Eyes Like the Sea: A Novel

I really must have been a very good sort of fellow formerly, that is to say, before my heart was hardened.

At last every obstacle was overcome. I consented to give away my ward, Wenceslaus Kvatopil's bride. Bessy received from her excellent mother (who was now a general's wife) intimation that she had withdrawn her sequestration from the money in the Vienna bank; the caution-money was deposited, the boa conscriptors were satisfied, and nothing hindered us from going to church.

The marriage party, besides the bride and bridegroom, consisted of two witnesses; the bridegroom's witness was a battalion commander, a major who brought his wife with him.

And here, perhaps, every one will ask me why the wife of the other witness was not there also?

It is an awkward question.

I might, I know, summarily dispose of the whole matter by saying that my wife had just gone, by special invitation, to act at Szabadka; she had been invited, but could not come. But this answer, I know, is unsatisfactory.

I would, however, first of all, lay down this axiom: "An honourable husband should give his wife no occasion for jealousy; but neither ought he to make her jealous without occasion."

The sacred truth is that I had never mentioned Bessy's name in my wife's hearing. ("Slipper-hero!") Did she know of her? I don't know. She was much too proud to have ever shown it if she did.

I had Bessy's portrait, and it was in the drawer of my writing-table. It was there even when I got married. And if it had found its way into any one's hands, I could not have said that it was the portrait of my grandmother. But this is what did happen. When the Russian armies broke into the kingdom, I, foreseeing the end of the unequal struggle, shouldered my musket, tied on my sword, fastened my knapsack round my neck, took leave of my wife, and went forth to seek the camp of Görgey—on foot. On my way I met Paul Nyáry. "Whither away so armed to the teeth, brother Maurice?" said he. "I am going to die for my country," I replied, with tragic pathos. "And what have you got in your knapsack?" "A ham." "Well, before dying for your country, let us have a bit of that ham of yours together." With that he helped me up into his car, and in the car beside him was already sitting Joseph Patay—two members of the Hungary Government at Debreczin, in fact. I was curious enough to inquire whither we were going, whereupon Nyáry replied:

Even with the danger of instant death hanging over his head, his bitter irony never forsook him. So I went on with Nyáry to Szeged. A week afterwards my wife followed me. Our house she had entrusted to poor old Dame Kovacs. The clever comic actress had no need to fear the Cossacks. When, however, the Russians occupied Buda-Pest, and the rigorous order was issued that all arms, uniforms, and Hungarian bank-notes were to be given up, whilst every one in possession of a prohibited object or a revolutionary proclamation was to be tried by court-martial and shot, then indeed the good old dame ransacked all the drawers of my writing-table, and crumpling up into a heap all she found there, including Petöfi's correspondence, a letter of Klapka's, the whole of my diary which I had written during the Revolution, with innumerable and invaluable data, pitched the whole behind the fire, and so they disappeared. In this great auto-da-fé Bessy's portrait was also reduced to ashes. I therefore have my suspicions that something was known about it, but nothing was ever said to me on the subject.

So that, you see, was why only I was present at Bessy's wedding.

The rendezvous took place in her apartments. Here I had the opportunity of making the acquaintance of my fellow-witness, the major of dragoons, and a very genial man he was. He was a good copy of a genuine Hungarian lord-lieutenant of a county. Nothing but cordial hilarity and jovial merriment, you would never have taken him for a soldier, least of all for an Austrian soldier. He blackguarded the "Bach100-hussars," but had nothing but praise for the Hungarians. He had not been shut up in Temesvar like the lieutenant, but had been fighting in Italy, and had only just come hither. He had the habit of seasoning his discourse with Hungarian proverbs and pithy aphorisms. He introduced his wife to me also. "My domestic dragon," he said; he could not dispense with his jesting even then. The lady, however, clearly did not belong to the dragon species. On the contrary, she was a remarkably pleasant woman, in the prime of life, with really handsome features. One thing I will say of her: when once she began to talk she never knew when to leave off. Her conversation knew neither rest nor pause. In my eyes, however, this is an advantage, for it is my invariable practice to entertain my lady friends by letting them talk to their hearts' content, while I listen.

