up its abode in his three sons, in order that the Sins of the father may be transformed into Virtues and Fame in the sons, and that the soil of his fatherland, which was his coffin as long as he lived, may become his cradle now, when laying dead therein. Hear, O Lord, Thy servant’s prayer. Amen.”

It was the thunder of the iron door of the crypt that closed the ceremony. The public, whether understood the fulminating words or not, was completely satisfied with what had seen and heard. The mourners returned to the manor-house, where tables were spread for the noble rank, for the students and the servants, separately, in different halls; and, having completed his or her tasks, everybody hurried to meet Nature’s requirements.

The aged pastor lingered behind most, and, while all the rest turned their faces towards the castle, took the hand of the girl in her brown dress, and took a roundabout way.

For him, a cover had been laid in the great hall of the castle in vain.

CHAPTER 3
Mr. ZEBULON DOLLARY^[13]

Funeral feasts are very similar to any other repast with the only difference that no toasts are made during them.

The hostess, the widow was withdrawn in her most inner rooms, and the guests assembled for the obsequies were seated at the rows of tables of three in the hall of coat of arms; they might have been one and a half hundreds. The chef excelled as usual; the chief-steward had the wines served up, each requiring glasses of different shapes, and the guests settled down to a hearty meal just as if the dinner were a High Sheriff’s inaugural lunch.

Toward the end of the dinner, when the small Sèvres porcelain cups were being distributed for serving the ice cream, another guest arrived with a loud thump. A late-comer guest, at the sight of whom a merry “hullo there” could be heard from all directions; even the stewards could not disguise a smile. Although the newly arrived fellow showed less a picture of high spirits, rather the one of a most desolate man.

“Look! Zebulon’s there!” Can be heard from all sides.

No doubt, Zebulon, full with rage and desperation; his bald forehead, on which the brim of his fur-cap had left a wide, red print, reminiscent of the aureole of a martyr, was full of sweaty, dishevelled hair stuck to it, and his moustache and beard were frosty and full of icicles, just as it had been crystallized by rime ice outside; all muscles of his face are trying to surround his nose with as many possible wrinkles to express exorbitant anger and indignation. However, with no success at all. No wonder; he is so beloved by everybody and is feared so little!

”At the last station I didn’t get a relay!“ Mr. Dollary said pointing out how he was pursued by fate.

The younger guests jumped up to yield their places to him, while the older and more honourable ones were greeting him from a distance. Aged liveried attendants hurried to take his fur-cap and gloves away. They also wanted to take away his short raccoon fur lined overcoat, which he did not consent to because he had nothing under it; with buttons done up, it served as street clothes in its own right, with undone, as a morning suit, and, when brushed down, as a gala attire, which he desperately needed, because the broadcloth linen fur coat, which he had been wearing on the way there, was losing its fur. However, there was lack of time for that.

“Here! Here! Take my seat, Zebulon!” were shouting fed up guests from all sides. Notwithstanding, Mr. Dollary ignored their invitations, seeing that the Administrator was offering him a vacant chair next to him. Hence he thrusted his way through the others, reserving the right for the Administrator to accept his respect by first sprinkling the rime ice from his beard on the Administrator’s face during a friendly kissing.

At that very instant, Dollary became aware of the majesty of the moment, uttered a big sigh of relief, and, having grasped the Administrator’s hand with both hands, said to him in a very sad voice, “How unfortunate having to meet like this! Who could’ve believed it?”

Three hours earlier this sorrowful statement would have passed with the others but now, among the wines of Ménes and Bordeaux, it was not given a warm reception.

“Do sit down, Zebulon. Here is an empty chair.”

Mr. Dollary wanted to offer some more frosty kisses to the ones sitting near to him, but he was forced into the chair, which had been declared empty. “But whose chair am I going to occupy?”

“Don’t worry about it, Zebulon,” said the Administrator, just sit down in it. It’s the priest’s chair.

“The priest’s chair!” cried Dollary, leaning upon the table with both hands as to be able to jump up immediately from the chair, since his feet proved to be too numb to assist the operation. “But I won’t sit down in a priest’s chair. I won’t sit on a sacred chair. I won’t occupy a priest’s chair.”

They held down and pressed him to stay there. “Just stay sitting there,” the Administrator reassured him in an undertone, “After that priest, before long, there’ll surely be more vacant chairs left.”

A neighbour whispered to Mr. Dollary, who that priest was.

“Aha! That’s another case,” He muttered, calmed down, and nestled comfortably in the assigned seating accommodation, and proficiently tucked in one tip of the unfold table-napkin into his collar.

The manservants, in this case, knew their business without being ordered. They ran in front of him with the left-over of the busily decreased courses from all sides, one brought the giant pike-perch, the other the pheasant, the third the sauce, the fourth the salad, the fifth the pudding, and Dollary ate them all jumbled, as they were brought forth: the wine-soup to the fried meat and the Madeira sauce to the pancake. Who cares? All were going into the same stomach. Meanwhile, he, without loss of time, narrated to the mourning Christian assembly an extraordinary misfortune, happened to him, with which Fate honours only its chosen persecuted.

“I’ve been coming from there above for three full days. I came, on the whole, luckily as far as the last station, Mosquito’s Residence.^[14] I sent for the judge, and ordered the relay. It was and was not. Asked, where it was. All the horses had gone to Noble Hill to the funeral ceremony the day before. I got very angry. I told him who I am, and gave the order, but to no purpose. Finally, I bribed a brave, honourable man with a large sum of money in order to help me, as he could, in any way he could, but the rascal harnessed four buffaloes to my own gentleman’s coach, and took me here like this.”

Dr. Dollary narrated his wretched incident, namely, having to swagger by riding a four-buffalo coach to Noble Hill, with such a tragic countenance that even those were moved to compassion who did not feel sorry for him upon seeing him consuming the Italian shortcake with mustard.

“However, it would’ve been pretty good if he had carried me along,” Dollary continued his sorrowful Odysseys, “but since the temperature was zero outside, which the buffalos find too hot, and there was a marsh beyond the reeds, which was frozen only a bit, just as they had seen it, all the four buffaloes ran into it. Along with the coach. We stuck there. It was only after two hours, when the buffaloes had finally satisfied their passion for balneology, when we managed to drag the coach out of the mud and the ice. During that time I missed everything: the burial service, the funeral oration, the funeral sermon; I didn’t get even a bit of prayer of it.”

“Bah, as for it, you’re lucky, dear Sir, that you haven’t got any of it,” said in passing the Administrator, which set Mr. Dollary thinking. The priest’s chair was vacant; the prayer had been unpleasing. The priest must have made a mistake! He had been looking forward to come up, as a good competitor, with the ones who had gone far with eating, which did follow at black coffee-drinking, and to inquire of his administer-friend the history of the priestly vacant chair, which would lead to more empty chairs, and the prayer, which he was lucky enough to miss.

Upon hearing the incident, he found it terrible. As his hair did not want to rise upright of itself, he bristled it up around his forehead. “Argh, that’s treachery!”

Of course, treachery! Accordingly, not a single protector of the damned priest was to be found in the whole company. On the contrary, everybody assisted to pour poisons of threats of all colours against the priest into Mr. Dollary’s bosom, and filled his glasses with liquors of different colours. Dollary did not resist tasting both, until he himself could not have told whether the former or the latter ones were more responsible for his getting angry.

While sipping the black coffee, he kept very silent. This threatening silence seemed to show that he was battling with himself if it had been left to him what he would do to that priest. After each sip a new idea broke a way from under his moustache, “I’d have him carried out to the border… I’d have him summoned to the Sacred College of Cardinals… I’d make liveried attendants knock hell out of him…

And, at each idea, he had an appealing look at the competent authority: at the first, at the land steward, at the second, at the Reverend Father, and, at the third, at the commander of the castle, and, meeting their smiling eyes, saw that they sang the same tune from the same sheet of music.

“Let not an even greater misfortune befall that gentleman!” Said the Administrator, on which Mr. Dollary, having sipped the rest of the coffee along with the sugary grounds off the coffee cup, stared at potentate, wondering what else above that could come to his mind.

Mr. Rigidcastle said grinding the words through his teeth, “additionally, a little ‘audiendum verbum’^[15] will follow.”

“It serves him right! It serves him right!” cried Mr. Dollary, as if he had had it on the tip of his tongue, but the Administrator said it first. “Incitation! High treason! He deserved Kufstein!^[16] Ten years to him! Heavy irons to him! Let the royal treasury ask him to get beheaded!”

The Administrator, seeing that the session had stretched longer than usual, and, being the winter days shorter, evening was already closing in, found it advisable to order Mr. Dollary “to sit down”, and, having risen from his chair, made a sign to leave the table. Everybody had to set off as early as daylight. It was unusual for guests to stay for the night at the house of mourning.

According to good order and discipline, the distinguished company deputed a ten-member delegation to once again express their condolences in a farewell-speech to the lady of the house. While they were up the judge of the district court was to see that every coach was supplied with its relay mounts; included Mr. Dollary’s buffalo-driven barque.

It was a matter of course that Mr. Dollary was not to be left out of the delegation. Having stroked his fur-lined short overcoat with his palms moistened with saliva, which meant that it was therefore brushed up the meritorious patriot joined the delegation of the ten noblemen, and they went upstairs in a nice marching order, where the widow dwelt.

Mrs. Baradlay was prepared to receive them; she did not let them wait. She was standing there leaning against her writing desk like a statue in her spacious room shaded by dark blue curtains; the lineaments on her countenance of alabaster-whiteness seemed completely inert.

The Reverend Father was the first to appear before her. He poured out the balm of several beautiful and appropriate Biblical verses on the embittered heart. Then the Reverend Father put into action some not less successful stanzas of consolation fitting the situation by our poets.

Then the Administrator stepped to the lady, and, having taken her hand in a confidential manner, asked her to bear him in mind, if her pains become unbearable, and ensured her that there existed a friend of the house, who was faithfully ready to share all those pains.

With that, the respectable delegation should have withdrawn. Notwithstanding, Mr. Dollary, having got a gap, come hell or high water, pushed forward to tell what was weighing on his mind, and what the others had forgotten to tell.

“Milady, I’m awfully sorry not to be able to be present at the funeral ceremony. On the way here I was stuck. I’m very sorry that I couldn’t pay tribute to that renowned man by shedding my tears. Milady, if I had been in your place, I’d have surely jumped down the throat of that infamous, wicked priest − I mean the third one who had recited that blasphemous prayer. I guarantee, Milady, the evil priest will get his deserts. We’ll make him expelled from the parish, and turned to wandering priest. We’ll make him summoned to audiendum verbum, he’ll be in prison for life. He’ll learn there what he hasn’t learnt yet. The Administrator and I together will give it to him! Please, be comforted. ”

During these words, the beautiful, pale dame raised her big, talking eyes not on Mr. Dollary but upon Mr. Rigidcastle, and stared at him so long, without moving, that he could not stand her look.

Luckily, the coadjutor gave Mr. Dollary’s short, fur-lined overcoat such a big hitch that its frogging pressed Dollary’s neck, whose words stuck in his throat. At this point the lady made her bow, left toward her inner room, and, with that, the conversation came to an abrupt end. With a triumphant countenance, Dollary looked round with upon his fellow delegates; feeling that he came in for the lion’s share of the farewell.

“You’ve consoled the Milady very much, Zebulon!” said the coadjutor, tapping the brave man on the shoulder.

“Your Very Reverend Lordship pleased to say splendid words again,” said Mr. Rigidcastle to the Pastor.

“However, Your Honour’s words of comfort had more divine grace,” the Reverend Father returned the compliment.

“As a matter of fact, nobody else can speak so beautifully in poems like you can, Father Deacon,” said Mr. Dollary to the rural dean.

Later, outside the door, while jogging down the long stares, the coadjutor said to the Administrator, “Sheesh, what an idiot is that Zebulon!”

The Administrator said to the coadjutor, “I’ve never seen such a spouter like this old priest before.”

The Reverend Father whispered to the rural dean, His Lordship believes already that for him the only thing to be done is to share with the rich widow.

And Mr. Dollary faltered to the one standing next to him, “I don’t know why he feels he needs to versify even when it doesn’t fit the occasion.”

After half an hour, one coach after the other raised a cloud of dust on the highroads running from the Noble Hill castle in every possible direction, until all were enfolded in the lazy, grey, wintry fog settling down on the neighbourhood.

CHAPTER 4.
TWO BEST FRIENDS

A vast hall formed entirely of pure malachite! The walls are like green velvet turned into stone. The slender, green pillars, each hewn from one precious stone, seem to hold the vaulting like ever so many stripped, green palms. In the niches around the pillars there are groups of oriental plants, from among which a blooming agave is lifting its bouquet, having been waited for for one hundred years, high up into the air; while, from the other side, its princely compatriot, a sago-palm is expanding its fingered leaves, the wings of which reach across half of the hall.

From the vault of the hall, like from the ceiling of a dripstone cave, capriciously arranged groups of huge glass prisms are hanging down, and the lamps, hidden among them, are projecting the picture of a kaleidoscopic world, resembling a shattered rainbow.

In the middle, there is a giant aquarium, a one-piece glass basin, diameter of two fathoms, standing, and in its emerald green sea-water, there are some of the miraculous and frightening, capricious and strange creatures of the sea-bottom, for example, hammer-headed, saw-nosed, fan-eared, flask and serpent shaped fishes, swimming. On the other hand, clung to the glass walls and spread on the tentacles of different precious corals, various shellfishes and snails of tropical seas can be seen in their full and living splendour, of which only their dead shells can be found in the museums. There is an alabaster Triton rising from the middle of the basin, and an emerald green fountain water-jet of the thickness of an arm is spurting upwards from his conch shell trumpet, raised to his mouth. It is the most precious scent, genuine eau de Cologne and, as it is falling back on the glass cover of the basin and pouring down, it seems that all these sea wonders are bathing in the flood of fragrance.

And the whole basin is lit through from below by a penetrating beam of light, which is transforming the entire hall into an enchanting dream vision, where snow-white busted and shouldered fairies are loitering around, like in the goddesses’ phenomenal palaces in the Fairyland, on the bottom of the transparent water.

Namely, this hall has its fairies, which look for, lean upon and whisper to each other, change their glances as it is common with fairies, which can be heard only by the ones, whose spirit is open to silent words addressed to them.

The arched doorways of the magic hall afford a glimpse into another, and then, from one end to the other, through the fifth, the sixth, the tenth one who knows through how many halls; and they are all shining in a dazzling light; the marbles are of all colours, no two alike, adorned with gold and silver, silk and velvet; stately ladies move around everywhere glittering with their treasurable bodily beauty and precious stones. Having cast his eyes over them, and admired the King of Stones, the diamond, which is rocked by the most the beautiful thrones, the womanly bosoms, the Mortal Being might come to the result that in this place the Throne is more precious than himself the King!

But hush! If you have told this to yourself, make sure that keep it to yourself!

This enchanted palace with its submarine grotto and overground fairies, with the scent of the Brazilian rain forests, and the heat of the southern nights is nothing else but the Saint Petersburg Marble Palace with a temperature of minus 5 °F outside.

Among the stately ladies’ groups there shine some of the representatives of the stronger sex. You can only see gold-trimmed uniforms and embroidered suits of the diplomats there, decorations from every country of the world, and the splendid national costumes of the independent Boyars. And if you notice a figure in a plain, black tail coat, a white waistcoat and a necktie here and there among them, you may be sure that they are a secretary of one of the embassies.

Notwithstanding, it happens that the ladies look in the eyes of some of the figures wearing the simple tail coat, mentioned above, more intensely, than the ones whose breast is filled with decorations and medals. There is one like that there.

A wonderfully handsome, dignified face in the full vigour of his youth, still with chaste sentiment expressed in his every feature. With his great, blue eyes overshadowed by long and dark lashes, even a maiden could make a conquest. On the other hand, his noble profile and finely cut lips show a man mature for his age. Despite his slender build, he is deceptively brawny and elastic.

The handsome lad, in spite of the black tail coat, did not remain undiscovered for long. A gentleman in a dazzling military uniform, with diamond orders on his is breast and a silk sash extending over his shoulder and down to his hip, addresses him, shakes his hand, and then links his arm in his.

The illustrious gentleman knew the alien young man’s father well, whom he used to meet at the Vienna Court frequently. He considers him a very brave and highly esteemed man. He prophesies an even more brilliant career for the son. And, finally, he lets him know that he should be prepared to be introduced to the Grand Duchess. Then he took the young man with him.

A really dazzling situation in life. For a young man, who is still nothing and nobody, even without a uniform, to stand in front of the potentates of a foreign country, face to face with one of the most beautiful and highest ladies of the vast empire, to answer her unpredictable questions, and, perhaps, to repay her princely obliging words with the right compliment.

The young man was equal to the test. And so was with some further ones.

Dancing started. Ladies of birth and breeding, graceful fairies danced on his arm; each being a prototype of the Manifold Beauty. The lovely Duchess Alexandra is the only daughter of a rich Moscow aristocrat. When the beautiful Duchess Alexandra, the single daughter of a rich Moscow aristocrat, a perfect beauty with locks generally likened to “curled sunbeams”, had already whirled around the hall with her blue and wistful eyes and rosy cheeks on his arm two times with easy grace, and had reached her place for the third time, gave a sign with a stealthy pressure of the hand for one more round. And they danced around the ballroom three times, which, being a strenuous task, is seldom performed except out of virtuosity or love.

The young man bowed, and walked away. He felt neither weary nor dizzy.

He brought about enchantment.

And the enchantment resided in his unimpassioned look.

He seemed not to be moved by anything. The p rincely pomp and splendour did not appeal to him; he was not carried off his feet by the decorations, nor dazzled by the beautiful eyes, nor intoxicated by the sweet words or the secret pressure of the hands.

His every feature said he lacked the interest in all that was happening around him. And that gives unspeakable magic to a man’s face.

When, after midnight, all the orchestras in the various halls had started to play the national anthem as a signal that the Grand Duchess was about to retire to her private apartments, the young man in the black tail coat hurried into the Malachite Hall.

A red uniformed palace servant was bearing refreshers on a large silver tray around the room, and the young man took a glass of some kind of white coloured drink therefrom. But, at that moment, somebody pulled his hand away from behind, saying, “Hey, you’d better not drink that.”

The lad turned, and for the first time that evening involuntarily smiled, “Ah, is that you, Leonin?”

“Leonin” was a young bodyguard officer, a round faced, healthy-looking figure in a tightly fitting uniform with a blond French-style moustache curled-up at the ends, side-whiskers and with thick eyebrows, to which the lively, grey eyes and his determined look matched well.

“Thought I had lost you in the dancing-hall,” said he with a friendly reproach.

“I was dancing with your betrothed. Didn’t you see? She’s a wonderful lady.”

“Wonderful, indeed. But the whole thing is a farce to me until I cannot marry her, until I come of age and get the rosettes on my epaulets, which means to wait two years, and you cannot live on watching at a girl. Let’s leave now!”

The alien young man hesitated. “I’m not sure whether it’s the proper thing to do so as early as that.”

“Why, you can’t hear the trumpets playing the national anthem? Besides, we’ll slink out through the back gate; my sleigh is waiting for us there with my fur coats. Maybe, you’ve pledged yourself to some vex doll inside or something?”

“Yes, I’m afraid, I owe a quadrille to F… Duchess, to whom I was just introduced by the steward of the Royal Household…”

“Come on, don’t deal with her at all! She’ll make a fool of you, just like she does of many others. That’s all sham. They display their comely shoulders here, and once you’ve cast a glance at a beautiful girl, they already want you to marry her, and, if it is a woman, she wants you to be her fool. All these alabaster necks and bosoms, all these sylphs clinging close to you, these eyes smiling into your eyes − all these are diabolic questions raised by angels without any answers. Let’s go where they give answers as well.”

”And whither do you wish to take me?”

”Where to? To Hell. Afraid to come with me?”

” Not at all.”

”And how about Heaven? Afraid to come with me?”

“Not at all, either.”

“And what if I take you to a filthy and stinking grog shop on Kamennoy Island,^[17] where a sailors’ ball is going on? Will you come with me there?”

“It’s all the same as well.”

”Well, I love you, then.”

Mr. Ramiroff embraced the strange young man, kissed him on his cheek, then took hold of him and hauled him out of the Marble Palace through the side doors and stairs, known to him. They made off in their light ball-room costumes to the sleigh waiting on the bank of the Neva, and wrapped themselves in their fur coats. And, in a minute, the two Volhynian stallions were taking them at a noisy gallop along the ice of the Neva.

The two young squires were Mr. Ramiroff Leonin, a young Russian nobleman, and the other: Sir Edmund Baradlay, the house of Baradlay’s eldest son.

As the sleigh was gliding along the moon-lit rows of palaces, Sir Edmund said to his friend, “Hey! I think, Kamennoy Island can be found in another direction.”

“Why, nor are we going there,” answered Mr. Ramiroff.

“Why, then, did you say that?”

So that, supposing somebody was pricking up his ears to what we were talking about, should hear something else.”

“If that’s the case, where are we going?”

“As you can see, we’re on the Petrovsky Prospect now. Directly to Petrovsky Island.”

“Oh, come on, there’s nothing there save for hemp factories and sugar refineries.”

“You’re right. We’re going to visit a sugar-boiling factory.”

“No objection,” said Sir Edmund, and, having wrapped himself in his fur coat, threw himself on back in the seat. Maybe he even fell asleep.

Half an hour passed, when the sleigh, having crossed the Neva on the ice again, pulled up outside a long, red building standing at the end of a long park.

Mr. Ramiroff shook his comrade out of his sleep. “Here we are.”

All the windows of the long building were lit up, and, upon entering into the corridor, they were greeted by an unpleasant smell peculiar to sugar mills, and similar to anything but sugar-scent.

There was a little side-door under the gate, and the two lads entered through it. A smooth-faced gentleman of well-fed appearance stepped in front of them, and asked in French what they wanted.

“To see the sugar mill,” answered Mr. Lenonin.

“Only the mill or the refinery as well?” asked the Frenchman.

“Only the refinery,” whispered Mr. Ramiroff to him, pressing a hundred-rouble bank-note into his hand, which the Frenchman, having spread out, examined attentively. Then said, “Bien”, and slipped it into his pocket.

“Is the other gentleman going there too?” asked, pointing at Sir Edmund.

“Why, of course,“ answered Mr. Ramiroff. “Give’im a hundred roubles, Edmund. That’s the entrance-fee. You won’t be sorry.”

Sir Edmund did not oppose but handed over the one hundred roubles.

Following that, the monsieur began to conduct them along the corridors. From one or another open door blinding light flashed into their eyes or suffocating stink assaulted their noses or the deafening clatter and the fierce hissing of steam grated their ears. They disregarded them save for a low iron door, which their guide opened before them by pressing a spring-loaded lever. The man let them into another, half-lit corridor and, supposing that they knew the further way, left them alone together.

Mr. Ramiroff took Sir Edmund’s arm, and, as one familiar with the place, guided him further. A serpent stairway followed, which they descended, and, as they went downer and downer, it seemed to Sir Edmund as if the clatter of the machines and the whistling noise of the steam gave place to another sounds similar to drumming and the muffled tone of wind instruments.

At the bottom of the corkscrew staircase there was an old woman sitting in a fashionable dress. Mr. Ramiroff gave her an Imperial.^[18]

“Is my box open?” asked the elderly lady, who gave a bow and a smile.

Mr. Ramiroff selected his own tapestried door from the others, opened it for Sir Edmund, then another one, and Sir Edmund found himself in a box, whose front was screened by a light copper grating.

Now he could hear the music clearly. “Ahh, this is a theatre or a circus, “said to Mr. Ramiroff. And, having a glance through the grating, added, “Or a steam bath.”

Mr. Ramiroff laughed, “As you like it.” And, with that, flung himself on a sofa, and took a printed leaflet, put on the baluster earlier, in his hand. It was a formulary programme. They read it together:

“Don Juan au sérail.” „It’s a good farce. A pity that we’ve already missed it.” “Tableaux vivants.” „A boring stuff.” „Les bayadères du khan Almollah.” „A rather funny thing; seen it once before.” „La lutte des amazones.” „Le rêve d’Ariadne.” A wonderfunl thing. Don’t know whether Persida will be in her usual good mood for it.”

A confidential figure looked into the box through the door; it was a waiter.

“Garçon, will you lay a table for us,” ordered Mr. Ramiroff.

“For how many?”

“For three.”

“Who’s the third?” asked Sir Edmund.

“Wait ’n’ see.”

The garçon laid the table, and brought roast meat, cakes and some bottles of champagne in an ice bucket, then left the gentlemen to themselves. Then Mr. Ramiroff bolted the door of the box.

“Hey! This is a strange kind of a sugar refinery!” said Sir Edmund, having a look through the grating.”

Mr. Ramiroff laughed. “So you thought we could only sing praise and worship songs?”

“But such an institution here in a government building!”

Mr. Ramiroff put his finger on his lips smiling as a sign not to speak about it.

“Aren’t you afraid of being discovered?”

“We all would be sent to Siberia.”

“And the musicians? May they not give you away?”

“All of them are blind. An all-blind orchestra. But don’t care about it. A pastime for old gentlemen. Something better is in store for us.

Mr. Ramiroff clinked twice on the wall shared with the adjacent box. The sign was returned from there, and, after several minutes, another door opened in the middle of the partition, and a lady stepped in.

She is one of the ravishing figures of the ‘Arabian Nights’ in a long, ankle-length Persian caftan fitting close to her buxom charms; a tight waistband interlaced with gold compresses her slander waist, the top of her bosom and her neck are covered by strings of pearls; the long, flowing sleeves of her caftan are slit up all the way in front, and gathered only on the top of the shoulders allowing the most superb pair of arms ever dreamt of by sculptor, to be seen. Her complexion is of the noble Caucasian type with its perfect oval form, with her finely shaped nose, the sensual lips, the long, moon-shaped eyebrows and the bright eyes of the deepest black. Her head is undecorated save for her royal adornment, the two heel-length braids of hair.

The Lady paused in surprise on the threshold between the two boxes. “Aren’t you alone?”

“Just come in, Yeza, don’t worry!” said Mr. Ramiroff, “The boy here is one half of my soul, and you’re the other.”

With that, at once and with one hug, he embraced and pressed both of them, Sir Edmund and the Circassian girl, against each other with his both arms, and, gurgling with laughter, got them both to sit down side by side on another couch opposite his own.

“Well, look at that, Edmund! That’s something different from those cold beauties up above, isn’t it? It’s much better here, in the Hell, isn’t it?”

Yeza stared reluctantly at Sir Edmund, who, in turn, examined her charms impassively.

“Sincerely, have you ever seen eyes like these? Or a mouth like this, with million variants depending on whether she’s pouting, smiling, teasing, gurgling with laughter, asking for something or mocking; and one is more miraculous than the other.

“Want to sell me?” asked the Circassian girl.

“Who buys you from me, must create a new world! However, if you should fall in love with the man who is my friend and brother, I should give you to him as a present.”

Yeza huddled herself in the corner of the couch, where Sir Edmund was sitting, lowered her eyelids, and let both hands into her lap.

“Surely, you would’ve become a damned tamer, Edmund,” said Mr. Ramiroff, taking in both his palms one of the Circassian girl’s feet with a red evening shoe. “This girl is usually wild, reckless, chattering and capricious but as soon as she meets your look of those bewitching malocchios,^[19] she’ll sit tame before you like a poslushnik^[20] in Smolny Monastery, God forgive them. Yeza, you’re lost! As you can see, Edmund, when this lion-tamer looks at them, all those beautiful beasts of prey, called women, will subside into silence.

For all that, the Circassian girl tossed her head, and turned a defiant look upon Sir Edmund. And, on doing so, she turned red.

For maybe the fist time since the slave-trader at Yekateringorad had cut her waistband into two.

“Let’s have a drink, my children!” cried Mr. Ramiroff, and, using a big knife, stroke off the head of a champagne bottle; filled up three glasses, handed one to Mr. Edmund and one to Yeza. When they half-emptied their slender glasses, Mr. Ramiroff changed the two chalices, and re-filled them up to the rim until the foam started to flow out of them. “To the lees! That’s right. Now you’ve drunk each other’s love.”

And lo, the wine broke the spell indeed, and Yeza got in a good mood. In the hall outside, every kind of music was played and sung and she was singing with them.

Sir Edmund was sitting back against the grating of the box, and it was a “compliment” from him that he did not once turn around to watch the pieces shown outside. On the other hand, Mr. Ramiroff, whenever a new piece took its turn, looked out through the grating, and passed his pranky remarks.

Yeza drank a lot; the wine went to her head. She stretched herself out on the sofa, and placed her head on Sir Edmund’s lap, while rested her feet on Mr. Ramiroff’s knees folding one leg on top of the other.

Sir Edmund stroked the silky-haired head just the way you stroke a beautiful dog’s head.

“I guess you haven’t an appearance this evening? Mr. Ramiroff asked Yeza.

“No, I’m quite free today.”

“Yeza, Why don’t you perform something for my dear friend’s sake?”

Upon hearing that, Yeza sat upright from her lying position. “If he wishes me to…” answered she, giving a stealth look, an asking and offering one, at the same time, to Sir Edmund.

“What?” asked Sir Edmund.

“Aha! You still don’t know! Yeza’s an equestrienne. A charming equitation artist. On other occasions her performance is put last. Choose one of her debut-numbers.”

“I’m afraid I’m not acquainted with the Madame’s repertoire…

“Barbarian! You don’t know Yeza’s repertoire! Having already been living in this civilised country for half a year! So I’ll enumerate her outstanding roles: La reine Amalasunthe, La diablesse, Étoile qui file, La bayadère, La nymphe triomphante, Diane qui chasse Actaeon and Mazeppa.”

At the last one, the Circassian lady interrupted the young man shouting, “Ah, it’s not in that number! It’s not in that number!”

“Edmund, don’t let yourself be taken in! Choose the..”

Yeza sprang up from her seat, and prevented him from pronouncing it by stopping his mouth with her hand.

Mr. Ramiroff fought with her to release his mouth from the “quarantine”.

Sir Edmund put an end to the struggle by speaking out his choice: Mazeppa.

Hereupon, Yeza turned sullenly away from them both, and leant her shoulder against the wall of the box.

Mr. Ramiroff was triumphant. “You’ve always refused me that. I told you, there would come a day when I force you to do it.”

The lady cast a glowing look at Sir Edmund, and passionately muttered, “All right, It shall be done.”

And she, like an apparition, flashed past among the walls. The opening closed after her.

The music ceased inside; it must have been the end of a scene. It was only that time when Sir Edmund started to examine the arena through the banister grating.

It was an arched cave of 180 feet in diameter enclosed by a semicircle of boxes covered all the way with grating. No audience was seen; only the cigar smoke going through the gratings gave evidence of the presence of people there. The semicircle segment was constituted by curtains with side doors; the former decorated with mythological images.

In fact, this spacious amphitheatre was originally built by the government for the molasses but a businesslike Frenchman transformed it into Elysium of some kind, where he hosts liberal art performances without authority to entertain the city’s gilded youth including the even more gilded old gentlemen for an entrance-fee of one hundred roubles.

In all probability, the police is also aware of it but the impresario may know all the ointments that close Argus’ eyes or it is to be feared that the sugar mill will have been burnt down up to the “refinery” by a quarter of an hour before the time appointed by the police for a strict investigation. Moreover, there is neither production of counterfeit money, nor hatching of any political plots, which should to be prosecuted by the police; therefore they forget about it. Tout comme chez nous.

Several minutes after Yeza’s leaving the two squire’s box, the arena was entirely empty, save for two Saracen maid servants in Turkish dresses who were making the arena even as a foretoken that a horse back performance would take place.

There was a knock at the door of Mr. Ramiroff’s box; Mr. Ramiroff answered it.

It was the garçon; he had brought a letter on a silver tray.

“What did you bring?”

“A letter for the other seigneur, sir.

“How did it come here?”

“A messenger brought it as an express delivery; with the commission to seek and find that gentleman without delay wherever he resides or abides.”

“Give a half Imperial to the messenger, and let him clear off.”

Mr. Ramiroff took the letter away, and turned it over. Womanly handwriting and a black seal.

“A billet doux”, here you are,” said, handing over the letter to Sir Edmund. “N. Duchess is reporting that seeing that you were absent from the quadrille, she’ll take arsenic.”

Then he turned towards the grating, and raised his lorgnette lest he miss a minute of Yeza’s Mazeppa-scene. He talked casually over his shoulder to Sir Edmund, “You see, in spite of my secretiveness, they’ve traced us here. The women’s police have a thousand eyes. They take care of everybody here.”

The overture started. At the sign of a bell ringing, the blind musicians commenced the Mazeppa Gallop, and from behind the curtains, one could hear the barking of the dogs, which, acting as wolves, would chase Mazeppa bound to his horse, and stimulating snaps of whips to make the steed more boisterous. Mr. Ramiroff was completely absorbed in it.

Then stamping of hooves, loud rumble, animal howling and a hurrah shout could be heard from behind the gratings.

“Ah! Devilishly beautiful!” shouted Mr. Ramiroff. “Look, Edmund, look! Can you see it?”

But when Mr. Ramiroff swang around to cast a glance at his friend, what did he see?

With is right hand, Sir Edmund was covering his eyes, and crying; with his left hand, he was holding the open letter.

“Eh? What’re you doing?” Mr. Ramiroff asked scared.

Without a word, Sir Edmund held out the letter to him. Mr. Ramiroff read the lines written in French, “Your father has died. Come home at once. Your loving mother, Maria.”

Mr. Ramiroff’s first reaction was indignation. “I’ll knock that stupid messenger’s brains out for having brought the letter after you. Why the hell couldn’t he delay it until morning?”

However, Sir Edmund stood up without a word, and left the box. Mr. Ramiroff followed him out.

“Poor you! You have my sympathy,” he said, grasping his friend’s hand. “At how mal-a-propos the letter arrived!”

”I beg your pardon, said Sir Edmund, I shall go home.”

”Of course, I’ll go with you. I do’nt care about Mazeppa any more, no matter who does. We’ve pledged to go together to Hell, to Heaven or home. I’ll go with you.”

“I mean I’m going home to Hungary.”

Mr. Ramiroff stood aghast. Ahh! To Hungary!

“My mother wants me to,” said Sir Edmund, with bitter brevity.

“And when?”

“Immediately.”

Mr. Ramiroff shook his head, incredulously. Nonsense! You shall freeze to death. Four degrees Fahrenheit below zero in the city, at least thirteen below zero in the steppe. Between Smolensk and Moscow all the roads are impassable owing to deep snow. In Russia nobody travels in winter with the exception of post-chaises and vendors.”

“It’s all the same; I’m travelling.”

“Of course, you’ll travel when it is possible. Your mother surely didn’t expect you to perform impossibilities. They don’t know what it means to travel to the Carpathians from Saint Petersburg at the time of the Russian Twelfth Night. You’ll travel when there’s a road there.”

“No, Leonin,” said Sir Edmund, indifferently, “After this letter, I’d reproach myself every hour for staying here. You don’t understand me.”

“Good. Let’s go to your lodging.”

The two young men returned to their sleigh on the same labyrinthine way along which they had arrived before. The driver was not drunk enough yet to find their way back home.

Upon arriving at his living quarters, Sir Edmund ordered his servant, wakened from his dream, to pack his trunk and pay his debts. He was hurrying so much that, instead of his valet, he himself made fire in the fireplace.

Mr. Ramiroff threw himself into an armchair, and was watching what Sir Edmund was doing.

“So are you seriously preparing yourself to leave?”

“Surely.”

“You’re making a mistake. Your hasty decision will make a decisive impact on your career. Anyway, you’ve made a fine start here. Everybody’s come to know you. They expect much from you.”

“All that will be wasted.”

“And I know it for sure that they want to introduce you to the Tsar next Friday. It was The Tsar’s most honourable wish.”

“But my mother ordered me something else.”

These few words sounded so resolute that Mr. Ramiroff had to understand that any attempt to change his friend’s mind was fruitless. He also realised that any repugnance on his part only would just estrange his friend from him, and may give rise to suspicion against him.

“Well, if you want to leave, go ahead. I’ll help with packing the mule. What shall I pack?”

“If you want to help me, you’d better make me another favour. Go to the police station to have my passport signed. At your request, they might do it even at this unusual time of day.”

“O, the people are always awake at the police station. I’ll be in a hurry. I’ll be back as soon as I’m ready.

It took less than one and a half hour for Mr. Ramiroff to get back.

“Here’s your passport.”

Sir Edmund shook his hand without saying a word.

“Are you definitely leaving?”

“You already know that.”

“Don’t you stay any more neither for the sake of our friendship nor the Tsar’s favour?”

“I appreciate both very much but my mother’s wish comes first.”

“Well, this is all for nothing. But I’ll disclose you a secret. My betrothed, Duchess Alexandra is in love with you to death. An only daughter of a nobleman ten times richer than you. Beautiful as well as good. But she doesn’t love me − she loves you. She told that to my face. If it were another person, not you I’d kill him. But I like you, better than my own sibling or my own betrothed. Marry my betrothed, and stay here with us!..”

Sir Edmund shook his head sorrowfully. “Going home to mother.”

The young Russian nobleman stroke his forehead and burst out loud laughing. Was it laughing or something else? Then he stepped to Sir Edmund and harshly grabbed his both arms.

“So have you finally decided to set out for Hungary?

“Yes, I have.”

“Then, so help me, God, I’ll travel with you. I won’t let you alone.”

Sir Edmund embraced his friend, who did the same, and held each other pressing themselves against each other’s heart. They really loved each other very much.

Mr. Ramiroff hastened to make the travel preparations. He sent messengers forward to order horses and coachmen for them everywhere; had their travelling sleigh loaded with what he was wont to use in hunts: foodstuffs such as smoked meat and fish; rostopchin,^[21] toast and caviar, a teapot with a cooking box. He acquired two good polar bear fur coats, lap robes and high pine-marten fur-cups, two good rifles and two pairs of double barrel pistols and two Greek falchions both for himself and his friend; all that might be necessary on the way. Also, he put two pairs of skates into their traveller bags, if a river gets in their way, they will race with the sleigh so as to get rid of numbness in their legs. He loaded the fore part of the sleigh with cigars enough for a twenty day travel. And when, at darkening, he arrived with the sleigh with jangling bells in front of Sir Edmund’s apartment, Sir Edmund was already ready for the way. Mr. Ramiroff re-clothed him from piece to piece of his garment; he new very well, how one had to prepare himself for a winter journey in Russia.”

His mother would not have provided for him better, so help me.

The “irons”, the Russian sleigh, was standing ready, a buffalo leather mounted shelter standing on good, well-shod runners furnished with a Muscovy leather^[22] hood in the front and with boot-sole valves in the rear; the unicorn-team was already hooked in, the one in the middle fastened to the thill, on the upper arch of which bells were hung, while the other two were the tracers; the “gonshchik” was standing with his short-stocked and long-lashed whip before the horses, when the two young men, ready for the journey, went downstairs from Sir Edmund’s lodgings.

Once more, Mr. Ramiroff stopped Sir Edmund before squatting under the hood of the „irons”, “So are you definitely going to set out for the journey?”

“That’s right.”

“Then please receive this amulet from me. I got it from my mother, when she was dying. She said it would shield me from any kind of danger.

It was a small, rounded cameo, cut out of mother-of-pearl, and mounted in gold, depicting Saint George and the Dragon.

The Sqire refused the relic. Thank you, comrade; I don’t believe in relics. What I believe in are my stars. And my stars are loving woman’s eyes.”

Mr. Ramiroff grabbed his friend’s hand, “So then, confess one thing. Do you see two or four eyes among your stars?”

Sir Edmund thought about the answer for a moment, then, having pressed his friend’s hand, answered, “Four”.

“Right,” said the other, and helped him up before him into the „irons”.

The gonshchik pulled his tree horses by the forelock, one after the other, kissed them on the muzzles, crossed himself, and then nestled himself into the head of the „irons” and, before long, the sleigh was flying through the city’s snow-covered streets. Although it was around eight o’clock in the morning, all the stars were still in the sky, and the window panels closed everywhere.

Day breaks late here.

The way offered little variety up to Smolensk. It was cold but clear. They changed horses quickly and without delay at the relay stations; got night shelters everywhere and every possible convenience available.

However, upon arriving at Smolensk, the post office manager warned them that bad weather was expected for the next day because all the ravens had withdrawn in flocks to town from everywhere towards evening; and all the church towers were full of them.

“Come on! How should ravens know that?” they answered, and continued their journey next morning.

Mr. Ramiroff told the gonshchik that it was advisable to sleigh along the frozen Dnepr River up to Orsha. But he was speaking about loss of time and intermediate miserable grog shops, where one was not able even to take a rest, until Mr. Ramiroff let himself to get persuaded to remain on the high road. The gonshchik might have felt sorry for his horses, whose legs could have been damaged by galloping on ice or a daughter of the keeper of an inn on the high road might have been his sweetheart.

Setting off Smolensk early next morning, the mist so thick that they scarcely found the way from the town. The gonshchik tied a horse bell to the halter of each horse so as the sleighs passing in the opposite direction would not collide with them. The two men sitting in their seats could not see but the end of their cigars, which kept scraping in the stuffy air as if saturated with saltpetre. At such times the mist gives off such a foul smell as if pestilential vapours exuded from the ill Earth.

It was almost noon when it was growing light. Then the mist that had been previously washed-out started shining as if milliards of tiny crystal needles were flying in midair, had been woven into a thick silver veil, through which a pale, white rayless and warmless plate could be seen the sun.

Suddenly, the mist dissipated, and the scenery cleared up in front of his eyes. A beautiful landscape painted white; sugar figures on a silver sheet. The trees by the side of the road and the pine woods in the distance were entirely wrapped in white hoar-frost; every hair of the horses dusted with snow-crystals.

And the sun started to shine so warm that the travellers felt like stripping off their fur coats.

Soon an explanation was given to the phenomenon. Some dark, mistlike substance was rising up from the North with a great velocity; in the beginning, it was of uncertain purple shade, then turning more and more into brown and dark blue; its trims were ragged but its depth dense and formless. Then that phantom was rising higher and higher over the steppe to in front of the sun; its frightening velocity, in spite of the distance, was distinguishable, and, as it was approaching them, and covered the sun from them, abruptly the whole scenery became ash grey.

Mr. Ramiroff looked out of the hood, and murmured to his fellow in a slow voice, “Well, comrade, now we’re in a fine mess! That’s buran.”

”What’s buran?”

“You’ll se it promptly. Buran usually introduces itself.

The whole sky transformed into one single swirling cloud, which was speedily approaching. The entire steppe there under seemed already dark blue, and between that black sky and that dark blue earth, a horrible white ghost, dancing and circling, was approaching them, the snow funnel, a phenomenon of ice-fields, whose feet were down on the earth, and whose head was up in the clouds! “Wind Bride”, who raises a pillar between the sky and the earth from snow instead of dust. And this wheeling, crazy pillar rides with full tilt along the plain, and crushes, demolishes and tears whatever gets in its way, into pieces: forests, houses, humans or wild animals. This is buran.

’Well, my good fellow, if this catches us, we’ll really go together into Hell, into Heaven − home.

The three saddle-horses were speeding even without using the whip, at full gallop. In the distance, a spot of woods could be seen. The gonshchik was anxious to reach it before caught by the buran; he called his horses now his brother now his son, stimulated them with St Michael and St Gregory.

Suddenly, there was a big lightning. Thunder and lightning at minus eight degrees Fahrenheit and in the middle of winter! And the first lightning was unceasingly followed by others and the thundering, once started, did not want to stop any more. It appeared to them that the head of the snow funnel was casting out those blazing snakes, in the flashing light of which, as a marvel of Apocalypse, the shape of a white and tremendous giant came into sight, mastering over the other apparitions of the storm.

The wind whistled and boomed. All the three stallions stopped running. The gonshchik kept referring both to the Saints and the devils and the lash in vein, it was impossible to get them out of place.

After a few minutes, the travellers did not see anything anymore. The buran caught them up, and from that time on everything around them became dark; it was only the flash of the lightnings that made the daylight night clear for a minute now and then.

The ferocious wind blew the burning pain causing snow, as if fine dust, into the „irons” through every split thereof; the leather hood was kept being hit as if with a huge scourge; there came a minute when every bolt of the sleigh was squeaking, the whole vehicle trembling as though it were a children’s toy.

Mr. Ramiroff Leonin leaned to Sir Edmund and kissed his friend’s eye. “Can you still see your stars?”

“Yes, I can.”

There was nothing to be done but nicely draw back, and throw their body and soul on God’s mercy.

The lightning crack was heard right above their heads; the hurricane threw massive clusters of snow to the side of their sleigh.

Step by step, the roaring of the wind was lessening around them. Mr. Ramiroff cried into his friend’s ear, “We’re going to be buried in no time.”

The other replied imperturbably, “travelling into the clouds alive would be worse.”

Now the lightning crack could be heard from farther. Though the wind was still wuthering, and trampling them underfoot, the typhoon had passed by them; they were touched only by the trail of the Wind Bride.

Little by little, the wind was dropping and the gonshchik dared to crawl from among his horses, where he had thrown himself on the ground, and started to set his horses free from the snow; they were buried up to their necks. Then, along with the horses, the sleigh was freed from its snow grave. The two young men got out for a minute to shake the snow off their fur coats. The large cloud-tent began to tearing apart; the buran took its crazy wedding guests along as quickly as had brought them along, and its snow-white funnel-shape could already be seen, lit by the zigzagging lightning flashes therein, in the South-East distant.

But the scenery was a witness of Wind Bride’s horrible dancing.

The spot of woods that they had striven to reach and, luckily for them, had not reached, was now nowhere. Not more than a few denuded pines had left from them; they were standing there with their dashing crowns; the others were torn up by the roots, crushed to pieces and buried under the snow.

And, at the same time, all traces of a one-time highroad were lost under the snow.

All the milestones, the watch-boxes and the trees planted beside the road are nowhere to be seen. Where there had been a ditch along the road, now there were mounds made crosswise by the storm, which had piled up the snow just like waves on the sea.

“Well, dear friend, where to go now?” asked Mr. Ramiroff the gonshchik.

“Saint Nikolay^[23] knows that,” answered the gonshchik, scratching his head, because though it was right that Saint Nikolay was the travellers’ patron saint, he also was buried so deep somewhere on the roadside that he could not be asked where the road was.

“Well, we’ll go ahead somehow. We should not stay here under any circumstances. Hopefully, we might encounter somebody. It would be good on Dnepr, would it not, old chap?”

“Believe me, Sir, I wouldn’t mind you hailing down a series of blows on my back with my own lash if you tell me where we can find Dnepr because, by following this road, I won’t be able to find the way back neither to Orsha nor Smolensk.

“Cross yourself!” said Mr. Ramiroff to him, and ordered him to start off.

The horses were loping as if they felt their master did not know where they were going. Sometimes they believed they already found the way, and then even more got lost in the steppe. And they were not lucky enough to come across neither a vehicle nor an equestrian or to discover a human dwelling anywhere in their vicinity.

After the buran, it became even colder by several grades.

After a longer wandering, the gonshchik gave a cry, “Look, over there! There’s a Cossack coming from the opposite direction!”

Mr. Ramiroff looked out, and recognized the remote figure. Nevertheless, it seemed to him that it was not approaching but standing in one place.

“Drive towards him!”

Soon, the sleigh reached the figure they had noticed before.

It was a Cossack common soldier on horseback. However, his horse took a miraculously strange position. It looked like leaning against the wall of a snow bank, and standing hoof-deep in the snow, as though looking for something in before its legs. The Cossack himself was sitting in the saddle, holding his long spear with both hands and letting it down to the ground, and laying his head sideways on one hand. He was staring at the travellers like that.

The gonshchik lovely greeted him in Jesus’ name.

The Cossack did not know how to return the soft-spoken greeting.

Then Mr. Ramiroff spoke to him, “Good day, brave warrior, where are you coming and where are you heading?”

But the Cossack still did not answer.

Mr. Ramiroff decided to teach the rebellious guy how to behave decently and, having jumped out of the „irons”, put off his fur coat in the hope that the bodyguard uniform may give him a start.

Nevertheless, the Cossack kept looking at the gentleman and his uniform with an alien stare.

“Hey, guy! Can’t you speak?” Mr. Ramiroff upbraided him fiercely, going to him and taking the Cossack’s arm.

It was only then that he realised who was he talking to.

Both horse and horseman were frozen.

An equestrian statue on the roadside.

“Bah, if he were able to speak he only could tell where the Other World is,” said Mr. Ramiroff to his travelling companion, returning to the „irons”.

Then buran caught the poor soldier on the way, and he froze to death in company with his horse.

“That’s no news,” sighed the gonshchik after having examined the Cossack’s satchel whether he had a sealed letter to be delivered. Anyway, by next morning, he and his horse both will have been devoured by the wolves.

“This being granted, the only question is which direction we should go,” Mr. Ramiroff urged them. “It’s already afternoon, and the night is soon falling. Also, it has become cloudy; we must get under shelter somewhere for the night.

“I’m of the same opinion,” answered the gonshchik. “While I don’t want to spend a night on snow between Smolensk and Orsha. Give an order, this time you, Sir, only once, in which direction to go.

“How do I know? If only I had a compass to show me where the North and the South is. Have you any on you, Edmund? You usually wear one on your watch chain.”

Sir Edmund, with much effort, unbuttoned his clothes enough to reach his watch chain to loosen and take off the etui with his magnetic needle with it. Also, they produced the map from the travel bag, and, having located the quarters of the heaven, started to orientate themselves in the snow desert in the same way as seamen find their latitude.

They all thought differently.

One stated that the woods at a distance were the Vitebsk Woods.

Another asserted that, going down the plain, they were to reach the Mohilev steppe, from where they would not find the way out for three days at least.

Sir Edmund insisted that they should proceed in the direction contrary to the head of the Cossack’s horse because, most likely, he came from some inhabited station.

Well, while they were pondering where to go, there came “someone” to tell them where not to go.

From the direction of the woods, there came a long-drawn-out howl, to which the horses began to throw up their heads, and bristle up their manes. It was howling of the wolves.

The first howl was followed by a complete bestial chorus − a horrific signalling of the beasts of the woods which you, having heard but once, will remember trembling in your lifetime.

The gonshchik suddenly jumped on his seat, and grabbed the reins.

