CHILD'S PLAY
The concert season was in full swing when the Belenyis received the
news that Csanta was dead and had bequeathed to them their former
house. If Arpad had been engaged to play a quartet with Beethoven,
Mozart, and Haydn he would have thrown up his engagement and flown
back with railway speed to his old home. His mother was just as eager
to be gone as he was. Not a day did they stay; they were off the very
same evening.
On their arrival at X---- the magistrate unlocked the door of their
old home and gave Madame Belenyi possession. Everything was exactly as
they had left it, only the dust of years covered all the pretty
things.
Arpad's first thought was to run down to the garden. The magistrate,
however, detained him. He had another legacy to make over to him, a
large iron case fastened with three iron locks. It contained the
Bondavara shares.
"The devil take his shares!" cried Arpad, laughing. "Unluckily it is
summer, so we don't want to make a fire."
"They are down to nothing," said the magistrate. "They are quoted
to-day at ten guldens. They killed poor Csanta."
They had to take the shares all the same. You must not look a
gift-horse in the mouth.
Arpad slipped out of the room and ran down to the garden. The
fruit-trees were untouched, and all in full bloom. The cherry-tree was
one mass of rosy blossom. He remembered well how he daren't touch a
blossom under pain of a good whipping. And the forget-me-nots on the
bank of the stream, which flowed past the end of the garden, and the
May bells were ringing in a chorus, to which no one listened.
Everything was just as it had been, only grown. The trees had such
long branches that they were entangled with those on the opposite
shore.
He laid himself down in the green grass, all dotted over with yellow
cowslips. No one could beat him now. He might waste his time and drink
his fill of lazy enjoyment. Fame, the chatter of the newspapers over
his sudden disappearance, the ladies who would regret him--what were
they all in comparison with this? In a hiding-place on the river-bank
he sought for the little flute he had secretly made in those old days.
To his great joy it was there, just as he had left it.
Arpad took from his pocket a newspaper full of his Parisian triumphs,
an announcement of his next appearance. Where is Paris now? Out of the
sheet he made a large boat with sails, that it might take a cargo on
board. He pulled a bunch of the cherry blossom; he set the tiny vessel
on the water, and while it danced over the little bubbles in the
stream he laid down again among the forget-me-nots and played upon his
flute the national air, "Repülj fecském."
At the sound of the flute another child appeared. She came from the
house opposite: a young girl about fifteen. She had a round, fair,
laughing face and beautiful blue eyes. Timidly, like a frightened
fawn, she made a few steps, then stopped and listened. By-and-by she
drew nearer, then stood still again. She did not see the flute-player;
she noticed nothing but his flute and his boat with the cherry
blossoms.
The girl had come quite close to the bank without Arpad having seen
her approach. He was made aware of her presence by hearing her laugh.
The laugh of a child is as clear as a bell. Arpad looked up,
surprised.
"Ah, is that you, Sophie? How pretty you have grown! I beg you will
send me back my boat."
Sophie did not want to be asked twice. She held up her frock with one
hand, tucked it between her knees, and after she had replaced the red
cherry blossoms by some white flowers, she gave the little boat such a
hearty shove that it came back to the opposite side. Then the game
began again. It was so amusing!
Madame Belenyi saw the pair from the window. She didn't disturb them,
but let them amuse themselves until the sun went down and the air
began to get chill. Then the most prudent of the two children--it was
the girl, no doubt--suggested to the other that the grass was wet with
dew, and that it would be well to go back to the house.
Arpad took his boat out of the water, and put it and the flute back in
their hiding-place, and returned to his mother.
Madame Belenyi did not scold him. She did not, however, kiss him on
his forehead, as she was wont to do. She showed him all she had done
to settle the house while he had been amusing himself in the garden.
Arpad was very much pleased to find it so comfortable.
"Mother," he said, "we will live here always."
"I don't object to our living here, Arpad; only there is one
condition. You must marry a good girl, and bring her here to help
me."
"I, mother?" returned Arpad, half pleased and yet astonished.
"Yes, you. Why not? You are a young man. I cannot look after you
always."
Arpad laughed again. "So, because I have grown a young man, and that
you cannot keep me any longer at your apron-string, I must take a wife
who will keep me in better order than you can. Is that it, mother?"
"My son, it is in the natural order," returned Madame Belenyi,
gravely, and as if there were no other course for a young man but to
have either a mother or a wife to look after him. It did not enter
into her imagination that he could look after himself.
"Sooner or later I shall obey your wishes; but just now, as we have
got a house, I shall have enough to do to provide the house-keeping,
and I could not take a wife with me here and there when I have to
fulfil my professional engagements. For this sort of Bohemian life,
vagabondizing from Paris to London, Petersburg to Vienna, is a bad
thing for a woman, whether she goes with her husband or is left
behind."
"But we have something to live on, Arpad. I have been very lucky with
your earnings, and there is a nice nest-egg in the bank. Besides,
there are the shares. Don't laugh, you silly boy! Although they are
only worth ten gulden, yet there are a thousand of them. If we realize
them, that would be ten thousand gulden. In a small town like this
that sum would be a fortune, and with it you need not scruple to take
a wife."
"Mamma, you don't understand about these shares. _One_ could easily be
realized, but if the next day I were to go to the same place with
another for sale they would kick me out. Any one who would offer a
thousand Bondavara shares in the money-market would be sent to the
mad-house. Put the shares away with those other important papers
Csanta gave you, and, if you like, treasure the hope that one day they
may be worth as much as the paper they are printed on."
"Well, stranger things have happened. Did you ever think we would come
back to this house? I am very sorry I did not keep the other papers. I
burned them. Who knows what luck we may have with those bonds? If, one
day, they rise again to par, we shall realize twice two hundred
thousand gulden--"
"I don't count on such strokes of luck as that, mamma. The worst
compliment Providence can pay a man is to let him win in a lottery. It
is just as if God said to him, 'You ass! I cannot keep you in any
other manner.' God would not allow a man who has any intellect to win
in a lottery. To such a one he would say, 'Wilt thou cease to beg alms
of Me in such a shameless manner? Is it not sufficient that I have
endowed thee with talent? My consolation prizes are reserved for the
dunderheads.'" Then he added, "Mother, don't be afraid, we shall live
from my art. Wait a little and you shall see; only give me time.
Meantime I shall buy for the little girl a doll with a china head as a
plaything. You must take care of me for a little longer."
At these words the widow embraced her boy tenderly. She was happy; but
that evening Arpad, when it was moonlight, went out and sat under the
weeping-willow and played a melancholy air on his flute. Sometimes he
stopped to listen to a soft silvery voice singing a national air on
the other side of the stream. The singer, however, when she heard the
flute no more, knew that he was listening, and stopped her song. It is
so sweet to be young!