When the bride was still in her boudoir, the major's lady made me thoroughly acquainted with the family affairs of all the officers' wives in the regiment. When the bride appeared in all her bridal glory, accompanied by the bridegroom, who held his helmet in one hand and a gigantic bouquet of camellias in the other, the exchange of notes between the witness of the bridegroom and the witness of the bride took place with all the usual formalities.

Towards me the major acted with the studied courtesy of a high Government official, but towards the lieutenant he acted the part of a senior officer from beginning to end. He ordered him about as if he were sitting on horseback and on the point of setting out for scout duty. And the lieutenant obeyed him like a machine. In fact, the bridegroom quite gave me the impression of a man sitting in his saddle at the head of his squadron. The small arms were beginning to fire, the musket balls were piping about his ears, the hissing grenades strike the ground in front of him, and he cannot so much as move his head aside till the liberating command sounds: "Forward! March! Draw your swords! On 'em! Cut, slash!" Stop! What am I saying? Here was no question of cutting and slashing! No; press her to your breast, rather! Is she not your bride?

Finally, at the word of command, we reached the altar.

It was all over. I had given Bessy away. She was married.

She bore up very gallantly; but then, of course, she had had a deal of practice.

But as for the bridegroom, every one of his movements had to be by order; he was accustomed to have it so. He was so moved indeed that he could scarcely draw off his glove, and would have forced the bride to stand on the right hand, whereas the priest wished her to pass to the left; and when the ceremony was over, he turned towards his own witness with the expression of a delinquent condemned to death who has now no hope left save in the mercy of the Court of Appeal.

"We have been married with our left hands," he stammered.

His best man reassured him: "Have no fear of that, my son. 'Tis the usual thing. The bride always stands on the left, but your right hands were duly placed within each other."

"Impossible!"

Worthy Kvatopil did not seem to know which was his right hand and which was his left.

On the way home the happy bride and bridegroom sat together in a little coach.

A splendid banquet awaited the guests in Bessy's lodgings. The table was already spread.

When the happy husband had conducted his darling yoke-fellow into the midst of us, he, without more ado, flung himself on the sofa, and, hiding his face in the palms of both hands, began to weep bitterly. Such a wonder as that is surely not to be seen for either love or money! That a bridegroom should weep fit to break his heart immediately after the marriage ceremony, and bewail the loss of his bachelordom in floods of bitter tears!

The two ladies, however, took him in hand between them, and began to entreat and console him, but he could not stifle this outburst of feeling. The major also reassured him very prettily: "Come, come, my dear friend, you need not take it so tragically. Look at me now! I've been through it all! Look how well I get on with my domestic dragon!" This, however, was poor balm to him in his great affliction. At last the major fairly lost his temper. "A thousand Turkish skulls! What's this, lieutenant? Do you wish to regale us with a specimen of the higher morality? Bombs and grenades! Embrace your wife, sir, immediately!"

Bessy looked at me as if she were on the point of weeping. I pitied her from the bottom of my heart.

"Mr. Lieutenant," I said, "have you ever learnt English?"

The newly-married husband was amazed.

"Yes," said he.

"From Ollendorf's grammar?"

"Yes."

"Do you recollect exercise No. 2: 'Why does the Captain weep?—Because the Englishman has no bread.'—Well, then, let us give the Englishman some bread."

At this every one burst out laughing. The lieutenant also laughed.

And so this scene came to an end. We sat down to table, and amidst the merry ring of glasses we made a good deal of fun out of the odd and mystical question of Ollendorf's, "Why does the Captain weep?" and the still more curious answer, "Because the Englishman has no bread."

The lieutenant's frame of mind remained an inexplicable enigma to me. In after years I discovered its true solution.

The cause of his weeping was altogether different from what Ollendorf had supposed.

CHAPTER XVI

My ward (she was four years younger than I) was very pleased with my polite elucidation, and the pair of them parted from me in the best humour in the world.

After that I received a letter from my ward every week. There is absolutely nothing in the most intricately combined knights' moves of the severest chess problems which can be compared with their peripatetic zigzagings. Now towards the south, a week afterwards towards the west, then up again towards the north, retreating, advancing, then back again; knocking about in such utterly unknown hamlets, that one could only discover them on the best charts by means of microscopes. Finally, the war took a flying leap into Wallachia and Moldavia, skipped about Jassy and Bucharest, and then leaped across and all along the Pruth, and at last settled down in Czernovicz, till it had to move on farther to Przemysl, whence again it happily doubled back by way of Stry, Munkács, Tokaj, Miskolcz, Kecskemet, and through Kalocsa again to Buda-Pest.

