Eyes Like the Sea: A Novel

From August to the middle of October I knew absolutely nothing of what was going on in the world.

It was a corner of the earth where no visitor ever came, and where the inhabitants themselves went nowhere. Now that winter was approaching, there would be a sledge drive, and communications would be opened up between Tordona and Miskolcz. Then one would be able to convey timber into the town. Of timber there was no lack. Csányi had four hundred acres of virgin forest to forty acres of arable land.

Day after day I rambled up and down these forests that had never heard the voice of man. Never did I meet a fellow creature. However many heights I might ascend, I saw from thence nothing but the smoking chimneys of Tordona. I discovered the source of the stream that sped through the valley. "Linden-spring" was the name they gave it. It was entirely circled by lindens. I hit upon the childish sport of cutting a water-mill out of elder-tree wood, piecing it together, and placing it across the little stream. Thus I amused myself.

One day I received a box of water-colours from my wife. I was immensely delighted. I now had something to occupy myself with all day. I filled a whole album with my landscapes. Then I painted that journey through the plain with a horse and a half in the covered car. I painted my own portrait on a piece of paper no bigger than a finger-nail, which could be inserted in a medallion. I sent it to my wife. Béni Csányi's wife asked me to paint her a portrait of her "old man" also. She wanted it about the size of a kidney bean; she had a medallion just as large as that. This was my only work in that terrible year.

CHAPTER XI

When the beech-mast began to fall from the trees in the beginning of October, unexpected guests came to us at Tordona—two country gentlemen from the beechwood district. They were kinsmen keeping house together, whose whole estate consisted of forest, and whose whole economy was an enormous herd of swine. They were both jolly thick-set men, with fur pelisses of nicely embroidered sheepskins, and boots of red Russian leather. They had come to rent the beech-mast district in the Tordona forests. Pig just then was an article not quoted in the market. Hungarian money there was none. It had all been destroyed. German money had not yet been introduced. Pig-rearers were therefore obliged to let their herds go into winter quarters. The pigs in question were really fine fellows of the good old Szalonta breed, with legs as long as stags', red bristles and pointed ears; they were half-savage beasts, too, who faced the wolf instead of fleeing from him. They develop but slowly, however; only after two years' time do they become as large as the Mangalicza swine. But they more than atone for this fault by the good quality of wanting neither stall nor sty; winter and summer alike they camp out in the woods and seek their own food, thus costing their masters no more than two florins a head, and three pints of palinka,65 which is the perquisite of the swine-herd. Each of these kinsmen had a thousand of such pigs.

And a thousand pigs give a man a lot to think about.

They were good, genial fellows. In fact, they knew not what melancholy meant. It was now the season when the new wine was beginning to ferment. The two kinsmen used to drink it in that state, and I joined them. It went very well with well-peppered swine stew.

They brought a new song with them also, and I learnt it.

From this song I gathered that there was now a being in the world called Gendarme,66 and also that the Magyars had no very great affection for him.

It was only after supper that the guests began to give me to understand that they did not yet know "whom they had the honour of addressing."

My worthy host constrained his honest features, and introduced me under the pseudonym by which I was known in the village, "Mr. Albert Benke."

"Surely not the actress Rosa Laborfalvy's younger brother, Bebus?"

"Yes, Bebus! the very same."

(That might pass very well. Poor Bebus! he had perished in some out-of-the-way corner during the war.)

"Why, I knew him quite well! I have a lively recollection of his features. Why, 'tis Bebus, of course! And how's your sister? Is it true that she's married?"

"So I have heard."

"To a certain Maurus Jókai, eh? Do you know him?"

"I have never spoken to him."

(And this was quite true.)

"You were one of those theatre-fellows, too, I understand?"

"Yes, I was an actor, certainly."

"I saw you once at Miskolcz. What were you playing then?"

"Claude Frolló in the Tower of Notre Dame."

"And won't you join some other company now?"

"I don't know whether there is one to be found."

"What! There is a troupe all ready at Miskolcz at the present moment. They mean to play at the new theatre during the coming winter, and then they are going to Kassa. Bálványossi wants to put new blood into his company. You know the director, Valentine Bálványossi, don't you?"

