A MAN OF IRON.
General Vertessy had for many years been the commandant of a military
station in Hungary. After such a long time as that, men get to be
acquainted with one another, and the soldier comes to be regarded as
quite a member of the family. The townsfolk, too, begin to speak of him
as a member of the upper classes; no great entertainment is considered
complete without him, and the ordinary civilian exchanges greetings with
him as a man and a brother in all places of public resort. The county
makes him a magistrate on account of his numerous distinguished
services; he receives the freedom of the city for the same reason; and,
finally, the only daughter of a most distinguished patrician family,
impressed by the gallant soldier's noble qualities, consents to become
his wife; and thus the general, as citizen and magistrate, as husband
and landlord, becomes rooted by the strongest ties to the soil which it
is his duty as a soldier to defend.
His acquaintances in general have the greatest confidence in him; his
tenants allude to him gratefully, for he deals mercifully with them; the
citizens regard him with respectful astonishment when, on the outbreak
of a fire, he orders out his soldiers, and is himself the first to
clamber to the top of the burning roof, distributing his commands in the
midst of danger as if his life was worth no more than the life of any
broken-down, invalided old soldier; the school children rejoice at the
sight of him, for he is always sure to be in his place on the occasion
of any public examination, to distribute sixpences and shillings to
those scholars who give the best answers, and exhort them to hold up
their heads and stand upright like good little men! When then, after
this, they meet him in the street, the little fellows throw back their
heads and stick out their chests so that it does you good to look at
them. For the General dearly loves children. Very frequently they break
his windows with their tops and balls, but he never scolds them for it,
and always gives them back their playthings. "They are but children, let
them play!" says he.
In society, too, he is a most agreeable, amusing man, polite and
chivalrous towards ladies, and at public entertainments he distinguishes
himself by his neat little speeches, which are always good-natured, very
much to the point, and seasoned with attic salt of a piquant but not too
pungent quality. He is merciful to the absurdities of his
fellow-citizens; it is no business of his to impress them with any
affectation of soldierly gravity or stiffness; and if at first sight
his stern, clean-shaven face--the regulation countenance of soldiers of
those days--keeps a timid stranger somewhat at a distance, he has only
to open his mouth, and his beautifully pure Magyar accent and intonation
prove to demonstration that, soldier as he is, he has remained a true
son of his fatherland--and all hearts open to him at once.
But all this ceases at the gate of the barracks. Within the barrack
courtyard there is an end to all friendship, kinsmanship, _camaraderie_,
and patronage. He is no longer either a county magistrate or an honorary
citizen. He has done with all those qualities which make up a man's
social amiability. Here Vertessy is only a soldier, a rigorous,
inexorable commandant, who never overlooks a blunder, and never leaves a
fault unpunished.
As regards the good school children, you could give them no better
encouragement than to say to them: "The General is coming and will pat
you on the shoulder!" but there was nothing so terrible to the bad
school children as to be threatened with the General if they did not
learn their lessons. "You'll be sent to the General, and he will tap you
from the shoulder to the heel and make another man of you in
double-quick time," people used to say to them.
At any rate, so much is certain: the most stubborn, pig-headed louts,
whom no school would keep at any price, when sent, despite the tears and
protests of their fond mothers, to the General's establishment, used to
return from thence in a couple of years or so as if transformed. They
had become orderly, methodical, manly fellows, courteous, tractable, and
as spick and span as if they had just been taken out of a band-box. As
to what exactly happened to them during their manipulation in this same
military band-box not one of them was ever known to allude in a boastful
spirit; but the lay mind had a very strong suspicion that not much time
was wasted inside the barracks in fine talking.
Moreover, the General used to have guilty soldiers tied up and well
whipped without first stopping to inquire who their fathers might be.
With him punishment was meted out with no regard for persons. It was the
uniform, not the man who happened to be inside it, that he regarded.
