WHEN THE NIGHTINGALE SINGS
The night following upon this day was a sleepless one for Czipra.
Every door of the castle was already closed: it was Lorand's custom to
look for himself and see that the bolts were firmly fastened. Then he
would knock at Czipra's door and bid her good-night; Czipra reciprocated
the good wish, and Lorand turned into his room. The last creaking door
was silent.
"Good night! Good night! But who gives the good night?"
Every day Czipra felt more strongly what an interminable void can exist
in a heart which lacks--God.
If it sorrows, to whom shall it complain?--if it has aspirations to whom
can it pray? if terrors threaten it, to whom shall it appeal for help
and courage? if in despair, from whom shall it ask hope?
When the heavy beating of her heart prevents a poor girl from closing
her eyes, she tosses sleeplessly where she lies, agonised with unknown
suspicions, and there is no one before her mind, from whom she can ask,
"Lord, is this a presentiment of my approaching death, or my approaching
health? What annoys, what terrifies, what allures, what fills my heart
with a sweet thrill? Oh, Lord, be with me."
The poor neglected girl only felt this, but could not express it.
She knelt on her bed, clasped her hands on her breast, raised her face,
and collected every thought of her heart--how ought one to pray? What
may be that word, which should bring God nearer? What sayings, what
enchantments could bring the Great Being, the all-powerful, down from
the heavens? What philosophy was that, which all men concealed from one
another and only spoke of to each other in secret, in the form of
letters, which opened to erring humanity the road leading to the home of
an invisible being? How did it begin? How end? What an awful
heart-agony, not to know how to pray,--just to kneel so with a heart
full of crying aspirations, and dumb lips! How weak the voice of a
sobbing sigh, how terribly far the starry heavens--who could hear there?
Yet there is One who hears!
And there is One who notes the unexpressed prayer of the silent
suppliant, One who hears the unuttered words.
Poor girl! She did not imagine that this feeling, this exaltation, was
prayer--not the words, not the sermon, not addresses, not the amens. He
who sees into hearts--reads from hearts, does not estimate the elegance
of words.
In the same hour that the suffering girl knelt thus dumbly before the
Lord of all happiness, that man whom she had worshipped in her heart so
long, whom she must worship forever, was sitting just as sleeplessly
beside his writing-table, separated from her only by two walls, and was
thinking and writing about her, and often wiped his eyes that filled
betimes with tears.
He was writing to his mother about his engagement.
About the poor gypsy girl.
* * * * *
In the dim light of the beautiful starry night twelve horsemen were
following in each others' tracks among the reeds of the morass.
Kandur was leading them.
Each man had a gun on his shoulder, a pistol in his girdle.
Along the winding road the mare Farao, treading lightly, led them: she
too seemed to hasten, and sometimes broke through the reeds, making a
short cut, as if she too were goaded on by some thirst for vengeance.
Among the willows, wills-o'-the-wisps were dancing.
They surrounded the horsemen, and followed their movements. Kandur smote
at them with his lash.
"On the return journey we shall be two more!" he muttered between his
teeth.
When they reached the lair there was merely a black stubbled ground left
where the hay-rick stood before.
In all directions shapeless burnt masses lay about.
These were the ruins of the highwaymen's palace.
And the tears flow from their eyes, as they see their haunt thus
destroyed.
All twelve had reached the burnt dwelling.
"See what the robbers have made of it," said Kandur to his comrades.
"They have stolen all we had collected, the riches we were to take with
us to another land, and then they have set the dwelling on fire. They
came here in a boat: they found out the way to our palace. We shall now
return the visit. Are you all here?"
"Yes," muttered the comrades. "We are all here."
"Dismount. Now for the punts."
The robbers dismounted.
"No need to tether the horses, they cannot get away anywhere. One man
may remain here to guard them. Who wishes to stay?"
All were silent.
"Some one must guard the horses, lest the wolves attack them while we
are away."
To which an old robber answered:
"Then you should have brought a herd-boy with you, for we didn't come
here to guard horses."
"Very well, mate, I only wished to know whether anyone of us would like
to remain behind. Whether anyone's 'sandal-strap was unloosed.' Does
each one know his own business? Come up one by one, and let me tell each
one his duty once more. Kanyo and Foszto."[77]
[Footnote 77: Pilferer.]
Two of the men stepped forward.
"You two will guard the two doors of the servants' quarter when we
arrive. Death to him who tries to escape by door or window."
"We know."
"Csutor[78] and Disznos.[79] you will be in ambush before the
hunting-box, and anyone who attempts to come out to the rescue, must be
killed."
[Footnote 78: Nightshade.]
[Footnote 79: Swinish.]
"Very well."