“Let’s break away, Sirs,” shouted with fear on his face, pointing with the shaft of his lash to the opposite direction, and in a minute, the thills of the sleigh were turned and the whip was cracking again.

But there was no need for a whip; since that yelping the three mounts had known that the only choice was to run with all their might or to perish. Billowing under their feet, the snow formed clouds as they were galloping along the plain over ditches and banks.

The two young squires were preparing themselves to face the danger.

Sir Edmund did not seem to estimate it very high. “We have two good rifles and ammunition enough; when they come near, we’ll shoot them down one after the other. It’s also kind of sport.”

However, Mr. Ramiroff fell silent. He knew well what kind of sport it was. He himself prepared his rifle for shooting; tucked his pistols and poniard in his belt. An indifferent look of a before battle resoluteness instead of a perky, before hunt expression was on his face.

At one time, later on, when the galloping sleigh arrived on a capacious plain, Mr. Ramiroff looked out through a vent-hole, and said to Sir Edmund, “Look back, now!”

Sir Edmund lifted up the other vent-hole, and had a glimpse outside.

The wolves were running after them from among the hillocks left by them behind. Not ten or twenty but hundreds and hundreds, and who knows how many left to come later. It was a whole camp.

Sir Edmund felt a shiver going through him. That was not sport − that was disaster. The danger of the most hideous and dreadful kind of death. Struggle with a multitude every member of which is subject of disgust.

The horses were running fast but the wolves even faster.

The distance between the pursuers and the pursued was getting shorter. Some leading beasts had already come within a shooting distance but Mr. Ramiroff did not allow Sir Edmund to shoot yet. They must wait for the animals to get closer. Just let they come.

At one time, they arrived on a place where, owing to the broom shrubs, the pursuers gained advantage because while the pursued had to ride about the bushy shrubs and slalom among the pine-trees, the wolves, having taken a short cut across the thicket, flanked the sleigh.

Now there was nothing left but to use their weapons.

The two barrels were aimed at the beasts breaking out from the brushwood; one to the right, the other to the left. Four shots were fired, and the first attack was beaten off. Not that the pursuers had been shocked to see their fellows’ destruction but because of the fact that, as a first thing, they gobbled up their killed fellows and only thereafter restarted chasing. Among animals, they are cannibals!

However, the young men managed to gain time enough to recharge their weapons, and brought down the wolves hurrying to get in front of their horses from another direction one by one.

“If only we got out of this damned shrubbery soon,” murmured Mr. Ramiroff.

The three saddle-horses also felt that there was the greatest danger. Their eyes were kindling, their manes were waving wildly, and they were letting off hot steam through their flaring nostrils. In the moment of danger, the animal’s vital force outgrew human mind. What human reasoning fell short of, their instinct rightly realised: if they gallop straight through that place, they will find a sure refuge. It was not known what kind of refuge it was but they felt certain about it. That is why they resisted the trying of the wolves, having got in front of them, to divert them from the direct line. They knew very well that, their lives being bound together, their masters were to free them. Hence they were galloping straight towards the skirts of the brushwood.

The thicket started, in fact, to thin out; the thinning juniper allowed a view upon a clearing, and the horizon re-appeared with towers of remote villages. A reassuring view. A few successful buckshot shots into a pack of wolves created a beneficial scare among the pursuers. They did not like that three or four of them got a share of the “toasting” at a time. And, thanks to the stopping short, the pursued gained time to reach the outskirt of the brushwood, over which comes the clearing again, which would be for their good in the end.

But when they came to the outskirt of the brushwood, the gonshchik, suddenly anxious, stood up from his seat, and, as if struck with terror, looked in front of him. And then, all of a sudden, without addressing a word to the ones seated in the back, uttered a loud exclamation, “Saint Paul, help me!” and jumped out of the “irons”, and gave reins to the horses.

The young men were staring after him. There was a pine-tree on the edge of the bushes, broken in two by the storm, and shinned up the tree on the limbs hanging down before the wolves could catch him. And the three stallions continued to gallop on, without control.

But why did the gonshchik leave the sleigh?

The next minute brought the answer. There was a desperate whinny, followed by creaking and cracking noises, the sound of tearing, they tumbled down harshly and, finally, could not see anything anymore.

Upon getting over their surprise, and being in the darkness, they did not have the faintest idea where they had got to.

“Are you still alive?” asked Mr. Ramiroff from his comrade.

“So-so. Are your limbs all right?”

“We’ve tumbled down somewhere; I wonder where.”

“Let’s try to get to know.”

The sleigh was upside-down, above their heads; they had to climb out on all fours. It was only that time they realised that they were sunk deep in a snowdrift.

But the fore-part of the sleigh was nowhere; it was torn off from the “irons”, and disappeared.

And they had to find a way out to where it was gone.

They disentangled themselves from the snow. It was only then that they realised where they got.

They found the Dnepr, what they had been looking for so much.

The only problem was that the bank of the Dnepr on that side was 40-50 feet high, and they had run down, with the sleigh and the horses, from that tower’s height.

Luckily for them, the storm had drifted so much snow to the wall of the bank that they had not been smashed, although the sleigh had been torn in two.

The three stallions were already dashing along with the fore-part of the sleigh even over the other side. And how about the pack of wolves?

Having reached the abrupt bank, they shrank back. The fatal jump of the horses did not tempt them to follow the horses’ example; instead thereof, the whole army of wolves broke into a run to find a gentler slope on the shore, and after several minutes they reappeared as they were stumbling down on a sharp descent, continuing the chase after the three stallions.

“Wow, they won’t catch the three horses,” said Mr. Ramiroff. “The horses got a big advantage over them, and they’re already running without burden. We’d better prepare ourselves for the now even more hungry wolves returning in an hour.”

“We have a castle now; we can defend ourselves there even until next morning,” said Sir Edmund, pointing at the upside-down sleigh, which, being immersed in the deep snow, represented a real cave.

“It would be a boring entertainment, comrade. We do know something better. Now we have a highway, the Dnepr, under us; we know where “ahead” is; we have brought our skates, we’ll put them on, and travel on our own, relying on ourselves. We’ll surely find a military watch-post on the Dnepr; after all, a couple hours of skating is a fun.

“That will be great!” said Sir Edmund, and the two young squires shook hands, and laughed.

“How fun life is !

After the storm, the surface of the Dnepr was cleared from the snow and polished like a mirror; sliding along it looked like pleasure. The young men clamped on their skates, took the pistols and the falchions to themselves and with the exception of the rostopchin flask, left every unnecessary thing under the upside-down sleigh, and, with a Hurray , descended onto the steel-smooth skating rink.

But it was an early shout of Hurray.

Though the camp of beasts dashed off in a mass in pursuit of the three racing stallions, a sentry was left behind.

Four wolves settled down under the mangled pine tree, up which the gonshchik had shinned. They were agreed that the man would have been perished by next morning, then it would fall down, and it would be enough for four of them.

The oldest marauder sat up on the top of the bank, and, giving big yawns in hunger, was looking after his comrades running away; they will not catch any pray.

He noticed the fleeing young men.

All at once, he started giving howling signals, at which the three wolves being on guard, abandoned the gonshchik; they were younger wolves. As soon as they caught sight of the two human figures sliding along on the ice, they run after them along the shore, and as soon as they found a slanting place, went down upon the ice.

The old sentry waited till his comrades, having set off in pursuit of the horses, heard his signalling, and the rear ones slipped back to chase the new preys, and then joined the rest for the hunting. He also new already well that running on the ice was nut a fun for wolves, so he just remained on the shore and was going there along with the attacking ones.

The two young men, having got wormed into the skating, were even enjoying the fact that there turned up some escorts of them. They are only four; it is nothing for two men to handle them, even only armed with yataghans. They made a joke of it.

They were both experienced skaters; well-trained, vigorous young men. Leaving the wolves behind was a sport for them. The three younger ones tried to do their utmost on the mirror-smooth ice, dashing forward again and again, and turning somersaults. Sometimes, all the tree fell over each other, each time having a squabble turbulently, as if blaming each other for the clumsiness. As for the old wolf, he was only running along the shore or in the reeds bordering the river all the time, and was only leading the pack when the Dnepr made a bend. The old guy was a good engineer; he knew already well what diagonal lines were called. While the two young men were sliding along the windings, he was leading his comrades along the direct line. So, when the two skaters were in the belief that they had already left their pursuers well behind, had to take notice of the fact that they had the wolves at their heels again, and had to start the whole thing from the beginning.

On one occasion, they got ahead of the young men in the same sly manner. “Come on, let’s catch them, now if ever!” the four wolves told to themselves.

Suddenly, the two young men took a by-way to the right and left, and the disappointed gang rushed past them. They could not stop on the ice, they were carried on by their own impetus; their nails clawed the ice even where they had got against their wishes. The two young men, laughing, were sliding off them, while the old wolf was snapping at his awkward fellows.

Because of the unfriendly squabble, they lost a greater distance.

Sir Edmund and Mr. Ramiroff, holding each other’s hands, were flying on the ice; a manly pleasure was reflected on their faces. What a great delight it was: playing with death!

However, when the left bank of the river became flat, and they looked back, they had to see that their four pursuers were only the vanguard of the camp, and the whole hideous horde several steps behind them was running towards them.

“Now, forward, comrade! With might and main, everyone for himself!” Said Mr. Ramiroff and, letting go Sir Edmund’s hand, folded his arms on his breast, and set about running at full pelt.

“I can see some smoke in the distant,” said Sir Edmund, rushing after him.

“Must be a military watch-post or some other premises. We’ll be there in half an hour.”

They had to gather all their strength to survive the next half an hour.

The two young men slid off on the ice like two flying birds. The increased danger had multiplied the force of their nerves; sweat now poured down their foreheads, and hot breath came out from his nostrils; running was a matter of life and death.

But they managed to do it.

The hideous horde could not get one step closer to them. The distance between them remained the same all the time. Only the four volunteers and their old leader made a pertinacious effort in pursuing them.

Now the soles of the wolves were bloody from the ice and the reed, and, as the blood adhered to the ice, it made the running easier.

Mr. Ramiroff was in front; Sir Edmund a few fathoms behind.

Once, Mr. Ramiroff suddenly stopped. “I’m lost!” shouted, pale-faced.

Sir Edmund, who flung past his comrade by his own impetus, immediately turned back to his friend. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m lost! The strap of my skate has thorn at the buckle. But you hurry up, get away!”

“Keep cool!” said Sir Edmund. Put out your knife, and make new holes on your strap. For the time being I’ll cross swords with these four beasts of prey.”

“Really? Said Mr. Ramiroff with a smile, having his brows cleared, and pressing his friend’s hand. “Then take my pistol as well.”

Sir Edmund tucked also the two other pistols in his belt, and, with several long strides, speeded off ahead of the pursuing beasts, while Mr. Ramiroff, having trudged himself behind an ice-floe, standing erect, and having knelt down, was trying to make his torn skate strap usable. There was a small table-knife pricked into the case of his falchion; he wanted to drill a slot in the strap with that. He put the naked falchion on the ice beside him; it was his only weapon now.

Sir Edmund slackened his speed, and, as soon as the four wild animals came in sight suddenly from among a small place of furze, dug the heels of his skates into the ice, and tried to stop. Then pulled out two pistols out of his belt.

He did not have any bullets to waste. Each and every bullet had to hit the target; besides, in a way so as the beast, when tumbling down while running from the opposite direction, would not knock his shooter down.

The three wolf youngsters were coming in front, and the old one farthest; the three youngsters were running directly straight towards their enemy with their bushy tails flying in the air, with their eyes burning red, giving short yelps of pleasure to each other; the old one with his searching eyes, with his tail between his legs and with a sly and malevolent sneer on his muzzle was hurrying with his head tilted aside.

Keep cool!

The first wild animal was hit through the breast; having lost the direction, sat down at once, and started to vomit blood heavily on the ice.

The second animal’s fore-foot was crushed by another bullet; it was stumbling around, left aside, shaking its broken leg in mid-air.

The third was hit from a distance of less then four steps. It was a personally addressed shot: as soon as the bullet hit its skull, the wild beast turned two somersaults in the air, and ended up flat on its back before Sir Edmund’s feet.

The fourth wolf, the old one, upon getting in close proximity to its enemy, came to a sudden halt, and wickedly lowered its head. It lifted up its pointed ears, cast a sidelong glance at him, and did not try to do anything about being carefully aimed at.

Then, at the moment when Sir Edmund discharged the pistol at it, the old villain suddenly showed clean pair of heels, having the bullet miss the point, and letting it jump away on the smooth ice.

Sir Edmund flung the discharged pistol, and whipped out his falchion. But the cunning beast of prey did not assault him; bobbing up and down, swerved aside into the reeds beside the shore, and disappeared in it.

Sir Edmund might have believed that his attacker had given up its “one-gentleman-versus-another-gentleman” fight for its own safety; and, things going badly, had fled into the grove.

He was looking after it, until it disappeared from his sight.

Then he shouted to Mr. Ramiroff, “You ready?”

“Look out!” shouted the other back.

Sir Edmund did so to notice that, meanwhile, the retired wolf in the reed thicket had walked round his position, and, having noticed that the other man was busy himself, unfit for fighting, broke cover out of the reed thicket, and was about to sweep Mr. Ramiroff off his feet.

Sir Edmund tore like an arrow back to Mr. Ramiroff.

He and the wolf ran there from almost the same distance. Mr. Ramiroff Leonin saw both of them, and was drilling the hole in the strap of his skate with perfect calm.

If Sir Edmund rescues him, it will be alright; if not, he will not be able to save himself on one foot, with a skate on the other. As for him, the vital question was whether he managed to fasten his skate on again. The rest is up to Sir Edmund.

Sir Edmund roared with anger upon seeing the beast of prey bearing down on his friend. He used every effort to get into the beast’s way. However, it was running towards his sure prey, holding his head tilted all the time.

There was only one more jump taken by the wolf, and one more stride taken by Sir Edmund forward, and, in the next instant, an entangled mass was tumbling about on the ice; a foot here, a bushy tail there, a gloved hand here, a maw of snapping, bloody teeth there; they both fell over each other, each cutting, biting or clawing the other with a knife, with teeth or claws, wherever the other got within reach, getting now up, now down, like a bucket in the well.

But Sir Edmund was the first to stand up with his falchion bloody to the hilt and his fur lined short overcoat slashed to pieces. The wolf was there lying prone on the ice, stabbed and cut repeatedly, snapping his foaming jaws in agony.

“Wow! That’s it!” shouted Sir Edmund standing up on his skates.

“That’s done as well!” echoed Mr. Ramiroff with his skate clamped again on. “Tanks, comrade.”

With that, they stretched out their hands to each other, and continued sliding along the ice together toward the column of smoke seen in the far distance before.

Once Sir Edmund glanced behind her, and said, “Look, the pack’s left behind.”

Mr. Ramiroff looked behind him as well. “Sure.”

The large group of wolves was lagging behind falteringly on the snow, visibly pondering over returning.

“They’ve come to their senses,” said Sir Edmund.

“Not in the least,” said Mr. Ramiroff. “By the way, can you smell the bitter scent of smoke? Where you can see the smoke, wolf-skin is put on the fire, which wolves cannot bear; that’s why they are lagging behind from us.”

From that time onwards, the two young men continued their way along the river in perfect tranquillity. The beasts sent yet some more roaring choral songs after them but, otherwise, gave up pursuing them. The two gentlemen encouraged each other by saying, “Well, it was a funny day!”

Not before long, a Cossack watch-post appeared in front of them, a wooden hut built upon the ice, which serves as a station for the sleighs of the state-owned post. There were stalls of horses and a raw of huts standing on the shore; the makeshift huts of fishermen, who fish the European and the Siberian sturgeon under the ice in this season of the year.

There was a big watch-fire burning on the shore, permeating the whole neighbourhood with a rank odour, and the fire was surrounded by men squatting on their heels.

Sir Edmund was skating a few yards before Mr. Ramiroff, and was speeding straight towards the watch-post and people by the fire.

Maybe, did not notice or did not understand the language, in which they kept shouting to him; anyway, he was sliding directly towards them.

But they were shouting with all their lungs towards him to stop him, asking him to steer in another direction.

Mr. Ramiroff understood the shouting, and, having been terrified, shouted to his friend, “Stop!”

But it was late.

The next minute Sir Edmund disappeared from before him.

The sturgeon-fishermen had cut large holes in the ice there through which they would bring the fish to the surface. Those ice-holes, developing ice thin like glass, would freeze over and over perfectly smooth and flat every night. Sir Edmund ran directly into one of them, which gave way under him instantly, and the man sank under the ice.

Wails of consternation came from the ones standing on the shore.

Only Mr. Ramiroff did not wail. He stopped immediately himself by digging the heels of his skates into the ice.

“I’ll go with you there, too,” he murmured through his teeth, and, all at once, kicked off his boots with the skates on them, threw off his short fur-lined overcoat, and … dived after his friend, who had disappeared under the ice.

Mr. Ramiroff was an excellent swimmer with good watermanship skills. He was swimming with open eyes under the water, and was searching through the thick obscurity of The World of the Waves.

His senses were tempted by huge frisking bodies, which scurried past him now to his right, now to his left; different inhabitants of the waves: saw-backed, fixed-eyed, fan-winged or testaceous chimeras of the Waters.

They are lurking about in groups starving for fresh air at the hole in these times; Thousands of tiny offspring are tumbling over one another chased by greedy hundred-toothed monsters, wolves of the Waters.

Mr. Ramiroff could find his friend nowhere.

He descended even deeper. Seeing was painful for him there; a very faint light was glimmering through the several yards deep water and the thick covering of ice.

He kept searching.

He went down to the bottom of the water until his feet reached the gravels. Then he looked for him along the water.

And he was shouting to himself, “Edmund, where are you?”

Then something crossed his mind. He made several steps forward on the bottom against the current of the water, and there noticed a figure standing erect.

It was that.

Sir Edmund was standing in front of him on the bottom of the river in the very posture in which he had seen his friend sink, with his arms folded, his head up; only his face was turned upwards. It was the heavy skates that kept him standing erect on his feet, and the impetus of his speed has sent him against the current.

All of a sudden, Mr. Ramiroff gripped the figure’s hair, and, having given a push to his body with his legs, started to ascend quickly.

Upwards, but where to?

Above them was only the colossal ice-vault, with only a single narrow slot in it, through which one could get back to the light of the sun.

It came to his mind only when his head hit the two-foot thick ice-ceiling, which extended from one shore to the other.

Now where’s the entrance to the Upper World?

While looking for his friend, he completely lost his orientation, and now he could see nothing else above them but a transparent, green, far-flung roof: the Sky of Death.

And now a new idea occurred to him: he pushed himself off the ice. He ought not to let them to be sucked to the ice at full length otherw ise it will be done with them. He dived back into the depth of the water.

At that moment, he exhaled.

He thought the bubbles would look for where to get out under the water, indicating the opening where he wanted to escape.

Like white glass pellets, the bubbles drifted upwards. No one fund the way out of under the ice; all of them ended up being stuck to the ice-ceiling.

Now Mr. Ramiroff descended even deeper, and released one more breath. One of the bubbles rose upwards taking a curve, like a white guiding star, and, at a point, disappeared out of his sight.

It found its way into the open air.

Now, once again, with his final effort, Mr. Ramiroff pushed himself up, following the route of his own breath.

In due time, because the third bubble would have been loaded with his own departing soul.

The thin ice-shell above the hole was crisping. The fishermen-Cossacks, upon running there, saw a head emerging from under the broken sheet of ice.

They hurriedly grasped them using their axes.

Before he himself clambered out, Mr. Ramiroff Leonin lifted up the body still held up with his right arm.

“That’s what you have to save.”

That was his first breath.

All of a sudden, the bystanders pulled both out violently onto the edge of the ice-hole.

Sir Edmund was stiffened; his eyes shut and lips closed.

“Offering prize money of one thousand roubles for getting a doctor!” Mr. Ramiroff shouted desperately.

One of the fishermen took Sir Edmund’s head and put it on his lap.

“I’ll bring him back to life again, Sir, without the one thousand roubles. Let’s get him naked, and lay him down on the snow! However, believe me, Sir, what you did for your friend today, no one’s likely to do after you to soon!”

Mr. Ramiroff embraced Sir Edmund, and was running with him until he reached the snow, on which he could lay him down, and then set his shoulder to the wheel. The men tried to get him to change his wet clothes first beside the Cossack watch-fire.

“Not before I can see his eyes open again.”

Every piece of clothes on him froze solid like ice.

The Stonehearted Man’s Sons by Mór Jókai * Translated by András Tokaji

CHAPTER 5
THE TWO OTHERS

Now let’s let alone the son lying naked, prone in the snow of the Russian steppe under the winter sky, as alien peasants of good will are massaging his stiff limbs, and his single friend is watching him to see the first quiver of his lips, which turned blue, and that of his eyelashes resembling those of a corpse, so as to ask him, “Do you still see your stars?”

The “King of Hungary”^[24] was, that time, one of the most splendid hotels in Vienna; frequented especially by Hungarian gentlemen and military officers.

A young hussar officer is going up the stairs leading to the first floor of the hotel. A good-looking, stately young man; his uniform fits tightly to his broad shoulders and muscular limbs; his round, reddish cheeks are completed with a curled-up, perky moustache with pointed ends, which used to be a privilege of the hussars within the office staff in the whole army; his cap is proudly pulled over his eyes. He is carrying his head erect and so proudly as if he was the only hussar and the only captain all over the world.

Upon reaching the first floor, and seeing a curious scene on the corridor to the side-rooms, he cannot help pausing for a minute.

A grey-haired, smooth-shaved-faced man in a peasant’s cloak is having a violent quarrel with three waiters and a room maid.

Strangely enough, the more the waiters and the room maid are trying to please him by paying deep reverence to him and the more willingness they are showing to help and assist him, the angrier the old gentleman is getting, scolding them now in Hungarian, now in Latin.

Upon noticing the hussar officer, stopped by the clamour, the old gentleman shouts across to him (seeing that the other is a hussar, the old man takes for granted that he is a Hungarian), “Excuse me, officer, would you be so kind as to come here and explain this stuff to these blockheads, who don’t understand any language.”

The cavalierly officer walked there. By his appearance, he recognised the old man as a priest. “What’s the matter, my Reverend Sir?”

“Well, the district administrator had written into my pass, of course, in Latin, after my nationality, ’verbi divini minister’, which means, ’servant of God’s word’, and beheld, at the customs office, upon showing my pass, the customs officers started to address me as ‘Minister of State’; then I was passed from hand to hand by all the luggage porters, cabmen and waiters as ‘Your Excellence’; I was being complimented upon arrival and departure; they were almost falling on their knees, not sparing of ‘excellences’! Then they introduced me into the most luxurious rooms. Well, I don’t need that. I’m a poor priest; I’ve come here to Vienna not for fun but under the pressure of necessity. Please, explain it to these scamps: I don’t speak German, it’s not spoken in our parts, and these people don’t seem to speak any other language.

The hussar officer smiled. “And what languages do you speak, my Reverend Sir?

“Well, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and a little Arabic.”

“Well, you won’t get anywhere with them here,” the hussar officer said with a smile. Then, in a low voice, he asked something from the headwaiter, at which the man made a secret sign with a flicker of the eyelid, pointing at the upper floor.

“And now you go into your room, my Reverend Sir, peacefully. I’ll come back in a quarter of an hour, and straighten out your business with the restaurant staff. But now I’m in a hurry because somebody is waiting for me.”

“But my business is more urgent, Sir,” said the priest, snatching at the military officer’s sword-knot so as not to let him slip away. “If I so much as step into this flashy room, it will cost me five florin at least.”

“I’m afraid, however, my business is even more pressing, my Reverend Sir,” the hussar officer is making excuses, “since five of my comrades are waiting for me, one of which wants to have a fight with me. I mustn’t keep them waiting.”

The priest got scared of that word so much that he let go the officer’s sword-knot at once. “What! You’re on your way to fight a duel, Sir? But then what’s the point of this foolery?”

The officer pressed the old priest’s hand with a smile, “Do await me, my Reverend Sir, peacefully. I’m back in an instant.”

“But let you be not slain, Sir!” the old priest called after him, in consternation.

“I’ll do my best!” answered the hussar officer, rattling up to the second floor in an easy-going way.

The old priest let himself be forced into the first floor living room, while the whole staff kept calling him ‘Your Excellence’.

“Well, that’s a pretty kettle of fish!” he said to himself, as he looked around the room. “A bed with silk curtain, a porcelain stove; I’ll have to pay at least five florin per day, if not six. And, to make it worse, how many idlers! One waiter brings the valise, another the wash-basin, a third the boot-jack. And all expect an ‘excellent’ tip. For instance, this fancy floor wasn’t polished, so shining, free.”

As he is pondering inwardly, and estimating how much a gentleman’s day of that bitter kind in Vienna cost, suddenly, he hears quick tramping of feet as well as rattle and clink of swords clashing against each other above his head.

“They’re duelling just above my head,” he said to himself.

“Here a big stamp; there a big trample! Now a cut, then a clash! Thrusting now forward, then backward!

They’re, in fact, fighting a duel!”

The turmoil took five or six minutes. During that time, the poor priest did not know what to do with himself. At first the thought struck him that he should shout through the window for help, but it crossed his mind at once that in that orderly city he himself might be arrested for breach of the peace. Then another idea occurred to him. He runs upstairs, stands between the combatants, and preaches a sermon based on the Gospel of Matthew, book 26 verse 52, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.’ Then the trampling and the clash of arms over his head somehow came to an end of itself and, after a few minutes, he heard spurred boots on the corridor, approaching his door and, when the door opened, he saw, to his great relief, the former hussar officer completely safe and sound.

Notwithstanding, he hurried up to him and felt around of his arms and breast to make sure whether he was somewhere hurt. “Aren’t you, Sir, cut?”

“Of course, not, good father!”

“What’s that? Was it you, Sir to cut your opponent?”

“He got one across his face.”

The priest got horrified, “And isn’t it too painful for him?”

“By no means! He’s happy about it as a bug in a rug.”

The priest did not find it so funny. “But how, how can you, gentlemen, pursue such pagan practises, Sir? For whatever reason were you at each other’s throats?”

“Well, my Reverend Sir, you must’ve heard the anecdote of two officers who picked a quarrel because one stated that he himself had picked anchovies from trees in Italy while the other didn’t want to believe it. Therefore they crossed swords. The story-teller got a slash on his face; it was only that time when it occurred to him that ‘it was not anchovies but capers.’ Well, think about something like that.“

“And you fight over such nonsense, Sir?”

“It’s just about it. I joined the regiment a little while ago and I was promoted from a bodyguard to the rank of captain directly, therefore I have to fight through all my comrades until they slay me or grow accustomed to my presence among them. You know, it’s the custom here. But let’s speak about your trouble. You told me that you’d come here not for fun but under the pressure of necessity; tell me then, what wind’s blown you here.”

“If you’ll be so kind as to listen to me, Sir, I’ll give you thanks for it. I’m a complete stranger in this country; there is nobody here even to ask where I should go − but I’m summoned hither ad audiendum verbum.

By Jove! Good father, that’s a big word! Who hurt you and in what way?

Well, I’ll tell you it as it is. You see, you have such an honest complexion inspiring confidence.

I’m a priest for a Lowland locality, where I had some discord with the landlord. You know, Sir, he was a powerful oligarch; as for me, while I’m a bit of a unyielding kuruc^[25] lad.

Also, there was a small family disagreement between us: the landlord had a son wanting to marry; as for me, I had a pretty daughter. I didn’t want to give my daughter in marriage as a gift and the landlord decided that the business was, in this way, too expensive for him, and sent his son away to the Muscovite country. Which I don’t care. Later on, the Right Honourable gentleman got rid of the Valley of Tears, and was interred in a Christian way. Following a funeral oration and a sermon, I prayed a last prayer above him. It’s true, I delivered hard words, but what I said I addressed not to the humans but to God. And now, for that prayer of mine I am being maligned by the mighty of This World; I was summoned, as desecrator and instigator, to the Consistory, County Court of Justice, and I shall be dismissed from my pastorate. And even that’s not enough for them: I’m summoned I don’t know where, I don’t know to whom to answer for high treason. But behold, Sir, and be my judge. I have my delivered prayer here in my pocket. Read it and find any word by which I’ve committed perduellio.^[26]”

The old man’s lips were trembling with affection and upon the mere thought, and his glistening eyes filed with tears.

The young officer took away the worn writing, and read it to the end. The priest watched the young man’s face for the reaction.

“Well, what do you say to it, Sir? Would you sentence me for what I said there?”

The young officer folded the prayerful writing, and gave it back to the old man, and told him in a low, affected voice, “I wouldn’t sentence you.”

“Now, God bless you for that! If only you were my judge, Sir!”

And, indeed, the young man was judge of him in that moment because he was son of that man about whom the prayer had been uttered.

”But let me give you a sound piece of advice, my Reverend Sir,“ said the young man. “First of all, stay here until you are called for. Don’t run to anybody about your troubles, and keep them to yourself. You cannot be harmed for what you are accused of; but if you should defend yourself, I couldn’t take responsibility for your getting a tercia^[27] because of your defence.”

“But what should I do?”

“Remain quite still. If you are sent for, you go where you are lead. Where you are told to stop, there you stop. You listen to what you are told, and keep absolutely silent. And when you see that they don’t speak any more, you make a bow, try to find the door with your back turned to it, and leave here for home. And whoever you happen to encounter on your way, you don’t answer them whatever question they may ask.”

“But then, people will take me a very stupid person.”

“Come now! Believe me, with this passport, you can travel and see many beautiful countries.”

“All right, I’ll take your advice. But I hope it won’t last long. For Vienna is very expensive.”

“Eh, as for that, you needn’t worry, my Reverend Father; once you’ve been taken here against your intention, somebody is to pay for what you have spent.”

The old man stood gaping about. He wondered who could be that somebody.

“Excuse me, but I have something to do. God bless you, old chap.”

The priest seemed not to want to cease expressing his gratitude, but the officer, being very busy, shook his hand and hurried away.

Then the waiter turned up, bringing a cup of coffee with milk to the priest.

Though the old reverend gentleman told him that he, as someone being not in the habit of having breakfast, wanted not to take the opportunity thereof; the German left the coffee there, and bowed and curtseyed himself out with his back turned to the door.

The old man shook his head. He wondered, supposing he decided to do so, how could he manage to leave the room through the door with his back turned to it and make, in the meanwhile, your-humble-servants all the time.

However, given that the coffee was left there, and it had to be paid for anyway, he decided to drink it up, so as not to be wasted. Anyway, he enjoyed it very much.

He said to himself, “I wish the waiter came back and carry away the empty breakfast service because if one of these precious cups happens to break, it will cost a lot.”

Just like a wish, so soon the waiter came back for the empty vessels. By that time, the reverend gentleman had managed to acquire one German word, which he was not slow to apply.

“Bezahlen!”^[28]

And, at the same time, from the depth of one of his pockets, he pulled out the long, knit purse, given to him as a gift on one of his name days,^[29] and in which there were some twenty Kreutzer coins^[30] clinging, having saved by him for many years. He was about to pay. As a first thing, because he did not like owe anyone for even an hour. As a second, most important, thing, from this first expense, taken as a taste, he would be able to figure out the rate in which his daily expenses would grow.

So, how big his surprise was, when the waiter, with the most disarming courtesy, the most expressive gestures and with the broadest smile refused the pulled open purse, and assured the priest that the breakfast had been “schon bezahlt”.^[31]

(He said to himself, “Well, that military officer was right, after all! He’s an honest man. I should’ve asked his name at least. But who on earth can it be that is paying my bills for me?”)

Of course, that ‘who on earth’ was nobody else but Richard, Lord Baradlay, who, upon his leaving, handed over two gold guldens to the headwaiter, commissioning him to provide for the old gentleman decently; all his incurred expenses will be paid by him.

The young officer repaired yet to the Military Riding Hall, where he was doing exercises for an hour in vaulting, mounted fencing and fighting against sward and lance; he both made his masters beat him and he beat them back; broke the shaft of a lance, and exhausted a horse. When he was fed up with it all, he walked yet on the glacis for an hour, looking under the ladies’ hats and, when midday came, returned to his quarters.

He lived rather high, on the third floor; hired a young gentleman’s fitted lodging with two entrances, comprising a sitting-room, a bedroom and a servant’s room with a diminutive kitchen opposite to his flat and with an access through a corridor.

His domestic was an old hussar, addressed him as Mr. Paul.

And he was quite right in addressing Mr. Paul a “mister”, for “Mr. Paul”, in fact, gave more orders to him than he to Mr. Paul.

The man was already sixty years old; still a common soldier, and still a bachelor. He was serving his fourth enlistment now, and wore the copper campaign badge given to the veterans of the Napoleonic wars; his pair of moustaches were still twirled three times resembling a giant corkscrew, singing the glory of their master’s past; his each and every hair is still black and sound, and his legs are boasting of the fact that they are unfailing token of another fact that in times past, their master had ridden from Paris through the Naples to Moscow.

“Well, Mr. Paul, what’s the dinner today?” asks the captain returning home, unbuckling his sword, and hanging it up back into his weapon collection, made complete with superb antique blades and poniards.

That is to say, Paul is also a cook.

“Well, ‘A Greek string of beads’”, Paul answers with provocative indifference.

“Ah, that must be fine,” the captain said, “and what’s been boiled in it?”

“Angel’s boots.”

“But that’s a delicious dish! Have you laid the table yet, Mr. Paul?”

At these words, the servant scans the interrogator from head to foot. “We’re having meal at home in midday again?”

“Yes, supposing we get something to eat, Mr. Paul.”

“Certainly,” says Paul, and sets himself to laying the table, which essentially consists in turning over the red table cloth with blue floral pattern in order to transform it, by doing so, into a blue cloth with red floral pattern, putting a faience plate on the table, placing a knife with a stag-horn handle and an antique silver spoon beside it, which Paul wipes with a corner of the table-cloth on his own beforehand. The dinner-service is completed with a worn-out champagne bottle naturally filled with fresh well-water.

The captain draws a chair for him to the table, and takes his seat comfortably on it, stretching his spurred legs asunder.

Meanwhile Paul, holding both hands at back, speaks to him, “We haven’t a Kreutzer again, have we?”

“Surely not, Mr. Paul,” said Sir Richard, and started to drum the rhythm of the latest last post^[32] with his knife and fork on his plate.

“However, as recently as this morning. I found two gold guldens in the pocket of our waistcoat.”

Cavalier Sir Richard waved his hand at that laughing, “Where are they now?”

“That’s nice!” murmured the old servant, snatching away the decanter from before his master, and went out with it. He procured some wine into it somewhere.

When he came back and put it in front of his master, he resumed the discourse, “They’ve gone, in all probability, for a bouquet for a beautiful girl! Or have we drunk them up in champagne with our buddies? That’s a pretty kettle of fish!”

Then he produced a bowl chipped all the way round from the cupboard. Then he added with a perfect philosophical resignation, “Besides, I was just that way when I was young.”

Before long, he returned holding the steaming bowl.

The ‘Greek string of beads’ was bean soup, thickened with a lot of fried flour, and the ‘angel’s boot’, boiled therein, was nothing else but a pork knuckle.

The old hussar had prepared it for himself but, even shared, it was enough for both of them.

Sir Richard sat down to a hearty camp fare. He was eating as if he had never had a better meal before.

While he was dining, the old hussar was standing behind his chair, although there was no need to change the plates because there were no more courses to follow.

“Was there anyone looking for me?” he asked Paul while eating.

“Hmm, anyone looking for us? Of course, there was!

“Well then, who was that?”

“First, the room maid of that actress; not the blond one; the other, the snub-nosed one; that one brought a bouquet along with a letter; the flowers are in a jar in the kitchen window, the room maid got a Zwickbussi;^[33] as for the letter, we got the fire going with it.”

“But why the hell did we get the fire going with it?”

“It was saying that the captain should send money to him.”

“But how do you know that, Mr. Paul? After all, you cannot read, Mr. Paul.

“We could tell it by the smell.”

Sir Richard gave a laud laugh at it. “And who else has been here?”

“Mr. Hortiglender, the horse-dealer. He brought the steed at two thousand forint to sell. The steed that we want to make jump around in front of the duchesses on the cavalcade.”

“Go ahead.”

“Boo! It’s not for us. It’s for the pound master! I mounted him and no sooner had I pressed him with my legs, all the four knees of him bent beneath me. This is an animal only to be stared at, not to be mounted. I turned it along with its master out of the yard. It isn’t worth four hundred florin.”

“You didn’t do the right thing, Mr. Paul! I’ll need the horse, and haven’t four hundred florin.

“Well, I turned him out,” Mr. Paul said, giving a twist to the one side of his moustache, “in a way that he’s coming back.”

Mr. Baradla could not help laughing again. “And who else has been here?”

“The young gentleman.”

There was only one person titled so by Paul.

“My younger brother? And what did he want?”

Mr. Paul was on a big job carving a toothpick from a piece of whittling with a huge, crooked pocket-knife for his master. After having finished it, he said, “Here you are, the toothpick.”

“And what did my younger brother say?”

Paul scratched his ear and face expressively. ”He’ll tell it himself,” he said wrily, and began busily collecting the remnants of the meal from the table.

However, as if making his entrance to the stage, the young gentleman dropped in.

The youngest son of the family of Baradla was a slender young man of frail physique with a smooth face and a childish face with an expression of unnatural amiability on it; he carried his head high not out of haughtiness but because of the pair of glasses clipped to his nose. When he shook hands with his elder brother, the latter could not help thinking of a regulation to be observed by certain civil servants of the highest government office − a regulation according to which they must treat everybody very amiably − ex officio.

”Hello, Gene, what have you brought?”

Eugéne, Lord Baradlay strove for a show of confidence. This time I’ve indeed brought something. Could you ask Mr. Paul to leve us alone together?”

“Mr. Paul, go and have dinner.”

Mr. Paul, However, exercised his municipal rights and remonstrated, “Only when I’ve already cleared the table.”

One had to put up with it.

“Light up for the time being, old chap,” Sir Richard said, offering his cigarette to his younger brother.

“No, thanks, your tobacco is too strong for my taste.”

“Maybe, Her Ladyship would smell that you’ve smoked smuggled tobacco?” Sir Richard teased him. “Well, Mr. Paul’s gone out, you can speak now.”

“Well, I want to let you know that I’ve received a letter from mother.”

“I received one, too.”

“Our good mother’s let me know that she’s going to double the monthly assistance, and, to enable me to furnish my accommodation befitting to my rank, has sent me one thousand florin.

“As for me, mother writes me that if I go on wasting money like this, I’ll make away with my entire share of inheritance; unless I husband my resources better, she’ll neither send me any funds nor pay my debts for me any more.”

“That’s a problem for me. If I start to spend lavishly, my bosses will notice it at once. You can’t imagine how ill reputed anyone can become for being known as someone playing the young gentleman. In my profession, only those can live in the hope of advancement, who totally depend on their superiors. As soon as you start to act as a dandy, live in a dwelling place above his rank, lead a better lifestyle than your principal, you’ll be reputed to be a dilettante, and all confidence will be withdrawn from you. So now I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“But I know already what I should do. I cannot run businesses that can be seen. I have to be everywhere and partake in everything. And I’ll start a business which is invisible.”

“And what’s invisible?”

“What I eat up. That nobody can see. If I sit in the window and pick my teeth, who will tell that I’ve dined at “The Seven Electors”^[34] or Mr. Paul has dined me with a Greek ‘string of beads’ and an odd ‘angel’s boot’?

“Do you know what, Richard? I’ve come to you to share with you the money sent by mother to me.”

Sir Eugén took his glasses off his nose in order to let his elder brother look into his eyes.

He kept, however, chewing on his toothpick. “Offering a usurious loan?”

Sir Eugén pushed back his glasses, and turned up his nose. “Argh! Are you joking? What a nonsense remark!”

“Are you giving it to me only to help you with spending it, which you don’t know anything about? To be sure, I’ll do you even that favour.”

“I guess you could make more use of it,” said Sir Eugén, and pressed the money, that he had kept ready in his pocket, into his sibling’s hand, including a handshake.

Mr. Sir Richard did not even say a ‘thank you’. He said to himself, it is the other who should thank him for his receiving it.

“There’s one more thing I should hand over to you,” said Sir Eugén with ill-pretended neutrality. “An invitation for the Plankenhorsts’ tomorrow’s evening party.”

Leaning on both his elbows, Mr. Sir Richard was looking into his younger brother’s glasses with a satirical smile. And since when have you been a communicator for the Plankenhorsts?”

Slightly embarrassed, Sir Eugén answered reluctantly, “They besought me to invite you in their name in person.”

Mr. Sir Richard burst in a loud laugh at that, “Lo and behold! The usury!”

“What usury?” said Sir Eugén, filled with indignation, springing up from his seat.

“I mean that you would pay court to Miss Alfonsine if her mother, who considers you a person of still small calibre, were not in your way. However, Madame Antoinette herself is still an ambitious person. She’s not more than thirty-six years old; moreover, if her hair-dresser is to be believed, she is a beautiful woman. When a guardsman, I used to dance with her in elite balls, and recognised her under her domino more than once, calling me as ‘my acquaintance’. You know all that very well, and you say to yourself, ‘I’ll take my elder brother with me and use him as a chaperone.’ No problem, younger brother. Don’t worry, I won’t give you back your five hundred forint. It’s a high rate of usurious interest, but I’ll be your chaperon. While you’ll turn her daughter’s head, I’ll turn her mother’s.”

“But I beg your pardon!” shouted Sir Eugén, now really annoyed. “I have quite honourable intentions there.”

Mr. Sir Richard drew his pointing finger and the thumb along his nose and shrug. “To hell with it! For all I care, you can marry both.“

“Will you come, after all?”

“Yes, indeed, old chap. Vestris^[35] was a famous dancer but he didn’t used to get more than five hundred florin for a night’s appearance.”

“Please don’t be so offensive to me! I’ll get angry with you, to be sure, and won’t care for you any more. I’ve shared my money with you as my sibling, which you would do, I’m sure, in a similar situation. As for the evening party, I ask you, as my best friend, to come with me there, which is my special request at the moment.”

“No problem, old chap. Don’t be angry! I’ll go with you wherever you want me to go. But, with regard to the fact that it’s a special matter, I have the right to lay down the conditions of the deal. Now listen!”

“I’m listening to you.”

“If you want me to go to the Plankenhoirts’ evening party, please, do me the favour to talk to your boss, and ask him to let the poor priest, whom he had summoned here for audiendum verbum, go home in peace. You know, he is our priest from Noble Hill, who is being persecuted for that certain funeral prayer.”

“How d’you know all that?” asked Sir Eugén shocked.

“Well, I found out somehow. He’s an honest, respectable person; you do let him slip away.”

Sir Eugén assumed an official expression of countenance, “But, as far as I know, the chancellor is very upset at him”.

“Argh! Don’t give me your great men! I’ve already seen all sorts of great people − masculini et faeminini generis − in every imaginable kind of habit. I know very well that they eat and drink, yawn and snore just like other people. You won’t frighten me with them. Your superior wrinkles his forehead, bawls the innocent delinquent out, and, after letting him away, laughs loudly up his sleeve at how he’s managed to frighten him. That priest’s an honest fellow. His tongue sometimes runs away with him. Nevertheless, he’s a servant of God. Let him back home in peace to look after His sheep.”

“All right, all right, I’ll speak to his Excellency concerning his case.”

“Thanks, and now do sit down and let’s have a drink to celebrate our peacemaking. Mr. Paul!”

The domestic compeared.

“Here’s a ten florin bank-note. Go and bring two bottles of champagne! One for us and one for yourself!”

Paul, as he went out of the room, shook his head vehemently and muttered to himself, “Anyway, when I was a young lad, I used to be the same way.”

CHAPTER 6
PEOPLE OF ALL KINDS

The evening parties given by the Plankenhorst family had a moderate fame in the Vienna Imperial and Royal Court.

The name Plankenhorst had a rather good ring to it. Save for a mere trifle − it lacked the baronial title. However, the widow was addressed as ‘Baroness’ for having born as such. Even her daughter was honored with this title by her admirers. As for me, I have to admit I cannot say with full credibility on which descendant on the female line this chemical agent loses its effect…

The Plankenhorsts lived in their own house in the inner city, which is saying something in Vienna. Nevertheless, it was a very old building at the time, built still in the Marie Thérèse style, and all the ground floor rooms were let out to shop-keepers.

Although they kept an expensive house, in the summers they always failed to visit their estates but spent the dead seasons in Vienna as well.

They enjoyed free entrance to the highest circles of the court, where they could be seen frequently. Notwithstanding, their company was sought mainly by the women, not by the men. The barons, where a man begins, and the dukes, where a nobleman begins, offered an arm to the pleasant Madame Antoinette when leading her into the buffet room, and to the charming Miss Alfonsine when taking her to dance. And, whenever the princes and the dukes gave a costume ball, the two Plankenhorst ladies were present. Dispite everything, it was not heard of for any of the princes or barons to be anxious to get into intimate relations with this family.

Their social evenings were notably frequented, and many public and love plots were hatched there. Their evening parties were visited not by the same company that they were visiting. None from either the Sedlniczkys^[36] or the Inzaghis or the Apponyis^[37] only their counsellors or secretaries could be seen there. Nobody expected to meet Prince Windischgraetz or Prince Colloredo there; nevertheless, there could be found honest-faced military notabilities with golden collars and orders on their breasts, and, all the more, many young officers brimming with life and many life-guards of noble family. The galaxy of the women was also very select; the ladies and the misses all belonged to families distinct by rank, position and birth.

As for the tone, it was above reproach concerning the rules of conventions and society. As for the demands of entertainment, the evening parties of the Plankenhorts were distinct by offering to have a good time in a free and easy manner amidst an elegant company. Which is, besides, a rare thing; you normally either have a good time without an elegant company or you are decidedly bored amidst an elegant company. In the house of the Plankenhorts, the two advantages combined.

However, when at nine o’clock in the evening, Eugéne, Lord Baradlay, in full ball ‘canonicals’ appeared at Richard, Lord Baradlay’s place to fetch him, he found him completely undressed. He was lying on the couch reading some novel.

“Richard, how come you aren’t getting ready for the evening party?”

“What evening party?”

“The one at the Plankenhorsts’.”

“Oh, look at that! I quite forgot about it,” exclaimed Sir Richard jumping up from the couch. “Hey, Mr. Paul!”

“Can you explain to me, Richard, why you have such an aversion to these people who are so friendly, so attentive to us, and in whose house one can so pleasantly pass the time?”

“What’s the matter?” Mr. Paul called in through the door.

“Come in, Mr. Paul, and shave me, “ returned Sir Richard to the old man. In fact, he was not only his cook but his barber as well.

“But I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, Sir Eugéne, that you should get ready,” murmured the old man. If I didn’t keep everything in mind, you would forget about half of your agendas. Albeit the boiling water’s already ready. Well, sit down then.”

Sir Richard let Paul sit him in a chair and put a towel in his neck.

“But why don’t you answer my question?” Sir Eugéne insisted, while Paul was beating up the lather. “Why do you object to the Plankenhorsts?”

“Blown if I know!” answered Sir Richard. “There’re kind of people behaving the way so as to be mistaken for a count.”

“Didn’t find it so,” commented Sir Eugéne smiling with self-confidence.

“Hey, hold up your chin!” Paul yelled at his master, and began to lather his countenance on all sides.

When his face was already lathered all over up to his lips, Sir Richard decided to narrate something to his younger brother, while Paul was stropping the razor on a leather strap.

“Gene! Once upon a time, when in Venice, I met a faquin^[38] on the sea-shore, who had a long wire with a hook at the end of it. Asked him what he was looking for there. “Something to dine,” replayed the faquin. It was just high tide time, and round tiny holes could be seen in the see sand. The faquin produced a pinch of salt from his trousers, and strewed it into one of the holes in the sand. At this moment a snail, called pesce canella by the Italians, pushed its ‘finger’ out of the hole. Suddenly, the faquin stabbed it through with the spiked wire harpoon, and pulled it violently out of its shell. The small worm is as big as my finger. ‘Well, old chap, this will be a miserable dinner!’ I said to the faquin. The faquin smiled, threaded a long string into the wire at its other end, walked to a rock, where the water was deep, lowered the pesce canella floundering about, and, not before long, pulled out a crazily big stockfish on the end of his hook.”

“How has it come to your mind?” asked Sir Eugéne, shrugging his shoulders strangely.

“Don’t know myself.”

“Better not chattering before I cut your face!” snarled at them Paul. “Go ahead, young gentleman; I’ll transport the gentleman captain when he’s cleaned up. We’ll find the way on our own. We know, for sure, that one needn’t go through a window using a rope-ladder in order to get into the Plankenhorsts’s house.”

Sir Eugéne found it advisible to follow Paul’s instruction and, believing his elder brother’s word of honour that he was following him to the party, left Sir Richard in the hands of his ‘hairdresser’ lest he should explain why the pesce canella is so silly as to leave its secure shelter and push its finger out when some salt has been strewed upon it…

And indeed, half an hour later, they met in the Plankenhorsts’ halls. Sir Eugéne was not slow to introduce his elder brother to the lady the miss of the house, who stated immediately that they had already had the pleasure of meeting him before. Mrs. Antoinette added that she was pleased to see the captain in her own halls as well.

The captain uttered several commonplaces, then another person came, and he yielded the place.

“How about acquainting yourself with some of the party goers?” Sir Eugéne asked him.

**

“You needn’t bother! I know them better than you do. That heavy-built field marshal over there, who’s conversing so loudly as if he was commanding a brigade, is high official of the commissary department. He’s been weighing ration loaf and portioning hay all his life but has never heard a cannonade save for on the Kaiser’s name day. That young duke wearing his glasses so high up on his nose, and is distributing his condescending smiles, is the Secretary of the Police Department. Besides, he’s an outstanding potentate. That honourable banker over there, who cannot see his own feet because of his belly, and who’s speaking with three people simultaneously while playing with the precious watch fob seals, is some medical councillor employed by the National Health Service. He’s responsible for the public hospitals, which otherwise can be seen on him. That small affable old gentleman, who enters into a conversation with anybody with a Talleyrand-like refinement, is the official in charge of the “public und private entertainments” at the State Chancellor’s Office. That duenna with that awkward make-up, who’s wearing that coffee-coloured dress, is the wife of Mr. Blummenberg. He’s the banker, from whom the prodigal sons of the high society borrow money, beating themselves into debt, and he’s the man who, as a result, knows everything happening in the highest circles. And that young Miss, near us, who’s talking with a confident smile with a young man of about your age, is the wickedest spy, who has ever dealt with secrets. Apart from that, she’s a very likable, naïve little girl.”

