The fulfilment of the proverb, as you make your bed
so must you lie in it, comes to pass.
Valentine Kalondai knew Henry Catsrider ill, and all his
psychological calculations foundered completely.
During the last few years Henry Catsrider's nature had entirely
degenerated.
When Valentine was his fellow-student at the college of Keszmár,
Henry was a stuck-up youth, proud of his learning, who was always
boasting to his comrades of his mental capacity and his physical
strength till he became positively unendurable. The weaker ones he
persecuted. In his wrestling-bouts with them he shockingly
maltreated them, and when they played pranks he reported them to the
authorities. But the end and aim of all his brutal self-assertion
was to become a clergyman. In this calling he would also have been
sly and tyrannous, always looking after himself and a scourge and a
burden to his colleagues; but his father had violently torn him away
from this path of life, and forced him to go back to his proper
trade. And perhaps the old man was right.
For this was, after all, the trade for which Henry was intended by
nature, and within a few years he was as much at home in it as if he
had done nothing else all his life. Coarse society soon brings down
everyone who mixes in it to its own level. The feeling, too, that
all the world despises him, arouses in a man the defiant instinct to
avenge himself on the whole world for such contempt. Till then he
had led the life of a recluse, but now he suddenly plunged into a
continual orgy, and hated sobriety. The ghastly death of his father
had filled him with the cruelty of a wild beast, and the destruction
of his house had extinguished in him the last sparks of human
feeling. After the loss of his wife, whom he had loved passionately,
he sank completely into the slough of vileness, and sought the
society of those women whom not the altar but the pillory would
sooner or later unite to him--to-day a glowing kiss, to-morrow a
hissing iron. As, moreover, he had lost a large part of his
treasures in the burning of his house, he became avaricious
likewise. He wanted to make up again what he had lost. Just then
they were beginning in Poland to play at games of chance with the
painted cards invented by Peter Gringenoir, and Henry spent all his
time in the Polish cities playing cards with the cheats and filchers
of the district. And in these gambling dens he generally managed to
lose some fresh piece of his silver plate which he brought with him
in the leg of his boot. Woe betide them who then fell into his
hands!
Once he was warned by the authorities that he would be degraded and
expelled from his office if he did not attend to it better.
After all this we may readily suppose that Henry Catsrider, when he
received the summons from the town council of Kassa, did not
hesitate a moment to appear personally in answer to it. That this
summons was signed by Valentine Kalondai, as sheriff, did not
disturb him in the least. On the contrary, the idea of appearing
before his former rival as executioner rather tickled him than
otherwise. That one of the victims was Red Barbara afforded him the
greatest satisfaction. He suspected at once that the witch had set
his house on fire and stolen a portion of his treasures. That she
had also filched from him his greatest treasure was, however,
unknown to him as yet. He would not for any consideration have
relinquished to anyone else the bliss of tormenting her.
A week after the dispatch of the citation, the wagon of the
executioner of Zeb rattled over the stones of the market-place of
Kassa. It was a black vehicle, with red wheels and axles, on which
the somber company, like a troupe of itinerant comedians, brought
with them all the requisites of their terrible stage. Mounted
drabants and musketeers escorted them before and behind.
The worshipful town council had a very hard time of it that day. In
the early morning, two squadrons of Walloon cuirassiers had marched
into the town, blowing, not the Hungarian farogato whose richly
varying melodies so much delighted the people, but those shrill
trumpets which were only invented for the annoyance of mankind. And
between the two squadrons of cavalry, sitting on mules and chanting
discordant hymns, the Jesuit fathers also came back to the town.
The colonel of the foreign soldiers and the superior of the Jesuits
hastened together to the townhall, and a great dispute arose between
them in the council-chamber as to which of them should have the
precedence. General Löffelholz asserted that, by virtue of his rank,
he was entitled to settle military matters with the magistrates
first of all. Prior Hieronymus, on the other hand, appealed to the
privileges of his order, which placed him above every temporal
authority.
Neither the soldier nor the monk would give way, and the pair of
them kept their heads covered, the one with his plumed hat, the
other with his hood. At that moment the sound of clanking spurs was
heard coming along the corridor, and now both the contending
parties gave way before the third comer.
The man who now entered also wore a plumed biretta on his head, but
it was scarlet. His powerful body was dressed in a scarlet coat, and
over it he wore a long scarlet mantle.
The clergyman and the soldier instantly made way for him. They were
careful not to come into contact with so much as the hem of his
garment.
