As soon as Karcsataji had finished his meal, he turned to Raby.
"Are you inclined for a chat, Mr. Raby?" he said, as he lighted his
pipe. "Because if you are, this will be our chance to discuss the world
in general, and our own corner of it in particular."
"I am all attention," answered Raby coldly.
"You will be still more so when you hear my story, I fancy. We two are
companions in adversity (only you have got over the worst of it), since
we are both the victims of a worthless woman, curse her!"
"I will not curse her," said Raby quietly.
"No? Then you are a man out of a thousand, but I am only of very
ordinary clay, I fear. And I am not the only one she has fooled. If I
mistake not, Petray is also in the same boat. But the fellow can talk as
well as I can ride--which is saying a good deal. And it is that precious
tongue of his which bewitches the women. Yet I have more to complain of
than you, I consider. She took refuge under the wing of Petray, and
meantime the fatal letter she had written to me was intercepted, in
consequence of which Lievenkopp and you both challenged me to a duel
near the old Zsambek Church. The end of it was that Petray, as soon as
he heard how matters stood, let the lady know some home-truths, so that
for sometime they lived as man and wife, though leading a cat and dog
life. At last my lady became sick of this honey-mooning, and one fine
day she left Petray and came to me."
Raby buried his face in his hands and groaned. How could he endure this
talk?
"You need not bear me a grudge," said the other. "Know, by that time I
had given up robbery, and would have buried my ancient feud with the
law. I was seriously thinking about setting my house in order, and I
told my old companions to come no more to see me, and promised, if they
were in need, I would send out supplies to them in the forest. I was not
going to be 'Gyongyom Miska' any longer, for I had made up my mind to
reform my way of life. Then it was that your runaway wife fled to my
protection. You were well rid of her, yet how many times I have cursed
you in thought. I knew it was a deadly sin to take another man's wife.
Small wonder that Fruzsinka brought me nothing but ill-luck. I gave her
to understand from the first, that I was changing my life, and I set
about building a church in our village, moreover I repented of my sins,
fasted, and did penance and abjured my old evil ways. But easy as it is
to befool women-kind, it is difficult to deceive them, if we want to get
rid of them. Their suspicions are so easily aroused. If I were Emperor,
I would trust the police-espionage to women. She began with
intercepting my correspondence. Good heavens! what an experience I had,
and I thought she would tear me to pieces. So angry was she that she
left me, and I naturally concluded she was going to be reconciled to
you."
Raby ground his teeth.
"I know now that she was not. She began to work me further mischief. Do
you know, that to her I owed the denunciations which were shortly
afterwards, from some mysterious source, made to the ecclesiastical
authorities against me, of blasphemy and sacrilege, and though the
charges were true enough, I am sorry to say, I did not reckon in
expiating my past sins so sharply. For it was on these very charges that
I was arrested by order of high ecclesiastical dignitaries and condemned
to two years imprisonment; and many a thaler has it cost me already to
avoid being put into irons."
At these words he blew into his big pipe-bowl so energetically, that the
sparks flew up and illuminated his face in the darkness with a strangely
sinister light.
"And now, friend Raby, who has the greater ground of complaint, you or
I?"
He did not wait for an answer to his question, but began to curse away
furiously for some minutes with a virulence terrible to hear. When he
had finished his round of imprecations (and it was no limited one), he
threw himself on his bed and fell asleep.
As for Raby, he pondered long and deeply all he had heard about his
faithless wife, and once more she seemed to be spinning beside him, yet
there was a grim satisfaction that others had suffered beside himself.
Was he not avenged on the highwayman at last, seeing that the biter was
bitten!