Sir Eugéne made a rather wry face to all that. It seemed to him as if his elder brother had not a very high opinion of the whole company.

“The little room maid whom I’ve just run into on the stairs is more worth than the whole set,” said Sir Richard, changing the subject. “Aww, what a sweet little child! Don’t know if she works here. I’d attend your evening parties not least for the sake of her. When she was running past me, I pinched her cheek but, you may be sure, she struck my hand so hard that it’s still very sore.”

Sir Eugéne was and was not listening to the last words because they were being approached by a distinguished notability at whom Sir Eugéne began to smile as early as he was still at a distance because he felt they were expected to do so. Seeing that, Sir Richard turned to see who had forced his younger brother to display such an overwhelming kindness.

It was a tall, skinny gentleman. His body was all angles, and his face a single disordered prism. His eye-brows were angular, and his nasal tip was acutely angular. He had a trapezoidal jaw, diverging, sharp-pointed moustaches over the upper lip and, in opposite direction, a small, peaked beard under the lower lip.

Sir Richard tried to figure out on his own who he was. ‘Well, this somebody to whom my younger brother’s managing a distant smile, must be the intelligencer for the Spanish Embassy,’ he thought. But for this once, he was cheated with his knowledge of Lavater’s theory.^[39]

The angular gentleman, having greeted his younger brother only per tangentem, stepped directly to him, and, tapping the young man’s both arms with his palms caressingly and confidently, spoke to him in a most amiable manner in Hungarian “Hello, dear friend, Dick. How are you?”

Sir Richard returned his greeting coldly, “Fine, and you?”

The angular gentleman jerked one of his moustache ends, as if the acknowledgement of the greeting were not quite to his liking, while Sir Eugéne bit his lip as if he were to bite his lip for what Sir Richard had said.

As for Sir Richard, he believed that he, in the past, perhaps in a chancellery ball, might have chummed up with somebody, which the other remembered but he himself had forgotten by the next morning. ‘After all, there may be yet more such good fellows in the world,’ he thought.

“Well, what’s up?” asked the angular gentleman with patriarchal familiarity.

“Well, I’m stiff,” answered Sir Richard, “And I see, you’re well stiffened, too.”

The angular gentleman did not like that either. Now he started to pull the brush-like stuff left under his lower lip.

”I’m going home tomorrow. What message do you want to send to your mother?”

“Does that mean you live there, too?”

Upon that question, both pointed moustache ends moved up to the nose, while Sir Eugéne tried to pretend not to listen.

“Well, what shall I say to your mother?” the angular gentleman repeated.

“I kiss her hands,” he reported.

At these words, all the lines of the angles on the prismatic face rearranged into a quite different combination, which would be said to be the expression of tender affability − on the face of another man.

“Well, I’ll pass it to her,” said the angular gentleman, grasping Sir Richard’s right hand with both hands. “I can give you, Sir, my assurance, I myself will pass your kissing of the hand to your dear beloved mother with the greatest reverence. Me, in person.”

“Come on, you needn’t fulfill my instructions with punctuality like this; after all, I didn’t kiss your hand in natura”.

“Um,” the angular gentleman murnured to himself, nibbling in his lower lip so deep that the small brush-shape beard shifted up between the two moustaches to make a third brush.

It was risky to ask him the question ‘Do you know to whom you are speaking?’ because, suppose the answer had been ‘Yes, I do,’ all the words uttered so far would have expressed an even stronger disparagement. So the young man had to be put on the right track in some other way.

“And how about you? Aren’t you planning to come?”

“Maybe, if concentration of troops takes place in Pest,^[40] and I’m ordered to go there with my regiment.”

“If you wanted to come to the county, you could get furlough.”

“And what could I see there?”

“A more grandiose concentration of troops and a real fight, not a mock battle,^[41] where the best forces of the country are going to meassure swords with each other, and you’ll see that there’re battles outside the battlefields where faith’s put to the test.”

“Really? With a leaded stick. Will a new restoration take place?”

“No, my dear friend. With the weapons of Spirit and Truth; with the weapons with which your blessed father used to fight for the victory of an elevated goal, and you’re devoted to continue his fight.”

“But I lack both the money and the brain to do so.”

“Both will come in good time. And, while you, sons of your blessed father, are waiting for the position which your father had kept up in the midst of storms, it’s me to replace you… I’ll persevere in the holy struggle − if not with an iron hand like his used to be, then at least with an iron will similar to his own. Adieu, dear Sir Richard. I’m leaving the city still tonight. Adieu. I’ll tell your mother that you’re healthy. Upon arriving at Noble Hill, it’ll be the first thing for me to speak to her; let it be even at midnight. And, when I speak to her, she’ll send for you. She loves you very much. Adieu, dear Richard.”

The angular gentleman shook Sir Richard’s hand violently, and parted with him with such a friendly smile as if the other had heaped solely kindness on him.

Toward the end of the conversation, Sir Eugéne drew away from them so as not to be present, not even as a witness, and started an ostensible intercourse with the ‘naïve’ Miss, who, otherwise, ‘is dealing with secrets’. And, when he noticed from the side of his eye that the angular gentleman parted with his elder brother, he hurried back to him.

“Well, you made pretty sottises^[42] with that man!” he exclaimed.

“What sottises?” asked the other, as if not knowing about anything.

“Well, I’m afraid, you didn’t speak to him respectfully enough. Don’t you know him? He’s Mr. Benedict Rigidcastle.”

“What do I care if he’s called Mr. Yieldcastle.”

“He’s an intimate friend of our family. You could’ve seen him at our house many times.”

“I cannot remember every face^[43] before I was taken to the cadet school here when I was eight years old. I surely failed to draw the countenance of Mr. Sickcastle or What-do-you-call-it-castle into my sketch-book; notwithstanding, using a ruler, I could design a portrait like this easily.”

Sir Eugéne drew his elder brother into a corner so as not to be overheard.

“But, I beg your pardon, he’s a very famous man.”

“I let him do as he pleases.”

“He’s the imperial commissioner for our county.”

“Why, it’s the county’s business.”

“And something else at that, too… He’s our would-be stepfather.”

“Well, it’s our mother’s business.”

At these words, Sir Richard turned his back to his younger brother.

Sir Eugéne still had something in store to say but the other shook him off.

“Leave me alone with your Mr. Devilcastle. Anyway, we’re here not for that. Go and pay court to Miss Alfonsine; there’s nobody else around her save for that place and rankless, wimpy court secretary^[44]; you surely will be able to elbow him out of place. Then remember the story of the pesce canella and the stockfish.”

Sir Eugéne poked his elder brother in the ribs with joking resentment.

“Oh, you wicked person! Which of us is the pesce canella and which is the stockfish?”

“At present, the court secretary is the pesce canella and you’re the stockfish; but should a better wooer get into the fishing, you’ll be the pesce canella and he’ll be the stockfish.”

Sir Eugéne waved his head, and moved further away but, as a matter of fact, he was angry because of the joke.

Sir Richard was dancing and being bored in the Plankenhorts’ halls for an hour. It was not the custom there to play cards. At least, thanks to that, they were not notorious for that. There were young ladies in abundance in these halls, and Sir Richard was famous for being a notorious tempter. However, he was bored precisely because he found it too easy a trade. For him, women and girls were all the same.

Sir Richard was fully aware of his sad luck that all female creatures were crazy for him, both the beautiful ones and the not-so-beautiful ones, both the younger ones and the ones who were richer in their years. All he had to do was greet them, and his greeting was reciprocated.

The only novelty to him is being slapped on his hand by a room-maid after he pinched her cheek. He had never encountered a man surpassing him in fighting or a woman outdoing him in love.

Once he came upon his younger brother again.

“How about a cup of tea in the refreshment room?”

“I don’t mind.”

Sir Eugéne’s face beamed with glory. “He must’ve made a big headway with Miss Alfonsine,” thought his elder brother.

Having arrived at the refreshment room, Sir Richard spoke, “Look, my pussycat’s there; she’s serving rum and lemonade for the guests.”

“Oh, you blunderer!” Sir Eugéne shouted at him. You make one blunder after the other like a village idiot. Since she’s not a room-maid but Miss Edith, a relative of the family.”

Sir Richard stopped, astonished.

“What? She a relative of the family? How come they let her run up and down the stairs alone and allow her to serve rum and lemonade to the guests in the evening parties?”

Sir Eugéne only shrug his shoulders.

“You know, she’s a daughter of some poor relatives, and, as a great favour, she is received into the family. Beside that, she’s still a child after all. She’s fourteen or fifteen years old, she’s not accountable yet.”

Sir Richard scanned his younger brother from head to foot.

“I’m afraid, your Lady of the House is not and has never been a baroness,“ he remarked.

“Why? Having adopted the girl as a favour, what should she make of a daughter of poor relatives? She cannot bring her up to be a baronesse,“ Sir Eugéne objected.

“Alter all, she’s not obliged to receive her. And, in this way, what shall become of her?” the other retorted. “Once she’s a servant, no gentleman-like man is going to marry her. On the other hand, because of her noble birth, no poor man can hope to rise to her rank.”

“This all may be true, my dear brother but I don’t care at all, ” said Sir Richard.

With that, he went to the lunch counter, where Miss Edit was serving sugar and orages.

As a fact, she was still a child with a full, lively figure and blushful cheeks, with eyes like glowing embers and with her smiling coral lips. She was wearing her thick and black, shining hair pinned up, which was representing her entire ornamental head-dress. Her thin, black eye brows and her fine-cut nose tamed her bold look − although she herself might have been trying to do so.

She was quite content with the role meant for her. She liked the relaxed familiarity with which the guests treated her − as if she were a child or a kitten. On the other hand, she felt permitted to use her finger-nails for it.

Upon Sir Richard’s approach, the girl did not turn her head sulkily off to the side − to which she had every right after their first meeting − but smiled at him with her sparkling eyes with mocking defience. And, when he stepped to the counter, she said to him,

“Aha, you’re afraid of me now, aren’t you?”

And she got it: Sir Richard felt something similar.

“Miss Edit” said he, “I have to apologise to you. But why do they let you walk alone in the evenings on the stairs, where so many people turn up?”

“Why, they all know me already. Besides, I had a task to do. You took me for a room-maid, didn’t you?”

“In truth, it was my only excuse I could’ve mentioned.”

“But do you think she should be treated like this, anyway?”

At this point, the young man was stuck; it was hard to answer to that.

“Now tell me what you want to have, and go back into the dancing-hall. You’re already missed there,” the girl said.

“Well, I don’t’ want neither milk of almonds, nor lemonade but give me, please, your smallest finger on your hand as a sign that you forgive me.”

“Off you go, I won’t give my hand to you, because your hands’re wicked,” she returned.

“If you’re saying I have wicked hands, I’ll go and fight a duel with somebody tomorrow, and have my entire hand cut off. Well, do you want me to have my guilty hand, which has hurt you, chopped off? You’ll see me with only one arm the day after to-morrow. God knows, so help me God.”

“Come now, stop being foolish, I won’t be angry any longer instead,” said the child, and gave him − not her baby finger − but her entire clean and warm, straitforward hand so as Sir Richard could take and press it in his own.

Nobody was present at the moment to witness them. And now, Sir Richard told the little girl,

“I hereby declare upon oath, Miss, that I will never ever offend you, and, in order not to be able to offend you even with my look, I won’t raise my eyes higher than this hand.”

And he kept his word: when he let her hand slip and fell upon her body, he lowered his gaze, and took his leave even without a wink of the eyelid.

When, after midnight, the two brothers drove back home, Sir Eugéne noticed that his elder brother this time failed to tease him …

The Stonehearted Man’s Sons by Mór Jókai * Translated by András Tokaji

CHAPTER 7
THE BACKFISCH

After that, Sir Richard would visit the Plankenhorts family on a regular basis willingly, without being forced to do so.

He would court everybody at the house, including the Lady of the House, her daughter and their everyday guests. He hoped they would not penetrate into his plans.

He made his younger brother, Eugene, very, very happy. The lad was mad about Miss Alfonsine.

In fact, she was a very beautiful lady with an ideal face and figure. The maiden’s features were fine and perfect, her look bore the stamp of nobleness, her face expression was full of grace and charm.

But what a dark soul was hidden by this angelic face! The two shining blue eyes were unlucky stars, of which astrologers say, “He who sets out under these stars, will surely perish!”

One evening, when the usual evening party had been finished, Miss Alfonsine was undressing with the help of her chambermaid. She had her own sleeping room. Her maid was called Mademoiselle Betti.

When they were alone, Miss Alfonsine asked her maid,

“What’s backfish doing nowadays?”

In German, backfisch means fried fish. But the ones who give some special, gentle meaning to the word, think of grown-up girls who are no longer children but have plenty of time to be married; who are innocent and puerile; who can feel already something in their heart but do not know what; who jabber but do not know about what; who take jokes as a serious matter and take serious matters as jokes; and who receive the first kind word as gold. This is called backfisch.

“The backfisch is learning to swim.” — answered the Mademoiselle with a cunning grimace.

„Still on a leading string? Not yet relased?”

„Soon enough,” said Betti, undoing Miss Alfonsine’s locks so as to plait her hair in another way for night. — The other day, when she was undoing Miss Alfonsine’s hair, she asked me, „Which of us has longer hair? Miss Alfonsine or me?” and, saying so, she wrapped herself with her hair.

„Ha-ha! The backfisch!”

„I told her, that her’s was more beautiful.”

They laughed knowingly at each other.

„So, does she know that she’s beautiful?”

„I also wanted to inform her about that but it has just the opposite effect on her. Once I informed her about the fact that laugh suits her very well for she has brilliant teeth; from that time, whenever she laughed, she held her hand before her mouth. Another time, I told her that her high forehead brings a merry look to her face; from that time on, she has been wearing her hair on her forehead to make it narrow.”

„It’s nothing else but boasting. She says to herself, ’I’m so beautiful that I must hide part of it.’ I wonder she is daydreaming?”

„Yes, she is but in a curious way. The other day she put on the baroness’s bonnet, looked herself in the mirror and gave a laugh, ’How odd it would be if I were a woman’. Since that time, she has mentioned it many times, and loudly fantasised, ’I wonder what my job would be if I were a woman. I would cook for my husband this and that. I would wait for him beside the fireplace to get home, we would sit together side by side, then read some of a book, eat from one plate, drink from one glass, and then would call each other »my love«. If we went to a party, we would always dance with each other,’”

„So, is she thinking about it?” asked Mis Alfonsine, looking shrewdly up at Betty.

„I remind her many times how a bad fate he has here, and how contempuously the two baronesses treat her. I remind her frequently that they disregard her, and curse her like a servant, they dress her badly, over which she laments a lot.

„That’s very good.”

„However, she talks differently in my presence. She says, all this is good as it is. But sometimes, nightly, I catch her crying when she thinks everybody is sleeping. That time she’s restless.”

„Does she ever speak about anybody?”

„She chatters about everybody who comes to the house and talks out whatever she thinks about them. This is a handsome man, that’s unbearable; this is waggish, that’s boring. There’s only one she never wants to speak of.”

“I know.”

“But if I happen to mention him, she’ll blush up to her eyes. It’s all the same, whether I talk to her either good or bad about him, I cannot get a word out of her.

“And does “the one” hang around her?”

“I’m watching over him. He’s terribly cautious. Whenever she meets Edith, he recollects her face; doesn’t search her eyes, greets her with a bow, scarcely speaks a word. I already know that very well.”

“Oh, poor little backfisch! Give her some pleasure, Betti! She shall have a new dress to-morrow. The dressmaker messed up one of my suits; that’ll do for her.”

Betti laughed. “That pink tarlatan one? But it’s a prom dress!”

“Never mind. It shall be good for her. Let her be happy about it. Tell her something like she’s been passed over up to this time only because we considered her a child. But she has grown beyond it; from now on, she shall be a daughter of the house. We’ll have her taught dancing, playing the piano and singing.”

“Really?”

“You go on and tell it to her. She shall be introduced to society; everybody will be informed that she’s one of the family.”

“If I tell all this to her tonight, I shan’t be able to sleep because of her talking about it all the time. She is crazy especially about singing.”

“Oh, poor little backfisch! Will you give her this pleasure?”

“Oh, how heartless you are, Miss Jezabel!”

After a few days, Sir Richard was invited to the Plankenhorts saying that they will only be en famille; and the ‘program’ will be whist party, tea-drinking and Alfonsine’s singing.

Sir Richard willingly accepted every invitation of the family apart from how boring the entertainments were going to be.

He did not play the gentleman by arriving late; on the contrary; he put his watch forward in order to have an excuse in case he would be the first to arrive.

And that was the case, as usual.

In the antechamber, where the butler took his sword and cloak away, he could see no alien overcoats on the racks.

“Suppose I’m the first one again?” he asked the butler.

“Yes, Sir,” he answered with a smile, and opened the salon door for him.

Entering the salon, he saw Betti who was occupied with something.

“Am I too early, Mademoiselle Betti?”

The maid made a curtsey and smiled.

“Miss Baroness isn’t yet but will soon be at home. The Miss is in.”

This was not a new thing for Sir Richard. Whenever he found Miss Alfonsine alone — of course, including her governess — he could have a pleasant chat with her. She was a refined traducer. Also, she sang and played the piano prettily enough.

Presently, the young gentleman, just as earlier, heard some barely audible singing through the two rooms but this voice was much richer and clearer than “it” used to be. “But” — he thought — „maybe, when people sing alone, they sing their best.” If he thought anything about it at all.

He opened the door into the third room, from where the singing came and, puzzled, remained standing and unnoticed for the first several minutes. In front of the piano, was not Miss Alfonsine sitting but another person. In the first minute, Sir Richard could not regocnise her.

It was Edith in an unusual pom dress and with a pom hairstyle. She was wearing a pink decollete dress, which exposed her admirable neck and well-rounded shoulders. She was singing some folk romantic song by an untrained voice but in a clear, sympathetic tone and, as it is the custom of the unskilled players, was beating the keys with one forefinger. She was alone in the room.

The Squire took his time to watch the small hand jumping over the ivory keys, until Miss Edith, having raised her eyes from the keys, finally noticed the approaching figure.

As a first move, she jerked her hands to her cleavage to cover her bosoms. This attire of hers was still unusual for her. Then she realised that it was not the right place, and let her hands down the side of her pink dress, and advanced to meet the man to receive his greeting.

Her cheeks were burning red, her heart was beating hard, and her voice would not obey her.

“The Baroness is out,” she faltered.

Sir Richard was so sorry for the poor child.

“And Miss Alfonsine?” he asked.

“They left together. They were sent for to the Burg hastily. They’re back only late in the evening.”

“Has my younger brother been here?”

“He left earlier.”

“And didn’t the baroness say that she expected guests?”

“She said she had ordered the butler to inform all the people invited for to-day’s night, that the party would be held to-morrow.”

“I don’t understand why the butler didn’t tell it to me, when he let me in. Excuse me, Miss Edith, for disturbing you. Please give my compliments to the baroness.”

With that, he bowed his head in a cold, serious manner, and withdrew.

He intended to rebuke the butler for his default but he did not see him in the antechamber. And the main door through which he would have to get out into the stairway, was locked, and the key removed.

He had to go back and try to leave through the salon and the door to the servants’ rooms.

He found that door locked, too.

He new one more exit, through which they went into the dinig room from the kitchen. He tried that one, too but it did not want to open either.

The bell-pull, desined to summon the servants, could be found in the dining-room. He pulled it three or four times vigorously, then waited for long — but there was no audible sound whatever.

He went back to the antechamber again but found it still empty. “Nobody here,” he thought.

His heart was beating so loudly that it startled his sleeping soul.

“Somebody’s playing a deadly game here, and I don’t know the outcome thereof,” he said to himself.

He put down his sword and cloak again, and came back to the door, where he spoke with Miss Edith.

On hearing his steps the girl came to meet him. But her cheeks were no longer burning red; they were faint. Her eyes were looking at Sir Richard calmly. She was not trembling; she was not confused.

“Allow me to say,” Sir Richard began, “I’ve found every door in the house locked, and there’s nobody in the house to let me out.”

On the wall, a life-sized picture of Miss Alfonsine hung in a gilded frame. The young man had a sense, as if the elfin-faced girl, upon witnessing the scene, were smiling mercilessly.

Miss Edith replied with calm indifference.

“The servants must’ve gone out onto the courtyard. But that doesn’t really matter. The second key to the main door is at hand. I’ll let you out with it.

There was a big, exquisite key holder with antique grating hanging on the wall. Miss Edith had to pass Sir Richard in order to get to the key holder. When she got beside him, the young man suddenly blocked her way.

“Miss Edith, may I have a word with you? Do you know what I’m thinking of at this moment?”

It seemed as though the portrait of the beautiful, angelic face on the wall bending over the young man’s shoulder, was communicating with the young man just as though eternal damnation were conducting dialogue with his heavily beating heart. The lad felt as if the whole World was ablaze around him.

However, the girl, whose way he had blocked, kept being calm, and responded him with the greatest composure,

“You’re thinking now, »I’ve vowed to this girl that in order not to be able to offend her even with my look, I wouldn’t raise my eyes higher than her hands.«”

Meanwhile, the girl kept her hands folded on her lap.

“That’s so,” said Sir Richard, and, all at once, his bosom released from the pressure of Hell itself. — “And now I ask one thing of you, Miss Edith. I urgently need to write a letter to the baroness. May I ask you to furnish me with the necessary writing utelsils?”

Miss Edith pulled up the artistic roll-top on the davenport desk, and pointed at the writing slope.

“Here you are.”

The Squire sat to the desk, and put down a few words. Then he enclosed it in an envelope, and placed a wafer seal on it.

Meanwhile, Miss Edith was standing tranquilly at the opposite side of the desk, with her folded hands on her lap.

The young gentleman rose, and and stepped in front of her with the closed missive in his hand. The expression of his face was noble, and his look expressed loftiness.

While examining his complexion, the girl’s whole soul was shining in her eyes.

“And, as you’ve deciphered my thoughts by reading my heart, youl must be also able to read what I wrote in this letter just now.”

And, with that, he held up that side of the envelope on which the seal was placed before her.

“Can you read it?”

And the girl slowly raised her interlocked hands up to her face, and pressed them, as they were, against her forehead missing the fact that she, by doing so, permitted the young man to see the glimmering droplets of delight, pain and exaltation in her eyes.

“Yes,” Sir Richard continued, “this letter says, »Madam, I ask you for Miss Edith’s hand in marriage. In a year’s time, I shall be of age and will come and claim her. Until then, please treat her as my affianced bride.«”

Therewith, he held the missive out to the girl.

Miss Edith pressed the seal of the letter to her lips for a painfully long time before she handed it back to the young man.

Then the Squire also touched the seal with his lips, which was still hot with his lover’s kiss. This was their betrothal kiss.

“Will you hand this letter to the baroness?”

Miss Edith nodded silently, and slipped the letter into her bodice.

“And, from now on, shall we not talk to each other about what we think about each other. Adieu,” said Sir Richard. “Don’t show me out. Nobody should see these tears. They already belong to me. Please, give me the key to the main door. I take it with me now, and I’ll send it back to-morrow.”

Sir Richard, having taken the key, left. In the other rooms, still nodody was present. He unlocked the door for himself, and re-locked it. He did not see anybody either on the corridor or in the yard.

As for the girl, when the young man’s steps could be heard no more, she cast herself down upon the earth and on the velvet carpet, where Sir Richard had been standing before, and the marks of whose boots were still clearly visible, the girl kissed her lover’s footprints.

It was verly late when the baroness and her daughter returned home. Miss Edith was already in the room she shared with Betti.

“Send in the backfisch!” commanded Miss Alfonsine.

Miss Edith came in.

“Were you still awake, Edith?” asked madam Antoinette.

“Yes, I was, aunt.”

Miss Alfonsine was scanning Miss Edith’s eyes. She did not find there what she was looking for. On the contrary, she found some kind of unusual self-conficence, which had been out of her character before.

“Has any callers come while we were out?” the baroness asked her.

“Yes, Captain Lord Baradlay has.”

The ladies launched crossfire upon Miss Edith’s face. But it did not work. It will no more blush at hearing this name. It is enshrined in her heart, and will not appear on her face at every mention.

“Did the captain wait for us?” asked Miss Antoinette.

„Only while he was writing this letter to aunt,” replied Miss Edith coldly, handing out the letter from Sir Richard to Mrs. Plankenhorst.

Now it was the Lady’s turn to blush, as she had read the letter.

„Do you know what this letter says?” she asked the girl, with a look filled with hatred hate.

„Yes, I do,” responded Miss Edith, but so much self-awereness and noble pride in her eyes stopped the Lady’s fury cold.

„You may return to your room and go to bed.”

Miss Edith did so.

The baroness threw furiously the letter by Sir Richard to her daugther.

„There you are! The work of your crazy mind!”

When had read the letter, Miss Alfonsine grew pale, and trembled with rage. She could not pronounce a word. Her mother’s face expressed towering rage.

„You evidently thougth, didnt’you?” she said through gritted teeth, „that every man was an Otto Palvicz!”

Upon this word, Miss Alfonsine looked back at her mother, and her look expressed all her unspeable hatred, bitterness, thirst for revenge and matricidal feeling.

„Your stupid game is lost,” said madam Antoinette, and tore the letter into pieces. Now the time’s come to fulfill my plan.”

CHAPTER 8
THE PEDDLER’S SHOP

Upon returning home, Lord Edmund Baradlay felt as if he was riding a winged horse.

It was only now that he started to recognise himself.

After the frivolous, Sybaritic behaviour, shown by him lately, he felt some kind of noble defiance rising within his soul. The first name of this feeling was sympathy for persecuted people.

He was quite satisfied with the outcome of the day. He was fully aware of every bit of the temptation, and enjoyed the experience of the glorification, yielded by his triumph.

As a result, he felt himself totally alien in his own bachelor’s apartment. Each object reminded him of someone he had been trying to forget for long. A carpet here, a tabouret there, a pair of slippers over there or the cushion clock on the wall — all were memories of certain intimate liaisons, which he recalls with revulsion.

„Mr. Paul!” he summoned to the old valiant.

„Yes, sir!”

„Lay a fire in the fireplace.”

Mr. Paul found the proposal a matter of course. However, the damned logs refused to catch fire.

From the drawer of his writing desk, Sir Richard produced a bundle of letters whose scent and coloured envelopes betrayed their sentimental contents.

„You can use them to make fire.”

And Mr. Paul did it with great delight.

The fire of the love letters was blazing happily in the fireplace.

„Mr. Paul!” Sir Richard commenced a new topic, „We’re going on a big campaign to-morrow.”

„Mr. Paul is very happy about it.”

„We cannot keep carrying all these goods and chattels. Mr. Paul, and get rid of all the things in the way of furniture; and, as for the keepsakes, pictures and embroideries, put them on fire. Get on top of it.”

„I understand, Sir,” was the answer.

Opposite Captain Richard’s bed, on the side wall of the alcove, there was a splendid painting in oil in a large golden frame. It was the portrait of a notorious beauty, who, for Sir Richard’s sake, had made herself painted — as Danaë.

„This picture should be destroyed as well, Mr. Paul!”

„All right, done,” said the old hussar reassuringly.

Finally, Captain Richard thoroughly ransacked all his drawers, throwing locks of hair, dryflowers, colored ribbon bows — »On the fire with them!« — and, having made sure that he did not preserve a single souvenir of the Past to return to haunt, ordered Mr. Paul to destroy all the more massive things while he is out, and, having got relief by doing so, went out to have supper.

Before long, he returned home again and, while undressing himself, he contentedly stated that Danaë’s alluring picture was not throwing lovesick glances at him from the wall any more. It was so hot in his room from the burnt souvenirs!

In the early morning, Mr. Paul came into his room with his polished boots, and asked if he had had a good night.

„Yes, I had, thanks for asking. I see, you’ve cleaned up everything. But what happened to the frame of that picture? Have you burnt it too, or what?”

„Too?” Mr. Paul asked with great admiration. „Do you suppose, Sir, that I’ve burnt up that picture?”

„Well, what should I think?”

„Well, what? Do you take me for a fool to throw that beautiful picture into the fireplace?”

„But what have you done with it then?”

„Saving your honour’s presence, In times past, I also was a young lad, my sweetheart also made me a beaded tobacco pouch for my name-day. But when my sweetheart betrayed me, I didn’t throw my beaded tobacco pouch into the fireplace.”

„But what did you do with it then?”

Mr. Paul drew the left corner of the lips to the eye, and winked knowingly.

„I took it to the Lett’s shop, and drank the price thereof.”

Sir Richard, who became tremendously wrathful, and threw the duvet off him.

„You’ve given also my picture away at the Lett’s shop?”

As an answer, Mr. Paul shrugged with a large gesture.

„But it was you, Captain, who told me to get rid of it somehow or other.”

„Well, yes. But I meant you should cast it into the fire.”

„And I meant I should take it to Solomon, who would pay for it what it costs.”

„And have you taken it there?”

„It’s already there.”

The Squire did try to show anger.

„Go back straightaway, and get that picture back from him!” he roared at Mr. Paul fuming with maximum demonstrative anger.

However, Mr. Paul was not a man to be easily frightened.

The old hussar prepared with great composure his master’s foot-choths beside the bed, and replied with indomitable phlegm,

„Solomon won’t give it back, anyway!”

„But I do want it to be done.”

Mr. Paul stepped in front of the bed and, while turning the captain’s baize trousers inside-out in a way that it would be easily pulled on, spoke,

„Mr. Solomon sent the word to Captain Baradlay that you should have a word with him in person about the picture.”

Sir Richard really lost his temper.

„Mr. Paul, you’re a damned blockhead!” He shouted at his servant.

„I beseech you, I know that,” said the old man. „This is my only merit”.

The young gentleman proposed Mr. Paul to go to Hell or rather, to the bottom thereof.

Mr. Paul was not as pagan as the captain; he did not send his master as far away as he did — he only said that Salomon’s shop was to be found at 3 Porcelain Street.

Sir Richard, annoyed, put on his clothes, and hurried to find Solomon in the Porcelain Street before the peddler, playing a joke with him, should display the picture to the public in his gallery — the picture on which many would surely recognise his face.

He traced the peddler’s shop. It was a small basement shop, into which, owing to the raising of the street level, one had to take one more step downward. It received light only through the door, which, therefore, had to be kept open all the time. Both sides of the doorway were occupied by dilapidated pices of furniture: vile armchairs, limping armoires loaded with footrests; in the corners, there were some „Chinese towers” made up from chipped plates; books of „academic” thickness could be seen on the floor, which was the best place for them; as opposed to that, on a gilded chandelier, there were some greasy accoutrements of the horse hanging down glorified; on the shelves, a group of stuffed parrots, squirrels and lap-dogs were staring into each other’s glass eyes making up a still life along with the broken statues; namely a Hercules with only one arm, a Minerva whose nose was broken, and a Venus, whose all parts were cemented together; on the walls there hung some dull and framed pictures mostly without glasses; the well-known Europe, Asia, Africa and America — and Joseph, whose cloak had been left in escrow with Potiphar’s wife. In the open armoires there could be found all imaginable devices, which human misery had made up of glass, iron, copper or zinc. And the whole quodlibet was wrapped in the scent of antiquity.

And the most worn-out object in the shop was the shopkeeper himself, who sat wrapped in his large furry kaftan in the doorway with his legs hidden in felt boots, and with the eye-shade of his fury cap tilted over his eyes. Mr. Solomon’s beard was shaved every third day; of course, not with a knife but something else; the ones who know it know it. This was the third day actually. He would sit all day in a large armchair, whose seat was made from blotter because the leather had been worn through with too much sitting, and rises only to meet a drop-in-customer.

According to his custom, he would open his shop early in the morning, and sit out on the doorstep because »one never knows when good luck brings somone«.

Well, it was shortly after eight o’clock, and a handsome hussar officer stepped into the little underground shop, and started inquiring in a strong voice,

„Is this Mr. Salomon’s peddler shop?”

The old man in the kaftan swang his legs with the big boots off the foot-stool, rose from his seat in front of the caller and, pushing back his large fury cap in order to show his smiley face to the questioner, hurriedly answered,

„Your humblest servant, sir. This is the shop of Solomon, the peddler, and I’m the peddler, by name Solomon, whose shop is this one. At your service, Richard, Lord Baradlay!”

„How do you know me?” the Squire asked in surprise.

„Why should I not know you, Captain Baradlay?” the peddler responded, with a flattery smile. „I know you very well. You are, Mr. Captain, a man of gold.”

Sir Richard did not know how he came acquainted with him. It was quite unlikely that Mr. Solomon would meet him either on a military review or at a court soiree. Also, he had never borrowed money of him.

„If so, you are also supposed to know that I’ve come here to see you concerning a picture, which my man-servant had brought here for sale out of some misunderstanding. I didn’t intend to put that picture on flee market.”

„Oh, I know that very well,” rejoined Mr. Solomon. „That’s why I had the courage to send word to you, Mr. worshipful master, that you should honor my humble house with your personal presence — and talk with me about the picture, brought here.”

„There’s nothing to talk about the picture. It’s not for sale. I want to destroy it.” answered the young gentleman with infuriation.

The peddler said with a smile on his face,

„What’s the use of losing your temper, Captain? Anger is unhealthy. After all, I’m not going to seize the picture by force. Eventually you can do what you want. A man like me grabs any opportunity to make new contacts. Who knows what it could be good for? Do me the honour, Captain, to come and visit my flat. The picture is upstairs, in my flat. Just walk up, please. Who knows what it could be good for?”

Sir Richard accepted the forced invitation.

„Well, good. Let’s go up.”

„Wait a minute. I lock the shop door. I’m alone; I haven’t an assistant. While upstairs, nobody will come in. Do go ahead, Captain. This way, up the spiral staircase. My accomodation’s upstairs. Until then, take a seat over there.

Sir Richard followed the instruction, and went up the ramshackle wooden staircase leading from the shop to the first floor, Solomon’s accomodation.

Having got in the room above the shop, he looked round, astonished. He thought he was seeing a royal museum.

Three big connecting rooms were full of the most exquisite articles of luxury. Artistic armoires made from aromatic woods with marble inlays portraying a landscape, with Chinese rainbow haliotis inlays, with ivory cravings and rich gildings; all the masterpieces of the eighteent centrury. Beside them mosaic tables with panels encrusted with precious stones; Japanese, Chinese and Etrusk vases, Sèvres and Nanking porcelain pieces, bronze masterpieces, alabaster and marble statues, antique arm candlesticks, artful minted silver works; bowls, caskets and cups; fire gilt goblets encrusted with precious stones; carved fireplaces of coloured marbles, a collection of clocks and watches, natural history curiosities could be seen all in the most beautiful order and identified with unique numbers. Also, the walls were covered up to the ceiling with splendid paintings with the signatures of the famous artists of olden times.

Undoubtedly, this shop was profoundly different from the one downstairs!

„Well, how do things look up here?” asked the peddler having climbed up after the captain. „It seems to be worth while looking around a bit, doesn’t it?”

„That’s for sure,” said the captain, „this is a quite different thing from my point of view. How did you manage to acquire so many assorted artistic works?”

„Well, Solomon has great connections. Mr. Salomon’s peddler shop is appreciated abroad, in the whole of Vienna. Who needs a vile night stand −, will find one here. Who wants a silver engraving by Benvenuto Cellini, will find what he is looking for. Whe has something to sell, a broken mug or a masterpiece by Michelangelo, knows for sure that Solomon will name the price therof: this is a groat, that ‘s two thousand pieces of gold.”

Sir Richard was occupied with watching. The old peddler whispered into his ear with a confident smile,

“And all the mighty and the honorable gentlemen know very well that the old Salomon can be silent as the tomb. He knows whom each and every piece comes from. This got here from this count, that got here from that duke; nobody will get any information from him. Gorgeous “cabinet pieces” wandern from owner to owner. Nobody will know who they got here from. Or why they were sold. Or what their history was. Salamon knows every thing about the affairs of the mighty and the honorable gentlemen but won’t tell them to anybody.

“All these habits of Mr. Solomon are very praiseworthy. But where’s my picture?” urged him the young gentleman.

“Hang on a minute! What’s all this urgency? I won’t run from here. Why don’t you take some time to look round a bit here, Mr. Captain? Maybe we still could make a bargain concerning that picture?”

“No way, dear old friend,” responded Sir Richard, with better humour, “that picture is a portrait. No matter how much I want to wipe the sitter from my memory, I cannot mock her selling the portrait of her given to me by her.”

“Portrait, portrait!” murmured the old paddler. “As if there weren’t enough portraits here. Would you come with me into the next room.”

Saying that, he pushed Sir Richard into a subsection of the gallery. In open-eyed astonishment, the young gentleman saw a room in front of him; it was packed with portraits all over the walls.

There were likenesses of every shape and size there, mostly representing young dames and men; oil and pastel paintings; watercolors and ink drawings down to the modest silhouettes; densely packed next to one another; and even beyond, in one corner of the room, he could see, there were standing a lot of unframed oil paintings inclined to each other.

“Do tell me, Mr. Solomon, in which way so many unrelated portraits ever get on the flea market?

“In a very simple way, Mr. Captain. People love each other for a period of time, then they fall out of love with each other; they hang a portrait over their cushions for a time, then, with their emotions having changed, the men and the women forget each other. Young gentlemen, when they’re about to marry, don’t want the new wife to find the likeness of another woman, and to run into some trouble.”

“And then? Do they sell the old portraits?”

Mr. Solomon turned around with his arms stretched out in every direction in the room.

“As you can see yourself.”

“Well, I’m not much surprised that there happen to be people selling the portraits received as a souvenir; I’m more surprised that there’re some who buy them. What the hell d’you do with these portraits? How d’you get them off your hands?”

Mr. Solomon cradled his head between the fur collars of the kaftan with his quiet smile.

“This is a very good bargain, Right Honourable Captain. Who sells the likeness which he’s grown tired of, or even has conceived a distaste for, would get rid of it at a dirt price. Then all must do is — which requires extraordinary expertise — find out whose likeness it could be. Many requent 3 Porcelain Street: dashing gentlemen and noble ladies… They’re fond of searching in this odd gallery. Then, some of them bump into his or hers… They don’t even ask, »What do you charge for it, Salomon?« — they pay generously, and take the picture; I don’t know what they do with it then.”

„By gosh! A diabolical shop, Mr. Solomon!”

Mr. Solomon put his hand confidentially on the Squire’s arm, and whispered with a roguish wink,

“But I know the original of your likeness. She comes here sometimes. Wow! What if she sees this picture here in my gallery! »Woman in suit« portraits like this are paid for generously!”

“But my friend, Mr. Solomon, I won’t do anything to disgrace her. However much I hate thinking of the person portrayed by the picture, I don’t intend to do anything that would make her hate me rightly.”

“Mr. Captain, you’re a man of gold! I suppose, you’re going to get married, arent you? Surely there must be another portrait in its place, isn’t there?”

“You’re right, Mr. Solomon, I’m going to get married; notwithstanding, no other picture’s got on the nail of the other one.”

“I could get that one as well. Oh, I know the way of all things. You say it’s impossible? I have a painter to whom I only have to say, go here or there, take a good look at this or that person, and then come back and make a portrait of him or her. And he will paint them from memory perfectly — you would call it a speaking likeness! Well, do you wish it? Why are you shaking your head? Is your fiancée not to be seen anywhere? Is she at such a high level or so well concealed? Is she in a convent? I can see, you keep shaking your head. So it’s a secret yet. No one must know it. Maybe, quite the contrary, she’s a poor girl… All right, I’ll stop inquiring. I don’t ask anything anytime. Let’s stop it. But wat do you charge for this… Miss Danaë?”

Sir Richard, annyoyed, clanked his sword.

“I’ve already told you that it isn’t for sale. I demand it back.”

“Well, well, take your time. What’s the point of clanking your sword so impatiently? Why, I didn’t say you should give it to me for ten or twenty florins. I know it would be below the dignity of a gentleman like you. A Richard, Lord Baradlay! But how about an exchange? Why don’t you want another nice picture? Another mythological picture? I’ve got a nice selection to choose from.”

At that point, Sir Richard could not help laughing at it.

“No, no, Mr. Solomon, don’t play the fox with me. I won’t give Danaë for a picture maybe even twice as beautiful, or even if it were twice as mythological. So help me God.”

“No, no, no, Take your time. What’s the point of swearing so fast? Maybe, we’ll find something. Let’s look around a bit. Looking doesn’t cost money.”

So saying, using force, he pushed Sir Richard to a bunch of paintings with no frames leaned against each other, and started to dissociate them, one by one.

At one of the pictures, the Squire gave a cry.

“By Jove!”

“Aha!” cried the peddler with eyes flashing with triumph. I see we’ve found something that might be worth turning to the light… “ And he drew out the oil painting from among the others, dusted it with the sleeve of his kaftan, and held it up towards the window and, at the same time, before Sir Richard’s eyes.

“Thunder and Lightning! This is my portrait!”

“Oh, um. That’s right. It’s been lying here for already half a year. Behold, Sir Richard, Miss Danaë was less scrupulous than you; she sold your portait at 3 Porcelain Street half year ago. I paid eight silver florins for it.”

“And how much do you charge for that picture?”

“For your own portrait, eh? I’ve told you: in exchange for the other one.”

“Let it be so.”

“Tut, tut, Mr. Captain. You’re a careless bargainer. Others will deceive you prettily. You might’ve lost on this deal with me.”

“God damn the whole deal. I want a quid pro quo. Send the likeness of me to my house and, I don’t mind, squeeze one million from Miss Danaë for yours.”

“Squeeze, indeed! Ah, Mr. Captain! Solomon never does such a thing. Any inequitable thing. Everybody knows best his worth, and Solomon will be content with how much you value yourself. I squeeze, indeed! I’m not a cheat. Look here, Mr. Captain, how fair I am. I even tell you frankly that the pictures going into exchange is one thing but the frame is another.”

“What frame?”

“Let’s see… You sent the picture here along with its frame. On the other hand, Miss Danaë sent hers without one; she put another picture into the gilded frame still at home. So the frame is beyond the bargain.”

Now Sir Richard was annoyed by the peddler’s generosity.

“Leave me in peace with your frame; do you think I’ll accept a five-florin bargain-gift from you?”

“Tut, tut, Mr. Captain. Why waste so much noble anger on a paltry five florins? After all, I didn’t offer a paltry five florins to you — maybe, we could make a berter exchange. There’re lots of kind of things in my shop that Captain Baradlay may take a fancy to. Let’s look round. Looking doesn’t cost money. I’ve got some very nice, splendid weapons, scimitars and swords here…”

“Thank you very much. I have all sorts of them; I have a complete arsenal at home.”

“But maybe, you’ll find something that you’re missing at home? Anyway, it won’t cost you a penny to look around. Maybe, we’ll make another good bargain. All right, I won’t speak about the frame… I’d include it after that. If you take a liking to something, you’ll give an extra amount in order that I see, at least a little cash. You know what I mean? All right. You see, we keep up a belief that it’s a very unfortunate thing being left without any money in our hand after the first business of the day — however little money it may be. The whole day will be unlucky. The first customer is very happy because we don’t let him go empty-handed; he can get anything that he takes a liking to even if at the lowest possible price just so that we see the colour of his money.”

The young gentleman was already convinced that the peddler would not let him go unless he spends a few florins in addition to the agreed exchange bargain. So he let himself push into the third room.

The third room, into which the peddler showed the Squire, contained a perfect collection of the weapons of all the nations.

In a group, there were Egyptian, Persian and Medean weapons: bent, knife-shaped swords with leather handles; fan-shaped military flags, spears with mace, guitar-shaped breastplates, Amazonian helmets and Etruscan bark horns. In another group, ancient Greek armaments: Theban shields, double-ended spears, aspis shields and double-edged swords named xyphos, Samnite metallic harnesses, Roman short swords, thunderbolt shields, feathery coat of mails and Sarmatian scale armours were to be seen. In a further compilation, Gallic and Teutonic braided armors and chain-maces, horned helmets and Anglo-Saxon war-axes were displayed. Beside them, one could admire the hooked lances of the Middle Ages, the Czech Morning Star, the German armor-breakers, the Saxon halberds and partisans, the Moorish and Saracen swords, lances, the Indian tomahawks, the Hungarian fringia, war picks, ribbed maces, scythe daggers, mauls, and the heavy weapons of the crusaders. Last but not least, a whole side of the room was occupied by the weapons of all the nations of the nineteenth century: trashy swords, muskets, jeweled and studded dress swords, and gold-embroidered scimitars.

“A nice little arsenal, isn’t it?” said Mr. Solomon, rubbing his hands contentedly. “It’s worth looking around. Oh, whenever a nationwide holiday is in preparation, the peddler’s shop at 3 Porclain Street is most wanted. Everything is obtainable here. And, after the holiday, everything comes back.”

Sir Richard found himself in his element. He was searching among the trashy iron swords with the eye of a connoisseur. Suddenly, his eyes fell on a brown sword blade with the simplest hilt and without a ccabbard. He picked it up.

“Aha,” said the peddler much pleased. “You’ve found the right one. I knew it shall catch the eyes of a real connoisseur. A genuine Crivelli-blade. I’ve been offered ten pieces of gold for it but I won’t go under fifteen because this is an original Crivelli not a fake.”

The Squire examined it closely in the light, and said,

“That’s not a Crivelli blade.”

Mr. Solomon was deepy hurt.

“Sir, I never lie. It’s a Crivelli blade, believe me. Look at this.”

And with that he, bent the blade of the sword with his trembling hands, and encircled Sir Richard’s waist with it as if it were a belt.

“The point kisses the hilt.”

“Good. But now it’s my turn to show you something. Have you got a bad musket with no value?”

“Make your choice,” answered Mr. Solomon, pointing to a stack of all kinds of outdated firearms.

The Captain choose the heaviest one, put its butt on the floor, and propped it obliquely against the stack, barrel upward.

“Will you please stand a bit aside now?”

The peddler did so, waiting for what will happen.

The Captain gave a quick swing to the sword through the air and brought it down. Cut into two parts, the musket barrel fell to the right and to the left on the floor.

Having drawn his fingertips along the sword’s blade, Sir Richard held it out in front of Mr. Solomon.

“Behold, Mr. Solomon, the blade isn’t chipped at all.”

The peddler was lost in amazement. First he stared at the sword, then at the musket cut into two, finaly stepped to Sir Richard, and felt of his arms.

“By God, that was a stroke! As for me, when I cut an orange in two with a knife, I need to start it three times. Mr. Captain, you’re a man of gold. Not a man of gold — a steel man! That was a stroke! What a thick barrel, and it falls in two, at one stroke, as it were a paper funnel.”

“That’s not a Crivelli sword,” repeated Sir Richard, handing back the sword to the paddler, “it’s a genuine Al-Bohacen Damascus blade. Its price is one hundred pieces of gold.”

“God forbid that,” the peddler protested with both hands. “I’ve said that it costs fifteen pieces of gold. No more and no less. I estimate it like this. And if you want to give me that picture, along with the frame in exchange for it, and with one piece of gold, as an addition, let it be yours, and take it with you. I won’t sleep under the same roof with a sword like this.”

The Squire gave a smile.

“But we’ve exchanged that picture for my portrait of me.”

“Now I won’t give the portrait of you for no gold or silver; it remains for me. I met a gentleman for the first time in my life saying, »Mr. Solomon, the price of what you’re offering is not fifteen but one hundred pieces of gold; it’s not a Crivelli but an Al Bohacen.« There’s not another portrait like this all over the world. It’s a rarity. A unique thing. An incunabula. There’re nor copies, nor variants of it. I won’t part with it. The portrait remains here. Take your sword, pay me one piece of gold as an addition, and we shall be even.

Sir Richard seemed to be thinking. Mr. Solomon was reading his thoughts.

„Don’t fear that someone will see the portrait of you in my house. I’ll put it into my bedroom, my widow’s bedroom, which is never visited by anybody. You’ll leave it with me, won’t you?”

Sir Richard gave his hand to the urging man.

„Now pay me the additional one piece of gold.”

The peddler put the coin to his mouth, and then dropped it into his deep pocket.

„Let me wrap it up in the paper; my assistant will deliver it to you then, Mr. Captain. I’m glad to have had the pleasure. Perhaps not the last time. When you get married, Sir, command me as you will. I’ll produce any grand and beautiful thing beautiful eyes can take delight in the sight of.”

„O, thank you, I’m afraid I won’t be needing it; my would-be-wife need no fancy furniture.”

„Are you going to marry a poor girl? Tell me, is that true?”

The Squire definitely decided to stop talking to him.

„Well, adieu, Mr. Solomon.”

„That’s right, that’s right, Mr. Captain. Adieu. I’m not inquiring. Old Salomon knows a lot of things that people don’t suspect him to know. But he tells nobody about them. You’re a man of gold, a man of steel, Mr. Captain. Perhaps I’ve got the wrong term: a man of genuine Damascus steel. Why, you know very well, what Damascus steel is made of. Damascus steel and gold are forged together. It becomes Damascus steel. You just remain the same as you are. I won’t interfere in your affairs, Mr. Captain. But remember the old peddler at 3 Porcelain Street. I tell you, Sir, being an honest man is a good deal. Remember it later. Some day, whether you want it or not, you will see the peddler from 3 Porcelain Street once more in your life. At that time you’ll understand what I’ve said, »being an honest man is a good deal«. God go with you.”

Sir Richard fled, as soon as it was possible, from the garrulous old man. He waived the possibility to be escorted by the child assistant with the sword. He himself did not dare to go home.

He was afraid of Mr. Paul.

He feared that the old hussar would say when he steps in, „Didn’t I tell you?”

CHAPTER 9
WOMEN’S REVENGE

“Well, my dear Aurelia, you’re waiting for your father to come home in vain for he won’t come home any more. My dear husband has just got a letter from Budapest; he, as a notary, knows a lot of people everywhere in the world, even in Budapest. They write him that his things are bad enough. The consistory won’t let him go up to the pulpit any more; he was summoned even to Vienna. He shall be sentenced to ten years, at least, and sent to Kufstein. That’s how things are, my dear. But don’t cry so much. God’s good, and will take care of the abandoned. God be with you, my dear Aurelia.”