Bessy accompanied her husband everywhere. All the vicissitudes of the seasons which naturally abounded in such a martial pleasure trip she patiently endured with him. The letters which she sent to me during this period would make a very interesting chapter in a history of camp life. Opportunist reasons restrain me from making them public—they might deter our young persons (I allude, of course, to the female sex) from following Bessy's example.

Often and often I thought how accurately this young woman had foretold all these things of herself when we sat beside each other in my little wooden hut on the Comorn islet. In a straw-hut, in a cow-stall, in a besieged fortress, in a bare barrack, in the tent of an itinerant player, at the bivouac of an out-camping soldier—anywhere and everywhere, it is Love that makes us happy, and its sweet illusion can conjure up fairy palaces out of these wretched surroundings. And remember, too, that an officer in the field is by no means an amiable husband. Plagued, worried, chicaned by his official superiors; flouted by the weather; looking at the enemy with wolf's eyes, and kept back from falling upon him; eternally bickering with an unfriendly population; a guest beheld with evil eyes; and his wife (if he have one) like an iron chain hanging to his neck—it requires no small amount of love on the lady's part for her to follow him everywhere, and put up with his ill-humour.

And she had prophesied all this beforehand. What was to be the end of it all?

But there had been no advance whatever up the ladder of rank. My last letter was still addressed to a lieutenant's lady.

When the great universal war was over, which left behind it so much bitter disillusion, Lieutenant Wenceslaus Kvatopil again came tapping at my door.

Clerk Coloman was no longer with me. The Délibab had come to grief. I now edited the Vasárnapi Ujság, in the place of the publicly advertised and responsible editor Albert Pakh, who was lying ill at Graefenberg. My new name was "Kakas Mártin."101 Eh, what a popular man I was then! There were Kakas Mártin meerschaum pipes and Kakas Mártin clays, with bowls in the shape of cock-headed men. I really was in the mouth of the nation in those days. O tempi passati!

"Ah! 'tis you, brother, eh?" said I.

"So you still recognise me, then?"

I must admit that his physiognomy had considerably changed. During the campaign the officers were permitted to grow absolutely counter-regulationary beard-pieces. Wenceslaus was now bearded à la Haynau, that is to say, the beard was shaved so as to run into the moustache, till the two seemed one, which contributed not a little to the formidability of the whole face. But a still more notable correction of the features was due to his nose, which had grown quite red,—a piece of ruby.

He began by laying his index finger on the bridge of his nose.

"Do you see that? My sole booty from the Russo-Turkish war is this red nose. Last winter, while we were encamping on the Galician frontier, I happened to be out in the open field the whole of one night, and got in the way of a villainous Russian blast. The wind drove the powdered snow into my face, and each flake stung me like a red-hot needle-point. I was not even able to turn my back upon it. In the morning my nose was just as you see it now. That same week twenty of my men were frozen to death in their saddles, half of my regiment was down in the hospital with inflammation of the lungs, scurvy, and hunger-typhus. Of my whole squadron I only brought forty men home—and this blood-red nose as a trophy."

At this I did not know whether to condole with or congratulate him.

"I shouldn't have minded so much if only we had been able to fight with some one; but to go through a six-months' campaign without having anything else to do with one's sword than lay the flat of the blade about the shoulders of stubborn peasants during our requisitions for hay, that I do call hard. Sometimes our foreposts were so close to the enemy that we could see each other's breath, and yet we were not allowed to attack. At one time we were face to face with the Turks, at another time with the Muscovites. It would have been all one to me whom I pitched into, so long as I could pitch into some one. No such luck! Just when I was fancying that now we really were going to begin the battle, the order came again, 'Sheathe your swords!' and we marched somewhere else. I would have preferred storming trenches with cavalry to this sort of thing. And then that cursed maize-bread! Nothing but maize-bread, and not always enough of that. Half-roasted horse-flesh, too! Thank you for nothing!"

"But, thank Heaven, it is all over now!" said I encouragingly.

