It seems as if fortune delighted in extending her hand favourably
towards some individuals, while to others she only puts it forth to
deceive and buffet them through life. Her caprices have furnished us
with a lively example in both manners of dealing. We relate the simple
facts as we heard them, without adding a word.
Towards the close of 1848, war was the only theme in vogue. In Pesth
especially, the word _peace_ was quite out of fashion. The hotels were
filled with guests who met for the purpose of discussing the favourite
topic; martial music was heard from morning till night: the European
war was preparing.
Two personages were sitting together before a small table at the hotel
"Nagy Pipa,"[57] to whom the German saying might have been
applied--"_Der eine schweigt, der andere hört zu_,"[58] for one of
these two personages seemed attentively considering the probable or
possible cause of his companion's silence, casting, from time to time,
a scrutinizing glance on his countenance, intended to penetrate
whatever dark project might be passing within.
[Footnote 57: Great Pipe.]
[Footnote 58: "One keeps silence, the other listens to him."]
This observant individual was no other than the humane Master Janos,
Police-corporal, and vice-jailer of the noble city of Pesth; and when
we inform our readers that he occupied this post during Metternich's
time, and that, notwithstanding that minister's overthrow, he still
retained his position, unlike the usual fate of the adherents of a
fallen ministry, they will surely admit that the favourite of fortune
could not be better personified than by the same Master Janos; nor can
it be denied that the individual opposite was no less persecuted by
the fickle goddess, not only because he was the object of honest
Master Janos's suspicious glances; but more especially because a
nailsmith's apprentice from Vienna could think of coming to Hungary of
all places on earth--a country where the craft is carried on wholesale
at the corner of every village, by the Wallachian gipsies.
Master Janos had not studied Lavater, but long experience had led him
to conclude, after minute examination of the man's countenance, that
some counter-revolutionary scheme was turning in his head.
Consequently he drew his chair nearer, and determined to break the
silence.
"Where do you come from, sir? if I may presume to ask," he inquired,
with a wily glance at his companion.
"Hyay! from Vienna," sighed the stranger, looking into the bottom of
his glass.
"And what news from that city?"
"Hyaee! nothing good."
"Eh, what? nothing good!--what bad, then?"
"Hyay! war is much feared."
"Feared! what audacity!--how dare they fear?"
"Hyay! sir, I do not fear either at thirty leagues' distance; but once
I heard from the cellar how they were bombarding the streets, and I
found nothing agreeable in it."
Master Janos found still greater reason for suspicion. He resolved to
make him drink, and he would probably come on the traces of some
dangerous plot.
How much does a nailsmith's stomach require? At the second pitcher his
head sank slowly back, and his tongue moved with difficulty.
"Now for it!" thought Master Janos, filling his glass. "Eljen!
liberty!" he exclaimed, waiting for the nailsmith to strike glasses.
The latter was not long in responding to the invitation, and echoed
the "Eljen!" as far as his thickening tongue permitted.
"Now it is your turn to give a toast," said the vice-jailer, slily
eyeing his victim.
"Indeed, I am not used to give toasts, sir; I only drink them."
"Come, don't play the egotist, but drink to whoever you consider the
greatest man in the world!"
"In the whole world?" replied the nailsmith, reflecting that the world
was very large, and that he knew very little about it.
"Yes, in the whole world!--the whole round earth!" pursued Master
Janos, confidently.
The nailsmith hesitated, scratched his nose, scratched his ear,
scratched his whole head, and, finally, cried out, "Success to Master
Slimak!"
The vice-jailer shuddered at this public demonstration. It was quite
clear that this Master Slimak was some gunpowder-sworn
commander-in-chief--there was no doubt of it, and, without any further
ado, he seized the nailsmith by the collar, and, _brevi manu_,
escorted him to the town-hall, where he dragged him into a narrow,
ominous-looking chamber, before a stout, red-faced gentleman.
"This man is a suspicious character," he exclaimed. "In the first
place, he has the audacity to fear war; in the next place, he sat from
seven o'clock until half-past nine, two whole hours and a half,
without opening his lips; and, finally, he was impious enough to give
a public toast to a certain Master Slimak, who is probably quite as
suspicious a character as himself."
"Who is this Master Slimak?" asked the stout, red-faced gentleman,
sternly.