I was just on the point of blurting out that he was from the same birthplace as myself. He was, in fact, the person who had coached Bessy in the rôle which she had to play with me in our second dramatic entertainment. All I did say, however, was that I knew him by report.

"Anyhow, he knows you very well. He asks frequently about you. If he only knew that you were loafing about here he would certainly come and see you."

It only needed that!

"I was not aware that he was able to collect together another troupe."

"Oh dear, yes! Why, he's got a prima donna now. She is his wife also. Such a bonny little bride! She'll turn the heads of all the young fellows, I know. But you're in hiding here, are you not?"

"In hiding?"

"Yes, and I tell you what—entre nous, of course—Bálványossi also has reason to make himself scarce."

"Why?"

"Why, because he played such a great part in the Revolution."

"I never heard anything about it."

"Ah! but he might have been a famous man without your hearing anything about it. You also were a comedian during the Revolution, weren't you?"

I allowed him to suppose so.

Then the second kinsman took up his parable. He was better informed than the first one.

"Let me make things clear to you, amice! During the Revolution, the theatre director, Valentine Bálványossi, acted under the name of Tihamér Rengetegi."

"Ah! yes, of course, I remember the name."

"Many a nut has he cracked beneath the very noses of the Germans."

The other kinsman confirmed the statement.

"If they can only catch him they'll make the wind cool his heels for him."

"But that theatre director is really a most knowing rogue," explained the younger kinsman, with a laugh. "During the Revolution, he entered the service of the Hungarian Government and rose to be major. They say he performed prodigies. But at the same time he took the precaution to completely alter his personal appearance. During the Revolution he dyed his beautiful fair hair a deep black, and carefully fostered a gigantic moustache with whiskers to correspond; in that guise he looked exactly like Don Cæsar de Bazan. When, however, things began to go wrong, he speedily had his hair shaved off and his beard also, and is now waiting in retirement till his original fair hair has grown again. Then he will once more come before the world as Valentine Bálványossi; and who will dare to say that there was ever such a person as Tihamér Rengetegi?"

One really must admit that it was a stroke of genius to serve the Revolution with a black-dyed head of hair!

"When he hears that you are strolling about here he will most certainly come and engage you."

It was necessary to put a stop to this forthwith.

"I regret that I shall not remain here very long," I said; "I, too, have to go up to Pest."

"And what is your business at Pest?"

"I want to look out for some appointment."

At this, both the pig-Crœsuses pulled a very wry face. Whoever went to Pest in those days to seek an appointment was looked upon with suspicion. It was as well to have as little as possible to do with such a person.67

Henceforth the pair of them treated me very superciliously.

I, however, continued to go about and paint landscapes in the vast beech forests. I have those pictures by me still. What splendid motives I had; if only the hand of a true artist had been there to seize them! In the midst of the gloomy virgin forest lay the ruin of a Paulinian cloister—gigantic Gothic walls of grey granite; on the friezes of the pillars winged angel-heads; the pointed arches terminated in flowers, and these stone-flowers were supplemented by the living stone-rose, which grew luxuriantly between the mouldings. Behind the vast blue-shadowed ruin lay the dark beech forest; in front was a spring, which, in wondrous wise, bubbled forth from the roots of a huge prostrate linden. From the summit of the ruin depended a large and ample hazel-nut tree, the foliage of which was now a reddish-brown from the autumn frost, while from the windows the dark-green chaplets of the wild-rose tree hung down in the midst of cornel-shrubs and spindle-plants variegated with scarlet, pink, and vermilion berries. And the floor of the ruin is covered with a tangled carpet of brownish-green angelica. And there is but one single living figure in this vast and silent tableau. From the gloom of the ancient church porch a timidly glancing stag peeps forth like the mythical guiding-star of the Hunnic-Magyar pagan legends. Alas! thou white-antlered hind of our ancient leader Almos, whither hast thou led us? Would that thou hadst left us in Asia! There, at any rate, we should not have been obliged to learn German!

And then that other picture, the mighty stone of the Holy Ghost. This was a rock as large as a tower, which rose from the edge of the table-land. Close beside it were two gigantic beech-trees, whose summits just reached up to the middle of this rock, and Autumn, that great decorative artist, had touched the leaves of one with reddish-brown, and the other with golden-yellow. On the very top of this rock are three trees rich with verdure: how did they ever get up there?

