THE STORY OF MARSA
Prince Tchereteff left his whole fortune to Marsa Laszlo, leaving her in
the hands of his uncle Vogotzine, an old, ruined General, whose property
had been confiscated by the Czar, and who lived in Paris half imbecile
with fear, having become timid as a child since his release from Siberia,
where he had been sent on some pretext or other, no one knew exactly the
reason why.
It had been necessary to obtain the sovereign intervention of the Czar--
that Czar whose will is the sole law, a law above laws--to permit Prince
Tchereteff to give his property to a foreigner, a girl without a name.
The state would gladly have seized upon the fortune, as the Prince had no
other relative save an outlaw; but the Czar graciously gave his
permission, and Marsa inherited.
Old General Vogotzine was, in fact, the only living relative of Prince
Tchereteff. In consideration of a yearly income, the Prince charged him
to watch over Marsa, and see to her establishment in life. Rich as she
was, Marsa would have no lack of suitors; but Tisza, the half-civilized
Tzigana, was. not the one to guide and protect a young girl in Paris.
The Prince believed Vogotzine to be less old and more acquainted with
Parisian life than he really was, and it was a consolation to the father
to feel that his daughter would have a guardian.
Tisza did not long survive the Prince. She died in that Russian house,
every stone of which she hated, even to the Muscovite crucifix over the
door, which her faith, however, forbade her to have removed; she died
making her daughter swear that the last slumber which was coming to her,
gently lulling her to rest after so much suffering, should be slept in
Hungarian soil; and, after the Tzigana's death, this young girl of
twenty, alone with Vogotzine, who accompanied her on the gloomy journey
with evident displeasure, crossed France, went to Vienna, sought in the
Hungarian plain the place where one or two miserable huts and some
crumbling walls alone marked the site of the village burned long ago by
Tchereteff's soldiers; and there, in Hungarian soil, close to the spot
where the men of her tribe had been shot down, she buried the Tzigana,
whose daughter she so thoroughly felt herself to be, that, in breathing
the air of the puszta, she seemed to find again in that beloved land
something already seen, like a vivid memory of a previous existence.
And yet, upon the grave of the martyr, Marsa prayed also for the
executioner. She remembered that the one who reposed in the cemetery of
Pere-Lachaise, beneath a tomb in the shape of a Russian dome, was her
father, as the Tzigana, interred in Hungary, was her mother; and she
asked in her prayer, that these two beings, separated in life, should
pardon each other in the unknown, obscure place of departed souls.
So Marsa Laszlo was left alone in the world. She returned to France,
which she had become attached to, and shut herself up in the villa of
Maisons-Lafitte, letting old Vogotzine install himself there as a sort of
Mentor, more obedient than a servant, and as silent as a statue; and this
strange guardian, who had formerly fought side by side with Schamyl, and
cut down the Circassians with the sang-froid of a butcher's boy wringing
the neck of a fowl, and who now scarcely dared to open his lips, as if
the entire police force of the Czar had its eye upon him; this old
soldier, who once cared nothing for privations, now, provided he had his
chocolate in the morning, his kummel with his coffee at breakfast, and a
bottle of brandy on the table all day--left Marsa free to think, act,
come and go as she pleased.
She had accepted the Prince's legacy, but with this mental reservation
and condition, that the Hungarian colony of Paris should receive half of
it. It seemed to her that the money thus given to succor the compatriots
of her mother would be her father's atonement. She waited, therefore,
until she had attained her majority; and then she sent this enormous sum
to the Hungarian aid society, saying that the donor requested that part
of the amount should be used in rebuilding the little village in
Transylvania which had been burned twenty years before by Russian troops.
When they asked what name should be attached to so princely a gift, Marsa
replied: "That which was my mother's and which is mine, The Tzigana."
More than ever now did she cling to that cognomen of which she was so
proud.
"And," she said to Zilah, after she had finished the recital of her
story, "it is because I am thus named that I have the right to speak to
you of yourself."
