BRINGING HOME THE BRIDE
In those days there were no railways in Hungary. It took a whole week to
travel post from Pest to the depths of Transylvania, with relays of
horses provided beforehand at every station. On the very day after the
wedding the young bride set out on her journey. She had only stipulated
that they should set off very early before anyone was up and stirring.
They travelled in two carriages. In the first sat the bride and
Clementina, who had begged and prayed so urgently to be allowed to
accompany the young lady that to get rid of her they had at last
consented. The poor thing fancied she would better her position thereby:
it was not from pure love of Henrietta that she had been so importunate.
In the second carriage sat the baron and Margari. Margari was just the
sort of man the baron wanted. He was a scholar who could be converted
into a domestic buffoon whenever one was required. Now-a-days it is
difficult to catch such specimens, all our servants have become so
stuck-up. Henrietta did not dare to ask how far they were going, or
where they were to pass the night, she felt so strange amidst her new
surroundings. Her husband was very obliging and polite towards her,--in
fact he gave her no trouble at all.
Towards the evening they stopped at a village to water the horses and
there Hátszegi got out of his carriage and, approaching his wife's,
spoke to her through the window: "We shall rest in an hour," said he.
"We shall put up for the night at the castle of an old friend of mine,
Gerzson Satrakovich. He has been duly apprised of our coming and expects
us."
But the promised hour turned out to be nearly two hours. The roads were
very bad here and it was as much as the carriage wheels could do to
force their way through the marshy sand. The monotonous _Bucskak_[4]
which extended desolately, like a billowy sandy ocean, to the very
horizon, were overgrown with dwarf firs that looked more like shrubs
than trees. Not a village, not a hut was anywhere to be seen. From the
roadside sedges, flocks of noisy wild-geese, from time to time, flew
across the sky which the setting sun coloured yellow. At last a great
clattering and rattling gave those sitting in the carriage to understand
that they were passing into a courtyard and the carriage door was
opened. Henrietta got out. The young wife looked around with the same
sort of curiosity which a robber condemned to a long term of
imprisonment and conveyed to a distant jail might feel on first
surveying his new environment.
[Footnote 4: Sand hills.]
In the midst of a spacious courtyard, surrounded by stone walls, stood
an old-fashioned mansion with a verandah in front of it, resting on
quadrangular columns which one ascended by a staircase whose brick
parapet served as a lounge both for the gentlemen guests and their
heydukes whenever they wanted to take their ease,--though, of course,
the gentlemen occupied one end of it and the heydukes the other. A
couple of favourite dogs were also accommodated with a place there. But
when the carriages stopped in front of the verandah, every one instantly
quitted this favourite sun-lit resting place and rushed down to meet
them--host, guests, heydukes, and dogs.
The first to reach the carriage door was a peculiar looking man, a more
repulsively mutilated creature it was impossible to imagine. He might
have been fifty, but it was difficult to read his age from his face. His
features were scarred with ancient scars and a piece of his mouth was
missing--and perhaps a tooth or two as well, if one could have seen
through his thick grizzled moustache. An eye was missing on the same
side, and half his face was tattooed with little black points as if from
an exploded musket. His nose was bent sideways and quite flattened at
the top, doubtless owing to a heavy fall. He had only three whole
fingers on the right hand, the other two were fearfully mutilated. As
for the left arm it was horribly distorted from its natural position,
the elbow being twisted right round and the joint immovable. Add to
this that one of his legs was shorter than the other. Yet, in spite of
everything, this fraction of a man was so agile that he anticipated all
the others and was the first to courteously kiss the hand of the
descending lady, who shrank back horror-stricken at the contact of those
crippled fingers.
"My wife--my friend Gerzson," said Hátszegi hastening to introduce them
to each other. The master of the house professed himself delighted at
his good fortune; pressed his friend's hand with his third remaining
finger and presented his arm, the stiff one, to the lady who touched it
as gingerly as if she was afraid of hurting it.
The master of the house laughed aloud at her misgivings.
"Lean on it hard your ladyship!" cried he, "it won't break, it is as
strong as iron. Down Fecske, down sir!" (this to a dog who had expressed
his joy at the sight of Henrietta by jumping on her shoulder.) "I
rejoice that I have the felicity to welcome your ladyship. I have
arranged a great fox hunt in your ladyship's honour for to-morrow. We
are all fox hunters here. I hope your ladyship will take part in it?"
"I don't know how to ride," replied the child-wife simply.
"Oh! that's nothing, we will teach you. I have got a good nag who is as
gentle as a lamb. We won't let your ladyship go till we have taught
you."
When they reached the saloon a number of jackbooted, brass-buttoned,
gentlemen of various ages were presented in turn to Henrietta who forgot
all their names the moment after they were introduced and was quite
delighted when she was conducted to her room and left alone with
Clementina.
She had scarce time to change her travelling dress when supper was
announced. The meal was laid on a large round table in the midst of a
vast hall; there were more wine bottles than dishes; the handles of the
knives and forks were made from the horns of elks and the antlers of
stags,--the principal meats were cold venison, highly spiced and
peppered stews and pickled _galuska_.[5]
[Footnote 5: A sort of large dumpling.]
"I am afraid this is only a hunter's repast, my lady!" opined Mr.
