THAT LETTER
What those who had so long waited, spoke and thought during that night
cannot be written down. These are sacred matters, not to be exposed to
the public gaze.
Lorand confessed all, and was pardoned for all.
And he was as happy in that pardon as a child who had been again
received into favor.
Lorand indeed felt as if he were beginning his life now at the point
where ten years before it had been interrupted, and as if all that
happened during ten years had been merely a dream, of which only the
heavy beard of manhood remained.
It was very late in the morning when he and Desiderius woke. Sleep had
proved very pleasant for once.
Sleep--and in place of death too.
"Well old fellow," said Lorand to his brother, "I owe you one more
adventurous joke, with which I wish to surprise you."
The threat was uttered so good-humoredly that Desiderius had no cause to
be frightened, but he said quietly: "Tell me what it is."
Lorand laughed.
"I shall not go home with you now."
"Well, and what shall you do?" inquired Desiderius quite as astonished
as Lorand had expected.
"I shall escape from you," he said, shaking his head good-humoredly.
"Ah, that is an audacious enterprise! But tell me, where are you going
to escape to?"
"Ha, ha! I shall not merely tell you where I am going, but I shall take
you with me to look after me henceforward as you have done hitherto."
"You are very wise to do so.--May I know whither?"
"Back to Lankadomb."
"To Lankadomb? Perhaps you have lost something there?"
"Yes, my senses.--Well don't look at me so curiously as if you wished to
ask whether I ever had any. You and this little girl quite understand
each other. I see that mother and grandmother too are sufficiently in
love with her to give her to you: but my blessing has yet to come, old
man--that you have not received yet."
"Hope assures me that perhaps I have softened your hard heart."
"Not all at once. I shall tell you something."
"I am all ears."
"In my will I passed over all my worldly wealth to you: the sealed
letter is in your possession. As far as I know you, I believe I shall
cause you endless joy by asking back my will from you, and telling you
that you will now be poorer by half your wealth, for the other half I
require."
"I know that without waiting for you to teach me. But what has your old
testament to do with the gospel of my heart?"
"Oh your head must be very dense, old fellow, if you don't understand
yet. Then listen to my ultimatum. I refuse to give my consent to your
marrying--before me."
Desiderius threw himself on Lorand's neck; he understood now.
"There is somebody you love?"
Lorand assented with a smile.
"Of course there is. But--you know how that blackguard (by Jove, you
gave him a powerful shaking!) confused my calculation for an entire
life. I could not make her understand about that of which the
continuation begins only to-day. Still, all the more reason for
hastening. A half hour is necessary to tell another all about it, half
an hour in a carriage: they will remain here meanwhile. We shall fly to
Topandy at Lankadomb: by evening we shall have finished all, and
to-morrow we shall be here again, like two flying madmen, who are
striving to see which can carry the other off more rapidly towards the
goal--where happiness awaits him. I shall drive the horses to Lankadomb,
you can drive them back."
"Poor horses!"
Desiderius did not dare to go himself with these glad tidings to his
mother. He entrusted Fanny to prepare her for them--perhaps so much
delight would have killed her.
They told her Lorand had official business which called him to Lankadomb
for one day; and they started together with Topandy.
Topandy was let into the secret, and considered it his duty to go with
Lorand--he might be required to give the bride away.
The world around Lorand had changed--at least so he thought, but the
change in reality was within him.
He was indeed born again: he had become quite a different man from the
Lorand of yesterday. The noisy good-humor of yesterday badly concealed
the resolve that despised death, just as the dreaminess of to-day openly
betrayed the happiness that filled his heart.
The whole way Desiderius could scarcely get one word from him, but he
might easily read in his face all upon which he was meditating: and if
he did utter once or twice encomiums on the beautiful May fields,
Desiderius could see that his heart too felt spring within it.
How beautiful it was to live again, to be happy and gay, to have hopes,
expect good in the future, to love and be proud in one's love, to go
with head erect, to be all in all to someone!
At noon they arrived at Lankadomb.
Czipra ran out to meet them and clapped her hands.
"You were driven away; how did you get back so soon? Well no one
expected you to dinner."
Lorand was the first to leap off the cart, and tenderly offered his hand
to the girl.
"We have arrived, my dear Czipra. Even if you did not expect us to
dinner, you can give us some of your own."
"Oh, no," said the girl in a whisper, blushing at the same time, "I have
been accustomed to eat at the servant's table, when you were not at
home, and you have brought a guest too. Who is that gentleman?"
"My brother, Desi, a very good fellow. Kiss him, Czipra."
Czipra did not wait to be told twice, and Desiderius returned the kiss.
"Now give him a room: to-day we shall stay here. Send up water to my
room, we have got very dusty on the way, although we wished to be
handsome to-day."
"Indeed?"--Czipra took Desiderius' hand, and as she led him to his room,
asked him the whole history of his life: where he lived: why he had not
visited Lorand sooner: was he married already, and would he ever come
back there again?