It was the headsman.
Henry Catsrider's face had very much altered since he had laid aside
his priestly garb. His former long fair hair was now clipped short,
and his beard flowed down in two long reddish wisps. His face was
puffy from much drinking, and his large eyes, that had once been so
sparkling, now gleamed out of his coppery, swollen countenance like
smoldering embers. His large, coarse mouth was all awry. The
humanized wild beast had relapsed again into its original savagery.
Even if he had worn no hangman's weeds, all the world might have
read his frightful profession from his face. As he approached,
everyone timidly made way for him.
And if there was anyone who had as much cause to shudder at the
appearance of this shape, as if the skeleton with the scythe had
suddenly sprung up out of the ground before him, it was certainly
Valentine Kalondai. To him this creature was not only the man of
blood, but the man whom he had robbed of his wife.
Even at the time when passion had led him to this step--a step to
which a whole host of concurring circumstances, hot blood, and the
force of fate had constrained him--even then he had thought that he
might one day fall in with him whom he had made a widower, but he
had then said, "I will rather get together a robber band than
surrender my beloved to destruction!" That would have been a very
different kind of meeting. A meeting like this was more than human
foresight could have foreseen.
All eyes turned to him who was the head of the city, the president
of the town council.
And even at that moment his strength of mind did not forsake him. He
looked Henry Catsrider straight in the face, as if they had never
known each other, as if he had never trespassed against him.
The headsman planted himself in front of the sheriff and said:
"'They have called me, and I have come!'"
Valentine, with perfect _sangfroid_, completed the quotation:
"'I have sprung from the dust of an accursed earth.'"
This distich, it is said, was written in Chaldaic characters on the
wings of those locusts which first appeared at the call of Moses,
and always reappear when the Lord would abase the pride of man.
Everyone knew this saying. The words of the sheriff, therefore,
called forth a slight smile on every face, and a murmur of merriment
ran through the room because he had so dexterously turned the tables
on the coarse intruder.
Still more satisfied with his wisdom were they when he pronounced
judgment in the precedence dispute. "The Church first, then the
temporal power, last of all the headsman."
But the Walloon general, a strapping fellow, tapped his saber, said
he was the first man in the town, and made a terrible to-do.
Valentine Kalondai thereupon shoved back his presidential chair,
laid down his mace, girded on his sword, and donned his hat. There
were now four persons in the council-chamber who had their hats on.
Then he turned to the general and said: "Have we come hither to
deliberate or to fight?"
The Walloon perceived that he had met his match. Such courage
pleased him. He held out his hand to the sheriff and said with a
laugh: "Well, well, Master Sheriff, I have not come hither to
squabble. Pray sit down again and deliberate," and with that he drew
back.
This resolute behavior made such an impression on the members of the
council that, as the sheriff resumed his seat, they greeted him with
a loud _vivat_, while the victorious prior stretched forth his
skinny arm toward him and said: "Deus benedicat tibi!"
"I have asked no blessing of your reverence; he who sits in the
judgment-seat may not even accept a benediction;" and he forthwith
began to investigate the points in dispute between the city and the
College of Jesuits.
If you really want to test a man's presence of mind and dialectic
skill, just engage him in an argument in a foreign language.
Valentine now showed that he could negotiate with the Jesuit in
Latin and with the Walloon in German, without stammering or
stuttering in the least. And indeed, as the conrector could not help
remarking to his neighbor, the sheriff was a far greater master of
both languages than those with whom he was negotiating. His precise,
curial style was easily victorious over the Jesuit's dog Latin, and
his expressive German, with his pithy Lutheranisms, was more than a
match for the general's Platt-Deutsch dialect.
And the headsman was standing behind him all the time!
The questions before him were by no means easy to solve. On the
part of the town a charter had to be drafted and signed,
guaranteeing to the Jesuits all their privileges and possessions,
and declaring their cloisters a sacred asylum, whose very threshold
the secular authorities should never cross. The College of Jesuits
had also to subscribe an agreement pledging itself not to convert
Protestants to the Roman faith by force, artifice, moral pressure,
or any sort of cajolery.
Valentine's clear intelligence knew exactly how to hit the proper
mean between these directly antagonistic pretensions, and keep the
document entirely free from those artfully insinuated clauses
whereby the Jesuits tried again and again to smuggle in their mental
reservations.