The notary’s wife, Mrs. Michael Szalmás saluted with the above cheerful morning greeting the pastor’s daughter, who wont to look out through the door of the small parsonage toward the end of the street where she used to see her father leave weeks before. She waited for him in vain but there was nothing for it.

Having received the tactful information, she did not spend any more time in the doorway but went back into the house.

She sat back to her needle work table, to her interrupted lingerie sewing, and continued working until she found herself dropping the linen and the needle from her hand and giving herself to her numbing contemplation. Her soul would wonder on untrodden ways, through deserted wildernesses and strange towns, searching for one particular face among millions of unknown faces, and listening for the well-known steps and voices.

Suddenly, she was jolted out by the noise of an approaching carriage.

It is a gorgeous face, longish like that of the Muse of Tragedy with a classic profile and fine lips; her eyes are full of soul, her dense and thick, chestnut hair is clipped up on top of the head with Puritan simplicity; and her artlessness heightens the noble effect of the beauty of the sculpture-like head.

While the carriage sound is drawing near, the long eyelashes open wide. The girl wakes with a start. But the one she is waiting for, fails to come. So she rests easy once more, and, heaving a mighty sigh, goes on with her work.

But this time the carriage sound was gone right in front of the parsonage.

A chariot pulled up in front of the door. The girl jumped up from the chair, and merrily hurried to the door. Maybe her father is back.

But the opening door preceded her, and the girl, startled, stopped before the entering person.

She was standing face to face Mrs. Baradlay, the widowed baroness.

Mrs. Baradlay was wearing a black silk dress with a little black embroidered collar, a mourning bonnet and a muff, which all made her marble face even whiter.

Miss Aurelia bowed before her. The Lady raised her hand; the girl leaned there, and kissed it respectfully.

“Good morning, my child,” the Lady greeted her graciously but at the same time with coldness and formality. “I’ve come to have a talk with you about certain things, to be arranged between us.”

Miss Aurelia showed the Lady to the sofa and sat in a chair opposite her.

“First of all, my child, I must inform you that your father, to my regret, has got into much trouble for his prayer delivered at my husband’s funeral. I wish it hadn’t happened they way it had. But now it can’t be helped. He’ll probably lose his office, which is the smaller part of the trouble.

“So the rumours are true!” sighed the girl to herself.

“Even his freedom is in danger,” the Lady went on. “Maybe he’ll be imprisoned for a longer period, and you won’t see him until then.”

The baroness was very surprised at seeing that the foregoing words did not cause any change on the girl’s face.

“You’re going to be alone.”

The girl nodded in silence.

“What will you do when you’re left alone?”

“I am prepared for the worst,” answered the girl calmly.

“Look upon me as your well-wisher, my child, who’s ready to do anything for you. It was my family’s mourning that caused the misfortune that has befallen on you; I want to mitigate at least your grief. Speak openly to me, where will you go, what are you going to do? I’ll do my best for you.”

“I shall stay here, Madam,” the girl declared, and, raising her head with dignity, glanced into the Lady’s eyes, showing no concern.

“You cannot remain here, my child, because the parsonage shall be handed over to another person.”

“My father has a small house in the village; I’ll content myself with it.”

“And what’re you going to live on?”

“I’ll work for money.”

“It yields a very low income.”

“I shall content myself with little.”

“And if your father is kept in an alien town, won’t you to be near to him?

And suppose your father will be in an alien town, shall you not wish to be in his vicinity? You can count on me. I’ll provide for your support.”

“Thank you, Madam; once I am confined to be alone, my loneliness will be more tolerable here, and once I’m divided from my father, it’s all the same whether a three feet thick wall or a distance of thirty miles should divide us.”

“But here you’ll bury yourself alive; in another place you could expect a new life. I wish to get rid of the burden of feeling guilty about the fact that the cause of your misfortune was mine. I’m going to donate fortune to you so that you be able to establish your own luck. Once I’ve shared my misfortune with you, I wish also share my fortune with you in return. Trust my promise.”

The girl shook her head again, in silence.

Bear in your mind that good friends tend to disappear in times of bad luck. Everybody condemns the bad luck of the others to find an excuse to stay away from him. You’re still young and beautiful but melancholy makes everybody old soon. You’ll be entombed here. Where people are so close to each other like in a village here, he who is beloved by nobody will be hated. People tend to ridicule the others for suffering seriously. They are happy to see the one of whom they were envious previously, humiliated. The more beautiful or better you are, the worse it is for you. The ugly and the bad regard you as their enemy.

In a new world, you’ll find new people. Every object, every look will offend or hurt you here. Among strangers, you can create a society such as that you want for yourself. I’m going to buy your father’s house, vineyard, garden and arable land at the price of a domain. I’m going to be your patron and helper in every stage of your life. I’m going to make things smooth for you to gain admittance into the highest circles so as to help your father regain his freedom. I’m going to do my best to compensate you for all the injury which your family suffered because of us. It will be a pleasure for me seeing you happy again.”

As if on cue, the girl rose from her seat.

“Thank you for your proposals, Madam. But I shall stay here. And even if I should go into the service of a master to earn my bread, I’ll stay here; I won’t leave this place. Madam, you know the history of this ring,” the girl went on, and, raising her left hand, showed the little wedding-ring to the Lady. “This keeps me irrevocably tied down here. The one who put it on my finger told me that time, »I’m running away now because I’m being chased. My fate will be hiding and wandering. But wherever destiny may throw me, I shall revolve around this point as a planet goes around its sun. Stay here and I shall return to you. Should you be fed by any hopes to make you leave this place, stay here, I shall return.« Madam, it’s my firm resolution, to stay here. Neither have you so much riches nor can the masters of the world frighten me so much that I remove from here. I know I’ll suffer, live in want, and lead a life of wretched misery. Should I be more wretched than a beggar, I won’t leave this place. Growing old or going mad — I will stay here.”

Now the Lady rose to her feet as well. She took the girl’s hand with the ring on.

“So you love my son? Do you believe that I love him, too? One of us has to give him up for the benefit of the other. Which of us will give him up?”

Miss Aurelia sought to withdraw her hand from the hand of Mrs. Baradlay but the Lady held it fast, and did not let it go.

“Oh, Madam, what a question is this you ask? The one of us who dies first will abandon him! Do you force me to commit suicide?”

Mrs. Baradlay let her hand go free, and then looked at her with kindness in her eyes and with a mild, invigorating smile.

“No. What I want is that he should belong to both of us. Let he be yours. And you be mine. I wish to have both a son and a daughter. Come to my residence; keep me company until my son returns, and then love each other, and pay only dividends to me from the remainder of your love.”

The girl could not believe the Lady’s words.

“Oh, what you’re saying is as beautiful as a dream. A poor crushed worm like me cannot believe in a straight and short way from the dust here into Heaven.”

“Right,” said the Lady giving a sigh, „while my face is so cold, and my words are so repulsive. How could you believe me that I want to make you happy? How could anybody think that a coming and going sculpture like me can feel anything toward another person? But I’ll convince you. I’ll overcome you to make you acknowledge the fact that I am the triumphant party. Come and sit beside me!”

The Lady drew the girl to her side on the sofa, and drew a letter from her bosom.

“Look here, I’ve just received this letter from my son in Russia; I called him back from St. Petersburg. He sent the letter when he was halfway home. I had the self-command not to open it, and brought it here to hand it to you so that you break the seal and read it to me. Do you have an idea of what I’ve resigned for you at this hour?”

The girl bowed her head, and plastered her lips to the Lady’s hand.

“There, take this letter, and read it for me! Do you know his handwriting?”

The Lady showed the addressing of the sealed letter to Miss Aurelia. She took it, and the grateful smile suddenly vanished from her face. Silently shaking her head, she stared with big eyes at Mrs. Baradlay.

“Well?”

“That’s not his handwriting,” faltered the girl.

“Why, sure it is! Let me see! My son’s handwriting must be familiar to me. This »B« is all his own! These strong lines and the masculine style of the letters all prove… “

“A good imitation…” whispered the girl.

“But read the address, »A ma très adorable mère«. It’s something that can only have been written by my son. The mail ticket is »Orsa«, the middle of Russia. Do you understand French?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Who taught you?”

“Myself.”

“Eh, extract the letter, and you’ll see. This seal depicts his coat of arms, after all.”

“Madam, if you allow, I…” said the girl, and slit the letter open with a little pair of scissors in her trembling hands, taking care not to injure the seal, and took out the letter.

And then joy lit up on her face again.

“No doubt, this is his writing! »My dear Mother,…«”

“There you are.”

But the girl’s face darkened again. Light and shadow alternated rapidly over her countenance like in a spring landscape where the North Wind is chasing torn clouds over the land.

“Well, what’s the matter?”

“Only these three words are in his hand; all the rest is written by an alien hand in French.”

“You mean by an alien hand? Please, read it now.”

The letter was fluttering in the girl’s hand. It ran like this,

Dear Madam, forgive me the pious fraud I have exercised on the cover of this letter. In order not to frighten you, I’ve imitated my friend’s handwriting, for which I shall be condemned to the galleys — if you disclose me. My friend, Sir Edmund was just about to write this letter to you but, having put down the first three words, the pen fell from his hand. He went off in a swoon. Do not get panic-stricken: Sir Edmund was in a great jeopardy but it is now over. Within two weeks, he will recover as much as he is able to resume his journey.

“He was in danger?” the Lady interrupted. “Please, go on!”

Even though she herself was much scared, the girl’s deep agitation did not escape her attention.

Miss Aurelia made every effort to compose herself.

I will put down everything honestly, just as it happened. When Sir Edmund got your letter calling him back home, he dropped everything here: the tsarist court, his decoration and the entertainments. It was useless to ask him to stay; he answered, »My mother’s calling me; I’m going.«”

After these lines, the girl looked up from the letter slowly, and threw a glance full of the tenderest gratitude to the Lady’s complexion.

Seeing that I could not restrain him, I decided to accompany him as far as the border. I wish I had not done so! In this case he would have been stopped from continuing his journey at Smolensk, we would not have been chased by wolves, and would not have had to run from them skating on the ice of the Dnepr for two hours.

I have to say, Madam, Sir Edmund is a great lad. When my skate came off my foot in the heat of the escape, I became defenceless. He turned to face our pursuers, and beat them back using pistols and poniards; he killed four of them, and I owe it to him that I am now alive.

At hearing her son’s praise, the Lady’s face flushed with pride. But she saw that the girl’s face was turning more and more pallid as she was reading on. The longer she read, the more her lips turned blue. She could continue only with a great effort. Oh, a girl’s love is quite another thing! A feat that is pleasure for a Spartan mother will drive a girl into despair.

Thereafter, we continued fleeing from the wolves, which was not a joke. Some two hundred wolves were at our heels!

“By heavens!” the mother cried out, excitedly. Now he, too!”

The girl was quickly reading on – now with confused eyes and haltingly,

Now we were close to the escape— a military guard station. We came to a bad place on the ice on the Dnepr in the vicinity of the guard house. Unfortunately, the fishermen had cut a hole in the ice; we missed it because of the new ice layer, which broke beneath us and we sank under the vault of ice.

“Oh, merciful God!” screamed Mrs. Baradlay, losing her self-control. The maiden did not say a word. Her head bent backwards, her eyes drooped, and her face became pale like wall. She was convulsively clutching the letter. Her whole body was shaking with fever. Her lips were pressed together tightly in pain.

The Lady took the swooning girl into her arms, stroked her countenance and forehead.

“Wake up! You see, you’re even weaker than me. After all, I’m his mother. I feel what you feel, too.”

The girl’s tears began to flow. The ice of swoon melted thereby. The Lady, as a way of consolation, pulled her against her breast.

“Stop crying. Now I’ll continue reading the letter to you. You see, my eyes aren’t watering. It took me a long time to learn how to endure pain without crying. So I’m quite good at it now. Let’s keep going! Come and let’s look it together.”

Saying so, she embraced the girl, and held the letter so they both could read it.

“Let’s read it on!”

I was saved by my amulet, which I got from my mother. It is a genuine amulet, which protects against drowning, beast bite wounds, gun-shot wound, the evil eye and contagion. I offered it to my friend prior to departure but he did not accept it. He answered that he was guided by his guide stars, and admitted that these stars were nothing else but loving woman’s eyes! When the fishermen had taken us to the bank, I was always by his side, and when I asked him, “Are your stars still shining bright?” he replied, with a smile, “All the four.”

At these words, both the ladies felt the same electric jerk; the magic sparks touched the nerves of both at the same time.

Then Sir Edmund had a very high fever for a short period of time, which is now behind us. I leave him alone neither night nor day. His guardian stars may be at comfort. — Today, he made an effort to write a letter but, as you see, he failed. I ought to continue it. However, you need not worry, Madam. There is no longer any danger; we are going to continue our journey in two weeks. For the time being, I ask Sir Edmund’s »Stars« something. Do not cry too much for him because the tears of stars here, in Russia, will transform into snow, which is already more than enough in our way.

Leonin Ramiroff

The two pairs of stairs exchanged a look. And there were not any tears in their eyes by then; they were shining with heavenly joy.

Mrs. Baradlay pulled Aurelia’s head to her bosom, and, kissing her forehead, she gently whispered,

“O, my daughter!”

At that, the girl fell to her feet, and, having embraced her knees, laid her burning face upon the Lady’s lap without uttering a word.

But this silence was very similar to a book fully written in cipher for eyes, which had already learnt to read hearts.

The Lady’s hand rested on the girl’s head.

And past an hour, to the great admiration of all the villagers, the pastor’s daughter left the modest parsonage beside the baroness in the manorial carriage of the Baradlay family. The two ladies were talking to each other with serene countenances; they had abundant topics to talk about.

The notary’s wife, upon seeing this amazing phenomenon, delivered two offhand slaps in the face to her two good-for-nothing youngster sons and instructed them, “Run after the carriage, where are they going?” and “Run to the parsonage, what happened there?” Before long, both returned. One of them informed her that the carriage had entered the courtyard; when they got off the carriage, the Lady embraced the young lady; and while they were going up the steps, the Lady kept her hand on the girl’s shoulder. The other enthusiastically brought the news that the pastor’s servant and the beadle had told that the whole house had been left to them for the Miss would live in the mansion from that time on, and would come back here never more.

At there words, Mrs. Michael Szalmás dropped the basket along with the mother hen, and clapped her hands,

“If the deceased Lord could see it!”

The Stonehearted Man’s Sons by Mór Jókai * Translated by András Tokaji

CHAPTER 10
THE UNDERSCORED LINES

From this day forth, Mrs. Szalmás did not miss a day to go up to the mansion early in the morning in order to get to the bottom of the latest events.

In fact, the mansion had an old janitor, who was a good old acquaintance of her, who used to tell her everything that was happening in the mansion.

It is true that Mr. Martin Bakó never failed to answer a question of Mrs. Szalmás — reserving to himself a modest right to give her an answer diametrically opposite to the truth of the matter. And Mr. Bakó shoved these great discrepancies — weather in historical data or even in poetic probabilities — down Mrs. Szalmás’s throat with such a truthful visage (so typical of the Quakers) that the woman regarded any doubt as an idea contrary to all reason.

“How’s Miss Aurelia doing?” asked the notary’s wife.

“Don’t know; she was taken to Vienna at night,” answered Mr. Bakó.

“To Vienna? For what the hell have they taken her to Vienna?”

“A lord is marrying her there.”

“A lord? What kind of lord?”

“A secret political agent, a secretary or an executive!”

“Wow! Is he a young gentleman?”

“About sixty.”

“That so? A bit old. And why is the poor thing given to such an old one in marriage?”

“In order to set her father free by doing so.”

“Was the old man really sentenced?”

“To the galleys!”

“To the galleys! And what will happen with him there?”

“He will be to draw the rope when the galley will be taken to America from Europe.”

“Well, it’s a big punishment, indeed.”

Mr. Martin Bakó set all this forth with such a serious complexion that Mrs. Szalmás could swear that all that he had said was true.

One morning, Mrs. Szalmás woke the pious castellan by knocking on the door to ask him,

“You’re expecting guests, aren’t you?”

“Yes, we are. How d’you guessed it, Madam?”

“Every morning I throw a glance at the mansion, and this morning I noticed that all the chimneys on the right side are smoking. They’re heating all the rooms that have not been yet heated. They’re waiting for somebody. But for whom?”

Mr. Bakó said, honestly,

“The young gentleman’s coming to-day.”

“Which one? There’re three young gentlemen. Which is to be back?”

Mr. Bakó responded without thinking,

“The guardsman.”

“The guardsman? Is it permitted for him to leave the royal personage alone?”

“He was replaced with another guardsman.”

“And is only the guardsman coming? I’d like to know how he’s coming.”

“Of course, on horseback.”

“On horseback? What horse will he ride?”

“On an all-white one.”

“What will his garments be like?”

“All crimson, faced with gold, a pine-marten fur cap with an egret plume on his head and a panther’s skin on his back.”

“Panther’s skin? Jesus, I’ve never seen a panther.”

Mr. Bakó let Mrs. Szalmás run through the village with the news.

That day, someone was waited for in the mansion, indeed. A courier brought a letter from Edmund, from Lemberg,^[45] written by his own hand, in which he let his mother know the day of his arrival.

That very afternoon, Mrs. Baradlay had horses harnessed to her travelling carriage, and hurried to the last station to meet her son. She was alone without any escort.

At the Szunyogos station, she waited until her son came. Sir Edmund arrived right on time at dusk. The meeting was tenderly affectionate.

“How you frightened me with your accident!” exclaimed the mother with some kind of reprimand.

“We’re already over. So good to see each other again!” the lad said, kissing her mother.

He packed his personal things into her mother’s carriage, and both resumed their way towards Noble Hill.

It was still good daylight when they arrived at the village. On the outskirts of the village, there was a hill from which the whole lowland plains could be seen; around the foot of the hill, pines were planted from under whose dark foliage a grey marble building of Egyptian style appeared. Its walls were gilded by the twilight sun.

Sir Edmund had the carriage stopped.

“Let’s get off, my mother.”

Mrs. Baradlay comprehended his thought. They did so. He reached his arm to her, and led her towards the pine hill without a word.

At the bottom of the hill, there was a hut edgeways, in front of the marble portal. It was where the crypt-keeper lived. Sir Edmund called him out of his room.

The crypt-keeper came out with the bunch of keys, and having opened the double iron gate, from which the one was a solid, and the other was a pierced work, lit his lamp, and led the visitors dawn the steps of the crypt.

In the subterranean half-dark, he led them to the recently-plastered niche, in front of which, on the plaque dedicated to the great man who recently gone to his grave, the painted and gilded orders of merit craved under the noble crest were shining. The man, whom his heart and the balms prevented from turning to dust, rested there.

When mother and son were, holding each other’s hands, standing before the crypt, they felt as if their hearts and souls were united; as if every drop of the son’s blood would flow through both of his and his mother’s circulatory systems. They were talking to a disappeared spirit about the same things.

Then they embraced each other, and returned to the world of the living.

In the mansion, Sir Edmund saw the old faces again: the old servants and bailiffs with their familiar humble courtesy. However, it meant something different now; now he was the head of the family.

He did not see any change on her mother’s countenance. It had not been colder or more sorrowful than when he had seen her last time. Not her bereavement but her mourning clothes were new.

Mrs. Baradlay was talking to her son as coldly as if a implacable apparition were listening to her through the wall, who would criticise every word and every display of emotion.

When Sir Edmund changed his traveller’s overcoat, his mother showed him through his father’s apartment.

“These rooms will be at your command. You’ll be to receive numberless visitors. As you know, our house is a meeting place for many acquaintances of ours, who, at the news of your homecoming, will come to see us. From now on, you’re the master of the house.”

“As you wish, mother.”

“Our goods are to be supervised by a man. Our economy is extended and multi-sectored; it’s up to you to set it in order.

“I’ll do my best to get the hang of it.”

“As the oldest son and a person of the age of majority, you’ll be a natural guardian of your brothers. You’ll have to keep rates between love and wise insight. Your brothers’ mentalities don’t resemble each other neither theirs yours; you have to study the ones of both separately.”

“I’ll do this study with open heart and love.”

“Our house has achieved great celebrity in this county. You must decide what position you will take, who you want to gather around you, whose leader you want to be.”

“I’ll ask for your advice, my mother.”

“You’re a new man. Everybody will look you up; they’ll ascertain your inclinations to every thing. It’s you to decide what to say and what not to say. To be silent for a long time or always. To disclose your feelings to the first question or not. To go ahead or follow somebody else.”

“Time will teach me the answers, my mother.”

“But your time’s short. In a few days’ time, many people will come to our house. Your father arranged the meeting. And neither you nor I know what the aim of the meeting is.

“You surely know it, my mother.”

“How d’you think I know it?”

“What makes me think is your letter urging me to come home.”

“Were you loath to come home?”

“I started preparing myself for the journey at the very hour I had received your letter.”

“Have you thought any more about the fact that you, as the eldest Baradlay, you’re qualified to assume the lord-lieutenancy for life?”

“I understand that this seat is now occupied by an administrator.”

“He was seated there for the sole reason that the High Sheriff was sickly; he was unable to chair. But you’re well and strong, and you only have to decide to have you inaugurated.“

Sir Edmund looked deeply into his mother’s eyes.

“My mother, it was not that you called me home for.”

“Quite right. I had another reason for it, too. You must know it by now. In his will, your father stated that I should give my hand in marriage to the administrator six weeks after his death; the ceremony to which our family’s acquaintances are invited is meant to be a betrothal to be held in a few days.

“I bow before my father’s will,” said the young entleman, with his head bent low.

“Your father wanted that a new pillar should rise for our house to bear the burden he’d been carrying. You know that this burden is the burden of a country.”

“I know, my mother; it’s a heavy burden.”

“And do you want my shoulders to be broken under it, that I should bear that burden?”

“Given that that was my father’s will, and if you yourself want it…”

“Eh, is any will of mine a command to you?”

“Mother, you know it well that whatever you say is law and scripture to me.”

“Good. So I’ll tell you what my will is. The Baradlay house needs a master and a mistress! A master who is able to command and conduct; and a mistress, who will make conquests.”

“I respect that,” said Sir Edmund, bowing before his mother.

“That master will be you!”

Sir Edmund startled in surprise.

“You’ll be master, and your wife will be mistress of the house.”

“Mother, you know that it cannot be so,” the lad sighed sadly.

“Will you not marry at all?”

“Never!”

“Don’t say this word! You’re twenty-four years old. Who knows how long you will live? Oh, how horrific it would be the continual echoing of the word »Never!« in the hollow of a cold heart, all the time!”

“You know the reason very well. I’ve learned to suffer, which is an inheritance on both sides. I’m not complaining. I’m silent. You know what being silent, silent for decades means! I have the reason not to love anybody. Save for your loving motherly heart. Mother, let’s continue suffering. We’ll grow old, somehow. The widow and her hermit son.”

“Oh, what a foolish man you are, Edmund. Surely you’ve turned a Carthusian?” said Mrs. Baradlay, laughing at the sad words.

“The world is full of beautiful faces and hearts to be beloved. You also will find your own one day.”

“You know I won’t.”

“And what if I’ve already found one for you?”

“You’ve been looking for her in vain.”

“No! Don’t tell it to me,” said the widow, drawing close to him gently, “Who would render a judgement blindfolded? You want to be the judge without hearing the accused.”

“I’m the accused, mother, who denies everything beforehand.”

“But the one whom I’ve chosen is so beautiful, so good and loves you so much.”

“Her beauty may be like that of the fairies, and rival the angels in goodness, be diamond-hearted like you, and surpass you in love; I don’t wish to know her.”

“O, don’t make a vow as big as that! You’ll certainly regret it. You’ll certainly take back your words. Do take a look at her portrait at least once. Come, I’ll show it to you in the next room.”

“It will leave me cold,”

“We’ll see.”

The mother took her son by the arm, led him to the next room, and, having opened the door for him, allowed him to take the lead.

At this very moment, Sir Edmund saw Miss Aurelia in front of him. The girl, having overheard their talk, was trembling with delight.

What power of the world could stop two hearts from falling over each other at a moment like this? Who could restrain the flow of tears of joy? What prohibiting spirits could stand between their longing lips so that they failed to find each other?

“O, my dearest, my darling!”

Mrs. Baradlay took the hands of both of them, and whispered to Sir Edmund in a low voice,

“Now do you believe that there will be a master and a mistress of the house?”

“Yes, I do!” the Squire replied with a glorified face.

And they both smothered the bosom, the complexion, the hands and the shoulders of the most loving mother with kisses.

Mrs. Baradlay raised her eyes up to the likeness beside the one of herself as a bride looking down on her from the massive gilt frame with proud eyes. She was staring at it intently, and said to herself as if to him,

“Do you see that? Do you feel this happiness? Does it not make your petrified heart throb to see such a celestial view? Was I right to do the opposite of what you had told me? Are you coming back at the wedding night — to bless or to haunt — you stonehearted great man?

The great man just kept looking down proudly from the frame.

But it escaped the notice of the three happy people.

The dolorous widow slipped away from them, leaving them alone with their happiness. “They have much to talk about to each other,“ she thought.

She crept into her own room, produced from her portfolio the memorable document dictated to her by her dying husband, and underscored with a red pencil the lines concerning the events of the passed day.

“Some of the work up to this point is done,“ she said to herself.

CHAPTER 11
THE BETROTHAL

It was no longer a secret. The rumour was that six weeks after the funeral, there would be a betrothal at the Baradlay house. A new name would be given to the house.

For that day, the Lady widow herself invited all the acquantaincences from near and far. The invitation said clearly „family festival”.

In the morning of the noteworthy day, the court-yard of the castle was jammed with carriages, modest and pompous alike, coming from each region. The representatives of the stronger sex brought their wives and—last but not least—their daughters.

It was said everywhere that the young Baradlay had come back from abroad, and did not have a wedding ring on his hand yet. A noble beast, which is worth being hunted down.

Among the other gentlemen, Mr. Zebulon Dollary also arrived. This time, he showed up with a splendor matching his rank. Brand new leather upholstery was fitted to his old coach, and the Dollarys’ court of arms was painted on its doors. And his pride, his own coach-and-four was going before it. To tell the truth, the harness horse was a cast military horse, the right-hand-leader spared its legs, the saddle horse stepped as if into buckets, the wheeler’s movement told that it used to be used as an off-wheeler. Notwithstanding, when together, they met the requirements for parading, and were shaking the bells around their necks to ring just like the ones of the other cavaliers.

This time, there was a liveried attendant sitting beside the coachman. Although their uniforms were different, both of them were trimmed enough. The manservant was wearing a red hussar cap, which largely raised the prestige of the master to a large extent. The only pity was that it was impossible to stick a moustache on the coachman’s face like the ones the other livedried coaches had; it would have suited the ribboned cap perfectly.

Mr. Dollary did not come alone either. He took one of his daughters along; a young girl with a slender figure and a fair complexion. Unfortunately, she was wearing a too tight corset, and ate raw coffee beans to become even whiter.

This time, the nobleman did not get off in his fur coat because he had a new coat, made of fine silk and wool, whose collar, which visibly stood out from his neck, serving, in this way, even from a distance as an advertisement for its producer, a rural craftsman. As for the miss, she had a short silk jacket, and a marabou hat.

„Listen, John, take everything off the carriage!” (It was for the liveried attendant, who was addressed as thou at home.) Don’t drop the box—hear me?—for there’s silk dress in it. And dont’t break any thing, John, or else I’ll slap you on the face. Hey, Cary! Is the jewel bag—I mean, the handbag—on you? Don’t lose it; it contains a lot of valuable jewelry.”

Suddenly, a great hurly-burly rose. The hero of the ceremony, Mr. Benedict Rigidcastle was coming on a brand new coach-and-five. The message is, „He can afford it!” Representation expenses. As is necessary. Here, a genuine hussar was sitting on the box; he sprang to open the carriage door and held his arm out for the „Right Honourable Gentleman” so he could step onto the ground with full aplomb.

There would not have been justice in the world if Mr. dollary could not greet him first when the „Right Honourable Gentleman” landed.

„Welcome, my friend, welcome Your Excellency! Live and Viva! We’ve just arrived, too, the horses are being unharnessed from the chariot over there. I’ve come to the welcome ceremony with my daughter. Where are you, Cary? She’s the eldest of all my daughters. She hasn’t reached the age of twenty yet. Quod est authenticum.^[46] What’s your name, please? My daughters have very strange names; I’ve never been able to learn them properly. They refer to historical events that had taken place on the day when they were born. My wife is a very well read woman. She always holds an Allgemeine newspaper in her hand. When my last daughter was born, the Greek Amazon, you know, the Spartan captain’s daughter, by name Chariclea took her turn, the great celebrity, who drilled the Turkey ships with the bow of hers one after the other. My second daughter’s name is Caroline Pia for our Lord Majesty got married on that very day, hence it was done in honor thereof. My third daughter’s name is Adalgisa; it was that day when Norma was played first in the Budapest Theatre; my wife sat it in a balcony seat. When my fourth daughter arrived, there was a crazy world; that Palacký, you know;^[47] well, he was a little known here as well, that’s why she was given the name, Libussa. Well, I’m very sorry about that but It cannot be undone. But, in order to demonstrate that we’re loyal patriots, we gave a genuine Hungarian name to my last daughter. In this way she got the Bendeguzella name after the famuous Hungarian warlord.”

„You have five daughters, uncle Zebulon?” asked the administrator with a smile.

„Yes, six, certainly… or only five? I don’t know myself any more. How many of you are at home when together, Cary? Only five? Whe you run riot, it seems to be you are seven.

To escape from his father’s magic circle, Miss Chariclea hurried forward, and Mr. Dollary asserted that having even five daughters caused trouble enough in itself, especially when three of them had reached the age to attend balls, and to be given in marriage. Also, their mother could not escort them because of suffering migrane, and it was his job to take them out where marriageable daughters were on display.

Then they parted in the staircase, and the houskeeper and the butler showed everybody to the rooms appointed to them.

The administrator had a normal three-room-flat in the Baradlay castle. His admirers were already waiting for him in the hall.

He chose Mr. Michael Szalmás for him, who had a special licence to make the „Right Honourable Gentleman’s” time short by amusing him with the latest gossips in his innerest room.

„Well, what are the latest news, Szalmás?” the infuential gentleman asked his agent confidentiallly.

„Most important, Your Excellency, that the young gentleman, Sir Edmund came back from Russia.”

„I know that. Did anyone call him or he came on his own accord?”

„Someone let him know that the old gentleman had died and »kissing is allowed« now”.

„I must’ve been the girl. And what gives with the girl?”

„She isn’t a girl any more.”

„What the hell?”

„She is given in marriage,” whispered Mr. Szalmás misteriously. „I got the information firsthand, from a reliable source. The Lady managed to persuade the girl. The old pastor’s sad fate touched his daughter’s heart deeply, and the Lady promised her generous assistance to her. Ultimately, the girl has brought herself to marry a Vienna commissioner, who exerts deciding influence on the father’s treason trial’s outcome. The commissioner is to receive a lot of money, and the girl will get her father’s freedom. It’ s all been settled. The girl has been taken to Vienna, and the old pastor arrived back home last night. I’m sure of it for I myself saw it. I know all this firsthand.”

„And is the young gentleman angry about it?”

„You cannot say that because he hasn’t left his room since he arrived. He doesn’t let even the inner servants come close to him and bluntly rejects anybody who is trying to grope about in uncertainty.”

„It made him sick, I think. We’ll heal him. And how about the widow?”

„She looks rather good-humoured and complacent.”

„Poor thing, she has the reason.”

In the course of the talk, Mr. Rigidcastle transformed the look of his tenement of clay. He put on black gala suit, and set off into the coat of arms hall accompanied by his humble admirers, among whom Mr. Szalmás was talking all the time.

On the doorstep of the coat of arms hall, Mr. Rigidcastle bumped into Mr. Dollary, who reperted to him with a quizzical expression on his face,

„Your Honour, I have to say, I see here many many strange physiognomies.”

„That’s possible,” answered the administrator.

„But not so much strange as familiar physiognomies, which are very strange to me.”

„I don’t understand that,” said the mighty man.

„How do you not understand?” said Mr. Dollary angrily. „You surely will understand it if you cared to look round. For this salon is full of oppositional physiognomies, who are familiar but strange to us.”

The Lord found it a very remarkable observation. „Nevertheless,” he thought, „there’s nothing the matter with that. All the county celebrities of all party shades try to pay their respect to the High Sheriff for life. This is a matter of propriety. Let them pay their respect. Nothing too surprising in the occurences.”

The administrator was, however, not too happy to encounter Sir Tormándy, Judge of the Court of Appeal, an inveterate Council Table opponent of his, at this house. However, it was an open house; the residence of a High Sheriff, where everyone has the right to appear. After all, majority is majority in Hell, too.

“Well, my dear friend, they won’t scare us, even here.”

Mr. Dollary threw out his chest, covered with rows of fake garnet buttons from one end to the other.

„I should think so, let me get him in front of me, I will be the hammer and he the anvil. I’ll punch him!…”

But he could not tell where he would punch because his words were arrested as if a ghost stepped in front of him from under the ground.

„Ah, look…” he said, having caught sight of the one who had just stepped in through the door.

It was the chased pastor, father of Aurelia.

Mr. Zebulon Dollary thought that it was nobody else but an alter ego of Felician Zách, who demanded his abducted daughter with a sword cutting down everybody in sight.^[48] And it seemed to him as if the pastor had been heading straight for his body…

Mr. Dollary felt the weight of his sins. He remembered that the idea of the pastor’s harassment and torture had been born in his mind; it was he, practically, who had dictated his will to him. So, when they were standing already face to face, he grabbed the dread figure’s hand with the most endearing smile in the world,

„Your Honour’s very humble servant! How are you?”

Nevertheless, the pastor neither drew out a dagger from under his coat, nor scnatched his hand back from Mr. Dollary’s hand but cordially returned the handshake.

„Thank you for your asking. Feeling comfortable in my old skin.”

It was really something Mr. Dollary was very happy about. But he did not believe the pastor, who was searching around with his eagle eyes. „He’s looking for someone else to kill,” he said to himself. „Only this thought could bring him to this celebrating party. It’s advisable to exercise preventive control over him, and keep an eye on him.”

„Your Honour, where have you traveled lately? I’ve heard you’ve been to Vienna.”

„I’ve been there, too.”

„Why, was there anything wrong?”

„No, there was nothing wrong. I was having a very good time there.”

Mr. Dollary cocked his head sideways. „This must be pretence predicting danger,” the thought.

„Nobody harmed you?”

„No, in the contrary. Everywhere they said goodbye most affectionately.”

„Hm, hm, hmm. This gentleness is suspicious,” Mr. Dollary said to himself.

„How about Miss Aurelia… or not a miss any more? Is it true that she’s got married?”

„Finally, a question that makes him show his cards,” Mr. Dollary thought.

„Yes, it is,” replied the pastor with great joviality, to the great admiration of Mr. Dollary and all the other patriots listening silently.

„And are you satisfied with the fiancé, Your Honour?”

„Yes, I am very much.”

Mr. Dollary was shaking his head firmly. He was still squeezing the pastor’s hand but finally, by way of farewell, the pastor squeezed his friend’s hand with his mailed fist so strong that the other made a hissing sound when the handgrip was released.

„God bless you, Sir.”

„Devil bless you,” murmured Mr. Dollary, blowing on his four fingers stuck to each other. „Maybe blood’s flowing from under the nails?…”

„Well, what did the pastor say?” inquired Mr. Rigidcastle of Mr. Dollary, when he had returned back.

„Alas, the fool pastor’s been put wise somewhere. He’s absolutely clever now.”

Mr. Rigidcastle rearranged his angular face into a wise smile, and remarked with wit,

„From where he’s returned, everybody comes back wise.”

„And the fact that he’s been reassured about his daughter.”

„A little money will pacify much anger… However, let’s go ahead, the bestmen are waiting for us.”

„By the way, who’s your bestman?”

„His Eminence, Count Paul Gálfalvy.”

„Oh, I know His Eminence very well. He’s an outstanding authoruty. My best congratulations! There, I can see him.”

And the two notable gentlemen walked to the indicated fellow standing in gala suit through the noble hall full of guests.

Mr. Rigidcastle encountered two types of people, those who greeted him with a deep bow, and those who gave him the cold shoulder and pretended not to see him. He just did not understand why the hell the latter were there. On the other hand, Mr. Dollary only stumbled into people who obligingly turned their smiling complexions to him. He saw how much he was beloved.

„But I cannot see my Miss Cary, although she’s smartened herself up!” said Mr. Dollary concerned.

„Why, you could see that the ladies are not in the hall yet; they’re all together in the Host Lady’s apartment, and are to appear only in her train at the beginning of the celebration.

„Ah, it will be a formal ceremony?”

„According to custom. The so called „requesting bestman” invites the so called „disposing bestman” upon which the latter gives an answer; if the answer is in the affirmative, the opposite double-winged door opens, and the ladies’ retinue marches in with the bride in front. The rest comes after that.”

„Ah, that’ll be very nice.”

So the two gentlemen went in quest of Count Paul Gálfalvy bestman, and, while shaking each other’s hands, started to poke fun at the rebellious „kurucs” coming as, so to say, animals for sacrifice for the celebration of the triumph of their enemies in an „excess number” from every part of the county. They failed to care about their Coriphaeus, Sir Tormándy, who was confidentially talking to the Reverend Bartholomew Fiery. They rather made inquiries about Sir Edmund Baradlay’s whereabout.

As for he, he was immersed in a confidential conversation with some young men like him. He’ll come here when he catches the sight of his presumptive stepfather. He will know which of them is to hurry to great the other.

But, as an even more „pleasant” surprise, they caught Sir Tormándy’s well-known stentorian voice asking for silence.

„Well, what next?” they thought.

„Ladies and gentlemen,” commenced his speech the loud-voiced county orator, „it is well-known for all of us for how heartening a celebration we have come together in this place today.

„The new head of the family, who has been sent by Providence, shall fill this house with light. Long live the groom for the good of our fatherland.”

„Ah, he’s flattering. He’s become converted,” whispered Count Paul Gálfalvy to the administrator. Mr. Rigidcastle found it quite natural.

„It did him good that we admonished him earnestly last time,” whispered back the administrator.

The orator continued,

„The groom, whom Providence assigns as head of the family at the zenith of his youth…”

„This flattery goes a bit too far!” said Mr. Rigidcastle to himself.

„…has commissioned me as his requesting bestman…”

„What’s that?” the tree gentlemen shouted in chorus looking at each other’s eyes.

„…and ask the disposing bestman whether he wants to assert, by doing so, the much desired covenant and put the bride’s hand into his hand.”

Now, it was time of amazement.

„If Sir Tormándy steps forward as requesting bestman, what is Count Paul Gálfalvy here? And who will give the answer to the requesting bestman? And where is the disposing bestman? It would be the Very Reverend Father but he isn’t present yet. What confusion is this!” These questions rolled in the minds of the three gentlemen.

And the confusion became more and more confounded. Upon Sir Tormándy’s invitation, Mr. Fiery stepped forward, and responded in unctuous tones,

„Those whom Heaven has joined together, let naught but the ground of the grave put asunder. Let who commune with each other in Love be united.”

„Look, the pastor’s gone mad,” exclamed Mr. Dollary, with astonishment.

In the same moment, the riddle was solved. The double-winged door at the farther end of the hall opened, the galaxy of the women was standing there; in the front, the widow Baradlay presented the requested bride, Miss Aurelia Fiery by the hand to the celebrating guests.

It was a phenomenally beautiful scenery with the two ladies side by side. The bridegroom’s mother and the bride.

The widow was wearing a black dress embroidered with shiny steel beads and a long black lace trailer, and a garnet tiara was glistening on her head. But there was still another new thing beyond all this, a glaring thing never seen before: her smiling complexion.

It was only that time that all the people became aware of how beautiful this woman was with the bright sunlight on her face. It was the look of a queen!

And the bride, who was led by her, by the hand, was wearing a draping white dress decorated with white hyacinths. Her complexion was ornamented with the bloom of bashfulness; her eyes, shaded by the eyelashes, were full of the charm of love, and the dignity, which reflects in the concerns of every girl, could be traced in her every movement. The two oppositional types of perfect beauty—beside each other.

The gentlemen received them with the murmur of surprise. They all pushed forward.

In the front of the hall, there was a splendid mosaic table standing with a golden tray on it, which was covered with a lace napkin. The two bestmen were standing beside it; Mrs. Baradlay led Miss Aurelia there, and handed over the girl’s hand to her father.

Sir Edmund Baradlay was standing next to the requesting bestman.

Then the pastor lifted the lace napkin from the tray. There were two simple wedding rings thereon. They were not new; they were worn and used. Then he put one of the rings on Sir Edmund Baradlay’s finger, and the other on Miss Aurelia’s, and put their hands together.

During this time, no words were spoken. Though the ceremony was simple, the scenery was so sublime that the whole audience, as if at a command, broke into cheers.

Amidst the frenzied cacophony, nobody could hear either what the bride’s mother whispered to her future daughter-in-law when she clasped her to her breast, and kissed her on the forehead or what the pastor muttered when he embraced his future son-in-law.

“There is one in Heaven who hears the prayers that are disliked by deities here on the Earth!”

Even Mr. Dollary found himself shouting huzza with all his lungs only when he met the administrator’s eyes. They were not too affable. Mr. Dollary got frightened because he was not the person allowed to huzza. In order to repair the damage, he tried to pretend to be stupid.

“It means there’ll be a double betrothal,” he remarked to Mr. Rigidcastle with a face expressing simple-minded innocence.

As recognition of the idea, the administrator turned his back to him, and muttered to the best man of the left-out wooer, “No doubt, this is a conspiracy!”

“We should’ve horses put to the carriages right away, and leave the celebrating assemblage high and dry,” Count Paul Gálfalvy expressed his view.

“No, we won’t do that; by doing so, I’d prostitute myself completely. In the contrary, we must stay here and watch how this comedy comes to an end.”

The two gentlemen hurried ahead, and Mr. Rigidcastle was among the first to congratulate Sir Edmund Baradlay and express his gratitude. He was smiling broadly; every angle of his polygonal face made their best to become round. Nobody should be able to read on his face that he was aware of the fact at what people were laughing behind his back.

And there was much laughter. Sir Tormándy greeted the administrator with a low bow, saying, “Look, how gorgeous this widow is still!”

The man merely hemmed in reply, and Mr. Dollary hasted to add behind his back,

“Just like a bride! — Ouch!”

“Sorry!” said a voice.

“This is the third time this count trampled on my toes,” Mr. Dollary complained aside to Sir Tormándy.

“Don’t stand close to him when talking to him.”

The betrothal was followed by the usual banquet in the restaurant of the castle. The seating plan itself was deeply symbolic. The dual chairman’s seats at the head of the table were occupied by the bridegroom and the bride. Next to Sir Edmund Baradlay was sitting Mr. Fiery; next to Miss Aurelia, Mrs. Baradlay, after the pastor, the Reverend Father, after Mrs. Baradlay, Count Gálfalvy, and so on, arranged alternatively, the Administrator, Mr. Dollary, and all the ladies and the gentlemen. And each of them knew well the distance of the fictive and the real hierarchy.

It was only when Mr. Dollary caught sight of Miss Chariclea that it thought, “Gee, she is here, too; I wonder why she put on so much expensive jewels, when the young gentleman, Sir Edmund has engaged the pastor’s daughter. But, finally, he decided to look on the bright side of the story. “There’re two more Baradlay sons”, he said to himself, “who might learn from the example of their elder brother. Namely, that a genuine cavalier does not need to pursue wealth or distinguished parentage. The events of the day will raise new hopes in the hearts of many secretly yearning girls.”

The next attraction was a war game characteristic also of the Hungarian revellers, that is, the toast-tournament, which is a very bewitching kind of fights.

Opponents sitting around a table and drinking one glass from another from a wine bottle try to fight down each other with brilliant toasts. The toasts deal with present or absent persons and their motifs are imbued with the most actual moments of the everyday life. Pathos, humour and Biblical tradition are standing by to embroider them; wine loosens the tongue, and makes taciturn people eloquent; makes the young brave and the old warm; the left and the right side will take shape, and they strive to surpass each other in sparkling ideas and ingenious sentences; kind of jovial hostility takes place. They hurl remarks at each other and use devious sentences, and, eventually, every glass clinks. — Woe to the offended!

Only Sir Edmund Baradlay remained silent. He kept his mother’s saying, “Think about when to speak, when open up your heart; for how long to be silent or whether to be silent all the way.”

Suddenly, there set in an uproarious commotion in the court-yard, which rose above

Suddenly, the merry toasting up in the hall was outblared by an uproarious commotion in the courtyard. It was shouts of joy; several hundreds of throats were cheering.

Nobody knew who they were. They thought, “Maybe Sir Edmund Baradlay and his new bride are being cheered. By all means, some village followers and serfs.”

As the outer noise was rising, Mrs. Baradlay whispered to her son,

“This is addressed to you. Go out with your bride onto the balcony and say a few words to them.”

Sir Edmund Baradlay immediately rose from his seat and held out his hand to Miss Aurelia to do so.

But the loud cheering was not meant for them. It was not a declaration of the village followers and serfs but that of the partisans of the administrator.

Two hundred degenerate debauchees; fired out, sorted out dregs of the nobleness of three neighbouring counties; celebrities having served time in jail for fighting, arson and horse-stealing; never-sober, hoarse-throated free drink loaders; money-searching people who have wasted their ancestral lands; mongrel offsprings of honest kinsmen mentioned by them just blushing; narrow-minded and stubborn old-fashioned people; haughty rags and crests dragged through the mud, among whom the procrastinating village pettifoggers and the truant cantors are the ringleaders. This was the administrator’s famous mobile group, carried together with the help of post relay horses to the county seat town from a large area to terrorize, to howl down and, if necessary, to defeat the county members of the diet. He would send them ahead of him or make them follow him; used them now as an approving mass of people now as an entourage. It even happened that he took them to Budapest and had them arrange a torch lit procession with musical accompaniment in honour of—himself.

This group was ordered to be at the scene of the feast of the day, and was supposed to hold a torch lit salute for the engaged distinguished couple with a few congratulatory words—inasmuch as playing music was still prohibited.

A two florin sum was due to them per head—and genteel board. Besides, Mr. Rigidcastle’s ringleader, Mr. Szalmás had made them believe that the groom would scatter gold among the people with full hand; it would depend on each how much they would catch.

After the fiasco, Mr. Rigidcastle remembered that the saluting group was still on the repertoire but calmed himself by the thought that it would only take place toward evening. Also, he cherished hope that Mr. Szalmás, who had seen and heard what had taken place before, would have sense to inform his zealous backers, and not to bring them there.

But Mr. Szalmás had a disadvantageous personality trait: he did not feel well in any gentleman’s society. So, having accompanied the administrator into the house and got to the door of the hall, he rushed down back to the nice bunch of people, among which he counted the most distinguished man. That is, to Mr. Rigidcastle’s electoral group. The company had already ridden into a very well-known ranch, the farm-bailiff’s court-yard, which was divided from the castle by the park. The bailiff was wont not to ask for a command on the occasions of such visits. He knew the custom well: a few hundred guests are commonly not reported. He opened up the immense barn for them, set up the tables and the small benches, had some young bullocks and sheep butchered and a barrel tapped; took out all the new plates, the bowls, the knaves, the forks and he spoons. He did not bother too much about counting the items of the dishes and the cutlery on giving them out and then again when taking them back to learn how many they had had and how many they had in the end.

The others were waiting only for Mr. Szalmás so that they could begin the feast. Although he knew it well enough, he did not care how the festivity would turn out. He hurried to get into his own element like crab do into mud. ”At least, I won’t not feel ashamed in the eyes of the women there,” he thought.

The nice bunch of people was feeling very well in their own company. Inspiring declamations were delivered here, too but they were spiced not with humour and pathos but complex curses. There were savage onslaughts against the evil innovators, who had burdened the shoulders of the maidens and the inky-fingered scientists; and when the mood was good enough, a cantor, Mr. Matthias Koppants, produced an epithalamion from his pocket, which he had written for that day to make the boiled-in-wine audience guffaw with its rancid and snotty, gummy and vulgar wits. Everybody enjoyed it very much.

As a result of that, Mr. Gregory Boksa, bellwether, having tucked up his sleeves on his arms boasting with blue bruises, slapped his hand hard on the table, and said,

“Hark, you Szalmás! Fact that it was a fool to give a tip to go and congratulate the bride with torches. Never heard of such a thing! Women are to be checked by daylight. I don’t mind, let’s go with torches but without delay, still daylight outside; still our eyes can see. I won’t drink more here in vain—for the public affairs!”

The whole assembly accepted it with a yell. “Let’s go right off, let’s go while daylight still lasts,” they cried.

In vain did Mr. Szalmás remonstrate with them that he had written his congratulatory speech for night time; it was full of fixed stars and shooting stars, silent night and nightfall bell. He was told to change it into a daylight speech; if he needed tar smoke, they would light the torches.

Fortunately, a clever man turned up among them, who warned the others that if they were going with burning torches, they would burn out each other’s eyes when the gold coins would be being scattered.

It was a very good point. By the way, it was another reason for going by daylight fearing lest they could not notice the coins on the ground.

They approved the motion unanimously, and, though he was preparing to make a few objections, they grabbed him by the legs, and lifted him on their shoulders. One of the porters was Mr. Gregory Boksa himself. Mr. Szalmás, being carried already, was unable to make his objections any more.

When they arrived at the castle’s court-yard with him on their shoulders, they burst out into a huge cheering. They did not even specify who was being cheered. For them, it was only “somebody”; the rest was up to Mr. Szalmás.

Really, Mr. Szalmás had a prepared speech as long as it could have reached from one end of the village to the other, if he had given free rein to it. But the moment he saw Sir Edmund Baradlay appear with the pastor’s daughter in full bridal regalia instead of the principal with the widow bride to accept the cheering, the whole memorized script was gone with the wind. It was not the bride whom he saw in his imagination given married to a gouty bureaucrat in Vienna a long time before that.

He saw and understood everything. He realised that things had changed. He wanted to turn and go back where he had come from but the porters did not let him. After all, the congratulating troop could say nothing against what they saw. Once they found a nice young couple instead of the polygonal gentleman and his elderly bride in front of them, the more they felt like shouting “Long live!” So they applauded the couple perhaps even harder than it had been expected according to the original casting.