When his soldiers were drawn up in line he was quite blind to the fact
that this man perhaps was the son of his old crony, or that man was the
son of a county magistrate--sergeants, corporals, ensigns, and privates,
these were the only distinctions he ever made. And if anybody tried to
distinguish himself by appearing on parade in a dirty jacket, he had it
well dusted for him there and then in a way the individual concerned was
not likely to forget in a hurry.
Nor did the General ever allow anybody, no matter whom, to be exempted
from service. The dear little gentlemen-cadets had to pace up and down
when on guard, with seven-pound muskets across their shoulders, just
like anybody else, though the hearts of their distinguished mammas
almost broke at the sight, when they drove over in their fine coaches
to see their darlings. Malingerers, again, had a fearful time of it with
him. Such young gentlemen never wanted to go to the hospital more than
once. Their distinguished mammas would scurry off to the General full of
despair, and explain to him with tears in their eyes that this or that
young exquisite lay mortally sick in the hospital, would he allow them
to take their poor darlings home, or at least let them come to the
hospital to nurse the invalids there, or send them nice tempting dishes
from home, or tell the family doctor to call? No, nothing of the sort.
The General used to receive them buttoned up to the chin, and nothing on
earth could move him. The proper place for the fellow was the
barrack-hospital, he would say, there he would receive proper treatment
like any other of His Majesty's soldiers; the regimental surgeons had
quite sufficient science to cure him. And it regularly happened that
after a four or five days' course of a platter of coarse barley pottage,
and half an ounce of plain black commissariat bread, the young gentleman
was so completely cured of every bodily ailment that he had never the
faintest wish ever afterwards to divert himself in the hospital, but
preferred instead to attend to his daily duties.
Nor could his officers boast that he showed them any special indulgence.
It was really terrible how he contrived to fill up their time all day
long: instruction, regimental practice, writing, calculation, technical
studies filled up every hour of the day. The smoking-rooms of the cafes
and the civic promenades very rarely saw Vertessy's officers gathered
together there. The officers had to know everything which the General
asked them about, and were often obliged to work out for themselves,
with the aid of their mother wit, the details of their extremely laconic
instructions. Everyone knew, too, that he could not endure the slightest
suspicion of cowardice; if an officer were insulted, he was obliged to
fight in defence of his honour, or the regiment was made too hot to hold
him. If, on the other hand, the townsmen got to know anything of the
details of these duels, he would punish severely all the officers
concerned in the affair, for he placed boastfulness on the same level as
cowardice. Such severity had this good effect however, that the soldiers
tried to live amicably with the townsmen as they knew very well that it
would be impossible to keep dark a duel with any of the black-coated
gentry, such an event was certain to be an object of common gossip in
all four quarters of the town within twenty-four hours.
It was also a recognised fact throughout the length and breadth of the
kingdom that the officers of Vertessy's regiment were all well
instructed, orderly, serious men, and that this result was due entirely
to the initiative of "the iron man," for this was the name most usually
and very naturally applied to him.
And his face, figure, and expression, corresponded with the name. He
was of a tall, straight, well-knit-together habit of body, with broad
shoulders and a well-rounded chest. His head seemed almost too small for
his extraordinary developed body, especially as the chestnut-brown hair
was clipped quite short. His face was of a deep red, and shaved to the
chin, but a pair of small well kept semicircular whiskers helped to give
it character. His nose was straight, his mouth small; his eyes were grey
and piercing. And everything on this face: nose, mouth, eyes, down to
the smallest feature, seemed one and all to be under the most rigorous
military discipline, not one of them was suffered to move without the
General's command. When once his features are under orders to be coldly
severe, the lips may not give expression to joy, the eyes may not be
clouded with sorrow, the eyebrows may not contract with rage, or lead
anyone to suspect, by so much as a twitch or a jerk, that anything in
the world outside has the slightest influence upon the business he may
happen to have on hand.
