Maurus Jokai, by common consent the greatest Hungarian
novelist of the nineteenth century, was born at Komarom on
February 19, 1825. Trained for the law, as an advocate he
achieved the distinction of winning his first case. The
drudgery of a lawyer's office, however, proved uncongenial to
him, and fired by the success of his first play, "The Jew Boy"
("Zsidó fiu"), he went to Pest, where he devoted himself to
journalism, in due course becoming editor of "Eletképek," a
leading Hungarian literary periodical. At the outbreak of the
Revolution of 1848, he threw himself in with the supporters of
the national cause. From that time until his death--which
occurred on May 4, 1904--Jokai identified himself considerably
with politics. Of all his novels perhaps, "Az arany ember" ("A
Man of Gold"), translated into English under the title of
"Timar's Two Worlds," takes the highest place. Its reputation
has long since spread outside the boundaries of Hungary, and
the story itself--a rare combination of descriptive power,
humour, and pathos--has exercised no small influence upon
European fiction of the romantic order.
_I.--How Ali Saved his Daughter_
A mountain-chain, pierced through from base to summit--a gorge four
miles in length walled in by lofty precipices; and between these walls
flows the Danube in its rocky bed.
At this time there were no steamers on the Danube, but a vessel, called
the St. Barbara, approaches, drawn against the stream by thirty-two
horses. The fate of the vessel lies in the hands of two men--the pilot
and the captain.
The name of the captain is Michael Timar. He is a man of about thirty,
with fair hair and dreary blue eyes.
At the door of the ship's cabin sits a man of fifty, smoking a Turkish
chibouque. Euthemio Trikaliss is the name under which he is registered
in the way-book, and he is the owner of the cargo. The ship itself
belongs to a merchant of Komorn called Athanas Brazovics.
Out of one of the cabin windows looks the face of a young girl, Timéa,
the daughter of Euthemio, and the face is as white as marble. Timéa and
her father are the only passengers of the St. Barbara.
When the captain lays aside his speaking-trumpet he has time to chat
with Timéa, who understands only modern Greek, which the captain speaks
fluently.
It is always a dangerous voyage, for the current is fierce and the rocks
are death-traps. To-day, too, the St. Barbara was pursued by a Turkish
gunboat. But the vessel makes its way safely, in spite of current and
rocks, and the Turkish gunboat gives up the chase.
Three days later the St. Barbara has reached the island of Orsova; the
plains of Hungary are to the north of the river, Servia to the south.
Provisions had run short, and Timar decided to go on shore. There were
no signs of human habitation at first, but Timar's sharp eyes had
discovered a faint smoke rising above the tops of the poplars. He worked
his way in a small skiff through the reeds, reached dry land, pushed
through hedges and bushes, and then stood transfixed with admiration.
A cultivated orchard of some five or six acres was before him, and
beyond that a flower-garden, full of summer bloom.
Timar went up through the orchard and flower garden to a cottage, built
partly in the rock, and covered with creepers. A huge, black
Newfoundland dog was lying before the door.
A woman's voice answered Timar's "good-morning," and the dog raised no
objection to the captain going indoors.
"It never hurts good people," said the woman.
Timar explained his mission. The wind had brought his vessel to a
standstill; he was short of provisions, and he had two passengers who
would be grateful for shelter on land for the night.
The woman promised him food and a room for his passengers in exchange
for grain, and at her word the dog brought him by a better path to the
river.
Presently Timar was back again with Euthemio and Timéa, and now a young
girl appeared, whom the housewife called Noemi.
Before supper was over, the growling of the dog announced a new arrival,
and a man of youthful appearance, who introduced himself as Theodor
Krisstyan, an old friend of the lady of the house, whom he called Madame
Therese, entered and made himself quickly at home. It was plain that his
hostess both feared and disliked Theodor, while Timar, who had met him
before, regarded him as a spy in the pay of the Turkish government.
In the morning the wind had gone down, Theodor had vanished, and Timar
and his passengers prepared to renew their journey.
Therese told Timar her story before he left; how she and her daughter
Noemi had lived there for twelve years, and who the objectionable
Theodor was. Then she added, in a whisper, "I fancy this man Krisstyan's
visit was either on your account, or that of the other gentleman. Be on
your guard if either of you dread the discovery of a secret."
Trikaliss looked very gloomy when he heard the stranger had left before
sunrise, and the following night he called Timar to his cabin.