It is possible to scramble up at the risk of one's neck, and from thence one can see fresh pictures to paint. From the dizzy height of the rock a view into a deep valley opens out. The two lines of hill opposite are closed up by a curved and undulating range of other hills. The setting sun lights up the hillside, and bathes the whole scene in transparent lilac mist, while the forest fringe of the summits projects in sharply defined golden lines. Down below, the valley winds along like a dark-green ribbon, and on the spot where it is lost in the evening mist is to be seen a little hut whose kitchen fire twinkles from the depths like a blood-red star. Can any human creature be living there?

But the most magnificent landscape-motive (in which I was happily immersed) was the panorama which presented itself from the "Precipice Stone." This "Precipice Stone" was the highest point of the beech mountain-district. Viewed from Tordona, it was like a projecting mountain-spar, but one could get to the top of it by making a long circuit. This rock was generally the goal of my wanderings. It took half a day to get there and half a day to get back, and at midday I used to kindle a fire of twigs and make a princely banquet of toasted bread and bacon; and then, sitting down on the dizzy edge of the rock, I would tackle the impossible artistic problem—at least it was impossible to me. Beneath my feet, in the foreground, was a dark spot formed by a crown of beech-trees, and where this ended there was a smiling little nook, and in the midst of it tiny, smoky, stony Tordona, with its scattered cottages, surrounded by their yellow dice-like vineyards, and their hills striped with green corn, above which the still darker green beech hills show their heads. Above these crowds the group of the Gömöri Hills, whose shadows are now deepening into lilac; but these again are dominated by the chain of the Trencséni and Turoczi Hills. These hills are of a clouded blue, and above them rises, like a fata Morgana, the princely range of the fair Carpathians, as blue as heaven itself, and only to be distinguished from it by the dividing line of their diamond-like snowy peaks. My skill was, naturally, not equal to such a task. If I succumbed when I struggled with it, that was not my fault.

With a mighty lead-loaded oaken staff in my hand, and a sharp kitchen-knife in my roomy jack-boots, I deemed myself sufficient to cope with any wolf I might meet on the way. As for a musket, those who had them took good care to keep them well hidden. Rumour said that to be found with a musket was as much as a man's life was worth.

The middle of October had come.

Another guest now arrived at Tordona. This time it was a heartily welcome guest, the merry-minded Telepi. He had come to fetch his little Charlie that he might take him abroad for his education. He was the favourite comic actor of the National Theatre.... He had a round face, a round figure, and was all vivacity, with sparkling eyes, pointed eyebrows, and tiny pointed moustache; it was just as if he had four eyebrows and four moustaches: he was Hungarian humour personified.

'Twas he who brought me my first news from the outside world: the horrible events of the October days, the inconceivable deeds of horror done by a madman,68 who was not even sufficiently punished by being burned alive twice.

Fortunately, I heard these things from a joking, smiling, devil-may-care, comic mouth! For Telepi knew how to season the tidings with so many happy anecdotes and comforting assurances that he quite turned the edge off the murderous knife. And then he was so full of optimism. "Our time is coming," he would say. "England and France are hastening to our assistance. The Turks are arming, the Americans are showing their fists." And when I shook my head at all this, he comforted me with the assurance that an amnesty was at hand.

But when we were quite alone, and nobody else was listening, then he told me everything frankly, and without embellishment.

My wife would have come herself, but she had been ailing; in fact she had been very ill. She was better now. As soon as she could leave her bed she would hasten to me at Tordona. I might expect her this very month. My wife had a plan whereby she hoped to free me completely, so that I should not be exposed to persecution any more. What it was, however, she could not tell me. She only begged one thing of me, but that she begged most earnestly, and it was this: until she came to me I was to show myself nowhere, hold no communication with anybody, let nothing be known of my whereabouts. I was not even to write a letter, for they might recognise my handwriting, and then all would be over. So I had to solemnly promise that I would go nowhere, and speak to nobody whatever but the good and honest men of Tordona. I gave my word upon it.