The prior was satisfied with the compact, and when Valentine took up
his pen to subscribe it the other unctuously exclaimed:
"Such a good sowing will produce a good harvest!"
And Valentine could not help thinking, as he handled the pen, "I
wonder what sort of harvest the letters I am now sowing will bring
in to me."
The matters to be settled with the general, too, were not a whit
less captious. The relations between the military and the civic
authorities had to be very carefully defined and settled, once for
all. The city had an armed garrison of its own, and reserved to
itself the complete control of this garrison. The gates were to be
watched by both parties together. So the Gordian knot to be untied
was this: how two sets of men diametrically opposed in nationality,
religion, and politics were to be made to consent to be faithful
guardians of the law of the land and the prerogatives of the Kaiser,
without prejudicing the liberties of the city, or interfering in any
way with one another, or attempting to violently hew the knot in two
with the sword.
And that Kalondai settled this complicated matter also in the wisest
possible way is sufficiently obvious from the fact that neither
party was quite contented with his decision.
Last of all, it occurred to him that there was still someone
standing behind him--the headsman.
He did not tell the fellow to stand forth, but alluded to him in the
third person, and as the man had a Slovack accent, he addressed him
in the Slovack tongue, just as if they had never squabbled with each
other in their youth in the Hungarian, German, and Latin languages.
"Master Henry will be at his post on the scaffold at six o'clock
to-morrow morning, and there await with his apprentices the arrival
of the magistrates."
He wasted no more words on the subject, but closed the session and
went home.
In the evening of the same day the very reverend dean was sent for
to come to Kalondai's house to give a lady the sacrament of the
altar.
The dean at once supposed that Dame Sarah was on the point of death,
and great was his astonishment when they led him to the bedside of
the younger lady. It was pretty Michal who desired the last
sacraments.
The very reverend gentleman was beyond measure astonished thereat.
Had he not seen Michal piously praying in church only the day
before! And now she desired the sacrament of the dying!
"Would you haggle with God?" asked Valentine.
So pretty Michal partook of the Lord's Supper, and the clergyman
gave her his benediction.
And pretty Michal at that moment had no bodily ailment, yet for all
that she was on the point of death.
Next day--it was a dark January morning--the gloomy scaffold stood
ready in the market-place of Kassa. The early risers could see
through the thick mists the headsman's apprentices, in their pointed
caps, moving like hellish shadows about the burning fire, in which
they were heating their terrible tools red-hot, and warming their
hands the while, to prevent them from growing stiff.
When the clock in the church-tower struck seven, the watchmen on the
bastions struck the big drum three times, whereupon the felon's bell
in the tower of the townhall began to toll--a sad, heartrending
sound. Then the gates of the courtyard were thrown open, and out
came the procession in the usual order, the headsman first on
horseback, then the convict, and last of all the members of the town
council, the sheriff, the superrector, the conrector, the syndic,
and the civic warden. All these took their places on the dais, with
the sheriff in the center, while the headsman dismounted from his
horse and ascended the scaffold.
The soldier who had been condemned to be beheaded was accompanied to
the place of execution by his comrades. It was the special privilege
of every citizen of Kassa who suffered capital punishment to go to
the scaffold free and unfettered, take leave there of his family and
friends, and not be maltreated by the headsman.
The convict in question advanced with a cheerful countenance and
head erect. Two of his comrades accompanied him, consoling and
consoled by him.
"Never mind, gossips! I am not the first to whom it has happened. I
don't take it so much to heart, and it doesn't hurt anyone else. God
bless those who are left behind!"
Then he kissed and embraced his little children one after the other,
and distributed them among his friends.
"To you I give my little son, and to you I leave my little
daughter."
And so he parted with them all.
Who is that weeping so loudly?
It is the sheriff beneath his canopy. He cannot refrain from
sobbing.
The convict had compassion upon his judge, and said to him:
"Weep not, Master Sheriff! you have pronounced a righteous judgment
over me. I deserve to die. Not a drop of my blood will ever burden
your soul, for it was a righteous sentence. Turn your head aside if
you find it hard to see the sentence carried out!"
But Valentine Kalondai did not cover his eyes. He bade them weep no
more, but watch the scene to the very end.
He was learning!
He was learning how to mount the seven steps of the scaffold with a
firm step, how to cheerily tap the headsman on the shoulder, ask him
if his ax was sharp, and then send his last greetings to those at
home.