Gerzson conducting Henrietta to the table, at which she and Clementina
were the only ladies present. "Unfortunately this house has no mistress
and an old bachelor like me must serve others as he himself is served."
"Then why don't you marry?" bantered Hátszegi.
"I wanted to once, but it all come to nothing. The bride was already
chosen and the day for the bridal banquet was fixed. My lady bride was a
fine handsome lassie. On the eve of my wedding day, in order that the
business might not escape my memory, I told my heyduke to place by my
bed in the morning my nice bright dress boots instead of my old hunting
jacks. Very well! Early next morning while I was still on my back in
bed, I heard a great barking and yelping in the garden below. 'What's
the row?' I shouted. They told me the dogs had started a lynx out of the
bushes. 'What! a lynx!' I cried, for a lynx, let me tell you, is a rare
beast in these parts. I was out of bed in a twinkling, plunged into the
nice dress boots, snatched my gun from the wall and was off into the
thicket. I soon found the trail and after that lynx I went. The dogs led
me further and further into the depths of the forest and the further I
went the more fiery grew the pursuit. Once or twice I had a sort of
feeling that I had forgotten something at home, and I felt myself all
over, but no, powder horn, pipe case, tobacco pouch, flint,
steel--everything was there. So on I went further and further. Again I
felt bothered, but by this time the lynx quite carried me away with him
and kept appearing and disappearing again in the most distracting
fashion. Only towards evening did I hold its pelt in my hand and home
with it I went straightway. And now, again, an oppressive feeling
overcame me, just as if there was something wrong going on somewhere in
the world which it was in my power to prevent. Only in the evening when
I was pulling off my dress boots did it flash across me that I ought to
have been present at my wedding that very day. And so matters remained
as they were, for my bride was so angry with me for my forgetfulness
that she went away and married a lawyer fellow. No doubt she got the
right man, but since then I have had no desire for matrimony."
The company laughed heartily at this jest, and then attacked the
patriarchal banquet with tremendous appetite, nor did they wait to be
asked twice to fill their glasses. Henrietta, naturally, did not touch
anything. Even at ordinary times she ate very little, but now there was
nothing at all she fancied. Mr. Gerzson was in despair.
"My dear lady," said he, "you eat so little that if I were a day
labourer I could easily support you on my wages."
The company laughed aloud at this. The idea of a day labourer with such
hands and feet as that!
Then Gerzson proceeded to relate to them the exploits or misadventures
in which his various limbs had more or less come to grief. "And now,"
concluded he, "I will tell your ladyship how I came by this scar on my
forehead. A few years ago I was visiting our friend Leonard, your
husband, my dear lady, at his castle at Hidvár, and whilst there we
spent two weeks among the glaciers."
"Night and day?" enquired the astonished Henrietta.
"Well, at night we built ourselves huts out of the branches of fir
trees. If, however, no rain fell we encamped in the open round our
watch-fire snugly wrapped up in our _bundas_[6]. Splendid fun I can
tell you! For two days, when our stores gave out, we lived on nothing
but bilberries and broiled bear's flesh."
[Footnote 6: Sheepskins.]
"You were badly off then."
"No, on the contrary, the paws of a bear are great delicacies, only we
had no salt to salt them with."
"Why did you not return home?"
"We could not, for four days together we had been on the track of a
blood-bear. Do you know what a blood-bear is? A bear is a very mild,
harmless sort of a beast in general, and is quite content with honey,
berries, and roots; but let him once taste blood and he rages about like
a lion, and more than that, he has a decided preference for human blood
before all other kinds of blood. We had been pursuing one of these old
malefactors four days running, as I have said; four times we got within
range of him and four times he broke away. He carried a few bullets away
with him beneath his hide, indeed, but a lot he cared about that! He
gave one or two of our badly-aiming huntsmen a clout on the head which
sent them flying, stripped the skin from the head of one of the beaters
and then took refuge in the wilderness. Friend Leonard and the other
gentlemen now wanted to abandon the chase, for they were frightfully
hungry and the heavy rain and rock scrambling had pretty well torn our
clothes from our bodies, yet I urged them to make another attempt on
the morrow. I assured them that if they beat up the wood once more we
should capture the bear. The whole lot of them were against me. Friend
Leonard insisted that we should not catch him, as a bear never remains
in the place where he has been wounded, but runs on and on night and
day; by this time he would have got right across the border into
Wallachia. 'Very well!' I said, 'What do you bet that he is not quite
near and we shall come upon him to-morrow?' Leonard replied he would bet
me two to one we shouldn't. 'All right!' said I. 'I'll pay you a hundred
ducats if we don't find Bruin to-morrow.' 'And I'll pay you a thousand
if we do,' said he. So the bet was clinched. Next morning in a thick
mist we sent out the beaters while we ourselves stood on our guard.
Leonard and I took up our post near a ravine waiting impatiently for the
mist to disperse. Towards mid-day it began to clear. No end of stags and
foxes ambled slowly past us, but we did not even aim at them; the bear
was our watchword. The beaters had pretty nearly finished their work. We
were standing only fifty paces or so apart, so we began to chat
together. 'I begin to be sorry for your hundred ducats,' said Leonard.