We may add that the General did not acquire this honourable title in
times of peace. Formerly, beneath the walls of Dresden, when he was a
lieutenant scarcely five-and-twenty years old, he had earned it by
holding a position on the battle-field as stubbornly as if he had really
been made of cast iron, whereby a totally defeated army corps was saved
from the annihilating pursuit of the triumphant foe. Even the enemy's
general had inquired on this occasion: "Who is that man of iron who
will neither break nor bend?" That, then, was how he had won the epithet
"iron."
Subsequently the nickname was applied in jest or flattery; you could
take it as spite, fear, or homage, according to the manner in which it
was pronounced, naturally always behind the General's back, for it went
very hard indeed with the man who ventured to pick a quarrel with him,
and still harder, if possible, with anybody who tried to flatter him.
* * * * *
In the ante-chamber of "the iron man" stood an orderly with a big sealed
dispatch in his hand, a tall grenadier-sort of warrior, with two stiffly
twisted moustachios, the pointed ends of which projected like a couple
of fixed bayonets. A deep scar furrowed each of his red cheeks from end
to end, a living testimony to the fact that this warrior was no mere
sucking soldier. His chin was planted firmly on his stiff cravat and
half hidden by the broad loop of his shako. His jacket was as white as
chalk, and his buttons shone as if they were fresh from the shop. On his
bosom gleamed gloriously the large copper medal of which the veterans of
former days used to be so proud. The warrior was standing motionless
behind the door, with the big sealed dispatch in his bosom; not a muscle
of him moves, his heels are pressed close together at attention, his
eyes now and then glance furtively from side to side, but his neck does
not stir the least little bit.
The oblique motion of his eyes, however, is explicable by the fact that
a trim little wench, a nursery-maid from some village hard by, with a
round radiant face, with her hair trailing down her back in ribboned
pigtails, is rummaging about the room as if she had no end of work to do
there, casting furtive sheep's eyes from time to time at the upright
soldier, and looking as if she would very much like to say to him: "Oh!
how frightened I am of you!"
"Why don't you sit down, Mr. Soldier?" she says at last; "don't you see
that chair there? And here have I been dusting it so nicely for you."
"A pretty thing for an orderly to sit down in the General's
ante-chamber," replies the defender of his country. "Short irons would
be very soon ready for me, I can tell you."
"Then why are you here at all?"
"That is not for your ears, my little sister."
"You are looking for the General, eh? Well, he is inside that room there
along with my lady, his wife--why don't you go in?"
"You've a nice idea of manners, I must say! What! an orderly to make his
way into the room of the General's lady!"
"Then give the letter here and I'll take it in for you."
"Now, my little sister, that's quite enough! What! deliver a letter into
the hands of anybody but the person to whom it is addressed!"
"Do you know how to write, Mr. Orderly?"
"What a question! Ask me another! Why, if I could write I should have
become a sergeant long ago."
"Why don't you take off that shako? It's pretty heavy, ain't it?"
"Now, my little wench, that's quite enough! Right about turn, quick
march! They are calling you in the kitchen."
The nursery-maid scuttled off. The veteran was getting quite angry at
all these simple questions.
In no very long time, however, the neat little wench came sidling back
again. First she poked her head through the kitchen door as if she
wanted to find out whether the big soldier there would bite off her
nose--which was a little snub, and small enough already.
"Mr. Orderly, the cook has sent you three hearth cakes."
"Good."
"Take them then." This she said, still keeping at a safe distance, and
thrusting forward the nice lard-made hearth cakes as if she were
offering them to some snappy, snarling watch-dog at the end of a long
chain.
"I can't," answered the gallant defender of his country sturdily.
"Ain't you got hands, then?"
"No, not for them. But if you like you can tuck them into my
cartridge-box behind there."
"What, in there?" inquired snub-nose amazedly. "But ain't there
gunpowder inside?"
"Shove 'em in, they won't hurt it."
"Won't it explode?"
"Not unless a spark from your eyes catches it."
