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[Illustration: Budapest 1896 17/III Dr. Jókai Mór]
MAURUS JOKAI
BLACK DIAMONDS
A Novel
TRANSLATED BY
FRANCES A. GERARD
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A BLACK PLACE 1
II. THE SLAVE OF THE BLACK DIAMONDS 11
III. THE MAN-EATER 27
IV. A MODERN ALCHEMIST 35
V. THE DOCTOR 50
VI. COUNTESS THEUDELINDE 63
VII. THE COUNTESS'S ALBUM 79
VIII. THE EXORCIST 95
IX. "AN OBSTINATE FELLOW" 132
X. THE HIGHER MATHEMATICS 146
XI. SOIRÉES AMALGAMANTES 155
XII. RITTER MAGNET 166
XIII. ONLY A TRIFLE 189
XIV. THIRTY-THREE PARTS 207
XV. TWO POINTS 225
XVI. GOOD-BYE 232
XVII. THE LAST REHEARSAL 245
XVIII. FINANCIAL WISDOM 253
XIX. FILTHY LUCRE 259
XX. NO, EVELINE! 278
XXI. RESPECT FOR HALINA CLOTH 291
XXII. TWO SUPPLIANTS 301
XXIII. FINANCIAL INTRIGUE 312
XXIV. THE BONDAVARA RAILWAY 317
XXV. THE POOR DEAR PRINCE 324
XXVI. DIES IRÆ 327
XXVII. FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS 348
XXVIII. TWO CHILDREN 352
XXIX. IMMACULATE 357
XXX. MAN AND WIFE 365
XXXI. EVA DIRKMAL 373
XXXII. CRUSHED 378
XXXIII. CHARCOAL 387
XXXIV. CSANTA'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 395
XXXV. THE GROUND BURNS UNDER HIS FEET 401
XXXVI. CHILD'S PLAY 406
XXXVII. EUREKA 411
XXXVIII. AT PAR 419
XXXIX. THE UNDERGROUND WORLD 428
XL. ANGELA IS EVEN WITH IVAN 442
XLI. HOW IVAN MOURNED 450
XLII. EVILA 453
XLIII. THE DIAMOND REMAINED ALWAYS A DIAMOND 459
BLACK DIAMONDS
CHAPTER I
A BLACK PLACE
We are in the depths of an underground cavern. It is bad enough to be
underground, but here we are all enveloped in black as well: the
ceiling is black, so are the walls; they are made of blocks of coal.
The floor is one great black looking-glass. It is a sort of pond,
polished as steel. Over this polished surface glistens the reflection
of a solitary light, the light of a safety-lamp shining through a wire
net.
A man guides himself over the pond in a narrow boat. By the doubtful
light of the lamp he sees high pillars, which rise out of the depths
below and reach to the very roof of the cavern--pillars slender, like
the columns of a Moorish palace. These pillars are half white and half
black; up to a certain point only are they coal black, beyond that
they are light in color.
What are these pillars?
They are the stems of pines and palm-trees. These gigantic stems are
quite at home in the layers over the coal-mine, but how have they
descended here? They belong to another world--the world of light and
air. The coal layers overhead sometimes take fire of themselves, and
the fire, being intense, has loosened the hold of these giants and
sent them below.
Coal-pits kindle of themselves often, as every novice knows, but in
this case who extinguished the flames? That is the question.
The solitary occupant of the rudely shaped boat or canoe goes
restlessly here and there, up and down. He is a man of about thirty
years, with a pale face and a dark beard. His firmly closed lips give
him an expression of earnestness, or strong, decided will; while his
forehead, which is broad, with large bumps over the eyes, shows that
he is a deep thinker. His head is uncovered, for here in this vault
the air is heavy, and his curly black hair is in thick masses, so that
he needs no covering.
What is he doing here?
He drives his boat over the black looking-glass of the lake; round and
round he goes, searching the black walls with anxiety, his lamp raised
in his disengaged hand. Does he imagine that a secret is hidden there?
Does he think that by touching a spring, and saying "Open Sesame," the
treasure hidden there for hundreds of years will spring forth?
