Eyes Like the Sea: A Novel

"I thank you," said the lady. "'Tis every bit as simple as the egg of Columbus. Then we'll wait, Anna and I, till the war is over, and till then we'll make one family."

"Let me call your attention to one thing, however. For the present it would be well if you were to hide yourself somewhere, in some little town, for instance, where nobody knows you. Here, in this capital, you will quickly find yourself in an awkward and untenable position. The story of the first wife will very quickly be known by all the world. The title of straw-widow would do pretty well perhaps, but the title of straw-wife won't do at all. Pack up your traps, I say, go straight off to the country to-morrow, and take your guests along with you."

"I'll do so."

We had scarcely finished speaking when the doctor knocked at the door. When there's sickness in the house one cannot deny oneself to the doctor. The doctor, too, was an old acquaintance of mine. He had a very extensive practice, and he was a homœopathist. I could take it as absolutely certain that when he went his rounds among his patients on the morrow, he would let them have, in addition to their nux vomica, or whatever else it might be, the very latest bit of scandal—to wit, that he had found me closeted with the pretty lady, and both of us in our cups—tea-cups of course.

I waited till he came back from his little patient. He satisfied us that there was now no danger, and she might leave her bed.

Bessy asked whether the girl might be taken into the country.

"Yes, it will do her good."

The doctor and I left at the same time.

I had no sooner got out of the door than I again stumbled upon Tóni Sági.

"Corpo di Bacco! And you have been sitting all this time with that pretty young lady?"

"And you have been walking all the time in front of the door, eh?"

The window of the house opposite was full of inquisitive female faces. I rushed into a coach and had myself driven to the railway station. The same evening I was at Szeged. There I remained for three days, and stayed with my wife till her provincial engagement was over. On every one of these three days one or two anonymous letters reached my wife from Buda-Pest of the following import: "My poor dear friend,—Your husband passes whole nights and days with his former lady-love, the lieutenant's wife. Our hearts bleed for you. The whole town knows all about it."

How we did laugh at these letters! But what if I had not traversed the intentions of our dear friends?

CHAPTER XIX

Esaias Medvési110

It fared with Wenceslaus Kvatopil as I had predicted.

I am very sorry, but I really can't help it. Willingly would I bring him back a full major if it depended on me; but it was written in the book of fate that the worthy officer was to end his heroic career on the battle-field. He had at least the consolation of falling in a famous battle. While MacMahon at Solferino broke through the mass of Schlick's forces, Benedek on the right wing pressed victoriously forwards and drove the Piedmontese army under Victor Emmanuel as far back as San Martino, and there it was that a mortal bullet struck Captain Kvatopil through the heart. Yet I am able to say that at that moment the kisses of his lovely wife pressed the lips of nobody but his own deserted daughter.

The two widows could now share the widow's veil between them in peace.

The bigamy became known, but of course they could not bring an action for it against a dead man. The events of those great days quickly obliterated all recollection of the petty scandal. Both Anna and Bessy could now assume the title of Widow Kvatopil, and nobody could have a word to say against it. There was this little difference, however, that while the one might style herself Mrs. Captain Kvatopil, the other had only the right to Mrs. Lieutenant.

By the intervention of her lawyer, and with my consent as her guardian, Bessy recovered her deposited caution-money. One thousand florins of it she gave as a gift to Anna, who returned with it to Cracow to her father's. The rest of the money Bessy invested in a pretty little house, in the village where she was stopping, surrounded by a pleasant garden. I was now quite easy in my mind as to her subsequent fate. She had now her own house, an honourable title—"Özvegy Kapitányné,"111 and a certain regular income. In the little village where she was she could play a leading part. In her present situation, moreover, she was completely protected against all the snares of the evil world, for in this particular village every man was virtuous, and the women ruled them with a rod of iron. To stumble, make a faux pas, and fall into sin was not possible, because it was not allowed.

I could now be quite easy as to Bessy's prospects. A woman who had learnt such bitter experience at her own cost could not help drawing conclusions from the past; and if ever she were to make her choice again she certainly would not allow herself to be led astray by superficial graces, but would judge him whom she might definitely and finally select as the partner of her destiny by his inner worth alone. I even took the trouble, with the true solicitude of a guardian, to write this beautiful and sensible phrase to her in a letter. I also impressed upon her not to give herself away to any official "for the time being," or any other kind of dog-headed Tartar, for such a husband could only be provisional.112 She gave me her word that she would not do so.

For nearly four years I heard nothing more of Bessy. She had fallen into the ranks of those women who do nothing to make people talk about them, and this category is the best of all. Every year I sent her the interest on her money; she acknowledged the receipt of it with thanks, and—that was all.

But I, too, had cause enough not to think of those lovely but dangerous Eyes like the Sea.

My evil stars were in the ascendant.

Not a year passed without a heavy blow descending on my head. At one time it was a dear dead friend whom I had to bury; at another time I had to go through a severe illness which brought me to the very brink of death; I had scarcely recovered when my wife also fell dangerously ill. Through the conduct of persons whom I had regarded as my friends I very nearly became bankrupt; I had to work day and night at my writing-table to draw myself out of the mire. Then my publisher bolted to America; then came a year of calamity, when nobody cared a fig for either books or newspapers; then I had to fight a duel through no fault of my own; and all along there was the wretched fate of my country, which demanded my help. The whole plan of winning back our confiscated liberties was my secret; I was the organ of the Committee, the organ that was tormented, persecuted, insulted by a derisive tyranny. Life under such conditions was like a dreadful dream—an incoherent, continually shifting vision of hope, an eternal nightmare; and when I awoke from this nightmare I found I was quite bald.