"I am dying," he said. "I want to die--I have taken poison. Timéa will
not wake till all is over. My true name is not Euthemio Trikaliss, but
Ali Tschorbadschi. I was once governor of Candia, and then treasurer in
Stamboul. You know there is a revolution proceeding in Turkey; my turn
was coming. Not that I was a conspirator, but the treasury wanted my
money and the seraglio my daughter. Death is easy for me, but I will not
let my daughter go into the harem nor myself be made a beggar. Therefore
I hired your vessel, and loaded it with grain. The owner, Athanas
Brazovics, is a connection of mine; I have often shown him kindness, he
can return it now. By a miracle we got safely through the rocks and
whirlpools of the river, and eluded the pursuit of the Turkish
brigantine, and now I stumble over a straw into my grave.
"That man who followed us last evening was a spy of the Turkish
government. He recognised me, and sealed my fate. The government would
not demand me from Austria as a political refugee, but as a thief. This
is unjust, for what I took was my own. But I am pursued as a thief, and
Austria gives up escaped thieves if Turkish spies can trace them. By
dying I can save my daughter and her property. Swear to me by your faith
and your honour you will carry out my instructions. Here in this casket
is about a thousand ducats. Take Timéa to Athanas Brazovics, and beg him
to adopt my daughter. Give him the money, he must spend it on the
education of the child, and give him also the cargo, and beg him to be
present when the sacks are emptied. You understand?"
The dying man looked in Timar's face, and struggled for breath.
"Yes--the Red Crescent!" he stammered. "The Red Crescent!" Then the
death-throes closed his lips--one struggle, and he was a corpse.
_II.--Timor Tempted and Fallen_
When the St. Barbara had nearly reached Komorn it struck an uprooted
tree, lying in ambush under water, and immediately began to sink. It is
absolutely impossible to save a vessel wrecked in this way. The crew all
left the sinking craft, and Timar rescued Timéa, and with her the casket
with the thousand ducats.
Then the captain drove off with the fatherless girl to the house of
Athanas Brazovics in the town of Komorn.
At first Athanas kissed Timéa very heartily, but when he learnt that his
vessel was lost, and all Timéa's property, except the thousand ducats,
and the wheat sacks--now spoilt by water--he altered his tune.
He and his wife Sophie decided that Timéa should live with them as an
adopted child, and at the same time attend on their daughter Athalie as
a waiting-maid. Athalie and her mother treated the poor girl with
scornful contempt.
As for Timar, Athanas turned on him savagely, as though the captain
could have prevented the wreck!
On the advice of his friend, Lieutenant Katschuka, who was betrothed to
Athalie, Timar purchased the sunken grain next day when it was put up
for auction, buying the whole cargo for 10,000 gulden. "You will do the
poor orphan a good turn if you buy it," said the lieutenant. "Otherwise,
the value of the cargo will all go in salvage."
Timar at once made arrangements for hauling up the sacks, and for the
immediate drying and grinding of the corn, and all day labourers were at
work on the wreck.
At nightfall Timar, left alone, noticed one sack differently marked from
the rest--marked with a red crescent! Within this was a long leathern
bag. He broke it open and found it full of diamonds, emeralds, and
sapphires richly set in girdles and bracelets and rings. A whole heap of
unset diamonds were in an agate box. The whole treasure was worth at
least 1,000,000 gulden. The St. Barbara had carried a million on board!
"To whom does this treasure belong?"
Timar put the question to himself, and answered it.
"Why, whom should it belong to but you? You bought the sunken cargo,
just as it is, with the sacks and the grain. If the treasurer stole the
jewels from the sultan, the sultan probably stole them in his
campaigns."
"And Timéa?"
"Timéa would not know how to use the treasure, and her adopted father
would absorb it, and get rid of nine-tenths of it. What would be the
result if Timéa gets it? She would be a rich lady, and would not cast a
look at you from her height. Now things are the other way--you will be a
rich man and she a poor girl. You do not want the treasure for yourself.
You will invest it profitably, and when you have earned with the first
million a second and a third, you will go to the poor girl and say,
'There, take it--it is all yours; and take me, too.' You only wish to
become rich in order to make her happy."
The moon and the waves cried to Timar, "You are rich--you are a made
man!"
But when it was dark an inward voice whispered,
"You are a thief!"