In truth, he does find treasures. Here and there from the black
wall--weakly constructed in some places by Nature's hand--a piece of
stone loosens itself--upon it the impression of a leaf belonging to a
long-ago-extinct species. A wonderful treasure this! In other places
he comes upon unknown crystals, to which science has not as yet given
a name; or upon a new conglomeration of different quartz, metal, and
stone--a silent testimony to a convulsion of Nature before this world
was. All these witnesses speak.
The pillars, too; over them the water of the pond has by degrees
formed a crustation of crystals, small, but visible even without a
glass. This, too, gives testimony.
The pond is in itself wonderful. It has ebb and flow: twice in the day
it empties itself; twice in the day it fills. The water rushes in
leaps and bounds, joyously, tumultuously, into this dark, sullen
vault; fills it higher, higher, until it reaches the point on the
pillars where the color changes. There it remains, sometimes for two
hours, stationary, smooth, and placid as a glass. Then it begins to
sink, slowly, surely, until it vanishes away into the secret
hiding-places from whence it has come. Curious, mysterious visitor!
The man in the boat knows its ways; he has studied them. He waits
patiently, until, with a sullen, gurgling sound, as if lamenting the
necessity, the last current of water vanishes behind a projecting mass
of coal. Then he hurriedly casts off his coat, his shoes, his
stockings; he has nothing on but his shirt and trousers. He fastens
round him a leather pocket, in which is a hammer and chisel; he takes
his safety-lamp and fastens it to his belt; and, so equipped, he
glides into one of the fissures in the black rock. He is following the
vanishing stream. He is a courageous man to undertake such a task, for
his way lies through the palace of death. It needs a heart of stone to
be there alone in the awful silence. It is a strong motive that brings
him. He is seeking the secret which lies under seven seals, the
treasure which Nature has concealed for thousands of years. But this
man knows not what fear is. He remains three hours seeking. If he had
any one--a wife, a sister, even a faithful servant, who knew where he
was, what danger he was in, how their souls would have gone out in
agony of fear for what might happen!
But he has no one; he is alone--always alone. There is no one to weep
for his absence or to be joyful at his coming; his life is solitary,
in the clear air of daylight as well as in the depths of the cavern.
The vanished stream is as capricious as a coquettish maiden, as full
of tricks and humors. Sometimes it does not show itself for three or
four hours; at other moments it comes frolicking back in one, and woe
to the unfortunate wight who is caught in its embrace in the narrow
windings of the coal-vault! But this man knows the humors of the
stream; he has studied them. He and it are old acquaintances; he knows
the signs upon which he can depend, and he knows how long the pause
will last. He can gauge its duration by the underground wind. When it
whistles through the clefts and fissures, then he knows the stream is
at hand. Should he wait until the shrill piping ceases, then he is a
dead man.
In the darkness a ghostly sound is heard--it is like a long-drawn
sigh, the far-away sobbing of an Æolian harp; and immediately the
shimmer of the lamp is seen coming nearer and nearer, and in a minute
the mysterious searcher of the hidden secret appears.
His countenance is paler than before--deathly; and drops of sweat
course down his forehead and cheeks. Down below the air must be
heavier in the cavern, or the nightmare of the abyss has caused this
cold damp. He throws his well-filled wallet into the boat, and seats
himself in it again.
It was time. Scarcely has he taken his place when a gurgling is heard,
and out of the fissures of the rock comes a gush of black water,
shooting forth with a loud, bubbling noise. Then follows a few
minutes' pause, and again another gush of water. The cavern is filling
rapidly. In a short time, over the smooth surface of the wall, the
watermark shows itself. Clear as a looking-glass it rises,
noiselessly, surely, until it has reached the black line upon the
pillars.
The boat, with its silent, watchful occupant, floats upon the water
like the ghost of the cavern. The water is not like ordinary water; it
is heavy like metal. The boat moves slowly, only now the rower does
not care to look into the depths of the black looking-glass; he pays
no attention to the mysterious signs on the walls. He is occupied
taking stock of the air about him, which is growing denser every
moment, and he looks carefully at his safety-lamp, but it is closely
shut. No escape there.