'I am still sorrier for the lost bear's skin,' said I. 'It is in
Wallachia by this time!' he replied. Behind my back, some ten yards off,
was the opening of a narrow hole; there were hundreds such in the rocks
all about. 'Come, now!' I cried, 'suppose my bear has stowed himself
away in this hollow!'--and there and then, like a mischievous little
boy, I poked the barrel of my gun into the hollow and fired off a couple
of shots in quick succession. A frightful roar came from the depths of
the cavern. The wild beast during all this noise, clamour and beating
about the bush was actually behind my back holding his tongue,--and a
splendid big beast he was, two heads taller than I and with tusks like a
wild boar. In a moment he was upon me, and I had already discharged my
two barrels. It is all over with me now, I thought! Why, it will be
nothing at all to a magnificent beast like this to tear such a wretched
creature as myself limb from limb! Erect on his hind legs he came
straight at me, smashing my hunting-knife at a single blow, and,
enfolding me in his terrible arms, he tried to mangle my features with
his teeth. At the last moment I called to Leonard: 'Shoot between us,
old chap! you will hit one of us anyhow!' I preferred being killed by a
bullet to being torn to bits. The next instant a report sounded, and I
was only just aware that the pair of us, still tightly embraced, were
rolling backwards into the bottom of the ravine. There, however, the
thick undergrowth held us up, and I perceived that my bear was quite
done for. The bullet had gone clean through his ear. Yes, a masterly
shot on Leonard's part it was, I must confess--at fifty paces at the
very moment when the bear's head and mine were near enough for kissing.
And I do think it was so nice of Leonard to risk a shot for me, when if
he had simply allowed me to be torn to pieces he would have saved his
thousand ducats, for he lost his bet, you see. Not only did he liberate
me, but he paid a thousand ducats for doing so."
"He acted like a true gentleman!" they all cried. It was the general
opinion.
"Your ladyship will see this splendid bear skin at Hidvár, it is a real
treasure for a hunter, I can tell you. And in fact if I had had the
choice I would much rather have had the bear skin than the thousand
ducats, and the exchange would have been much better for me too in the
long run, for I should have the skin to this day, whereas the thousand
ducats were forcibly taken from me at Dévá by that villain, Fatia
Negra."[7]
[Footnote 7: Black face.]
"Who is that?" enquired Henrietta curiously.
"A famous robber-chieftain in these mountains whom they can never lay
hands upon."
Henrietta cast anxious glances around her.
But here Hátszegi coolly interrupted him by striking his plate with his
fork: "I won't have my wife frightened to death by your highwayman
yarns," cried he, and changed the conversation. Shortly afterwards
Henrietta went to her chamber, leaving her husband with Mr. Gerzson and
his guests.
Such was Henrietta's first night after her marriage. She at least was so
far fortunate as not to be obliged to see her husband. Towards morning
she dozed off, and when she awoke again she found that the whole
company had long ago set off fox-hunting, nor did they return till late
in the evening, tired out, wet through, and dripping with sweat.
Henrietta meanwhile had discovered the remains of a dilapidated library
in an old disused huntsman's hut, had ferretted out of it a few Latin
books, and had amused herself with them,--at least so far as she was
able, for many of the leaves had been torn out and used as tinder.
It is notorious that tired sportsmen are about the dullest dogs on
earth; so Henrietta felt that she would not lose much when her husband
told her she had better go to rest early, as they must be up betimes
next morning. And, indeed, next morning they were off so early that,
except their old host, not one of the hunting party was there to bid
them God speed! But he again conducted his lady-guest to her carriage on
his crippled arm and arranged her cushions comfortably for her with his
three-fingered hand.
It was a very fine day for a journey, and the windows of the two
carriages were let down so that Henrietta was able to view the landscape
stretching out before her. She had never been here before, it was all
new to her. She discovered from Clementina's lamentations that they had
still a three days' journey before they reached home, and that they
would spend the coming night at the castle of Count Kengyelesy. The
coachmen had told Margari so, and he passed the news on to Clementina.
It also appeared that Count Kengyelesy was a very curious sort of man,
who contradicted Baron Hátszegi in everything, yet for all that they
were never angry with and always glad to see each other. The count was
also said to have a young wife who did not love him. So ran the gossip
of the servants. It was all one to Henrietta what they said about Count
Kengyelesy and his consort.
Between five and six in the afternoon they reached the count's castle,
which lay outside the village in the midst of rich tobacco and rapeseed
fields, and enclosed on three sides by a splendid English garden; the
place was arranged with taste and evidently well-cared for.
That the count expected the arrival of the Hátszegis was evident from
the fact that dinner was awaiting them. Kengyelesy was a little puny bit
of a man with very light bright hair, white eyelashes, and a pointed
chin made still more pointed by a long goatish beard. It always pleased
him very much when his friends confidentially assured him that he had a
perfect satyr-like countenance.
His wife was a young, chubby, lively lady with smiling blue eyes
unacquainted with sorrow, whom her husband on the occasion of a _bal
paré_ at Vienna had seen, fallen in love with, and carried off, although
the girl's father, a retired Field-marshal, was quite ready to surrender
her--they preferred, however, the romance of an elopement.
The countess received her lady-guest with the most effusive heartiness,
called her by her Christian name on the spot, and invited her to do that
same with her. She told Henrietta she was to feel quite at home, dragged
her all over the castle, and showed her in rapid succession her rare
flowers, her Parisian furniture, her Japanese curiosities; played
something for her on the piano, made her parrot talk to her and
incontinently popped on her finger a large and beautiful opal ring,
which she told her she was to keep as an eternal souvenir.
