CONCLUSION
Meanwhile the long drawn out process between Mr. John and his sister
Madame Lángai continued its course. There was no thought of a compromise
between the parties. Madame Lángai expended so much of her private means
in the action that nearly the whole of the property left her by her
husband went in costs. She could now neither keep her coach nor live in
a large house. She cooped herself up in a couple of small rooms, visited
nobody and wore dresses that had been out of fashion for at least four
years--and all to be able to carry on the action!
It was ten years before the suit came to an end.
Mr. John lost it and a fearful blow it was to him, for he had to pay out
a million to his sister without any further delay. It is true he had as
much again left for himself, but to be the possessor of only a single
million is nevertheless a fearful thought to anyone who has hitherto
been the possessor of two millions.
The poor plutocrat! How deeply it disturbed him to be obliged to pay his
only sister her due portion! How the constant thought that he was now
only half as rich as he had been before gnawed his life away! Poor, poor
plutocrat!
Szilard had a brilliant career--a career extending far beyond the
horizon of this simple story. He never married. Count Kengyelesy quizzed
him often enough and was continually asking him why he did not try his
luck again with his former ideal now that she had become a widow. All
such questions, however, he used to evade in a corresponding tone of
jocularity. But once when Kengyelesy inquired seriously why he never
approached Baroness Hátszegi and at the same time reproached him for his
want of feeling in so obstinately keeping out of the poor lady's way,
Szilard replied: "I am not one of those who can be thrown away to-day
and picked up again to-morrow."
After that the count never mentioned Henrietta's name in Szilard's
presence again--and who knows whether there was not some impediment
between these two from which no sacrament could absolve them. Who knows
whether it might not after all have been as well for Vamhidy to avoid
any meeting whatever with--the widow of the late Baron Hátszegi?
Yet it was she who was, in any case, the most wretched of them all.
Although only six and twenty she could already be called an old woman.
She was the victim of her shattered nerves night and day. The least
noise made her tremble. The opening of a door was sufficient to make her
start up. When she was only four and twenty she had already given up
plucking out her grey hairs, there were so many of them. She found no
relaxation in the society of her fellows and therefore avoided all
social gatherings. Most of her time she spent at home, sitting all by
herself in the remotest chamber of the house, half of whose wall was by
this time overgrown by the asclepia which Szilárd had given her ages
ago--or so it seemed to her. This was the only one of her acquaintances
which had not forsaken her, and luckily for her it was tenacious of
life, for if that too had perished, with whom could poor Henrietta have
held converse?
So there was at least one creature in the world to whom this possessor
of millions could still confide her reminiscences and her sorrows. Poor
rich lady, all the poorer because of her great wealth! Poor plutocrat!
THE END
[Transcriber's Note: Most obvious typographical errors have been
corrected. Foreign words may appear at some points in the text with
accents and at other points without, and proper names may be spelled
differently in different parts of the text. These inconsistencies have
been preserved from the original publication.]