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[Illustration: EYES LIKE THE SEA.]
EYES LIKE THE SEA
A NOVEL
By MAURUS JÓKAI
TRANSLATED FROM THE HUNGARIAN
BY R. NISBET BAIN
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
27 AND 29 WEST 23D ST
1894
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE ix
CHAPTER I.
SEA-EYES--MONSIEUR GALIFARD--THE FIRST NEEDLE-PRICK 1
CHAPTER II.
MY FIRST DISTINCTION--MY FIRST GRIEVANCE--THE DAMENWALZER--THE
FRIGHTFUL MONSTER--THE READJUSTED SCARF--THE SECOND NEEDLE-PRICK 7
CHAPTER III.
MY MASTERPIECE AND MY HUT 24
CHAPTER IV.
PETÖFI WITH US--PLANS FOR THE FUTURE--THE RAPE OF THE
BRIDES--AMATEUR THEATRICALS--MY MENSHIKOV 40
CHAPTER V.
OLYMPIAN STRIVINGS 54
CHAPTER VI.
AN ODD DUEL--THE FATEFUL LETTER J.--I ALSO BECOME A
PETER GYURICZA 60
CHAPTER VII.
WELTSCHMERZ CONDITIONS--"REMAIN OR FLY!" 74
CHAPTER VIII.
PETER GYURICZA'S CONSORT 80
CHAPTER IX.
THE WOMAN WHO WENT ALONG WITH ME 117
CHAPTER X.
WHERE THE WORLD IS WALLED UP 132
CHAPTER XI.
VALENTINE BÁLVÁNYOSSI AND TIHAMÉR RENGETEGI 140
CHAPTER XII.
THE MEETING AT THE PAGAN ALTAR 151
CHAPTER XIII.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 190
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DEMON'S BAIT 247
CHAPTER XV.
MARVELS NOT TO BE SEEN FOR MONEY 266
CHAPTER XVI.
SOLDIERING 297
CHAPTER XVII.
TEMPTATION 309
CHAPTER XVIII.
A COLD DOUCHE! 321
CHAPTER XIX.
ESAIAS MEDVÉSI 357
CHAPTER XX.
CONFESSION 379
CHAPTER XXI.
MARIA NOSTRA 394
PREFACE
The pessimistic tone of Continental fiction, and its pronounced
preference for minute and morbid analysis, are quite revolutionizing the
modern novel. Fiction is ceasing to be a branch of art, and fast
becoming, instead, a branch of science. The aim of the novelist,
apparently, is to lecture instead of to amuse his readers. Plot,
incident, and description are being sacrificed more and more to the
dissection of peculiar and abnormal types of character, and the story is
too often lost in physiological details or psychological studies. The
wave of _Naturalism_, as it is called (though nothing could really be
more unnatural), has spread from France all over Europe. The Spanish and
Italian novels are but pale reflections of the French novel. The German
Naturalists have all the qualities of the French School, minus its
grace. In Holland, the so-called _Sensitivists_ are at great pains to
combine a coarse materialism with a sickly sentimentality. Much more
original, but equally depressing, is the new school of Scandinavian
novelists represented by such names as Garborg, Strindberg, Jacobsen,
Löffler, Hamsun, and Björnson (at least in his later works), all of whom
are more or less under the influence of Ibsenism, which may be roughly
defined as a radical revolt against conventionality. In point of
thoroughness some of these Northern worthies are not a whit behind their
fellow craftsmen in France. The novel of the year in Norway for 1891 was
a loathsomely circumstantial account of slow starvation. There is a lady
novelist in the same country who could give points to Zola himself; and
nearly every work of Strindberg's has scandalized a large portion of the
public in Sweden. Nay, even remote Finland has been reached at last by
the wave of _Naturalism_ in fiction, and Respectability there is still
in tears at the perversion of the most gifted of Finnish novelists,
Juhani Aho. In the Slavonic countries also the pessimistic, analytical
novel is paramount, though considerably chastened by Slavonic mysticism,
and modified by peculiar political and social conditions. Though much
nobler in sentiment, the novel in Poland, Russia, and Bohemia is quite
as melancholy in character as the general run of fiction elsewhere. A
minor key predominates them all. There is no room for humour in the
mental vivisection which now passes for _Belles-lettres_. We may learn
something, no doubt, from these _fin de siècle_ novelists, but to get a
single healthy laugh out of any one of them is quite impossible.