The nursery-maid timidly lifted the brightly-polished lid of the
cartridge-box, peeping half up at the soldier to see if he meant to
frighten her, and at the same time gazing curiously at the many funny
round little things in the cartridge-box, at which she pretended to be
desperately afraid.
The gallant soldier was in duty bound not to move his hand, but he so
far relaxed as to allow the tips of two of his fingers to crook
downwards and give the plump round arm of the wench a good tweak.
"Be off with you, I'm afraid you're a bad man after all, Mr. Soldier!"
"I fancy I am too, otherwise I suppose there would not have been so much
of me--little and good you know!"
"Do you know why the cook sent you those cakes?"
"That I may eat them instead of you, I suppose."
"Go along, you naughty man! You do say such naughty things! No, she sent
them that you might tell her when the next public whipping will take
place."
"Does the cook want to see it then? A nice pastime, I must say. You
don't want to see it too, do you?"
"No, not I."
"You ought to see it. It is just the thing for wenches. There are
always as many ladies present on such occasions as if it was
play-acting."
"Oh, I should like to see it then, the sooner the better. Will there be
another soon? That's for the General to decide, isn't it? If I were a
General I would order a flogging every morning, and make the band play
every evening."
"That would be very nice. Come hither, and I will whisper it."
"Truly?" inquired the wench, half turning her head round. "But don't
shout in my ear!"
When she had got near enough to the soldier for him to be able to
whisper in her ear, he suddenly planted a smacking kiss on her red
cheek.
In her terror the wench gave a bound back to the kitchen door, but there
she remained standing, and rubbed her face vigorously with her blue
apron.
"Yes, you are indeed a bad man, Mr. Orderly. And still you have not yet
told me when the next whipping will be."
"Don't fret, my little sister. The spectacle will be better than you
think. There will be a shooting-to-death shortly."
"A shooting-to-death! Oh! that _will_ be nice! And who is going to be
shot?"
"A soldier, my little sister."
"And you'll have to shoot him, perhaps, eh?"
"It is quite possible, my little sister."
"Oh, Mr. Soldier, that's too bad!"
The snub-nosed wench made haste to quit a room in which stood a man
heartless enough to shoot down his living fellow-man, and outside in
the kitchen she had a long discussion with the cook about it, and they
came to the conclusion that it must be a very fine entertainment to see
a man shot right through the head. First there would be the getting up
early, for such spectacles generally take place at dawn, and it would
never do to sleep away such an opportunity as that, especially as it was
just as likely as not that the poor devil would be placed in the pillory
first. What could he have been doing? But suppose they were to pardon
him? Oh, no! no chance of that, for the General never pardons anybody;
even if it were his own son he would not pardon him if he were found
guilty, for he was "the iron man."
* * * * *
Meanwhile, inside there, "the iron man" is sitting in his wife's room on
a small embroidered armless chair. Opposite to him on a large elevated
divan lies his wife, a tiny, elegant, transparent little lady, with a
face of alabaster, and wee wee hands which a child of two would not have
known what to do with if they had been doled out to her. Her small
strawberry-like mouth scarcely seemed to have been made for talking
purposes; all the more eloquent, on the other hand, were her large
dark-blue eyes, which were saying at that moment that those who can love
are very, very happy.
The iron man was sitting in front of her with his elbows planted on his
knees and both his hands stretched forwards. Extended on these two
hands of his was a skein of thread, which the elegant little woman was
winding with great rapidity.
He need only have stretched his arms a wee bit more to burst the whole
skein to pieces, but he has learnt to watch very carefully lest the
thread gets entangled, and he laughs heartily every time he moves his
hands clumsily, at the same time begging pardon and promising to do
better in future.
"My darling, I have an old sword--it served me well in the French
war--do you think it would be of any use to you?"
The little lady laughed, and how charmingly she could laugh; it sounded
like the bells of a glass harmonica striking against each other.