Prince Andras listened with passionate attention to the beautiful girl,
thus evoking for him the past, confident and even happy to speak and make
herself known to the man whose life of heroic devotion she knew so well.
He was not astonished at her sudden frankness, at the confidence
displayed at a first meeting; and it seemed to him that he had long been
acquainted with this Tzigana, whose very name he had been ignorant of a
few hours before. It appeared to him quite simple that Marsa should
confide in him, as he on his side would have related to her his whole
life, if she had asked it with a glance from her dark eyes. He felt that
he had reached one of the decisive moments of his life. Marsa called up
visions of his youth-his first tender dreams of love, rudely broken by
the harsh voice of war; and he felt as he used to feel, in the days long
gone by, when he sat beneath the starry skies of a summer night and
listened to the old, heart-stirring songs of his country and the laughter
of the brown maidens of Budapest.
"Prince," said Marsa Laszlo, suddenly, "do you know that I have been
seeking you for a long time, and that when the Baroness Dinati presented
you to me, she fulfilled one of my most ardent desires?"
"Me, Mademoiselle? You have been seeking me?"
"Yes, you. Tisza, of whom I spoke to you, my Tzigana mother, who bore
the name of the blessed river of our country, taught me to repeat your
name. She met you years ago, in the saddest moment of your life."
"Your mother?" said Andras, waiting anxiously for the young girl to
continue.
"Yes, my mother."
She pointed to the buckle which clasped the belt of her dress.
"See," she said.
Andras felt a sudden pang, which yet was not altogether pain, dart
through his heart, and his eyes wandered questioningly from the buckle to
Marsa's face. Smiling, but her beautiful lips mute, Marsa seemed to say
to him: "Yes, it is the agraffe which you detached from your soldier's
pelisse and gave to an unknown Tzigana near your father's grave."
The silver ornament, incrusted with opals, recalled sharply to Prince
Zilah that sad January night when the dead warrior had been laid in his
last resting-place. He saw again the sombre spot, the snowy fir-trees,
the black trench, and the broad, red reflections of the torches, which,
throwing a flickering light upon the dead, seemed to reanimate the pale,
cold face.
And that daughter of the wandering musicians who had, at the open grave,
played as a dirge, or, rather, as a ringing hymn of resurrection and
deliverance, the chant of the fatherland-that dark girl to whom he had
said: "Bring me this jewel, and come and live in peace with the Zilahs"
--was the mother of this beautiful, fascinating creature, whose every
word, since he had first met her a few hours before, had exercised such a
powerful effect upon him.
"So," he said, slowly, with a sad smile, "your mother's talisman was
worth more than mine. I have kept the lake pebbles she gave me, and
death has passed me by; but the opals of the agraffe did not bring
happiness to your mother. It is said that those stones are unlucky.
Are you superstitious?"
"I should not be Tisza's daughter if I did not believe a little in all
that is romantic, fantastic, improbable, impossible even. Besides, the
opals are forgiven now: for they have permitted me to show you that you
were not unknown to me, Prince; and, as you see, I wear this dear agraffe
always. It has a double value to me, since it recalls the memory of my
poor mother and the name of a hero."
She spoke these words in grave, sweet accents, which seemed more
melodious to Prince Andras than all the music of Baroness Dinati's
concert. He divined that Marsa Laszlo found as much pleasure in speaking
to him as he felt in listening. As he gazed at her, a delicate flush
spread over Marsa's pale, rather melancholy face, tingeing even her
little, shell-like ears, and making her cheeks glow with the soft, warm
color of a peach.
Just at this moment the little Baroness came hastily up to them, and,
with an assumed air of severity, began to reproach Marsa for neglecting
the unfortunate musicians, suddenly breaking off to exclaim:
"Really, you are a hundred times prettier than ever this evening, my dear
Marsa. What have you been doing to yourself?"
"Oh! it is because I am very happy, I suppose," replied Marsa.
"Ah! my dear Prince," and the Baroness broke into a merry peal of
laughter, "it is you, O ever-conquering hero, who have worked this
miracle."
