THE DAY OF GLADNESS
"Let us go back at once to your darling," said Lorand next morning to
his brother. "My affair is already concluded."
Desiderius did not ask "how concluded?" but thought it easy to account
for this speech. It could easily be concluded between Topandy and
Lorand, as the former was the girl's adopted father: Lorand had only to
disclose to him everything about which it had been his melancholy duty
to keep silence until the day of the catastrophe, which he was awaiting,
had arrived.
Nor could Desiderius suspect that the word "concluded" referred to the
visit they had paid together to Sarvoelgyi. How could he have imagined
that Melanie, who had been introduced to him as Gyali's fiancee, had one
week before filled Lorand's whole soul with a holy light.
And that light had indeed been extinguished forever.
Even if they had not succeeded in murdering Lorand they had made a dead
man of him, such a dead man as walks, throws himself into the affairs of
the world, enjoys himself and laughs--who only knows himself the day of
his death.
Desiderius ventured to ask "When?"
He always thought of Czipra.
Lorand answered lightly:
"When we return."
"Whence?"
"From your wedding."
"Why, you said yours must precede mine."
"You are again playing the advocate!" retorted Lorand. "I referred not
to the execution, but to the arrangements. My banns have been called
before yours; that was my desire. Now it is your business to carry your
affair through before I do mine. Your affair of the heart can easily be
concluded in three days."
"An excellent explanation! And your marriage requires longer
preparations?"
"Much longer."
"What obstacle can Czipra present?"
"An obstacle which you know very well: Czipra is still--a heathen. Now
the first requisite here for marriage is the birth-certificate. You know
well that Topandy has hitherto brought the poor girl up in an
uncivilized manner. I cannot present her to mother in this state. She
must learn to know the principles of religion, and just so much of the
alphabet as is necessary for a country lady--and you must realize that
several weeks are necessary for that. That is what we must wait for."
Desiderius had to acknowledge that Lorand's excuse was well-grounded.
And perhaps Lorand was not jesting? Perhaps he thought the poor girl
loved him with her whole soul, and would be happy to possess these
fragments of a broken heart. Yet he had not told her anything. Czipra
had seen him in desperation over that letter: as far as the faithful,
loving girl was concerned, it would have been merely an insult, if the
idol of her heart had offered her his hand the next moment, out of mere
offended pride; and, while she offered him impassioned love, given her
merely cold revenge in return.
This feeling of revenge must soften. Every impulse guided to the old
state of things.
Meantime the marriage of Desiderius would be a good influence. He was
marrying Fanny. The young couple would, during their honeymoon, visit
Lankadomb: true love was an education in itself: and then--even
cemeteries grow verdant in spring.
The two young men reached Szolnok punctually at noon.
And thence they returned home.
Home, sweet home! At home in a beloved mother's house. A man visits many
gay places where people enjoy themselves: finds himself at times in
glorious palaces; builds himself a nest, and rears a house of his
own:--but even then some sweet enchantment overcomes his heart when he
steps over the threshold of that quiet dwelling where a loving mother's
guardian hand has protected every souvenir of his childhood,--so that he
finds everything as he left it long ago, and sees and feels that, while
he has lived through the changing events of a period in his life, that
loving heart has still clung to that last moment, and that the
intervening time has been but as the eternal remembrance of one hour
spent within those walls.
There are his childhood's toys piled up; he would love to sit down once
more among them, and play with them: there are the books that delighted
his childhood's days; he would love to read them anew, and learn again
what he had long forgotten, what was in those days such great knowledge.
Lorand spent a happy week at home, in the course of which Mrs. Fromm
took Fanny back to Pressburg.
As Desiderius had asked for Fanny's hand, it was only proper that he
should take his bride away from her parents' house.
One week later the whole Aronffy family started to fetch the bride; only
Desiderius' mother remained at home.
In the little house in Prince's Avenue the same old faces all awaited
them, only they were ten years older. Old Marton hastened, as erstwhile,
to open the carriage door; only his moving crest was as white as that of
a cockatoo. Father Fromm, too, was waiting at the door, but could no
longer run to meet his guests, for his left arm and leg were paralyzed:
he leaned upon a long bony young man, who had spent much pains in trying
to twist into a moustache by the aid of cunning unguents the few hairs
on his upper lip, that would not under any circumstances consent to
grow. It was easy to recognize Henrik in the young fellow who would
have loved so much to smile, only that cursed waxed moustache would not
allow his mouth to open very far.
"Welcome, welcome," sounded from all sides. Father Fromm opened his arms
to receive the grandmother: Henrik leaped on to Desiderius' neck, while
old Marton slouched up to Lorand, and, nudging him with his elbows, said
with a humorous smile, "Well, no harm came of it, you see."
"No, old fellow. And I have to thank this good stick for it," said
Lorand, producing from under his coat Marton's walking stick, for which
he had had made a beautiful silver handle in place of the previous
dog's-foot.
The old fellow was beside himself with delight that they thought so much
of his relics.
"Is it true," he asked, "that you fought two highwaymen with this stick?
Master Desiderius wrote to say so."
"No, only one."
"And you knocked him down?"
"It was impossible for he ran away. Now I have done my walking, and give
back the stick with thanks."
But it was not the silver handle that delighted Marton so. He took the
returned stick into the shop, like some trophy, and related to the
assistants, how Master Lorand had, with that alone, knocked down three
highwaymen. He would not have surrendered that stick for a whole
Mecklenburg full of every kind of cane.
Old Grandmother Fromm, too, was still alive and counted it a great
triumph that she had just finished the hundredth pair of stockings for
Fanny's trousseau.
And last, but not least, Fanny, even more beautiful, even more
amiable!--as if she had not seen Desiderius and his grandmother for an
eternity!