"Bogracs![80] You will occupy the street-door, and if any peasant dares
to approach you must shoot him: you alone are sufficient to keep
peasants off."
[Footnote 80: Kettle.]
"Quite sufficient!" said the robber with great self-reliance.
"Korve[81] and Pofok.[81] You must take your stand opposite the first
verandah, near the well, and if anyone wishes to escape by the first
door, fire at him. But don't waste powder.--You others, Vasgyuro,[82]
Hentes,[83] Piocza,[84] Agyaras,[85] will come with me through the
garden, and will stay behind in the bushes until I give the sign. If I
whistle once, that's for you. If I can get in quietly, by craft, without
being obliged to fire a shot, that will be the best. I have planned the
way. I think it will succeed. So three will come with me, one will
remain in the doorway. Have the halters ready, to throw upon his neck,
drag him to the ground and bind him. The black-bearded strong man must
be dealt with suddenly, with the butt of your gun on his head, if not
otherwise. But we must take the old man alive, for we shall make him
confess."
[Footnote 81: Blub-cheeked.]
[Footnote 82: Bully.]
[Footnote 83: Butcher.]
[Footnote 84: Leech.]
[Footnote 85: Wild-boar.]
"Just leave him to me," said a fellow with a pox-pitted face, in a tone
of entire confidence.
"I shall be there too," continued Kandur: "and if we cannot enter the
castle stealthily, if some one should make a noise, if those within wake
up, then the first whistle is for you four: two come with me to break
open the garden door. Have you got the 'jimmies'?"
"Yes," said a robber, displaying the crowbars.
"Piocza, and Agyaras, your business is to answer any fire of people from
the windows.--If I whistle twice, that means that something's up, then
you must run from all sides to help me. If I cannot break open the door,
or if those robbers defend themselves well, set the roof on fire over
their heads and give them a dose of singeing. That will do just as well.
Don't forget the tarred hay."
"Ha ha! The gentlemen will be warm."
"Well Pofok, perhaps you're cold? You'll soon get warm. Hither with the
canteen. Let's drink a little Dutch courage first. Begin. Hentes. A long
draught of brandy is, you know, good before a feast."
The tin went round and returned to Kandur almost empty.
"Look, I have hardly left you any," said the last drinker in a tone of
apologetic modesty.
"To-day I don't drink brandy. The private must drink that he may be
blind when he receives orders, but the general must not drink, that he
may see to give orders. I shall drink something else when it is all
over. Now look to the masking."
They understood what that meant.
Each one took off his sheepskin jacket, reversed it and put it on again.
Then dipping their hands in the strewn ashes, they blackened their
faces, making themselves unrecognizable.
Only Kandur did not mask himself.
"Let them recognize me. And anyone who does not recognize me, shall
learn from my own lips, 'I am Kandur, the mad Kandur, who will drink thy
blood, and tear out thy entrails. Know who I am!' How I shall look into
their eyes! How I shall gnash upon them with my teeth, when they are
bound. How tenderly I shall say to the young gentleman: 'Well, my boy,
my gypsy child, were you in the garden? Did you see a wolf? Were you
afraid of it? Shoo! Shoo!'"[86]
[Footnote 86: A favorite child-verse in Hungary.]
Farao was impatiently pawing the scorched grass.
"You too are looking for what is no more, Farao," the robber said,
patting his horse's neck. "Don't grieve. To-morrow you shall stand up to
your knees in provender, and then you shall carry your master on your
back. Don't grieve, Farao."
The robbers had completed their disguises.
"Now take up the boats."
Hidden among the reeds lay two skiffs, light affairs, each cut out of a
piece of tree trunk: just such as would hold two men, and such as two
men could carry on their shoulders over dry ground.
The robber-band put the skiffs into the water and started one after the
other on their way; they went down until they reached the stream leading
to the great dyke, by which they could punt down to the park of
Lankadomb, just where the shooting-box was.
It was about midnight when they reached it.
On the right of Lankadomb the dogs were baying restlessly, but the
hounds of the castle watchman did not answer them. They were sleeping.
Some vagrant gypsy woman had fed them well that evening on poisoned
swine-flesh.
The robbers reached the castle courtyard noiselessly, unnoticed, and
each one at once took the place allotted to him, as Kandur had directed.
The silence of deep sleep reigned in the house.
When everyone was in his place, Kandur crept on his stomach among the
bushes, which formed a grove under Czipra's window that looked on to the
garden, and putting an acacia leaf into his mouth, began to imitate the
song of the nightingale.
It was an artistic masterpiece which the wild son of the plains had,
with the aid of a leaf, stolen from the mouth of the sweetest of
song-birds.