Then the countess seized the hand of the child-wife and led her into her
bed-chamber. On the wall hung a fine large battle-piece, a splendid oil
painting by a Viennese master.
"A magnificent picture, is it not?" enquired the countess with a broad
smile.
"Yes," replied Henrietta absently.
"How do you like the central figure? I mean the hero on horseback with
the standard in his hand?"
"He is handsome, but it seems to me that, situated as he is, he smiles
too much."
The countess laughed loudly at this remark.
"That," said she, "is the portrait of a young hussar officer who for a
long time paid his court to me. I could not, of course, keep his
portrait in my room, for there everyone would know all about it, so I
had a battle-piece painted in all round, and nobody suspects anything.
Oh! my friend, if women were not so inventive, they would often be very
unhappy. But that, mind! is a secret; not a soul must know about it."
Henrietta grew pensive. She also had her secret, but she would tell it
to nobody, not even on her death-bed. She also had a portrait written in
ineffaceable characters in her heart, yet between him and her stand two
infinite obstacles, the one a betrayed star whose name is Mesarthim, the
other that unbetrayable thing, whose name is--woman's honour!
"_Madame est servie!_" cried the epauletted lacquey, and the countess
drawing her arm through Henrietta's, led her into the dining-room, where
the gentlemen already awaited them.
After dinner the humorous young countess entertained Henrietta for a
long time with her amusing chatter. She told her, at the very outset,
things that young wives, as a rule, only confide to their most intimate
friends. She told her, for instance, how very jealous her little
Squirrel was (she called her husband by this pet name) and how he would
never take her to Vienna or Pest, because he suspected that she might
find someone there to interest her. Anything like correspondence on her
part was of course impossible; a wise woman will always have sense
enough never to part with a line of writing. Everything else, she
witnesses, treacherous servants, for instance--can always be disowned;
but there is no defence against a letter which has fallen into the wrong
hands. Oh no! she knew a trick worth two of that. Whenever the Squirrel
went to Vienna, she gave him a list of articles required by her from a
modiste in the town, on this list are set down hats, head-dresses,
muffs, and other similar articles. Squirrel always reads this list over
ten times at least, but finds nothing in it to excite his suspicions.
But it regularly escapes his attention what day is indicated by the date
at the head of the list, for he can never tell for the life of him on
what day of the month such or such a day will fall. Now at the head of
this list stands, instead of the date on which the goods are to be sent,
the date up to which the Squirrel intends to divert himself at Vienna.
This list the Squirrel in person conveys to the modiste, who
communicates with the person whom it most concerns, and the Kengyelesy
_puszta_[8] will not seem the end of the world to whomsoever has a
magnet in his heart to draw him thither.
[Footnote 8: Heath. But also, as in this place, used to designate the
uncut terated land forming part of a nobleman's estate.]
Henrietta was amazed and confounded by this new science, the very
alphabet of which was unknown to her. Even when she lay in bed she
ruminated for a long time how it was possible that certain things which
break the hearts of some people are nevertheless regarded by other
people as mere frolics all their lives.
The next morning everyone arose late. The gentlemen had been up till the
small hours and were hard to wake. They all met together in the
breakfast-room. Hátszegi and his host were preparing for the journey.
The count asked the young wife what she had dreamt about, "for," added
he, "whatever one dreams about the first night in a strange place is
sure to come true."
Henrietta did not like to speak of her dreams; her waking thoughts were
too often interwoven with them.
"And you, you great silly," said the countess to her husband in a
bantering tone, "did you dream anything of me?"
"Yes, darling, I dreamt that we shall spend the coming winter in Vienna.
Don't put so much sugar in my tea!"
"What! not for such a nice dream as that. Will it really come to pass?"
"Most certainly, pussy. We will go there together after the bathing
season is over."
The countess possessed sufficient self-control to conceal her delight.
"By the bye," said Kengyelesy, turning to Henrietta, "how does your
ladyship like the Kengyelesy _puszta_?"
"Very well."
"And the castle?"
"That is nice too."
"Don't you think it a good joke that yesterday your ladyship and your
honoured husband were my guests, whilst to-day we are your ladyship's
guests and that, too, without our having to move out of the house?"
"How?" enquired the astonished Henrietta.
"Why, we made an agreement this very morning whereby friend Leonard is
going to take over the whole property and everything belonging to
it--not you, my dear, of course," this to his wife, "I mean the nags and
the cows--and henceforth this house belongs to you."
"Don't forget to invite the countess to Hidvár for the vintage
festival," whispered Hátszegi to his wife.
Henrietta accordingly made the effort, and when they rose from the
breakfast she timidly expressed the wish that the Kengyelesys would do
them the honour to return their visit at Hidvár.
"Oh, we will be sure to come!" the fair countess hastened to reply,
"Squirrel will bring me to you in the autumn and we will remain a whole
month."
Kengyelesy also courteously accepted the invitation and then taking
Henrietta's little hand between his own palms so that he could just
manage to kiss the tips of her fingers, he said to her in a strange and
piteous sort of voice: "But then you must promise to love our friend
Leonard here a little better than you have done hitherto."