When the sound of the hilarious celebration quieted down, the time came for Mr. Szalmás to convey the audience’s emotions.

But every thought left his head. The whole speech was devoted to another couple; any transformation was impossible. He could only bring to mind the initial phrase, which he started as follows,

“Generally respected, right honourable couple! In front of you, you can see the nobility…”

Here he was stuck. Then had a go at it again,

“Here, in front of you, you can see our respectable nobility.”

He failed again. He set about it again,

“Here, you can see in front of your eyes, this respectable camp of the nobles.

But, at the moment, one of the bearers, Mr. Boksa spoke,

“Szalmás, say something more, otherwise I drop you!”

This put an end to Mr. Szalmás’ declamation.

Sir Edmund Baradlay broke in and, to keep the seriousness of the scene, picked up the word from him,

“My fellow countrymen! Thank you for your greetings for myself and on behalf of my bride. Nobility dwells only in our hearts. “I am not a man of many words; I only love and follow the ones of action. In order to immortalise this happy day forever, I offer you fifty thousand florins…”

Wall-shaking applause and ear-splitting cheers could be heard. Everybody hastily tried to compute his share.

“And fifty thousand florins for the strengthening of our community colleges,” went on Sir Edmund Baradlay.

They all fell silent abruptly.

“God bless our homeland and nation.”

With these words, the young couple drew back from the balcony. Surely, not a single “Live long!” could be heard then.

“Hmm,” murmured Mr. Boksa. “Does he esteem the noble so little?”

“But if community colleges are strengthened, I’ll be fired,” murmured the cantor to himself.

“And who will pay my daily allowance?” asked many.

And that was the main issue. Mr. Szalmás was expected to answer the question but he could not be found that day either on the ground or in the loft, though he was searched everywhere. If he had been found, he would’ve been dressed down… But he was hidden very well.

So then the valiant army broke all the brittle dishes and glasses at the bailiff’s residence, and declared with janissaries’ anger, “We won’t drink for free—for the public affairs!” With that, they got on their carriages, and stood farther off.

Some of the gentries did not wait until night in the Baradlay castle; Mr. Rigidcastle’s adherents fled from the battlefield in panic.

The commander, the administrator, visited Mrs. Baradlay to pay his last respects.

“Madam, this is the last time I had the happiness to be a guest of the Baradlay house. This is a fact that I wouldn’t have believed any prophet this morning although I myself possess the spirit of prophecy. You, madam, and your son deviated from the course laid down by that deceased great man, my true friend, who had informed me first thereof. You have chosen the opposite road. Madam, remember my words of his hour. This road leads up to a height, too. The name thereof is called… scaffold.”

CHAPTER 12
THE FIRST STEP TO THAT CERTAIN HEIGHT

„Your honour, it’s an easy thing for you, who has three thousand acres land here in the Lowland, to be a liberal but I have three villages up on the Highland (an interjection: »on the Moon«) — not in the Moon but in the Counts of Sáros and Zemplén, which make up my economy. And if we’ve liberated the serfs, should I go hoeing with all my five daughters? — Suppose I was born as a peasant, I wouldn’t want to be anything but a peasant. For them, it’s a real pleasure. Why should we deprive them of their pleasure? A gentleman is a gentleman; a men who is not a gentleman is not a gentleman. After all, nobody is responsible for the fact that not everybody was born to be a gentleman. And why was I not born to be a count? But I don’t protest because not every one is a count. Though it’s exactly as big a grievance to me as being not a gentleman to a peasant. — Let’s take the practical side of the case. Even these days, whenever election of officials or the members of the parliament takes place, it costs an awful liot of money to treat the voters! And what if every peasant gets the right to vote; there isn’t enough wine in the world! (Laughter on the Right and the Left.) And what a thing it would be, if even peasant-born people hold offices? Even now, we’re ten times more than the number of offices. On the other hand, a young man cannot marry until he’s an officer. The gentleman, who has spoken before me, has neither a son, nor a daughter nor a wife. I do have five—not wives but daughters. (General laughter.) Your honour, you don’t understand it, do you? Oh, that time I also could be a liberal. — And popular education. People shall grow up by themselves, even if we don’t educate them. Times were good when nobody could read or write but prebendal monks; the Lord Chief Justice, instead of signing by hand, pressed the pommel of his sword into the sealing wax on the decrees. Should even peasants be able to read? Then they won’t believe anything anytime told them by the preast. We’ve done wrong one more thing. Until now, we’ve drafted all our laws in Latin, and simplex folks couldn’t tamper with them; now everybody: women, hirelings and Letts buckle down to read and start reasoning. The Honourable Estates of the Realm will see what shall become thereof. If you want the people to be free, don’t give it to the them since until you don’t give it to them, they have it; but the moment you give it to them, they shall lose it. Let’s stick to our ancestors’ ninehundred-year-old constitution. Should we enjoy it only for one thousand more year, we shall gain a lot with it. (Cheers on the Right, laughter on the Left.)

As an example of pleonasm, I inform you that the above speech was delivered by Mr. Zebulon Dollary at the County Assembly of historical interest at Noble Hill in the Genearal Assembly of the county of the Baradlay High Sheriffs, chaired by Mr. Rigidfort, Administrator, on the third day following the betrothal.

It was a noteworthy, epochal session. The heroic representatives of polar opinions made an appointment to each other for a chivalrous session.

The spokesmen and the judges of the Court of Appeal of fifteen distant counties, authorized assessors of the county Council Table of both the Left and the Right, assembled, followed by the representatives of the Noble Order. The county governour had one part of them transported by paid relay of horses at his own expenses, while the other part went on foot, by hired carriages, relying only on their bread and bacon.

Early in the morning on the day of the session, despite the inclement weather, the armies, wearing black and white feathers respectively, appeared in front of the County Hall. The first was the token of the retrograde party, and the latter of the progressive one. They were waiting for admission. As early as at dawn, all the benches were occupied on both sides, only the Green Table was reserved for the leading personalities.

But not only the tall black and the white feathers were present, adorning all the hats, but the loaded canes and the short-handled pickaxes were there skulking under the long embroidered felt cloaks—pros and cons.

The »party of white feather« had learnt at least from the experiences of the previous sessions that when the »party of black feather« has run out of arguments, bludgeons will eventually appear, as a last resort, and the old law will take effect, „every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost”. Therefore they took their „counter-arguments” with them, and were prepared to fight if fight takes place.

It can also be accepted that neither party kept fasting with ascetic rigor. It was cold and rainy—one cannot resent them for so little brandy.

The »party of white feather« wanted to make the draft of a strong protest against the unconstitutional system hallmarked by the administrator accepted. The most brilliant speeches were ready to tone the Estates of the Realm up.

The »party of black feather« used a kind of military tactics. They had the most boring and ridiculous speakers gathered together from fifteen counties, and with the help of their tiring, pointless and baroque speeches paralysed the inspiring and inflammatory speeches of the »party of white feather«. They dragged out the decision-making process until the late appetizing hours of the afternoon; diverted the debate from the current issues of the agenda, and made the impatient audience flee. That is, they were playing for time.

But all this was useless. The „white feathers” made a stand, did not give up. Everybody was determined to keep their places patiently until noon next day, if necessary, to see the outcome of the session without eating or drinking.

Namely, the chairman’s best trick was that in the moment he noticed that the “black feather’s were in majority, cut the discussion into two, if necessity arose, in the middle of the word, and put the issue to the vote. Any protest would have been lost.

Now they did not make a move.

Eventually, Mr. Tormándy, spokesman of the „white feathers” got to speak.

In such circumstances, the “black feathers” were supposed to start buzzing. They carped at his every word and interrupted his speech with shouts. But he was not confused by anything. When his antagonists were shouting, he was outshouting them; when one hundred people were bawling at him, he sounded stronger than two hundreds would do—he would not let to be muzzled.

Notwithstanding, sometimes it would happen that he, while fighting against the waves of the tumultuous sea of rebellion, and having carried away in the heat of the moment, he chanced to use expressions, which we would call today „non-parliamentary language”.

Generally speaking, when such events take place in a Parliamentary session, and the chairman, after the second reprimand, orders the speaker to sit down. In our county, another vogue prevailed. In the very second that Mr. Tormándy made rude remarks to the chairman, Mr. Dollary and his companions got in his way just like a Vizsla stands in the way of the game, and yelled in unison, „Action! Action!”

And the County General Assembly immediately, during the period of the session, decided to start imposing financial penalty against the trespasser.

However, Mr. Tormándy did not waver from his plan at all; he produced his wallet in cold blood, threw the two hundred florins in front of the county treasurer (it was the fine for a trespass in action), and went on with his Philippic oration. Now came another indelicate word, followed by Mr. Dollary’s ones, „Action! Action!”

Mr. Tormándy, being in the middle of his speech, did not stop but was holding the next two hundred florins ready, threw it to the treasurer, and continued speaking. And he continued with a loud strident tone, such as „By the thunder of the good God!” and the like, until his wallet was drained, and, after the last rudeness, he pulled off his crested noble signet ring, and threw it in pledge of payments still lacking to the treasurer, which the latter, as it was supported by the custom and by the law, was to accept. When all is said and done, he delivered his dreadful speech from the beginning to the end.

It must be said it was a dreadful speech because it involved not less than the so called Szatmár Twelve Points.

What was the Szatmár Twelve Points? Twelve stars, twelve comets on the sky forming an aureola together, at the same time, whose dazzling name is sovereignty of the people!^[49]

They are shining there even now.

They caused a bitter struggle at that time, which spread from county to county. The mere utterance of the words „Szatmár Twelve Points” was a slogan meaning tempest.

Mr. Tormándy’s last words were drowned in the storm. The hall was filled with the incessantly thundering cries of „Long live him!” and „Down with him!”

But the two types of crying kept a balance. The administrator-chairman was sitting in his gaudy armchair unmoved like a mummy. He looked on the members of Parliament as an opera conductor does, who can see precisely in the orchestral score laying before him, when the musicians are expected to play in a playful manner or in a quick, lively tempo; when the bass drum is to compete with the bombardon. If anything, he becomes indignant when the bass drum and the bombardon do not do their duty with the expeced enthusiasm in midst of the general „tintamarre”.^[50]

Though the ear-drums of the audience were satisfied with the grandiosity of the hurly-burly, the Maestro was still dissatisfied with something.

His eyes seemed to look for the organizer.

„Well, Mr. Szalmás?” spoke to the fellow sneaking behind the armchair.

„Sir, something’s wrong.”

„What’s it?”

„The white feathers chose to perform a new maneuver. So far they’ve pushed the most peace-loving people into the middle to restrain their people from fighting in case ours wanted to do something. Now they’ve reversed the order. They put the canvassers from Béled, the most famous bullying people next to the ours.”

„What of it?”

„Ours say they bash anybody else on the head for the sake of public affairs with pleasure but don’t wish to have themselves bashed on the head for the sake of the public affairs. They can be emboldened for nothing like assault and battery.”

„Coward guys!” murmured Mr. Rigidfort reaching for the bell.

Every and each stratagem has failed so far.

First, the „white feathers” were more than the „black feathers” in the hall.

Second, the „white feathers” did not get tired either of the —as they say—„ostrich-egg-hatching” heat or the „fasting” or the declamations by the „black feathers”. Moreover, they made a point of being present at Mr. Dollary’s speeches.

Third, the speakers of the „white feathers” did not scared of the „fiscal actions”; they were paying and speaking.

Fourth, the „honourable orders” did not wish to improvise a small fight, which would have ended, as usual, in the getaway of the „white feathers” through the doors and the windows.

Now came the fifth method, the adjournment of the session. Mr. Rigidfort shook his bell, and started to explain to the ones standing closest to him in a most quiet voice that in such noise and irritation no sober deliberation could be maintained, and so on, and so forth… But hardly had he reached the middle of his sentence, he noticed in surprise that the noise suddenly quieted down completely. The stillness was so profound that one could have heard a fly buzzing.

And it was in this dead silence that he was to set forth that the discussion, owing to the horrific noise, could not be continued.

It was a really funny observation.

„Why, is it noisy here?” asked Mr. Tormándy, with a smile.

Mr. Rigidfort saw that there was another conductor present besides him.

Of course, there was. The „white feathers” had been ordered that the moment they hear the chairman’s bell, every and each must fall silent as if their throat had been cut. Then the “black feathers”, upon hearing that the other wing have suddenly hushed up, will fall silent spontaneously, and their own party group leader will open his mouth to speak.

In this way, the most astute stopping of noise occurred, followed by a long pause.

This cunning kind of „conclusion of peace” totally discomposed the administrator. He would have liked everybody to be braying at the top of their voices. Instead, evey one was looking at his mouth to see what he was going to say.

He decided to force the plan.

„There is no noise now,” he said acidly, „but as soon as we resume the debate, it will begin again. The debate has became more passonate. I clame the chairman’s right, and I hereby adjourn the session.”

Even this attempt was ineffectual; his provocative words failed to trigger the once subsided thunderstorm again. They were ready for that too. They knew his technique of warfare very well. In the undisturbed silence, Mr. Tormándy answered to the administrator with perfect self-command,

„You can leave the executive chair, Sir, if you like, but we’ll replace the chairman, and continue the sitting.”

Upon this, hundreds of voices echoed,

„We’re continuing the sitting! Leave if you feel like to! The deputy-Sheriff will chair!”

Now there was noise, violent gestures with the hands, and impassioned faces. „Leave if you feel like to!”

But he changed his mind. He re-arranged his wrinkles into strict facial expression, pushed his sift on the table, and shouted in a cracked voice,

„This is open defiance to the prestige of superiority! Trespass!”

„Revolt!” cried Mr. Dollary.

„But we have the power to put a stop to this unruliness. Should the Estates of the Realm resist the adjournment of the session, I will dissolve them using armed forces.”

„But first, let me go out,” protested Mr. Dollary, who would have liked to watch it from the gallery.

„And we will stay until that violence comes!” Mr. Tormándy thundered back to him with his arms folded on his chest, and sat back down on his seat with folded arms, defiantly looking into the administrator’s eyes.

Mr. Rigidfort remained unshaken. He was prepared for that.

The double-winged door behind the executive chair lead to the High Sheriff’s rooms. In the room next to the Chamber, liveried attendants and pandours as well as second-sheriffs and police officers assigned to service in the steppe, who were brought there from all around the county and armed to the teeth were accomodated. On that very day, rascals near and far away had possibly a holiday.

Ergo, the county’s armed guard was waiting for the sign in the next room, drawn swords in hand, with charged rifles with fixed bayonet, and in the court-yard of the neighbouring barracks, an army batallion had been standing with grounded arms since the morning in case the county police force is not enough.

„So be what you want to be!” shouted Mr. Rigidfort, and with that, turned back. „Lord Chief Justice, do your duty!”

The chief justice and his immediate officials were Mr. Rigidfort’s creatures. Determined, bigoted people.

As Mr. Rigidfort’s sign was given, the chief justice opened the door behind the chairman and shouted in to the militants standing in readiness,

„After me, pandours!”

And he, taking the executive’s command most seriously, drew his sword, and taking the lead of his fellow-officers, attacked the ones sitting beside the green table.

In the first minute of surprise, everybody thought it was a joke. Since the Ónod session,^[51] it had never happened that delibarating patriots drew swords against each other in any Chamber, and everybody was horrified only when they saw blood-covered figures tottering about or jumping up from the benches and, over and above, grey-haired, decent and peaceful patriots injoured and trampled down on the ground and bloody swords slashing in mid-air.

But, in the next minute, another sound of horror rose. The assessors at the green table were also wearing swords, young trainee lawyers jumped to help the grey judges of the Court of Appeal, and there came the sound of a terrific bellow and sword’s clashing and ferocious, unprecedented scrimmage in the Chamber.

What now followed happened not with the approval of the „honourable” administrator. After several minutes of struggle, the noble youth of the „white feather” pushed the Chief Justice and his armed companion into the corners, knocked the sword out of their hands, and put them out of the hall through the window. Nobody knows how they landed.

Now everyone wondered where the pandours’ army had gone.

And they failed to show up.

The „honourable gentleman” kept looking behind towards the door for his people in vain. And he was not the only person there wanting them to arrive hastily! Through the half-open door, one could see the soldiers’ bayonets glimmering but they did not come just as they might have heard the sable rattling and the scuffle inside and did not appear.

The only solution of the riddle was that someone must have mesmerised them.

And indeed, this was one of the dispositions of Fate, a scheme unconceivable by humans, which, if had not passed before the eyes of living humans provided with the capability of remembrance, you would say, it was merely a „coup de théâtre”.^[52]

In the moment when the Chief Justice shouted in at the soldiers from the door of the Chamber, „After me, pandours!” a young stalwart gentleman stepped into the room out of the High Sheriff’s appartement through the opposite door.

It was Sir Edmund Baradlay.

He was wearing a mourning attire, black velvet doublets, a dark garnet-red hussar pelisse and a hat, both of blue fox fur; the latter with a tuft of heron’s feather. The buttons, the buckles and the pelisse chains were all made of dark blue oxidized silver. He was holding his dress broadsword along with the belt in his right hand; time was short for him to fastening his sword.

Before the armed county servants could execute the Chief Justice’s command, he stood in their way, and, even not having pulled his sword from its case, put it across in front of them.

„Back! Don’t move!” he shouted at them imperiously.

The armed folk were taken aback for a moment; several turned angrily the point of their bayonet towards him. „Who’s that and how he dares block our way?” they thought.

„Back the swords into their sheaths!” the young man said in a severe manner, knocking down the castellan’s sword. „Get out into the corridor!”

The castellan whispered a word to the pandours. There could be found a lot of old fellows amids them, who recognised the man standing in front of them, and thought that the man there was their perpetual High Sheriff, their master the next day and the day after, while the other was only sort of a hieling, and shouldered their rifles.

„Leave from here!” said Sir Edmund to them. „And wait for the next command; come only when I call you.”

The old fellows were bowing their heads. They liked the command. For they also liked it in this way.

And with that Sir Edmund hurried back to the Chamber, where sounds of bitter fighting and clashing swords could be heard.

When the bloodthirsty Chief Judge and his associates had been thrown out through the window, the indignant crowd eagerly watched the double door swing open, the door, where the armed forces were expected to appear, a man entered the Chamber through the same door, entirely alone. He was Sir Edmund Baradlay.

At present, he was a stately man, a phenomenal figure. His face was burning with lofty anger, and his eyes were flashing with the noble temper of his indignant heart.

Was it out of forgetfulness or design? He stepped into the hall with his hat on his head; this was how he presented himself before the executive chair.

Mr. Rigidfort was looking up at him with startled eyes, bending sideways and gripping the arm of the chair with his right hand. It was like the jackal that suddenly encounters the majestic tiger of India in the rain forest.

The sight unfolded before Sir Edmund disquieted the young man’s being.

The county Green Table was covered with pools of blood, scattered protocols and documents of all kinds sprinkled with blood. There were honourable men there being cured by their fellow-men, who were binding their wounds with ragged napkins; countenances expressing rage and strong passion everywhere, and a bloody sword broken into two pieces was thrown on the table.

“Who did this?” shouted the young Sir Baradlay in a ringing voice. “Who did this?” he yelled once again at the administrator.

Mr. Rigidfort stared up at him in amazement.

“I hold you responsible for what has passed here to-day, which cannot be washed away by whatever tears!”

“Me responsible?” said Mr. Rigidfort, expressing anger, arrogance, dismay and astonishment with one single word.

At this moment, the young Sir Baradlay threw his sword into his right hand.

“Yes, you!” cried the other, and, having grabbed the hand-carved back of the old fashioned chair, he gave a shake to it with his invincible wrath.

“And now you leave this seat! This chair is the chair of my ancestors. You were put in it for the period of the High Sheriff’s illness. The High Sheriff is well again!”

At these words general cheers arose in every part of the hall.

In every and each part of the hall.

He, who knows the special feel of the Hungarian meetings, can easily recall countless scenes similar to this. In such cases, a sympathetic character conquers all in a heartbeat; brings friends closer together and reconciles the enemies, refutes the arguments and the reasoning, neutralises antipathy and self-interest. He transforms the audience in one entity, and nobody will ask into what, exactly.

Such witchcraft took place in this hall, too.

Mr. Rigidfort could read from the faces of his partisans, ringleaders and paid henchmen that his reign had came to an end. And he understood that he had to get out of there.

Pale with shame and rage, he rose from his executive chair; his eyes, as if cursing them, swept over the whole assembly, one by one, and whispered to the young man with a vengeful and merciless face,

“There! … The first step to that height.”

Sir Edmund Baradlay looked the other up and down with scorn. He knew from his mother well enough what height Mr. Rigidfort had offered to him.

He deigned to make him no reply.

The mighty lord disappeared, and the perpetual High Sheriff occupied the executive chair amidst the delirious triumph of the County Estates of the Realm. Then at last, he removed his fur cap.

It is true that he did not act correctly because he had not yet been installed as High Sheriff, and until it had not been done, he could not be real master of the county. However, the enthusiastic greeting coming towards him from both sides was real. That was its authorization.

His decision was a very bold one, decisive for himself and the county, for the whole country and the entire epoch. But it was successful.

It was fully successful.

His feat was a turning point in the history. No matter where the course would lead, it was the starting point for great times, and required a bold heart to sit down on it.

What happened in that assembly thereafter is the matter of history. Sir Edmund Baradlay was the man of the day.

The Stonehearted Man’s Sons by Mór Jókai * Translated by András Tokaji

CHAPTER 13
SPRING DAYS

Natural scientists of old times narrate about a magic animal bearing the name “kraken”.

A Danish scientist, by name Pontopidan, described the monster.^[53] The kraken is an immense sea animal, which dwells on the sea bottom, and occasionally decides to rise up to the surface of the waters.

By the time the monster finally emerges from the waves, its huge back is already covered with ooze, grown up with sea-figs and tulips as well as with forests of corals, and, believing it is an island, all the penguins and the cormorants begin to settle, nest and mute there. The kraken bears all this without a word.

Then they start ploughing its back, and sow it with barley; the kraken lets his back ploughed up and harrowed; at most, when they are laying fire on him, it might think about how bad a thing it is for an animal to be unable to scratch its back.

The seamen feel best on it. They even dig wells on it, and are very happy to find and draw fat instead of water from the well. As for kraken, it lets its fat pumped out because it has it in abundance.

The seamen build storages on the biologically-rich island, and install a custom-house and a police station on it; they might even found share companies there. At a certain point, when people have drilled as deep as to the flesh, the kraken says to itself that “That’s beyond a joke,” and descends to the bottom of the sea. Birds, people, ships, storages and share companies along with it.

The Kraken had days like that in the middle of March, 1848.

The 13^th of March was the day of the movement of all the people.

Dear Reader, do not slam the book shut! Do not worry. I will not take you into the streets, show you the broken up pavements and the makeshift barricades, make you accompany the first injured man from street to street; the very first martyr of Freedom, taken by their adherents upon their shoulders, and carried dying through the city, showing him, by doing so, to the people. We will watch the events from a safe place; you will not be disturbed.

On this day, as usual, the halls at Plankenhorsts were full with the old acquaintances. But this time they were amused not by the sounds of the piano or scandalous gossips but by the sounds of the people in the street and the report of musketry heard from the distance.

The pale gentlemen-like figures were asking each other, “What do you think is happening outside?”

The people feel the scented of freedom!

A waking giant was raising his eyelashes and, by doing so, was driving away the figures of an epoch, the figures of the past, along with its great people. “You have only been part of a dream!“

The proud lords, who were wearing informal attire that day and the dashing ladies, who were unpainted, were sitting and walking around; they were looking anxiously through the windows, hearing out into the street again and again and whispering to each other, “How do you think the day will end up?”

Evening was drawing on. The rooms began to darken but no one thought about switching on the lamps. The big noise, the roar of rounds of cannon fire was shaking the windows. Each arriving person broke alarming news.

The high-ranked, marcial-looking commissary officer, who used to give orders about everything possible as if he was a general, now was wearing his side-whiskers cut short to conceal his martial look, and spoke in a whisper; the fat senior catering expert was sitting in a corner staring into the air, and started up in alarm whenever a door was slammed in the house; the place and rankless court secretary over and over ran down the stairs to get some news — only to come back a minute later saying that it was impossible to move in the street.

At last, somebody arrived from the outer world. It was the Secretary of the Police Department. His costume itself revealed the bad circumstances outside. In lieu of his usual prince-like, upscale attire, he wore an old jacket worn mainly by workers. His complexion was white like chalk.

When the company had recognised him in his guise, all hurried to surround him.

“Well, have they put them down?” asked the high official of the commissary department, in anxious haste.

“There is no making head against them,” answered the questioner trembling, “I just came out of the building of the Directorate-General of Police. The people broke into the building; they’ve thrown the statue of Lady Justice off the façade of the building, forced the window hinges off, and torn everything into pieces in the Censorship Office. I myself could escape only thanks to my jacket.”

“Are they robbing?” the swag-bellied senior catering expert moaned from the corner. He was worried sick about his cash left at home.

“Oh, God, can’t they send more soldiers against them?” faltered the Lord, who used to speak in a stentorian voice.

“There’re soldiers enough there,” assured him the Secretary of the Police Department. “But the emperor wants to avoid any more bloodshed. He blames us even for what has already done.

“Oh, Lord, why ask the emperor’s permission? He’s too tender-hearted. It should be left to the soldiers!”

“Well, you go there!” the Secretary encouraged him crossly. “But what’s to be done when a whole platoon volley misses the target? I saw it with my own eyes on Michael Square, where the artillerymen poked the lighted matches into the mud, and declared that they won’t shoot at the People.”

“Oh, God, what will become of us?”

“I’ve hastened here to inform you about what’s happened. As for me, I think the people’s rage is aimed at particular, singled-out houses, in which I wouldn’t like to spend the night for all Rothschild’s millions.”

“Do you think our house is one of them?” interrogated Baroness Plankenhorst.

“In any case, I’m running on my own business,’ the asked man replied with a not too encouraging shrug, and left.

It was a bad omen for the others.

The catering gentleman started inquiring vehemently about whether civilian clothes were to be obtained at the house. Unfortunately, they could not offer him anything but liveries. And the Plankenhorst family’s liveries would have been a too bad reference for someone to move around in the city.

A new person arrived. But he did not step but fell in the door. He was scarcely recognisable. The official in charge of Talleyrand-like refinement at State Chancellery was totally put out of continence. His hat was beaten on his head as flat as a pancake, and one wing of his coat was torn off. The unmistakable print of a muddy palm on his back, and a bloody wound left by some indiscreet meeting on his nose. He also gasped for air.

“What happened to you?” inquired the Lady of the house with considerate compassion.

The Talleyrand-like statesman did not lose his gallows humour.

“Oh, it’s a mere trifle! They wanted to smite me almost to death. One of them recognised me, and exclaimed, “Another spy!” The next moment, my hat became like that. Fortunately, some students disengaged me, and I fled through a house with a passage to the other street.”

“Would you tell me, please, are they not robbing yet?” asked the medical councillor from the corner.

“Damn it, on the contrary. As a matter of fact, they’re in generous mood. Go down to them.” Then, to the Lady of the house, “Dear Madam, can I have a piece of English surgical plaster to put it on my peeled nose? It’ll be very helpful for me. At least, so as not to be recognised so easily in the streets.”

“What do you mean you want to go out again?” asked Mrs. Antoinette anxiously, leading the small statesman into her boudoir in order to stick a piece of plaster on his ruined countenance.

“I must hurry,” whispered the man. “I have to order relay horses for the State Chancellor.”

“What! has it really come to that already?”

“It seems so.”

“You’re going with him, aren’t you?”

“Surely I’m not staying here. And I suggest you doing it until you can do it easily…”

“We’ll consider the matter,” said Mrs. Antoinette quite quietly, and let the small statesman hurry away with the black piece of plaster on his nose.

The catering gentleman made a last attempt to hold him back warning him he might be beaten to death.

“I shall be wiser. I shall shout the loudest, “Down with Metternich! Long live the Aula!”^[54]

The noise was growing bigger and bigger in the streets, and it became darker and darker in the rooms. The catering gentleman asked everybody for God’s sake not to light a candle in any way so as the savage crowd outside would think everybody had already left.

But, in fact, the whole company was there. This house was the pivot of the defeated army.

“What should be done?” This was the issue that the strategy conference was discussing. Escape or stay there? There were timid people, who suggested running away, and even timider, who did not dare even to run away. Of course, the sea itself was waving in the streets. The sea of the people.

Now another person came.

Despite the twilight dark, every one recognised him. The polygonal lineaments of his face and the defiant and awkward carriage of his head made him characteristic, not to mention the fact that his contours alone made him unmistakable. He was Sir Benedict Rigidcastle.

His appearance made the intimidated company optimistic. This cold-blooded man attracts all the weaklings. Weaklings everywhere are fascinated by this cool-blooded man.

“Any news, my dear friend?” asked the lady of the house hurrying to meet him.

“News is enough,” said the other dryly. “The first thing and most certain sure is that Metternich has resigned.”

“Shhh.”

“In an hour, it will become common knowledge. I come from him. His resignation was accepted, and the great man’s only concern is, at the moment, which disguise, which carriage and which route to choose I order to escape from the city.

“In guise!” faltered the martial gentleman, his lips moving on silently, without giving a sound. He might have been saying to himself, “How happy might be the one who has a worn-out overcoat.”

“Are the people not robbing yet?” sighed the rich senior catering expert.

“No, they aren’t, but they’re opening the arsenal for them.”

“Cannot they defend it?” the heavy-built gentleman rattles.

“It’s being opened at the Emperor’s Command.

“That’s impossible.”

“I have a poster in my pocket, announcing that with the aim of keeping law and order, the students and the citizens are to be armed from the civil arsenal.”

And lo, Sir Rigidcastle produced a poster from his pocket, and the whole company set about deciphering its content in the darkness.

“Till now, the number of the armed students and craftsmen might have gone up to twelve thousand, “went on Sir Rigidcastle, with cruel calm. “Street fightings and fighting on the barricades are expected tonight.”

“As for me, I don’t expect them,” murmured the catering gentleman. “I’d better go my way.”

The others echoed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, save yourselves!”

“Everybody tried to cut the ceremony of saying goodbye as short as possible. It was showering yet but thunder and lightning were drawing closer. Everybody suggested a different place for a hopefully reunion.

“And where are you going?” asked Mrs. Antoinette the polygonal gentleman.

“Me? Nowhere. I’m staying in Vienna. I’m not concerned for myself. With that, he shook hands with the Lady, and he was the last to leave her halls.

Notwithstanding, he was perhaps the first to abscond from Vienna. Maybe, he did not want to let anyone know where.

Then the martial gentleman found an old patched civilian topcoat at the doorkeeper, a cabman’s full coat, which he purchased for a large sum. He wrapped it around his precious personage, and fled into the street in this disguise. Who knows where the surging crowd carried him out of the range of vision?

The swag-bellied catering expert was absolutely not in the mood for the expedition. “I cannot run, and if they push me against the wall somewhere, I’ll die there and then,” he said to himself. “Who takes the space of three men in the world, would better not make a spectacle of himself when everybody’s asking for some space upon the earth.”

“Dear friend,” he spoke to the doorkeeper, stroking his face and oiling his palms with some banknotes, “there’s a basement room for rent in the house. Please, hide me there. And should the slaughterers come and want to search everything, tell them that a poor master tailor lives in that room. Please draw a big pair of scissors on the door with chalk. Tell them that a poor starving tailor lives there, whose wife is sick in bed with the infective smallpox. Then they won’t come in. You’ll do it dear concierge, won’t you?”

The gatekeeper knew a better solution.

“Who knows how long this mess will last. I wouldn’t like to be compelled to wait in the cellar, in that dog-hole, till it is over. I’ll save Your Lordship; a hair of your head shell not be hurt. You may entirely rely on me.”

“Oh, save me, please, in any way. But I’d like to know in which way. For, as you can see, I can’t run. My legs cannot bear me. And you can’t get a hackney coach for a million.”

“Yes, you can’t but there’s another conveyance.”

“Oh, I wonder what it is. Where is it? I’ll pay whatever he wants!”

“Two hearse men are drinking in the nearby pub; the stretcher’s put down in front of the door.”

“A hearse, you mean?”

“Well, yes. An ambulance coach. The authority, out of brotherly precaution, assigned them to the noisier streets just in case someone happens to be shot to death, to pick up and carry him to the general hospital. A very nice provision, isn’t it? And given that nobody in this street has been shot to death yet…”

“You mean me to lie down on that stretcher?”

“Well, yes, it’s quite covered; nobody knows what’s in it. For a nice tip they’ll transport you to the general hospital. There you’ll get a funeral wagon, which will take you up to the toll-gate; from there, you’ll be able to continue your journey on a more pleasing conveyance.”

A shiver raced up and down the fat gentleman’s spine. But there was no time for deciding. Another herd of people was coming from the end of the street; their approach was indicated by their louder and louder cries, which suppressed the now usual noise. It was better to escape.

He agreed to the offer. “A terrible equipage,” he thought, thinking of the stretcher. And he added, “Better live in it than out dead.”

When he had been transported away, the gate-keeper was laughing so hard that he was holding his sides with both hands so as not to fall apart with laughter.

Whether could they in the hall hear the approaching shouting, and the strange crack and rattle, following it?

At these frightening sounds, Miss Alfonsine desperately rushed out of her room to her mother; advanced to her but not embraced — oh, these two ladies were not in the habit of embracing.

“They all left us alone!”

“Oh, the cowards! Oh, the fools!” said Miss Antoinette scornfully.

“And where should we flee?” asked the beautiful girl, trembling.

“We? Nowhere. We’re staying here.”

“How? In this emergency?

“We will overcome emergency.”

Miss Alfonsine looked at her mother in amazement. She thought she had gone insane. She had a tendency.

Mrs. Antoinette ordered her servants to light all the lamps, and put the branched candlesticks in the open windows. Then she had the satin curtains ripped off from above her canopy of her bed, along with the gilded rods, and had them pinned up on both sides of the balcony of the house, which looked like two white flags.

Then she entangled two medal ribbons, put one of them on her, and pinned up the other on Miss Alfonsine’s shoulder, and, when the surging crowd was shouting at the loudest voice down in the street, dragged her half-fainted daughter onto the balcony, and uttered a loud exclamation above the heads of the crowd in a sharp and ringing voice,

“Long live freedom!”

Much-thousandfold cries and thundering acclamations was the people’s answer to her words. They greeted them back waiving their hats and handkerchiefs in the air, and no matter how many groups of people marched in front of the lit-up Plankenhorsts’ palace, they greeted it again and again with enthusiastic cheering, while broke the windows of the opposite house with loud clatter into pieces. By all means, the master of that house was busy on the barricades, and could not go and put candles into the windows. Consequently, his windows were smashed. And the Plankenhorsts were applauded and celebrated.

Sir Eugene Baradlay spent the whole day at his accommodation. He was a man of weak nerves.

He had been a very shy person right from his childhood, and later, in his youth, became even more helpless owing to his incessant dependence on someone else. He was accustomed to subordinating his own will to that of the others: first to the one of his parents, then his bosses—and finally his sweetheart. And now, when suddenly all his supports were gone with the storm, when all the statues of great persons, which used to represent his “lares et penates”, flew into pieces and became like chaff, Sir Eugene felt as if he himself had annihilated.

He spent the whole day in a fever, closed in his room, and walking up and down, restless. He even cut the string of his bell to avoid being disturbed.

The street noise and the gun and cannon’s boom kept his nerves on edge; his head was stunned, he was unable to think, and was completely unaware of what was going on around him.

The great idea of freedom and that of a new epoch did not captivate him. He was convinced that they would never be achieved.

None of the ones with whom he had lived together believed in these ideas. And the same stood for the people.

The street noise informed him that the people were doing something but he did not know what. “Whether were they raving? Or taking revenge? Maybe, they’ll even win,” he thought. But did not have any idea of what they would gain by that.

The only thing he was thinking about all the time was Miss Alfonsine.

“What might happen to her?” He wondered. “Maybe she escaped in time. Maybe, she found shelter somewhere. And what if not? True, she belongs to a large group of people—but what if they cannot defend even themselves any more?”

Sometimes he felt he had to go out into the street and go to the Plankenhorst’s house. But he always shrank from it. Now the pavement was swept by grape-shots and barricades rose from it everywhere—where would he go with his weak nerves, with his body trembling in every part, and with his heart in a riot? And how could he help them? He had never had a gun in his hand. He had not, like his brothers, been ever allowed to go hunting. He was learning drawing, penmanship and playing the piano; he had never had even a sword in his hand.

Who could he defend?

And, as the day was passing, the riot was growing out in the street, and Sir Eugene’s worries for Miss Alfonsine became almost unbearable.

At last, at nine o’clock in the evening, he decided to go out and find Miss Alfonsine’s residence. He thought, “If I’m unable to defend her, I shall perish together with her, at least.”

Oh, the brave men with strong nerves cannot appreciate the heroism showed by the neurotic ones, when they make up their mind to go into danger, which the people of steady nerves only laugh at, and do not care for, but because of which the badly neurotic soul suffers hellish torments! Palms are won not by the brave but by the shy, who, though they dread hearing the bullets whistling past, are ready to undertake the risk—for the sake of their Honour or Love, for their Homeland or Wife!

It was his Love that induced him to undertake emergency, which he most feared. He went down on the street with no means of self-defence; he himself did not know what would happen to him down there.

As soon as he stepped out, he was caught and carried away by the flood of people.

But it was something quite different from what he had visualized secluded in his room.

He was taken up by not a raging, blood-thirsty troop but a sea frenzied by joy.

Old and young, gentlemen and day-labourers, market-women and ladies, students and soldiers were entangled into a whole.

They were falling on each other’s neck and kissing each other; they were raving and storming, and shouted, cried and yelled themselves hoarse with the word “Liberty” on their lips. “Victory! Victory!” could be heard everywhere, and leaflets were passing from hand to hand. The cheering crowd lifted one-or two orators above their heads so that he reads the last princely decree to the people, then smothered them with kisses, and embraced them almost killing them. Then the flood was surging on ahead until there came another piece of news, a new speech, and the outburst of a new joy. The people embraced the soldier, who had wounded them just an hour before; kissed the cannon which had fallen silent, gave three cheers for the one whom they had hated before. It is enough for them to see the white cockade on his hat, and they will write on the walls, “Properties are sacred.”

Sir Eugene was also stunned with the whirling flood. There are no words to express the feeling that flows, like electricity, through the whole crowd. Anybody who has got into the miraculous stream will feel it, and even the one who does not understand anything thereof will be overwhelmed by the intoxication of victory. Sir Eugene heard the announcements of the downfall of great people accompanied by cry and laughter—the ones of people, who had emerged to immortality from world history. And he was grabbed by the power of the nameless magnetism upon hearing that the names of these eternal greats were erased, like writing in chalk, from the pages of History with a move of the hand of the one who is greater than anyone else in the world, the people.

Are there any ideals that a young heart cannot deny in a moment like this? No matter these unsurpassable greats used to be his idols, his blood was up when hearing the news about their passing away.

When the names were commented with a “Down with him!” exclamation by the thousand-headed monster, he only was caring about whether any one of the Plankenhorst family was cited or not.

He knew well how much this surname was linked to the ones of those on the other side. “Maybe it’s not their turn yet!” he thought.

The ones standing in front of and behind him were recalling and discussing the feats of the day: how the people had taken the houses of the hated by storm, and torn the damned protocols into pieces. But he did not hear about the Plankenhorts anything yet.

He was carried on by the current. Now the dwellers started to light up the windows, and the others started to smash the unlit ones.

It took hours for him until he was able to push his way to the street where the Plankenhorts’ house stood.

His heart was pounding restlessly. He was anxious whether he would find it demolished and destroyed, like so many other famous buildings.

All the more was he surprised when he, having turned a corner, found himself right in front of the brilliantly illuminated Plankenhorts’ house, on the balcony of which a Aula-member student was standing between two vast white silk flags, and was just delivering an animating address to the crowd.

At this point he really lost his mind.

From that time on he was guided by his heart. He had already abandoned his head.

He was not going—he was being carried. It was the people who pushed him ahead of them up the stairs of the Plankenhorts’ house, from where men with triumphant faces ascended the stair to meet him, shaking their hats decorated with cockades in the air cheering the Liberty’s heroic women.

They pushed Sir Eugene into the hall so well-known by him.

And what did he see there?

In front of the table, there were two ladies standing, whose radiant faces he barely recognised. They were Baroness Antoinette and Miss Alfonsine.

And what were the two ladies doing?

Madam Antoinette was knotting stars from white silk ribbons, while Miss Alfonsine was pinning them on the folk heroes’ bosom and hat; also, she was tying bands from the white ribbons around their arm sleeve, which made them even madder, and they kissed the hands, the ribbon and the scissors that had made, knotted and cut them. And the two ladies’ faces were so glowing.

Sir Eugene felt as if he had been transported by a machine there.

When Miss Alfonsine caught the sight of him in front of her, suddenly rushed to him, gave a cry of joy, opened her arms for him, and fell upon his neck, then covered him with her kisses, and faltered,

“Oh, what a happy day it is, my dear friend!”

“And she kissed him repeatedly before all the people and her mother. The Madam smiled her approval, and the people applauded at that. And everybody found it so natural.

A sudden horror chill ran through his each nerve owing to the cheering. But the kiss felt good to him.

And every one found it so natural that people kiss each other on that day. Besides, there are so many grounds for kissing: there is the kiss of joy, the kiss of release, the kiss of gratitude, the kiss of love. Many saved-up, many reserved kisses were passed out on that day; many long-promised, many long-waited and many credited kisses expired on that day, and were paid with the due interest. The first kisses of many happy lives and many kisses of eternal good-bye were misspent on the day of the people’s happiness.

However, amidst the many sweet and heady kisses, there happened a Judas kiss; the one that fell, in the sight of the world, on Sir Eugene’s lips from the sweet rosy, honey lips of the most beautiful lady.

It seemed as if the Earth suddenly had left his orbit, and got, thanks to a beneficial push, nearer to the Sun by fifteen million miles; into the zone where perhaps the Venus is rotating, and whose dwellers are happy about the proximity of the Sun.

Warmth, magnetism and light permeated the whole world. Every heart was full of emotion.

Miracles happened, and every one deemed them natural. They assumed that they were everyday events that had to be as they were.

For Sir Eugene Baradlay it was quite a matter of course to rush up to the Plankenhorts’ hall, uninvited and unannounced, the next and the third day, early morning and late in the evening, any hour of the day, where he found a lot of students, democrats and popular speakers in muddy boots and wet hats—the muddier and wetter, the better—, with long, clinging swords and with even longer feathers on their hats. And he did not mind step by step becoming similar to them.

He also found quite natural that Miss Alfonsine received him in a rather shabby appearance without hairstyle, and even with uncombed hair; that she welcomed him each time with a feverish embrace, falling on his shoulder whether before her friends or strangers. Moreover, when left alone together, she would throw herself into his lap. It was a time when everything was permitted.

Why, the Earth was approaching the Sun.

Every one spoke out what was in his heart—even the deepest secrets. He who had hated the greatest of the greatest, blazed it out in the street, and who had secretly loved somebody before, kissed his sweetheart in the street.

And the Earth was still approaching the Sun.

It was the fifteenth of March, the day of the announcement of the constitution. The Day of the Freedom of the Press.

Hundreds and hundreds of newspapers arose at the same time; papers with proud, resounding names, advertised by the hopeful youth, the street kids, by selling them to the people. Millions and millions handbills flew from hand to hand, and read by groups on the street corners.

On the Stephan Tower, an enormous flag was being flown by the breeze; the tricolour of the great German nation. Gold, red and black. Who asked what it was, was answered that the same flag flew above the Imperial Castle Gate.

Noisy folk festivals followed each other. Each hour saw its grandeur. In the early hours, riders roamed the streets blowing fanfares, and proclaiming the newly issued constitution. The sounds of the heralds and the fanfares were absorbed by the people’s yell of triumph.

It was followed by a solemn procession. The emperor and empress marched through the people. They were accompanied by neither bodyguards or by military escort but the immeasurable love of the people. The chariot was not rolling but swimming in the middle of the “sea” of the folk; they were carried forward not by the horses but on the shoulders of the people.

In the afternoon, the noise of joy was replaced by mourning pomp again. The victims of the day before that day were being buried. Now wreathed coffins were swimming on the waves of the sea of the people, instead of the sounds of the triumphant joy a funeral march was heard, and the “moving” silence was broken by deep sobbing. It seemed that the passing procession would not come to an end.

And now a new scene began.

An ovation rang out, louder than ever. Stronger than war cries, and more welcome than the hosannas of triumph. It was the two combined! The Hungarian Parliament delegation had arrived from Pozsony.^[55]

What a joy, what an enthusiasm it was! Those rejoicing shouts and brotherly kisses! Every street was filled with men; every window was shining with the smiling faces of women. The way was lined by armed home guards and Aula-members, and a shower of flowers and wreaths decorated with Tricolour ribbons^[56] poured on the newcomers. It was the meeting of two loving hearts: the hearts, the youths of two countries.

Did we dream all that?

Certainly, we just dreamt all that.

But we were there; we saw it all, it all happened before our eyes; we felt the kiss, the good friend’s and the young lady’s kiss; out heart seems so sweet and loving from it even now; and yet it was a dream! Never mind that, my young Reader, a poet is telling to you what he dreamt about before three times seven years.

And Sir Eugene and Miss Alfonsine visited every place and saw every scene.

When the alarm was to be heard in the street, the fair lady did not care about how she was dressed; untidy, just the way she had been at home, threw her shawl around her neck, thrust her hat on her dishevelled braids, grabbed Sir Eugene by the arm, and ran downstairs with him. As for the mama, if she got an escort (as usual, she got one) to hold on his arm, they might have overtaken the youngsters; if not, it was all the same; the people’s flood would have washed them away anyway, so they could come together again at home only. But ho cared?

Sir Eugene was constantly trembling. It was the fear of loss of love. Happy days they were that threw the girl on his lap; the girl, whom he had only been able to admire from afar before. She was his, body and soul. Without any reserve, secrecy or hesitation. She adhered to him, gave her womanhood to him, put herself into his hands, and abandoned herself to him, without any conditions. How could not he be happy while enjoying public salvation?

And when in the late hours of the night, a thousand burning torches filled the streets, when every window was lit, and when lamps were burning on the window-sills as if suddenly daylight flooded the happy city, the dead-resurrecting Rákóczi Marsh started, and, after the introductory sounds, the most outstanding leaders of the Hungarian national meeting appeared on the most lustrous balcony, and spoke to the people.

In the late hours of the night, the happy city was suddenly flooded with amazing daylight. A thousand flaming torches filled the streets, every window was lit, and lamps were burning on the window-sills everywhere. It was when the Rákóczi March^[57]—which resurrects even the dead into life—started and, after the introductory sounds were through, the most prominent members of the Hungarian National Assembly appeared on the most lustrous balcony, and spoke to the people.

That was the dream!

Sir Eugene was watching it from the street, amidst a crowd of ten thousand ardent people; with Miss Alfonsine’s hand under his arm, which made him, with secret squeezes of his hand, fairy confessions, and with the young lady’s burning cheek on his shoulder, and with her hot breath on his face. What a heat he must have felt that time!

And, among the outstanding people, who spoke to the people from that balcony in turns, suddenly caught sight of his brother, Sir Edmund!

He was also there. He was one of the celebrated orators of the National Assembly, who mounted the platform to welcome the people’s freedom.

His harangue was bewitching. It made every listener’s heart beat much faster; Miss Alfonsine was waving her napkin at him.

It was only Sir Eugene whose nerves shuddered with crypto-cold horror. Upon seeing his brother there, he began to tremble in every limb.

Who told him about that horror? What prophecy, what presentiment upset the harmony of his soul? What told him that for the joy of that day some one was going to pay the price?

Maybe he knows something about the balcony there?

“The second step to that promised height.”

”The loving couples arrived home tired after the all-day-stroll. What is more, Sir Eugene was rewarded with a stolen kiss at the bottom of the stairs. In spite of the treatment, he was not improving; he was feverish all through the night, and could not even fall asleep.

As for Miss Alfonsine, when she was left with her mother together, moodily threw her hat with the tricolour ribbon thereon into a corner and flung exhausted on the sofa.

“Oh,” she cried out, “how tired I am of the whole world!”

CHAPTER 14
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

The phenomenal image was gleaming before Sir Eugéne’s closed eyes during the whole night. An image, painted all in flames on the black drawing paper of the night. And when all the noises in the street had stopped, he was still hearing the roaring sea, the storming triumph, and when, occasionally, he fell into a slumber for one or two minutes, he startled to hear Sir Edmund speaking. As if his brother was crying out to him half-incomprehensible, half-frightening words.

He himself was not entirely sure whether he was frightened of him or for him. He was afraid of the meeting.

He was afraid of being pursuaded and being enraptured by the formidable man.

As early as possible, he left his flat, informing his domestic that he would not come back before evening.

He intended to tuck himself away at the Plankenhorsts’ place, lest Sir Edmund found him.

In the Plankenhorst house, the halls were open as early as at eight o’clock in the morning. The opinion-leading youth came in and out of it.

Now the youth were the leaders.

Different figures in wide tricolour sashes, others wearing dark blue uniforms and Calabrian hats filled the halls, and were talking about exotic things.

They all were talking turkey.

Who would have been suspicious of the Plankenhorts? Of two women? The youngsters might have thought, “Why, if they had belonged to the enemy, they would have run away a long time ago as the men had done.”

Sir Eugéne hid from his brother there, at the meeting place of the revolutionary youth.

It was the worst possible place to tuck himself.

He found that the halls of the Plankenhorts house did not become empty completely, even at night. Some standing committee held their meetings there, which Mrs. Antoniette herself attended.

“Welcome back, Sir Eugéne,” the committee chair, Freddie Goldner greeted Eugéne. “We’ve just been speaking of you.”

“What can I do for you?” asked Sir Eugéne with a phrase used at the Court.

“You should know, comrad, that freedom is in great danger,” said the other, though Sir Eugéne had known it very well from the very start.

