CSANTA'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
We have now to go back to the Bondavara Company before the crash came,
and when the shares stood at sixty over par, and looked as if they
would go even higher. But Csanta was satisfied to sell at sixty. There
could be too much of even a good thing. One should not be too
grasping, and sixty thousand gulden is a nice profit in one year. He
thought he would act as Spitzhase had often recommended, and sell out
his shares in small quantities until they were all gone. It would add
to the pleasure not to do it all at once.
For some time the quotations had been stationary. He was accustomed to
go every morning to the café and read the exchange column, and had
always seen the same quotation--"Bondavara, sixty above par."
On the morning of the day upon which Csanta had arranged to send the
first instalment of his shares to Vienna he went to his café, and,
while waiting to be served, took up the first newspaper that came to
hand. As usual he commenced by reading it backwards, beginning at the
exchange column. The first thing that caught his eye was, "Bondavara,
sixty _below par_."
A printer's error; and a very serious one! The printer was drunk when
he printed it. The fellow ought to be put in prison. If there is any
police in Vienna, or justice in the government, such a thing should
not pass unpunished; it is enough to shake the nerves of any man not
made of iron. If this is not a disturbance of the peace, I don't know
what you can call it.
Then he took another paper. The same mistake! He went through the
round of the daily papers, and found that all the printers must have
chosen this day for a drinking-bout, as each one made the same error
between _above_ and _below_ par.
Csanta was convinced that some great mistake had been made; but as he
could not rest until it was cleared up, he telegraphed to Spitzhase.
A telegram from Spitzhase crossed his. It ran:
"Great misfortune. The Bondavara mine is on fire.
Great panic. The shares are sixty below par. Every one
is selling."
Csanta cursed and swore with rage. "The devil take him! Sixty below
par; a loss of sixty thousand gulden! That means for me extinction.
Where is the cord and the nail? Let me hang myself! Six casks full of
silver gone! I shall murder some one! I must go to Vienna. I shall
knock the whole place about their ears like a card house if I don't
get back my silver. I didn't take my money to Vienna to leave it
there."
He foamed like a madman, dragged his bonds out of his safe, threw them
on the floor and stamped upon them.
"Villains! knaves! paper beggars! It is you who have eaten up my
silver crowns! You have swallowed my sixty thousand silver crowns! I
will tear you in pieces! I will cut my crowns out of your stomachs! I
will kill you dead!"
The upsetting of his safe had disturbed his papers. He suddenly
caught sight of a deed. He looked at it closely. His mood changed.
"What a fool I have been. I don't lose as much as my finger-nail. Here
is my young friend's signature. How lucky I didn't destroy this, or
light my pipe with it. He binds himself _at any time_, subject to my
desire, to take over a thousand shares _at par_. Ah, well done,
Csanta! You are an old bird not easily caught with chaff. I am saved,
thanks to my own sagacity, to my prudent, far-seeing nose that smells
danger ahead. This letter covers all loss. So far as I am concerned,
stones may fall from the sky. I am safe."
He folded the shares tenderly, and locked them and the precious letter
safely up in his safe. He then sat down and wrote to his dear young
friend in Paris. Fortunately he had the address. He asked him
politely--seeing how the matter stood--to send at once some accredited
person to take over the bonds, according to their previous agreement,
and to arrange in what manner the money should be paid. As for the
outstanding interest, some compromise or arrangement could be made.
A week passed, and no answer came; but, after all, it is more than a
cat's jump from X---- to Paris.
During the week he received twice every day, morning and evening, a
telegram from Spitzhase pressing him to part with his shares, for
every day they were falling ten per cent. lower. At the end of the
week they had gone down still more. The bears had won the day.
Csanta never moved a finger. He hugged himself in his own safety; and
as for the others, their shares might go to the bottom of the sea for
all he cared. He had no shares. They were all Kaulmann's. "Take them
away, and give me back my silver!" This was his cry. "Rogue! villain!
I have you by the neck!"
The accounts that he read of the sudden collapse of the company and
the ruin of the shareholders did not in the least disturb him. The
losses of others could not affect him. On the ninth day, however, he
began to tremble. The morning's paper contained an account,
telegraphed from Paris, of the flight of the banker, Felix Kaulmann,
leaving his affairs in the uttermost confusion. This was succeeded by
a second telegram, announcing that the banker, Kaulmann, seeing that
the officers of police were on his track, had thrown himself from the
window of the railway-carriage, and had been killed instantaneously.
Csanta narrowly missed an apoplectic stroke. When he came to he
telegraphed to Spitzhase to sell all his shares for what they would
fetch.
Spitzhase answered by return:
"Too late; they are quoted at _seventy_, but this is
only nominal. There are neither buyers nor sellers.
The mine is gone; the railway is gone; everything is
gone. Why didn't you part with them a week ago, when I
advised you? Now you can put your shares in the fire,
and cook chestnuts at the blaze."
"All is over with me!" sobbed Csanta. "Let me get home; let me lie
down and die! I cannot live! I shall not be alive in three days!"
He took leave of his acquaintances; he had no friends. He told them
they need not be afraid, he would do himself no injury. He was simply
dying of grief, just as a man might die of sickness.
All gone!
Some compassionate souls had pity on the old man and took him home. If
he had been alone he had never found his own house. Once arrived
there, he insisted on going down to his cellar, to see with his own
eyes if it were not some hideous dream, from which he would wake and
find his beloved casks in their old places. When he saw all were gone,
he set up a fearful cry, "Fool! fool! fool!" and fell forward on his
face.
They carried him up-stairs, tenderly undressed him as if he were a
child, and put him to bed. He shrieked for a priest, so they fetched
him one. He made his confession, and received the sacrament.
His lawyer then appeared on the scene, and his last will was written
out and duly signed. He had still something to leave. There were his
houses, the whole street front; the church into which no one came, on
whose threshold between the stones the grass grew thick, in whose
court-yard the school-boys played ball on Thursday half-holidays.
The church, notwithstanding, was endowed with a priest, a verger, and
a bell-ringer. The priest should say mass, the bell-ringer should ring
the bell, the verger should open the door _every day_; just as a
hundred years ago, when through the open church doors a stream of men
passed, with silver buttons on their jackets, and women with long silk
veils. The old man now dying is the last descendant left on this earth
of the old Greek traders. The church shall remain standing in memory
of them.
The house next door to his own he bequeathed to the widow, who was the
daughter of the last Greek. This woman and he had quarrelled long ago.
God alone can decide the justice of a quarrel that has to do with
paper money, which to-day is worth a great deal and to-morrow not a
penny. Therefore, he bequeathed to her and her son the heap of cursed,
worthless papers called shares in the Bondavara Company, which have
caused his unexpected death. They shall have these papers, whether for
good or ill.
After he had made these depositions and arranged his affairs his will
was sealed and inscribed by himself. He divided among his neighbors
and servants his few remaining possessions. He called the bell-ringer,
and enjoined him to toll the bell three times every two hours, and if
any one asked the reason why, he should answer, "The Greek, Csanta, is
dead." Then he sent every one out of the room.
When next morning they returned he was dead. He had died of grief,
just as an aged husband will not survive the loss of his wife with
whom he had grown old. So a man with a strong will dies when he has
said that he can no longer support life.