sisters. Though it will seem terrible to you, as it has to me, it
will enable you to better understand our blessed father, help you
to account for what must have seemed to you to be strange
inconsistencies in his character. That this secret was revealed to
me was due to my indolence and childish curiosity.
For the first, and the last, time in my life I listened at a
keyhole. With shame and a hotly chiding conscience I yielded to
that insatiable curiosity--and when you have read these lines you
will understand why I do not regret that inexcusable, furtive act.
I was only a lad when we went to live in that odd little house.
You remember it stood in the outskirts of Rakos, near the new
cemetery. It stood on a deep lot, and was roughly boarded on the
side which looked on the highway. You remember that on the first
floor, next the street, were the room of our father, the dining
room, and the children's room. In the rear of the house was the
sculpture studio. There we had the large white hall with big
windows, where white-clothed laborers worked. They mixed the
plaster, made forms, chiseled, scratched, and sawed. Here in this
large hall had our father worked for thirty years.
When I arrived, in the holidays, I noted a change in our father's
countenance. His beard was white, even when he did not work with
the plaster. Through his strong spectacles his eyes glittered
peculiarly. He was less calm than formerly. And he did not speak
much, but all the more did he read.
Why, we all knew that after the passing away of our mother he
became a bookworm, reading very often by candlelight until morning.
Then did it happen, about the fourth day after my arrival. I spent
my leisure hours in the studio; I carved little figures, formed
little pillar heads from the white plaster. In the corner a big
barrel stood filled with water. It was noon; the laborers went to
lunch.
I sat down close to the barrel and carved a Corinthian pillar.
Father came into the studio and did not notice me. He carried in
his hands two plates of soup. When he came into the studio he
closed the door behind him and looked around in the shop, as though
to make sure he was not observed. As I have said, he did not
notice me. I was astonished. Holding my breath, I listened.
Father went through the large hall, and then opened a small door,
of which I knew only so much that it led into a chamber three steps
lower than the studio.
I was full of expectation: I listened. I did not hear a word of
conversation. Presently father came back with the empty plates in
his hand. Somebody bolted the chamber's door behind him.
Father went out of the studio, and I, much embarrassed, crept from
behind the barrel.
I knew that the chamber had a window, which looked back toward the
plowed fields. I ran out of the studio and around the house. Much
to my astonishment, the chamber's window was curtained inside. A
large yellow plaid curtain hid everything from view. But I had to
go, anyway, for I heard Irma's voice calling from the yard:
"Antal, to lunch!"
I sat down to the table with you, my sisters, and looked at father.
He was sitting at the head of the table, and ate without saying a
word.
Day after day I troubled my head about this mystery in the chamber,
but said not a word to anybody. I went into the studio, as usual,
but I did not notice anything peculiar. Not a sound came from the
chamber, and when our father worked in the shop with his ten
laborers he passed by the small door as if beyond it there was
nothing out of the ordinary.
On Thursday I had to go back to Germany. On Tuesday night
curiosity seized me again. Suddenly I felt that perhaps never
would I know what was going on in my father's house. That night,
when the working people were gone, I went into the studio. For a
long time I was lost in my thoughts. All kinds of romantic ideas
passed through my head, while my gaze rested on that small
mysterious chamber door.
In the studio it was dark already, and from under the small door in
a thin border a yellow radiance poured out. Suddenly I regained my
courage. I went to the door and listened. Somebody was speaking.
It was a man's voice, but I did not understand what he was saying.
I was putting my ear close to the door, when I heard steps at the
front of the studio. Father came.
I quickly withdrew myself behind the barrel. Father walked through
the hall and knocked on the door softly. The bolt clicked and the
door opened. Father went into the chamber and closed the door
immediately and locked it.
Now all discretion and sense of honor in me came to an end.
Curiosity mastered me. I knew that last year one part of this
small room had been partitioned off and was used as a woodhouse.
And I knew that there was a possibility of going into the woodhouse
through the yard.
I went out, therefore, but found the woodhouse was closed. Driven
by trembling curiosity, I ran into the house, took the key of the
woodhouse from its nail, and in a minute, through the crevice
between two planks, I was looking into that mysterious little room.