A shudder ran through Henrietta's body at these words. The very air of
the room was all at once difficult to breathe, and she only felt better
when she sat in the carriage again. But even there she was haunted by
some unendurable, undefinable, torturing feeling which struck her still
more unpleasantly when Clementina remarked: "Yes, there is nothing but
good land on this _puszta_."
Why, what could it matter to the honest creature whether the land was
good or not, it was surely all one to her?
"Two thousand acres in one lot, nothing but first-class land."
"How do you know that?" asked Henrietta.
"Margari told me he drew up the agreement and witnessed it, and yet no
money was paid down."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Did not your ladyship then understand the allusion the count made just
now when he asked you to love your husband a little more than hitherto?"
"What has such nonsense to do with me?"
"He meant by that that he who is unlucky in love is lucky at play; for
last night my lord baron played cards with my lord count and won from
him the whole Kengyelesy estate straight off."
Henrietta felt like one who is in the embrace of the boa-constrictor and
unable to defend himself. She had not expected this.
But Clementina was only too delighted to have something to chatter
about. "And do you know, your ladyship," she continued, "the baron and
the count have been rivals for a long time, and each has always been
trying his hardest to ruin the other--in a friendly way, of course. The
chambermaid told Margari, and Margari told me. 'I will not be content,
comrade,' my lord baron used to say to my lord count, 'till one of us is
reduced to his last jacket, and as soon as one of us is absolutely
beggared, the other will hold himself bound to maintain him, in a way
befitting a gentleman till the day of his death.' Strange men these,
madame, eh!"
Perceiving, however, from Henrietta's looks that there was something
depressing to her young mistress in her narration, she tried to soften
the effect of her words by intimating that the count had another
property besides, although not such a nice castle, and also that it was
open to him to buy back the former estate in thirty years' time if he
could find the money.
"That will do, Clementina, my head aches badly!" said Henrietta. She
wished to rid herself of this uncalled-for gabble, in order that she
might devote herself to her own thoughts.
And what thoughts! She had had no idea that such things could be. How
was it possible that two men who called themselves friends, could ruin
one another thus in cold blood? How was it possible that a man could
enter the house of an affectionate host as a welcome guest in the
evening, and by next morning leave him not an inch of land on which to
put his foot, or a roof to cover his head! "And one has to get
accustomed to such things!" thought she.
All the day long their journey lay through that brain-wearying plain
whose endless flatness oppressed soul and body with its monotony and
soon drove her back to her own thoughts. Towards evening there were
signs of rain. Clouds were rising and then, at least, there would be
something new to point at in the eternal monotony of the sky.
Unfortunately clouds have the bad habit of bringing tempests along with
them, and tempests are evil travelling companions on the steppes of the
_Alföld_.[9] The towers of the town they were trying to reach were still
only dimly visible on the horizon. In ordinary weather it would not have
mattered if they had arrived late, for they had reckoned upon the
moonlight; but there could be no moon to-night, instead of her a storm
full of angry lightnings was approaching. Already from afar they could
hear it rumbling as it drove dust-clouds before it, could hear that
peculiar, continuous, roar as of some giant hand playing uninterruptedly
on the keys of some terrible organ. Whoever has been caught on the
_Alföld_ in a storm knows the meaning of that wind; it means that the
tempest is bringing hail with it.
[Footnote 9: The great Hungarian plain.]
One thing was now certain: they must turn aside somewhere. All that
Henrietta observed, however, was that her carriage stood still for a
moment, and then Hátszegi's carriage went on in front, the baron himself
seizing the horses' reins and shouting to the coachman behind him:
"After me as hard as you can tear!" With that they left the road and
plunged right across country through ditches and swamps and low, marshy
ground till the water came up to the very axles of the wheels and
Clementina shrieked that they were perishing. But there was no need to
be afraid. Hátszegi was a skilful coachman, who could ever find his way
even where there was no way at all. About a four hours' journey off, a
pump now became visible, and beyond it a little hut loomed white and
high, there they must seek a refuge from the tempest as it passed over
them. And indeed they had only just reached the small courtyard when the
first lumps of ice as big as nuts, began bombarding the windows of the
carriages.
"Quick, quick, into the house!" cried Hátszegi. The baron himself helped
his wife and Clementina to descend and hurried them in beneath the
verandah, which was made of crooked branches and hung over the kitchen
door like a shade over the forehead of a weak-sighted man.
On their approach the woman of the house emerged from the kitchen with
her head tied up in a red handkerchief. She was no longer young, but
ruddy, robust, bright-eyed, and bustling, and as full of sparkle as if
she had just sprung out of the fire.
On perceiving her guests she clapped her hands together.
"Lord deliver us, if it isn't his lordship! And only just married now,
eh!--after all these years! But which is the bride, your lordship?
Surely not this one (pointing to Clementina) for she is an old
dear!--and yet the other is but a child!"
The baron hastened to interrupt this uncalled-for outburst.
"Come, come, my good woman! No chatter now, please, for the hail will be
upon us in a moment; but take these ladies into a room and see that it
is clean and comfortable. Henrietta! pray get out of the rain."
The _csárdá_[10] woman kissed Henrietta's hand with great familiarity
and kept on saying in a quavering voice: "Oh, thou tender little
creature! to think of giving them to husbands so early!" cried she. But
Clementina, who was always nervous in strange places, called the baron's
attention to the fact that loud masculine voices were proceeding from
somewhere within the _csárdá_.