"I understand the allusion. If you can use the owner of the sword for
unwinding thread, you might use his sword instead of scissors."
"I mean what I say."
"That doesn't matter a bit, you must wait till the skein is unwound."
"Naturally that is as it should be, of course. Nor would I suffer
anybody else to take my place. To hold a skein of thread requires great
strength of mind, not every man is up to it. A giddy head would very
soon give way beneath the task. It is a science in itself. Besides, I
swore before the parson I would take you 'for better or worse.' You see
how I keep my word. Look there now! The thread has tied itself into a
knot again. Now, if one of your parlour-maids had been holding it, you
would have been angry with her, but as my darling little wife it is not
lawful for you to be angry. Do you hear me? It is not lawful for you to
be angry with me, I say."
The little lady undid the knot again, and her husband tenderly kissed
the little intervening hand as it drew nearer; the little lady affected
not to have observed this, but she knew it well enough.
"Look now, my darling! it is you who have taught me to consider myself
an extraordinary fine fellow. Formerly, when people used to say: General
Vertessy is such and such a man, I only used to hold my tongue and think
to myself: Talk away! talk away! _I_ happen to know that Vertessy is as
timid as a child, there is one thing he is as much in dread of as any
schoolgirl, and that is--unravelling a skein of thread. When I was a
little chap I twice ran away from home to avoid this very thing. And now
my dear little spouse has made it quite clear to me that General
Vertessy is _not_ afraid of it after all. Honour to whom honour is due!
General Vertessy is a brave man."
"Naturally; why the thirteenth labour of Hercules brought him more fame
than all the rest--don't you remember how he held the skeins of Madame
Omphale?"
"That was the greatest of his heroic exploits, certainly. You ladies
cannot imagine what tyranny you practice upon the masculine gender when
you constrain them to this terrible servitude. To wear chains is a mere
jest, but when you bind a man with a skein of thread, a mere gossamer,
in fact, and then tell him he must not break it asunder, that is cruelty
indeed! Why don't the English invent a machine for this sort of hard
labour? They rack their brains about steamboats, about woman's rights,
and the emancipation of the negro; but as to _these_ fetters, these..."
"Come, come, attend to your skein!"
And indeed those dangerous fetters, as the General called them, were
themselves in great danger, for the General in his ardour had made a
slight gesture which had almost ripped them asunder.
"I'll take it away from you if you don't behave yourself properly. Fancy
making such lamentations over a little skein-unravelling!"
"Oh, I am not speaking of myself. I am used to all sorts of hardships. I
pity more particularly those poor innocent children who come to groan
under this unnatural yoke. Just picture to yourself, my dear, one such
innocent eight or nine years old, a little lad whose blood bubbles over
like champagne, who sees the sun shining through the windows, who hears
the boisterous mirth of his comrades outside as they play at ball, and
would give anything to run away himself and romp and wrestle and turn
somersaults; fancy such a one obliged to remain shut up in a room,
fettered by a string of thread or cotton, and made to move his hands up
and down just as if he were some stupid machine; fancy him fidgeting
first on one leg and then on another, and waiting, waiting for the end
of the interminable skein! I wonder they don't become utter blockheads
beneath the strain. I wonder their teachers don't forbid it. If I had a
child he should not be allowed to hold a skein. No son of mine, I tell
you, should ever become a mere skein-unwinding machine..."
And it seemed somehow more than a jest, for the gallant soldier now
suddenly forgot all about the skein entrusted to him, and with tender
emotion pressed his blushing little wife to his bosom.
The little lady with infinite patience slowly disentangled the chaotic
labyrinth of threads again, and then exclaimed with a deep sigh:
"Life and death lie between..."
They both knew the meaning of the allusion.
Then the uninterrupted labour proceeded again. The iron man was now
completely silent, but one could observe from the unconsciously radiant
expression of his face that his mind was occupied by some very pleasing
thought, and in the delightful contemplation thereof he had no longer
any idea that he was holding a skein of thread.