My wife sent me at the same time a warm winter overcoat, a large fur cap, and a pair of double-soled Russia-leather boots. Winter was approaching, and I should have to spend it here among the forests. Telepi also brought me a little silver money from my wife, for bank-notes were of no use here. She also sent me some coffee. That, too, was not to be had here, and I am fond of it in the morning. In the course of the conversation, Telepi inadvertently let out that my wife had sold her emeralds, had gone into pokey lodgings, and was living very sparingly. "But what's the good of fretting?" he added. "The God of the Magyars is still alive!" I shall never forget that jocose, smiling face, when, in the midst of his magnanimous assurances, a tear suddenly rolled down his round, red countenance!

Then I gave all the pictures I had painted hitherto to Telepi, that he might take them home to my wife.

CHAPTER XII

I had promised to go nowhere. But surely the forest is nowhere, and that Precipice Stone is, indeed, the most out-of-the-way nowhere in the whole world. Thither no man ever goes. Thither at least I am free to go.

My first, not very successful, picture of the great panorama I had sent to my wife. I would now have another try at it.

One fine autumn morning I again took up my lead-loaded stick, and said to my dear good hostess that she was not to expect me home to dinner that day, as I was going to scramble up to the Pagan Altar and sketch there.

The gentry call this rocky pinnacle the Pagan Altar; the peasants call it the Precipice Stone.

"But don't stay long," said Mrs. Csányi; "suppose your dearest were to arrive in the meantime?"

My dearest! As if she thought of seeking me out! They only put me off with promises, just as they tell a sick child that he shall have a rocking-horse when he gets well. It was exactly seven weeks since she had left me. What an endless time!

I made my way at once towards the linden spring, and thence up the forest hill-side by the often-trodden familiar path. The nuts came showering down; the frost had already tweaked the Cornelian cherries. I crammed my knapsack full of both: I shall have a luxurious banquet to-day. I also found a large coral-coloured mushroom; roasted in embers, it would make a tit-bit worthy of a gourmet.

It was about ten o'clock when I got up to the Pagan Altar.

When I went out upon the rocky ledge, a truly wondrous scene spread itself out before me; it was quite certain that I should never be able to paint it. The whole kingdom was under the sea! The autumn mist, like a snow-cloud, covered the whole landscape to the very horizon, from which towered vast snowy peaks and snowy cupolas; in other places the misty mantle resembled frozen waves, out of which here and there rose round, blackish islands, the peaks of the higher mountains. It was a faithful image of reality: nothingness. There was nothing left now.

I could calculate pretty surely on the mist descending at midday, and painting field and forest with frost; but till then I could sketch nothing.

So I lay down upon the rocky ledge, and marvelled at this motionless, huge, white winding-sheet which covered a whole realm. I had no thought of eating now. I hung up my knapsack with my bread and bacon on a spruce-fir tree, and when I had looked my fill of wonder at the sea of mist, I watched the itinerant ants who, following their regular road, crept right over my body, never troubling themselves very much about the circumstance that a giant, like a mountain range, lay right across their path.

At this height not even the thrush's whistle broke the stillness.

The sun shone down. Not a breeze was stirring. My head was resting on a large green mossy stone; I felt like dropping off to sleep.

All at once, as if I really were dreaming, from somewhere not very far off a song rang out:—

It was a man's voice, and I seemed to recognise it.

My first feeling was joy. I was about to meet some old acquaintance in that vast wilderness. It only occurred to me afterwards that this would be contrary to my compact. I was to meet no man who could possibly recognise me.

But it was too late to avoid him now. Only one single path led up to the summit of the Precipice Stone, whether one came from Tordona or from Malyinka, and my songster was evidently coming from the latter place.

The next verse of the song sounded very much nearer:—

And now I heard a woman's voice also.

Some one was telling the singer not to sing while climbing.

So there was a pair of them!

And as the singer gradually mounted higher and higher, his figure also became visible from behind the rocky ledge.

Yet nobody quaked so much as Fra Diavolo himself, when he perceived a human shape stretched before him on the ground as he scaled the very summit of the rocky ledge.

And certainly I was not a very reassuring spectacle, as, with my sheepskin cap pressed closely to my head, and a large cudgel in my fist, I slowly rose from my knees.

I recognised him before he recognised me.

"Your servant, Bálványossi! Why, how did you manage to get here, where not even the bird that flies can come?"