Desiderius had learned from Lorand's letters about Czipra that he might
readily answer any question the poor girl might ask, and might at first
sight tell her every secret of his heart. Czipra was delighted.
Lorand, however, did not wait for Topandy, who was coming behind, but
rushed to his room.
That letter, that letter!--it had been on his mind the whole way.
His first duty was to take it out of the closed drawer and read it over.
He did not deliberate long now whether to break the seal or not: and the
envelope tore in his hand, as the seal would not yield.
And then he read the following words:
"SIR:
"That minute, in which I learned your name, raised a barrier for ever
between us. The recollections which are a burden upon you, cannot be
continued by an alliance between us. You who dragged my mother down
into misfortune, and then faithlessly deserted her, cannot insure me
happiness, or expect faithfulness from me. I shall weep over Balint
Tatray, as my departed to whom my dream gave being, and whom cold truth
has buried; but Lorand Aronffy I do not know. It is my duty to tell you
so, and if you are, as I believe, a man of honor, you will consider it
your duty, should we ever meet in life, never again to make mention of
what was Balint Tatray.
Good-bye,
"MELANIE."
Lorand fell back in his chair broken-hearted.
That was the contents of the letter he had kissed--the letter which, on
the threshold of the house of death he had not dared to open, lest the
happiness which would beam upon him should shake the firmness of his
tread. Ah, they wished to make death easy for him! To write such a
letter to him! To utter such words to one she had loved!...
"Why, she is right. I was not the Joseph of the Bible: but does not love
begin with pardon? Did I blame her for the possession of that ring she
let fall in the water? And from whom could she know that my crime was
worse than that which hung round that ring?
"And if I were steeped in that crime with which she charges me, how can
an angel, who may know nothing of what happens in hell, put such a
thought in these cold-blooded words.
"They wished to kill me.
"They wished to close the door behind me, as Johanna of Naples did to
her husband, when he was struggling with his assassins.
"And they wished to wash clean the murderer's hands, throwing upon me
the charge of having killed myself because my love was despised.
"They knew everything well, they calculated all with cold mercilessness.
They waited for the hour to come, and whetted the knife before I took it
in my hands.
"And yet I can never hate her! She has plunged the dagger into my heart,
and I remember only the kiss she gave...."
That moment he felt a quiet pressure on his shoulder.
Confused, he looked up. Czipra was standing behind him. The poor gypsy
girl could not allow anyone else to wait on Lorand: she had herself
brought him the water.
The girl's face betrayed a tender fear: she might long have been
observing him, unknown to him.
"What is the matter?" she asked in trembling anxiety.
Lorand could not speak. He merely showed her the letter he had read.
Czipra could not understand the writing. She did not know how one could
poison another with dumb letters, could wound his heart to its depths,
and murder it. She merely saw that the letter made Lorand ill.
She recognized that rose-colored paper, those fine characters.
"Melanie wrote that."
By way of reply Lorand in bitter inexpressible pain turned his gaze
towards the letter.
And the gypsy girl knew what that gaze said, knew what was written in
that letter: with a wild beast's passion she tore it from Lorand's hand
and passionately shred it into fragments and cast it on the ground, then
trampled upon its pieces, as one tramples upon running spiders.
Thereupon she hid her face in her hands and wept in Lorand's stead.
Lorand went towards her and taking her hand, said sadly:
"You see, such are not the gypsy girls whose faces are brown, who are
born under tents, and who cut cards, and make that their religion."
Then with Czipra's hand in his he walked long up and down his room
without a word. Neither knew what to say to the other. They merely
reflected how they could comfort each other's sorrow--and could not find
a way.
This melancholy reverie was interrupted by Topandy's arrival.
"Now I beg you, Czipra, if you love me--" said Lorand.
If she loved him?
"To say not a single word to anybody of what you have seen. Nothing has
happened to me.--If from this moment you ever see me sad, ask me 'What
is the matter?' and I shall confess to you. But _that_ pale face shall
never be among those for which I mourn."
Czipra was rejoiced at these words.
"Let us show cheerful faces before my uncle and brother. Let us be
good-humored. No one shall see the sting within us."
"And who knows, perhaps the bee will die for it--" Czipra departed with
a cheery face as she said that. At the door she turned back once more:
"The cards told me all that last night. Till midnight I kept cutting
them. But the murderer always threatens you albeit the green-robed girl
always defends you.--See, I am so mad--but there is nothing else in
which I can believe."
"There will be something else, Czipra," said Lorand. "Now I am going
away with my brother to celebrate his marriage, then I shall return
again."
Thereupon there was no more need to insist on Czipra's being
good-humored the whole day. Her good-humor came voluntarily.
Poor girl, so little was required to make her happy.
Lorand, as soon as Czipra was gone, collected from the floor the torn,
trampled paper fragments, carefully put them together on the table,
until the note was complete, then read it over once again.
Before the door of his room he heard steps, and gay talk intermingled
with laughter. Topandy and Desiderius had come to see him. Lorand blew
the fragments off the table: they flew in all directions: he opened the
door and joined the group, a third smiling figure.