One fine spring the Fairy Queen of my fantastic dreams locked me up in prison by way of variation. Nobody can escape his fate. I had founded a political journal. I was its responsible editor and publisher. My assistants were the votadores of the Liberal party. We soon had a large public. I had quite enough to do. It was my business to write romances for this paper, and leading articles too. Once an admirably elaborated article was sent to me, signed by one of the most illustrious names among the Hungarian magnate families. Without more ado I published it. It was a loyal, patriotic article on purely constitutional lines, showing in the most matter of fact way in the world the justice and the necessity of a constitutional government for Hungary. On account of this article, the Governor brought both the Count who wrote it and the editor who inserted it before a court-martial. He signified to the pair of us beforehand that he meant to lock us up for three months for it.

The court-martial consisted of a colonel, a major, a captain, a senior and a junior lieutenant, a sergeant, a corporal, and a private; the last four were Bohemians. Before this Areopagus I delivered a powerful defence in German, to which they naturally replied "March!" The tribunal condemned me and my comrade the Count to twelve months hard labour in irons, on bread and water, with enforced fasting, loss of nobility, and a fine of a thousand florins.

When the sentence was read out, I said to the President:

"This is very strange. The Governor promised us only three months."

To this the President replied with a smile:

"Yes, three months for the incriminated article, but nine more for your high-flying defence."

Our sentence was for no offence against the press-laws. Oh dear, no! We were condemned for inciting to a breach of the peace. The Count and I had been throwing stones at the windows, and breaking the gas-lamps in Kerepesi Street! It was as public brawlers that we were sent to cool our heels in jail!

The reader must not expect me, however, to weave a martyr's crown for myself, or describe the tortures of the Venetian dungeons.... The whole of my life in prison was a pure joke and diversion. The Commandant of the place, with whom I lived, used to come every day to tell and be told anecdotes, and then took me out for country walks. He had my writing-table, my books, and my carpentering tools brought into my dungeon, and it was there that I turned out a bust of my wife. The Commandant also was passionately fond of carpenter's work, so we worked away together at our lathes as if for a wager. There was no talk whatever of chains or fetters, and I was allowed to have with my bread and water the best that money could purchase from the inn. In the afternoons my friends from the Pest Club came to play cards with me, so that when, on one occasion, one of my most radical acquaintances, Beniczky, entered my apartment and looked around, he exclaimed with contemptuous indignation: "Call this a dungeon! Why, there's no romance at all about this sort of thing!"

Once I took my fellow-prisoner and my jailer to my villa at Svabhegy, where my wife had made ready for us a splendid supper. I tapped my new wine, and we amused ourselves to such a very late hour that when we returned they would hardly let us into prison again. Fortunately we had the Provost with us, and with our assistance he managed to force his way in.

And then my visitors!

In the whole course of my life I never received so many visitors as during the month that my year's captivity lasted. In the following month, by the way, I had to make room for the editor of the officious government, who was also condemned by the court-martial for disturbing the public peace.

I was sought out in my dungeon by all sorts of good friends, who came from far—lords and ladies, countesses and actresses. It happened once that a magnate's wife, who was a great invalid, and therefore could not ascend to the second flight where our prison was, begged us to come down to her carriage, and there we received our visitor in the street—poor slaves that we were!

In fact, I had too much of a good thing.

How could I work when my admirers were crowding at my latch all day long? At last I had to beg my jailer, with tears in my eyes, to sentence me to solitary confinement for a couple of hours every day, and write on my door the hours when I was free to receive company. "Wasn't I in prison?" I said.

I had an honest Bohemian lad as my servant. His name was Wenceslaus. We soon got to understand each other very well.

I explained to him that at certain hours when I was sitting down to work nobody was to be admitted—except when a pretty woman came to see me.

Honi soit qui mal y pense!

And singularly enough, one cannot imagine a more convenient place for an assignation than such a dungeon as mine. I only wonder that our bon-viveurs have not grasped the fact. And what a capital place for an afternoon nap such a locality really is! The best advice I can give to any one who suffers from sleeplessness is—get yourself locked up! Is it not a special mercy of Providence that slaves can sleep so soundly?

One afternoon Wenceslaus aroused me from my sweet afternoon nap with the intimation that a pretty woman wanted to speak to me.

"Really pretty?"

"Oh yes!"

"Oh yes?"

"Oh yes, yes!"

It was indeed "oh yes!" for it was Bessy.

She was dressed in complete mourning, with a black silk veil over her head. I saw from her eyes that she was in mourning for my fate.

I anticipated her by making her a compliment.

"Why, how nice you look, my dear ward! The country air seems to agree with you."

With this I put a stop to her tearful anxiety on my account.

"I see that the air of a dungeon has not done you much harm, either."

"And how did you get in here?"

"Not very easily, I can tell you. They would hardly let me in. They said that the prisoner was confined to his room. I thought of giving the warder a box on the ears, and then perhaps they would have shut me up along with you by way of punishment."

