The Princess Sarolta was obscuring the moon with the smoke-clouds of
her big black cigar. It was nine o’clock--dinner in the Királyi Palota
was now served at half-past seven--and the court could smoke behind
the pillars and the vines of the long stone terrace beneath the west
windows of the private apartments of the King without consideration
of possible field-glasses on the heights above. The Princess, who
normally resembled a mummy, looked more like a witch in her encircling
fumes, and her eyes glittered and blinked behind the red disk of her
cigar. They were black eyes, and their fires in youth, and indeed long
after Nature had given her more than one admonishing nip and claw, had
recklessly leaped to so many other combustible hearts that even now the
court gossips disentangled the pulsing tales of her past from others
more commonplace. But with wrinkles and man’s manifest preference
for her conversation had come not only reform but the evolution of a
severe and uncompromising code of morals. She astonished Vienna for a
number of years by the vehemence of her criticisms and her treatment of
certain noble dames whose fires were still unquenched, or who found in
intrigue that taste of liberty which knocks alluringly upon even the
doors of Austria. With the mellowness of approaching age the enthusiasm
of the Princess had tempered somewhat, and it was observed that she
grinned behind her big cigar when an after-dinner scandal exhaled a
faint perfume of novelty; but by this time her fame as a she-dragon was
securely established. Her tactics, combined with a fortune inherited
coincidently with her reform, from a relative who had married a wealthy
and, as it proved, childless Jewess of Budapest, gave her a unique
and impregnable position which made her the most natural guardian in
Austria for a young princess who had left her father’s roof to hold
court in his most conspicuous possession. The Emperor, who was a
little afraid of Sarolta, but who asked her advice on all momentous
domestic questions, bundled her off to Budapest with a deep sigh of
relief. Her reputation as a dragoness relieved him of much of the
anxiety with which he had entered upon this radical experiment, and he
had not chanced to take note of her mellowing. But Ranata had, and,
believing herself exempt from the weakness to which the Princess still
showed her teeth, knew that she would have the real authority, while
the Obersthofmeisterin sat scowling in the foreground, her wrinkles
impassive above the chuckling within. As for Count von Königsegg,
Sarolta had begun his education while unwrinkled, and not only had
done him many good turns since, but had taught him to believe that
there was one greater diplomatist in Austria than the Princess Sarolta
Windischgrätz, and that was himself. Therefore when, after a hasty
and pleading note from Ranata, and a long and humorous petition from
Alexandra, she gave the minister to understand that it was his wish she
assume charge of his interests in Hungary, it was but a matter of hours
before her women were packing her boxes. She had come to Buda in full
possession of his confidence.
The situation amused her intensely, but while she was too wise ever
to betray a confidence or to share her amusement of a man with his
enemy, yet she did not scruple to use any secret she might possess
when engaged in the manipulation of human destinies. She cared as
little for Königsegg as for the Emperor, sentimental memories being no
longer insistent. But Nature had denied her children, and she had a
considerable hoard of affection in her erratic but wholly human depths.
Now that Rudolf was dead, she cared more for Ranata and Alexandra than
for any one in the world, and was determined, to use the phrase of her
American protégée, that they should have the “time of their lives.”
To-night she grinned amiably at them from the depths of a
rocking-chair, long since presented to her by Alexandra, which
accompanied her wherever she went. The party was a small one:
the Obersthofmeisterin and her charges, two young Hungarian
ladies-in-waiting of her selection, the Countess Vilma Festetics
and the Countess Piroska Zápolya, and two invited guests, Prince
Béla Illehazy, a magnate, who, in simple evening dress, looked a
middle-aged and somewhat humorous man of the world, and Count Zrinyi,
whose national fire and still youthful ardors--he was thirty-five
in years--had given him over to love of an American on the night of
a great and memorable dinner. It had been decided that the Grand
Chamberlain and other court officials were only to serve at great
functions, and that those who were in waiting upon the Emperor during
his annual sojourn were to give their services to the Archduchess when
she demanded them.
Zrinyi was leaning against one of the pillars, his black eyes flaming
down upon Alexandra, who smiled upon him indulgently; she thought him
a nice boy who might be useful in the cotillion and in general advice
of a lighter nature. They were all discussing the momentous question of
the first entertainment to be given by the new court.