From that day all Timar's undertakings flourished, and step by step he
reached the summit of an ordinary successful business man's ambition--
the title of nobility. At the same time Brazovics, who had treated Timar
with brutal inconsiderateness because of the wreck of the St. Barbara,
went steadily down-hill, borrowing and embezzling trust monies in his
fall.
Lieutenant Katschuka had declared all along that he could not marry
Athalie without a dowry, and when the wedding day arrived, Brazovics,
unable to face his creditors, and knowing himself bankrupt, penniless,
and fraudulent, committed suicide. Katschuka immediately declared the
engagement at an end. In his heart he had long wearied of Athalie, and
looked with desire on Timéa. The orphan girl from the first had loved
the lieutenant with silent, unspoken affection.
When the Brazovics' house was put up for sale Timar bought it outright,
furniture and all, and then said to Timéa, "From this day forth you are
the mistress of this house. Everything in it belongs to you, all is
inscribed in your name. Accept it from me. You are the owner of the
house, and if there is a little shelter for me in your heart, and you
did not refuse my hand--then I should be only too happy."
Timéa gave her hand to Timar, and said in a low, firm voice, "I accept
you as my husband, and will be a faithful and obedient wife."
This man had always been so good to her. He had never made sport of her
nor flattered her, and he had saved her life on the Danube when the St.
Barbara was sinking. He had given her all her heart could desire except
one thing, and that belonged to another.
_III.--The Ownerless Island_
On his betrothal to Timéa a great burden was lifted from the soul of
Timar. Since the day when the treasure of Ali Tschorbadschi had enabled
him to achieve power and riches, Timar had been haunted by the voice of
self-accusation; "This money does not belong to you--it was the property
of an orphan. You are a man of gold! You are a thief!"
But now the defrauded orphan had received back her property. Only Timar
forgot that he had demanded in exchange the girl's heart.
Timéa promised to be a faithful and obedient wife, but on the wedding-
day when Timar said, "Do you love me?" she only opened wide her eyes,
and asked, "What is love?"
Timar found he had married a marble statue; and that all his riches
would not buy his wife's love. He became wretched, conscious that his
wife was unhappy, that he was the author of their mutual misery.
Then, in the early summer, Timar went off from Komorn to shoot water-
fowl. He meant to go to the ownerless island at Ostrova--it was three
years since that former visit.
Therese and Noemi welcomed him cordially at the island, and Timar forgot
his troubles when he was with them. Therese told him her story; how her
husband, ruined by the father of Theodor Krisstyan and by Athanas
Brazovics, had committed suicide, and how, forsaken and friendless, she
had brought her child to this island, which neither Austria nor Turkey
claimed, and where no tax-collector called. With her own hands she had
turned the wilderness into a paradise, and the only fear she had was
that Theodor Krisstyan, who had discovered her retreat, might reveal it
to the Turkish government.
Therese had no money and no use for it, but she exchanged fruit and
honey for grain, salt, clothes, and hardware, and the people with whom
she bartered were not inclined to gossip about her affairs.
So no news concerning the island ever went to Vienna, Komorn, or
Constantinople, and the fact of Timar's great prosperity had not reached
the islanders. He was welcomed as a hard-working man, and Therese did
not know that Timar had been powerful enough to get a ninety years'
lease of the island from both Turkish and Austrian governments; perhaps
no very difficult matter, as the existence of the island was unknown,
and there were fees to be paid over the concession.
When he told her what he had done, Noemi threw her arms round his neck.
Theodor Krisstyan was furious, but Timar procured him a post in Brazil,
and for a long time the disreputable spy was too far off to be
troublesome.
And now on this island Timar found health and rest. It became his home,
and for the summer months every year he would slip away from Komorn, and
no one, not even Timéa, guessed his secret. When he returned Timéa's
cold white face was still an unsolved riddle to her husband. She would
greet him kindly, but never was there any token that she loved him.
Timar's ever-increasing business operations were excuse for his long
absences, but all the same the double life he was leading made him ill.
He could not tell Timéa of Therese and Noemi, and he could not tell them
on the island that he was married.
Timéa, on her side, devoted herself more and more to her husband's
business in his absence, and when Major Katschuka once called and asked
her if she could not arrange for a divorce, she answered gently, "My
husband is the noblest man in the world. Should I separate from him who
has no one but me to love him? Am I to tell him that I hate him, I who
owe everything to him, and who brought him no dowry but a loveless
heart?"