But, as if she had been too hasty in proclaiming aloud her happiness, the
Tzigana suddenly frowned, a harsh, troubled look crept into her dark
eyes, and her cheeks became pale as marble, while her gaze was fixed upon
a tall young man who was crossing the salon and coming toward her.
Instinctively Andras Zilah followed her look. Michel Menko was advancing
to salute Marsa Laszlo, and take with affectionate respect the hand which
Andras extended to him.
Marsa coldly returned the low bow of the young man, and took no part in
the conversation which followed. Menko remained but a few moments,
evidently embarrassed at his reception; and after his departure, Zilah,
who had noticed the Tzigana's coldness, asked her if she knew his friend.
"Very well," she said, in a peculiar tone.
"It would be difficult to imagine so from the way in which you received
him," said Andras, laughing. "Poor Michel! Have you any reason to be
angry with him?"
"None."
"I like him very much. He is a charming boy, and his father was one of
my companions in arms. I have been almost a guardian to his son. We are
kinsmen, and when the young count entered diplomacy he asked my advice,
as he hesitated to serve Austria. I told him that, after having fought
Austria with the sword, it was our duty to absorb it by our talents and
devotion. Was I not right? Austria is to-day subservient to Hungary,
and, when Vienna acts, Vienna glances toward Pesth to see if the Magyars
are satisfied. Michel Menko has therefore served his country well; and I
don't understand why he gave up diplomacy. He makes me uneasy: he seems
to me, like all young men of his generation, a little too undecided what
object to pursue, what duty to fulfil. He is nervous, irresolute. We
were more unfortunate but more determined; we marched straight on without
that burden of pessimism with which our successors are loaded down. I am
sorry that Michel has resigned his position: he had a fine future before
him, and he would have made a good diplomatist."
"Too good, perhaps," interrupted Marsa, dryly.
"Ah, decidedly," retorted the Prince, with a smile, "you don't like my
poor Menko."
"He is indifferent to me;" and the way in which she pronounced the words
was a terrible condemnation of Michel Menko. "But," added the Tzigana,
"he himself has told me all that you have said of him. He, on his side,
has a great affection and a deep veneration for you; and it is not
astonishing that it should be so, for men like you are examples for men
like him, and--"
She paused abruptly, as if unwilling to say more.
"And what?" asked the Prince.
"Nothing. 'Examples' is enough; I don't know what I was going to say."
She made a little gesture with her pretty hand as if to dismiss the
subject; and, after wondering a moment at the girl's singular reticence
after her previous frankness, Andras thought only of enjoying her grace
and charm, until the Tzigana gave him her hand and bade him good-night,
begging him to remember that she would be very happy and proud to receive
him in her own house.
"But, indeed," she added, with a laugh which displayed two rows of pearly
teeth, "it is not for me to invite you. That is a terrible breach of the
proprieties. General!"
At her call, from a group near by, advanced old General Vogotzine, whom
Zilah had not noticed since the beginning of the evening. Marsa laid her
hand on his arm, and said, distinctly, Vogotzine being a little deaf:
"Prince Andras Zilah, uncle, will do us the honor of coming to see us at
Maisons-Lafitte."
"Ah! Ah! Very happy! Delighted! Very flattering of you, Prince,"
stammered the General, pulling his white moustache, and blinking his
little round eyes. "Andras Zilah! Ah! 1848! Hard days, those! All
over now, though! All over now! Ah! Ah! We no longer cut one
another's throats! No! No! No longer cut one another's throats!"
He held out to Andras his big, fat hand, and repeated, as he shook that
of the Prince:
"Delighted! Enchanted! Prince Zilah! Yes! Yes!"
In another moment they were gone, and the evening seemed to Andras like a
vision, a beautiful, feverish dream.
He sent away his coupe, and returned home on foot, feeling the need of
the night air; and, as he walked up the Champs-Elysees beneath the starry
sky, he was surprised to find a new, youthful feeling at his heart,
stirring his pulses like the first, soft touch of spring.