The dictum of the Princess Sarolta, that it must be a great ball, to
which men and women should come in the ancient dress of Hungary, had
been received with approval by all but Prince Illehazy, who scowled at
his girth.
“I thought I should burst the other night,” he admitted. “And I must
say that my native costume always makes me feel more or less a fool. I
suppose I have lived too much elsewhere.”
“You are no patriot,” said his old friend, whose eye, as it followed
his, twinkled with some malice. “I insist that you give up Vienna and
Paris this winter and remain here as my private cabinet.”
“You may need help,” he murmured, and he looked at Ranata.
“And we? Are we to wear Hungarian costumes, too?” asked Alexandra.
“By all means,” answered Ranata for the Princess. “I have already
designed mine; the skirts and apron will be of white lace, and the
bodice of black velvet.”
“That will be your second stroke of diplomacy,” murmured Alexandra.
“But it seems to me that I should be a screaming absurdity in an
ancient Hungarian costume.”
“Not if--not if--” muttered Zrinyi.
“Why not make it a fancy-dress ball, everybody to be a personage of
the court of Matthias Corvinus, during whose reign Hungary reached the
height of its splendor and power and prosperity?” asked the Countess
Piroska Zápolya. She looked full at the Archduchess with innocent blue
eyes which were too widely opened for frankness. She was excessively
pretty, and her mouth pouted like a spoiled child’s. She was a
descendant of that Stephen Zápolya, vayvode of Transylvania, who, in
1526, after the terrible battle of Mohács, when Hungary was threatened
with annihilation by the Turks, and her king lost his life, was elected
to rule over the distracted country by the faction which believed in a
native dynasty and peaceful relations with the enemy. Another powerful
faction elected Ferdinand of Austria, and in spite of the occupations
of the Turks, which gave the Hapsburg as little authority as his rival,
his dynasty kept its grasp upon the shadow until it became substance;
while the son of the trooper who had been raised to a position of
such power and magnificence by Matthias that his ambition knew no
bounds, was unable to extend his rule beyond Transylvania, and his
dynasty ended in his son. His descendants, powerful magnates as they
were, had two enduring grievances: their inferior descent as compared
with that of the magnates whose line ran back unbroken to Árpád and
haunted the mists beyond, and the ancient victory of the Hapsburgs.
The first grievance was little discussed, but no Zápolya permitted
himself or others to forget that his right to the throne was as great
as the Austrian’s. Impoverished, and knowing little of the world beyond
Budapest, the present generation was even fiercer in pride than the
majority of their order, and bitterer in their hatred of the Hapsburgs.
They were wise enough, however, to know that Hungary had not the
strength for a native dynasty, even could one be established without
devastating civil wars, and the father and brother of the clever
little maid of honor had been the first to fling open the gates and
drive out the wild waters of unrest towards William of Germany. Count
von Königsegg had advised the selection of Piroska, for he believed
she would be hostile and a willing spy, and Sarolta had acquiesced
because she believed that herself and Ranata would be more than a
match for any disaffected young woman. Outwardly the Countess was
irreproachable. Her manners were high-bred and charming; five centuries
of intermarriage with the best blood of Roumania and Hungary had
obliterated all characteristics of John Zápolya except his ambition.
She was lively and cultivated, and there was nothing in her manner to
betray her hostility. She was the only enemy in camp. The other maid
of honor, Countess Vilma Festetics, although proud and reserved, had
loved the dead Elizabeth and had transferred her large measure of
passionate loyalty, since unclaimed, to the princess who, in her great
beauty and greater isolation, seemed to her the most romantic figure
on earth. Without humor or more logic than the larger division of her
sex, she was capable of martyrdom for her ideals, however narrow. But
she was bright and shrewd, and never having trusted Piroska Zápolya,
suspected that she might be too high in the favor of Ranata’s enemies.