"It is over, certainly. But what have I gained by it?"

He pointed to his collar. There certainly were only two stars there still.

"No promotion. I am just where I was before. And yet our major has retired. He was obliged to go, poor fellow; every limb was full of rheumatism. Our senior captain was promoted to his place, our second captain into the first captain's place. His place is now empty. I am the senior lieutenant, but there's not a word said about me. It is enough to make a fellow blow his brains out!"

I earnestly begged him not to think of such a thing. He had other duties. With such an amiable consort too!

"True, brother! She really is an angel. I dare not think what that woman has gone through during these bitter times. She was with me everywhere; but for her, perhaps, I should have gone to the bad. Ah, my friend, you don't know what bliss it is when, after going one's rounds through a biting snowstorm, one returns to one's quarters to find there an angel awaiting you with a bowl of steaming-hot punch."

"I do know, for I've tried it."

"The punch never failed. If rum was to be had for money, she got it from somewhere. I have known her, sir, get into her sledge and drive a day's journey into town to get rum for me. A diamond-hearted woman, I say! And then her love, too! Despite this ruby nose of mine, she loves me. She says it suits me very well. Nay, she is not even hurt at remaining simply the wife of a senior lieutenant. But for her I should have sent a bullet through my head long ago."

I tried to comfort him with the assurance that a senior lieutenant in active service was worth ever so much more in the world's estimation than a general on the retired list.

He wound up by inviting me to have a glass of punch with him in the evening as soon as his lodgings were ready to receive me.

I didn't go.

Frequently did he invite me, by letter in his wife's name even, and yet I never went to drink punch with them. When we met together afterwards, I always invented some excuse. On the first occasion I said my head ached; on the second occasion I said I was too busy; on the third occasion unexpected country cousins had looked in upon me, and so on.

Every time I met him, however, friend Wenceslaus always wound up with the bitter exclamation: "I shall have to blow my brains out. Still no promotion!"

At last I was tired of telling so many lies, so I told my friend the truth.

Now, there are three sorts of truths in the world.

The first sort of truth is that which pleases my friend, but doesn't please me.

The second sort of truth is that which pleases me, but doesn't please my friend.

The third sort of truth is that which pleases neither my friend nor myself, and which brings us to loggerheads at once. Let me illustrate what I mean.

To take number one first, I might have said to friend Kvatopil: "My dear comrade, a constitutional regime prevails in my house: my wife reigns, but I am responsible, and I could never obtain her majesty's consent to a bill authorizing me to go and have tea once a week with your pretty wife."

But this truth I did not tell him.

But supposing I had said to him: "My dear lieutenant, I move in a completely different sphere to you. I should be infinitely honoured by your society, but I should not know what to talk to your colleagues about," that would have been the second sort of truth.

But I did not tell him that.

I told him the third sort of truth. I said: "My dear Kvatopil, if you want to know the reason why you don't get promotion, I'll tell you. It is because you are so friendly with me. I am a persona ingrata in the eyes of the authorities. Only yesterday the police paid me a visit, packed up every scrap of paper they could lay their hands on, and carried it off; they even took my pictures out of the frames. Then Police-inspector Prottman came and worried me for half a day by asking me what I knew about Kossuth's proclamation and the dollar notes. If you keep on visiting me and writing to me, and if I were to go and amuse myself among your brother officers, they would think it gospel truth that you were also concerned in the conspiracy. Fortunately, I always burn your letters of invitation, or Prottman would now be engaged in docketting them."

My friend was startled.

"I only invited you to a glass of punch!" he cried.

"Punch here and punch there! The police would be sure to read it 'putsch.'102 And look ye, comrade, to be perfectly candid with you, I think it would be better for you if you left off all this punch-drinking, for 'tis that which makes your nose so red."

Now that was the truth which pleased neither of us.

"You think so, eh? By Jove, you're right! It has often seemed to me when I swallow down a glass of punch as if my nose were assuming enormous dimensions and diffusing a radiance all about me. From this day forth I'll drink no more punch. My word upon it! What's to-day? January 23rd? Note it in your diary: 'On January 23rd, Lieutenant Wenceslaus Kvatopil gave me his word of honour as a gentleman that he would never drink punch again.'"—And he left me no peace till I had entered it in my diary.