There is, however, one country which is a singular exception to this
general rule. In Hungary the good old novel of incident and adventure is
still held in high honour, and humour is of the very essence of the
national literature. This curious isolated phenomenon is due, in great
measure, to the immense influence of the veteran novelist, Maurus Jókai,
who may be said to have created the modern Hungarian novel,[1] and who
has already written more romances than any man can hope to read in a
life-time. Jókai is a great poet. He possesses a gorgeous fancy, an
all-embracing imagination, and a constructive skill unsurpassed in
modern fiction; but his most delightful quality is his humour, a humour
of the cheeriest, heartiest sort, without a single _soupçon_ of
ill-nature about it, a quality precious in any age, and doubly so in an
overwrought, supercivilized age like our own. Lovers of literature must
always regret, however, that the great Hungarian romancer has been so
prodigal of his rare gifts. He has written far too much, and his works
vary immensely. Between such masterpieces, for instance, as "_Karpáthy
Zoltán_" and "_Az arány ember_" on the one hand, and such pot-boilers as
"_Nincsen Ordög_," or even "_Szerelem Bolondjai_," on the other, the
interval is truly abysmal. But that such a difference is due not to
exhaustion, but simply to excessive exuberance, is evident from the
story which we now present for the first time to English readers. "_A
tengerszemü hölgy_" is certainly the most brilliant of Jókai's later,
and perhaps[2] the most humorous of all his works. It was justly
crowned by the Hungarian Academy as the best Magyar novel of the year
1890, and well sustains the long-established reputation of the master.
Apart from the intensely dramatic incidents of the story, and the
originality and vividness of the characterization, "_A tengerszemü
hölgy_" is especially interesting as being, to a very great extent,
autobiographical. It is not indeed a _professed_ record of the author's
life-like "_Emlékeim_" (My Memoirs) for instance. It professes to be a
novel, and a most startling novel it is. Yet in none of Jókai's other
novels does he tell us so much about himself, his home, and his early
struggles both as an author and a patriot; _he_ is one of the chief
characters in his own romance. Of the heroine, Bessy, I was about to say
that she stood alone in fiction, but there is a certain superficial
resemblance, purely accidental of course, between her and that other
delightful and original rogue of romance, Mrs. Desborough, in Mr. Robert
Louis Stevenson's "More New Arabian Nights," though all who have had the
privilege of making the acquaintance of both ladies will feel bound to
admit that Jókai's Bessy, with her five husbands, is even more piquant,
stimulating, and fascinating than Mr. Stevenson's charming and elusive
heroine.
R. NISBET BAIN.
[Footnote 1: I do not forget _Kármán_, _Jósika_, and _Eötvös_, but the
former was an imitator of Richardson, and the two latter of Walter
Scott.]
[Footnote 2: I say "perhaps," as I can only claim to have read
twenty-five out of Jókai's one hundred and fifty novels.]
EYES LIKE THE SEA
CHAPTER I
SEA-EYES--MONSIEUR GALIFARD--THE FIRST NEEDLE-PRICK
Never in my life have I seen such wonderful eyes! One might construct a
whole astronomy out of them. Every changeful mood was there reflected;
so I have called them "Eyes like the Sea."
* * * * *
When first I met pretty Bessy, we were both children. She was twelve
years old, I was a hobbledehoy of sixteen. We were learning dancing
together. A Frenchman had taken up his quarters in our town, an
itinerant dancing-master, who set the whole place in a whirl. His name
was Monsieur Galifard. He had an extraordinarily large head, a bronzed
complexion, eyebrows running into each other, and short legs; and on the
very tip of his large aquiline nose was a big wart. Yet, for all that,
he was really charming. Whenever he danced or spoke, he instantly
became irresistible. All our womankind came thither on his account; all
of them I say, from nine years old and upwards to an age that was quite
incalculable. I recall the worthy man with the liveliest gratitude. I
have to thank him for the waltz and the quadrille, as well as for the
art of picking up a fallen fan without turning my back upon the lady.
Bessy was the master's greatest trouble. She would never keep time; she
would never take to the elegant "_pli_," and he could never wean her
from her wild and frolicsome ways. Woe to the dancer who became her
partner!
I, however, considered all this perfectly natural. When any one is
lovely, rich, and well-born, she has the right to be regarded as the
exception to every rule. That she was lovely you could tell at the very
first glance; that she was rich anybody could tell from the silver coach
in which she rode; and by combining the fact that every one called her
mother "Your Ladyship" with the fact that even the "country people"
kissed her hand, you easily arrived at the conclusion that she must be
well-born. Her lady-mother and her companion, a gentlewoman of a certain
age, were present at every dancing lesson, as also was the girl's aunt,
a major's widow in receipt of a pension. Thus Bessy was under a
threefold inspection, the natural consequence of which was that she
could do just as she liked, for every one of her guardians privately
argued, "Why should I take the trouble of looking after this little girl
when the other two are doing the same thing?" and so all three were
always occupied with their own affairs.
