Peter the Priest

Did you understand? Arabic, isn't it? Now just read it backward and you will understand at once.

"Quite right, Fool, but this is written in Arabic, and Arabic, like all Eastern languages, is written from right to left."

"What is the title of your book?"

"Yaw Derevocsid Eht."

The Fool burst into a loud laugh. "Didn't I tell you that I would drink of your cup first? Now read from left to right just as you have done:

"Yaw Derevocsid Eht means simply, The Discovered Way."

Father Peter's eyes and mouth stood wide open with astonishment. What fifty wise men had not been able to guess in two hundred years, a fool had found out in two minutes! Now Father Peter began to read as the Fool had instructed him. He read two, three lines, a whole page; and the more he read, the more his countenance lifted up, his eyes beamed, the ascetic hardness of his features melted under the glow of an indescribable fire; he began to pound on the table with his right hand.

"See, see!" cried the Fool, "The monk is drunk with his own wine."

At this the monk sprang up and closed the book.

"This book does not drive away the Devil, it summons him."

"Didn't I tell you I knew how to drink your wine? Now drink mine." And he poured the beaker full and reached it to the monk. Oh, how well Father Peter had once known this fiery drink, when he was not a slave of slaves, but leader of the knights; then no wine was too strong for him; he could drink on a wager with German or Polish cavaliers; but for two years his lips had not touched wine. Wine is the foam of that fiery stream that flows toward Hell. As thick as fish in the river, large and small, so thick are sins, large and small in the wine. There must have been in the book some kind of hidden fire, for as soon as the monk had let one page of it steal into his soul, the torments of a burning thirst were manifest in his countenance.

"Pass me your mug." His hand still trembled as he took the mug. At first his dry lips just sipped the wine; it could not have been especially good; but after two years of abstinence, the monk experienced a magic effect, and the wine exhilarated him as if he tasted it for the first time in his life. He sank back into his armchair, and in his upturned face were mirrored visions of ecstacy. His far-gazing eyes beamed, and on his half-opened lips trembled a smile. Where might his soul be wandering now? Involuntarily his hand reached for the book and opened its covers.

"Oh, woe, woe! Dromo the Devil is here! oh, woe, he will throw me into the fire!" So screamed the restless, dreaming boy, tossing on his couch, with his head hanging off.

The monk was roused, and shuddered, then ran to the boy, raised him, laid him back on his pillow and quieted him with caressing words:

"Don't be afraid, little one, I am here beside you." The child stared at him with wide-open eyes.

"Are you my father?"

"Yes, your spiritual father."

"My father, whom the Devil carried off to Hell? That's what my mother said. Leave me, leave me! I will not go with you. Your hand is fire, and your fingers burn me."

And yet the monk's hand was as cold as ice, as he stroked the child's silken hair. By the bed stood a silver pitcher with a small gold cup: the boy raised it to his lips and at once became quiet, as the terrifying visions vanished. He wound both arms around the neck of the monk and whispered to him, while still under the spell of the dream:

"Beautiful Knight, brave Knight! When you lift my mother into the saddle with you, you'll take me with you, won't you, my handsome Knight, my golden, diamond hero!" With that he fell into a gentle sleep.

"Just see what a good nurse you would make," said the Fool to his friend, "Sometimes I have to spend a good half-hour rubbing his feet and singing to him, and he is asleep at once. Have another mugful?"

"I don't like your wine."

"It's true you ought to drink yours, not mine." Father Peter saw with horror that the large book was open again. He thought it was magic.

"Did you touch this book?" he asked the Fool.

"No, not if you were to give me this castle, and its handsome mistress with it, would I open that book; it opened itself."

The red and blue letters were oh, so enticing! It was no sealed secret now that they contained; for they were all familiar. The monk leaned back in his chair and read the leaves of the secret writing until he had read them to the end. And the farther he read, the more intense grew that expression of unquenchable thirst, like that of a sick man who dreams that he is in a desert and longs for a cataract to drink. Every leaf of the book was a new catastrophe, the whole one unbroken delirium; he did not look up until he had finished the last line of the last page. Then he called to the Fool: "Bring me a whole bucket of wine."

The morning sun, which streamed in through the painted window, found them both in the same place; the Fool was under the table: the monk sat before his book, his head on his hands, his eyes wide open:—he did not read, he did not sleep, but yet he dreamed.

