"If you loved me."
Elsa stood for a moment quite still there in the dark, with the silence
of the night and all its sweet sounds encompassing her, and the scent of
withered flowers and slowly-dying leaves mounting to her quivering
nostrils.
What did it all mean? What did life mean? And what was the meaning of
God? She, the ignorant, unsophisticated peasant girl, knew nothing save
what Pater Bonifácius had taught her, and that was little enough--though
the little was hard enough to learn.
Resignation to God's will; obedience to parents first and to husband
afterwards; renunciation of all that made the days appear like a
continual holiday and filled the nights with exquisite dreams!
But if life only meant that, only meant duty and obedience and
resignation, then why had God made such a beautiful world, why had He
made the sky and the birds and the flowers, the nodding plumes of maize
and the tiny, fleecy clouds which people the firmament at sunset?
Was it worth while to deck this world in such array if the eyes of men
were always to be filled with tears, and their backs bent to their
ever-recurring tasks?
A heavy sigh escaped from the girl's overburdened heart: the riddle of
the universe was too hard an one for her simple mind to solve. Perhaps
it was best after all not to think of these things which she was too
ignorant to understand. She looked at the door of the tavern through
which Béla had gone. He had left it wide open, and she caught a glimpse
of him now as he sat at one of the tables, and leaning his elbow on it,
rested his chin in his hand.
Then, with another little sigh, she was just turning to go when the
sound of her name spoken in a whisper and quite close to her sent her
pulses quivering and made her heart beat furiously.
"Elsa! Wait a moment!"
"Is that you, Andor?" she whispered.
"Yes. I came up just now and heard your voice and Béla's. I waited on
the off-chance of getting a word with you."
"I mustn't stop, Andor. Mother will be wondering."
"No, she won't," he retorted with undisguised bitterness. "The mother
who sent you on this abominable and humiliating errand won't worry much
after you."
"No one seems to worry much about me, do they, Andor?" she said, a
little wistfully.
He drew a little closer to her, so close that he could feel her shoulder
under the shawl quivering against his arm. Her many petticoats brushed
about his shins, and he could hear her quick, warm breath as it came and
went. He bent his head quite close to her, as he had done that day, five
years ago, in the mazes of the csárdás, and now--as then--his lips
almost touched her soft young neck.
"Then why should you worry about them, Elsa?" he whispered slowly in her
ear. "Why shouldn't you let them all be?"
"Let them all be?" she said. "But everyone will be wondering if I don't
go back--at least for supper."
"I don't mean about the dance and the supper, Elsa," he continued, still
speaking in a whisper and striving to subdue the hoarseness in his voice
which was engendered by the passion which burned in his veins, "I don't
only mean to-night. I mean . . . for good." . . .
"For good?" she repeated slowly.
"Let me take you away, Elsa," he entreated, "away from here. Leave all
these rough, indifferent and selfish folk. Come out with me to
Australia, and let all these people be."
At first, of course, she didn't understand him; but gradually his
meaning became clear and she gave one long, horrified gasp.
"Andor! How can you?"
"It has been borne upon me, Elsa, these hours past, that I am a coward
and a villain to let you go on with this miserable life. Nay! it's worse
than that, for your future life with that bully, that brute, will be far
more wretched than you have any idea now. He doesn't care for you,
Elsa--not really--not as I care for you, not as you--the sweetest,
gentlest, purest woman in the world--should be cared for and cherished.
He doesn't love you, Elsa, he doesn't even really want you--not as I
want you--I, who would give my life, every drop of my blood, to have you
for myself alone!"
Gradually, as he spoke, his arms had clasped round her, his passionate
whispers came in short gasps to her ear. Gently now she disengaged
herself.
"But I am tokened to Béla, Andor," she said gently. "To-morrow is my
wedding day. I have made my confession. Pater Bonifácius has prepared me
for Holy Communion. My word is pledged to Béla."
"He doesn't love you, Elsa, and he is not your husband yet. Your pledged
word does not bind you before God. To-day you are still free. You are
free until you have sworn before the altar of God. Elsa! Béla doesn't
want you, he doesn't love you. And I love you and want you with my
whole heart and soul."
"Don't speak like that, Andor, don't," she almost pleaded. "You must
know how wrong it is for you to speak and for me to listen."
"But I must speak, Elsa," he urged, "and you have got to listen. We
could get away now, Elsa, to-night, by the nine-twenty train. Over at
the barn no one would know that you had gone until it got too late to
run after you. Never mind about your clothes. I have plenty of money in
my pocket, and to-morrow when we get to Budapesth we can get what you
want. By the next day we should be in Fiume, and then we would embark on
the first ship that is outward bound. I know just how to manage, Elsa.
You would have nothing to do, nothing to think of, but just give
yourself over into my keeping. You are a free woman, Elsa, bound to no
one, and the first opportunity we had we would get married. Out there in
Australia I can get plenty of work and good pay: we shouldn't be rich,
Elsa--not as rich as you would be if you married Erös Béla, but by God I
swear that we would be happy, for every minute of my life would be
devoted to your happiness."
All the while that he spoke she had made persistent efforts to disengage
herself from his grasp. She felt that she must get away from him, away
from his insinuating voice, from the ardour of those whispered words
which seemed to burn into her very soul. The very night seemed to be in
league with him, the darkness and the silence and all those soft sounds
of gently-murmuring river and calls of birds and beasts, and the
fragrance of dying flowers which numbed the senses and obliterated the
thought of God, of duty and of parents.
"No, no, Andor," she murmured feebly, "you have no right to speak like
that. I am tokened to Béla. I have sworn that I would be his wife. My
hand was in his and the Pater blessed us; and it was after Holy
Communion and when Christ Himself was in my heart! And there is mother
too and father, the house which Béla promised them, the oxen and the
pigs, a maid to look after father. Mother would curse me if I cheated
her of all that now."
"When we are settled in Australia," he pleaded earnestly, "we will write
to your parents and send them money to come out and join us."
"Father is paralysed. How could he come? And mother would curse me. And
a mother's curse, Andor, is registered by God."
"Elsa, if you loved me you would leave father and mother and come with
me."
"Then perhaps I do not love you, Andor," she said slowly, "for I could
not bear my mother's curse, I could not break the pledge which I swore
after Holy Communion! I could not commit so great a sin, Andor, not even
for your sake, for if I did remorse would break my heart, and all your
love for me would not compensate me for the sin."
And before he could say another word, before his arms could once more
close round her or his trembling hands clutch at her fluttering
petticoats, she was gone--vanished out of his grasp and into the
darkness, and only the patter of her little feet broke the silence of
the night.