"Well, you will be our daughter!"
And they all loved Desiderius so.
"What a handsome man he has grown," complimented Grandmother Fromm.
"What a good fellow!"--remarked Mother Fromm.
"What a clever fellow! How learned!" was Father Fromm's encomium.
"And what a muscular rascal!" said Henrik, overcome with astonishment
that another boy too had grown as large as he. "Do you remember how one
evening you threw me on to the bed? How angry I was with you then!"
"Do you remember how the first evening you put away the cake for
Henrik?" said grandmamma. "How you blushed then!"
"Do you remember," interrupted Father Fromm, "the first time you
addressed me in German? How I laughed at you then!"
"Well, and do you remember me?" said Fanny playfully, putting her hand
on her fiance's arm.
"When first you kissed me here," retorted Desiderius, looking into her
beaming eyes.
"How you feared me then!"
"Well, and do you remember," said the young fellow in a voice void of
feeling, "when I stood resting against the doorpost, and you came to
drag my secret out of me. How I loved you then!"
Lorand stepped up to them, and laying his hands on their shoulders, said
with a sigh:
"Forgive me for standing so long in your path!"
At that everyone's eyes filled with tears, everyone knew why.
Father Fromm, deeply moved, exclaimed:
"How happy I am,--my God!" and then as if he considered his happiness
too great, he turned to Henrik, "if only you were otherwise! but look,
my dear boy: nothing has come of him! _fuit negligens_. If he too had
learned, he would already be an '_archivarius_!' That is what I wanted
to make of him. What a fine title! An '_archivarius_!' But what has
become of him? An '_asinus_!' _Quantus asinus_! I ought to have made a
baker of him. He did not wish to be other, the fool: the '_perversus
homo_.' Now he is nothing but a '_pistor_.'"
At this grievous charge poor Henrik would have longed to sink into the
earth for very shame, a longing which would have met with opposition,
not only from the ground-floor inhabitants, but also from the assistants
working in the underground cellars.
Lorand took Henrik's part.
"Never mind, Henrik. At any rate in both families there is a
good-for-nothing who can do nothing except produce bread: I am the
peasant, you the baker: I thresh the wheat, you bake bread of it: let
the high and mighty feast on their pride."
Then the common good-humor of the high and mighty put a good tone on the
conversation. Father Fromm actually made peace though slowly with fate,
and agreed that it was just as well Henrik could continue his father's
business. He might find some respite in the fact that at least his
second child would become a "lady."
Desiderius had a joy in store for him in that he was to meet his
erstwhile Rector,[74] who was to give away the bride. The old fellow had
still the same military mien, the same harsh voice, and was still as
sincerely fond of Desiderius and the two families as ever.
[Footnote 74: The director of the school when he was educated at
Pressburg.]
Lorand was to be Desiderius' best man.
In this official position he was obliged to stand on the bridegroom's
left, while the latter swore before the altar, to provide for the
bride's happiness "till death us do part," receiving in trust a faithful
hand which even in death would not loosen its hold on his. He was the
first to praise the bride for repeating after the minister so
courageously and clearly those words, at which the voices of girls are
wont to tremble. He was the first to raise his glass to the happy
couple's health: he opened the ball with the bride: and one day later,
it was he who took her back on his arm to his mother's home, saying:
"Dear sister-in-law, step into the house from which your calm face has
driven all signs of mourning: embrace her who awaits you--the good
mother who has to-day for the first time exchanged her black gown for
that blue one in which we knew her in days of happiness. Never has bride
brought a richer dowry to a bridegroom's home, than you have to ours.
God bless you for it."
And even Lorand did not know how much that hand which pressed his so
gently had done for him.
It is the fate of such deeds to succeed and remain obscure.
"Let the children spend their happy honeymoon in the country," was the
opinion of the elder lady. "They must grow accustomed to being their own
masters, too."
But the idea met with the most strenuous opposition from Desiderius'
mother and Fanny. The mother's prayers were so beautiful, the bride so
irresistible, that the other two, the grandmother and Lorand, finally
allowed themselves to be persuaded, and agreed that the mother should
stay with Desiderius.
"But we two must leave," whispered grandmother to Lorand.
She had already noticed that Lorand's face was not fit to be present in
that peaceful life.
His gaiety was only for others: a grandmother's eyes could not be
deceived.
While the others were engaged with their own happiness, the old lady
took Lorand's hand and, without a word of "whither," they went down
together to the garden, to the stream flowing beside the garden: to the
melancholy house built on the bank of the stream.
Ten years had passed and the creeper had again crawled over the crypt
door: the green leaves covered the motto. The two juniper trees had
bowed their green branches together over the cupola.
They stayed there, her head leaning on his bosom.
How much they must have said to one another, tacitly, without a single
word! How they must have understood each other's unspoken thoughts!
Deep silence reigned around: but within, inside the closed, rusted,
creeper-covered door, it seemed as if someone beckoned with invisible
finger, saying to the elder boy, "one great debt is not yet paid."
One hour later they returned to the house, where they were welcomed by
boisterous voices of noisy gladness--master and servant were all merry
and rejoicing.
"I must hasten on my way," said Lorand to his mother.
"Whither?"
"Back to Lankadomb."
"You will bring me a new joy."
"Yes, a new joy for you, mother,--and for you, too," he said pressing
his grandmother's hand.
She understood what that handclasp meant.
The murderer lived still.--The account was not yet balanced! Lorand
kissed his happy relations. The old lady accompanied him to the
carriage, where she kissed his forehead.
"Go."
And in that kiss there was the weight of a blessing that urged him to
his difficult duty.
"Go--and wreak vengeance."