"That would have, indeed, been a heavy chain to bear."

She laughed.

"I understand the allusion. My figure has become a little sturdy, I know. What else has a person to do in a little country town but grow fat?"

"It is a sign of peace of mind," I said.

I offered her my arm-chair, and in this act of politeness she read another allusion.

"It has good strong legs, I hope?" said she, as she sat down in it.

I must candidly admit that her figure had grown pronouncedly rotund, but this by no means injured her beauty. She really looked quite appetizing! I was very glad, too, to see her again.

"Don't take my remarks amiss," I said; "it is so good for the poor slave when a smiling lady's face lights up the gloom of his dungeon. A sweet, melodious woman's voice sounds so consolingly amidst the clanking of his fetters."

"I am glad to see that you preserve your good humour, for I have come to you on a very serious business."

"What! Then it was not tender sympathy for the poor captive that brought you hither?"

"That also—I may even say principally. Every day I read in the Fövárosi Lapok how many and what sort of visitors you receive—noble ladies, pretty actresses, and what not. Well, thought I, if they may go and see him, it is only my duty to go too. At the same time there are other circumstances which have brought me here."

At this she furtively looked around her.

"Won't they hear what we are talking about through that door?"

"Have no fear. That room is empty. My fellow-prisoner is provided with a separate apartment."

"I have come to inform you of something. I have petitioned the office of wards to relieve you from your guardianship."

"And you've very good cause, too, I think, seeing that I myself have been under guardianship for some time."

"That's not my reason, however. But my position has now become such as to make it indispensable for me to have the free disposal of my money."

"May I guess the cause? Another misfortune has happened. We have lost our heart again, eh?"

Bessy covered her blushing face with her silk veil.

"Eh, but how you do always detect a thing at once! You would have made a capital magistrate."

"But it is such a natural thing to suppose. You are so young, you know."

"I am well advanced in the thirties."

"You are only four years over thirty. I ought to know, for I was at your christening. Then you have once more discovered your ideal?"

"This time I most solemnly believe that I really have found him."

"But no provisional person, I hope?"

"Don't insult me, please."

"I'm above such a thing. But, as your guardian, I would not have given my consent to it; so I was bound to suppose that that was why you wanted to be freed from my guardianship."

"Not at all! In future also I mean to take your advice as though it came from my own father. Scold me as much as you like when you catch me tripping. I will continue to be your obedient ward if only you don't shut the door in my face. All I want is my money. Believe me when I say I will do nothing frivolous with it. The sum will remain to my credit, but I wish to be free to use it as I like in the future."

"I presume your bridegroom is some squire to whom the amount will be of service?"

"He is not a squire."

"Then perhaps he is a merchant? That also is an honourable walk in life. In good commercial hands the amount will yield a nice income."

"He is not a merchant."

"Then perhaps he is a manufacturer, the proprietor of a saw-mill or a steam-mill?"

"Neither the one nor the other."

"Then what on earth is he?"

"My bridegroom is a worthy and eminent schoolmaster, whose name is Esaias Medvési."

"Esaias Medvési! But what the deuce does a village schoolmaster want with twenty-five thousand florins?"

"I'll tell you presently. But I must go a little farther back first. Have you the time to listen to my story?"

"Of course I have: I remain at home all day."

"Will nobody interrupt us?"

"My servant is a very sensible fellow, he knows the rules of the place."

"But won't they lock the door of the prison behind me?"

An ordinary person would have replied to this question that it would have been no great harm if they did; but I pulled out the drawer of my writing-table and showed the fair lady that I had my own key for opening my prison door. At this she laughed and seemed quite satisfied.

"Well, I'll begin by telling you how I made his acquaintance."

"What, your Ezzy?"

"I beg your pardon, but you must always pronounce the name in full, or you will aggravate its owner. He is very particular about giving to every one his full name and corresponding titles; never breaks that rule himself, and constantly addresses me as 'Worthy dame Captain!' It is in vain to call me 'Madame' in his presence, for he roundly maintains that such a title belongs to the consort of the Prince of Transylvania only. His motto is 'suum cuique.' Oh, I've learnt such a lot of Latin since I made his acquaintance?"

"Oh, then you have been taking Latin lessons from him, and so the acquaintance began?"

"No irony, please! It didn't begin that way at all. I suppose you know that in our little town there is a very well attended Calvinist church?"

"I know it pretty well."

"And I am a very zealous church goer?"

"That I did not know."

"With us the laudable custom prevails of going to church every Sunday for the purpose of devotion."

"And to show off your new bonnets."

"Don't make fun of me, please. Esaias is not only the schoolmaster, but the cantor and the organist as well. He has a splendid bass voice. When he intones the verse—

the whole podium trembles. It was that wondrously beautiful voice which first enthralled me."

"But I should have thought that the organ would have drowned the sound of the hymn?"

"But not only in church have I had the opportunity of hearing him, but at funerals also."

"Then you condescend to go to funerals too?"

"Not as a habit. But you must know that most of the people there beg me to act as sponsor to their new-born children. Now, two-thirds of our children seem only born to die, and I am obliged to always go to the funerals of my little protégés."

"Then Esaias is in the habit of speaking and singing over them?"

"Yes, and what beautiful speeches they are too, all in verse."

"So Esaias is a poet into the bargain?"