Then his terror was turned into joy.

"Ah, ha! my poet-friend! What a divine encounter here in Heaven above!" With that he hastened up to me and we embraced.

By this time his lady companion had also got the better of the rocky zig-zag which led up to the mountain ledge.

It was now the turn of my own heart to stop beating. That female shape was Bessy—the sea-eyed beauty!

How came they two to be together? How came they to be both here at the same time?

But it was no vision. The fair lady recognised me instantly. Her face, red already from her mountain scramble, could be no redder at the sight of me, nor could her bosom heave more than it was heaving now; but on her face there was a sort of holding-back expression.

Friend Valentine perceived the look of amazed inquiry on my face, and turning with true histrionic humour towards his lady-companion, introduced her to me with the words, "My grandmother!"

At this witticism the lady laughed, and I had sufficient self-control not to reply to this introduction with a single word.

"Then come to my bosom, my son, for I am thy grandfather."

"It is very strange we should meet here," I put in.

But my friend's features suddenly darkened as if he were obeying a stage direction like, "here he suddenly assumes a grave face."

"First of all, my dear friend," said he, "I demand your word of honour not to reveal to any one in the created world that you have seen me. You know that I am now Tihamér Rengetegi till the old blonde hair grow again (what I'm wearing now is a wig); for a heavy price is fixed upon my head. A word, and I am lost. Your parole that you'll say nothing about me?"

"The promise must be mutual, then," I replied. "I just as solemnly require you to say not a word to anybody about me, for I also am in hiding here."

At this he began to laugh. It was a stage laugh, for he placed his hand on his stomach, crooked his back, and turned upon his heel, choking with laughter.

"And you also are hiding away here from the Germans! Well, that is a joke!"

I inquired somewhat brusquely what there was to laugh at.

"Why, at your hiding—hiding away from the Imperialists. You, of all people! Why, don't you know, then, that very many deputies defended themselves before the court-martials by declaring themselves former contributors to your Esti Lap?70 Why, every one knows that you were the organ of the peace party at Debreczin. Every one is well aware that you were the ally of the Imperialists."

At this I at once flew into a rage.

"Have you ever seen the Esti Lap?"

"No, I've not actually seen it, but it was the general opinion among us soldiers that you were higgling with the Imperialists."

At this Bessy intervened by giving a good tug at her friend's collar.

"Rubbish! Such rumours are only circulated by pot-house heroes like yourself. He certainly was no traitor! Would that all who open their mouths so loudly were as good patriots?"

My friend, with sheepish obsequiousness, hastened to readjust his opinion to the satisfaction of his "grandmother."

"Good, good! I never believed a word of it myself—why should I?" said he.

"The best proof that I am not what calumny would make me is the fact of my meeting you here at the Pagan Altar; and again I beg of you to tell nobody that we have met."

Here Bessy again intervened.

"I'll answer for that. I shall now be constantly at the side of this honest gentleman, and if his tongue begins to wag, my hand will be ready to stop it for him."

Mr. Valentine laughed.

"What a woman it is! She really has a most rapid hand. Not a day passes but she lets me feel the weight of her palm."

At this I made a very critical face. My good friend could read very well from it that I wished to know by what right his cheeks were allowed to feel the force of Bessy's rosy palms day by day.

"We met together in camp, and the field-chaplain blessed our union to the roaring of guns and the beating of drums."

That was right enough, surely!

Bessy's eyes were raised towards me as if she could add a great deal to this short history. Friend Valentine thought it good to become loudly enthusiastic.

"What a woman, my friend! A heroine! A perfect Jeanne d'Arc! We were bound together by a whole chain of wonders and exploits. She was not my consort—nay! she was much more, my companion in arms. I'll tell you the whole thing one of these days."

"That will do...."

"What? That will do? Are you, then, so poor-spirited? I am ready to meet the spectres of the darkness face to face. I'll set in motion the avalanche which shall wrench the world from its hinges."

I left him to set his avalanche in motion while I went to gather dry twigs and leaves and make a heap of them. Meanwhile Valentine declaimed to the clouds.

"What a spectacle! The whole realm a sea! We stand alone, like the co-operating Demiurges at the creation, in the face of chaos."