There is a great fog all round the lamp. The air in this underground
abyss takes a blue shade. The man in the boat knows well what this
means. The flame of the safety-lamp flares high, and the wick turns
red--bad signs these! The angel of death is hovering near.
Two spirits dwell in these subterranean regions--two fearfully wicked
spirits. The pitmen call one Stormy Weather, the other Bad Weather;
and these two evil spirits haunt every coal-mine, under different
names. Bad Weather steals upon its victim, lies like a thick vapor
upon his chest, follows the miner step by step, takes away his breath
and his speech, laughs at his alarm, and vanishes, when it has reached
its height, just as suddenly as it came. Stormy Weather is far more
cruel--fearful. It comes like a whirlwind; it sets everything in a
flame, kindles the lumps of coal, shatters the vaults, destroys the
shaft, burns the ground, and dashes human beings to pieces. Those who
gain their livelihood by working underground can never tell when they
may meet one or other of these evil spirits.
The secret of "stormy weather," whence it comes, when it may come, no
man has yet discovered. It is believed that it arises from the
contact of the hydrogen gases with the acid gases which are contained
in the open air; and "bad weather" needs only a spark to turn into
"stormy weather." The thoughtless opening of a safety-lamp, the
striking of a match, is sufficient to fuse the two evil spirits into
one.
The solitary man whom we have been shadowing sees, with an anxiety
that increases every moment, how the air becomes more and more the
color of an opal. Already it is enveloping him in a thin cloud. He
does not wait for the flood to rise to its highest point, for, when he
reaches a place in the wall where a sort of landing-stage has been
made, he jumps upon it, draws the boat by its chain, and moors it
fast, and then, ascending by some rude steps to a strong iron door, he
opens it with a key, and, closing it behind him, finds himself in a
passage which leads him straight into the pit.
Here he is in a busy world, very different from the solitude he has
left. The streets, which are narrow and close, are full of miners hard
at work with their hammers. The men are nearly naked, the boys who
push the wagons are wholly so. There is no sound heard but that of the
never-ceasing hammers. In the mine there are no jolly songs, no hearty
laughter. Over the mouth of each miner a thick cloth is tied, through
which he breathes.
Some of the passages are so narrow that the worker is obliged to lie
upon his back, and in this position to reach the coal with his pick.
When he has loosened it he drops it into the little wagon, which the
naked boys, crawling upon their stomachs, push before them to the
opening.
The man who has come out of the dark cavern does not differ in dress
from any of the others. He is clothed, certainly, but his clothes are
covered with coal-dust, his hands are just as coarse, and he carries
a pick and a hammer on his shoulder. Nevertheless, they all know him;
there is a rough civility in the tone of each man as he answers the
other's greeting, "Good-evening. Bad Weather is coming."
The word is repeated all round.
It was true. Bad Weather _was_ close at hand, and these men and boys,
who quietly come and go, hammer, shove the wagons, lie on their backs,
all know, as well as the convict who is awaiting the execution of his
sentence, that death is near.
The heavy, damp fog which lies upon each man's chest, and which fills
the mine with its unwholesome smell, needs only a spark, and those who
now live and move are dead men, buried underground, while overhead a
hundred widows and orphans weep and clamor for their lost ones.
And yet, knowing this, the miners continue calmly to work, as if quite
unconscious that the dread Angel of Death is hovering about them.
The man who has just entered is Ivan Behrend, the owner of the mine.
He unites in himself the office of overseer, director, surveyor, and
bookkeeper. He has enough to do; but we all know the proverb, and, if
we have lived long enough, have tested its truth, "If you want a thing
well done, do it yourself." Moreover, it is an encouragement to the
worker if he sees his employer go shoulder to shoulder with him in the
work. Therefore, as we have just seen, the master greets all his
workmen with the words, "Bad Weather is coming," and they all know
that the master does not consider _his_ life of more value than
theirs; he does not fly and leave them all the danger, because he is
the owner and gets all the profit. Quietly, with the most perfect
composure, he gives his orders--the ventilators are to be opened--a
charge of cool air at once to the heated coal; and the workers are to
go off work after three instead of six hours. He gets into the pail,
covered with buffalo-skin, and lets himself down to the bottom of the
shaft, to see if the new openings are dangerous. He turns over
carefully with an iron bar the coal-dust, to try if any of it is
heated, or if gas is there concealed which might cause an explosion.