"Yes, he really makes most beautiful verses."

"And I've no doubt he wrote a nice onomasticon on St. Elizabeth's Day?"

"He did nothing of the kind. He's not that sort of man. It is not his habit to flatter anybody; on the contrary, he always tells them the truth to their faces."

"That is generally the distinguishing characteristic of all Calvinist schoolmasters."

"Well, but let us keep to the point. I left off at the funerals, I think. I was struck by the frequent mortality among our little ones, and set in movement a project among the ladies of the town for starting a crèche. The idea found zealous partisans. We soon found a large meeting-room; the ladies supplied linen in large quantities; milk and other necessary aliments were provided by public subscription; money we resolved to collect in the usual way."

"By a charitable concert?"

"I see that you are a practical man. A charitable concert was indeed arranged, and a committee of seven appointed to manage it. The sessions of this committee were held in my house; mine was the most convenient locality, and I had a piano besides. Each member of the committee had her part assigned to her: one was to recite, another to sing a solo, a third to give a comic reading, a fourth to play a piece on the piano, a fifth to dance a Hungarian dance; I was to fiddle, Esaias was to sing the high priest's aria from the opera of Nabucco: 'He who trusts in the Lord!'—You know the rest."

"Of course I do. At the first meeting of the committee one of the members had a slight misunderstanding with another member, at the second meeting a second member had a second misunderstanding, and by the time the fifth meeting was held Esaias and yourself were left to practise alone."

"That is, word for word, what did happen, with this little difference, that we never had any practice at all. On the fifth occasion, four of the six members of the committee sent letters of excuse. Every one of them was ill. It was a veritable epidemic. Only the dancing master found no excuse for himself. As he was the only dancing-master in the town he could not go and lie that he had sprained his foot.

"Esaias walked three times up and down in front of my house, puffing away at his big pipe. Every time he passed he looked up at the window, and, seeing nobody there, went on farther.

"At last the dancing-master came chassé-ing up; I could see from his grinning face that he had some ill-tidings to tell me. Only people who have found some excuse for covering their retreat come smiling like that.

"'My lady! I am inconsolable'—('I know all about that!' thought I)—'but I can't come to the concert. Our gipsy musicians have gone to Pest.' ('What do they want there?' I asked.) 'All the gipsy bands in the kingdom have assembled together for a grand competition.... Now, without gipsy music I can't dance. Who can play me the "Bihari Kesergó," I should like to know?' ('I will!' I said.) 'Ha! ha! ha! that wouldn't do at all! What? one dancer and one violin-player!—it would be a mere farce.'

"Hereupon Esaias popped in. Seeing through the window that I was no longer alone, he took heart and came in. He had not dared to do so before."

Here I intervened: "If I am not very much mistaken, I know this dear Esaias of yours. It once happened to him, while still a student, that he sat beside the priest's daughter at supper. He did not dare to say a word to her; but in the afternoon he went up the church tower and courted the young lady from one of the windows."

"It is possible that it was he. I, however, made both the gentlemen stay, that at least the coffee and 'cowl-skippers'113 might not be wasted. They did not wait to be asked twice, but ate with right good will. During the meal we fully discussed the best means of helping forward the stranded concert. Suddenly the dancing-master looked at his watch: 'Gracious me, if it isn't six o'clock! I must be off to give the children of the chief magistrate a dancing-lesson'—and with that he jumped up, kissed my hand, and pirouetted off.

"Then Esaias also rose from the table, brushed the crumbs of the cowl-skippers from his coat, and said: 'Blessing and peace be with you!'—This was always his parting formula. Such a salutation as 'Your humble servant!' or 'I commend myself to your protection!' nobody has ever heard from his lips—no, not even his superintendent; for Esaias is not humble and not your servant, and does not commend himself to anybody, nor will he tell a lie even as a matter of form.

"'What! must you go too?' I replied to his 'blessing and peace.' 'You have no six-o'clock school this evening.'

"'No; but why should I stay here if there's to be no practice?'

"'Must I, then, begin singing in my own house before a man?'

"'It depends upon the man,' replied Esaias.

"'What am I to understand by that?' I inquired, much astonished.

"'What are you to understand by that?' said he, striking the leg of his boot repeatedly with his pipe stem—'what are you to understand by that? It is not very hard to understand, I should think. If a lawyer, a doctor, or a squire were to come to see you and amuse himself here with or without music, not a dog in the village would have anything to bark at; but if they saw the schoolmaster come here at six o'clock in the afternoon—if they saw him, I say, remain here last of all when the other guests were gone, then there would be such a stir in Israel that men would be ready to stone me.'

"'Do I stand, then, in such evil odour as all that?'

"'I did not say that you were in any evil odour at all.'

"'It is true,' he continued, 'that there are as many names written in your album as in Charles Trattner's almanack. That, however, does a pretty woman no harm. But me the Church would not forgive. If I get into evil odour, if I overstep the line, I shall be sent packing.'

"'Then celibacy obtains among the Calvinists also?'

"'Not celibacy, but we have the canonical prescriptions. A canonical offence is a very serious business for a Calvinist priest or schoolmaster. Let a man be a veritable John Chrysostom, and it will avail him nothing if he commit a canonical offence.'

"'And you have never committed a canonical offence?' I said to him.

