Concerning a terribly great contest, from which it
will be seen that where his spouse's honor was
concerned, Valentine put no bounds to his fury.
But all this was not enough for Valentine. Henceforward he went
about like a raging lion, and whenever he talked with anyone in the
street, his gestures were those of a man who is about to pull up his
shirt sleeves for a fight.
At last he fell in with Simplex.
"I must trounce someone to-day, or else I shall certainly get the
fever or the jaundice. Friend Simplex, if ever you were my good
comrade, if the health of your friend is at all dear to you, find me
someone on whom I can vent my wrath."
"Most willingly, my dear good comrade, I'll find you someone."
"Anyone will do. I don't care who it is, a sword-eater, a
stone-breaker, a giant! I'll fight him. A woman has insulted me, but
I cannot take revenge upon a woman. Procure me, from somewhere or
other, a man whom I can trample underfoot. Bring me a Turkish pasha,
or a robber chieftain, or a dog-headed Tartar, that I may devour
him."
"I need not look so far as that. I'll find you an antagonist much
nearer home. If you want such a one, know that you have no greater
enemy than young Ignatius Fürmender, or Zwirina. You have been
insulted by his mother; the son must now pay for the mother's
rudeness."
"You've hit it," cried Valentine, giving Simplex a mighty blow on
the back from sheer friendship. "Not in vain do they call you
knowing. He never once occurred to me. To think that I should be
looking everywhere for a foe, when he is under my nose all the time.
It is just like the man who went in search of the horse on which he
was actually riding. Here! take my glove and this gulden, and notify
to the sheriff that I challenge Ignatius Zwirina to break a lance
with me."
Simplex accepted the commission, went straight to the sheriff, and
informed him that Valentine Kalondai desired to challenge Ignatius
Zwirina to fight him with lances, according to ancient law and
custom. The sheriff made a note thereof, and took the deposited
gulden, at the same time calling Simplex's attention to the fact
that as the city found the lances, each of the combatants would have
to pay a Hungarian gulden extra for every lance that broke in his
hand. Thereupon he handed him a written permission, duly sealed with
the seal of the city of Kassa, for Valentine Kalondai to challenge
Ignatius Zwirina to fight him with lances, according to ancient law
and custom, as prescribed by the statutes of the city of Kassa.
Thus provided with the official authorization, Simplex, accompanied
by the town trumpeter, next proceeded to the house of the Zwirina
family, and finding the door closed, bade the trumpeter blow a
flourish three times, and then proclaimed the challenge before the
crowd, which had in the meantime assembled in the streets:
"Ignatius Zwirina! With the permission and consent of the sheriff of
Kassa, I hereby challenge you in the name of the good and valiant
Valentine Kalondai, to break with him, according to ancient law and
custom, one, two, or three lances, as the case may be. Take this
glove, and on the first day of carnival appear on the ropewalk
behind the townhall, duly armed and mounted, to answer the challenge
in your own person, if you would be regarded as a stout-hearted
fellow and not as an errand-boy of your lady-mother."
Then the trumpeter sounded three more flourishes, and Simplex nailed
Valentine's glove to the Zwirinas' door.
There the glove remained till Twelfthnight. Nobody took it down. For
according to the statute all such duels had to be fought out between
Twelfthnight and Shrovetide, whereby all and sundry were given to
understand that the town council regarded such combats as mere
carnival frolics. This wise ordinance assumed that the hot-blooded
youth of the parish had their fling during Shrovetide. If anyone
felt as if he did not know what to do with himself, it was open to
him to fight to his heart's content during the prescribed season and
have done with it, for, Shrovetide over, it was strictly forbidden
to break the peace, or in any way disturb or harass one's neighbors.
It was also generally found that after all such combats the young
fellows, even when they had belabored each other most soundly,
became the best friends in the world, and it was considered the most
shameful cowardice to bewail the bumps and bruises dealt out on such
occasions, be they what they might.
It was also considered equally disgraceful when the person so
challenged did not appear on the field of battle at the appointed
day and hour. Now this was the case with Ignatius Zwirina, who had
no very fervent desire to make the acquaintance of Valentine
Kalondai's cudgel.
Epiphany arrived, and the whole youth of the parish, as well as the
officials appointed to watch the proceedings and keep order, waited
in vain from dawn till eve for the appearance of the challenged. The
challenger rode idle and alone up and down the ropewalk.