"Have you got your troupe together?" I inquired, thus bringing him down at once from his pedestal.

"My troupe? That's just what I am going about now. Brutus must play the fool until his day has come. But when once the hour of retribution arrives, we will rise as one man and win back our outraged liberties."

"With my bludgeon, I suppose?"

"Oh, not with that sort of thing," said friend Valentine, with haughty condescension. "I have no secret to hide from you. An American hero of freedom has invented a weapon which, placed in the hand of a simple citizen, will give him an irresistible advantage over the hireling soldiery. Its English name is 'revolver.' I have one by me. Thanks to my acquaintances beyond the ocean, I have managed to provide myself with it. Look here!"

With that he produced from his side pocket a pistol, the like of which I had never seen before. It was the Colt revolver, for discharging five shots. You loaded it in front, and with this object in view, you had to shove out the cartridge cylinder and sprinkle powder out of the powder-flask in every loop-hole; at the end of the bullet was a nail, which had to be made firm with a cork-stopper, then the bullet had to be driven into the barrel by means of a hammer and ramrod, then the cartridge cylinder had to be fastened down again into its place, and pyramids of priming powder piled on the top of it—while the enemy was supposed to be looking on all the time and watching good-naturedly to see what would come of it all.

Friend Valentine had immense confidence in his wondrous firearm.

"You can see that I am prepared for every conceivable emergency. My faith, I will sell my life dearly! I may tell you, for you will not betray me. Beneath this Pagan Altar is a cave, the existence of which is known only to the initiated. I have selected it for my hiding-place. When the chase against me begins, and a whole brigade of gendarmes marches out to seize me, I will creep into this cave; victuals and brandy for a whole week are already there for me; let them riot round me then as they like."

I could not help laughing at these wise precautions. But friend Valentine's explanations became still more fiery.

"My friend! a single narrow little path leads to this cave. The bears used possibly to resort thither in the days when bears camped in the beech districts. If they attempt to storm me there, I can defend myself with this revolver against a whole host."

All this time I had been employed in piling up a nice little heap of dry twigs and leaves, which I now set on fire with my flint and steel.

Friend Valentine caught me nervously by the hand.

"What are you doing, my friend?"

"Lighting a fire, my friend."

"Why, my friend?"

"To cook bacon with, my friend."

"They will see the blaze of our fire from below."

"How can they see when the mist is so thick there?"

He admitted that I was right, and allowed me to ignite my heap, which immediately began to crackle merrily.

Meanwhile, friend Valentine went and stood on the edge of the Precipice Stone to watch the mist, and from time to time informed me of the changes of scene that were going on: now the mists were beginning to break, now they were rising, the houses would be visible almost immediately.

And all the time I was toasting slices of bread by the fire, and after that slices of bacon, allowing the bacon fat to drip gradually down and soak through the toast with a deftness that would have done honour to a professional cook.

Bessy took it into her head to follow my example.

"Give me the bread and bacon out of the knapsack," said she to Valentine.

"But what necessity for it is there now?"

"I must have it at once."

And with that she went up to him and began rummaging in the knapsack.

"Why, what a prosaic nature is yours!" said Valentine reproachfully to the lady. "At such a sublime moment, too, in the presence of such a glorious spectacle! Just look at that magnificent scene! The whole of the cloud of mist is rising like a stage curtain. The gigantic theatre appears like magic from behind the hanging cloudy tapestries. Behold the sunlit heights, the white shimmering houses. And now a fresh mountain-chain emerges crowned with dim forests. Just as if they were of massive gold...."

"Give me the bacon, I say."

"My heart, my blood is thine, but ask me not for bacon! Look how the earth rises up before us; nothing but mountains, mountains, mountains! Still nothing to be seen of the dome of Heaven! And that deep divine calm around us! Only from the distant forge resounds the measured thud of the sledge hammer, as though one heard the throbbing of the heart of the universe! And does not thine own heart beat faster in this sublime place?"

"It throbs, it throbs! Right sorely does it throb! But we'll look at the august spectacle a little later."

"What! Not look when an instant like this is worth a world?"