"'Never!' he replied resolutely. And he grew quite red in the face. He was so proud of his virtue."

"Why surely this is quite a new thing?" I interrupted—"a thing never known in the world before: a man who is virtuous, and not ashamed to confess it?"

"Quite unique, isn't it? When I heard this I seized his hand and would not let him leave me. I could read from his eyes that it was the first time he had ever felt the pressure of a lady's hand. 'You have been candid,' I said to him, 'I will be candid also. You would never approach a woman whom you had not led to the altar. I know it. Then you shall lead me to the altar!'

"Even this did not seem to surprise him. His face remained as motionless as a statue.

"'That is soon done,' said he; 'but respice finem! Man proposes, but 'tis an old dog that holds on. I am not like other men. I am a very difficult man to get on with. You can't deal with me as with those who look through their fingers at the goings-on of their spouses. If I take you to wife, there must be an end to all this dancing and prancing and gadding about, and flirting and ogling. My wife will not have to go fasting, but she won't be allowed any junketing. I don't understand a joke. Do you see this cherry-wood pipe-stem? If I catch my wife at any piece of trickery, I'll break this cherry-stem across her back—take my word for it.'"

I couldn't help smiling at this. "And you, my dear, pretty ward, have actually taken the schoolmaster to husband, cherry-stem and all?"

"I should like to have taken him, but he didn't surrender himself so easily. I assured him that I would submit myself to the most stringent discipline of virtue, and if I transgressed against him, I should not mind his beating me. But even that did not vanquish him. By no means whatever could he be brought to sit down beside me on the sofa. He even pushed back the chair on which he was sitting, when he saw that I was besieging him. At last he brought his big guns to bear upon me.

"'Look now, my dear dame, I know very well that humorous habit of yours of never remaining long in one nest. You deal with your sweethearts on a sort of give-and-take system. You are here to-day and off to-morrow. Supposing now, that in the exercise of my marital authority, I were to inflict an edifying chastisement upon you for your flightiness, you might easily take it into your head to bolt, and there should I be left in the lurch for the finger of scorn to point at. A Calvinist schoolmaster cannot submit to the fate of an ordinary man. If my wife were to leave me, I should be expelled from the Church with contumely. Then I should have to flee. I should be as good as excluded from human society. Now, I am very well satisfied with my present condition. I have a fixed salary of six hundred florins in good hard cash, and my perquisites amount to about as much again. I live honourably, you see, and I cannot afford to stake everything on a throw of the dice.'

"Then I talked big also.

"'Listen to me!' I said. 'I have capital sufficient to bring me in as much as your yearly income—that is to say, twenty-five thousand florins. I will make over the whole amount to you by way of a dower, and I am ready to forfeit it all in case I am unfaithful to you.'"

"And didn't your Esaias capitulate even then?" I inquired of Bessy.

"He asked for three days to think about it. I immediately hastened to you to signify my desire that your guardianship might cease."

"Then Esaias has still two days' grace," I said. "I hope and trust he may be inwardly illuminated to say no!"

"Then you do not approve of my determination?"

"I am a friend of truth, and I understand a little about prophecy too. It doesn't matter to me if you surrender all your capital as a sort of shrift-money, and your house as well."

"Such a man as he is worthy of it."

"I'll take your word for it. You are something of an expert in such matters! But one thing I strongly advise you to do: keep the garden attached to the house at your own disposition."

"Why?"

"That you may have it planted full of cherry-trees. I know the natural history of the Calvinist-schoolmaster species. I know that what once he has promised he always performs. I also know the natural history of the lady with the eyes like the sea, and it is my belief that you will frequently give occasion for the employment of cherry-tree stems."

At this the fair lady sprang from her chair, boiling over with rage.

"What a gross monster it is! Poet indeed! A pedantic lout is what I call you! They've done very well to lock you up. This is the last time that we shall ever talk to each other."

And with that she went, or rather flounced, away.

But I gave a great sigh of relief.

"May she keep her word, and never, never come back again!" I said.

One of the first things I saw, on my release from prison, was the announcement in the newspapers of the solemnization of the marriage. The bank also informed me by letter that the amount there standing to the credit of my ward had been transferred to her husband's name.

Well, at last Bessy had got the ne plus ultra of husbands. For, really, the man who has reached his two-and-thirtieth year without sinning against the canonical prescriptions must indeed be a superlative treasure in the eyes of a lady who knows how to appreciate the value of such renunciation.

CHAPTER XX

Her name is Politica,114 and may the plague take her.

There was one particular year in which I was over head and ears in love with her, and did absolutely everything she wanted. On her account I fell out with a good friend of mine who was the very right hand of my newspaper. I fought (also on her account) a duel with pistols with another good friend of mine, who had no more offended me than I had ever offended him, in fact, we had always respected each other most highly. But Politica insisted upon it, and so we banged away at each other. Then she hounded me on against a third good friend of mine, who was an excellent fellow, and a Hungarian Minister of State to boot, and induced me to endeavour to thwart his election. And I actually did make this excellent fellow's election fall through, this good friend whom I respected, loved and honoured. Politica demanded it. What a parade she made when she dragged me along after her triumphal car! She actually made me believe that I was now the most famous man in the whole kingdom! And she made me pay for her precious favours, too! What petits soupers for five hundred men at a time! What hundreds of carriages! What toilets!... But in those days I was quite wrapped up in her.