"Nay, more than that, no kind of brandy, or schnaps, or wine, or beer; in a word, no sort of spirituous liquor whatever."

All this I had to make a note of.

"And now for a whole year and a day we'll watch the result. Nothing else now but pure water."

For a whole year after that I saw nothing of Kvatopil, nor did I hear anything of Bessy.

One day, however, my lieutenant suddenly invaded me again; he was still the wearer of two stars only.

"Now, if it isn't really enough to make a fellow blow his brains out! Again they have passed me over. I went straight to the Colonel. 'Your Excellency,' I said, 'here have I been in the service for the last twelve years. I have faithfully performed my duties. I have never used bad language. I know the regulations. I am at the head of the riding school—and still I am set aside. I want to know what objection they have against me.'"

"Manly conduct on your part, comrade," I cried.

"And do you know what answer I got? You were quite right, after all."

"Your suspicious intimacy with me, I suppose?"

"Oh dear, no! Who the devil cares for your chatter about the police? Not you it is, but this red nose! Here it is still, and it stands in my way." And he viciously tugged at the object that stood in his way as if it were some stubborn remount.

"I don't understand."

"Then I'll make you. The Colonel replied to my interpellation with perfect candour. 'My dear Kvatopil,' said he, 'you have indeed the very best good-conduct report. There's but one fault which weighs heavily in the scale against you: you are too much devoted to drink.' 'What? I? Given to drink? Why, for more than a year I have been drinking nothing but water.' 'Impossible!' cried the Colonel—'just look at your red nose!' 'I acquired that while campaigning out.' The Colonel shook his head incredulously. 'But I assure your Excellency that I am speaking the truth, I have written testimony to the fact.' 'Then I should very much like to see it.' So that is why I have come straight to you. My dear friend, I adjure you by your hope of heavenly bliss, if you love me, if you ever loved Bessy, if you would save the life of a human creature, to give me that note-book in which, a year ago, you entered the vow that I made on my honour as a gentleman, that I may show it to the Colonel."

I energetically resisted this proposal.

"My dear friend, all sorts of ticklish items have been entered in this note-book of mine which absolutely cannot be read by anybody but myself."

But he solemnly assured me that he would never while he was alive suffer the little book to leave his hands, and would only show to his superior that one page relating to his solemn engagement, so that at last I was obliged to submit to his discretion. He promised to return in an hour's time.

And he kept his word. In an hour he returned, gave me back my little book, embraced me and pressed me to his breast.

"My friend, you have made me a happy man. I have obtained my object. His Excellency, on reading the oath recorded in your note-book, laughed to such an extent that I could count at least four of his teeth that were stopped with gold. Great Heaven! he eats gold with gold, while I have to gnaw bones with bone! When he had somewhat recovered from his outburst of hilarity, he smacked me on the shoulder, and said: 'Mr. Lieutenant, a great injustice has been done you. You are not a drunkard. There has been a mistake. This must be seen to. And I promise you that at the very first vacancy you shall obtain your third star.'"

This promise raised my friend into the seventh heaven of delight. Hope gave him back the desire of life.

This now is the speciality of a soldier's life. We poor civilians can have no idea of the joy he felt, especially if we be nothing but simple-minded authors. For an author has only one star, and that is high above his head. If he can get it, he may keep it, 'tis his. If he cannot get it himself, nobody in the world can get it for him.

CHAPTER XVII

I submitted to his directions, and at the beginning of the autumn I undertook an audacious expedition—to visit the Western Carpathian Alps on horseback. Our good old friend Gabriel Török (he had been a Government Commissioner during the Revolution) and his two sons were my guides, for they had been all through those beautiful regions103 before. Five to six hours in the saddle every day for a fortnight, through pathless forests, up and down steep rocky precipices, wading through streams and mountain torrents, dancing of an evening at the balls frequently given in our honour, in the big-heeled boots that we had worn on horseback during the day, gobbling bacon as we stopped to rest on the fresh grass, and washing it down with a gurgling drink out of our brandy-flasks—that is what I call a radical cure for inflammation of the lungs.

It cured me, anyhow.