When evening came, and it was no longer to be expected that the
defaulter would either appear in person or send people to excuse his
absence, Valentine was authorized to take his lance in his hand,
having at the end of it a lantern made of a bladder with a lighted
candle inside it, and a pair of ragged old drawers hanging over it,
and then to ride through the town and proclaim at the corner of
every street:
"Noble gentlemen, burgesses, and honest inhabitants of this town!
which of you has seen, which of you knows that cowardly knave
Ignatius Zwirina? Who can tell me into which hole he has crawled? Is
he in the oven, under the bed, or beneath his mother's skirts?
Whoever finds him, tell him not to be afraid but show himself, for I
won't eat him. Here I have a pair of ragged hose. Let him come out
and patch them for me, and I'll pay him for the job."
This was the formula of degradation which was the meed of those who
failed to appear on such occasions.
Moreover, the whole youth of the town used to take up the heckling
with such spirit that further existence in the town of Kassa became
an absolute impossibility for the person so distinguished. Ignatius
Zwirina, however, was already deputy syndic of his native place. He
therefore could not afford to fly, and his good friends persuaded
him so long that at last he resolved to answer Valentine's
challenge, and break a pair of lances with him on the following day.
Then, of course, the public mockery ceased.
On the following day a still greater crowd of spectators appeared on
the ropewalk, fifty drabants had also been sent by the corporation
to keep order, and Count Hommonai had come on horseback to see the
fight.
At the appointed hour both horsemen appeared, accompanied by their
friends. Valentine wore a breastplate, a helmet, and greaves, but
Ignatius was clad in mail from top to toe, both in front and behind;
he was plainly of opinion that the back is also vulnerable.
They took the places assigned to them on the opposite sides of the
lists, and the umpire then produced two long wooden lances without
iron points, and two stout oaken cudgels exactly alike. The
challenged had the first choice of weapons, and what he left were
handed to the challenger.
They rode bareback, guiding their horses by their knees, to which
their reins were fastened, for in their right hands they held their
lances and in their left their cudgels.
The moment the trumpet sounded, both horsemen couched their lances
and rushed upon each other with a fearful crash.
Ignatius Zwirina was a big lout of a fellow. Placed on the scales he
would certainly have weighed much more than Valentine. He aimed
viciously at Valentine with his lance; but Valentine struck the
shaft of it so sharply with his cudgel that it broke off in the
middle, and at the same time with his own lance he struck his
antagonist full in the breast, so that Ignatius flew backward into
the air off his steed and fell flat on the ground.
Valentine immediately sprang from his horse and punched and pommeled
the back and shoulders of the prostrate champion, as prescribed by
the rules of the contest, till his cudgel broke; but all this
belaboring did very little damage to the defeated combatant, for,
besides the coat of mail he wore behind, his mother had well
stuffed his clothes with horsehair. Yet, for all that, he did get
one or two knocks which he did not forget in a hurry, and that was
no more than his due, for he had often vexed Valentine with his evil
tongue.
And there the matter would have ended had not old Fürmender thought
fit to reopen it all again.
For when, after the contest was over, the defeated youth was carried
home in a basket, according to ancient practice, the old man took it
so to heart that he immediately buckled on his saber, took down the
statutes, ran with them to the captain, and called his attention to
the paragraph which strictly forbade persons serving in the army to
challenge young civilians. He therefore demanded that Valentine
should be punished for his challenge as being a gross breach of the
law.
But the good captain diligently searched through his diary and
showed the conscientious complainant that Valentine Kalondai on such
and such a day, viz., on the Wednesday before the last Sunday in
Advent of the past year, had been relieved of his military duties,
and therefore no longer fell within the category incriminated by the
statute. All that could be done therefore, suggested the captain,
was for old Mr. Fürmender to well rub the blue and red bruises of
his Nassy with butter, which he would find a sovereign specific.
And that not a shadow of a doubt as to Valentine's true position
might remain, the count that very day publicly advertised Valentine
Kalondai's appointment as castellan. Now, no doubt this post is
essentially a civic office, but inasmuch as the castellan is
practically the commandant's lieutenant, it had for a long time
always been given to a soldier, especially since the days when one
of the civic magistrates had been discovered in collusion with the
castellan to betray the town into the enemy's hands. In memory of
this event, the Hamor gate, through which the enemy had been
admitted, was walled up in perpetuity.
Thus Kalondai's enemies were completely put to shame, and Dame Sarah
experienced the joy of seeing her son's wife, the damsel from
Bártfa, sitting in the first place of the front pew of the
cathedral; which pew Dame Fürmender Zwirina had refused to occupy
any longer, having given notice to the dean that she would
henceforth take sittings in the suburb church instead.