After my great triumph a torrent of congratulatory letters and telegrams showered down upon me. I had actually upset a Cabinet Minister! That was a triumph! Every one who, at any time, or under any circumstances, had been acquainted with me, called upon me after my brilliant success. Old school-fellows with whom I had formerly fought in the playground now recollected me. There was a brisk demand for my autograph. I was proud of it all. I was not even surprised, therefore, when one afternoon they brought into me a visiting card with the name "Mrs. Esaias Medvési" upon it.

It was very natural that she also should visit me. The sunbeams of my glory had melted the ice of her displeasure. Six years had now passed since I had seen her. I could imagine how she had filled out in the meantime. Well taken care of, with no vexations to worry her, harassed by no passions, what other fate could possibly await my fair ideal than—to grow fat?

All the more startled was I, therefore, when I did see her.

She had grown quite gaunt. Her old-fashioned dress, which had been made to fit fuller forms, hung loosely about her. Her face, once so rosy and gay, was now lean and haggard; sombre wrinkles, which met together beneath her chin, had taken the place of her roguish dimples. Only by her eyes could I recognise her: they were still the eyes of yore.

When she saw me she forced a smile, but I could see how much it cost her.

I have never thought it a proper question to ask any one whose face has altered a good deal, "Are you ill?" but she herself led up to it.

"I have greatly changed, haven't I? 'Tis a wonder that you recognise me. I have been very ill. I have just come from the doctor. I have been suffering from a quartan ague, which our country doctors could not drive away."

"But otherwise you are all right, I trust?"

"No, I am not. I fancy that my physical ailment is only as stubborn as it is, because my mind also is not as it should be."

I asked her what was the matter.

"I have come on purpose to tell you. You always gave me good advice, and I never took it. It may be that I wouldn't take it even now; but at least it would relieve my mind to tell you all about it. I have a secret desire which is destroying my whole soul: I go to sleep with it, and I wake up with it."

"What desire can it be?"

"If you but look at my face, you can easily see that it is no sinful affection."

"And yet it must be kept secret?"

"Yes, for I go about day and night with the thought of becoming a Catholic."

I was so startled by this, that in my amazement I knew not what to say to her.

"It is my fixed resolution. The only thing that can give to my soul peace on earth and salvation in heaven is conversion to the Roman Catholic Church."

"How did you come by this resolution? There is no Catholic church in the town where you reside."

"But there is a monastery quite close to it, a sweet, quiet, pleasant place. I am wont to go there when they are not watching me. A mere accident moved me at first. Curiosity led me into the church when I heard the holy chants through the door; but now it is devotion which leads me there. Ah! how much more sublime a place it is than our bald, bare place of worship. Wherever I look I see groups of holy figures who bless and beckon me. And those sublime chants, which seem to come from the angelic chorus of heaven, and ravish my soul away to a world unknown—but oh, how ardently desired! And then the deep silence, which is scarcely broken by the solemn sanctus-bell; and then the form of the priest himself, who, like a supernatural being, speaks before the altar in a language which men may not, but God does, understand. When I come out of such a church it seems to me as if I have been speaking to God."

I began thinking what would be the end of it all. The lady became insistent.

"What do you advise? What shall I do? My soul compels me to it."

"My dear friend," I replied, "you know that I am a Protestant—and as a Protestant I am liberally and indulgently inclined towards every other creed. I advise nobody to change his religion, neither do I dissuade him from so doing. I have a real veneration for the Catholic faith. I consider its ritual majestic and sublime, and its ceremonies are undoubtedly imposing and touching. Had I been born a Catholic, I should have been an ardent champion of my Church. But how can I approve of the conversion of a person in your position? Do you not reflect that your husband is an officer of the Calvinist communion?"

"But it is the very prosaic nature of this communion which offends me. For in what a dull manner do our elders and deacons perform their sacred functions! Prayer, sermon, hymns—everything is with them a mere matter of enforced routine. How can they inspire others who have not themselves the gift of grace? Such people can only mock at and speak scornfully of their neighbours' faith because they have no real faith of their own."

"But pray recollect that a Protestant schoolmaster loses his post if his wife changes her religion."

"He may lose his material comforts, but I lose the repose of my soul."

"My dear Bessy, I can imagine that a woman with extraordinarily sensitive nerves may find no consolation in Puritan simplicity. If you would seek refuge in true devotion, procure Allach's prayer-book—the manual of Catholic prayers, you know. In that book you'll find everything that is sublime, majestic, and heavenly in Catholic theology. Pray out of that book when you are alone and nobody sees you."

"That is not enough for me. Religion does not consist in prayers and singing alone."

"Then perhaps it is the pomp of the external ceremonies which has such an effect on your mind?"

"That affects me least of all. But there is in the Catholic Church an institution as sublime as it is comforting, an institution sufficient of itself to spread the Catholic religion all over the round world wherever there are hearts that bleed, wherever there are those who suffer from other than merely material aches and pains. That institution is confession. It was a gross blunder of John Calvin not to have retained that institution for the faithful. He did not know the heart, especially the female heart. There is no greater torture in this world than to carry about in one's soul night and day an evil thought which harasses and pursues, and be unable to tell it to anybody. A Catholic woman can always find a word of consolation for her despair, a hand stretched out to raise her when she falls; she has a refuge against the accusations of her own conscience; if she has sinned, she can beg for absolution, and her soul is lightened of its load. But who can absolve me? To whom can I tell that which tortures me within?"