The natural phenomenon before us really was very fine, as the whole misty cloud rose swiftly from the mountains, covering with a deep shadow the sky that up to that moment had been shining bright and blue before us, and at the same time unfolding before us the muffled panorama of hill behind hill beneath our feet; the solar rays, like the broad diverging spokes of a huge wheel, shot down from the cloudy rifts with a milky sort of glare. It would really have been a majestic scene but for the false, disturbing pathos of friend Valentine.

"Nay, nay! I cannot view it standing on my feet! Here one should go down upon one's knees. Here the gods themselves walk abroad!"

Valentine plumped down upon his knees, and because Bessy would not follow his example, he wound his arm around her and clasped her to his breast. She, however, was impatient at his insipid vapourings.

"You are just like that professor," said she, "who held up his oil-lamp against the moon that his guests might see her better."

"Elizabeth!" sighed the Celadon bitterly (Bessy was a name which could not be emphasized with sighs so well as Elizabeth), "dost thou not remember that solemn moment when we said to one another, 'How sweet it would be to die together this instant'? Has not our common friend said (here he looked at me), 'A good death is better than a bad life'? Come, let us verify that saying: wrapped in each other's embrace, heart throbbing responsive to heart, a dizziness, a plunge forward from this rock, and then a delicious flight whose goal will be the stars!"

"Go away with you! Don't make a fool of yourself! I have no wish to plunge into Heaven!"

"But I'll bear thee thither with me like a Valkyrian. And thou, my friend, wilt immortalize our final catastrophe in a heroic ballad."

And with that he seized the lady by the arm, and rushed with her upon the steep rocky ledge.

"Hast thou said thy prayers to-day, Desdemona?"

Bessy looked towards me with a timid look. I pretended to observe nothing. What had I to do with these amorous passages? I was frizzling bacon.

"Dost thou doubt me capable of dying with thee at this moment?" cried Valentine Bálványossi, with his wig awry over his eyes.

Then the lady cried with a supplicating voice: "Nay; but help me, dear Maurice!"

"Very well, I will help you," thought I; "I did it once before, so you say. Poets have long arms."

"Friend Valentine," said I, without rising from my squatting position beside the frizzling bacon, "don't you see those two men with muskets coming up this way along the mountain path?"

"Wha-a-at, two m-m-men with mus-us-kets?" said the hero, his rumbling bass-baritone voice suddenly dwindling into a piping treble. "Where are they?" All his longing for death had instantly vanished, and he immediately released his victim from his embrace.

I indicated the approaching strangers with my toasting-fork. "There!"

Then he also saw them.

"Br-r-rother, those are gend-end-end-armes!"

"Possibly they are gend-end-armes, for there are two of them."

"Put out the fire at once!"

"I would if I could, but I can't now. And if I did, what good would that do? They have seen it already."

"I told you not to make a fire here."

But now Bessy turned furiously upon him.

"It is your stagey spouting that has saddled us with them. What business had you to go declaiming on the mountain tops? The people fancy you are murdering some one."

"They are coming straight towards us," gasped friend Valentine. "If they get hold of me, I am lost."

I tried to reassure him: "Come, come! recollect there are two of us; with my loaded cudgel and your revolver we shall offer a stubborn resistance."

"Br-r-other, they have guns which hit at four hundred yards, while my revolver has only a range of thirty, and it doesn't always hit the mark even then. We cannot risk so much. It is quite another thing when I am in the dark cave, and they are out in the light, for then I can see them, but they can't see me."

"Then you'll hide away in your cave, I suppose?"

"Oh, not for my own life's sake, but for the sake of my country, whose fate I carry in my bosom. The heels of my boots are full of secret despatches from England and Turkey. I am not free to stake everything so lightly."

"Well, go and hide yourself, by all means!"

But then Bessy put in a word: "'Tis all very well, but what's to become of me. I cannot crawl on all fours into your big bear-garden."

"Nor would I allow it. Is not our common friend here? He will remain here. You will not run away, will you? I am sure they don't know you. Your portrait has appeared nowhere, but mine has gone from hand to hand. A full description of my personal appearance flutters at every street corner. If they come, say that it was you who kicked up that row; say that she is your wife."

"I won't say that."

"Then do what you like. I rely upon you, mind!"