[Footnote 10: Inn.]
"Have you anyone here now?" enquired the baron of the _csárdá_ woman.
"Yes, three or four lads and _Ripa_. The old fellow has just been
released from the prison at Arad. I don't know whether he served his
full time. Pray walk in!"
"They are not robbers, are they?" asked Clementina hesitating.
"No, dear heart alive, there are no robbers in these parts, but only
poor vagabonds. You will not find robbers nearer than the Bakony forest.
These poor fellows hurt nobody, least of all ladies. I don't count old
Ripa at all, but only the other three. It would be another thing if
Blackey were here, for he is a fine gentleman and likes to amuse
himself with the ladies. But don't think, dear soul, that his features
are black, oh, dear, no! I call him 'Blackey' because he always wears a
mask of black velvet lest he should be recognized, only his eyes and
mouth are ever visible."
And with such comforting assurances she escorted Henrietta and
Clementina up the narrow staircase.
They had to pass through the long tap-room before they came to the inner
parlour. At the guest table were sitting three hardy looking young
fellows and an old pock-marked man, a foxey-eyed rascal who drank out of
the others' glasses from time to time and kept the conversation going.
"Come! shut up, Ripa!" said the landlady to the old man. "This is no
Jew-Madame, but the spouse of my lord, Baron Hátszegi. Show your manners
if you have any and thank her for the honour."
The old rascal rose from his bench with cunning humility and twisting up
both ends of his gray moustache, politely kissed Henrietta's hand, and
would have paid the same compliment to Clementina if the landlady had
not prevented him by shouting: "Leave her alone, she is only a sort of
servant!"
With that she led the ladies into the inner room, where were two lofty
bedsteads reaching to the beams above, covered with bright bedding and
prettily painted over with tulips and roses. In the window screens were
wide-spreading rosemary and musk plants. In front of one of the great
chests stood a spinning wheel. From this the landlady, winter and
summer, spun off that fine thread from which were woven those bright and
gay handkerchiefs which could be seen bobbing about in the doorway of
the inn from afar. One would never have expected to find such ease and
comfort in a _csárdá_ of the _puszta_.
The landlady very politely divested Henrietta of her travelling clothes,
made a soft resting place for her with cushions in an arm-chair, put a
stool beneath her feet, and in less time than it took to draw a breath,
totted up ten different kinds of dishes that she might choose from them
the one she liked best. Perhaps she would like some leaf-cake? It was
just cooking and would be served up immediately, and she began spreading
the table with a nice horse-cloth. Clementina whispered Henrietta to
beware of poison, whereupon Henrietta told the landlady that she _would_
have a bit of that nice dish, and when it came she really enjoyed it,
though she did not know what it was, at which the landlady was
infinitely pleased.
Meanwhile Hátszegi came in after seeing that the carriages were put into
a dry place. He took no notice of the poor vagabonds, but hastily
demanded a change of clothes, as his own were soaking, and was amazed to
see Henrietta handling her knife and fork so well; it was the first time
on the whole journey that she had eaten with appetite. Henrietta said
that this peasant roast suited her taste.
"And now, Dame Kardos, will you put the ladies up for the night?" said
Hátszegi to the woman of the _csárdá_.
"Certainly," returned the worthy woman, "I have feather mattresses
enough and bedsteads enough for as many guests of quality as your
lordship likes. This bed will be my lord baron's and this my lady's, and
this the lady attendant's!"
"Not so quick, not so quick! I shall not lie here."
"Not lie here?" cried this child of the _puszta_. "Why, pray?"
"Oh! I'll find some place or other in the tap-room outside."
"It's a way great folks have, I suppose," murmured Dame Kardos,
shrugging her shoulders, "but I never saw or heard the likes of it
before."
"But, my lord," lisped Clementina, greatly agitated, "won't those wild
vagabonds outside disturb you?"
"Me?" exclaimed Hátszegi, "how the devil can they disturb _me_?"
"They are such wicked men, surely?"
"I don't care what sort of men they are." And with that he went out with
the utmost _sang froid_; nay, as Clementina herself noticed, he drew
forth his pocket pistols and left them behind him on the table.
"His lordship has no need to fear such men," the landlady reassured the
ladies, "for he can talk to them in their own lingo."
Henrietta did not understand. Did robbers then speak a dialect peculiar
to themselves? She became quite curious to hear how Hátszegi would speak
to the robbers in their own language.
But the landlady knew exactly what to do. She filled a _kulacs_[11] for
the baron and placed it on the table before him. Hátszegi took a good
pull at it, dried the mouth of the _kulacs_ and passed it on to the old
pockmarked vagabond who, after raising his cap, took a little drop
himself and then passed it on to the others.
[Footnote 11: A wooden field-flask.]
"Well, old fellow, is the wine good?"
"Wine is always good."
"Have you had enough?"
"One can never have enough."
"Then God grant you plenty!--By the way, does the wind still blow
through the crevices of the prison door at Arad?"
"It blows for him who lists to it. Let him who likes it not close his
ears to it."
"Have many children been born to the governor of the jail lately?"[12]
[Footnote 12: Whenever a new convict arrives at the jail, the governor
is said to have another son born to him.--_Jókai_.]
"Yes, lots have been born there--and christened too."[13]
[Footnote 13: _i.e._, with stripes.--_Jókai_.]