All those fairy warblings, those plaintive challenging tones, those
enchanting trills, which no one has ever written down, he could imitate
so faithfully, so naturally, that he deceived even his lurking comrades.
"Cursed bird," they muttered, "it too has turned to whistling."
* * * * *
Czipra was sleeping peacefully.
That invisible hand, which she had sought, had closed her eyes and sent
sweet dreams to her heart. Perhaps, had she been able to sleep that
sleep through undisturbed, she would have awakened to a happy day.
The nightingale was warbling under her window.
The nightingale! The song-bird of love! Why was it entrusted with
singing at night when every other bird is sitting on its nest, and
hiding its head under its wing. Who had sent it, saying, "Rise and
announce that love is always waking?"
Who had entrusted it to awake the sleepers?
Why, even the popular song says:
"Sleep is better far than love
For sleep is tranquillity;
Love is anguish of the heart."
Fly away, bird of song!
Czipra tried to sleep again. The bird's song did not allow her.
She rose, leaned upon her elbows and continued to listen.
And there came back to her mind that old gypsy woman's enchantment,--the
enchantment of love.
"At midnight--the nightingale ... barefooted--... plant it in a
flower-pot ... before it droops, thy lover will return, and will never
leave thee."
Ah! who would walk in the open at night?
The nightingale continued:
"Go out bare-footed and tear down the branch."
No, no. How ridiculous it would be! If somebody should see her, and tell
others, they would laugh at her for her pains.
The nightingale began its song anew.
Malicious bird, that will not allow sleep!
Yet how easy it would be to try: a little branch in a flower-pot. Who
could know what it was? A girl's innocent jest, with which she does harm
to no one. Love's childish enchantment.
It would be easy to attempt it.
And if it were true? If there were something in it? How often people
say, "this or that woman has given her husband something to make him
love her so truly, and not even see her faults?" If it were true?
How often people wondered, how two people could love each other? With
what did they enchant each other? If it were true?
Suppose there were spirits that could be captured with a talisman, which
would do all one bade them?
Czipra involuntarily shuddered: she did not know why, but her whole body
trembled and shivered.
"No, not so," she said to herself. "If he does not give heart for
heart,--mine must not deceive him. If he cannot love me because I
deserve it, he must not love me for my spells. If he does not love, he
must not despise me. Away, bird of song, I do not want thee."
Then she drew the coverlet over her head and turned to the wall. But
sleep did not return again: the trembling did not pass: and the singing
bird in the bushes did not hold his peace.
It had come right under the window; it sang, "Come, come."
Sometimes it seemed as if the song of the nightingale contained the
words "Czipra, Czipra, Czipra!"
The warm mist of passion swept away the maiden's reason.
Her heart beat so, it almost burst her bosom, and her every limb
trembled.
She was no longer mistress of her mind.
She left her bed, and therewith left that magic circle which the
inspiration of the Lord forms around those who fly to Him for
protection, and which guards them so well from all apparitions of the
lower world.
"Go bare-footed!"
Why it was only a few steps from the door to the bushes.
Who could see her? What could happen in so short a time?
It was merely the satisfaction of an innocent desire.
It was no deed of darkness.
Every nerve was trembling.
She was merely going to break a little branch, and yet she felt as if
she was about to commit the most heinous crime, for which she needed the
shield of a sleepless night.
She opened the door very quietly so that it should not creak.
Lorand was sleeping in the room vis-a-vis: perhaps he might hear
something.
She darted with bare feet before Lorand's door, she carefully undid the
bolt of the door leading into the garden and turned the key with such
precaution that it did not make a sound.
Noiselessly she opened the door and peered out.
It was a quiet night of reveries: the stars, as is their wont when seen
through falling dew, were changing their colors, flashing green and red.
The nightingale was now cooing in the bushes, as it does when it has
found its mate.
Czipra looked around her. It was a deep slumbering night: no one could
see her now.
Yet she drew her linen garment closer round her, and was ashamed to show
her bare feet to the starry night.
Ah! it would last only a minute.
The grass was warm and soft, wet with dew as far as the bushes: no sharp
pebble would hurt her feet, no cracking stick betray her footsteps.
She stepped out into the open, and left the door ajar behind her.
She trembled so, she feared she would fall, and looked around her: for
all the world like someone bent on thieving.
She crept quietly towards the bushes.
The nightingale was warbling there in the thickest part.
She must pierce farther in, must quietly put the leaves aside, to see on
which branch the bird was singing.
She could not see.
Again she listened: the warbling lured her further.
It must be near to her: it was warbling there, perhaps she could grasp
it with her hand.
But as she bent the bough, a fierce figure sprang up before her and
grasped the hand she had stretched out.