There was a table in the middle of the room, and beside the wall
were two straw mattresses. On the table a lighted candle stood. A
bottle of wine was beside it, and around the table were sitting
father and two strangers. Both the strangers were all in black.
Something in their appearance froze me with terror.
I fled in a panic of unreasoning fear, but returned soon, devoured
by curiosity.
You, my sister Irma, must remember how I found you there, gazing
with starting eyeballs on the same mysteriously terrifying scene--
and how I drew you away with a laugh and a trifling explanation, so
that I might return and resume my ghastly vigil alone.
One of the strangers wore a frock coat and had a sunburned, brown
face. He was not old yet, not more than forty-five or forty-eight.
He seemed to be a tradesman in his Sunday clothes. That did not
interest me much.
I looked at the other old man, and then a shiver of cold went
through me. He was a famous physician, a professor, Mr. H----. I
desire to lay stress upon it that he it was, for I had read two
weeks before in the papers that he had died and was buried!
And now he was sitting, in evening dress, in the chamber of a poor
plaster sculptor, in the chamber of my father behind a bolted door!
I was aware of the fact that the physician knew father. Why, you
can recall that when father had asthma he consulted Mr. H----.
Moreover, the professor visited us very frequently. The papers
said he was dead, yet here he was!
With beating heart and in terror, I looked and listened.
The professor put some shining little thing on the table.
"Here is my diamond shirt stud," he said to my father. "It is
yours."
Father pushed the jewel aside, refusing the gift.
"Why, you are spending money on me," said the professor.
"It makes no difference," replied father; "I shan't take the
diamond."
Then they were silent for a long while. At length the professor
smiled and said:
"The pair of cuff buttons which I had from Prince Eugene I
presented to the watchman in the cemetery. They are worth a
thousand guldens."
And he showed his cuffs, from which the buttons were missing. Then
he turned to the sunburned man:
"What did you give him, General Gardener?"
The tall, strong man unbuttoned his frock coat.
"Everything I had--my gold chain, my scarf pin, and my ring."
I did not understand all that. What was it? Where did they come
from? A horrible presentiment arose in me. They came from the
cemetery! They wore the very clothes in which they were buried!
What had happened to them? Were they only apparently dead? Did
they awake? Did they rise from the dead? What are they seeking
here?
They had a very low-voiced conversation with father. I listened in
vain. Only later on, when they got warmed with their subject and
spoke more audibly, did I understand them.
"There is no other way," said the professor. "Put it in your will
that the coroner shall pierce your heart through with a knife."
Do you remember, my sisters, the last will of our father, which was
thus executed?
Father did not say a word. Then the professor went on, saying:
"That would be a splendid invention. Had I been living till now I
would have published a book about it. Nobody takes the Indian
fakir seriously here in Europe. But despite this, the buried
fakirs, who are two months under ground and then come back into
life, are very serious men. Perhaps they are more serious than
ourselves, with all our scientific knowledge. There are strange,
new, dreadful things for which we are not yet matured enough.
"I died upon their methods; I can state that now. The mental state
which they reach systematically I reached accidentally. The
solitude, the absorbedness, the lying in a bed month by month, the
gazing upon a fixed point hour by hour--these are all self-evident
facts with me, a deserted misanthrope.
"I died as the Indian fakirs do, and were I not a descendant of an
old noble family, who have a tomb in this country, I would have
died really.
"God knows how it happened. I don't think there is any use of
worrying ourselves about it. I have still four days. Then we go
for good and all. But not back, no, no, not back to life!"
He pointed with his hand toward the city. His face was burning
from fever, and he knitted his brows. His countenance was horrible
at this moment. Then he looked at the man with the sunburned face.
"The case of Mr. Gardener is quite different. This is an ordinary
physician's error. But he has less than four days. He will be
gone to-morrow or positively day after to-morrow."
He grasped the pulse of the sunburned man.
"At this minute his pulse beats a hundred and twelve. You have a
day left, Mr. Gardener. But not back. We don't go back. Never!"
Father said nothing. He looked at the professor with seriousness,
and fondly. The professor drank a glass of wine, and then turned
toward father.