“We must be on the alert, “ the spokesman of the youth went on. “The forces of reaction are trying to prevent the victory of the just cause by inducing the mob to commit excessive offenses. They’ve enticed the dregs of society to attain the glorious days of freedom with abominable atrocities. The false friends of Freedom, disguised champions of Darkness, stirred up the lowest classes to rise against the land owners and the factory owners. Last night they destroyed the Linienwall, did cruelties, set fires, threw the customs officers into them, then passed through Sechshaus, Fünfhaus and Braunhirschengrund robbing out factories and bourgeois houses. Now they’re threatening the inner factories and cloisters, contaminating and dishonouring the days of the triumph of Freedom. Now we, liberal youth, must be most effective. Now it’s our duty to confront the misguided masses to bring back the movement to its track of law with the power of mind. We have no time to waste; we must outrun them, and wrestle the “soiled” flag out of their hands. Hail to you for coming to help us in this difficult struggle. Come with us! Let’s oppose our breasts to the flood and, using our own bodies, keep it back!”

That was exactly what Sir Eugéne needed! Keeping back the gang of ragged proletarians with his own body, throwing himself in between the mob drunk with brandy and the indignant troops just to get himself crushed.

To this he felt not in the least inclined.

“That’s great,“ he said to his friend. “Just go ahead, Fred. For the time being, I shall gallop home for my sword and pistols, and overtake you with a hackney-coach.”

Before Miss Alfonsine’s eyes, he did not dare to admit that for him it was all the same what would be of the struggles in Vienna.

But as soon as he caught the first coach, he ordered it to carry him all day in whatever way the coachman chose to go, without stopping anywhere, save for at noon in front of a secluded inn, and put him down at his accommodation late in the evening.

He so did not wish to take part in the struggle at all. He considered so undesirable every moment of it.

He did not dare to go home in fear of encountering his brother, who might have visited him, and did not wanted to go back to the Plankenhorsts’ place lest a fanatic freedom fighter should take him away to recruit randomly chosen people.

However, the fanatic freedom fighters did not wait for him. They broke up into small troops, and set out for different places at risk, and pulled in front of the mob, which was coming forward robbing, destroying and burning from the outskirts, while the most flawless ideas were triumphing in the downtown.

As early as that time, instead of the Granichstaedt distillery, there remained only smoking ruins. They broke its machines into pieces, rolled its barrels into the street, knocked in the heads of the barrels, and lit up the alcohol pouring out of them, which was soon in flames right there on the street just like the flaming Phlegethon.^[58] The St. Brigitta Monastery had the good fortune. Until the flames of the wine spirit reached the end of the street, the crowd could not move forward.

At the same time, they did their best to press on as quicly as was possible. They started to carry sand, ash and sludge quite systematically onto the flames, and build a practicable road through Hell, along which anybody who did not want to suffer a pleasurable and enviable death in the middle of the burning parampampoli, was able to force on.

But the entrance of the monastery had been occupied by a cavalry squadron in time in the morning.

The commander of the squadron was Captain Richard Baradlay.

It was almost a year after he had moved from the city into the barracks before the customs line.

He led a strict soldier’s life. He would not stroll in the city, attend balls or court. He shared the same barracks-life with his fellow soldiers, and was one of the most diligent officers. The city had lost its appeal to him. He had abandoned his old companies. It was only his brother whom he visited every now and then just to ask about Miss Edith. He received every time the same information: she was still in the boarding school, where Baroness Plankenhorst sent her the day after Sir Richard had asked her hand in marriage.

This was enough for Sir Richard to reassure him.

“Any boarding school’s good for her;” said Sir Richard to himself, “the point is that she mustn’t stay at her aunt’s house. When there comes a time when I can marry her, I’ll ask her out; until then, it makes no sense to disturb her tranquility.”

Notwithstanding, he wanted to know where she was but Sir Eugéne forgot to ask again and again, and Sir Richard had good reasons not to let his brother into his secrets.

Sir Richard was informed about the last days only from the latest newspapers. But he only saw the opposite side of the coin, which was lauded by the daily papers; they were only talking about brotherly kisses and wreaths with a ribbon of national tricolour. From all that, he and his soldiers only got drunk keepers of a market stall and showers of rotten potatoes upon their backs.

During these three days, Captain Richard had got six different commands from here and there.

The first command ordered him to bear down on the people wherever they make an attempt to flock together, and disperse them.

The second command informed him that the issuer of the first command had resigned; the people should be spared, and one should avoid any clashes.

The third command urged him, with haste fueled by terror, to unite with the rest of the army on the Josephstadt glacis. And by the time he had saddled his horse, the fourth command arrived, in which the same colonel whirled on him ordering that he should not leave the barracks, and should barricade himself, and defend his position to the death.

The fifth command came from a gentleman whose name and title he had never heard before, who delegated full power to him to act to his wise discretion and, at the same time, made him responsible for the maintenance of law and order of the streets and squares in his sector.

The sixth command let him know that all the issuers of the fromer orders of the day had abdicated, and did not mind whatever was going to happen to the world.

So it was Captain Richard’s choice to decide what he was bound by.

He and his soldiers were in the saddle all night, roaming the streets; they happened to frightened away one or two groups using only sword cards. But the effort was not worthwhile for in the meantime, another group was sacking and robbing in another part of the quarter just as the fancy took them, and by the time Captain Richard, at the flame signals, rushed back, the robbing mob had already dispersed, took to flight in all directions, leaving the burning houses robbed. And, would the soldiers have seized somebody of the ravaging marauders, what should they have done with him? There was no authority to hand him over to, and they had no desire to keep him for themselves.

In the forenoon, Captain Richard encountered the main body of the ravaging group in front of the St. Brigitta Monastery. The light of the flames raging along the street led him there from another part of the city, where, he thought, had already managed to restore peace.

The valiant heroes were already fed up with the “reverly”. Riding at full tilt up and down the streets, listening to whistles and fulminations, chasing ragged people and being thrown with mud, stones and potatoes, and then being unable to use the sword’s edge and, last but not least, finding the “army”, believed smashed already, behind their backs again and again—had exhausted the patience of the hussars, who were otherwise not famous for it.

Fortunately, the burning sea of alcohol divided them, and they could not fall on each other on the spot.

Captain Richard saw that the rebels intended to attack the monastery, and set up his troop in front of its gates across the street.

The others, pouring mud as well as sand on the roadway, were putting out the fire with great rapidity. Above the crowd, there was a red flag fitted to a high pole. The ragged, half-burnt flag was flattering, and the people were yelling threateningly.

Captain Richard was looking at them calmly as they were approaching him.

“Mr. Paul!” he spoke to his hussar sitting mounted in the raw behind him. “Is your pipe lit?”

“Here you are!” said Mr. Paul, holding out his nose-warmer.

“Let’s light a cigar, comrades,” said Captain Richard, “and see what happens.”

Meanwhile, on the free sidewalk on the side where the soldiers were standing, an armed man was approaching hastily.

Captain Richard had never seen that uniform before. It consisted of a black coat with a yellow, red and black sash and a stripe of the same colours on the collar, a copper-hilted straight sword, and a tall Calabrian hat with a large black ostrich feather. The gallant was wearing a Spanish pointed beard and a thin moustache; his gait and bearing were regal and cheerful but not military.

The newcomer hurried straight to Captain Richard.

“Welcome, comrade! Long live public order, long live the Constitution!”

Captain Richard had nothing to say against it. “Let them live,” he thought.

The young gallant extended his hand for handshake, and Captain Richard reached out and shook it.

“My name’s Fritz Goldner,” introduced the young man, without further ceremony. “Captain to the second battalion for the Aula.”

“Really? So we’re fellow officers.”

“Both of us are soldiers of the country and the throne, aren’t we?”

“Hope so.”

“So Long Live the Brotherhood!”

They shook hands again.

“What news do you bring, comrade?”

“I learnt that throngs of misled people are committing acts of violence bringing discredit upon the triumph of Freedom. I came to quiet the storm.”

Captain Richard shook his head meaningly, and said,

“What, by yourself?” he asked. “By Jove, man! I’ve been quieting it myself with three hundred others for three days, and it’s growing stronger and stronger.”

The young gallant with the Calabrian hat threw his head back with pride.

“Yes, by myself. By the power of the Almighty Spirit. I’ve tried it, comrade. I saw the people, at my crying voice, rise up from the ground, and, like a giant monster, fall on the canons and the bayonets; and I saw the same people at my saying, »Now laugh! — Now be glad! — Now embrace your enemies! — Now be quiet!« laugh, glad, embrace its enemies and quiet.”

“I’ll be the judge of that!”

“You’ll see that. One or two inspiring words can do more here than a cannon. For that reason, please, withdaw your brave soldiers, and allow me to act on my own.”

“I leave you a free hand, comrade, but I won’t leave this place because it’d be more difficult to come back here again.”

“So you remain an idle spectator, comerade. May I know your name? If you don’t mind.”

“Richard Baradlay.”

“Ah, nice to meet you. I and your brother are good friends. Just made acquaintances on the barricades.”

“With my younger brother? With Eugéne? On the barricades?”

“Oh, yes. He’s been everywhere. He’s an enthusiastic young man; he’s one of the Chiefs of Staff at our Headquarters at the Plankenhorst house.”

Upon these words, Captain Richard could not help bend down from his horse to look into the eyes of the speaker.

“You say the Headquarters at the Plankenhorst house?”

“Ah, comrade Richard! You don’t know it yet. The two enthusiastic ladies are the most ardent heroines of the cause of Freedom. The best ideas come from them. They make us know the machinations of the reaction; they know the weakest points and the plots of our enemies. These two ladies have largely contributed to our success.

At this point, Captain Richard, throwing the rein to Mr. Paul, got off his horse, and, having taken Mr. Goldner by the arm, walked with him to the monastery door.

“Am I to understand that the two Plankenhorts ladies have remained here, and they’re the operative genius of the movement for Freedom? Do you know these women?”

“Just leave it to us, comrade Richard. We know their past. At least now, they’re unconditionally on our side. This is beyond question. A female’s heart may become most easily intoxicated by Freedom. However, we’re far from believing anyone unconditionally. The camp of Freedom also has its own secret police. Every step they make is being watched over. And supposing they contact just one person from the ones who used to belong to their former company or write just one letter to one of them, we’d found out at the same moment, and they’d be perished. Oh, our camp is well organised.”

“All right, I believe it. And is my younger brother, Eugéne among you?”

“Among the first ones.”

“Does he wear a Calabrian hat like this one, with a waving, big feather on it, with a sword at his side and a pistol in his belt?”

“Exactly. Miss Alfonsine Plankenhorst herself finished the sash with a rosette and pinned it on his shoulder. He’s a honoured Sub-Lieutenant among us.”

Sir Richard shook his head in disbelief.

“Well, you’ll see him soon. Several of us agreed to come in the outskirts of the city to enlighten the people about the noble aims of the movement; that is, to cover the volcano with our own palms. Sir Eugéne’s coming too. Seemingly, I chose the shortest way; the others are a bit late.”

“Well, comrade Goldner,” said Captain Richard, shaking the other’s shoulder, “I believe all you’ve said so far by the grace of God but I can’t believe my younger brother’s coming here—so help me God—even if I see it.”

Meanwhile, the flood of people had overcome the flames under their feet and, as the silhouettes of some figures began to appear through the blue-green flames and the billowing smoke, the young Aula leader began to understand what they undertook.

Oh, this was not a camp of enthusiastic freedom fighters; it was a herd incited by the archenemies of Freedom!

As soon as they had bridged the street burning with brandy, the pillaging army poured onto the square in front of the monastery.

It was the content of a cloaca, and the chronicler, when he starts to describe it, becomes horrified at dipping his pen therein.

When the spectator encounters it, he becomes, first of all, captivated by it, and asks himself the question: »From where did such a big mass of savages turn up in the middle of the civilized world? So many sleazeball and reversed figures dressed in rags, so many variants of impurity, wretchedness and disgust? Where are they hiding in quiet times? Do they live among or below us? And how do they live? Respect arising from work cannot be recognised on them. They are parasites of metropolises, a camp of beggars, thefts, prison-breakers, street whores and victims of grog shops. And all that thrown together, in a heap! How did they get together? Who collected them into one group? Who stirs them up, who incites them to rise against the peaceful citizens? Who preaches to them that one is poor only because the other has something? Who put the red flag into their hands when the white flags of Freedom are waving around?«

The citizens, the men of the people do not know a face from among them. When they rushed from the smoke, Fritz Goldner himself was horrified by them.

It was not the Giant to whom when he had said, “Now get up!” he had got up, and, when he had said, “Now calm down!” he had calmed down.

From the group, a high, giant figure separated from the group. He looked just as ragged as the others, and his face was black with smoke, He was wielding a a six-foot iron rod as if it was a cane. He was the first to make his way through the pool of the wine ethanol, and left as many burning spots behind as many steps he made. He blindly rushed forward.

But the moment he saw the flock of hussars opposite to him, stopped short to await the others, strached out his hand with the iron rod and, pointing at the monastery, cried out in a hoarse, bestial voice,

“Into the fire with the nuns!”

The mob, as an answer, roared bloodthirstily.

But the shrill sound of a cavaliers bugle broke through the growls. It was the sound indicating preparatory command, which fueled the fire of the mob.

“For the Love of God, comrade,” the young aulist spoke to Captain Richard, “don’t give signal for battle. Let’s avoid bloodshed. Trying to speak to the people’s heart.”

“All right, remaining beside you,” said Captain Richard, having not even drown his sword or hastened back to his horse. He was smoking on his Havana cigar.

“Come and stand up beside me,” said Mr. Goldner. “It’ll help the people understand the Brotherhood between the citizens and the soldiers. You’ll stand here, beside me, on an inviolable and sacred place.”

Captain Richard and Mr. Goldner walked to the monastery gate together, up to which four steps led; its threshold served as a platform for the young man.

“Brothers!” commenced Mr. Goldner.

And then he spoke them about beautiful things. About Freedom, Constitution, about the duties of citizens, the machinations of the reaction, about the homeland, the prince, and about the glorious days.

Nevertheless, on that “sacred place”, they had no life insurances; one or two brickbats or some potatoes banged on their heads, which can be understood as a way the audience hastened to make their comments to the speech. Also, Captain Richard’s shako received one or two of the knocks.

One or two times, the general cacophony suppressed the words of the young orator, and he had to pause.

“Comrade, I’ve had quite enough of the potatoes,” said Captain Richard to the young aulist, “speak to your brothers, if you can, otherwise I shall speak to them. I can.”

“Extremely difficult situation,” Mr. Goldner said, wiping his sweating brow, “the people’re enraged against the priests. They’ve already chased away the Ligurians, and now think every monastery should be destroyed. It’s a rather unpopular thing to defend nuns but one should respect them as women, and the Revolution’s courteous towards them.”

“So I see,” said captain Richard, glancing up at the windows of the monastery. They were already all broken in with stones. Fortunately, the rooms were protected with wooden boards.

Then the people started pelting stones at the hussars as well; the horses became restless.

When Mr. Goldner restarted his declamation, there were two people declaiming, he and the Goliath with the iron rod. By the way, the roaring crowd could hear nothing at all of either’s words.

At that moment, on the pavement on the side of the soldiers, a new character rushed ahead, at sight of which Mr. Goldner’s sweat-shedding face brightened up again.

“Ah, here comes at last!”

“Who… or what’s coming?” the question arose. A strange, bizarre shape. He was also a student of extremely tall stature. There were three extravagant large ostrich plums in his hat. His face was smooth-shaven, lean and red with a huge nose in the middle of it. He was wearing a wide ribbon tricoloured sash of four fingers breadth on his shoulder and a short, dress sword girt high up under the armpit to prevent his stumbling over it. His long hair was flying after him.

The man hastened at rapid pace to the ones standing in front of the monastery door and, with a leap, placed himself beside them.

“God keep you, comerades! Here I am, don’t worry! My name’s Hugo Mausmann, first lieutenant of the second Legion. Looks like got yourselves some trouble. I can well believe. My friend, Fritz is a very good orator. But only a tragic one. When it’s about a tragic issue, he’s on the right place. But you should know the audience. Here a Hans Sachs is called for, not a Schiller. The one who can make the people laugh is the winner. You’ll see. When I start speaking in verse, they’ll have been left speechless, will be amazed, applaud and laugh, and we’ll take them wherever we want to.”

“Well, comrade, go ahead and make your audience laugh or else I shall make them cry.”

Mr. Mausmann stepped forward on the “platform” and, extending his long arms above the people, made a wave, with comic pathos, indicating that he was asking for attention.

Then he drew out his snuff-box from his pocket, tapped it with his finger, and took a pinch of snuff. The strange introduction surprised the “surging sea” so much that it subsided for a moment.

Now came the time for Mr. Mausmann to bring forward an inexhaustible flow of his mosaic rhymes, one by one, which he called talking in verse. One followed the other like an echo. “

“Brüder” and “Gütter”,^[59] “die Freiheit” and “sich freut heut”,^[60] “Metternich” and “schmetter nicht”^[61], “Minister” and “hin ist er”,^[62] and, finaly, the “braven Cavalleristen” was followed by the rhyme “hocta isten.”^[63] And in order to visualise the fraternal alliance, the improvisator folded the hussar captain to his breast with emphatic delight.

“Comrade! Even that hasn’t made them laugh yet,” Captain Richard said to him. He was mostly amazed at the fact that the orator was not affected by the fact that he pressed Captain Richard’s burning cigar to his own cheek during the brotherly kiss.

Mr. Mausmann continued reciting the verses but they decided not to listen to them any longer.

“Down with the priests’ defenders!” “Into the fire with the nuns!” sounded from every side, and the shower of missiles restarted, accompanied by all sorts of folksy “projectiles”.

Finaly, an egg landed on the young orator’s nose, filling his mouth and eyes with its contents. .

“Now, what do you have to say to that, brother?”

Seeing that, they started to laugh in good earnest—but it was the triumphant laugh of brutality over the defeated enemy. They laughed hard as the merciless mob laughs at the comedian who dropped from the rope, and cannot get up from the ground.

This thiumphant laugh was the ultimate threat from the rebel monster. It is going to tear apart the one who allowed himself to be laughed at.

Captain Richard threw his butt away, and started down the stairs.

Mr. Goldner intercepted him, embraced him, and did not release his hold.

“My comrade, my brother, don’t do that! Don’t give signal for massacre! What worries me is not the blood that pours out but the hatred that’s to grow out of it. We mustn’t hate each other. Your sword mustn’t drink the blood of our people. We have one altar; don’t sacrify each other for each other. We still have a chance to rescue the situation by peaceful means.”

“How?” **

Go up to the nuns and speak to the Abbess. They’re Christians, holy virgins; they mustn’t wish the blood of hundreds to be shed for their secular power, and a damned fight between two countries, two nations to be commenced. We don’t want them to be martyrs; they must flee from here. The side doors are kept free by your hussars; they can flee through them to the city center. For they have no treasure of their own; what valuables they have they can take away easily. And when, someday, the monastery is empty, it shall be we to show the people’s deputies round. We will show them that there’s nobody to take revenge on, and no booty to be had there. We’ll write on the walls and the gates, »The building is state property.« And they won’t destroy it. Our other friends are coming soon. We will mingle among the people to enlighten, to sooth and to reassure them. For heaven’s sake, don’t draw that fatal sword from its scabbard. You go and speak to the nuns. For the time being, I’ll stay here with Mr. Mausman, and keep back the crowd with my body and soul. Until you come back, we’ll stand here between two storms.”

Captain Richard shook the young student’s hand.

“You’re brave lads, virtuous children! Right. I accept your advice. You talk to your brothers, and I’ll talk to the nuns. ”

Captain Richard started to respect the courage of the young men with which they, despite the fact that they were few, threw themselves amidst the tempestuous waves of the popular sea, trying to eliminate the ominous conflict merely with words and gentle speech.

At last, he consented to help them manifest their honest intentions.

He walked back to the monastery door, and banged thereon. The old doorman had been watching for the outcome of the case, and when Captain Richard mentioned his name, let him in without delay.

Then he closed the door behind him again, and showed him the way upstairs and the corridor where the Abbess had her office.

Captain Richard, while ascending the stairs, tried to thought through what he would say to the Abbess, how he would inform her about the danger, explain her why the people had to be spared, and why the nuns had to make a sacrifice according to the saying, “The wise yields; the donkey suffers.”

He was a bit ashamed to let those women know that he, in spite of the fact that he was a soldier, was not ready to draw his sword to defend them. Oh, how many times he did that for an insolent look! In how many duels how many wounds he inflicted upon vaillant opponents even for a petty resentment occurring during an innocent country dance! He managed to reassure himself only by telling himself that nuns were not women but kind of sexless creatures.

He walked up to the end of the corridor without encountering anybody else. All the nuns were gathered in the refectory.

The windows of the refectory looked out on the street, and their shutters were kept closed; the hall was lit by some light leaking in through the door kept ajar.

When Captain Richard stopped on the threshold, which had never been trodden by the foot of man, witnessed a moving scene.

In the middle of the hall, there was a dying nun laying. She had suffered in brain disease for a long time; the horrible events of the day brought her death close. The scare, the raging noise outside caused nervous spasms to her. Her fellow-nuns were gathered around her, taking care of and comforting her.

And, amidst this scene of martyrish air, in the sepulchral gloom, amidst the virgin figures kneeling around the twisting dying nun, Captain Richard a familiar face caught his eye, a face at the sight of which his every drop of blood in his vains rebelled against his own heart.

It was Miss Edith.

Her aunts sent her to this monastery until the expiration of the year of her engagement.

The girl also recognised her sweetheart and, as she caught the sight of the dashing lad’s face, her look, as the look of one redeemed from Hell, was filled with joy.

The prioress, a tall, lean and proud figure, stepped in front of the captain. She was looking at him with hard eyes, and asked him in a calm and dispassionate voice,

“What do you want, Sir?”

At that moment, Captain Richard felt every thought evaporate from his mind.

Instead of his carefully-thought-out speech, he answered to the prioress,

“Do not worry, Miss Abbess. I swear to God to drive the mob away!”

By the time these words were being uttered, the shower of stones hitting the window shutters became as loud as knock of hail.

Ones again, captain Richard’s eyes met Miss Edit’s scared eyes. He was filled with anger. He saw the dying virgin sprawled in convulsions of agony on the marble floor; saw her sweetheart extending her clasped hands towards him with a desperate look; and heard the enraged roar of the monster thirsty for virgin blood out in the street, and his became indignant from his whole soul.

Without waiting for a reply, he turned round, ran down the stairs, yanked the monastery door open, tossed the two young aulists to the right and to the left, rushed to his steed, jumped into his saddle, galloped in front of the people, and tugged out his sword, the fine Al-Bochacen.

He glanced up at the windows of the monastery, and it seemed to him as if one of the window shutters half opened, and somebody peered out. “Maybe, Miss Edith?” he thought.

“Well, if she watches me, let her see what the man is like who loves her!” Captain Richard told himself.

What he said to the rabble, was no more than five words,

“Get out of here, you plebs!”

A pretentious, wild laughter was the answer. Captain Richard flashed his sword over his head; the bugle ordered a quick attack. Captain Richard galloped there where the people’s anger was blazing the hottest: right to the inciting popular speaker.

The prodigious giant lifted the iron rod up with one hand, and whirled it rapidly in the air, getting it to make a loud buzzing sound.

Captain Richard had the impression as if a shreak thrilling to the very marrow came from one of the the monastery windows ajar, and mingled with the noise of the strorm.

The iron rod came down with a hiss upon the cavalier.

Captain Richard warded off the fierce blow with outstretched arm and fist.

Be glory to the iron of Al-Boachen sword and not less to the arm and the hand that kept a firm hold thereon. When the two terrible irons kissed each other, they threw sparks but the Al-Boachen passed the test, without even getting chipped.

The giant had no time to raise up the iron rod again; the next minute he was brought down on the ground.

And after five minutes, the street was empty.

As the cavalry rushed into the mob, the fierce herd, obeying the rule of the law, “every man for himself”, scattered in every direction, throwing away their flags and weapons, and stopping speaking and shouting. Even who was wounded and fallen to the ground, pretended to be dead and fell silent.

In the distant streets, silence was broken only by the clatter of the hoofs of the galloping cavalry. The voice of the fleeing people were dead.

Captain Richard and his horsemen beat the people running along the long street on the customs line until he could see anyone in front of him; until every living creature had disappeared from before him, fleeing into their holes, from which they had climbed out.

And then they turned back.

Nobody of the troop could catch up with his swift horse. He galloped forward alone, searching for enemies with his proud look; his faithful hostler followed him, then the trompeter, who blew an alarm. The equestrian section had fallen a long way behind.

Upon riding in front of the cloister for the second time, there was no one on the square. One of the window shutters of the cloister was open, though which he caught one more glimpse of Miss Edit through the iron bars.

“What a pity that no more enemy’s coming face to face with him again!” he thought.

It was just a matter of wishing; the new enemy arrived.

The cavaliers had scarcely come back from the chase and the scattering of the mob, and gathered themselves together, a new noise disturbed the silence of the streets, the noise of an approaching new throng.

Who was unfamiliar with the strange noise, could not find out what ist was.

At first, one could hear the rumble of marching feet.

Then came a sorrowful singing sound to the tune of the Marseillaise.

In the meanwhile, the roll of a hoarse drum could be heard with random interruptions. And all that was mixed with the cheering of the street youth in a nice childish voice.

The cloud of dust whirled by the March winds prevented the beholder from making out and ascertaining the nature of the approaching crowd. Only the glimmer of the bayonets could be seen, and a flying flag among them, which, with its tricoloured ribbons were slapping each other in the air as if they disagreed with each other in something.

All that suggested that an armed troop was approaching.

It was also dubious whether it was hostile or allied. The wind furiously stirred up the dust and garbage, and threw them into the eyes of the approaching viewer and, when it finally had finished dancing its dust-stirring waltz, the two armed troops saw each other from a distance of one hundred steps.

Now captain Richard did not know what these creatures were. They were armed men drawing up in battle array with bayoneted rifles on their shoulders and cartridge holders on their side—and they were not soldiers, anyway. They were dressed in as many ways as many they were. They were wearing tall hats with a narrow brim, shaded caps and traveling hats; one in a tailcoat, the other in a jacket, but each and every with a white ribbon tied around the left sleeve. This was not a rebelling riff-raff.

“Who are you?” spoke to the armed battalion Captain Richard, making his horse jump in front of them.

“The National Guard,” answered the battalion leader self-consciously, throwing out his chest; probably the mayor to the battalion.

“What do you want?” asked Captain Richard.

This was certainly a strange question. The honourable National Guard Mayor, otherwise an honest morocco-leather tanner, could not reply offhand.

But Mr. Goldner and Mr. Mausmann, leading a group of aulists, were also there with the battalion, and immediately gave the reply by singing a rather peaceful poem to the tune of the Marseillaise, sung earlier. The lyrics informed the attentive listener that the brave battalion intended nothing else but to fly the flag of Freedom coupled with Order—that is, to drive the many-headed Hydra^[64] of Obscurity back to its hole with the shining Sword of Light, and make all the peoples embrace each other in a brotherly manner.

Captain Richard waited through the song, sung by Mr. Goldner and his fellows as an answer.

“But now I’d like to hear your response in prose or recitativo about what you intend to do.”

The mayor finally reached the response.

“To restore law and order.”

“Try this,” said Captain Richard with accursed indifference.

The benign National Guard Chief Officer looked around confusedly. He did not know what he should make of the two words, “Try this,” when the hussar troop was blocking the street before him across its entire width. “I can’t fly over them,” he pondered. He was compelled to consult his general staff as to what he should answer to that.

It made his forehead sweat. For he had never commanded a troop before; at most, a group on the Lord’s Day processions.

“Well, yes, Sir captain. I meant, you know, cooperating with you.”

“I see! Have you got an order of the day for me?”.

This question was the last thing the mayor needed. He lost interest in the whole military operation at once. Mr. Goldner and Mr. Mausmann jumped out to lend him a helping hand, and whispered him the answer.

“Of cours, I have. From the Aula and the Headquarters of the National Guard.”

“I don’t know those gentlemen.”

Now the mayor began to be angry.

“But Sir Captain!”

“Don’t get into a heat, Mr. Mayor; we have to solve this issue because if we have to cooperate with each other, then either it is me who is in your command or you are in my command, and there must be an order providing directions for both of us.”

“But what should we do then?”

“Send somebody to the Main Headquarters or the Ministry of War, who is to provide a description of the situation here, and bring back some kind of order, which I have to follow. Meanwhile, we—you and me—remain where we are; we in our saddles—you in rank and file.”

Certainly there could be nothing said against this advice.

The Mayor sent the two most zealous youngsters to the mentioned places: Mr. Mausmann to the Chief Military Commander, and Mr. Goldner to the Secretary of War to relate the state of affairs, and induce them to give the Captain an authoritative direction.

According to their own discretion and comprehension!

But comprehensions differ from each other in a similar way as we see the world differently through different glasses. One bear in mind that Mr. Goldner was a rapturous, idealistic and majestic type; on the other hand, Mr. Mausmann was a street poet, who, for his most beautiful verses, is rewarded with showers of bad eggs by his audience—which is, after all, one of the most unfavourable experiences.

While the two couriers were off, the two troops were camping on two sides of the square in front of the monastery.

Captain Richard’s every part was thrilled with the thought that his sword defended Miss Edit’s every single hair.

If he had not been dominated by this idea, he would surely have relinquished the protection of the monastery without hesitation to the National Guard. Because, acting like this, he would have ignored his responsibility. “But the National Guard should see whether I defend the nun and, if so, in which way,” he though.

But Miss Edith was there!

He knew one thing certain: he would not relinquish the guarding of the gate to anybody.

It took two hours for the couriers to return. They both brought Captain Richard a sealed letter. Captain Richard read first the one brought back by Mr.Mausmann from the Chief Military Commander.

His Excellency was put out. He scolded him for having shown as much emasculation and negligence so far. He called him to account why he had not taken action in time, why he had let the mutiny intensify as much as that. He was obliged to shoot, cut and trample down everybody without delay.

He closed his letter with these sentences: “You are expected to conduct yourself accordingly under the burden of highest responsibility. Do not have mercy on anyone along with the son of the devil.”

“Well, that’s good so far.”

“Let’s see the other one,” Captain Richard said to himself. “What’s in the letter from the Secretary of War?”

Captain Richard was scolded in the letter to the far ends of the earth. He was made responsible for his harum-scarum behaviour, for the massacre, when the scuffle could have been totally pressed merely by an armed demonstration. This time, he was to be sharply reprimanded. He was ordered to act with more sense and tact in cases like this in the future. It was said, should the rebels have pulled all the angles down by their legs from the Heavens, he had to not start a fight.

Captain Richard put both letters into his blouse pocket. Then he took his sword, his good Al-Bocharet, with one hand the grip, with the other the tip, and bent it to form an arch, and said to himself,

“My dear sword, if you weren’t my last and only friend, I’d surely break you into two now.”

With that, he gallopped in front of the National Guard officer.

“Sir, order has been restored; would you please maintain it.”

He turned with his horse, and gave a signal for retreat.

“What a pity!” murmured Mr, Paul under his moustache. “We should’ve smashed them in the same breath!”

The Stonehearted Man’s Sons by Mór Jókai * Translated by András Tokaji

CHAPER 15
THE ONES WHO LOVE TRULY

All of a sudden, every good dream comes to its end.

It was night already. The most hideous, pit-dark night.

It was a metropolis in the hours of midnight, in which no lamps were burning, and no windows were lit. There was blind darkness on every street. The huge story-buildings produced an impenetrable maze, similar to the ones in the deep of rain forests. The sky, which was also black, seemed to be nothing else but the vaulting of the many-corridored, formidable dungeon, whose gates opened, as it seemed to be, not into houses but into some catacombs.

No sound of steps broke the silence.

Only rarely, after long intervals, every two hours, a signal rocket of blood colour rose up into the air from the peak of the highest tower, drawing a flaming question mark on the sky. Nobody knew to whom the question mark was addressed.

And it was not a nightmare of imagination—it was Vienna.

It was the last days of October; the city was being sieged on three sides.

Part of the inhabitants fled, another part was standing before the battle lines; only the ones that had been stuck inside the city took refuge there. All the gas pipelines were destroyed; there was nothing to light with or for. It pictured Ninive on the night before its perish.

One could walk along the street without encountering anybody, and it was a good thing that we were unable to see how the streets were covered with tiles, shards of glass, how the walls of the houses were damaged from grape-shots, and how the roofs and floors looked like after bombs had crashed through them.

About the end of the street, a large pile of cobblestones blocked the street. It was the barricade.

There were two flags flying at the top of them. Night made them black, too. But how lovely their colours used to be!

The barricade was surrounded by a throng of valiant men. There was not a watch-fire burning, the place was also covered by darkness and silence.

There were people among them who could sleep; the granite cubes served as good pillows under their head.

They were kept awake by the fatal night, and talked to each other in a low voice.

Two young men were sitting on a gun carriage, spending their time with convivial conversation.

“Listen to me, Mausmann,” said the one-armed man, “I think, to-morrow or the day after to-morrow, I’ll find my lost arm somewhere.”

His companion could not get out of the habit of making a rhyme to the words addressed to him.

“If you’re buried next to it, it’ll be no wonder.”

“I have a hunch, I have no more aspirations.”

“Your aspirations so far have been against police regulations.

“Comrade, I’m only sorry for my love.”

“And I’m happy that I haven’t on my dove.”

“Promise me one thing.”

”Take my seal ring.”

“Suppose I should die in this battle.”

“I wouldn’t say, you mustn’t prattle”.

“Let her know that I’ve died with her name on my lips.”

“St!”

“When the Serbian trooper dips his sword into my heart…”

“You will not ever part.”

“You’ve found the right rhyme. — And her eyes burst into tears more than ever…”

“Ma’m’zel, je vous aimais.”

“Go to hell with your rhymes. Let’s be serious.”

“Don’t be so mysterious.”

“Take my last visiting card to Miss Alfonsine.”

“Again, your aspiration’s a bit too dreamy.”

“If only it weren’t as dark as that so that I’d be able to put a word on my visiting card!”

“Look, there’s a shell heading this way, hold on hard!”

A bombshell coming from a long distance stroke down onto the barricade and, having stuck there among the stones, continued to breathe fire, throwing strong light upon the troop awaken from their sleep.

Mr. Mausmann made a remark in verse,

“Now, you’ve been sent a lamp. You may put on the card, »Letter from the camp. «”

At the sparkling light and the hissing sound, Mr. Goldner wrote these words on the visiting card, “I have loved you, Miss. Adieu!”

He had scarcely finished the words, when the bombshell flashed, and its glowing pieces hurled over the two lads’ heads with a buzzing sound. But they were al right.

For them, it was an everyday joke; they did give it no more thought.

Mr. Goldner handed his visiting card to Mr. Mausmann.

After a while, Mr. Mausmann spoke again,

“Fritz, do you know what I am thinking of?”

“Do you want me to answer also with a rhyme?”

“Leave it to me. I’m afraid our angels have betrayed us.”

“How d’you figure?”

“The others are being informed about everything that we planning privately.”

“They have good spies.”

“I think, the Plankenhorts’re their best ones.”

“That mustn’t be. You know well that their doorman’s one of our people; he informs us about who enters the Plankenhorst house at any hour of the day or night. They don’t contact any one else but our people. No strangers visit them. The only person to visit them is Sister Remigia; she takes Miss Edith, who’s being brought up at the Monastery, to her aunts’ place every Saturday. The Brigitta sisters wouldn’t bother with politics. And they’re much obliged to us for defending them against the rioting people several times.

“I’m just saying that we shouldn’t have mixed women and business.”

“Don’t be ungrateful, Hugo. Remember the Democratic Women’s Association; how much they did for the public cause, how they nursed our wounded, how they collected money for us, how they inspired men to show perseverance. Ah, my friend, without women, there’s no fight for freedom.”

“We’re beaten by two demons.”

“Are you manufacturing rhymes again?”

“I won’t, for your sake, abstain.”

“Oh, you ungrateful boy! I’m afraid your shapeless face has got too many kisses from the most beautiful women undeservedly!”

“But unreservedly!”

“And, in spite of that, you’re scolding women.

“You’ll see it’ll be forgiven. If we’re beaten, they’ll embrace our enemies just like us; and the winners, if they can’t find anything for that, will make a bed from our wilted wreaths. Believe me, old chap.”

“If you’re right, I’ll swallow my liberty cap,” said Mr. Goldner; this time he found his rhyme, too.

The guard came, and relieved them. They could go and have a rest. A bed made from wet straw waited for them among the walls of a ruined sugar factory. They had to gather strength for the next day’s struggles.

A two-lamped coach was stabling through these dark streets like a spooky will-o’-the-whisp. Yes, the two lamps were just for making the all-encompassing sepulchral night even darker.

The coach pulled up in front of the Plankenhorst house, the coachman got off to open the gate, and then drove into the courtyard.

Two female figures got off the coach, a nun and a young girl. They hurried up the stairs. This time, the staircase was unlit; the lady of the house held out the double-armed candlestick to them.

The lady of the house kissed the nun on the cheek, and held out her hand to the young girl for a kiss. The girl’s hood fell back down to reveal Miss Edith’s ever-cheerful face.

“Heaven brought you,” sister Remigia,” whispered the mistress.

“Indeed, I needed Heaven’s protection to come here from the Monastery in this dreadful night. None of the lamps are lit, and the pavement is torn up in every street.”

“But Heaven watches over its chosen ones so that they don’t hit their feet on any stone,” said Madam Antoinette.

“Every day, we really owe the miracle that we’re still alive. I wonder where that girl has run off to again. I must take care of her; she’s just like a wild kid.”

“She ran ahead into the hall searching for any news here; she interviews Miss Alfonsine. Well, I’ll tell her pieces of news enough for her whole life.”

Saying that, Madam Antoinette led Sister Remigia into the dining room, where a laid table was waiting for them with pieces of cold roast, fine wines and chartreuse. The water was already boiling in the tea-kettle.

“Alfonsine, please see after the kitchen in order to keep all the servants from coming into the room.

Miss Edith wanted to go before her.

“I’ll go.”

“Just stay here, my dear. You’re a guest in the house. We must spare you, you know it well.”

At the sarcastic sweetness, Miss Edith shrugged sullenly, and let herself be served by her aunt. Miss Antoinette herself put away Miss Edith’s overcoat.

“Here, sit down.”

Miss Antoinette made Sister Remigia sit down on the sofa beside the round table; Miss Edith took place next to her.

Once more Madam Antoinette personally made sure that nobody was in the adjacent rooms, locked the doors and, after having bid Miss Alfonsine to prepare tea for every one, sat down close to Sister Remigia.

“What words did the general send?”

“There will be decisive attacks at every line of defence tomorrow,” whispered Sister Remigia, looking around worrying that the walls, the pictures or the statues might hear it.

“Did you know that things are going badly?”

“How so?”

“The rebels are counting on the cooperation of a troop from the investing army. Mr. Goldner told me the whole plan. I expressed my concern about what would become of us supposing the city should be taken over by siege. What the winner would do to us, who are so effective at every front line. As an answer, the pious boy assured me that we needed not to worry. In case everything should go wrong, a well-thought-out escape-route is reserved for everybody for whom it’s inadvisable to be stuck here. Between the Maria Hilfe and the Lerchenfeld cemeteries, the line of investment is complemented by a hussar troop. The Aula started fraternizing with the troop a long time ago, and they’re sure that, in times of distress, they will not only open an escape-way through their area for the aulists, but would also take the aulists along with them, and serve them as a rear guard to prevent their being hunted. Hence they hope to escape towards Galicia or Hungary. It’s only the captain’s stubbornness to prevent the success of the plan. This captain is Lord Richard Baradlay.”

“Ah, the one who drove away the people in front of the monastery?”

“You must be thankful to my niece, Miss Edith, for him.”

“The captain, as far as I know, hasn’t fraternized much either with the Aula or the ringleaders.”

“He’s been absolutely unapproachable. They’ve been unable to integrate him into their plan so far. The privates are already worked on. But they adore their captain, and if he says to them, “Let’s fight!” they’ll fight against even their own fathers. Notwithstanding, they’ve got new, unexpected assistance.

“What’s that?”

“A woman.”

“A woman, you mean?”

“A dangerous woman, capable of doing any reckless thing. She’s the mother of the Baradlay sons.”

“Ah! How could she come through the investing lines?”

“In an audacious and almost unbelievable way. Mr. Goldner narrated us the whole story. The spoiled wife of the High Sheriff put on a peasant dress at a greengrocer’s shop in Schwechat and, escorted by the vegetable-vender, came through all the demarcation lines and the outposts with a pannier full of onions and potatoes on her back, selling vegetable and brandy to the soldiers on the way; and this was how she got into the city. Having arrived here, she stayed in the storage room of the same vegetable-vender, at number seventeen.”

“What an audacity on the part of a gentlewoman! And what does she want here?”

“She wants to take her sons with her.”

The two girls’ eyes met and flashed like lightning at each other. The one’s eyes with rage and fury; the ones of the other with proud.

“She wants to take her sons with her?” the nun asked, amazed.

“Yes. She wants to persuade them to go back to Hungary, and enter into the service of the government there.”

“Well, has she talked to them yet?”

“Fortunately, it hasn’t been possible so far. She arrived this afternoon. Mr. Goldner talked to her. He talked her out of attempting to go through the front line for the second time, so she’s going to talk to one of her sons, the captain, tomorrow morning. Let she talk to him! We must allow her to do that; let she go there and come back. If she has talked to her son, she would surely dissuade him. The Abbess must let the general know that. Tomorrow, at the time when the attack is planned, the general must have the whole hussar troop surrounded. Who’s in their vicinity?”

“Otto Palvicz with his cuirassier regiment.”

“Ah, he is the right man for them. They’ll decimate the hussars. And Master Richard will be shot in the head.”

And Miss Edith had to hear all that.

Why had all this to be told in the presence of Miss Edith? Madam Antoinette arranged it so out of some calculated consideration. Towards the end of the story, the Reader will understand the reason for it; for the time being, let he believe that it was her cruel, blind hatred and her wicked delight in seeing another’s suffering that forced the Lady of the house to let these numbing words be said before the girl. This woman’s soul wanted to gloat over the agony of another woman’s heart.

But she was unable to take delight therein.

There was no sign of any interest in the plan on Miss Edith’s face.

She was eating heartily.

When the conversation turned upon her sweetheart’s execution, she stuffed a slice of bacon into her mouth, so large that it bulged out of her cheeks, and asked for some more vinegar to flavour the gelatine she had helped herself to.

Seeing her indifference, Miss Alfonsine was seething with anger and frustration. She could not refrain from telling her, with the cold blood of a reptile,

“It seems to me, my dear, that your sweetheart’s shooting in the head can hardly spoil your appetite.”

Edith picked up a piece of gelatine with her fork and, holding it out towards Miss Alfonsine, responded,

“Better a fiancé dead than one alive and buried.”

And having said that, she shoved the bite of food into her mouth.

“Indomitable!” Madam Antoinette mumbled between teeth. Turning her eyes toward heaven, and putting her hand on her bosom, Sister Remigia tried to confirm that she was an unbreakable and diabolical creature.

“Nothing affects her heart,” they thought.

Edith did not want to notice how the three basilisks were trying to turn her to stone. She pushed her small glass before Miss Alfonsine.

“Please, will you pour me some of that Chartreuse? After all, I’ll be a nun; I have to accustom to it.”

Miss Alfonsine handed her the whole bottle to see what she was going to do with it.

Surely, her hand was not shaking while she was filling up her glass with the green liqueur. Then she also filled Sister Remigia’s glass to overflowing.

“Let’s have a drink, Sister Remigia, we also have to leap up our spirits with something,” the girl said with mischievous sense of humour.

Sister Remigia was allowing herself to be offered for a while, saying it might have been be too much of it but, in fact, she was very fond of Chartreuse. It had always been her weak point.

“She’s the devil himself, really!”

But Madam Antoinette had not finished yet.

“Remember, Sister Remigia, the address of Mrs. Baradlay’s accommodation—it’s the vegetable storage in the basement at 17 Singerstrasse—because the woman’s coming back to persuade also her other son, too, and take him back home. Meanwhile, we have to have a hold over her. Please, inform the general of the news in the usual manner tomorrow; but don’t rush lest Captain Richard should get wind of anything. This man must die even if every single hair of his head was guarded by an angel.

“A terrible girl!”

“And now she’s asking for a slice from the fromage de Brie, she’s drinking the Chartreuse, and offers it to Sister Remigia. Maybe, she wants to stun or stupefy herself. After all, she has the reason to do so,” they thought.

Poor girl! How much heroism she had to exhibit by making herself to be able to eat and drink; pretending greedy appetite and a gourmand’s thirst while the others were talking about things from which she was scarcely dying!

She had to play this role. She told to herself, “Let them think, »Lo, she’s also felt like living a monastery life; her sole cannot be solaced by anything else but the Paradise in the afterlife—and the bountifully laden tables in this mundane world.«”

Soon she pretended as if she was fighting with sleep and being unable to keep her eyes open. She let her head tilt back and rest on the back of the armchair, and closed her eyes. But through her long eyelashes, as if from an ambush, she could make out each face clearly.

Now all the others thought she had fallen asleep. And her aunts stopped to look at her either with ridicule or hatred. Rather, it was the intriguer’s attention and examining look.

“Is she always like this?” Mrs. Plankenhorst asked Sister Remigia.

“She’s mostly inclined toward sloth,” reported the nun, drawing up her criticizing eyebrows. “She would sleep until noon if we didn’t wake her up; and this time in the evening you can hardly keep her awake. She’s not interested in working or reading; she likes doing nothing. She’s a passionless creature. She only likes eating and sleeping.”

“You should give in to her propensity. Let her feel at home there. We’re going to guarantee her annual allowance until death. Should she come back home, she would’ve to do some work.”

“Consequently, she’s lost Sir Richard Baradlay for good, has she?”

“Definitely. One way or the other. If his mother manages to talk to him, she’ll persuade him to escape with his troop to Hungary. She’s already brought one of her sons into danger in this way. He’s a Deputy Commissioner now, and he’s recruiting armed forces. He’s Baradlay’s first-born son! Should his mother fail to meet him, and should he forbid his troop to go away abroad, no doubt, the pistols that are destined to do away with him at the fatal moment, would be charged. I was told it by Fritz himself. Two men in his troop are instructed to shoot him to death.”

“And that fatal moment draws near.”

“If the attack is repeated to-morrow, they won’t be able to defend themselves after dark. They’ll break out through the line of encirclement at Lerchenfeld, where they think Mr. Baradlay is. Hence, there’s only one day left. If his mother talks to Master Richard, he’ll be dead by the morning of the day after to-morrow. It’s all the same for me. I don’t want him to die at the scaffold, though he’s deserved my hate.”

“And in two days everything will be over.”

“The whole farce will be over.”

“And it will be our turn to laugh.”

“Ha, ha, ha!”

They laughed in advance.

And Miss Edith did not have to let out a facial twitch so as not to betray that she was all that hearing, feeling and suffering all through it. Her calm features had to lie that she was seeing the dream of idleness and intoxication.

And the girl was not to give away her terror. Her soul was fighting against all the nerves of her body lest they started shivering; lest all her limbs were flushed with fever; lest her teeth rattled like those of a child upon hearing the ding-dong of the fire bell.

Finally it was time to leave.

Miss Edith felt a cold hand touching her face like a cool serpent would. She had to pretend not to start up from her sleep.

She let them jerk her, make every effort to wake her up until they managed to do that. Then the staggering and yawning girl fell on the bosom of Sister Remigia, who supported her by the arm and helped her down the stairs and to the coach.

Madam Antoinette accompanied them up to that point.

“There’s nobody at the house to open and shut the gate” said the baroness. “Every and each man’s standing in front of the barricades; we haven’t a single doorman or servant left in our house. We’re left totally alone. If the old coachman weren’t lame and deaf then he would’ve been taken away as well.”

In fact, she escorted them as far as to the coach only to make sure with her own eyes that Sister Remigia took Miss Edith with herself.

“After all, everything can go wrong,” she thought. “Suspect never sleeps.”

But when Miss Edith was sitting in a corner of the coach, and laid back to sleep, Madam Antoinette calmed down, and went back to her apartment.

The cumbersome family coach was jolting slowly in the dark streets. At certain places the cobblestones were picked up; maybe the coachman himself was dozing.

When they got into the dark zone, Miss Edith suddenly opened her eyes.

What did she look at? What did she see? What did she think?

She thought only of one thing: running away.

Running away, even if a thousand devils were guarding the door of the coach, even if the ghosts of all the people, no matter how many, who had died on that very day, were haunting there on the unlit streets.

She made some noise to make sure her companion was asleep.

She saw she was.

It was not Miss Edit’s but her matron to have her eyes heavy with sleep after a rich dinner.

By the time they got to the glacis from the inner city, Sister Remigia was snoring. The chartreuse did its duty.

As soon as the girl established it, she opened the door of the coach quietly, and sprang out of it with a jump.

As for the coachman, she could do it unnoticed; she knew he was hardly hearing, and might have been dozing.

And she, taken by her passion, ran at great speed back to the city from the lines of trees on the glacis.

Only when in the first dark street, she glanced back behind her to see how the lonely lamp carried by her aunt’s coach was climbing on in the dark night, just like a wandering firefly.

I wish the chilly night air didn’t wake the nun up!” she thought. “Besides, they would’ve run after me in vain.”

She hurriedly turned the corner of the street, and started in the silent, black night.

In an enormous unlit dark city, about midnight, a virgin, a child, guarded by no one, and led by no one, started to find a house, a street, where she had never been before, and a woman therein, whom she had never met.

Only endless Love, which can grow into a deity only in a child’s heart, like that, could give power and strength to her mind to conceive a thought like that.

She did not know where to head first. Before anything else, she had to orientate herself.

The enormous tower of St. Stephen’s served as a landmark for her.

“The Singerstrasse must be on the opposite side thereof,” she pondered. “So I need to find the church, where I might encounter a good, honest heart, who can give me further instructions.”

Now she let herself tremble in every limb; every nerve of her heart trembled as they liked it. Now it was seen by nobody.

The child, seized with fever, ran through the streets leading to the high gothic tower. The streets were mute. She felt as if she was in a fairytale maze underground. Nights are twice as dark in the narrow streets and between the rows of many-storied houses in the city centre. Today, every light was out in order that the enemy, which was maintaining the siege, could not find any target anywhere.

Those who dared to live their lives were out at the gates on the firing-lines; who were scared to live were hiding in their vaulted shelters thinking that no bombs could penetrate them. The street was empty.