"Nobody, indeed," replied the trembling Viennese, "but my former
master, an honest nailsmith, whom I served four years, and would be
serving still, had his wife not beaten me."
"Impossible!" ejaculated the fat, red-faced gentleman. "It is not
customary to give public toasts to such personages."
"But I don't know what the custom is here."
"If you wished to give a toast, why did you not drink to
constitutional liberty, to the upper and lower Danube armies, or to
freedom of the press, and such toasts?"
"Hyay, sir! I could not learn all that in a month!"
"But in three months I daresay you will be able to learn it well
enough. Master Janos, take that man into custody."
The humane Master Janos again seized the delinquent by the collar, _ut
supra_, and escorted him to the place appropriated to such
malefactors, where he had time to consider why he was put there.
* * * * *
The three months passed slowly enough to the nailsmith. It was now the
middle of March.
Master Janos punctually released his prisoner, and the honest man, in
order to prove the reform in his sentiments, and thereby rise in
Master Janos's opinion, greeted him with, "Success to liberty, and the
Hungarian arms!"
Master Janos stumbled against the wall in speechless horror, and as
soon as he had regained his equilibrium, he seized the astonished
nailsmith, who, when he had recovered his terrified senses, found
himself again in the narrow, ominous chamber; but now, instead of the
stout, red-faced gentleman, he stood before a lean, black gentleman,
who, when he understood the charge against the prisoner, without
permitting any explanation, condemned him to three months'
imprisonment, informing him that henceforth, unless he wished to fare
worse, he would exclaim, "Success to the imperial armies, the great
constitution, and the one and powerful Austria!"
And the nailsmith, having made three steps beyond his prison door, was
brought back to renew his captivity, and ponder over his strange fate.
* * * * *
The three months had again passed over. It was some time in June.
The humane Master Janos did not fail to release his captive. The poor
man began at his prison door to declaim the redeeming words of "Long
live Prince Windischgrätz! success to glorious Austria!"
Master Janos laid his hand upon his sword, as if to protect himself
from this incorrigible man.
"What! was it not enough to imprison you twice? Have you not yet
learned what you should say? Have the kindness to step in here."
And for the third time they entered the narrow chamber.
Instead of the meagre, black gentleman, it was again the fat,
red-faced gentleman before whom our victim was called in question for
his repeated crime.
"Obstinate traitor!" he exclaimed; "are you aware of the extent of
your offence, and that if I did not condemn you to an imprisonment of
three months on my own responsibility, instead of giving you up to
justice, you would be cut into four quarters, as you deserve?"
The unhappy nailsmith must needs rejoice, in his extreme terror, at
the mildness of the punishment.
"But what should I have said?" he asked his lenient judge, in a voice
of despair.
"What should you have said? why, Success to the republic! Success to
democracy! Success to revolution!"
The poor man repeated the three injunctions, and promising faithfully
to attend to them, he resigned himself patiently to a new lease of his
dark abode.
* * * * *
During the ensuing three months, everything had changed except the
good fortune of Master Janos. Neither time nor chance could succeed in
displacing him, as they had so many others. He was still vice-jailer
of the noble city of Pesth, as he had formerly been.
It was now September. The nailsmith's penalty was out, and Master
Janos called him forth.
The prisoner's countenance expressed something unusually important,
and no sooner did the vice-jailer approach, than, seizing his hand, he
exclaimed, between his sobs, "Oh, Master Janos, tell the black
gentleman that I humbly kiss his hand, and wish him from the bottom of
my heart, 'Success to the Republic!'"
As the hungry wolf pounces on the lamb, Master Janos once more seized
the nailsmith by his ill-used collar; and indeed, so shocked was the
worthy jailer, that, having brought his prisoner into the narrow
chamber, it was some time before he could recover himself sufficiently
to explain the circumstance to the lean, black gentleman, who once
more occupied the place of the fat, red-faced one; and great was his
vexation when this individual, instead of sentencing the delinquent to
be broken on the wheel, merely awarded him three months more
imprisonment!
On the third of November 1849, all who had been imprisoned for slight
political offences were released from their confinement, and among
others the nailsmith.
As Master Janos opened the door, the unfortunate man stopped his mouth
with his pocket-handkerchief, giving the humane jailer by this
pantomime to understand, that he would henceforth keep his
demonstrations to himself.
It might have been some consolation to him to know that he was not the
only one who cried out at the wrong time!