Then, as the ventilators below and the air-pump above begin to work,
he takes his place at the anometer. This is a tender little machine,
something like the humming-top of children. Its axle turns upon a
ruby, and the spring sets a wheel with a hundred teeth in motion; the
velocity of this wheel shows the strength of the current of air in the
shaft. It should neither be stronger nor weaker than the motion of the
"bad weather."
He has now seen to everything; he has taken every precaution, he has
left nothing to chance, and, when all the miners have quitted the pit,
he is the last to ascend in the basket to the fresh air and the
daylight.
Fresh air--daylight!
In Bondavara the sun never shines, the shadow of the smoke hangs like
a thick cloud over the land; it is a black country, painted in chalk.
The roads are black with coal-tracks; the houses are black from the
coal-dust, which the wind carries here and there from the large coal
warehouses; the men and the women are black. It is a wonder the birds
over there in the woods are not black also.
The mouth of the Bondavara pit is on the slope of a hill, which, when
you ascend it, gives you a fine view over the whole country. On the
other side, in the valley, are the tall chimneys of the
distilling-ovens. These chimneys are busy night and day, vomiting
forth smoke, sometimes white, but generally coal-black; for here is
distilled the sulphur which forms a component of the coal.
The metal can only be melted when in this condition. One of the
principal customers of the coal-mine is the iron-foundry on the
neighboring mountain, which has five chimneys from which the smoke
issues. If the hammer throws up white smoke, then the oven distils
black smoke, and so contrariwise. Both factories working together cast
over the valley a continuous veil of cloud and smoke, through which
even the beams of the sun look brown and dingy.
From the foundry flows a rusty-red stream, and out of the coal-mine
another, which is as black as ink. In the valley both these streams
unite and continue their course together. For a little the rusty-red
tries to get the better of the inky-black, but it has to give up, and
the black rivulet flows on triumphantly through the black meadow
lands.
It is a most depressing landscape, and it is saddening to reflect that
in such a place men have grown from childhood to middle age, from
middle age to old age, and have never seen the green fields or the
blue sky of God's heaven.
But Ivan Behrend, when he ascended from the pit into the open air,
found little contrast between the upper and the under ground. Below,
there was the stifling smell of gas; above, a suffocating fog: below,
the black vault of the mine; above, the murky vault of the heavens:
and the same men above and below.
It was then evening; the sun had gone down, and for the moment even
the vile smoke could not rob it of its setting glory. The towers of
the distant castle of Bondavara were touched with its gleam, and the
chimneys of the distilling-houses were aglow with this crimson light.
The miners were standing about idly; the women and the girls, who are
employed in shoving the wheelbarrows, sat gossiping together, as is
the manner of the sex. One of them, a young girl, began to sing--a
simple little song, with simple words. It was a Slav volkslied--a sort
of romance. A mother is taking leave of her daughter, a bride of a few
hours; she recalls to the girl her childish days and her mother's care
in these words:
"Wenn ich das Haar dir strich,
Zerr' ich am Haare dich?
Wenn ich dich wusch, mein Kind,
War ich je ungelind?"
The melody was touching, with the sad strain that all the Slav music
has, as if composed with tears; and the voice of the one who sang was
musical and full of feeling. Ivan stopped to listen to the song until
the singer and her companions disappeared behind the houses.
At this moment it seemed to him that there was a great difference
between life underground and life in the open.
The song still sounded in the distance; the clouds had passed over and
extinguished the light of the setting sun, enveloping the landscape in
total darkness. No star, no white house; only the light from the
windows of the foundry lighted up the darkness of night; and the smoke
of the distilling-factory rose from the chimneys and cast yellow
circles upon the sky.