In appearance the young Countess was of a type more often seen in
Hungary than described; she had neither the sparkling blond nor the
voluptuous brunette beauty which, with their womanly figures and happy
animation, have made the women of that romantic country so famous. She
was small and slender, and her coloring was drab; under the hauteur
of her delicately cut pale face were the tense lines of tragedy. Her
breeding helped her to control a high and intolerant temper. Of the
most ancient blood in Hungary, poor, high-spirited, and proud, she had
seen nothing of the world, but her high accomplishments and qualities,
and the affection which she had inspired in the Queen while a child,
had induced Sarolta to select her for what the cynical elder believed
to be a temporary post. She was also glad to give the girl a few months
of light-hearted luxury, and would have included many like her had it
been possible.
“She is the sort that in a less enlightened day would have used the
poisoned bowl and then killed herself at the foot of the altar,” she
had said to Ranata; “but she will be loyal to you, and when she has
nothing on her mind she can be very lively and young.”
“We have many costumes of the time in our chests, Highness,” the
Zápolya was saying. “I am sure that Miss Abbott would look charming in
one of rose-colored velvet--to which she would be more than welcome;
and if you conclude to ask the Deputies, some tailor here could use
the others as models. We have also two or three of the purple velvet
costumes with the long gold chains, and the head braidwork of gold and
pearls, worn by two of the three hundred youths sent by Matthias in the
embassy to Charles VIII., King of France. If you were escorted into the
throne room by a great number of pages in this costume, Highness, the
effect would be one of perfect loveliness.”
The Archduchess understood her perfectly, but she felt her own
strength, and was amused at the flash in the American’s eyes.
Moreover, her mind grasped the peculiar advantages which a fancy-dress
ball would afford herself. She said sweetly:
“The national costume during the reign of Matthias differed little from
that of any other reign, I suppose?”
“It merely reached its height of extravagance. The national
characteristics have always remained the same.”
“Then, if you will allow me, I will look at your costumes, and, no
doubt, find one that I shall be delighted to copy.”
In spite of her hostility the little Countess was flattered. She
assured her princess, with something like spontaneous enthusiasm, that
she should order the costumes brought to the palace on the morrow.
“I have a painting of Matthias in his robes of state,” said Prince
Illehazy. “I wonder will any one have the courage to impersonate him?
He was a mighty figure, that son of John Hunyadi, and I have not the
slightest doubt that the blood of kings was in his veins. There is no
man in Hungary, alas! fit to wear his mantle, not even at a fancy-dress
ball.”
“He was a plebeian,” said the Countess Piroska, lifting her little
nose. “And even could it be proved that John Hunyadi was the son of
King Sigismund, all his fame, even the medicinal water named after him,
could not obliterate the bar sinister.”
“The little cat!” said Prince Illehazy under his breath. He replied,
“When a man makes a success of his life the bar sinister lends him
the added distinction of picturesqueness, and not only did the Knight
of the Black Raven have the blood of real kings in his veins, but
Sigismund united on his head the crowns of Imperial Germany, Hungary,
and Bohemia. Sigismund had his faults, but he was the head of the Holy
Roman Empire, and neither he, nor his great son, and greater grandson,
need descendants to keep the family name alive.”
“I suppose the ball must open with the Chardash,” said Ranata hastily,
and forbearing to glance at the crushed Zápolya. “And I do not know how
to dance it!”
Zrinyi found his opportunity. “May I be permitted a suggestion,
Highness?” he asked. “The Chardash has been ruined by society--is a
miserable degenerate thing. They sway and glide and languish. Have you
ever seen the peasants dance it? They have preserved it in all its
original simplicity, energy, and variety. If you could see them--and
then dance it here in the palace as it should be danced--it is never
vulgar, never boisterous, merely virile, full of the abandon of a happy
and healthy people--”
“But how can I see it? I learn any dance quickly, but I must see it.”
“To-morrow is a _festa_,” said Zrinyi eagerly. “The peasants will be
dancing all day. If you would go far enough you would see them in their
native costumes--impossible near Budapest; but if you would deign to go
five hours on the train--to a village on one of my estates--”
“Deign!” whispered Alexandra.
The Archduchess turned to her Obersthofmeisterin with a very pretty
show of deference. “I should like it,” she said. “And I believe it is
the right thing to do. I could go very simply dressed; they have not
yet seen me; I should be under no restraint--what do you think, _ma
princesse_?”
“I shall have to go too,” grumbled Sarolta. “And there must be no
publicity about it. We must not get the reputation here in Budapest for
eccentricities; neither must we ever explain ourselves--how early can
we leave here in the morning?”