"Go to bed. You have to get up early; you still live; you have
children. We shall sleep if we can do so. It is very likely that
General Gardener won't see another morning. You must not witness
that."
Now father began to speak, slowly, reverently.
"If you, professor, have to send word--or perhaps Mr. Gardener--
somebody we must take care of--a command, if you have--"
The professor looked at him sternly, saying but one word:
"Nothing."
Father was still waiting.
"Absolutely nothing," repeated the professor. "I have died, but I
have four days yet. I live those here, my dear old friend, with
you. But I don't go back any more. I don't even turn my face
backward. I don't want to know where the others live. I don't
want life, old man. It is not honorable to go back. Go, my
friend--go to bed."
Father shook hands with them and disappeared. General Gardener sat
stiffly on his chair. The professor gazed into the air.
I began to be aware of all that had happened here. These two
apparently dead men had come back from the cemetery, but how, in
what manner, by what means? I don't understand it perfectly even
now. There, in the small room, near to the cemetery, they were
living their few remaining days. They did not want to go back
again into life.
I shuddered. During these few minutes I seemed to have learned the
meaning of life and of death. Now I myself felt that the life of
the city was at a vast distance. I had a feeling that the
professor was right. It was not worth while. I, too, felt tired,
tired of life, like the professor, the feverish, clever, serious
old man who came from the coffin and was sitting there in his grave
clothes waiting for the final death.
They did not speak a word to each other. They were simply waiting.
I did not have power to move away from the crack in the wall
through which I saw them.
And now there happened the awful thing that drove me away from our
home, never to return.
It was about half-past one when someone tapped on the window. The
professor took alarm and looked at Mr. Gardener a warning to take
no notice. But the tapping grew louder. The professor got up and
went to the window. He lifted the yellow curtain and looked out
into the night. Quickly he returned and spoke to General Gardener,
and then both went to the window and spoke with the person who had
knocked. After a long conversation they lifted the man through the
window.
On this terrible day nothing could happen that would surprise me.
I was benumbed. The man who was lifted through the window was clad
in white linen to his feet. He was a Hebrew, a poor, thin, weak,
pale Hebrew. He wore his white funeral dress. He shivered from
cold, trembled, seemed almost unconscious. The professor gave him
some wine. The Hebrew stammered:
"Terrible! Oh, horrible!"
I learned from his broken language that he had not been buried yet,
like the professor. He had not yet known the smell of the earth.
He had come from his bier.
"I was laid out a corpse," he whimpered. "My God, they would have
buried me by to-morrow!"
The professor gave him wine again.
"I saw a light here," he went on. "I beg you will give me some
clothes--some soup, if you please--and I am going back again."
Then he said in German:
"Meine gute, theure Frau! Meine Kinder!" (My good wife, my
children.)
He began to weep. The professor's countenance changed to a
devilish expression when he heard this lament. He despised the
lamenting Hebrew.
"You are going back?" he thundered. "But you won't go back! Don't
shame yourself!"
The Hebrew gazed at him stupidly.
"I live in Rottenbiller Street," he stammered. "My name is Joseph
Braun."
He bit his nails in his nervous agitation. Tears filled his eyes.
"Ich muss zu meine Kinder," he said in German again. (I must go to
my children.)
"No!" exclaimed the professor. "You'll never go back!"
"But why?"
"I will not permit it!"
The Hebrew looked around. He felt that something was wrong here.
His startled manner seemed to ask: "Am I in a lunatic asylum?" He
dropped his head and said to the professor simply:
"I am tired."
The professor pointed to the straw mattress.
"Go to sleep. We will speak further in the morning."
Fever blazed in the professor's face. On the other straw mattress
General Gardener now slept with his face to the wall.
The Hebrew staggered to the straw mattress, threw himself down, and
wept. The weeping shook him terribly. The professor sat at the
table and smiled.
Finally the Hebrew fell asleep. Hours passed in silence. I stood
motionless looking at the professor, who gazed into the
candlelight. There was not much left of it. Presently he sighed
and blew it out. For a little while there was dark, and then I saw
the dawn penetrating the yellow curtain at the window. The
professor leaned back in his chair, stretched out his feet, and
closed his eyes.