The man sat down without any assistance on the low stool, put his
hands on his knees, stretched forward his head, and began to sing
the well-known verse: "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O
----" The word "Lord" was still upon his lips as he stood before the
throne of God.
Valentine had learnt something.
Another and far more terrible scene now ensued. They brought up the
witch.
_She_ did not endure her fate calmly. She bit, kicked, scratched,
cursed the saints and all mankind, and called upon the devil to help
her. They had to bind her by force to the pillar.
And Henry Catsrider actually took pleasure in the hideous contest.
It is one of the most ghastly privileges of the headsman to wound
with words the wretches whom he is worrying to death, to torture
their souls as well as their bodies.
"Oh--oh, you old witch! So you have come under my hands at last,
eh?"
"I suckled you, you dog! You have sucked witch's milk from me. Show
yourself the devil you are!"
"Come along then, you queen of witches, come and be crowned!"
With that he placed upon her head the crown, made of three staves,
and began to screw them together.
Red Barbara turned her face toward Valentine Kalondai and cried;
"Judge! make them take this crown off, it hurts me!"
"Wait a bit!" said the headsman, with a harsh laugh; "I'll give you
a sedative immediately;" and seizing a scourge with one hand, he
gave a vicious twist at the screw with the other.
The tortured hag bellowed for anguish.
"Judge, let them kill me outright, let me die!"
"Don't be afraid! I'll wake you up again," sneered the headsman, and
he tore her gown from her shoulders, so as to give freer play to the
lashes of his scourge.
It was just such another purple gown as that in which Michal had
once so greatly excited Valentine's admiration, and the recollection
of that dress occurred to Henry also.
"Is not this the dress you stole from my wife, you thief, you
incendiary?" and again the lash hissed through the air.
"Do you strike me, you hangman? You knacker, you! I'll strike you
back now! I'll brand your face so that you will bear the marks about
with you to your dying day. You cuckold, you horned beast! You have
crowned me, have you! I'll crown you still better. Your wife, your
pretty Michal, still lives, and is the mistress of that sheriff
yonder! You have two horns on your head, bear them as best you can!"
The headsman's apprentices began to laugh.
Furious with rage at this taunt, the headsman gave the gibbering
witch such a blow on the head, with the leaden knob of his scourge,
that she never spoke another word on this earth; then, rushing to
the edge of the scaffold, he stretched out his arm and pointed his
whip at Valentine.
The town-councilors sprang to their feet with a shudder.
Then Valentine said in a calm voice: "It is so--it is true!"
Augustus Zwirina immediately turned toward him and said: "Then, Mr.
Valentine Kalondai, the time has come for you to lay down the
sheriff's staff!"
Valentine surrendered his staff, descended from the tribune, and
went straight home. He went quite alone. Not a soul accompanied him.
When he got home, pretty Michal could read from his face that
misfortune had overtaken him.
"It's all up. We are betrayed and openly accused."
Pretty Michal was not dismayed by this intelligence, she was
prepared for it.
"I only ask one thing of you," said she to Valentine, "and as you
love me, you must grant it. Our sole defense is that Henry
Catsrider, when he married me, gave himself out to my father as a
different person from what he really was. That is an impediment
which nullifies the marriage. We might, therefore, defend ourselves
by contending that I was not his true and lawful wife, that he
married me under false pretenses, and kept me in his house by
force. I pray and beseech you not to offer any such defense. My poor
father knows not what has befallen me, and I wish him never to know
it."
"But I have a mother."
"Her heart will break for your sake. I know it. But then she will
live forever among the choirs of angels. She has nothing to reproach
herself with. Her inward monitor does not accuse her. But it is my
father's own fault that I came into this terrible situation. If he
ever learns that he is the sole cause of all this sorrow and shame,
it will not only be the death of him, but it will make him lose his
hopes of heaven."
Valentine kissed his pretty Michal.
"You are right. We will not defend ourselves."
At that moment worthy Simplex appeared.
"Quick, comrade! Take horse! The gates are not yet closed. Twelve of
your trusty friends have banded to assist your flight. There is no
time for reflection. The town council is at this moment deciding
your fate."
But Valentine answered: "If I alone were concerned, I do not say
that I would not attempt to escape. But there are two of us, and
rather let my head be thrown into the dust along with the head of my
Michal than her name and mine should be written over the pillory to
our eternal shame. Here we remain, come what may."