“At five?” said Zrinyi.
“And we can return late--the palace can be lighted up at seven as
usual. I like the idea of seeing the Chardash properly danced once
more--so be it, then. Mind you are at the station before us, Géra, and
that you exert all your talents in carrying out the programme. We shall
dine with you, of course.”
“Hurrah!” said Alexandra.
“_Élyen!_” murmured Zrinyi.
Ranata for a moment said nothing. Then with a sudden impulse for which
she could give no reason then or later, she turned to Alexandra and
said, “Where is your brother? Have you heard from him?”
“Not a word since I asked him to come here. He had probably started
on his wanderings before my letter reached Berlin. He may be on the
Russian steppes or over in Pest. The one is as likely as the other.”
X
Fessenden drew his leg over his horse’s neck and looked idly about
him. The sun was directly overhead; he had forgotten his compass,
and, apparently, he was lost in the very middle of the great plain of
Hungary. But he had been lost many times before, and in far worse
places than this green and smiling expanse; so flat and lying in an
atmosphere of such clarity he could well believe the gentle Magyar
boast that with the naked eye a man could be distinguished from a beast
at a distance of fifteen miles. There appeared to be nothing whatever
on the horizon; but an occasional small farm dotted the prairie, and
here and there he saw a goose girl with her little flock, a shepherd
in his native costume: a long white coat of spun wool, with panels of
black embroidered at the edges; a garment as immaculate as if just
from the loom, and swung carelessly about the shoulders, the sleeves
evidently designed for ornament alone. The little goose girls might
have stood for a study in lonely childhood; as Fessenden turned his
head one was the solitary figure in the vast expanse behind him; but
when he passed her she had nodded brightly and seemed quite content
with her lot. It was not his first visit to Hungary; he had voyaged
on the Danube and the Theiss in his canoe, and had climbed Retyezat
to the lake of Zenoga, making his way thence into Roumania. He knew
something of the language and much of the hospitality of the amiable
peasant people, and could recall no other country in whose wilderness
he would rather be lost. Moreover, the great plains of Hungary reminded
him of the wild reaches of his own country. They were green and
smiling, indescribably friendly and gentle of aspect, in spite of the
barbarous hordes, the fierce battles that had ravaged them, the blood
that had soaked their soil; and the American deserts, without history
of consequence, scowled eternally at the sun that devoured them, and
gave no hospitality to man. But both represented Nature in one of her
abrupt desires to emulate the plains of Space; both gave man a sense
of personal freedom, of disseverance from the complications of life.
And the great Alfold had long since suggested to the practical mind of
Fessenden what could be done with the Western deserts; in the last five
years he had reclaimed the largest of them by means of a complicated
system of irrigation, and encouragement of immigration from the Eastern
States. One of his dreams was to make the United States fertile and
productive from end to end, if only to relieve the congestion in the
great centres and give the plain people of his country the happiness
they constantly, with reason or without, demanded as their birthright.
But he had sighed humorously more than once as he reflected that to
compass all his plans would require at least two more lifetimes than
Nature had placed at the disposal of any man.
But he had accomplished a great deal, and he was only thirty-one.
Thirty years more, and did his energies survive devastating tropical
fevers, the rarely relaxing strain of organizing and guarding
industries, investments, transit systems, the ever-trembling
aggregations of capital called Trusts, sound a money basis as his own
were built upon, all the manifold ramifications of a fortune, which,
through the increased resources of the country during the past ten
years, through his own and his father’s genius, and by the mere force
of momentum, was now close upon a billion dollars; still far in the
lead of all the other colossal fortunes which in the past decade had
raised the United States to a position no less menacing to herself than
to the rest of the world; did not only his health, his life, survive
the strain, but his ambition, his hope, his faith in the worth while,
then might he expect something like immortal fame.