Presently, however, he said:
"Let us begin another!"
He must certainly have found it a very agreeable pastime to say that.
It was this time a skein of silk that the little lady wanted to have
unwound. This was a still higher symbol of tenderness. Not in vain does
the folksong sing of the captive of love being bound with silken
chains.
"But, my dear, when I was a little boy, and had to hold skeins, my
sisters, by way of compensation, used to tell me tales."
"With all my heart."
"Fire away, then: once upon a time...!"
"Once upon a time there was a girl who always wanted to die."
"Ah! I scarcely bargained for that."
"She was constantly pale, and took it for a compliment when people said
to her that she was as white as death."
"She must have eaten lots of raw coffee and chalk, I'll be bound."
"Don't interrupt, I want to tell a tale, not circulate scandal."
"I am all attention."
"Sometimes she carried her bizarre ideas so far as to appear at dances
in a white dress trimmed with black, and with a myrtle wreath on her
head, just as the dead are wont to be arrayed for the tomb. By way of a
breast-pin she used to wear a small skeleton's head carved out of
mother-o'-pearl, and she boasted that her gloves had been taken out of
the coffin of a deceased friend."
"Shall I be very unfeeling if I allow myself to smile?"
"Pray do nothing of the kind, or you'll be very sorry in a moment."
"Ah, ha! I know a man who fell in love with this girl."
"All the more reason to be serious."
"And subsequently that man got the better of his passion altogether."
"Do not be too sure."
"Too sure! Why, I have been studying the whole case these four years."
"As defendant?"
"Defendant, indeed! I wanted to make that girl my wife. Oh! you were
quite a little thing then, a wee wee little lass, scarcely so big as my
finger. You were learning to dance in those days and had not yet
appeared upon the scene."
"And you deserted that girl on the eve of the wedding!"
"I had reasons for doing so, of which nobody, I fancy, is aware."
"They said at the time that you found out that Benjamin Hetfalusy, the
girl's father, was over head and ears in debt, and that you withdrew for
that reason."
"I did not take the trouble to contradict the rumour, it was so like
General Vertessy to marry for money."
"And the Hetfalusy family became of course your bitterest enemies ever
afterwards?"
"They have insulted, but they cannot wound me."
"And you forgave them for it?"
"I never troubled my head about them."
"Say that you forgive them."
"I don't want to flatter myself. I simply forgot them."
"Very well, now let us go on with our story. This poor family has had
many heavy visitations of late."
Vertessy's face grew very grave.
"My dear, I am afraid your skein of silk will break asunder on my arms
if you go on with such stories. Don't speak to me of the calamities of
the Hetfalusy family. I am not at all interested in the happiness of
these people, and if they are wretched I don't want to hear anything
about it. They seem to have always been bent upon tempting Fate, so that
it is not surprising if Fate at last has turned upon them. But I don't
want to know anything about it. I am not good enough to grieve with them
in their misfortunes, and I am not bad enough to rejoice in their
misery. Leave the subject alone, my dear Cornelia."
Cornelia put down the little ball of silk, relieved her husband's arms
of the skein, and then sitting beside him on a little stool, kept on
stroking him with her tiny hands until she had quite smoothed out all
the angry wrinkles on his face, and he had brightened up again and
declared, like a good little boy, that he was not a bit put out and
would listen to the story again.
"Poor Leonora! her married life was very unhappy."
"But she got what she wanted."
"It seems to me that you know more of my story than I do myself."
"I only know the happy part of it. Was not her husband her youthful
ideal?"
"You amaze me. Whenever we used to meet subsequently, she was always
full of lamentations, and described herself as very unhappy. To my mind
she only took Szephalmi out of bravado, because you deserted her."