All at once the Hebrew got up silently and went to the window. He
believed the professor was asleep. He opened the window carefully
and started to creep out. The professor leaped from his chair,
shouting:
"No!"
He caught the Hebrew by his shroud and held him back. There was a
long knife in his hand. Without another word, the professor
pierced the Hebrew through the heart.
He put the limp body on the straw mattress, then went out of the
chamber toward the studio. In a few minutes he came back with
father. Father was pale and did not speak. They covered the dead
Hebrew with a rug, and then, one after the other, crept out through
the window, lifted the corpse out, and carried it away. In a
quarter of an hour they came back. They exchanged a few words,
from which I learned that they had succeeded in putting the dead
Hebrew back on his bier without having been observed.
They shut the window. The professor drank a glass of wine and
again stretched out his legs on the chair.
"It is impossible to go back," he said. "It is not allowed."
Father went away. I did not see him any more. I staggered up to
my room, went to bed, and slept immediately. The next day I got up
at ten o'clock. I left the city at noon.
Since that time, my dear sisters, you have not seen me. I don't
know anything more. At this minute I say to myself that what I
know, what I have set down here, is not true. Maybe it never
happened, maybe I have dreamed it all. I am not clear in my mind.
I have a fever.
But I am not afraid of death. Here, on my hospital bed, I see the
professor's feverish but calm and wise face. When he grasped the
Hebrew by the throat he looked like a lover of Death, like one who
has a secret relation with the passing of life, who advocates the
claims of Death, and who punishes him who would cheat Death.
Now Death urges his claim upon me. I have no desire to cheat him--
I am so tired, so very tired.
God be with you, my dear sisters.
Maurus Jokai
Thirteen at Table
We are far amidst the snow-clad mountains of Transylvania.
The scenery is magnificent. In clear weather, the plains of
Hungary as far as the Rez promontory may be seen from the summit of
the mountains. Groups of hills rise one above the other, covered
with thick forest, which, at the period when our tale commences,
had just begun to assume the first light green of spring.
Toward sunset, a slight purple mist overspread the farther
pinnacles, leaving their ridges still tinged with gold. On the
side of one of these hills the white turrets of an ancient family
mansion gleamed from amid the trees.
Its situation was peculiarly romantic. A steep rock descended on
one side, on whose pinnacle rose a simple cross. In the depth of
the valley beneath lay a scattered village, whose evening bells
melodiously broke the stillness of nature.
Farther off, some broken roofs arose among the trees, from whence
the sound of the mill, and the yellow-tinted stream, betrayed the
miners' dwellings.
Through the meadows in the valley beneath a serpentine rivulet
wound its silvery way, interrupted by numerous falls and huge
blocks of stone, which had been carried down in bygone ages from
the mountains during the melting of the snows.
A little path, cut in the side of the rock, ascended to the castle;
while higher up, a broad road, somewhat broken by the mountain
streams, conducted across the hills to more distant regions.
The castle itself was an old family mansion, which had received
many additions at different periods, as the wealth or necessities
of the family suggested.
It was surrounded by groups of ancient chestnut trees, and the
terrace before the court was laid out in gardens, which were now
filled with anemones, hyacinths, and other early flowers. Now and
then the head of a joyous child appeared at the windows, which were
opened to admit the evening breeze; while various members of the
household retinue were seen hastening through the corridors, or
standing at the doors in their embroidered liveries.
The castle was completely surrounded by a strong rail-work of iron,
the stone pillars were overgrown by the evergreen leaves of the
gobea and epomoea.
It was the early spring of 1848.
A party, consisting of thirteen persons, had assembled in the
dining-room. They were all members of one family, and all bore the
name of Bardy.
At the head of the board sat the grandmother, an old lady of eighty
years of age, whose snow-white hair was dressed according to the
fashion of her times beneath her high white cap. Her face was pale
and much wrinkled, and the eyes turned constantly upwards, as is
the case with persons who have lost their sight. Her hand and
voice trembled with age, and there was something peculiarly
striking in the thick snow-white eyebrows.