Most men would have said that he had fame and power enough to satisfy
any man of his years. His accomplishment in South America alone had
made his name a byword on two hemispheres. In company with his college
friend, Jeremiah Keene, who promptly renounced the Northwest, he
had gone to South America, intent upon fencing it off from European
invasion and saving his country from what he believed must otherwise
be an inevitable and humiliating war. Privately, he thought the Monroe
Doctrine an obsolete absurdity, and heartily wished it never had been
conceived. Like all of his countrymen who thought, he would infinitely
have preferred the civilizing forces of Europe in South America to
the tumultuous opera-bouffe republics of vicious hybrids, where no
American could invest his money with a reasonable certainty of seeing
the tail of it a year hence; but the Monroe Doctrine was as sacred to
the American people as the Lord’s Prayer, therefore the only thing
to do was to make it theirs in fact as well as in fancy, and such an
accomplishment must be the work of one man, of a citizen of the United
States, who possessed that hitherto unheard-of combination of boundless
wealth and burning patriotism. The government would never give a
serious thought to the matter until the fleets of Europe were in the
Caribbean Sea.
The three years in South America Fessenden looked back upon as the most
picturesque and satisfying of his life. He had twice nearly died of
fever, and he had been stabbed and shot, but life had been adventurous,
exciting, never worth a moment’s purchase; above all, one long test
of his gifts and resources, with victory in the end. Where immediate
bribery had availed not with the suspicious villain in temporary power,
he had tracked the biding rival to his lair, furnished him with the
necessary outfit and promises, while Keene and other agents persuaded
the ever-disaffected people that another revolution was due. With
the impromptu gunboats and inexhaustible ammunition sent down by Mr.
Abbott, the revolution was an invariable success, and the enthroned
dictator, with all the vices of his kind, was still shrewd enough to
comprehend that did he wish his reign to be permanent he must be true
to his benefactor and give him a free hand.
As a state passed into Fessenden’s control he built a railroad close
to the coast, and as he employed native labor as much as possible, and
there was a rapid influx of American merchants, he was reverenced as
the White God who had brought security and prosperity to a tormented
country.
With the more advanced states it was a mere question of capital,
particularly as the enterprise was a private one, and sure to bring an
increase of civilization and wealth. The last tie had been laid seven
years ago, and South America girdled by a complete system of railways,
with at least one train on each section running daily. To-day the
trains had increased ten per cent., many thousands of discontented
North Americans had emigrated, there were American school-houses,
churches, villages, and towns in every state, and a new and enormously
profitable investment had been found for American capital. Four hundred
thousand negroes had emigrated, and, reverting easily to a state of
amiable and naked barbarism--sinking to the bottom as naturally as the
black mud of the Mississippi--worked in the fields for the white man
and forgot the Constitution of the United States. Fessenden’s praises
had been sung until he might have become conceited and obnoxious had
it not been for the hostile press, which called him a robber baron,
an unscrupulous blood-letter, and a future Czar; and so preserved the
balance.
Then had come the long years at home, varied only by the yearly
tramp in Europe and an occasional visit to South America, where Keene
was his general representative, and his boyhood chum, Jeff Hunter,
his scout and secret agent. Two-thirds of the control of affairs had
gradually passed into his hands, but he had found time to carry out his
father’s more personal programme as well as his own: the great army of
working-men in his employ believed in him blindly, and withstood the
pressure of trades-unions. He had, indeed, raised the standard of wages
throughout the United States, and had made so many bitter enemies that
much of his best talent was consumed in circumventing the attempts of
other great capitalists to ruin him. With the decent laboring man he
was more popular than any President of the United States could hope to
be; and this class was not only grateful for his actual benefits, and
appreciated his sincerity, but believed that he had been as especially
created to pilot the United States through her difficulties as the
great men of the early days of the republic. His methods and his genius
were different, but so were the times. With the professional politician
of the laboring class, with that breed who made their bread and beer by
agitating, he was deservedly unpopular, but he now had most of them in
his pocket, and they gave him little trouble. He hoped to bring about
a condition of living in the United States which would avert a death
struggle between capital and labor; if this task were beyond him, then
would he at least be in a position in some measure to control it.
When the war broke out with Spain it was a matter of deep mortification
and disappointment to him that the great electrical and mechanical
ideal he had conceived in his youth was so far from completion. It had,
indeed, given him more trouble than all his other enterprises together.
Three accomplished electricians had met with violent deaths in the
building on the prairie, and he had their discontented families on his
hands. Two reporters had been maimed for life while attempting to solve
a mystery which annoyed the public, accustomed to the easy elucidations
of the press, and others had “lost their jobs” for failure as signal,
if less painful. All these men were among Fessenden’s bitterest and
most enterprising foes.