Her eyes were fixed and staring like the eyes of a somnambulist who sees nothing before her but a visionary world which others do not see, and at the same time she raised her index finger and laid it on her parched and cracking lips, as if to keep back the moanings of her dumb distress.

I was deeply grieved for her. She had no need to tell me what she felt; her features spoke for themselves, and said how much she must have suffered since the last change in her life.

"My dear friend," I said at last, "you have now known me for a long time, and you know that I have always been your well-wisher. If you have any bitter thought which oppresses you, confess it to me. Amongst Protestants every man is a priest. That is our fundamental dogma. Confess to me!"

She smiled strangely; just as a sick man smiles when the doctor tries to persuade him that he really is well, while he himself is thinking all the time: "Just you wait a bit, and I'll turn the joke against you and—die!"

"You will receive my confession, then?"

"Yes; and rest assured that I'll keep the solemn secret as sacred as a consecrated priest."

"As long as I am alive, at any rate. After I am dead, I don't care what you do. You may then proclaim it to the world if you like. When I am dead, I authorize you to write a romance about me, a romance like mine you have never written yet. But till then, not a word to any one of what you will now hear from me. To nobody, not even to your wife! Promise me that! Your word of honour on it!"

"My friend, there is a crypt within my breast for buried secrets. Your secret shall repose among the rest."

She bent down to my ear, her burning breath scorched my face, and she whispered: "I confess to you that I wish to kill my husband."

Horrified, I looked into her eyes, they flashed up at me like the eyes of devils. That wish of hers was a real living wish.

"And what I've said, I'll do"—and she pressed her lips together till they were quite thin, and her eyes distended into orbs filled with threatening fire.

"Good Heavens! what thought is this?"

She looked at me with a malicious smile.

"There, you see you are no priest, and can give no absolution."

"Nor would a priest give you absolution either. A priest can impose penance for sin repented of, but he cannot give indulgence beforehand for a meditated crime. A priest could only say to you what I say now: 'Fly to God and cleanse your soul from this dark thought!' How could you ever have suffered it to enter your soul, that good and gentle soul of yours that used always to love and never to hate?"

"Yes, such I ever was, was I not? I was indeed a loving fool. You once wrote a tale which I remember reading when a child. In this tale a distracted heart relates how many ways there are of extinguishing life. Amongst other things written there is this: that if honey is allowed to stand till it rots, it turns into the deadliest venom. This is quite true as to the honey with which the heart of a poor credulous woman is full, but it is not true with regard to the honey of the field. I have tried and found that it is not true."

"Believe me, neither case is true. In married life there is no such sea of bitterness as cannot be made sweet again by a single drop of love."

"Alas! what I suffer exceeds even the power of your imagination. Contempt, degradation, is my daily bread. Insult follows upon every step I take. When I speak, my words are misinterpreted; when I am silent, I am chided; when I weep, I am bullied and brow-beaten."

"Do you think that perhaps your husband suspects your intention of changing your faith?"

"So much he knows, that I frequently visit the monastery, and often have talks with one of the monks. I solemnly swear that I've talked to him about nothing but religion and holy things. He, however, accuses me of the nastiest things. Then when we sit together at table, he poisons every dish I eat by singing the most derisive songs he can think of about those women who rave about cowls and cassocks; in fact, he is always singing such songs in my presence."

"But, my dear friend, you take these things too tragically. These derisive songs have been sung time out of mind. Your husband has not invented them for your special aggravation. Laugh at him to his face, and he'll hold his tongue."

"Very well, then. Let what he does to ridicule me be forgiven. But ever since he has begun to suspect my spiritual condition, he leaves no stone unturned to disturb my devotions. If in the afternoon or evening, when the chiming of the cloister bell is wafted over to us, I involuntarily join my hands together, he laughs at me: 'Ha! ha! ha! they are ringing the bells to call you to prayer, are they?' Now, the Calvinists do not ring for evening prayers, neither do they sound the Angelus, and this is a great grief to me. It is like rolling my bread in the mud and then making me eat it. This continual ridiculing clings to me like tar; it chokes, it nauseates. I feel just as if I were swimming in a sea of glue. He relates to me the most villainous anecdotes about the holy images. Last Saturday it rained the whole morning, and I could not go to town. He saw my impatience, and said to me derisively, 'Never mind, thou female, it will clear up this afternoon, for the Virgin Mary wants to dry her son's little shirt for Sunday!' It was well for him that he left the room that instant, for I was very near driving my knife into his heart!"

I tried to quiet the excited creature by saying that though this was no very reverent jest, yet it was not an invention of Esaias's. This jest about the breaking out of the sunshine on Saturday afternoon was a common saying among the Hungarian country folk, and, taken seriously, had really nothing impious about it, representing, indeed, that sacred figure, whom all of us are bound to reverence, as a provident mother from the homely, rustic point of view.

"I don't like to hear that name on his lips. Why, I sent away an old servant of mine called Marcsa for no other reason than because her master was always calling her Maria, and every such time it was as if a dagger were piercing my heart."

I saw that the woman was really suffering. It was a case where a heroic remedy was required.