With my suite, which gradually swelled into ten strong, I visited Bihar, and found out the rocky grave beneath which reposes my good friend Paul Vasváry, who died such a heroic death.104 I also saw the Hungarian California, the gold-diggings of Abrudbanya and Verespatak. I painted that marvellous basalt hill Detonátá, than which it is impossible to imagine a more interesting formation. I was in Csetátye Máré, that overwhelming relic of the Roman power, a gigantic gold-producing hill entirely hollowed out by the slavish hands of a subjugated race. When they would have dug still deeper, the top of the scooped-out mountain fell in and buried beneath it both slaves and slave-holders. And there it stands now, a gaping chasm, like one of the circular Mountains of the Moon.

I love to look back on this delightful tour; and the lovely comet accompanied me in the sky all the time.

The result of my journey was that I returned home with perfectly healthy lungs. From the comet, moreover, I borrowed the idea of starting a weekly comic paper under the title of Ustökös.105 And this paper gave me something to do for the next fifteen years. During all that time it had great influence. With a preliminary and a supplementary censureship to deal with, it was only possible to say a word of truth or a word of encouragement in verse or by way of anecdote. Sometimes a printer's error served our turn instead. For instance, to the question, "What shall a Hungarian man do now?" the answer was, "Várjon és türjön" ("Wait and suffer"); but by a printer's error the "türjön" became "türr jön," which the reader, in his own mind, would read as "Türr jön" ("Let Türr come"), and associate it at once with the popular ballad sung from one end of the kingdom to the other, and which begins, "Hoz Türr Pizta puskát!" ("Pizta Türr he brings his musket!")

But the comet had another signification also.

In those days war was our universal prayer. And the following year actually brought it.

Napoleon III.'s historical new year's greeting settled the dread destiny of the year.

One day my lieutenant again came to see me; I was still his guardian. His face beamed with joy.

"God be with you, my friend!"

It was a strange beginning.

"I suppose you've got your promotion in your pocket?"

"Not that, but an order to march. Our whole regiment goes to Lombardy, and perhaps even farther. There will be war with Italy, but pray don't say anything about it. 'Tis a State secret."

"I knew it long ago."

"From whom?"

"From the Chief of the Police himself. One day he summoned before him all the newspaper editors in Buda-Pest and sternly commanded them not to write a single letter as to the preparations for the impending war. And thus we heard all about the coming campaign from the very best authority."

"Well, they certainly might have acted more discreetly than that."

"Where, then, shall I send you your remittances in the immediate future?"

"Nowhere at all, dear friend. Bessy will remain here. Nobody is allowed to take his wife with him, not even the Colonel; whilst from the very day on which the war begins I shall receive double pay. So give the money to Bessy."

"I'll send it to her."

"I say give it to her. Take it yourself personally."

"I am much obliged for your confidence."

"It is more than confidence. I wish you, while I am away, to go and see her: be her guest every day, and make yourself quite at home."

"The deuce! Do you consider me, then, one of those ninnies to whom one can confide a pretty woman à l'outrance?"

"Au contraire! I am convinced of the contrary. I know that in such matters no reliance can be placed upon mere honour. The only thing a man expects from his worthy comrades is discretion. I am well informed of everything. My wife has confessed everything to me: the little wooden hut on the Comorn island, and then the visit in your private room, the meeting at the Pagan Altar.... He, he, he! we know all the circumstances quite well!"

(It was an unheard of case. To think that a pretty woman should become the trumpet of her own notoriety!)

"But, my dear comrade, on my word of honour ..."

"Here we have nothing to do with words of honour. You were in love with her once, and I need have no further fear of any one who used to love Bessy. Jupiter was the chief of the gods, and had the loveliest of women for his wife, yet he didn't keep the ten commandments. 'Twill be better to pour pure wine into our glasses, I think."

"But, I repeat, I don't want to pour any wine at all into my glass."

"Stuff and nonsense! We know all about that. Bessy makes a fool of every man, and showers contempt on her worshippers. Of you alone does she always speak with rapture. Whenever your name is mentioned she sighs deeply, and says, 'Ah, and I might have been his, too!'"

"That proves all the more that our relations have been purely Platonic."

"Very good indeed! What I like about you best of all is the serious face with which you are always able to defend your point of view. Another man in your place would rejoice at his good fortune; you nobly deny yourself. You will compromise nobody. You have that advantage over all my other good friends. I would rather entrust her to you than to anybody."