The girl was running noiselessly, not even hearing her own footsteps. She was afraid of the night and loneliness but they both were dominated by the dread of the danger threatening her sweetheart, and her mad recklessness. Just like fever-patients who jump out of their bed, escape though the window, run away barefoot on sharp pebbles, rush into a river or attack people stronger than them—in their deadly panic fear.

She only halted now and then when the clock struck. When she had heard two strokes ever since started, she stated that she had already been running for half an hour, though anybody could go from one end of the inner city of Vienna to the other within half an hour; especially if he was running. She arrived to the conclusion that she must have lost her way.

Somehow, she arrived at an intersection.

She caught the sight of the Stephen’s tower again, now she’d left it on the left.

She saw she had not lost her way.

She knew the Singer Street had to be on that direction. Now she wanted to know how she could read any street name or street number with such a blind darkness all around.

She stopped on a corner, and sat down on a cornerstone. She was fatigued.

And she heard the majestic chime of the clock of the St. Stephen’s Tower for the third time. It struck midnight.

As soon as the last stroke was over, another signal flare rose up and, sparkling blood-red light, drew the same question mark upon the sky, asking for who knows whose good friend’s answer.

In eager haste, Miss Edith was searching for the street sign on the wall of the corner house in the light of the flare.

Her heart leaped with electric joy. Just above her head, the lapidary metal letters said: SUNGERSTRASSE.

The hope came back into her hart. Her confidence reassured her that her guardian angel held her hand and led her up to that point. “It was not blind lick—it was gracious Providence!” she thought. “Once the beginning was as good as that, the end must be good, too.”

Now she had the thread of orientation in her hand. The rocket exploded, and left the night black. But Miss Edith knew that if the house, on the corner of which she was standing, was number 1, the odd numbers were on her side. She knew all she had to do to find Number 17 was count the gates.

She went on with searching in the darkness.

After the extinction of the rocket, it seemed to her as if the night was much darker. From that time on, she only could feel her way with her hands like a blind person.

She had to feel every door so as not to mistake the gates for the shop doors. She went ahead like this, counting the gates. “Thirteen… fifteen…. Now comes the seventeenth gate,“ she thought.

“Who’s there?” she screamed in fright at once, when in one of the hollow of a gate, she bumped into a living creature, which she grabbed with both hands with the power of horror.

“The blessed Virgin and St. Anne!” exclaimed the other. “This is a madwoman!”

The person, Miss Edith stumbled into, was an old woman.

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” the girl said panting, and letting the woman’s clothes go. “In fact, I was so afraid of you.”

“I was even more afraid of you. What do you wish here, Mademoiselle?”

“Looking for number seventeen.”

“So? And what is your errand here?”

“I must find it. That’s all.”

“Who do you have to deal with at this time of night, Mademoiselle?”

“With a woman.”

“With a woman? Who is she?”

“With a vegetable-vender woman, who came here with another market-woman yesterday evening.”

“And what have you to do with her? If you tell it to me, I’ll lead you there.”

“O, don’t ask me, Auntie. If you believe in God, believe me that it’s about the life of a man—not, that of two men—o, Heavens—about a number of people’s life and death! If you know where the house is, please lead me there.”

“The house in question is behind me,” said the old lady, “do you want to come with me?”

Miss Edit was ready with the answer.

“Let us seek admission.”

“The latch’s on me,” said the woman and, having opened the narrow door, and let the girl before her, locked the door behind them again.

Miss Edith had just started to be aware enough of what she had done. She had thrown herself on the mercy of a stranger, whom she never ever met before, in a house, which was unknown by her, in a midnight hour.

At the end of the narrow corridor, the wind was waving a floating wick on the floor. The fat, red-faced old woman picked up the floating wick and, by the light thereof, scrutinized the newcomer girl from head to toe and, looking at her well-known clothing, murmured in astonishment,

“Blessed Father, she’s a young nun.”

At this moment, Miss Edith’s face and whole figure was somehow glorified and exalted. The strange woman could not help feeling respect towards her. A martyr, even an icon was standing in front of her.

“So you want to speak to the vegetable-vender woman, Miss?”

“Not to her but her woman guest.”

“Do you know anything about her?”

“Everything.”

“Do you know that you’re risking your life saying that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, follow me.”

The woman started with the waving wick. Going ahead, she led the girl to the entrance of an even narrower cellar flight, and asked her to go ahead thenceforth.

Miss Edith did not hesitate. She started down on the wooden steps of the cellar, supporting herself with her hand against the wet wall, and thought that if the guardian angel, who had led her up to that place, did not cover her with his robe, she could have easily become prey in that underground lair to any horror that sinful souls are able to devise. “This woman and perhaps others too—who knows, who live here—could do to me whatever they want to,” she said to herself. “They could even kill and bury me right here on the spot, and nobody would know it.”

Despite all this, she quietly went on down the stairs. The woman grasped her arm with her strong and bony hand, maybe to lead her or so that she did not tumble.

When at the bottom of the stairs, they got into a musty hatch.

“To the right!” the old lady whispered.

Miss Edith let herself pushed on in a tortuous path bending thrice, until finally they reached a ramshackle wooden door padlocked outside. Though the door was locked, candle light filtered through the cracks thereof.

The woman removed the padlock from the iron strap, and opened the door.

“This way, Mademoiselle.”

Miss Edith had already known that she was in the right place before the door opening. A sultry smell of vegetables filtered out through the door cracks. She breathed in relief. Neither the carrots nor the celeries there ever thought that their stink would be ever praised like the scent of ambrosia.

That was the vegetable-vender woman’s store-room.

“Be careful, there’s one more step down!” the merchant woman warned the girl.

When the latter stepped in, the other re-shut the door, and remained outside.

Miss Edith found herself in a vaulted cavern the corners of which were covered with potatoes and carrots, and the walls with strings of onions.

In the middle of the hole there were two straw chairs; on one of them, there was a tallow candle, on the other, there was a woman sitting in a folk costume usually worn by town merchants.

The woman looked up at the girl stepping in quietly. Her face never betrayed its owner’s surprise. Its features were not under the command of emotions.

The girl violently ran to the woman and, falling on her knees in front of her, seized her hand, and her eyes, widen with fear, told her everything forthright that her mouth was to say only a bit later,

“Mrs. Baradlay! They’re plotting to kill your son!”

The words pierced into the woman’s heart and she started. Notwithstanding, she stifled the cry rising to her lips.

“Richard, you mean?” she faltered.

“Yes, yes,” said the girl hurriedly, “Captain Richard, your dear Richard. O, Madam, you must rescue him!”

And she folded her arms fiercely around the lady’s knees.

The lady took a long, examining look at the girl’s face.

“Are you Miss Edith?”

The girl looked up at her with rapture.

“Have you heard my name already?”

“I know it from my son’s letter. Reading your face and listening to your words, you can be none other than Richard’s betrothed.”

“Oh, Madam, I’m fiancée of the grave, betrothed of the crypts and church walls. I know it well; it was discussed in front of me that my fiancé must be die. He must be die a dreadful death, a never to be appeased death at the scaffold or by an assassination. That’s why I came running here to see you. You’re his mother. Choose a death more beautiful for him.”

“But how you know all that? How you know who I was? How you know I was here? How you know what danger was lurking around Richard?”

“I’ll tell you. You’re betrayed. Your staunchest allies, foolish, reckless youths, told your secret to cunning ladies, who pretend and play lover and heroin of freedom, while they are, in fact, agents of your opponents not shy away from murder. They told it, in my presence, how they would betray you and your son as early as tomorrow; if you talk to Captain Richard, his superiors would capture and execute him; if you can’t, his subjects would assassinate him. The question rises, why they told all this in my presence. In order to break my soul. How should I know why they want to break me down, to drive me crazy?”

The girl sobbed a bit; then she was completely alive again.

“But they were mistaken in me. They believed that I was already crunched by pain. But I slipped from their hands; I ran and fled away from them, and ran through the whole city here. It was dark but I found this place for God protected and guided me. He was with me. He led me here, and will lead me farther still!”

Her words were so impetuous and so elevated that the lady, carried away with silent admiration, folded her arms around the girl’s shoulders, and looked into her face with delight.

It was so heart warming to see such true love for Richard!

“Please wake up, my child, and let’s talk quietly. You see, I’m perfectly composed. So you heard them say their plot would be carried out tomorrow morning, did you?”

“Certainly.”

“Then half the night is still left for preceding them.”

“You’re going to your son?”

“Instantly.”

The girl pleaded with her hands clasped together.

“Please, take me with you!”

The woman considered a moment.

“Let it be. Come with us!”

The girl clapped her hands in delight. She was such a girl.

“But bethink we’re toying with our lives.”

“Oh, I’m so happy about it!”

“You have to dress in peasant’s clothes so as to be able to come with us.”

Mrs. Baradlay called in the merchant woman standing outside,

“Frau Babi, we must start at once.”

“Good,” said the old lady.

“This girl’s coming with us.”

“Is she coming, too? I mean she needs a costume, too?”

“And have you one for her?”

“For any kind of stature.”

Having opened an old chest, Frau Babi found different clothes suitable for young girls. There was more than one.

“Now, Frau Babi, it’s advisable to pack up the wardrobe and transport it to another place, because our accommodation is known by more people than needed.”

“I think so.”

Frau Babi put the merchant clothing just on top of the nun’s clothing on Miss Edith. She tied a plaid wool scarf around her waist, and put a straw hat on her head; the hat, which was fashionable among the merchants, let only the tip of the nose appear.

“Meet a perfect young merchant woman! There comes a pannier upon her back. You’ve never carried a thing like that before, have you? But don’t fear, I’ll choose a light one, made only from twigs and canvas, and put just rolls into it so that it’ll be an easy load. Mrs. Baradlay and I’ll carry the potatoes and the onions.”

Miss Edith found it quite funny. She took on the pannier full of rolls.

“Well, my dear, if you want to be with soldiers, you have to bring food to them otherwise they think you’re up to no good.”

With that, she helped the Madame put the pannier on her back; and eased the heaviest one onto her own back.

“I wonder whether we know how we should call each other. For the Madam, I’m Frau Babi, for the Miss, Fra Mám. For me, and the Madam, the Miss is to Leni. For the Miss, the Madam is Frau Kodl. For me, the Madam is Frai Midi. Now, let’s rehearse.”

Everybody repeated the others’ form of address. They were even joking while learning their roles.

“And you, all the three, don’t worry, be happy! You mustn’t be afraid. When you’re most afraid, you have to be happiest and most cheerful. Try to speak as dialectically as possible. And keep cheering up as I do. All you have to do is imitate me. Besides, I escape through their siege lines through the Lerenfeld cabbage gardens where I want to. Any soldier that wants to prevent me from it needs the assistance of the devil. So cheer always up!”

Miss Edith promised to do so but as soon as they got out into the dark street, she began to tremble again. Frau Babi, who held her hand, tried to entertain her with Vienna anecdotes in vain.

“Oh, Leni! If you’re shaking like this, you’d better stay at home. For you’ll betray our intentions. Collect yourself, Leni! Try to be in a good rustic mood. Oh, Leni, oh, Leni!”

Edith promised again to collect herself but could not put herself in a rustic mood.

Frau Babi led them through a street that Miss Edith, despite the darkness, recognised. The Plankenhorst house also was in that street.

She started trembling even harder.

As they got in front of the Plankenhorst house, Miss Edith looked up at the windows. There was faint light in two of them. The bedrooms of her aunts could be found there, and the night lamps were on.

“But what has come over you that you’re shivering so much?” asked the girl Frau Babi. “You’re shivering like a sensitive mademoiselle.”

“If you don’t want me shivering so much, Frau Ma’am, give me two potatoes from your pannier. But two really big ones.”

“What the hell you need those two potatoes for?”

“I’ll tell you right away.”

And, with that, she threw the two potatoes into the two windows, respectively. The window panes were smashed and some fell clattering down.

“Now we must run for it!” she thought, and ran up to the end of the street. Of course, the two other women had to run with her after the outrage. They could hardly overtake her.

“But what the hell did you do, Leni?” reprimanded Frau Ma’am. “Have you lost your mind to break windows, and make Frau Kodl and me run? Tu närische Kredl!^[65]

But Miss Edith took Mrs. Baradlay’s hand and, grasping for breath, said,

“My two evil hearted aunts live there; they are to blame for my roaming the streets. Just imagine how they jumped out of their bed! How they’re guessing who wished them good night! Ha-ha-ha!”

Mrs. Baradlay, in spite of scolding the girl, took and pressed her hand. She understood everything. “What a wonderful child she is!” she said to herself.

“Well, Frau Ma’am,” said Miss Edith, as they got into another street. “I think I’ve found my good rustic mood. Do you want me to sing something?”

Without waiting the answer, she commenced singing a popular romance in a clear, ringing tone,

Und ewig kennt das Vaterland und nennt,

Die letzten zehn vom vierten Regiment.

Lia lia lia la!^[66]

And she yodelled to that just like any merchant’s daughter.

Just to make the sky even darker, rain started spraying.

“Damn it, it could’ve rained tomorrow,“ muttered Frau Babi, concerned.

“We won’t get soaked,” Miss Edith encouraged her, merrily. “The rain will cover us even better, Fra Ma’am.”

“Please don’t meddle in everything, Leni! I don’t need any cover to be invisible. But now hurry up before it rains heavily.”

They hurried even faster. The merchant woman stopped for a minute now and then to ask the genteel lady whether she was tired.

She did not say a word just waved them to go on. On that day, she had already walked with the heavy load on her back at least four miles.

It is really amazing how much a woman endures! A woman who is a mother—a mother who loves her child and her homeland.

It was unnecessary to ask Miss Edith whether she was tired. She led the way, dancing with the pannier on her back.

When the disguised women reached the Kaiserstrasse, the bells of the city’s tower were striking two.

There was nobody at the barricade in the main street of Lerchenfeld, not even a guard.

By design, the besieged let it apparently unguarded. There was a small cavalry unit abiding on that line, while the others were at Schwechat. Cavalry is never used for storming barricades. On the other hand, all the houses beside the barricades were full of sharpshooters, who were hiding there noiselessly, kept in reserve for a potential sortie.

The women managed to slip out along the blocked streets. The besieged did not much bother them.

It was all the more difficult for them to get through the investing lines, and reach the cemetery.

Those who saw Vienna in those days may remember the ditch between “Auf der Schmelz” and Hernals, still open at that time. Its head was made from hewn stones, the rest from wooden planks, and was used for channelling the water rushing down from the mountains. It was not the most pleasant place to visit—but deep enough for the ones who did not want to be seen.

In the days of the peaceful civilian life, it can be a formidable thing to plod one’s way along the deep ditch during the night-time hours; only desperate thieves, child killer bitches and stray dogs happen to be there.

But stormy weather sweeps garbage pits like this clean.

Now there were neither thieves nor murderers there—there was a war going on.

The merchant woman was leading her female companions along the deep ditch, in the bottom of which there was lush grass growing; there had been no rain for months there.

At a certain place, where the side wall was crumbled in, the merchant woman climbed up, peered around cautiously, and said, in a whisper,

“Here we are.”

As a first thing, she had the panniers handed over up to her.

“We’ll leave them here. My pannier will be enough. The hussars are camping there.”

About two hundred steps from the ditch, there could be seen two hussars’ figures, lit by a watch-fire. At a distance, there were five of six more watch-fires burning in a group. The cemetery was there, the troop’s camp.

“We succeeded. Now, Frau Midi, forward! I’m not needed there.”

Mrs. Baradlay, having taken Miss Edith’s hand, headed straight for the watch-fire.

The sentinel saw them approach but did not shout at them. He let them approach very close. It was only that time when one of them spoke to them from horse back,

“Halt! Who goes there?”

“Good friends!” answered Mrs. Baradlay.

“Give the countersign!”

“Saddle it up and right about!”

Hereupon, the questioner jumped from his horse, walked to the woman in peasant costume and, having bowed his knee to her, kissed her hand with respectful tenderness, without touching it with his hand.

“We were waiting for you, Madam!”

“Did you recognize me, good old Paul?”

“Thank God, you’re here!”

“Where’s my son?”

“I’ll take you to him straightaway. And who is this lovable and beautiful servant?” asked, pointing at Miss Edith.

“She comes with me.”

“I see.”

The old hussar put the rein into his comrade’s hand, and led the two ladies towards the cemetery on foot.

This time, a small whitewashed house—normally, the one of the cemetery guard—was Captain Richard’s “headquarter”. He had a small room with a window facing the city in it.

He had just returned from his night patrol; he opened the door with his key; lit up the candle on the table and, annoyed, and struck the table hard with his fist.

“There they are again!“ he thought to himself.

What were there again? Well, it was the latest Budapest papers that were laid down with accuracy on his table. And several passages in them were underlined in red.

“On the fire with them!” he thought.

But he could not help reading them before throwing them on fire.

And, having started reading them, he was utterly unable to throw them on the fire. “Maybe, they wouldn’t burn at all,” he said to himself. “Or they would rise from the ashes.”

He placed his elbows on the table and, having cupped his head into his hands, read over and over again the marked lines, and his brow grew even darker than before.

“No! No! This can’t be true!” he exclaimed, struggling with himself. “They all beguile and lie! It’s impossible that so many things should happen on one day!”

But somebody was coming. He hurriedly crumpled the papers up in his hand.

Old Paul entered.

Captain Richard angrily snapped at him,

“Who’s put these infamous newspapers stealthily on my table?”

Old Paul responded with unbreakable good humour,

“I understand what it means taking something stealthily away but putting something stealthily somewhere is quite new for me.”

“A bundle of newspapers is smuggled through my locked door here on my table every day. Who does it?”

“Well, I don’t even know what a newspaper is. After all, I can’t read.”

“You’re lying, villain! You think me not knowing that you’ve been learning to read for three months no matter how old you are? Who’s taught you to read?”

“Don’t look for him! He died just yesterday. The bugler. The poor man was a precipitated student; death’s dogs were barking out of him. I said to him, »Don’t take your knowledge with you to the other world; leave some of it!«”

“And why did you learn reading?” the captain interrogated him strictly.

The old private stiffened his neck and replied firmly,

“If I wanted to tell a lie, I could say anything else but the truth; I could choose to say that I’d like to be a petty officer at long last; that’s why I’ve learnt reading. But I don’t say that. What I’m saying is that I’ve learnt reading in my old age to find out what’s going on at home.”

“So you also read this stuff here? Where do you get them from?”

“Let’s leave it for another time. I have something to report. Two women want to speak to you, Captain Baradlay.”

“You mean women? How did they get here? Where did they come from?”

“They came from the direction of the city.”

“How come the sentinel let them pass?”

“They knew the countersign.”

“That’s another lie. I changed the camp countersign not before this hour; nobody in the city could yet be informed thereof. It couldn’t have been betrayed yet.”

Old Paul told him the truth with phlegmatic defiance,

“They used another countersign…”

“What, another countersign, you say? Is there any other person here who has his own countersign? There must be a conspiracy here! I’ll sweep down upon them. I’ll have the brains of those two women blown out!”

Captain Richard was angry. He beat his sword to the floor, and Old Paul was gazing at him as meekly as a good-humoured grandpa is at his chafing grandson.

“One of the women is your mother, Mr. Captain.”

Old Paul had the satisfaction seeing his captain, who had been burning with anger one minute before, being captured by frosty stiffness of terror. The lad’s eyes stared without seeing; his lips were left open, his hand halted in mid-air as he had been lifting the sword up before.

Captain Richard thought that he was seeing a dream. Then, when the old servant opened the door, first, from the darkness of the night, a gentle and loving female face appeared before him. It was so honourable and so worthy of worship. Then another face came into view, reflecting a childish mind and angelic love. They both were dressed in peasant’s clothes; both of them were soaking wet with rain and mud, and fatigued…

All what Captain Richard had read in those cursed newspapers; the incredible tales, the unbelievable dreams came true. An embodied pair of those women of noble birth, who were assaulted by bloodthirsty, wild hordes of beasts with torches and axes by night; whose husbands and brothers were slaughtered before their eyes; who were escaped in ragged disguises by merciful peasant women, and who run away from their burning houses barefooted and covered with mud, and appear as scary monsters for their acquaintances in other neighbourhoods—as never ever seen strangers.

This was the picture standing before him.

He ran to his mother, embraced her, and kissed her face and hands. Oh, how soaking wet she was! Oh, how cold her face and hands were! He did not even ask her anything.

As for Miss Edith, he hardly dared glance at her. For fear it was not truly her. “Maybe there exists another face so similar to hers,” he thought. “It’s totally inconceivable that she should be here at this moment!” He was afraid to find out who she was.

Nobody said a word; only a quiet sound could be heard, which is called sob—the sound telling more than any other thing.

Upon seeing and hugging his mother, Sir Richard Baradlay felt such an inexpressible pain in his heart that he was no longer master of himself. He collapsed into his chair, and lurched forward into his arms. He pointed at the newspapers predicting calamity, and moaned bitterly,

“Is all that true?”

His mother glanced at the papers.

“This is one thousandth part of the truth!” she said to her son. I swear to you on the love with which I’ve always carried you in my heart.”

“Don’t swear, mother! The fact that you’re here now provides me evidence more convincible than any kind of swear words.

And he brought his fist down on the table

“And from now on, neither God nor men shall ever command me. I shall keep your commands alone, mother. What do you want me to do?”

Mrs. Baradlay took Miss Edith’s hand, and drew her close to Sir Richard Baradlay.

“Look, here’s the one who told me what I wanted you to do. Only an hour ago, I myself was at a loss as to say.”

“Miss Edith!” whispered Captain Richard, in amazement, and caressed the little hand extended toward him; it was wet from her soaked wet clothes. “This is Miss Edith’s hand and face.” He thought. “But how’s that possible? What else has Fate in reserve to drive me completely mad?”

“These are soul changing times, my son!” said Mrs. Baradlay. “We’ve all become different people. Now every stone has a heart that aches. They didn’t want armed people having one. A Forest of bayoneted rifles has its mother, who is called Homeland. But this eternal mother is mute—she cannot cry! They knew that. She can be ridden over, her body can be chopped up—she cannot cry, »Help me, my son!« But they didn’t think of the fact that every sword-bearing man has a mother at home, and if two hundred thousand mothers begin to whine for help, the Great Child will hear. And we cried! Both the gentlewomen and the country women went to write and speak where they had a son. And they heard us. It was a terrible commandment. The mothers put their sons under the obligation to return home. And their sons returned home. It was only you who failed to hear us.”

“I’m listening to you, mom. I shall remember every word you’ve said.”

“Look! Here’s a girl; a convent pupil. She overhears how others want to put her sweetheart to death. In a cunning way, according to a satanic plan. Whether he acts or not. If he acts, on the scaffold; if not, by way of assassination. On one hand, order has already been given for his arrest; on the other hand, the assassinator’s gun is already charged. And the young girl isn’t thinking what to do. She doesn’t cry; she doesn’t despair. She pretends to be cheerful and, at midnight, after evading them, escapes from her guards. In the middle of the night, she runs into the darkness, runs through the ghostly streets of the city in the black inky night in order to find her sweetheart’s mother, and throw herself in front of her feet, saying, »Oh, Madam Baradlay, they want to put your son to a terrible and shameful death! Quick, hurry up, find him! Try and find him a better death!«”

“Miss Edith!” faltered Sir Richard, pressing the girl’s cold hand to his forehead.

“I have made my decision, my son.”

“I’m listening to you, mother.”

“There are still places, where mothers, whose sons have sacrificed themselves, do not cry bitter but sweet tears.”

“What shall I do?”

“Learn it from your own privates. The camp countersign, with which we came across your vanguards, was »Saddle it up and right about!« If you pronounce this countersign, you’ll know where to go. Whether you get there or not is up to your sword and God.”

“So be it!”

Captain Richard stepped to the door. Old Paul was guarding there. The captain spoke to him quietly,

“Go to let the non-commissioned officers know the new camp countersign: »Saddle it up and right about!«”

The old hussar said nothing but ran away.

“My die is cast,” said Captain Richard on having returned to his mother and sweetheart. “But what will happen to you now?”

“Who knows that? God lives every day.”

“Now you cannot go back into the city. It’ll be besieged from every side to-morrow. Each point will be in emergency. I’m leaving immediately, still dark; the shower will help me to disappear from the front line. I think you’d best come with me to the next village, where you could get a couch, and flee on towards Hungary. Take Miss Edith with you, Mum.”

Both ladies shook their heads “no”.

“I’m going back into the city, son.”

“Mind you, mom, that the city will be taken tomorrow, and that you’re betrayed.”

“I’m mindful of nothing. I’ve another son in that city, and I’m going back to fetch him. Should it be on fire or not, be it ablaze or not, or filled with enemies—I’ll take him from there. I won’t leave him for them!”

Captain Richard buried his face in his hands.

“O, mother, what a dwarf I seem to be compared to you!”

And then he threw a painful look at Miss Edith, as if he asked her, “And what will become of you, a flower thrown into the wind? Where’re you going? Where will you find shelter? What the future will hold for you?”

Miss Edith understood the sorrowful meaning of the silent question, and spoke.

“Do not be anxious about me, Sir Richard. Your mother will accompany me up to the monastery. I’ll return there back. Don’t worry about me. They’ll chasten me but won’t kill me. And it shall be safe in there. I’ll be waiting for you. I’ll wait until you come back for me as a victorious man with a triumphal wreath, and take me to your house. I’ll be happy while expecting your return. And if it were preordained by God that you should find another fiancée, who is more beautiful than me, and who’s called by her suitors »Beauteous Death«, I shall at least know what for I am praying kneeling on the cold stone day by day.”

Upon these words, Mrs. Baradlay pressed the dear child to her son’s breast and, while they were reciting their wedding vow in a painful embrace, the mother, lifting her trembling hands towards Heaven, forced God in the High Sky to look down on them and not to leave their vow unseen.

The horses were lining up with clattering hooves outside.

“Time’s over. Hurry up, son!” said Mrs. Baradlay.

Captain Richard wiped his tears away, embraced his mother and, having put his cloak around his neck, went with his dear people out.

It was raining on and on.

The hussar troop was already standing outside the cemetery ditch neatly drawn up in order.

Captain Richard mounted on his horse and placed himself at the head of his troop. When the two women were passing the horsemen, they all greeted the female figures not shouting but quietly with a simultaneous “Hurray!” This quiet “Hurray!” was like a whooshing breeze, a forest murmur; choked sighs from hundreds of breasts.

“Saddle it up and right about!” the countersign sounded calmly, and the troop began to move. The bugler had died, and the troop did not need a flourish any more. They disappeared like campers of a ghost camp.

Old Paul escorted the two ladies to the watch fire, where the merchant woman was waiting for them. He was to stay there with the other sentinel until dawn, so that the patrol did not notice anything, and then would follow the others on horseback. It was pouring without end.

“We’d better think about the way back home,” said Frau Bábi. “This rain isn’t good for us. We cannot follow the same route which we took to get here. Since that time, the ditch must’ve been filled with water.”

“We’ll put to use the trade with the help of which we got to Vienna yesterday,” Mrs. Baradlay comforted her. We’ll head into the centre of the bivouac as merchant women, who sell food and drink.”

“Why, what was good yesterday will be good today; but we two were alone yesterday. And two respectable ladies like us, can easily go through every part of the camp. But now, this creature is with us, too!”

The merchant woman pointed at Miss Edith.

“I don’t think anybody would jump at us, especially if we pull a very angry face; but this young servant will catch their damned eyes. Not that anything bad would happen if we got into the middle of the camp but if a naughty guy gives her a pinch or tries flirting with her, an inexperienced and touchy creature like this will betray herself, that she’s a miss.”

“O, don’t fear for me, Fra Mam!” the girl encouraged her. I was brought up to be a servant!”

At this point, she remembered, how she met Sir Richard.

“That’s right, Leni, be in your right mind! Just keep cheering up! Just keep speaking dialect!”

They put on their panniers. The bottom of the channel was not passable anymore; neither the right bank because it was too steep to climb. They had to cross to the other side on a footbridge; they found a walkway there. Frau Babi said they had to follow it, she knew the way, which, as she supposed, was leading among the vegetable gardens, from where on, she said, knew the way across the fences.

Additionally, it was raining, and dark. It was between three and four o’clock in the morning. They were completely unable to orient themselves. The only way marker was the fact that the rain, upon their going there, had been hitting them from behind while, upon their coming back, was hitting them in their face.

All of a sudden, the rain stopped, the clouds ripped open, and it was only when the fleeing women saw that they had fallen in one of the main camps of the blockading army.

In front of them, white cloaks of mounted cuirassiers could be distinguished in the night on both sides.

It was late to return.

There was a field house transformed into a jerry-shop standing twenty steps before them. Some merry dragoons encamped therein. The sound of an organ-grinder came out of it. Maybe, they were even dancing.

A group of soldiers was standing outside before the door.

As soon as they saw the three women, a flock of boisterous guys ran to meet them, and surrounded them.

“Hey!” shouted Frau Babi to the first one. “Don’t eat me! It’s your grandmother coming, who’s bringing potatoes.”

Anyway, the valiant solders were in good humour, and the old woman’s grimaces did not discourage them. They surrounded the younger ones as well. An evil eye noticed that there was a beautiful girl among them.

“Why don’t you come in for a dance?”

Mrs. Baradlay whispered to Miss Edith:

“Now we’re lost.”

“It’s not so bad but for Captain Richard!” whispered back Miss Edith. “This is Otto Palvicz’s regiment. He’s posted to monitor Captain Richard’s troop in secret. As soon as the rain stops and, when it’s lighter, they’ll notice that Captain Richard’s troop has disappeared, and start chasing them. My God, there should be done something!”

Suddenly, Miss Edith pushed the unruly lad aside, who was already tugging her towards the jerry-shop and, having thrown down her pannier, turned to the sergeant with a look commanding respect and a refined manner of speech,

“Mr. Sergeant, please report me to the colonel. Where is Colonel Otto Palvicz? We are sent to him. Please, tell him, here is Brigitta.”

“What’re you doing?” Mrs. Baradlay spoke to her in whisper.

“Let everything to me now. We’ll succeed or perish.”

“Närische Kredl!” Frau Babi murmured to herself, whose heart sank into her shoes. “This child takes us all to hell.”

The sergeant drove away the lads molesting the women and, having called the armed guard, escorted them between extracted swords to the neighbouring hut, and admitted all the three of them therein. He left them there, and went into the colonel’s room.

After a few minutes, he came out again.

“The Brigittes are asked to come in.”

Mrs. Baradlay and Miss Edith stepped into the room.

The senior officer was alone. He was a tall, strongly built man with strong features, which were characterised by a nose of unusual length. His deep-set eyes expressed suspicion, and the corners of his lips sarcasm.

First he gave a long inquisitive look to the two female figures, and then spoke to them,

“Who’re you looking for?”

Miss Edith hastily responded,

“Colonel Palvicz.”

“Mr. Palvicz is only a lieutenant-colonel,” remarked the officer.

“He was promoted to Colonel yesterday evening.”

This sentence softened the hard man’s face. His suspicion began to lessen.

“Where do you come from?”

“From Jericho”.

“Who did send you here?”

“Rahab.”

“To whom?”

“To Joshua.”

The Senior Officer nodded approvingly. All the sentences were the ones with which Mrs. Plankenhorst instructed Sister Remigia so that her delegate could gain credit in the besieged camp. They all believed Miss Edith to be drunk.

“What’s the message?”

“The Gibeonite agrees with the Ammonite.”

“I think so. Are they leaving or coming?”

“They’re coming”.

“I’ll be there!”

Without delay, Colonel Palvicz ordered the aid-de-camp in the next room to range the whole regiment instantaneously. He himself left to look after.

He offered the two women a seat for the time he would return.

When alone again, Mrs. Baradlay asked her, in a barely audible whisper,

“What was the meaning of these words? What did you tell him?”

“Jericho is Vienna, Rahab the prioress, Joshua the general, the Gibeonite and the Ammonite are the hussar troop and the Aula.”

“You’ve betrayed them!”

“Shh. They’ve been keeping an eye on them for a long time. They know everything save for what the Gibeonite wants to do. To come here to Jericho or to go to Canaan. I’ve indicated that they’re coming.”

Mrs. Baradlay still did not understand it. Her members went numb because of horror.

Colonel Palvicz returned. No more questions could be asked.

“My Ladies, we’re starting,” he said to the dames politely. They put on their panniers again.

“What response do you send back?” asked Miss Edith.

“Give my welcome to Rahab. I’ll be waiting for the Gibeonite at the gate.”

Saying that, he escorted the two ladies out of his office, and assigned two leaders on foot to escort them. They accompanied them keeping a respectful distance, and the merchant woman was allowed to go in advance of them with the escort of a third cavalier, who warned her in advance that she should not look back otherwise it would be the same with her as with Loth’s wife.

Finally, when they reached Lerchenfeld gate, all the three dropped away.

When they stopped before the abandoned barricade for a minute to have a rest, and put down their panniers on the heap of paving-stones, Mrs. Baradlay asked Miss Edith,

“What will happen how?”

“I tell you what. Colonel Palvicz’ cuirassiers will be blocking the road to Vienna before Richard till the morning, and by the time they come to their senses, Richard will have bought a four-hour long time, and they won’t catch up to him at all.”

“What a great girl!” said Mrs. Baradlay, wrapping the child in her lap. “I believe in God in heaven, as I believe that there comes a time when, when you get off the coach, it will be my knee where you put your foot first in front of the Baradlay house. But how long the way it is for the three of us, still to get there!”

“Let’s start it off, Madam.”

“Why don’t you say, »Mother«?”

“Let me not say it. I’m superstitious. I think, he who is glad when he’s supposed to be sad, commits an offence similar to laughing in a church. Let me not have my joy until then! The moment when I would say to you, »my Mother«, I mightn’t have had a mother, and she mightn’t have had her son any more. Let me stick to my superstitions. Please escort me to the monastery door.”

The two women did so and, when she was let in, Frai Babi put Miss Edith’s peasant dress and pannier into her own pannier, and hurriedly left with her Mistress.

Miss Edith was received with a murmur of consternation in the refectory of the monastery.

Upon seeing Sister Remigia driving in the monastery courtyard alone and the door of the coach left open and when she was asked where Miss Edith had gone, the whole staff was quite upset, and did not sleep all night.

Their shock was increased by the fact that it was not advisable to take any action to make a fuss.

Day was already breaking when she turned up back again.

They mobbed her from all sides, asking where she had been; what she had been doing all night.

“I’ll tell you this evening, but not before.”

What an unheard-of depravity it was!

When both reprimands and threats were useless, flogging took place. Miss Edith let it happen to her, too.

When they set to undress her, the pious virgins were horrified to see that every bit of her clothes were ragged and stained with mud as if she had been roaming about outside the city. Nevertheless, they could not make her tell where she had been.

They took out the birch and the scourge but both the birches and the knobbed lash proved to be ineffective. The young girl, when the humbling birch made her blood come out, clenched her jaws together tightly, and after each stroke she said to herself, “Dear Richard!” And she was repeating it until she fainted with pain.

When she finally came to herself again, she was lying in bed, with her body covered with plasters everywhere. She was in a fever.

However, in spite of the fever, she stated that it was growing dusk. She slept all day.

“And now, I’ll tell you where I was!” she said to those standing around her bed. “Well, I went to the hussar guard homestead. I spent my time there, in the room of my lover, their captain. Now, it’s your turn to spread it abroad.”

The Abbess clasped her hands at the awesome discovery. They would not have told it to anyone at any price. Nay, they kept it such a secret that not even a sound leaked from behind the walls. Of course, if someone learned about it, it would have put an end to the good reputation of the whole body…

In this way, however, the Abbess finally got the answer to the question why Colonel Palvicz had sent her these flattering words through his deputy launched at seven in the morning, “The devil take the whole cloister!”

That is to say, when the messenger, having informed by Sister Remigia, communicated the well-known countersigns to the colonel, and warned him that Gibeaonite’s disguised mother was expected to go there to persuade him to leave the besieging camp, Colonel Palvicz exclaimed, furiously,

“The deuce can take it. In this case, they’ve already escaped. I myself opened the way for the enemy’s spies, and escorted them up to the gate. I wonder who that little devil dressed in skirt was who had dragged me here by the nose.”

Of course, he was never informed about that.

CHAPTER 16
TH BLOOD-RED SUNSET

The sun was going down; there were blood-red clouds before it on the blood-red sky.

As if an ocean was billowing up there made of glowing lava.

The sky was seen only through a hole among the flaming brims of the scarlet red clouds. A light green piece of sky.

Who knows why the sky was open on that place; who knows why that sky-hole is green now? Maybe there existed some optical explanation for that but one thing is certain: thousands and thousands souls, having departed the Earth, were looking for their way among the clouds in this very hour. Their pale ghosts might have made the colour of the sky topaz on that very spot!

Of the clouds the sun could not gild but one; a large black cloud, which was whirling up from the ground, painting pitch-black shadows on the blood-coloured background. It was the smoke of a burning church.

The sluggish, dark mass requiered space for itself on the sky, giving a deep and gloomy background to the long street, lit by the twilight glare along its whole length. Where the houses cast their shadows, it was dark already.

And deep silent.

The silent hour that follows triumph on the field of a lost battle. The victors are still resting, regrouping, making their battle plans; the losers have already run away, and tried his best to disappear. Between the two, there comes some time just to flee, a one hour dead silence.

In the long street, one could see nothing but thrown-away weapons. It meant, it was up to the winners to gather them up. All those who had carried them, escaped to their relatives, acquiantances and kind-hearted strangers through the open gates of the houses to change clothes, wash down all the blood and smoke. They hurried to hide their wounds in order to be able to say „No, I’m not that one!” when the heavy-handed winners were to come and find them.

The booming of the canons and the reports of the muskets were alredy over; the the fight of the men was silenced everywhere.

Before the dark background, tinted by the black clouds of smoke coming from the burning church, a lonely figure was stumbling along the street. It was a young warrior from the army of the Aula.

He had only one arm, which was carrying no sword any more. He was holding his robe together on the breast. He was covering a bayonet wound, which perhaps did not hurt yet. His every step was marked with his dripping blood.

He was so anxious to run away before his persecutors overtake him. He was looking at the blood stains he left behind in such a concern, wondering if they might give them a clue.

Though it was not a long way to go anymore. He saw already the well-known tricolour flying on the balcony of the Plankenhorts house. He was hoping being able to drag himself there. „There will be gentle hands to bind my wounds, and hide me from the enemy’s searching eyes,” he said to himself. „O, the women know how to do it! And even if I am to die, what a delight it shall be to learn from her eyes what the sky of Paradise is like! Maybe, a shimmering drop of tear shall be shed for me; maybe, I shall be able to tell her with my last breath, »I have loved you, Miss Alfonsine!«”

„The flags have gone from every window,” he continued. „Look, one is still waving on the balcony of the Plankenhort house. O, they’re faithful to the last minute, to the last closing of the eyes.”

O, how many times he had to stop to lean against the wall to gather new strenght!

Whenever he would have a rest, he counted how many drops of blood fell onto the pavement. It was his time indicator.

He let himself one more drop at each rest stop.

„Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three,” he counted.

At the twenty-third, he reached the gate.

But the gate was locked.

„Incomprehensible! For the Village Council has issued a decree saying that every gate should be kept open so as the wounded and the refugees should hide themselves. How the hell the Plankenhorst gate is closed?” he asked himself.

Using his fist, the one-armed man started to bang on the gate.

The thunder echoed in the empty patio without waking anybody up.

„Miss Alfonsine! Miss Alfonsine!” moaned the wounded man.

Nobody listened.

Now the wound in his breast obtained in the battle started to ache violantly. Death’s worm began to bite his heart. He felt something hurt so much, and pulled him on the ground… He wanted to live longer.

He remembered his flying youth, his unpledged love, the daydreams of his soul.

It all was so painful for him. He collapsed underneath the gate.

He started banging on the locked gate.

It’s Goldner here! It’s me! It’s Frederick, the one-handed hero,” he whispered.

No answer.

„Maybe they’ve run from here? Nobody at home?” he pondered. „It’s possible.”

He wanted to die on that threshold, at least.

His wound was already burning pain, and his brain was engulfed with blurred visions.

He was helding himself on one elbow leaning against the corner of the gate. He was staring in front of him imagining that the tricoulour, which was hanging from the balcony, and quietly flying in the twilight breeze, was fanning him to relieve his pain.

The sun vanished among the firewalls of the houses, and as it was going lower and lower, and it was getting darker and darker, on the opposite side it was getting lighter and lighter. The black cloud of smoke was turning slowly red with fire, and was emitting glowing swirls of smoke on the sky getting greyer and greyer.

The dying young man saw nothing but the tricolour. „It might’ve been left there… It might be good to die in the shadow thereof,” he thought.

Then, all at once, he saw the tricolour rise slowly. An invisible hand inside was furling the flag.

„The’re still at home,” he said to himself. „It’s only me for whom they don’t want to show up.”

He felt utter bitterness.

„Every drop of his blood will be a piece of my damnation,” the told himself. „They’re at home, and refuse to open a door for me. They hear me moaning, and have no mercy to me.”

„Oh, women are still cruel!”

And, after a few minutes, he saw another flag rolling down from the same balcony—the same flag of the coulour of death, against which he had been fighting still an hour before; because of which he had been mortally wounded; for which he had offered his young life. The flag, which was rolling down from the window of the most adored creature on earth to cast its shadow upon his face, and cover his body in his agony.

Upon this view, the one-handed young man took away his hand being pressed on his wound and, with a shout of pain, raised his face toward the sky, slapped his bloody palm against the threshold of the house, fell prone on the pavement, and died. The bloody print of his palm was left on the stones.

The dark cloud hastened twilight; now it was the burning church to illuminate the street from one end to the other.

CHAPTER 17
THE THIRD ONE

During the last days, Eugene, Lord Baradlay spent every minutes with the Plankenhorts. He had, so to say, billeted himself there. The butler would saunter among the fighters; his emptied room was arranged for him; he could be in the house day and night.

Exceptional times explain many exceptional situations. When the night is lit up by houses set on fire by military rockets, and when dreams are dismissed by loud cracks of bombs, nobody would ask whether etiquette allows an unmarried young man to spend the nights with women and, when the weak creatures are about to swoon with fear, to keep close to them… In fact, the women of the house needed his encouragement and attendance. Moreover, he was heartening the daughter of the house, and hugging her against his breast for hours, and whenever a bomb exploded, whenever the beautiful girl started, he pressed her to himself even harder.

More than that, Sir Eugene might have thought that the intimacy between Miss Alfonsine and him had become a secret of Polichinelle. He, at least, regarded himself as a fiancé accepted by the house. When he folded her to his breast, when they exchanged their farewell kiss, it took place at the sight of her mother. “In this case,” as he thought, “oversight is nothing else but blessing and agreement. All that was left was to sanction our relationship. As soon as a favourable opportunity should be offered us,” the young man thought.

But horror produces so big waves in every heart that they might engulf the light tower.

In other times, what an enchanting thought it would be, spending three a night and day near the beloved woman! Visiting her in any situation, in any hour of the day. Waking her from her sleep or being woken by her at other times. Being the idol of the idolized lady, who adores him, whom she always wants to see; whose leaving she dreads, and by the return of whose she is saved. Seeing her attachment to him, seeing her yearning for him, feeling her trembling limbs on his lap, seeing her tears on her countenance, his eyes in her eyes!

“What a happiness it would be”, he thought, “now and then, when the noise of battle has ceased for an hour or so and, in the deep silence, when drowsiness has made her to allow herself to fall, and drop her head into the boy’s lap, to hold her there for an hour’s time, having delight in seeing the girl’s face smiling in the dream… And, when the gunfire can be heard in the distance again, to waken her with a gentle kiss to precede the rough-sounding explosion.”

What an idyllic happiness it would be if horror, terror and fear did not overwhelm them!

But it was a time when the sweet Elysium pleasure was spoiled by a drop of bitterness, the single thought of what shall happen to them the next day.

The Unknown of the Saisi Shroud speaks one thousand languages, and gives the questioner answers of the same number. And it may happen that he did not tell the one thousand and first answer, the one which shall really happen.

Sir Eugene listened to all the answers to his questions dictated by anxiety.

“What brings tomorrow?

Is it possible that the rebellion wins?

And what if it’s put down?

Might it be they’ll take our street by storm? Will they fight under the gates, shoot from the balconies and the windows?

Will they show mercy neither for the women nor the unarmed then?

Shall I massacred together with my sweetheart?

Or, perhaps, the city will surrender? They’ll lay down their arms?

And will the people of the ousted regime come back?

Will they have mercy or retaliate?

Then what fate awaits the Plankenhorst family?

Are the mighty people informed of their outstanding role in the movement?

Might it be denied?

Might it be explained by the compelling circumstances?

Do the military judges understand anything of human psychology or idiosyncrasy? Or do they know about the defective influence of the women?

Maybe, a greater part of the glory could be passed to deceased or saved persons.

Might it be that one or two of the former good friends will take their side?

And what if they’ll be their cruelest prosecutors?

And they’ll be brought before the martial law court. They’ll be condemned. Or taken prisoner. Perhaps killed.”

As for what will happen to him if Vienna falls, Sir Eugene did not give much thought about.

All he did was he had his top hat and tail-coat brought to the small room in the Plankenhorst house, and deposited his knight emblems, duly stamped, in another last name, with the house-porter at his own accomodation.

“By all means, I’ll remain unnoticed,” he said to himself. “Why, I didn’t do anything during all the time.”

But he was enjoying himself at a place where the hot-headed young men were doing the same—with the exception that they took their jobs seriously.

As for he, he took only the sighs of the beautiful lady seriously.

And he wouldn’t have minded if he and his sweetheart shared the same fate. He found it a pleasure to die with her, if necessary.

This thought sometimes, when he pictured it in detail, made her heart sink, but he acquiesced therein.

In the last months, the history of the Girondists,^[67] kept on the reading table in the Plankenhorst halls, was passed from hand to hand. Sir Eugene had read a story in it, according to which the girl and the young man, fiancé and fiancée, went out together in the fatal carriage to ascend the fatal steps, one by one, shouting “Vive la liberté!”, at the same time.

He had already made himself accustomed to this picture.

But he made one serious decision in it. Should Miss Alfonsine be harmed without his being harmed in any way, he will not survive it.

Should Miss Alfonsine happen to be captured, he will do every possible to set his sweetheart free. He will be begging, pleading and using the law for her. Should it be of no use, he will bribe her warders or guards to help her escape.

And if the worst thing happened, if Miss Alfonsine was suffering martyrdom and her blood was shed, his blood shall be shed, too. His pistol was charged; even Miss Alfonsine’s name was carved on its bullet in order to let his heart know, when the former knocks on the latter’s door, who sends greeting to it.

Sir Eugene thought all this through well in his quiet hours, when the shelling paused, and the beloved lady was involuntarily resting her head upon his bosom, and fell asleep.

On the third day’s evening, the fights ended.

Most of the defenders surrendered. Some small troops, scattered in the streets of the city, were still fighting, but the victorious army was already marching with music on the main street of the inner city.

In the Plankenhorst hall, there were only three persons. The two ladies and Sir Eugene.

The day before yesterday’s people had been gone.

And, when the music of the marching troops was passing under the window, Sir Eugene heard footsteps hurrying upstairs. “The’re coming here,” he said to himself. “They’re heading straight here.”

And what he saw was the only thing he had not expected.

All the old acquaintances, the one-time celebrities of the Plankenhorst evening parties were coming with triumphant, smiling faces, one after the other. The women of the house greeted them all with welcoming handshakes, laughing and giggling at each other, as long-unseen good friends usually do after much vicissitude of fortune. At once, they found themselves at home again; they started to talk about their experiences at random, all at a time; merrily, in the ecstasy of triumph, joking and boasting, and the women of the house felt quite at home in this noise; took on the new, quite opposite feeling, just as if every prodigious and horrible day of the last eight months were just a last night’s dream.

As for Sir Eugene, nobody cared about him.

Nobody minded him being there or being alive at all.

None of the visitors stayed long. They only wanted to show that they were alive—and happy. They were replaced by new comers. The old company, as a whole, pushed after the army entering the city.

Once Sir Eugene saw an acquaintance arrive, who was so kind as to notice him.

It was Sir Benedict Rigidcastle.

He came with great noise, congratulated the lady of the house from afar, shook two hands at a time and, after having a short talk with Madam Antoinette, his eyes searched for Sir Eugéne, who was silently watching the play unfolding in front of his eyes.

Scarcely arrived a new acquaintance to engage the ladies, Sir Rigidcastle immediately started to find Sir Eugene and, as soon as he discovered him, spoke to him with formal kindness,

“Hello, young brother, Eugene! Nice to see you here. I have to have a very important talk with you. It affects your fate. Please be so kind as to go home and wait for me there.”

Sir Eugene, with a bit of resentment, found the smoothest way of rejecting sending him home.

“I’m at your Excellency’s service, Sir Rigidcastle. Don’t bother coming to my place. For the time being, I live in this house. My room’s on the second floor, to your right from the stairs.”

“Ah, I didn’t know that,” said the gentleman, rather astonished. “So, you may expect a few serious words from me.”

His Excellency returned to the ladies. Sir Eugene left the hall half-heartedly, and went upstears into the small room, where he had fancied himself at home since several days.

Last time, when he had a rest in the small room, the room was full of Paradise and Hell, which were mixed up by the hands of a lunatic: the endless pleasure of Love was wrestling with the giants of Terror. His fantasy was dominated by happiness and fear of death, bridal bed and coffin. Now, everything was over. There were neither Paradise nor Hell anymore. Only dreary Life. Ordinary everyday life.

“I wonder what he wants to speak about with me,” he said to himself. “Even guessing is useless.”

However, he was eager to know it.

The gentleman stayed long downstairs.

While Sir Eugene was eagerly awaiting the knock of boots meaning someone’s approach, he heard soft swish in front of his door and, when it opened without a sound, he saw Miss Alfonsine enter the room.

He thought his senses were fooling him.

The fine lady, having fled the company, came to him alone.

Her eyes reflected bewilderment and agitation, her appearance suggested reckless decision. Directly, without any hesitation, she flung herself onto Sir Eugene’s breast, wrapped her arms around his neck, and faltered with the ardor of emotion,

“My dear friend! They want to part us!”