"Has the daughter of the cord[14] been married lately?"
[Footnote 14: A flowery expression for the gallows.--_Jókai_.]
"Only Marczi Csendes has been elevated lately. He was a fool. He took
the crime of two comrades on his shoulders in order to let them go free.
They were caught in the act, but he swore he did the deed. They were
young bloods, you see, and he had nobody to care for him. And yet it was
they who presented the empty pistol at the Jew's head. The Jew himself
pointed them out, but Marczi steadfastly maintained that it was he who
frightened the fellow."
"So they made him cold against the winter time?"
"Yes, but he didn't very much care. The hour before his execution he
took an affectionate leave of his comrades, and to me he bequeathed his
warm old sheepskin. When the priest asked him whether he had anything
upon his conscience, he merely said the only thing that grieved him was
the thought that he would never again be able in this life to eat his
fill of well peppered _gulyás_[15] such as old Ripa knew how to cook.
They humoured him, and I was sent into the kitchen to prepare it. My old
friend ate with a good appetite and wanted me to take a bit too; but my
throat felt as cramped as if they had already taken my measure round it
with the gallows rope. He gave each of the two heydukes who accompanied
him in the felon's car, one on his right, the other on his left, a
silver coin apiece. The heydukes told us afterwards that when he got
outside he rose up in the car and addressed the people. He was a tall,
handsome fellow with red cheeks, long black hair and a fine sonorous
voice like any chaplain's. His last words were: 'Well, I now look upon
this fair world for the last time.'"
[Footnote 15: Hungarian pilau.]
"Did he leave behind him any new songs," enquired Hátszegi. "He was
always a famous singer."
"Yes, one he made in jail, and a splendid song it was too, I can tell
you. Bandi! pipe it to his lordship on your _tilinka_ as I have taught
you." At these words one of the youths drew forth from his sleeve one of
those flutes made of elder-wood, which in Hungarian goes by the name of
a _tilinka_, and which with its poor six holes is able to give forth as
many variations as the throat of a lark; then, without any virtuoso airs
he simply piped the plaintive melody.
The baron was immensely pleased. "Margari," cried he, "go to the
carriage, look for my fiddle and bring it hither!"
At this command poor Margari had a veritable ague fit of terror. All
this time he had remained ducking down in the carriage firmly persuaded
that the robbers in this lonely place would cut down every mother's son
of them at nightfall. In such a case he was prepared to swear that he
had never belonged to the party at all, but would pretend he was only a
poor tramp, and so escape that way. And now the baron had ruined his
little plan by ordering him to come forth! The robbers would now
absolutely believe that he also was a swell. Oh, it is a frightful
situation when a poor devil has managed to get a 100 gulden into his
purse for the first time in his life and is obliged the very next
evening to put up at an inn full of robbers! What the devil did the
baron want with the fiddle at all? And then what sort of a thing _was_ a
fiddle? When a man is terrified he easily mistakes one thing for another
and Margari's first experiment was to carry in to the baron a long
leaden box containing the territorial chart of the Kengyelesy
estate--was that what his lordship wanted?
"Have you lost your wits, Margari? How could you possibly get a fiddle
into that? Or has the fellow never cast eyes on a fiddle? Bandi, you go
and look in the carriage for the fiddle!"
But this was not at all to Margari's liking. What, send that vagabond to
the carriage to ferret about there! His lordship must have clean taken
leave of his senses. Why, in the carriage was Margari's own brand-new
mantle, for which he had paid nine and twenty gulden. The vagabond would
be sure to lay his hands upon it. No, he would rather go to look for the
fiddle himself. So he found the violin case at last somehow, and handing
it to the baron through the _csárdá_ window (for he durst not trust
himself inside), he retired again beneath the coach-house, although the
rain was now splashing down upon it.
Baron Leonard took from its morocco case his splendid Straduarius, that
relic of the greatest master of fiddle-making, for which he had paid a
small fortune, and following the lead of the young vagabond's _tilinka_
played the bitter-sweet melancholy air on the sonorous instrument, and
at the third trial he enriched it with so many variations as to astonish
everyone. Then Ripa became enthusiastic and chimed in with his hoarse
old voice.
When the baron once had the violin in his hands, he was not content with
playing a single song, one melody enticed another forth, and so, one
after another, his fiddle-bow ran through all those rhapsodies of the
last century, those compositions of the "Gipsy-Beethoven," Bihari, and
other great popular masters, with the most classical variations. Princes
listen not to such a concert as now resounded through that wretched,
desolate _csárdá_. Even Henrietta arose from her couch the better to
enjoy these melancholy airs. If ever in her life, it was at this moment
that she beheld her husband in an aureole of dazzling light which
irresistibly attracted, overpowered, subdued.
One thing, however, struck her as strange, incredible--how could a
fashionable man brought up in the atmosphere of elegant saloons, find
any pleasure in playing _bravoura_ pieces in the tap room of a miserable
_csárdá_ to an audience of half-tipsy vagabonds? Was this an habitual
diversion of these wealthy magnates, or was it only Hátszegi's bizarre
humour?