On her right hand sat her eldest son, Thomas Bardy, a man of
between fifty and sixty. With a haughty and commanding
countenance, penetrating glance, lofty figure, and noble mien, he
was a true type of that ancient aristocracy which is now beginning
to die out.
Opposite to him, at the old lady's left hand, sat the darling of
the family--a lovely girl of about fifteen. Her golden hair fell
in luxuriant tresses round a countenance of singular beauty and
sweetness. The large and lustrous deep-blue eyes were shaded by
long dark lashes, and her complexion was pale as the lily,
excepting when she smiled or spoke, and a slight flush like the
dawn of morning overspread her cheeks.
Jolanka was the orphan child of a distant relative, whom the Bardys
had adopted. They could not allow one who bore their name to
suffer want; and it seemed as if each member of the family had
united to heap affection and endearment on the orphan girl, and
thus prevented her from feeling herself a stranger among them.
There were still two other female members of the family: Katalin,
the old lady's daughter, who had been for many years a widow; and
the wife of one of her sons, a pretty young woman, who was trying
to teach a little prattler at her side to use the golden spoon
which she had placed in his small, fat hand, while he laughed and
crowed, and the family did their best to guess what he said, or
what he most preferred.
Opposite to them there sat two gentlemen. One of them was the
husband of the young mother. Jozsef Bardy--a handsome man of about
thirty-five, with regular features, and black hair and beard; a
constant smile beamed on his gay countenance, while he playfully
addressed his little son and gentle wife across the table. The
other was his brother, Barnabas--a man of herculean form and
strength. His face was marked by smallpox; he wore neither beard
or mustache, and his hair was combed smoothly back, like a
peasant's. His disposition was melancholy and taciturn; but he
seemed constantly striving to atone, by the amiability of his
manners, for an unprepossessing exterior.
Next to him sat a little cripple, whose pale countenance bore that
expression of suffering sweetness so peculiar to the deformed,
while his lank hair, bony hands, and misshapen shoulders awakened
the beholder's pity. He, too, was an orphan--a grandchild of the
old lady's; his parents had died some years before.
Two little boys of about five years old sat opposite to him. They
were dressed alike, and the resemblance between them was so
striking that they were constantly mistaken. They were twin-
children of the young couple.
At the lower end of the table sat Imre Bardy, a young man of
twenty, whose handsome countenance was full of life and
intelligence, his figure manly and graceful, and his manner
courteous and agreeable. A slight moustache was beginning to shade
his upper lip, and his dark hair fell in natural ringlets around
his head. He was the only son of the majoresco, Tamas Bardy, and
resembled him much in form and feature.
Beside him sat an old gentleman, with white hair and ruddy
complexion. This was Simon Bardy, an ancient relative, who had
grown old with the grandmother of the family.
The same peculiarity characterized every countenance in the Bardy
family--namely the lofty forehead and marked brows, and the large
deep-blue eyes, shaded by their heavy dark lashes.*
* There is a race of the Hungarians in the Carpath who, unlike the
Hungarians of the plain, have blue eyes and often fair hair.
"How singular!" exclaimed one of the party; "we are thirteen at
table to-day."
"One of us will surely die," said the old lady; and there was a
mournful conviction in the faint, trembling tones.
"Oh, no, grandmother, we are only twelve and a half!" exclaimed the
young mother, taking the little one on her knee.
"This little fellow only counts half on the railroad."
All the party laughed at this remark, even the little cripple's
countenance relaxed into a sickly smile.
"Ay, ay," continued the old lady, "the trees are now putting forth
their verdure, but at the fall of the leaf who knows if all of us,
or any of us, may still be sitting here?"
Several months had passed since this slight incident.
In one of the apartments of the castle, the eldest Bardy and his
son were engaged in earnest conversation.
The father paced hastily up and down the apartment, now and then
stopping short to address his son, who stood in the embrasure of
one of the windows. The latter wore the dress of the Matyas
Hussars*--a gray dolmany, with crimson cord; he held a crimson
esako, with a tricolored cockade, in his hand.
* Part of the free corps raised in 1848.