In Yaw Derevocsid Eht was no cabalistic writing. The writer at the very first gave his reasons for employing this device. He had chosen the Arabic letters so that all would try to read it from right to left, and so fail to discover its meaning. In case it occurred to anybody to read it from left to right, still, as the people of that vicinity rarely knew more than Hungarian, no meaning would appear. In case anybody understood English, it was hardly probable the Arabic text would be familiar too. Only by rare chance could this mysterious book be deciphered. What it contained was the description of a secret passage or tunnel that led from the Madocsany Castle to the turreted walls of Mitosin. Midway was the river Waag, which was here quite wide, but the tunnel passed under the river bed, thus anticipating the Thames tunnel by about four hundred years. If any one shakes his head at this, and begins to doubt that our story is true, we will point out to such a doubter the secret way that leads from a certain castle to a distant village, a veritable catacomb which in a straight line would be fully a mile long, a work of the Hussites. The vaulted passage-way is covered with mould, from which in one place shines out two memorial tablets; one of stone bears the symbol of the cooper's trade, as peculiar to the Hussite monks as the trowel and the triangle to the Freemasons. In the stone vaulting, above is seen a goose, the Hussite symbol; what purpose this tunnel served the Hussites is yet to be discovered; but the object for which the Madocsany-Mitosin tunnel was made, was clearly set forth in this Yaw Derevocsid Eht. Both castles belonged to Czech robbers and bandits in the days when the Hungarian regent, John Hunyadi, with all the military forces of the land, wore himself out trying to drive back the monstrous host of the Turkish Sultan. He who fights with a bear has no time to brush wasps from his face. The Czech could ravage the country at pleasure, and when sometimes bands of noblemen, led by Hungarian Counts, rose up against them to take vengeance for their plundering and reckless deeds, suddenly every trace of the pursued would be lost. The larger robber-hordes would withdraw to their strongholds and defy every attack; the lesser ones, led by impecunious noblemen, left their drawbridges down before the pursuing bands, and let them seek at will what they so eagerly pursued. The enemy searched everywhere, in every corner, cellar, loft, chapel, and crypt; and when they could find nothing more, still lingered on, days and weeks, and then cleared out the storehouses, and withdrew in unsatisfied rage. The entire robber-band meantime, with all their stolen wealth and beautiful Slavic maidens, passed down into this secret tunnel, and made their way to the other castle. And the freebooters who guarded the Waag was ready to swear that not one of them had passed over the river. It was true; they had gone under. But once Mathias Corvinus ordered the two castles attacked at one and the same time; the robbers fled first from Mitosin through the tunnel, only to find themselves surrounded in Madocsany. It was at this time that the monk wrote Yaw Derevocsid Eht. He described in detail to whom the two castles belonged, and where the entrances and exits of the tunnel were. The book was intended to be a guide to the treasure which the robbers had concealed in a chamber in the tunnel. Every point of the chamber was clearly defined, all the small bags of gold and silver coin were numbered, there were also given names of human beings, or beautiful women as precious as jewels; the name of each individual was given, and the families were enumerated from which they had been stolen. A description was set down of the coat, cap, and even the finger-rings that each one wore; who were of the Catholic, and who of the Lutheran faith. If any one ten or twenty years later should discover them in the subterranean dungeon, where, together with the stolen treasure, they had been hidden away, he would know at once in which consecrated ground to bury each one, what name to inscribe on each cross, what prayer to have said for each soul's weal. The monk had faithfully cared for all, and left the book in the archives of the convent. What happened to the robbers, the chronicles do not tell: probably the same that happened to the bandits of Dzuela. In a night attack, they were cut down by the royal troops and any who were taken alive were at once hung. The victors probably carried off enough gold with them so that they were satisfied no more remained. The two entrances of the tunnel were so well concealed, that six generations followed each other in both castles without anybody's having a suspicion of the common mystery that bound them. The Yaw Derevocsid Eht, said everybody who looked at the writing. But no one understood the words until they came to Father Peter.

CHAPTER V.

Opposite the Madocsany Castle gleams forth the Mitosin. Its four towers are covered with tin, and when the setting sun shines on them, all four blaze like sheaves of fire. They are round and dome-topped in Russian style. There is still a fifth tower that would gladly show itself above the silver poplars; this one runs up into a spire and cross, while the others end in a star. What the tower with the cross could find inside the inclosure of the Mitosin Castle, where neither its former lords, the Hussite Knights, nor its present lord, a Lutheran magnate, were of the Catholic faith—this is explained by a curious history that one can learn piecemeal; here and there a fragment is kept back, and only at the very close is the whole truth known. Now one can fully believe that the little church was built in honor of Saint Anthony, though in reality a Hussite church. The purpose of this was to conceal from the Count Von Treuesin, or from Count Von Tipsen, that the builders were Hussites, by pointing to the church with its cross and picture as Roman Catholic. The present lord of the castle, Grazian Likovay, had inherited his estate from his mother, Susanna Szuhoy, a zealous Catholic, who had left this to her son on condition that the church of Mitosin Castle should always be maintained in its present condition: and a legacy had been deposited with the neighboring Dean of Tepla, to insure the reading of mass once a week in this church, whether there was anybody present or not. The lord of the castle was enjoined to maintain the church in good condition, not to coin its bell into counterfeit money, and to allow the sacristan of Tepla to ring the bell at the customary hours; furthermore, he was not to appropriate the church to the Lutherans. If he opposed these conditions, Mitosin with all its appurtenances, was to go to the public treasury. Had the pious lady ever seen the interior of this church, she would not have left this legacy, which was of no use whatever; for while there was a bell in the tower, there was no rope; and there was neither ladder, stairs, nor any other way of reaching the bell. And even if it had been rung by the hour, no honest Christian would have entered the church, on account of the altar picture. Whoever made that had not taken into consideration the temper of these people, or else had purposely set it aside. From an artistic point of view, the picture was a masterpiece. It represented the Temptation of Saint Anthony in the Wilderness, and had been painted by an Italian master.