"But why not rather trust her to herself? Foster within her the sentiment of fidelity. Write to her every day from the camp."

"Nay, my friend, a letter won't do. I can't be always scribbling and raving to her. Bessy is not one of the romantic sort. You know all her various temperaments."

"Indeed, I know nothing of the sort."

"Well, I do then. I know that the moment I've cast my right foot over my horse's back she will be unfaithful to me. It is as much her nature to be so as it is my nature to fight and yours to write. When I can't sit on horseback I'm ill, when you can't write a romance you're ill, and when a pretty woman is not flirting she gets the migraine. Your hand upon it that you will visit my Bessy while I am far away and comfort her!" And the tears really started to his eyes.

Now, here was a situation which is not to be found in any romance, and which the reader will, I know, only accept as true under protest. A soldier departing for the wars forcibly compels his good friend to try and comfort the pretty wife he leaves behind him. But that that friend should kick and struggle with all his might against such a marvellous piece of good fortune is a fact which I am sure I shall never get the enlightened public to believe anyhow.

"My friend," said Kvatopil finally, drying the tears from his eyes and violently pressing one of my hands in one of his, "you know that we valiant horsemen, dragoons and uhlans, are going down to Italy; the hussars have gone already. The volunteers will take our place here in garrison-duty. During our absence down there they will be raging furiously here. If I thought that mine would be the shame to see my place here taken by one of those red-braided, chicory hussars, I should be capable of blowing out first my wife's brains and then my own. Don't allow such a thing to happen. If one of those cockatoos were to see your astrachan pelisse with the large chalcedon buttons of yours hanging up in my ante-chamber, he would be scared into flight at once."

At this we both laughed heartily.

We took leave of each other very prettily. Kvatopil with the fairest hopes followed the glorious career which promised him fame and promotion.

The whole kingdom waited for news from the seat of war with rapt attention.

Our parting had taken place at the end of April. In May, the official newspapers gave us a brief account of the battle of Montebello. It was not a regular pitched battle, but a forced reconnaissance by the Austrian general with a jumble of some 12,000 men of all arms. Both the Austrians and the French fought bravely. The official communiqué did not give further details.

I, however, through the kind offices of a courier sent from the seat of war to the Commandant of Buda, also received a private letter from the field of battle. Kvatopil wrote thus:—

But there was a postscript also.

Now, this letter made it my positive duty to visit Bessy, for I could only tell her about it by word of mouth. I might indeed have destroyed Kvatopil's letter, then written its entire purport to his wife in a letter of my own, but in that case she would certainly have carried my letter from pillar to post, and the mischief would have been the same.

If I went to her in broad daylight, every one would see me. I could not go incognito, for I was as well known as a bit of bad money. Besides that, the Hungarian national costume was in fashion just then. Every one who wore it might expect to have his name bawled after him in the street for a week afterwards at the very least. If, on the other hand, I were to go to Bessy when it was dark, and they were lighting the gas-lamps, that would only make matters worse.

And again, it would be an inconceivable absurdity not to suppose that one or other of Bessy's fair neighbours would not be looking out of the windows of the house opposite, with the most persistent curiosity, to see who was going in at the gate. And if but one of them saw me, the whole theatre would know all about it on the morrow.

A husband with a conscience (and there are such husbands) ought in such cases to stand before his wife with a demure countenance, and say to her honestly and openly: "My dear angel, I am obliged to pay a disagreeable visit to this or that lady, and I don't half like it; I wish you would come too." Whereupon the wife will naturally be quite magnanimous and say: "Go along by yourself, my dear; you know that I am not a bit jealous."

But my wife happened, just then, to be away acting at Szeged, and would not be back for a week. That would be an aggravating circumstance in the case of a visit.

While I was thus debating with myself, a smart little maid-servant came to my door. She had a covered market-basket on her arm, and she drew out of it a neatly-folded little billet-doux, which she placed in my hand. The note smelt of celery, under which it had been put. I recognised the handwriting of the address, it was Bessy's. I opened and read it. The maid stood there and waited. At last she grew impatient of the long delay, and said: "I am waiting for an answer."

"Oh, so you're still there? Stop a bit!"

I read the letter once more.