However, when "the lads" began to chime in a little too vigourously,
Hátszegi restored the violin to its case, took out his pocket-book,
opened it before them all and nonchalantly displayed as he did so the
bundles of thousand-gulden notes which it contained. Nay, he searched
among them for stray ten-gulden notes and gave one to each of the four
vagabonds "for the fine song they had taught him"--that was the way he
put it--at the same time requesting them to quit the tap-room, as the
ladies in the adjoining chamber wanted to sleep and must not be kept
awake by any further noise. The vagabonds must seek a couch elsewhere.
The vagabonds, without the slightest objection, arose, drank up the
dregs of the wine, pocketed the bank-notes without so much as a "thank
you!" and settled down for the night on the roof of the coach-house--to
the great terror of Margari, who was concealed in one of the coaches and
did not have a wink of sleep all night, his teeth chattered so.
But Hátszegi, when the drinkers had withdrawn, spread out his hunting
pelisse on the long table, laid down thereon and quietly fell asleep. He
did not even shut the door, nor did he have his pistols by him.
In the adjoining chamber, meanwhile, the _csárdá_-woman had brought out
her spindle, set all its many wheels a-working and began to tell her
ladyship a lot of those wondrous tales that have neither beginning nor
end, _puszta_ adventures, the atrocities of vagabonds and their
fellows, the sad love stories of poor deserted maidens and such like.
And all the while the wheels of the spindle whirr-whirr-whirred
monotonously, and Henrietta felt like a little child whose nurse sits
beside her bed and lulls her to sleep with fairy tales. For weeks she
had not enjoyed so quiet and dreamless a slumber as she had that night
beneath the roof of the _csárdá_ in the midst of the lonely _puszta_.
Next morning Clementina, after first making quite sure that nobody had
had his or her throat cut during the night, was moved by curiosity to
ask what sort of connection his lordship had with this _csárdá_ since he
seemed to know everybody in it. And then she learnt that not only this
_csárdá_ but the whole of the surrounding _puszta_ also was the property
of his lordship, for which the people who lived upon it paid very little
rent, inasmuch as his lordship did not look upon it as a source of
income but chiefly valued it on account of its numerous reedy lakes
where he was wont every year to hunt water-fowl and beavers on a grand
scale. Moreover, from this spot to his own house, a good two days'
journey by foot, everything belonged to his lordship's estate. Nay, his
lordship, if he liked, could traverse the whole kingdom from Deva to
Pest, and be on his own property the whole time, it was only like moving
from one of his houses to another.
The next day the Hungarian plain came to an end and the Transylvanian
Alps drew nearer and nearer. In the evening they descended into a little
mining town whose forges and furnaces were all illuminated in honour of
the arriving guests. Henrietta then learnt that this mining town also
belonged to her husband.
On the third day, quite early in the morning, they crossed the
Transylvanian frontier. The whole of that splendid region seemed to
smile, but the faces of its inhabitants are sad and mysterious.
Henrietta had a peculiar sense of anxiety during her stay among these
angry looking people who spoke a language she had never heard before. At
intervals of a mile all along the road a roughly carved cross shot up,
covered with clumsily carved letters, which did not in the least
resemble those we are accustomed to. Clementina once asked the coachman
what these crosses might mean and repented doing so immediately
afterwards, for he informed her that they marked the places where
unlucky travellers had come by an untimely death; the inscriptions were
the records of the tragic romances through the scene of which they were
passing.
The valleys grew narrower and narrower, the road wound upward among
precipices, and the loquacious coachman attached horrible stories to
every rock and ruin. Each valley seemed to have its own particular
ghost.
Here and there by the roadside stood silent houses not one of which had
an inviting appearance, it would never have occurred to a human soul to
knock at any of them, even at midnight, to ask for a night's lodging.
They were all of them sooty dilapidated shanties, which might easily
have been taken for stables, consisting of a single room in which the
whole family lived, livestock and all. The church often lay far away
from the settlement as if it belonged to two villages equally.
Then the road rose again between bare and barren cliffs, where only here
and there a solitary bush seemed to cling to the rocky wall. There was
no trace of a garden, but here and there was a fenced in space in which
the Roumanians are wont to unload their hay, with a long pole sticking
up in the midst of the hay ricks to prevent the wind from carrying it
away, or else the hay was piled up on the branch of a living tree like a
bird's nest.
Down-pouring mountain streams traversed the path at intervals, over
which never a bridge is built, all cars and coaches must cross by the
fords. From the depths of the wooded mountain slopes was reflected the
blood-red glare of iron works and foundries, and the droaning monotonous
din of the machinery scares away the stillness till it loses itself in
the loud murmuring of the mountain torrents.
At every fresh mile, Henrietta felt how lonely she was in this strange
world, whose giant mountains shut her out from the very prospect of the
familiar places from which she had come and from every possibility of
returning; and whose inhabitants would not even be able to answer her if
she were to ask them: "Which is the way back to my native place?"
They travelled onwards till late at night by the light of the moon.
Hidvár was now close at hand. As the prospect opened out on both sides,
at the turn of a narrow defile, suddenly, like a picture in a black
frame, between two mountain slopes, thickly covered with dark
beech-trees, the castle of Hidvár came full in view, standing lonely and
isolated on the summit of a hill. The mountain torrent shot swiftly down
beneath a shaky bridge. The round moon stood straight over the tower of
the castle, as if it had been impaled on the point of it, and painted
everything with its silvery light, the tower, the bastions, the brook
and the valley--only one thing it brightened not, the heart of the young
wife.