“Who?” asked Sir Eugene, quite scared with Miss Alfonsine’s appearance, embrace and her words.

“They! They!” choked out the girl. And with that she started sobbing, and folded his shoulders all the more convulsively.

Sir Eugene was more and more frightened.

“For Heaven’s sake! Miss Alfonsine, do be careful! Sir Rigidcastle’s coming soon. What if he finds you here?”

Poor good boy! He lavished more care on Miss Alfonsine’s good reputation than she did on her own.

“He won’t come here,” the girl hurried to enlighten him. He and my mother are talking to each other downstairs. They’ve made a decision that you must go back to your accomodation at once; you mustn’t stay here any longer. I already know the outcome of all this. They want to set us apart from each other for ever.”

Sir Eugene became even distressed; his will was paralyzed by every word of her.

And she was more and more passionate.

“But I refuse to allow me to be set apart from you; I shall be yours for ever and ever, I shall be yours for life and unto death. Your wife, your sweetheart, your victim, who adores you and who dies for you. Who shall be damned for you!

The passionate words were sealed by ardent kisses. The young lady seemed to forget everything beyond her; she sought to pass over her soul via her breath. Her face was flaming, and her eyes caught fire; she was laughing and crying at the same time; she was trembling in every limb, and her skin sparked wherever she touched her sweetheart. He was totally overwhelmed by this passionate intoxication.

He was similar to the magician of the Arabian Nights, in front of whom, the invoked fairy ascends to the height of the clouds snatching the stupefied congurer away.

The boy fell on his knees trembling in front of the lady’s feet, and embraced them passionately. From now on, he was unbe able to recognise himself.

At this point, Miss Alfonsine, got scared, pushed him away, and looked at him with frightened horror-stricken eyes.

“For the sake of Heaven! Sir Eugene! Come to your senses; as you can see, I’ve gone off my mind. Who will save me if not you?”

Now she, having covered her face with both hands, as kind of a shy reproach, burst into bitter tears, upon which the Sir Eugene, having deeply grieved, slipped on his knees to her feet and, having yielded to her, asked for her pardon for his unpardonable sins, and kissed her hands showing true penance.

Upon that, Miss Alphonsine gently lifted him from the ground and, having hushed her emotions with a sigh, raised her eyes towards the sky, and pronounced the following words solemnly,

“And now I swear before you, my sweetheart, my friend, to belong to you or to the coffin. There is no power in the world, which would or could separate me from you. I will deny all my relatives, my faith, my mother if they got in our way. For you, I will be a pauper, a fugitive, a beggar but, whether alive or dead, I will share your fate!”

The majesty of the moment deprived Sir Eugene of what was left of his mind. He also wanted to swear.

But the girl covered his lips with her little gentle hand.

“You don’t say anything, you don’t swear! I’m residing in your heart. You’re a man; you must want and not swear.”

With that, she shook him warmly by the hand, and flew quickly away like a bird. On the threshold, she turned back to him again and, tilting her head up and turning her flushed cheeks towards Sir Eugene, she smiled at him with a look shining with unspeakable delight and, having put a finger on her charming lips, waved a kiss to him.

With that, she swept past.

Sir Eugene was left there, gazing in awe. His thoughts were swirling around and around in his head.

“Was all that true or it was a phenomenon?” he asked himself.

The fire of the girl’s kiss was still burning on his lips, his shirt was still wet with her tears, he seemed still to hear her words, and her smile seemed still to shine in his eyes. He did not know whether the girl’s love and wondrous abandon, her confidence and fright, their frenzy flight from the flaming passion of Hell to the exalted pubic of Heaven, their flight from the depht of fiery Hell to the cool height of the stars— was a real thing or a phenomenon.

It was neither the reality nor a phenomenon—it was a comedy!

Poor gullible young man!

He was merely a puppet in the hands of a bunch of buffoons. In a tragic and bloody play.

When Miss Alfonsine left Sir Eugene, did not hurry back to the hall, where Sir Rigidcastle and Madam Antoinette were deliberating, but went into her room-maiden’s chamber.

Betty let her know that Sister Remigia was waiting for her in her bedroom and, before visiting Madam Antoinette, wanted to meet her.

As a first thing, Miss Alfonsine washed down the traces of her tears from her face, and Betty helped her to conceal the redness of her cheeks and eyes with some bleaching agent, then headed to look up Sister Remigia.

They talked only a few words.

“Is Mr. Palvicz here?” asked Miss Alfonsine.

“He returned today,” rejoined Sister Remigia, “He tried to catch up with Captain Baradlay but didn’t manage.”

“Did he send an answer to my letter?”

“Here you are.”

Sister Remigia handed over the letter and, having stepped out into the corridor, went into Madam Antoinette’s hall.

Miss Alfonsine remained in her bedroom with the letter in her hand.

She locked the door behind herself so as not to be disturbed.

Now she sat to her writing desk, opened the letter, and read it, as follows:

Dear Madame Antoinette,

If you have it carelessly tossed, but want it back at any cost, you will find what you have lost.

Otto Palvicz

Miss Alfonsine’s face did not need any bleaching agent to be pale. She rested her hands with the letter on the table, and lowered her head on the back of the chair. The letter was shaking in her hand so much.

She stared with a fixed look into the lamp.

The light of the lamp was darkened with a porcelain lampshade, and there was a very well-known picture on it: an angel is flying across the sky cuddling a sleeping child.

The beautiful lady was staring at the translucent white picture, at the angel with the small child as if watching to find out where the angel was taking the child.

Through the open doorway, Sir Eugene watched Madam Antoinette’s last visitor leave, and hurried to her immediately.

The lady was in her private room already alone.

“Baroness,” spoke Baradlay the youngest, “as you see, there have been many changes today. I hope one thing hasn’t changed: the relationship between Miss Alfonsine and me, which had unfolded and flourished before your eyes. I consider it the key of my fate. Please would you be so kind as to tell me if you see any difference between yesterday and today in this respect.”

The baroness did not resent the open words. In the contrary, she seemed pleasantly surprised at Sir Eugene’s manly behaviour.

“Dear Sir Eugene Baradlay! You know it well and I assure you that we love you very much. I’m certain you have not, and will not experience any change in this respect in our house. My daughter is sincerely devoted to you; and thinks of nobody else but you, and the companionship with the Baradlay family is a great honour for me. Nobody has anything against it. Still, there’s one change brought about by the latest developments… Can’t you guess?” she asked.

“I have no idea what you want to say.”

“Haven’t you? Hmm. What are you now, Sir, I beg your pardon?”

“Me? A nothing.”

“That’s what I wanted to say. From this day on, you’re a nothing. The whole world divided into two parties, and they’re struggling to keep control. Maybe, this overcomes, or maybe the other; maybe, they make peace and both find their places. But one is certain. Who did not belong to either party, is a loser. The court chancellery, in which you had been employed, ceased to exist. It was your choice to decide where to go. You could’ve chosen to go to Buda, to the Hungarian government, and follow the path, which your brothers follow. You could be a counsellor to the head of a ministerial department or a ministerial secretary, like your fellow officers, who followed this path. Or you could’ve chosen to go with your old friends where they went, and return with them. You would be “something” again. As for me, it would’ve been all the same, either this or that. In political issues, we women go where we are taken; our conviction belongs to the one whom we love. My daughter would’ve followed you, by all means, to Pest or to Buda and, if necessary, to the ends of the earth, and she would’ve honoured the Hungarian national colours just like the others. But you hesitated, wobbled about, and became one of those whom nobody notices. I think you will forgive me for speaking as frankly as I do now.”

Sir Eugene took hold of his lower lip with his teeth. He could not argue with her. After all, his only excuse was that his frenzy love had chained him there, preventing him from choosing a way. He felt that it was not an excuse.

“It’s true, as a simple beau, the son of a Hungarian squire, you can occupy a distinguished position in society. But when you come to look at it, we seem to have two questionable points here. One is that you’re not yet of legal age. The other is that your estates can be found in Hungary. You should know what the situation of the rights there’s like. Have you read the history of the French emigration? Do you remember the numerous marquises and viscounts reduced to beggary, with whom many other countries have been gifted? Today the one occupies its estate, as a winner, tomorrow the other. Take into account the fact that your relatives, upon whom I could lay hold, hate us unrelentingly. And I’m not rich enough to run two houses at the same time; neither world-weary enough to retire from the world. I was very clear and frank to you, Sir Eugene Baradlay.”

“Truth is truth.”

“I don’t want you to feel refused, and I don’t want to be misunderstood. We love you very much. We wish the offered connection. I’m not going to set up a deadline for you like Jacob’s father-in-law did; as soon as you can occupy a place in the world, where you’re noticed; as son as you stand out among the crowd of invisible people, I will greet you first. Even if as early as tomorrow… Good bye, Sir Eugene Baradlay.”

Sir Eugene could not return the blow. He had to resign himself to it, and walk back with it to his accommodation.

There he could meditate on the odd ingenuity of fate, which, while the mortal man created his future from all imaginable horrors envisioned by him, and watched his own funeral to the end in a hundred forms, found out a prosaic, everyday catastrophe for him, which was most likely expected—but to which he had not given a thought amid the disturbances of those terrible days. And it was certainly a funeral! Sir Eugene learned what it means to be buried alive!

And he could not defend himself against the woman, who gently laid him down into the grave, put flowers around the tomb, planted a weeping willow to his head, and encouraged him with a happy resurrection.

She told him, “You are a nothing”.

And the “nothing” could not deny it in any way.

Even he remembered that, having not received his monthly walking-around money from his mother, he was facing financial difficulties already in the nearest days.

An empty purse smells so intensively with camphor, which is so sobering.

His heart did not even dare to ache because a Nothing has no right for anything… It must keep quiet, and it is supposed not to bother either him or any other people.

He had not had the time yet to check around his coffin serving as his home, when his valet reported that Sir Benedict Rigidcastle wanted to see him, and asked if he wanted to let it known that he was not at home.

Sir Eugene called to mind that every man underground still posesses one last mate, that is the moles.

“Let he come on in,” he thought. “No one can get away from him, anyway.”

Sir Rigidcastle greeted him with kindness but with a tense air.

“I came to you myself instead of inviting you to my place for I’m staying in a guesthouse and every voice can be overheard. And I have something very important and confidential to tell you. Please sit down here facing me.”

Sir Rigidcastle took a seat on the sofa, and forced Sir Eugene to occupy the seat at the opposite end of the small round table.

As a first thing, I have to deliver a letter to you. Your mother sends it. Put it into your pocket; it contains money; you can read it later. You may know that the commander of the besieging army had all postal consignments seized lest the other army might send any message to the occupied army. They were all opened. Necessity required. I happened to recognise your mother’s handwriting, so I prevented it from being opened. On my word of honour, they gave it to me so that I delivered it to you. Nobody read it. Besides, it may contain exceeded positions, which are already over, and your mother will tell you much more in person than what they comprise.”

“My mother is here?” Sir Eugene asked in amazement.

“She’s here; and she hasn’t seen you only because you’re hanging about in the Plankenhorsts’s house all the time, where she has good reasons not to go. In any case, she has looked for you here at least thirty times, and she’s going to look for you today again.”

“But what’s she doing here?”

“The wrong thing. And the problem is that they know about it. He came here to persuade your elder brother, Sir Richard to go back home with his troop.”

“Did she manage to do so?”

“Yes. She did. Sir Richard has been hunted for three days now. He escaped among the Carpathian Mountains but he cannot get through with a horse. And your mother’s trapped in the city, and she’s one of the ones against whom an arrest warrant is issued.”

“By heavens!” exclaimed Sir Eugene, jumping from his seat.

“Just stay on your place; no trouble is expected before tomorrow morning. The city’s occupied militarily but civilian life hasn’t been restored to normal. The police don’t take actions; no detectives are on duty yet. It doesn’t go overnight. Everything’s still turned upside down. Everyone who wants to flee from here still can wander hither and tither, from one house or street into the other; they have twenty-four hours to do so. By the time, the old order will have been restored. Until that time, anybody who is afraid of being picked up, can come and go here, there’s nobody to care about him or her. But nobody can escape out of the city now because the barriers are guarded. And everybody will be arrested who doesn’t shows up with a passport that isn’t countersigned by the latest authorities. Moreover, it’s no use to imitate a signature or a seal or a stamp because there’re certain secret signs on the passports by the lack of which the authorities recognise any of the fugitives. Hence, its impossible to get out of here.”

Sir Eugene felt as if the absurdity of human existence was weighed heavily on his soul just like the celestial spheres on the shoulders of Atlas. Everything whirled around him.

“It causes me great bitterness to think of your family,” went on Sir Rigidcastle, “but I can’t let your father’s widow perish so miserably. There, I’ve got a passport for her; if she comes to see you, hand it over to her. With the help of it, she can surely get out of here. It’s made up in the name Lady Tankerwill. Your mother speaks very good English. Relying on this, she won’t get into trouble.”

Sir Rigidcastle saw the admiration on Lord Eugene’s touched face and his softened look, triggered by him.

“My dear friend, you know how ruthlessly your mother and other siblings shoved me away from them. But I’m not angry with them. We are of different convictions, and I respect others’ oppositional convictions. We die for political convictions; we kill each other for them, if necessary but don’t hate each other. Despite of all that I haven’t forgot about my vow I made to your father that I would defend his family whenever necessary and however I can. Now I leave this passport with you; the rest depends on your prudence. Take measures to prevent your family from being a victim.”

Sir Eugene was shaken so much to receive the passport. He was shocked of the thought that his mother’s fate was in his hands. “What if I drop it?” he thought.

“Now let’s talk about you, my friend,” said Sir Rigidcastle. I think you’re the last and only member of your family, who hasn’t deprived me from my right to make your destiny. Please don’t misunderstand me. I won’t interfere with any of your emotion-related affairs. I’m speaking of existence-related problems. You remained in Vienna after the March days and, by doing so, expressed your feelings regarding the present political revolution explicitly enough. I myself agree with you; no prudent and sober man can indulge in the heightened passions when nobody can tell which passion is justified, even less which will be the winner. Notwithstanding, a genius shouldn’t be doomed to fail with his career.”

Sir Eugene was moved by the fact that he was called “genius” by a mind as rigorously critical as that.

“You do well if you don’t swear to either of the actors of the storm, but you mustn’t let your soul be numbed and impede its flight. By a stroke of fortune, I’m in a situation in which I have, via my recommendation, a decisive impact on the fate of a position vacated just recently. Your abilities entitle me to the opinion that you’re the most apt person for the post. It’s the office for the first secretary for the Embassy in St. Petersburg.”

Upon these words, Sir Eugene’s heart leapt for a moment. He would hear from his father many times that this post, as the most prestigious one, was meant for his elder brother.

“As a career, it’s very lovely,” continued Sir Rigidcastle, “it’s quite distant from this troubled world; you can escape from the whole society, from which it’s very painful to pick out you friends as well as your enemies; to harmonize your obligations with your inclinations. There, you could stand above both. It’s a European height, up to which the waves of the »seas« of the counties cannot splash. And, at the same time, it provides a splendid financial situation. A regular salary of twelve thousand florins with the proper allowance for representation expenses. And what a bright future it is! And how far you could see from there! This position is open for you.”

Sir Eugene’s head was in a whirl from the dazzling offer. It was more than he had ever hoped.

Sir Rigidcastle pretended not to be paying attention to the effects of his magic words. He glanced at this watch, and suddenly rose.

I think I was here a bit too long,” he went on, “someone’s waiting for me at a certain place. You can think about it until tomorrow morning. Think it over! Your decision will affect your entire life; this is a proposition worth examining in every aspect. If you meet your mother, I suggest you asking her to give some pieces of advice to you; maybe, she will provide some compelling arguments. Compare them with my words, and decide according to that. Good night, my friend.”

Saying so, he left him alone there.

But the baron knew well what impact his words had on the highly impressionable lad. But he wondered how the lad would inform his mother about the proposition.

Especially having read his mother’s letter, which he had the kindness to deliver to the lad.

When he broke the seal, he was less interested in the money than in the enclosed message.

It was in his mother’s own writing.

Dear my son!

I have read your lines, in which you ask me to share your happiness with you, to love that wench, whom you call your fiancée. If your heart is filled either with love or sorrow, my heart will share it with yours. You know, I do not count either rank or fortune or birth among the subjects of happiness. Should you choose a girl from the mass of unknown people, a labour woman, a simple and honest one, I will give her my blessing; I will be proud of her. And should you happen to single out a fashion girl, whose name is notorious all over the world, who is flirty and wasteful, I will ask God to turn evil good, and to let you be happy. I will accept her, too. But if you marry Miss Alfonsine, daughter of the Plankenhorst family, it will not be blessed either by me or God! Then you will say good-bye to me for ever.”

It was a most grievous and deadly stab to a lover’s heart.

“It means,” Sir Eugene told to himself, “she thinks much less of Miss Alfonsine, who I love so much than of a flirty creature. She would welcome anyone else as my fiancée; maybe, the meanest servant of that “wench” — except Miss Alfonsine.

And what had Miss Alfonsine against me or against anyone in the world?” he conmtinued. “Women are too vehement if they mingle in political affairs. And she could have something at most against Mrs. Plankenhorst; Miss Alfonsine is entirely innocent of any political plot.”

He remembered Miss Alfonsine’s words,

“For you, I will deny my faith, my family, my mother!”

and the hot kisses, as well as the frenzied embraces which had preceded these words.

He thought to himself,

‘But Miss Alfonsine doesn’t care about her mother’s anger or curse. She said, »No matter I will be a pauper or a beggar; I will go with you!« Why do I not have the courage to feel the same, to say the same?

Why has my mother’s passion a stronger control of me than my sweetheart’s love? Who’s the master here? Strength or Weakness? Is the child’s attachment to his mother not weakness and the one of the man to his beloved strength?

After all, you’re not a child any more!

How sarcastically her mother said the words, »Presently, you’re a nothing. You’re an unnoticeable man! Who would give her daughter to you? Make yourself noticeable again, and you’ll be allowed to return to me. Even if as early as tomorrow… »

What a triumph it would be to appear in front of this proud and ambitious woman tomorrow, if possible, and say to her,

»Tomorrow is here and here I am. Now I’m somebody; I have a stand somewhere, where I’m visible and noticeable for everybody.«

And then, we will leave this place, far away, to distant lands, where nothing of this chaos will follow us but beatific Love. We will leave the cantankerous, raging political parties behind, in whose world you cannot find a role that suits you, whose struggle stirs you up, makes you sad and fills you with alarm. Leave it all behind.

Besides, it would be a very good thing to be a Lord, an influential man, whose name’s referred to around the world, to occupy the field, populated with the outstanding people, with a single, giant move,’

Now the sickness took over his entire soul. His love was burning, his vanity was becoming greedy, and his fear was becoming still greater.

By that time, he had decided upon what he would answer to Sir Rigidcastle, to his only and greatest benefactor.

He was sure he would always remember his service.

And he had made up his mind that however much magic his mother would use to change his mind, she would not win. “Mother’s love should be respected—but only up to conjugal love,” he thought. “There, the latter leads the way.”

He remembered the girl’s words, “You’re a man; you just have to want it bad enough!” Sir Eugene believed that there had come the time to show that he could want.

Sir Eugene instructed his servant to let in the woman who had sought him at his place more than once instantly, without announcing her beforehand.

But he was waiting for her—she failed to come.

He kept vigil until late at night. He sent down his servant to the caretaker to find out whether the woman who asked after him a few times in the late night hours last night. She failed to return.

Then he got himself to go to bed, but he slept poorly; every now and then he was woken by bad dreams.

He felt he could not wait until the morning. And it dawned later and later in the last autumn days. Also, mists began to fall.

Surely, his mother did not look for him any more. She was either already caught or had already escaped.

He could not calm down until he was certain about it.

As soon as the day broke, he ordered a cab—they were available again because the cabmen had stopped to tow cannons—and hurried to Sir Rigidcastle.

His first question to him was,

“Do you know anything about my mother? She has failed to come and see me.”

“She’s already escaped. The green-grocer woman, who was hiding her, was arrested at night. She acknowledged that she had helped her escape, disguised, across the vegetable gardens. A coach was waiting for her; since that time, she’s been in Pozsony.^[68]”

Sir Eugene felt suddenly as if a huge boulder had rolled off his heart. “Well, mom’s escaped!” he thought. And then, “So, I’ve got rid of mom.”

Now it was time for him to want something.

“Well, did you manage to sleep over my proposal?” asked him Sir Rigidcastle.

“I’ve made up my mind. I accept the post of embassy secretary.”

Sir Rigidcastle squeezed the young man’s hand.

“I was certain about it. To prove how much I trusted you, how much confidence I placed in your sober thinking, your perfected instrument of assignment is here with me.”

Having said that, he pulled out the drawing of the cabinet, and put the document into Sir Eugene’s hand.

The young man was overwhelmed with the lovable care. After all, only fairies of passed times would take care of their chosen ones.

“Tomorrow, you’re going to swear up and, taking your time, get your affairs done here in Vienna having in mind that you’re going to stay abroad longer. All your relationships you have to break off do so, and all which you have to make, do so altogether.”

Sir Eugene understood the gentle hint.

“Sir, it won’t happen without your knowledge.”

“I see. And now hurry where you’re taken by your desire first. “

Mrs Plankenhorst had made her toilet very early that day. Otherwise Sir Eugene would have fallen on her in her dressing room.

Humanly, no one could expect an extra statum cark for a discontinued Chancellery, when having risen up to a twelve-thousand-florin post from a lost one-thousand-and-two-hundred-florin one overnight, not to break through the door using his head, the door, with which his sweetheart’s mother had shut him, as a neglected suitor, out of her room the previous day.

Notwithstanding, Madam Antoinette pretended being puzzled.

On the other hand, Sir Eugene thought he would pay her a surprise. He brought down the baroness with aplomb and a prepared speech.

“Dear Madam! You told me, »“Even if as early as tomorrow!«” Lo and behold, tomorrow is here, and I am already something.”

As a proof of his words, he handed out the instrument of assignment to Lady Antoinette.

Mrs. Plankenhorst read it through with a smile of pleasant surprise, and extended her hand to him in the heartiest manner.

“I’m very glad about it.”

At this point, Sir Eugene felt he had to stretch himself. After all, he was now something. Something big.

“May I raise my yesterday’s question?”

“I’ve already replied to it,” said Mrs. Plankenhorst with unctuous grace. “Shall I inform her about it?”

“I beg for it.”

All Mrs. Plankenhorst had to do was step into the next room to led Miss Alfonsine out by the hand.

She pretended to be embarrassed, and not to know what it was about, and what the next was.

Mrs. Antoinette led her in front of Sir Eugene, and introduced him to her,

“His worshipful Mr. Baradlay, embassy secretary in St. Petersburg.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Miss Alfonsine, and extended her hand to Sir Eugene with a greeting smile, who received it shaking half-heartedly.

“Feel free to keep it,” whispered the mother.

Upon this motherly warm-hearted ruthlessness, Miss Alfonsine unexpectedly dropped her head on her mother’s bosom—perhaps to hide the blush of her bashful face. As for Sir Eugene, he rushed to kiss his would-be mother-in-law’s hand, upon which she gave a kiss on the boy’s forehead—a cool one, like a kiss from a marble woman.

Miss Alfonsine could not be persuaded to raise her once lowered eyelids; now she was standing in front of her fiancé.

“By when do you want our acquaintances to be noticed?” asked the baroness. “By tomorrow, don’t you? And by noon? Won’t it be too late?”

Sir Eugene was at a loss for words to express his gratitude.

“So, at twelve o’clock tomorrow. You can come earlier, if you want to. Do you agree, Alfonsine?”

At this point, as expected, the girl hid her face in her mother’s laces again.

“Well, why don’t you answer, it’s up to you.”

Miss Alfonsine made her best to falter a barely audible “yes”.

Why, every chaste maid is so embarrassed when being asked for getting married. “It’s cruel,” she thought.

Sir Eugene became so happy about this whistled word. He almost forgot to take his certificate of appointment from Mrs. Antoinette’s table, when left. She had to it after him.

The Madam had one more opportunity to shake hands with her would-be son-in-law, and say to him face-to-face,

“I’m proud of you, Sir Baradlay.”

Now he ran home. He felt like he had just started living. As if his life had been that of a plant before. Now he had become a Man.

All he had wanted more than anything else was fulfilled on one and the same day. He had become a gentleman and a husband. A much envied gentleman and a much envied husband. The world around him had become populated with entirely new figures.

Nevertheless, he was so depressed because of something.

It all seemed to him like that late autumn day. There was still sunshine but it seemed to him that something had faded its brightness, and prevented it from warming.

It was Sir Eugene’s awareness of the fact that his mother did not know anything about the developments, that they were against her will, and she would not be happy about them.

And he reached his happiness without having fought her objections or convinced her loving heart with the power of his love. He fled away, and was hiding from her. He knew he was cowardly happy avoiding seeing her. He knew he secretly rejoiced in the fact that his heart was speared from the fight.

Seemingly, a restless ghost was following him whispering these awakening words into his heart, “O, you coward!”

He uselessly asked his disturbing ghost to excuse him saying to it he was rejoicing because his mother was safe. “You are lying!” his truthful conscience said to him. “You’re rejoicing because you’ve escaped your mother.”

When evening was approaching, his self-accusation became even more overwhelming. He could not bring himself to stay at home. He was ready to go out somewhere. In fact, there were not many places to have fun in Vienna that day.

When he stood in front of the mirror to arrange his necktie, he startled back.

The phantom, which he had feared so much; who had whispered the words “You, coward!” into his ears on and on, appeared in front of him in its embodied form.

“My mother!” exclaimed the young man, in a voice stifled with terror.

Oh, it was not the figure he had been frightened so much of, which he had expected to be a proud lady with commanding look! No! Not an all! She was one of the Golgotha figures, who were slouching at the foot of the cross with a tortured, pale face, with eyes, which had already wasted their tears; a living expression of dolour. It was his mother.

At this moment, the young man could be satisfied with his heart. He did not insinuate that she came only to reproach him for his ambitions and his passion—the only thing that occurred to him how much risk she took to see him.

He embraced her as if to cover her so that her dear figure could not be seen by anybody else.

And he felt her mother’s kiss on his face. O, it was not like the one of the other mother’s!

“How come you here, my dear mom?”

“I come from a long way away.”

“I was told you’d escaped already, and were being in Pozsony.”

“It was so. I searched for you for three days in vain, gave up hope to find you and left the city. But I heard something in Pozsony, which brought me back.”

“You’ve returned!”

“To speak to you.”

“Oh, why did you do that? If you had let me know, I could’ve gone to where you were. Why didn’t you order me to do so?”

“Oh, my son, I don’t order anyone. I was not taught so. I’ve come to beseech you. O, don’t fear me. Don’t regard me as a ghost, who’s come between you and your dreams. I don’t want to dissuade you from whatever you’ve decided. I’ve only come to beseech you.”

“O, mother, don’t speak like this.”

“Forgive me for it, please. I didn’t want to grieve you. Several days ago, I still had requirements for you, my son, but today, I haven’t any anymore. That time I wrote a letter to you—have you got it? It was a proud, insulting letter. Tear it into pieces! Forget it forever! It was written by an angry woman. That proud and angry woman doesn’t exist any more. We’re humbled by very, very heavy strikes, which aren’t over yet. Oh, I’m just a mourning widow, who’s beseeching over her sons’ pre-dug graves even not knowing in front of whom. Perhaps in front of the grave so that it doesn’t want to fill.”

“Why, my dear mother, your sons are alive!”

Upon these words, lightning flashed from the woman’s eyes from among the tears. She grabbed Sir Eugene’s hand violently.

“Dou you know where they are living? One’s breaking his way through the Carpathians into his homeland. There’re pursuers before, behind and around him; beneath him there’s an abyss, the flooded mountain river and the vultures. If he escapes being captured, swallowed by the river or being starved, he can escape to the battle field. There he is awaited by my other son, leader of a troop. Do you know who this troop consists of? It consists of children, who have run away from their mothers, and of family men, who have left their wives and children. Some terrible passion drives them onto the field of death. They’re all going to perish there.”

“But why are they to perish?”

“Because it hurts them very much in their hearts. And it cannot be healed in any other way.”

“But they will possibly win, mother!”

“Yes, they will! By heavens, they will! But it won’t do them any good. They’ll be facing an even bigger peril. They’ll do wonders, compel the world to respect them, they’ll be shining above the whole darkened Europe. So much the worse for them. The verdict has been passed on them; sealed by all the mighty of the world. If one blow proves to be enough to kill them, they’ll deal one blow to them, if not, they’ll administer another one, and so on, as many as enough to kill them. I learned that from their arrested letters. That was to bring me back. Let me take a seat in your home, I’ve made a long way, and much of it on foot.”

“O, poor my mother!”

Sir Eugene made her sit down on the sofa, and put his arms around her shoulders.

“Of course, I’ve come back to see you one last time in life.”

“O, don’t tell that to me!”

“You’ll go far away, and we’ll have been lost, when you come back again. Proud people have already ranged in order, and plotted how to take revenge on the person who chastised them.”

“Who are they?”

“Your friends. Your patrons. Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to scold them. They want you better than me. I’d put you death; they save you. I’d arrange a gloomy, grim and joyless life for you; they provide a happy love and a brilliant career for you. They love you better than me. I don’t compete with them. No, my son! You and they are right. We’re crazy people, who give everything for nothing, for a thought or a dream; we torture ourselves and die. Don’t understand us ever. Be a happy man! Join the people who have headed for the empire of all the Russians to find alliances against their own outraged homeland. They’re all Hungarians; and their heart hurts just like yours, when they call their fearsome enemy against their own mother or siblings. And they do do it in the strong belief that the mother and the sibling must be conquered. There have been cast two stains on the Baradlay court-of-arms. It will be your name to shed a golden light thereon. What a superb feat it will be to demonstrate it before the world: in opposition to the two unfaithful Baradlays, their own brother, the third one has endeavoured to invite the powerful ally.”

Sir Eugene’s face became pale like a statue; he was gazing in front of him. This was something that nobody had told him before. But surely he could have realised it by himself.

“The outcome’s undoubtful,” Sir Eugene’s mother went on, staring fixedly into the glare of the candle. “We’re going to perish. But you’ll stay alive. We cannot stand against two great powers. Should we be made of iron, we would be buried by the lava pouring on us. You brothers will fall here and there. Death is cheap. You’ll become a happy man and start a new family. You’ll be the head of the Baradlay family. You can be the envied husband of a beautiful woman. You’ll be awarded with the highest decorations for your unforgettable services. A tall and upscale man. A perspective pride of the new era.”

“Many of low-ranking people will approach you humbly with their petty complaints. You’ll have the opportunity to do good to people. And I know, you’ll do so because your heart is good and merciful. Among them, I’m the first to turn to you, who’s going to be a potent lord, with my humble request.”

O, how humiliated the young man felt himself! Because she said that not out of sarcasm; it was reality itself!

“My prayer’s not for me or your brothers. Our destiny will catch up with us, anyway. And, if not, believe me, we’ll go to meet it. Your elder brother, Richard is unmarried; no-one will be left behind. But your other elder brother, Edmund has two lovely sons. One of them was born only one month ago. For certain, you’ll be rewarded splendidly. Your brothers’ fortune will be confiscated by the empire. And the rain of fortune shall fall upon you.”

Sir Eugene startled from his seat, like Saul, when the witch of Endor had conjured up the spirit of the prophet Samuel.

Her mother went on,

“And then, when you will be rich and potent, when you will have all that we have now with you; when you will be full of happiness, my son, remember this hour and your mother’s words. My son, don’t let your elder brother’s sons beg for their lives!”

“O, mom!” shouted the youngest brother almost unconscious, tortured to death with pain, ran to his writing desk, snatched his instrument of assignment out of its drawer and, having torn it into pieces, and scattered them around himself.

And in tears, he fell on his mother’s lap.

“I’m not starting on that road.”

O, by saying these words, he gifted his mother with indescribable pleasure. How she was hugging and kissing her child; this last one, the most beloved one!

She did not dare to tell him he was the dearest of all her three sons.

“You’re coming with me, my son, are you?”

“Yes, mother, I am.”

“I don’t let you fight; you’ll remain with us. You’ll be our comforter. I want you to live; I want you to be a happy man. You let me hope that you shall be a happy man, do you?”

Sir Eugene gave a deep sigh. Something entered his mind that was now over. What was submerging was still visible because the water was transparent—but it was dead. The hope for happiness.

He did not say a word, just kissed her mother. He did not want to be happy at the offered price. And it was only available at this price.

The passport came back to him.

“Let’s leave as soon as possible! The passport’s been waiting for you; you can use it today.”

“Who gave this passport to you?” asked Mrs. Baradlay.

Sir Eugene fell to thinking how to avoid mentioning that name.

“An old acquaintance of our family—the same who’s obtained this instrument of assignment…”

“Do you think I accept anything from his hand?”

She threw it among the other waste papers. Just let them be together.

“What have you done? How will you escape? Every way out and exit is guarded.”

Now the lady raised her triumphant face proudly.

“You speak like I couldn’t outwit all of them! Take your cloak, my son. I’ll take you with me in a way that no human eye can notice you.”

And, on the next day, his eminence was waiting for the new secretary of embassy in vain; he could not take him to the swearing-in ceremony, and the bridegroom-mother, the bride and the invited host of guests were waiting in vain; he did not appear anymore.

Surely, that horrible woman bore her third son away.

No one has ever known where she might have left despite the close guard. It was known that all her ways were blocked.

Nobody considered that in times like that, the river Danube can serve as a highway for people who are brave enough to entrust their lives to the waves in a narrow boat rowed by a pair of reckless fishermen in heavy fog and darkness of night.

CHAPTER 18
WATER IN FRONT – FIRE BEHIND

„But where to go now?” was the question of life and death for the hussar troop.

Their way was blocked, on one side, by the whole army, from among whose flags they have torn their flags; on the other side, the Danube and the March; then a mountain range, the Carpathians. Where there was a road or an inhabited place, every locality was loaded with soldiers rushing to the main army; and where one could move freely, there was neither a road nor a shelter to have a rest, nor a morsel of bread.

For half an hour, they were gallopping on a dirt road, which they knew led to the Danube.

At that time, the wind drove the clouds away and, as the rain had stopped, they started to orient themselves.

The Danube appeared on their right hand. The passing cloud blackened its surface.

On the right-hand bank, a burned-down ferry-house could be seen, which had been being defended by the Styrian hunters against the Croatian troops only five days before, and destroyed in combats.

Captain Richard led his troop there.

The sooty walls if the building were not defended by anybody; the whole cavalry fit into the spacious yard.

“Well, boys,” Captain Richard said, having gathered his striplings around himself, “we will put ourselves on the road, which will take us either home or to Hell. You know it well yourselves but I myself tell you that we are facing all that humans have ever suffered. They are standing partly in line, partly in groups. We must run day and night; swim across wild and gentle waters; climb mountains, keep awake all day; starve and fight; who is fatigued shall parish; who is captured, shall be shot in the head. So I don’t tell anyone to follow me but I go ahead. I won’t turn back to count how many of the yesterday evening’s company of two hundred and twenty are still following me. I don’t make anyone swear an oath. It’s dark; who’s changed his mind feel free to leg back and return. If anyone has changed his mind — feel free to hang behind and return. But anyone who’s followed me till dawn, will be aware of the fact that he’s under the Law of Battlefield, and does whatever I command him to do without grumbling or bitching. And now, anyone who likes please follow me! Here comes the first trial!”

The first trial was very suitable for anybody, who had not his heart in the right place, to help him sober up at once. Captain Richard tried to find a ford across the Danube.

From his military camping trainings, he knew well the environment, the bottom of the Danube along with all its reefs and shallows. Crossing the Danube without a bridge was a game to him and his old hussars but, when the entire wide and dark surfice of the stream, to be crossed astride and fully armed, was in front of them; when the first horse waded the water knuckle-deep; and when, at the same time, they looked up into the sky to see a star fall therefrom, the youngers may have thought about for a minute or two.

However, it all was a game yet. The wider the stream is, the slower it flows, and the shallower it is. There were three reefs lying between the two banks, which the leading rider recognised from the shimmer of the water. While the horses only had to wade through the water in those places, they had to swim through the deeper stretches in between.

If someone had contemplated the picture, he would have seen a python bordered in silver spilling over on the dark surface of the water to the opposite side. The heads of the horses and only the riders’ torsos rose out of the water in twos side by side, in a long line.

An aspen grove received the refugees on the opposite shore. In a clearing thereof, Richard gathered his followers.

“Let’s count how many we are!”

The sergeants counted the crew.

“Two hundred and twenty!” was the answer.

“Impossible! We left two in the vanguard.”

“They’re already here,” said a murmuring voice, which Captain Richard recognised as the husky voice of the old Paul.

“It’s you, Paul?” the captain spoke, rejoicingly. “How did you find the way to us?”

“I know the way you think.”

“Well, it’s a very brave thing from you. What’s the news from the camp?”

“When I left on my way here, the cuirassiers set off, and pulled to the city, as if they wanted to avoid us. Seeing that, I thought we needn’t cool our heels there any more, and told him we’d better take our leave after you.”

“You notice any noise?”

“No sound whatever. Put out the watch fires in the first line.”

“Where did the lieutenant and the color-sergeant go?”

“They did not agree with us—we locked them into a crypt.”

„Alive?”

„Yes, alive. It’s written on the door that they are inside; anyone who needs them can fetch them.”

„Would’ve locked me in it if I hadn’t come with you?”

„Yes. Dead.”

„Why dead?”

„We would’ve honored you by doing so.”

„Thank you; I’ll deserve it. Now, put your life in my hands just as I put my in yours. Take this flag—from now on, you’ll carry it. Now sorround me.”

The hussar troop formed a rectangle, the centre of which captain Richard occupied with the color-sergeant.

On the East-side of the horizon, a pale yellow line began to separate the sky from the ground. However, the approach of morning was even more strongly indicated by the remote flickering lights of the cannons. The siege troops had started attacking the barricades. Morning was dawning.

In the pale morning light and the flickering lights of the fires, two hundred and twenty men were swearing an oath to him for iron discipline, relentless fortitude and stout-heartedness until they come home.

When the fire red sun had risen over the mountains, they saw that the banner flying in the middle was that certain tricolour. “Forwards!” they said to themselves.

“We have a half-day time escape delay,” Captain Richard said to his companions. “Our disappearance will be first noticed by Otto Palvicz, colonel of the cuirassiers. He will chase us following the same route we followed when we were running away, and it only will be here where he will recognise that we crossed the Danube. No heavy cavalry can do it. In order to come over to this shore, they will have to go back to the gangway. During that time, we’ll gain a half-a-day’s journey before them. If we’re continuously mounted until late night, our pursuers will be, despite all their efforts, unable to cut ahead of us. This is the first day’s job. We’ll know all the rest later.”

Captain Richard distributed all his money among the crew with an order to spare the people and pay for their meals, wherever vicissitudes may scatter them.

Then they set off from the aspen forest to search for a road there. The nearest lane led them to a lonely gentleman’s mansion.

The mansion belonged to a Czech nobleman.

Only the lady of the house was at home. Her husband was a follower of the Koruna česká.^[69]

Captain Richard himself spoke to the mistress and, as a consequence thereof, the crew were provided with brandy, bread and smoked meat, as well as with fodder and straw hay braided into wreath form for their horses.

They had a two-hour rest there. Captain Richard was given a detailed map, specifying all the lanes up to the Moravian and Hungarian border. This was what they needed most!

The forest ranger of the castle led the troop on byways to the next woodland. He left them to chance again, and the fleeing warriors were absorbed soon afterwards by the dim forest gloom and the early autumn nightfall.

When they climbed upon a ridge, the old Paul drew Captain Richard’s attention to the fires lighting up here and there on the summits of the mountains.

“We have to pay attention to them,” said Captain Richard. “They’re signal fires to let each other know of our desertion.”

Before long, they saw the signal fires blaze up not only behind but in front of them one after the other. They knew the entire area would be alarmed up to the uttermost border during the night.

A bonfire on the mountain side they left behind illuminated the whole landscape they had just crossed.

Using his telescope, Captain Richard could make out some mounted figures with the fire as a background.

“They’re close on us!” he said. “Much earlier than I previously believed. Now we haven’t any time to waste.”

In order to escape pursuit, he headed for a deep valley.

He knew it from earlier chases; it was property of an Austrian oligarch. There was a controlled mountain stream running down on one side of the valley, filling a vast basin with its water below. Part of it was enclosed to form a fishing pool, the other drove a seven-stone mill, and was used now and then for meadow watering.

Captain Richard reasoned that when they leave the mill behind, he will destroy the dam thereof letting, by doing so, the water into the valley. Then no rider could have penetrated through that barriers. Especially, if Colonel Palvicz and his soldiers had gone after him, they would have surely stuck in the swamp, he thought.

The one thing he did not expect was what service he had been about to make to Colonel Palvicz, could have already been made by somebody else to him.

When, in the bend of the valley, they got near to the mill, the old Paul galloped back with the advance guard, and reported that the dam had been broken through, and the whole valley was filled with water before them.

“I was told by the miller,” he said, “that it had been made broken through by the manorial forest ranger a few hours before.

---

For the rest of the novel, see P.F.Bicknell’s translation here.

Notes

1. The title of honour of a feudal Hungarian baron followed the European styling: Christian name + surname + Baron + territorial designation as part of the surname. In the present fiction, we are not informed about the location of the family’s estate. (The exact styling would be “Stephen Baradlay Baron of…” or “Lord Baradlay of… , of Casimir, in the County of…” — Hungarian Christian names are replaced by their English equivalents. In this case, Casimir stands for Kázmér. ↑
2. Seeing that there are no signs of his having been a personal representative of the Sovereign, Baron Casimir Baradlay must have held the office of High Sheriff (and not that of Lord Lieutenant) for the County. ↑
3. Lat. Order of ’true flies’, like mayflies, dragonflies, butterflies etc. ↑
4. Some of the proper names in the novel are so-called “speaking names”. In this case, “Rigidcastle” is a word-by-word translation of the surname “Rideghváry”. — “Benedict” stands for “Bence”. — Mr. Rigidcastle was appointed to take caharge of the estate of the decedent until the nomination of the new High Sheriff. ↑
5. Józsa, György (1793-1847). An emblematic principal member of a lord dinasty on he Great Hungarian Plain ↑
6. A mixture of glycosides obtained from the leaves of foxglove and used as a cardiotonic. ↑
7. Orig.name: Baradlay, Ödön. ↑
8. Orig. name: Baradlay, Richárd. ↑
9. Orig. name: Baradlay, Jenő ↑
10. humaniorum classis: (here) a student of a form (or class) where languages were taught. ↑
11. Orig. Lánghy Bertalan (the Hungarian word ’láng’ means flame, passion). ↑
12. Orig. ‘nagybotú Lőrinc’, popular nickname of Mészáros, Lőrinc, Hungarian priest, then martyr, who, along with his 20,000 rebellious peasants joined the camp lead by Dózsa, György in 1514. ↑
13. Orig. Tallérossy, Zebulon. A nobleman of Slovak origin, who speaks broken Hungarian with a heavy Lowland Hungarian accent. Understandably, I did not attempt to recreate it in English. ↑
14. Orig. Szúnyoglak. A place name assumed by the writer. ↑
15. Lat. oral reprimand. Perhaps for ‘audiendum verbum regium’, in fact, oral reprimand by the superior, the king. ↑
16. An Indication of the fortification ín Kufstein, Tirol, Austria, which had a feared prison, where ten Hungarian state prisoners, all significant personnel, served their sentences (1750-1897). ↑
17. Russian: Kamenny Ostrov, English: Stony Island, one of the islands in the Neva delta. It is part of Saint Petersburg. ↑
18. A Russian gold coin originally worth 10 rubles and from 1897 to 1917 worth 15 rubles. ↑
19. Italian: evil eye. ↑
20. Russian: novice monk. ↑
21. A strong kind of brandy. ↑
22. Or „Russia leather”; soft oxhide tanned with vegetable materials and smelling of tar. ↑
23. Orig. Saint Prokop, or Procopius of Sázava, a Czech saint. Instead of him, I chose Saint (or Miraculous) Nikolay (end of C. 3 − beg. C 4.). He is the Russian patron saint of the people got in trouble who are quick in help.) ↑
24. Zum König von Ungarn, 10 Schulerstraße. Vienna’s oldest hotel has been managed in its present form since 1746. ↑
25. Kuruc (spelled kuruts) means armed anti-Habsburg rebels as opposed to labanc denoting Austrians and their loyalist supporters in Hungary (1671-1711). Here: a rebellious young man of pluck. ↑
26. Perduellio (Lat.) The term for the capital offense of high treason. ↑
27. Tercia (Lat.) A third probation according to the Order of Jesuits. ↑
28. (Germ.) to pay. (‘The bill, please!’) ↑
29. The celebration of the name day in Hungary is associated with the person’s given name like in many European countries. ↑
30. Kreutzer: Austria-Hungarian token coin (1830-1868) (Germ. Kreuzer, Lat. cruciferus) for Hungarian forint (1 forint = 100 krajczar). ↑
31. (Es ist) schon bezahlt (Germ.) It is paid for. ↑
32. Orig. Zapfenstreich (Germ.). ↑
33. Zwickbussi (Germ.): A smacker (buss) given in a way that the kisser pinches the other person’s right and left cheek with his or her right and left hand, respectively, at the same time. Or, the smacker is given on the other person’s mouth expanded by way pinching the cheeks. ↑
34. Full name: The Seven Prince-Electors, 9 Váci Street, Pest (Budapest) (1770-1867), designed by József Hild. In 1823, Ferenc Liszt gave a concert therein. ↑
35. Marie-Jean-Augustin Vestris, known as Auguste Vestris (1760 – 1842) a French dancer. ↑
36. It is a real family. In the 1830s, Count Sedlniczky was a police chief; Count Captain Antal Sedlniczky died in Nagyida, 1863. ↑
37. The family of Appony (Nagyappony) goes back to the 14th c. Antal Apponyi (1782-1852) császári követ volt Nápolyban, Londonban és Párizsban. Fia, Rudolf (1812-1876) Párisban, majd Londonban képviselte a monarchiát. ↑
38. Faquin: (Fr.) Rascal ↑
39. Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741 – 1801) was a Swiss physiognomist. ↑
40. Pest used to be a city on the left side of the Danube opposite the capital city on the right-side by name Buda until they were united as the capital city of Hungary by the name of today’s Budapest in 1873. ↑
41. Orig. Konzentration and Scheingefecht (mock battle, Germ.) ↑
42. Sottise (Fr.) stupidity, foolishness. ↑
43. Orig. visage (Fr.) ↑
44. Orig. “hofsekretär extra statum” (Germ. And Lat.) ↑
45. A city in Ukraine; today Lviv. ↑
46. That is authentic. (Lat.) Meaning “This is a piece of authentic infirmation.” ↑
47. František Palacký (June 14, 1798, Hodslavice – May 26, 1876, Prague); Czech historian and politician. ↑
48. Záh Felicián (? — Visegrád, 1330.) Hungarian proprietary holder and soldier. According to the legend, Záh wanted to take vengeance on the king, Charles I, for the alleged deflowering of his daughter, Klara. ↑
49. The Szatmár Twelve Points was a draft programme for the next Parliamentary session adapted by the General Session of Szatmár County on 22th February, 1841 on the basis of the circular letter by Vas County. — Among the points were the abolition of the institution of the entailment, that of the guilds, the levying of tax on the Nobility, the introduction of the people’s general education, the ensuring of the freedom of the press, the separation of the administrative and the judicial system, the representation of the people. ↑
50. Tintamarre (French: din) is an ancient French tradition of marching through a village while making unbearable noise with quasi instruments and other noisemakers. ↑
51. The so called „Ónod National Assembly”, which took place at Ónod, Borsod County, Hungary on 13 June 1707, declared the deposition of the House of Habsburg from the Hungarian throne. ↑
52. A sudden or unexpected event in a play, pulled off by the author, the director, or even an actor. (Wiktionary) ↑
53. Erik Pontoppidan (1698 Aarhus —1764 Copenhagen), was a Danish bishop, historian and antiquary, who wrote about a sea serpent, by name “kraken” in his two-volume work, The Natural History of Norway, published in 1752 and 1753. ↑
54. Aula: the headquarters of the revolutionary university students in Vienna. ↑
55. Pozsony became capital and coronation town of Hungary in 1563. Between 1563 and 1830 11 Hungarian kings were coroneted there. Since 1919, it has been the capital of the Slovak Republic, and called Bratislava. ↑
56. The colours of the Hungarian Tricolour are red, white and green. The red symbolizes strength, the white fidelity, and the green hope. The Tricolour in this particular form was established in 1848, and was prohibited after the suppression of the revolution in 1849. ↑
57. The Rákószi March was conceived possibly by János, Bihari between 1809 and 1820, and orchestrated by Miklós, Scholl (1816). It was the favourite march of II. Rákóczi, Ferenc. Liszt, Ferenc often played it at the end of the 1830s. Hector Berlioz re-orchestrated it (1846), and Johann Strauss Jr. conducted it at the Budapest National Theatre (1946). It was used as the unofficial anthem of Hungary until 1844. ↑
58. The river Phlegethon (Eng. “fire-flaming”) was one of the five rivers in the underworld in Greek mythology. As Plato has it, “a stream of fire, which coils round the earth and flows into the depths of Tartarus.” ↑
59. “Brüder” (Germ.) means “Brothers”; „Gütter” is a proper noun. ↑
60. “Feiheit” (Germ.) means „freedom”; „sich freut heut” (Germ. Correctly: heute) means „He/she rejoices today”. ↑
61. “schmetter nicht” (Germ. Corrrectly: schmettern) means “not smesh”. ↑
62. „hin ist er” (Germ.) means „he is there”. ↑
63. “hocta iszten” (Hung. Correctly: hozta Isten) means „You are welcome”. ↑
64. An indication to the so-called Lernaean Hydra, a many-headed serpent in Greek mythology. ↑
65. You silly child. ↑
66. The Homeland shall remember forever / Deeds and names of the fourth troop’s last ten. / Lia lia lia la! (Germ.) ↑
67. Alphonse de Lamartine: the History of the Girondists, first published in Bohn, 1847. ↑
68. Today, as Bratislava, is the capital city of Slovakia. ↑
69. Koruna česká was a Czech political party in the 19th c., whose program was to raise Bohemia to a kingdom within the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. ↑