"Good! Be it so!" said Simplex. "But, at least, defend yourself. You
know the rule: 'Si fecisti, nega!' We will give the accusers enough
to do. I will swear that I saw with my own eyes the wife of Henry,
the hangman, perish in the flames. I don't care very much whether I
am a cell higher or lower in hell. I know the commandment says:
'Thou must not bear false witness against thy neighbor.' But there
is nothing said about bearing false witness to befriend thy
neighbor."
"No, my good Simplex! we don't do that. If my Michal were to say
that she had never been Henry's wife, but was another person, she
would next be asked who she really was then, and who her father was.
But this she never will say. Do you understand why?"
"Yes, comrade, I do understand. She would spare the white hairs of
her father."
"And if she would not answer this question, would you like them to
lay upon the rack her whom I adore?"
Valentine, in his anguish, pressed the trembling creature to his
breast, while Simplex gnashed his teeth, and struck his forehead
with his fist.
"And finally," said Valentine, proudly raising his head, "I would
rather die one hundred times over, and see my wife die before my
eyes, than let a single lie cross my lips, which would make me blush
when I stood face to face with the knacker of Zeb. Rather let my
blood trickle to the ground than stream into my face for shame!
What! would you have me lie to this man, and then turn my face away
from him? I will oppose him boldly, tell him the truth, and then
spit in his face."
"Right, Valentine, right! You are acting like a true man," said
Simplex, while pretty Michal fell at her husband's feet and kissed
his hands. "Then you must accept our last offer. If you will neither
fly nor lie, our twelve trusty friends will give good bail to the
city magistrates to prevent you from being put in fetters."
"I will accept that offer thankfully, and make bold to say that they
will lose nothing by it."
Simplex had no sooner departed than a message came from the town
council, summoning Valentine and his wife to appear before it.
Dame Sarah now learnt for the first time whereof her children were
accused, and was terribly enraged thereat.
Dressed just as she used to be indoors (she did not even throw her
fur mantle over her shoulders), she rushed after her children. She
would like to see who would dare to rob her of them.
She followed the accused into the council-chamber. The halberdiers
would have kept her back, but she sent them spinning to the left and
right against the doorposts, and forced her way up to the green
table itself. She could scarcely restrain herself while the syndic
read out the accusation, according to which Valentine had abducted
the wife of Henry Catsrider, and unlawfully cohabited with her. Then
Dame Sarah could contain herself no longer.
"The whole thing is a lie, a shameless, scandalous calumny! What! my
daughter-in-law, Milly, the wife of the headsman of Zeb! Step forth,
you scarlet juggler! Produce the marriage certificate which can show
that my daughter-in-law, Milly, was ever married to the knacker of
Zeb! Your wife, forsooth, you red dog! This gentle, pious creature,
who is a veritable angel! Or name, if you can, the clergyman who
united you at the altar, you spawn of hell, you flayer of men, you
scarecrow, with this angelic creature!"
Henry was terribly alarmed. His teeth chattered and his chin
waggled, beard and all, at this woman's onslaught, for he could not
have proved that Michal had been married to him, the hangman. He had
married her as a clergyman. He had obtained her hand by subtlety.
And all this would now come out. He did not know what to say. Words
failed him.
But still more frightened was Michal. Full of terror she pressed her
husband's hand.
Then Valentine turned to Henry Catsrider and said:
"I forbid you to answer that question. It has no bearing on the
case. I acknowledge and confess that my consort was this man's wife.
I took her from him because it was better for her to die with me
than to live with him, and I am responsible for it to God alone and
his avenging cherubim."
"But here below you are also responsible to the high tribunal of
the worshipful city of Kassa," said the presiding superrector.
"You know the law. You know that death is the penalty for such a
transgression."
"I await death."
"You shall not be disappointed."
Pretty Michal crossed her arms over her breast, and turning her
martyr-like face to heaven, looked up as if transfigured, while
Valentine supported her with his stalwart arm.
A solemn pause ensued, and then the silence was broken by the
heartrending cry of Dame Sarah:
"I appeal!"
"To whom?" inquired the cruelly cold voice of the superrector.
"To the Prince."
"He lies in a Polish dungeon."
"To the Kaiser, then."
"He died last week."
"Then I appeal to God!" cried the mother, in her bitter agony.
"He's napping!" answered a deep, hollow voice, which seemed to come
from the very bowels of the earth. It was the headsman who had
spoken.
But the dean there and then arose from his place at the green table,
and gave the speaker such a buffet in the face that the blood flowed
in streams from his mouth and nose.