"My dear, after that I must whisper in your ear something which only one
other soul in the world but myself knows anything about. I am sure _you_
will not say anything about it, because you are good, and that other
person will be silent because she is afraid to speak. That pale lady who
was so fond of thinking of death, who went to a ball in a myrtle wreath
and a white dress with a black fringe, used to have assignations in the
dilapidated hut of an old village granny with a youth who was no other
than Szephalmi, her present husband. The affair was kept so secret that
nobody knew anything about it. The old hag, why I know not, confided the
secret to me on the very day when I arrived at Hetfalu Castle in
readiness for the wedding. It was as I have said. My pale moonbeam, when
everybody was asleep in the castle, used to put on a peasant girl's
garb, wrap her head in a flowered kerchief, and glide all alone, along
the garden paths, to the old woman's hut at the end of the village,
where the youth, disguised as a shepherd, was waiting for her. Oh! this
intimacy was of long standing. I heard them talking to each other. In my
first mad paroxysm of rage, I was for rushing out and killing the pair
of them on the spot; but gradually I recovered my senses, and I asked
myself whether it was not more shameful for me, a soldier, to have
pried upon a woman than for that woman to have deceived me. Besides,
what was there to be done if she loved another? She ought not, of
course, to have promised me her hand--a hand without a heart _must_
bring dishonour with it. I said nothing to anybody. I went back to the
castle, and the next day I had an interview with the girl's father, and
made pecuniary demands upon him, which, in view of the shattered state
of his finances, I knew it was impossible for him to comply with. We
split upon that very point. There was no marriage. The guests separated.
The world laughed. I was cried down as a money-grubber, and for a long
time I was in such bad odour, that I'll wager anything that if I had
sued for the hand of any respectable girl her relations would have shown
me the door in double-quick time. My darling little Cornelia certainly
displayed great strength of mind to accept a man who was notorious for
having jilted his bride."
"And you had to endure a whole heap of persecutions in consequence."
"Yes, a great many. The Hetfalusys had powerful kinsfolk who did their
utmost to make life intolerable to me. A nephew of Benjamin's, who was
an officer in the guards, insulted me publicly in the street. The most
damaging insinuations were made against me in high places. All my
measures were openly and freely criticized. They sought to embroil me
with the county authorities. I was persecuted by high and low. I
defended myself and held my tongue. I fought duels, I had an answer for
everyone. I suffered in silence--but I never betrayed that lady's
secret. Keep what I have told you in the depths of your heart, my
darling, as I have done hitherto."
Cornelia kissed her husband's high open forehead.
"Yet poor Leonora had her punishment too," said she; "he whom she longed
after so much when once she possessed him made her wretched. Szephalmi
was unfaithful to her."
"My dear Cornelia, you cannot have love without respect. Szephalmi only
married his wife because her desperation drove him to do so. I have
often heard people say that Leonora used to dance at parties as if she
wished to kill herself, and would drink quantities of iced water when
she was in a most heated condition. It was no longer a pretence with
her. What scenes took place at home between her mother and herself it
was no business of mine to pry into; but this I know right well that the
girl one day went straight to Szephalmi and threatened him there and
then with something terrible if he did not marry her. I will not tell
you, Leonora's former friend, the nature of this threat; it would revolt
your pure mind too much, for a heart like yours could form no idea of
it; but it is certain that it was fear rather than love which induced
Szephalmi to lead her to the altar. I know, however, that the marriage
was not unblessed; they have two children."
"They had."
"What! are they dead then?"
"A terrible destiny seems to oppress the whole family. The little girl,
her father's darling, disappeared one day without leaving a trace behind
her, and the other child was struck dead by lightning while the mother
was watching by its sick bed; the mother was killed at the same time."
The General was deeply affected by these words. The heart of the iron
man trembled.
"Merciful God...!"
"Old Hetfalusy had a stroke when the dreadful tidings reached him."
"No, _no_! He did _not_ deserve so much suffering. Fate has been more
rigorous towards him than he deserved."
"And as if this were not enough--you knew Hetfalusy's son who became a
soldier?"