"That's all very well," cried Bessy peevishly, "but what will happen afterwards? If you remain in your hole, and our good friend goes home, what am I to do all alone here by myself on the top of a rock? I shall never find my way home through this wood."

Then my friend, with cheap generosity, made this magnanimous offer:—

"Dear friend, take her home with you."

So that was to be the dénouement of this odd drama!

"No, my magnanimous friend. Not so! You go and reserve yourself for posterity. We two will remain here. One of two things is bound to happen. If those two men, armed with muskets, find me painting pictures in my album, they will believe either that I am a simple painter (they know that Károly Telepi is wandering about on a sketching tour here, and they'll take me for him, and Bessy for—my sister); or they'll not believe anything of the kind, and in that case they'll escort us both to Miskolcz. In the latter case you need have no fear of turning back. If, on the other hand, after the lapse of a few hours, you creep out of your cave and see me sitting as before, on the rocky ledge, and peaceably continuing my sketching, then you will know that the armed invasion has passed on further, and you can come back again to the Lady Elizabeth. Then I'll give you my blessing, and we'll return from whence we came—you to the east, I to the west."

With this he was satisfied.

"But don't betray me!" he murmured, casting a terrified look upon us; "even though they hale you off to the block, don't say where I am."

I gave him my word of honour that not even the Spanish boot should extort his secret from me, whereupon he went gingerly down upon all fours, scrambled up the rocky summit by the corkscrew path, and vanished among the bushes.

"Ugh! I only wish he hadn't taken the bread and bacon along with him!" lamented the girl he left behind him.

"I'll share mine with you; there's enough for two."

And with that I seized my crooked clasp-knife, cut the slice of bread in two, minced the bacon into little bits, and sprinkled it with salt and pepper.

Nor was that all. I rubbed both sides of the toasted bacon with a knob of garlic. It was a sort of Oriental language of flowers. I meant to remind her that her ideal of a man was one who did not rinse his mouth after eating garlic.

Thus we were alone on the summit of the Pagan Altar, crouching together beside a fire of burning embers, and dividing a piece of toast and a slice of bacon—I and the former mistress of my heart.

That "former" was not so very long ago. It was scarcely three years since the golden thrushes mingled their songs with our chats. The idyllic contemplation of the matter, however, was considerably disturbed by the concrete circumstance that, during these three years, a third masterpiece of creation had found in my former paragon the rib that had been subtracted from him while he slept. Her first venture was a fashionable fop, her second an Antinous of the wilderness, her third was now a stage Othello.

And our feelings were still further subdued by the disagreeable tension occasioned by the approach towards us of two armed men, who kept on popping up before us in the clearings of the forest, now here, now there, but continually drawing nearer to the Pagan Altar. There could not now be a doubt that they were making towards us.

"It would be as well if I set to work and sketched something in my album while they are approaching," said I, "in case they inquire what I am doing here."

With that, I sat down on the steep rocky ledge, placed my sketch-book on my knee, and designed the contours of my picture on a grand scale.

The lady sat down close beside me, and observed how I looked now on the hills and now on my paper—but never into her fine eyes.

We did not exchange a word with each other, not a single word.

At last, however, I grew impatient of the silence, and without looking up from my sketch, I said to her: "I really thought that by this time you and Peter Gyuricza had filled the whole world full of butter and cheese."

But then, with both her hands, she seized my sketching hand, so that I had to leave off my work, and said, with a mournful voice:

"You have the most sovereign contempt for me now, eh? But if I were to tell you what frightful calamities I have gone through since last we met, then I am sure you would have compassion on me."

I told her that if she liked to speak, I could now listen, as I had plenty of time.

"You remember when last we met, don't you? When you banged the door in my face, I mean—though, God knows, I only meant to do you good then. I never meant to make you so angry, and immediately made the best of my way home to the hut of Peter Gyuricza. Ah! how sorry I then was that I had not pleaded my cause with you better. I had another reason for going to you. When the lawyers took up my case, the fair-haired partner offered me a little money, which I might repay him, he said, when I gained my suit. But I chose to ride the high horse, and rejected the proffered money, although I had really nothing about me but three huszases,71 which I had saved from the proceeds of the butter. That was not even enough for the steam-boat. A couple of florins or so would have done. But, of course, when you drove me out of your room I had to do without."