Again and again, when his keenest attention was demanded in New York,
he had received an excited telegram bidding him hasten to the spot and
witness the final combination which was to affect the great result;
and as invariably he had added to the sum of his disappointments. Five
years ago the buildings, in the course of a wind-storm, had burned
to the ground, and not only the difficult and expensive machinery
had gone with them, but the personal effects of several hundred men.
More than once Fessenden’s faith had been shaken, and even with the
vast resources at his disposal he had hesitated before the increasing
costliness of his coy ideal; but he dreaded the possibly demoralizing
effect of his first failure; the position in which he could place
the United States lured him on; and his father believed in the idea
and encouraged him to persist. When the war threatened, Fessenden
went out to his Western settlement and worked in the laboratory and
machine-shops himself. At the last possible moment he hastened home
and raised one of the most satisfactory regiments that went to Cuba.
By this time he was a rigid disciplinarian, and his original genius
for detail was fully developed. He also found his opportunity to
distinguish himself, and returned to New York better pleased with life
than since he had left South America.
And the old Fessenden? There was much of him left, for strong
individualities with the eternal boy in them change less than
psychologists would have us believe, however much they may develop.
He was less enthusiastic about some of his old ideals; his patience
was at the same time greater and less; he was even more practical
than Nature had made him, matter-of-fact and intolerant of shams, and
somewhat hardened and cynical by his constant manipulation of fabulous
wealth and the buying of men. Although money would never be his god,
his life and times had taught him to respect, almost to reverence it
as the mightiest force in the world of his day. He had in his brief
span watched the crumbling of ancient aristocracies, the progressive
ascendency of the middle classes all over Europe, their reconstruction
of power in their various states, their contributions to solidity and
permanence, their slow absorption of the helpless classes above, and
their increasing contempt for royal figure-heads; in his own country
he had witnessed an outburst of wealth that in volume and results
had never occurred before in the history of the world. He saw the
financial centre of gravity swinging steadily from London to New York,
the enormous aggregations of capital, combined with the unlimited
production of the United States, controlling the markets of the world.
Money had raised the United States from a negligible quantity, often
mentioned with disrespect, into a menace which was winning for her the
precarious tributes of hatred and abuse, more especially since she had
let it be seen that she estimated affectionate overtures at their just
value.
Therefore was her most characteristic product filled with a quiet
and gentle arrogance, sadly, if contemptuously, confident of the
illimitable powers of wealth, and owning to a sincere respect for
but one man in Europe. With that man, in spite of a deep and mutual
friendship, he played many a game of chess, and once in a while he was
beaten.
He no longer regarded the severe and ofttimes thunderous visage of
William of Germany with envy; for time and work, fever and bitter
anxieties had robbed his own face of all its freshness and most of
its youth. His long body had lost its lankness, and was closely knit,
properly covered, and very erect and imposing; but his face was thin,
sallow, lined, and his finely cut features had acquired the sharpness
peculiar to the American of intellect who gives his life to practical
affairs--the sort that has the mere million-making kink is always as
fat of face as of wit. But his smile was still quick and delightful,
and his eyes, if sharper, were as bright and dark, sometimes as happy
and eager as ever. He had acquired the trick of throwing back his head,
lowering his upper lid, and darting a look over a cheek-bone, which
was merely impish, or peculiarly disconcerting, according to his mood.
As regards the rest of his personal appearance on this October morning
in Hungary, he wore a sweater, the oldest pair of trousers in his
wardrobe, and a straw hat with the brim turned down--by which it will
be seen there was a good deal of the old Fessenden left.
Indeed there was a great deal; and as he rode straight towards the
gala village on Count Zrinyi’s estate, he was in a very susceptible
not to say sentimental frame of mind--which was usually the case when
he was alone in Europe. The fountain of romance in the depths of him
still bubbled. He had worked it deeply in the way of adventure and the
realizing of patriotic ideals, superficially when he met an attractive
woman. But life had pressed him too hard for love; moreover, he was
easily disillusioned, and this particular ideal increased in stature
and seemed ever more impossible of attainment. He stood on a lonely
height himself, and he wanted a woman who stood on one as lonely.