"I knew him. He was a hot-blooded youth, warfare might have made a good
soldier of him."
"Well, he quarrelled with his captain in Poland and fired a pistol at
him."
"A misfortune, a great misfortune," said the General, pressing his fists
so tightly together that if there had been anything inside them it would
have been crushed to pieces.
"After this deed the youth fled."
"That is worse still," murmured the General, and he pressed his iron
fists still more violently together.
"And if I am not mistaken, this is the third time that he has run
away."
There were now two beads of sweat on the General's forehead; he would
have wiped it dry with his hand, but he could not, for his fists were
firmly clenched, and it never occurred to him to open them.
"My dear Cornelia," said he, "if you know where this young man now is, I
implore you to tell me nothing about it. You know that I ought not to
hear it."
"You very soon will know all about it; the unhappy youth appeared in his
father's house on the very day when his sister and her son lay in their
coffins."
"Then he has been arrested," cried the General quickly.
"What makes you think that?"
"Because his own father would be the first person to deliver him up."
Cornelia regarded her husband with amazement.
"Is it not so, I say?" he cried passionately, springing from his seat
"Hetfalusy has given up his fugitive son, I'll swear he has, even if I
had not been told it beforehand."
"So indeed it is," said Cornelia sadly.
"And how came you to know it before it has been officially reported to
me?"
"My uncle is a magistrate there, and he told me. He came from thence in
his carriage, while the prisoner was being brought along on foot."
"They are bringing him hither--hither to me," groaned the General
impatiently and turning pale. "They will hand him over to me, and I
shall have to pronounce judgment upon him."
How he feared, how he shuddered at the thought!
"You could not have told me a worse tale," resumed the General, turning
to his wife, and supporting her tender little head against his bosom.
"That is a sad, a very sad story."
"But the end has yet to come."
"Yes, and the saddest part of it is that the end of it is in my hands."
"And to my mind it could not be in better hands."
"How can you say that? Is not every member of the Hetfalusy family my
personal enemy? If I could forget everything else, must I not remember
that they have insulted you? Why, this very young windbag actually
insulted you, you my wife, at a public assembly, and now Fate has cast
him at my feet, him the last scion of the family, and I must be his
judge and pronounce sentence of death upon him! The whole world will
believe that I have gladly taken advantage of this grievous opportunity
of revenging myself in the most bloody, the most exemplary manner upon
my enemies! They will fancy that I condemn the son of my bitterest enemy
to the gallows because I am thirsting for his blood. And you say it is
well that it should be so!"
"I said it and I will stick to it. I am quite confident that you will
save him."
"_I_ save him?" cried the General, opening wide his blue eyes with
amazement; "it is impossible."
"I believe that General Vertessy, that rigorous, inflexible man, whom
his admirers and his detractors alike called 'the man of iron,' who has
never relaxed the rule of discipline to favour friend or kinsman, will
do everything in his power to make an exception for once in his life,
and save the son of his enemy from the rigour of the law. Oh! I know
this gentleman right well, I am confident that so he will act."
"It is impossible, impossible; if he were my own brother I would not
save him in his unfortunate position."
"A brother you could not save, I'll allow; but this youth--oh, yes! I am
persuaded that you will not be satisfied till you have devised some
method of saving this unfortunate youth."
And in saying this, she knew right well how to read the very depths of
the heart and mind of the man of iron.
The General impatiently quitted his wife's room, but the moment he had
crossed its threshold, there was not a trace of impatience to be seen on
his face.
The orderly was still standing in the ante-chamber and, turning on his
heels in the direction of the General, presented to him the sealed
dispatch which he had thrust into his bosom.
It was the official report of the arrest of the deserter.
The General made a sign to the soldier that he might depart.
Then the General returned to the room he had quitted, spread out the
document in front of him, sat down over it, supported his head in his
hands, and for a long, long time struggled with oppressive and wearying
thoughts.