Timar learnt from Athalie, who lived in Timéa's house, of this reply,
and felt more in despair than ever. He wanted Timéa to be happy, she had
never been his wife except in name, for he had been waiting for her
love.
And he wanted to go away, and leave all his riches behind, and settle on
the island. Now more than ever was he wanted on the island, for Therese
had died of heart failure, and the years had made Noemi a woman.
_IV.--"My Name is Nobody"_
It was winter, and Timar had gone off alone to a house that belonged to
him near a frozen lake. He felt the time had come for flight, but
whither?
Theodor Krisstyan had turned up again. In Brazil he had heard a story of
Ali Tschorbadschi's jewels from an old criminal from Turkey, and he had
returned to blackmail Timar. But he did not find him till Timar was at
the frozen lake.
Krisstyan's story was not true. Timar knew that the accusations were
false as he listened to the vagabond's indictment. He had not "killed"
Timéa's father, nor "stolen" his treasure. But he had played a false
game, and his position was a false one. Krisstyan demanded a change of
raiment, and Timar let him take clothes and shirts. But at last the
blackmailer's demands became too insolent, and Timar drove him out of
the house.
And now it seemed to Timar that his own career was finished. This
ruffian Krisstyan could expose the foundation of his wealth, and how
could he live discredited before the world?
On the frozen water there were great fissures between the blocks of ice.
Within the waves of the lake death would come quickly. Timar walked out
on the ice, and there before him the head of Theodor Krisstyan rose in
the water and then sank. The spy had not known the treachery of the
fissures.
Timar fled to the ownerless island, and when the corpse of Krisstyan was
discovered, in an advanced stage of decomposition, Timéa declared she
recognized her husband's clothes.
So the body of Theodor Krisstyan was buried with great pomp, and a year
later Timéa married Major Katschuka, and then, haunted by the doubt
whether her first husband was really dead, pined away.
No blessing rested on the wealth Timar left behind him. The only son
Timéa bore to the major was a great spendthrift, and in his hands the
fabulous wealth vanished as quickly as it had grown.
* * * * *
And what is passing meanwhile on the ownerless island?
Forty years have passed since Timar's disappearance from Komorn, and the
island is now a complete model farm. Recently, a friend of mine, an
ardent naturalist, took me to the island. I had heard as a child of
Timar and his wealth.
Every inch of ground is utilised or serves to beautify the place. The
tobacco grown here has the most exquisite aroma, and the beehives look
from a distance like a small town with many-shaped roofs.
It is easy to see that the owner of the island understands luxury, and
yet that owner never has a farthing to call his own; no money ever
enters the island. Those however, who need the exports know also the
requirements of the islanders, and bring them for barter.
The whole colony consisted of one family, and each was called only by
his Christian name. The six sons of the first settler had married women
of the district, and the numbers of grandchildren and
great-grandchildren already exceeded forty, but the island maintained
them all. Poverty was unknown; they lived in luxury; each knew some
trade, and if they had been ten times as many, their labour would have
supported them.
When we arrived on the island, the nominal head of the family, a
well-built man of forty, received us cordially, and in the evening
presented us to his parents.
When my name was mentioned to the old man he looked long at me, and a
visible colour rose in his cheeks. I began to tell him of what was going
on in the world, that Hungary was now united to Austria, and that the
taxes were very heavy.
He blew a cloud from his pipe, and the smoke said, "My island has
nothing to do with that, we have no taxes here."
I told him of wars, financial panics, the strife of religion and
politics, and the smoke seemed to say, "We wage war with no one here.
Thank God, we have no money here and no elections or ministers."
Presently the old man asked me where I was born, and what my profession
was? And when I told him that I wrote romances, he said, "Guess my
story. There was once a man who left a world in which he was admired and
respected, and created a second world in which he was loved."
"May I venture to ask your name?" I said.
The old man seemed to grow a head taller; then, raising his trembling
hands, he laid them on my head. And it seemed to me as if once, long,
long before those same hands had rested on my head when childish curls
covered it, and that I had seen that noble face before.
"My name is Nobody," he replied to my question; and after that night I
saw him no more during our stay on the island.
The privileges granted by two governments to the owner of the island
will last for fifty years more. And who knows what may happen to the
world in fifty years?
* * * * *