"My dear friend," I said, "I cannot blame your husband. Your religious extravagance, which has been not a little stimulated by the irritability of your nerves and the nostrums which the provincial doctors have made you drink, is a question of 'to be or not to be' for your husband. If you cling to the saints, poor Esaias will feel the earth giving way beneath him. You are bound to one another, remember. If you go and seek heaven in another church, you will only install hell in your own house. Believe me, if your husband discovers your design, he will fly into a fury and tear you to pieces. If I were you I should go to some medicinal watering place and get your nerves braced up a bit."

"I see—I see. You do not understand what is the matter with me. You think it is a mere feminine ailment, which is, generally, half affectation. Look at that recipe. The most famous doctor in the capital prescribed it for me. I went to him, he diagnosed me. He said that the country doctors had not treated my case properly. They had stuffed me full of quinine, he said, and it was not the medicament that I wanted. So he prescribed me another. Read it!"

I looked at the prescription and saw it was arsenic.

"The doctor prescribed six drops for the first day, and a drop more every other day up to twenty drops, and then back by single drops to six again. Then my fever will return no more. But he cautioned me to keep most strictly to his prescription, as the remedy was a very dangerous one. Is that so?"

"It is."

"I have had it made up in the Józsefváros dispensary." And with that she drew out the flask from her pocket and showed it me.

"That will do for me. I will now go with this prescription to all the ten apothecaries in the town and have it made up by every one of them. Ten times the strength will certainly do for him."

Horrified, I seized her hand.

"Miserable woman, what wouldst thou do? Surely not commit murder? Wouldst thou poison thy husband's body and my soul? Every time I have thought of thee I have seen thee before me in the idealized form of my pure love of early days, and wilt thou now put horror and aversion in the place of it? Give me that prescription!"

With terrified, staring eyes, and trembling in every nerve, the woman fell down on her knees before me, and when I said to her: "Hitherto thou hast always had a place in my prayers, dost thou wish me to cast thee forth from my remembrance with curses?" she began to smile.

"'Tis the first time in your life that you have 'thou'd' me. Let me then return the compliment. But no, I cannot thou thee. The word thou cannot come out of my mouth. Don't lift me up. Let me kneel before you. I fain would only weep, but no tears will flow. Here is the prescription. Destroy it if you like. I was mad. I knew not what I said. 'Tis true. If life be grievous to me, 'tis I who ought to die."

"What you now say is also a sin. Heaven does not give us that divine spark, the spirit, only that we may fling it back again. Learn to bear your sorrows in silence. Every one of us has his cross which God has laid upon him that he may carry it ... If you would believe in the saints, follow their example. Be a martyr, if God so wills it—that is the real Catholic faith...."

She began to sob, but after some little difficulty I contrived to pacify her. I also provided her with all sorts of good homely counsels. "A good wife," I said, "ought to humour her husband, and not sit in judgment on his faults." I told her to bring him to me and introduce me to him. Perhaps I might make some impression on him, and prevail upon him not to press his crotchets too far. It was even possible that I might find him some work to do, something relating to spiritual subjects which might occupy his mind, kindle his ambition, and make him peel off his cynical husk. No doubt he was a good and worthy man, who only needed to be properly taken in hand to get on very well.

The lady with the eyes like the sea listened with many shakes of the head, but she had gradually grown much more quiet. Those eyes of hers, how they could express gratitude! It really seemed as if, beneath the influence of my words, her face was recovering the rosy hue that it had lost.

Alas, no! Vain thought! 'Twas not my words, but something else.

She arose and rallied her spirits.

"Very well! I'll take your advice. I will endure. I will be patient. I will down with every evil thought. I will show that I can be a good wife. You shall be satisfied with me. But one thing I'll tell you. My husband has threatened to strike me. If ever he does that, then God be merciful both to him and me."

Now I knew why her face had turned so red—"If my husband dishonours me by a single blow, I swear that I'll seize a gun and shoot him dead!" And with that she rushed out of the room. I felt as if I ought to call after her: "Don't go home, wretched woman!"

It was too late. She was already outside the door. She had vanished like a vision of the night.

CHAPTER XXI

I also visited the Maria Nostra. Here the female criminals resided, and nuns were the warders.

This house of correction can only be visited by special permission of the Ministry.

There the discipline is strict, but the prisoners are very well treated.

Last of all we visited the day-room, where the prisoners were at work.

They all sat in a long room, and were sewing. Those who could do the finer sort of work were at little tables of their own. I stopped before one of such tables; a woman was sewing some sort of child's garment. It is the rule that when a visitor stops before the table of one of the felons, she shall immediately rise from her seat and, whether asked or unasked, say what her crime is and how long her term of imprisonment.

She arose when I stood before her table.

Her hair was as white as autumn gossamers, but her eyes still flashed with their old varying fires—they were still, as of old, the flaming eyes like the sea! In a dull monotone she told me her crime and her sentence: "I killed my husband. I am condemned to imprisonment for life."

For life!—and life so long!

"Can I not use my interest in your favour?"

"I thank you, but it is well with me here. I wish for nothing more in this world."

And with that she returned to her place and went on with her work.

Poor little Bessy!

Last year I received a letter announcing her death. It was her last wish that I, but nobody else, should be informed of it.

THE END.