The mother was a lady who loved to bask on the sunny side of life; her
widowhood pined for consolation. She had her officially recognised
wooers, with more or less serious intentions, graduated according to
rank and quality.
The companion was the scion of a noble family. All her brothers were
officers. Her father was a Chamberlain at Court; his _own_ chamber was
about the last place in the world to seek him in. The young lady's
toilets were of the richest; she also had the reputation of being a
beauty, and was famed for her finished dancing. Still, time had already
called her attention to the seriousness of her surroundings; for Bessy,
the daughter of the house, had begun to shoot up in the most alarming
manner, and four or five summers more might make a rival of her. Her
occupation during the dancing hour was therefore of such a nature as to
draw her somewhat aside lest people should observe with whom and in what
manner she was diverting herself, for there is many an evil feminine eye
that can read all sorts of things in a mere exchange of glances or a
squeeze of the hand, and then, of course, such things are always talked
to death.
But it was the aunt most of all who sought for pretexts to vanish from
the dancing-room. She wanted to taste every dish and pasty in the
buffet before any one else, and well-grounded investigators said of her,
besides, that she was addicted to the dark pleasure of taking snuff,
which naturally demanded great secrecy. When, however, she was in the
dancing-room, she would sit down beside some kindred gossiper, and then
they both got so engrossed in the delight of running down all their
acquaintances, that they had not a thought for anything else.
So Bessy could do what she liked. She could dance _csárdás_[3] figures
in the Damensolo; smack her _vis-à-vis_ on the hands in the _tour de
mains_, and tell anecdotes in such a loud voice that they could be heard
all over the room; and when she laughed she would press both hands
between her knees in open defiance of Monsieur Galifard's repeated
expostulations.
[Footnote 3: The national dance of Hungary.]
One evening there was a grand practice in the dancing-room. With the
little girls came big girls, and with the big girls big lads. Such
lubbers seem to think that they have a covenanted right to cut out
little fellows like me. Luckily, worthy Galifard was a good-natured
fellow, who would not allow his _protégés_ to be thrust to the wall.
"Nix cache-cache spielen, Monsieur Maurice. Allons! Walzer geht an. Nur
courage. Ne cherchez pas toujours das allerschlekteste Tänzerin! Fangen
sie Fräulein Erzsike par la main. Valsez là."[4] And with that he
seized my hand, led me up to Bessy, placed my hand in hers, and then
"ein, zwei."
[Footnote 4: "Don't play hide-and-seek, Master Maurice. Off you go! 'Tis
a waltz, remember. Come, come! courage. Don't always pick out the worst
partner. Take Miss Bessy by the hand. Waltz away!"]
Now, the waltzes of those days were very different from the waltzes we
dance now. The waltz of to-day is a mere joke; but waltzing then was a
serious business. Both partners kept the upper parts of their bodies as
far apart as possible, whilst their feet were planted close together.
Then the upper parts went moving off to the same time, and the legs were
obliged to slide as quickly as they could after the flying bodies. It
was a dance worthy of will-o'-the-wisps.
The master kept following us all the time, and never ceased his
stimulating assurances: "Très bien, Monsieur Maurice! Ça va
ausgezeiknet! 'Alten sie brav la demoiselle! Nix auf die Füsse schauen.
Regardez aux yeux. Das ist riktig. Embrassiren ist besser als
embarrasiren! Pouah! Da liegst schon alle beide!"[5]
[Footnote 5: "Very good, Master Maurice! That's capital! Hold the lady
nicely! Don't look at your feet. Look at her eyes. That's right! To
embrace is better than to embarrass. Pooh! There, they both are
together!"]
No, not quite so bad as that! I had foreseen the inevitable tumble, and
in order to save my partner I sacrificed myself by falling on my knees,
_she_ scarcely touched the floor with the tip of her finger. My knee
was not much the worse for the fall, but I split my pantaloons just
above the knee. I was annihilated. A greater blow than that can befall
no man.
Bessy laughed at my desperate situation, but the next moment she had
compassion upon me.
"Wait a bit," said she, "and I'll sew it up with my darning-needle."
Then she fished up a darning-needle from one of the many mysterious
folds of her dress, and, kneeling down before me, hastily darned up the
rent in my dove-coloured pantaloons, and in her great haste she pricked
me to the very quick with the beneficent but dangerous implement.
"I didn't prick you, did I?" she asked, looking at me with those large
eyes of hers which seemed to speak of such goodness of heart.
"No," I said; yet I felt the prick of that needle even then.
Then we went on dancing. I distinguished myself marvellously. With a
needle-prick in my knee, and another who knows where, I whirled Bessy
three times round the room, so that when I brought her back to the
_garde des dames_, it seemed to me as if three-and-thirty mothers,
aunts, and companions were revolving around me.