The ascetic was the true ideal of a holy hermit who withstands all the temptations and seductions of Hell; yet the people of this vicinity could not enjoy the monsters from Hell in such frightful forms as can be conjured up only in the fancy of a melancholy painter. But apart from these terrifying monsters, the temptress, in whose form Satan surprises the pious hermit, had been painted with such striking boldness that at the first sight of the same from the threshold of the door, every good Christian would turn and run. Such may pass in Italy, but in our mountainous highland it is too cold for such a garb, so that even the priest himself took no pleasure in reading the liturgy in the presence of such an altar-picture. If, however, in spite of everything, any one could take pleasure in saying his prayers in this church, if an innocent soul could be found that took exceptions to nothing, that saw only what was godly in this church, and was not conscious of the painted devil, either in the form of a monster or of a beautiful woman; for any such provision was made.

Now you must know that there was just such an innocent creature in Mitosin Castle. The Lord's daughter, Magdalene, was the only Papist in the whole house, yes, in the whole village. According to the Hungarian laws, the children of a Protestant father and a Papist mother were divided for the Heavenly Kingdom as follows,—the sons followed the religion of their father, and the daughters of their mother. If anybody made objections, a terrible storm fell upon his head. The Lord of Mitosin was a stiff-necked Protestant, who persecuted priest and monk in every possible way. He would not allow his daughter to bring a Catholic prayer-book or a rosary into the house. If anybody wished to pray, he could do it in the church; it was not far away. From the rear gate of the castle straight to the church ran a beautiful path bordered by poplars a hundred years old; only a beautiful grove separated church from castle; and yet the way from the castle door to the church door was so luxuriantly overgrown with grass that it could have been mown; for the space between church and castle was the bear-den.

Grazian Likovay owned two great overgrown bears, for which he had had pits dug in the garden, and there they could roam freely; their growls came up over the walls. Now you can understand why the way to the church was grown with grass,—no one would go to church who did not want to meet those monsters. When the watchman of the tower blew his evening horn, a window on the balcony would open, and a whistle blow from within, then would come forth with much noise the two bears. The thicket of the poplar-grove opened before them as they made their way straight through; a hoarse, rasping voice would call them by name, and some one would throw a bloody bone from the window; as soon as they had finished that, would follow a whole quarter of mutton; the two bears were twins, a division of the meat must be made, and so there would be a quarrel. When all had been devoured, neither one felt that he had had his share, and so they kept on quarrelling the whole night through; but the window was closed, and garden, church and beasts left to themselves.

Gradually as darkness fell, the nightly mists rose from the river; no light was to be seen, yet night after night a girl's figure slipped out by the door leading into the garden, and glided along like the vision of a dream. A long white mantle covered her slender form, and a black veil was over her head; she looked about, shuddered and stepped out into the darkness; she came alone without a lantern; her step did not betray her, for the grass was thick, but her white robe showed her figure. With a loud growl, both black monsters plunged at her, and their white teeth and blazing eyes shone out of the thicket. The maiden uttered no cry, but right and left threw something from her apron; it was honey-cakes, tid-bits for the bears. With a joyous growl they fell upon their honey-cakes; meanwhile the maiden slipped away over the grass to the church door, and before the beasts could plunge after her, she had closed the door behind her. The bears now began to strike against the heavy iron-bound door with their paws; they climbed up the posts and snuffled and finally dropped down, one on one side, the other on the other, licking their paws and listening for every rustle that came from the church.

What could this white vision do in the church in the darkness, alone, and, at night?

Herr Grazian had received many guests to-day. It was a memorial with him; the anniversary of the death of his only son, Casimir. This was the third anniversary. At the funeral feast, Grazian had informed his good friends, boon companions, clergy, scholars, singers, and buffoons, that every year this festival of mourning would be celebrated in Mitosin Castle, just as when the bier still stood in the hall, and the comrades came one by one to offer the dead a beaker and then drink the same to his happy resurrection; for mourning mingles in Hungary's rejoicings, so that one may mourn joyously.

"Now you can go pray for the soul of your brother," growled Grazian to Magdalene, as he closed the window after feeding the bears.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, and limped with the gout; his face was copper-colored, and his eyes were dark set, with bloated lids, and eyebrows bushy as his beard; his head was close shaven behind in Turkish fashion, and he wore a cap night and day, and over his brow hung a braided lock of hair. The hide of his bull-neck rose above his stiff collar; his fat chin covered his neckerchief, tied in a knot; he wore his cloak thrown over his shoulders, and his shirt-sleeves fastened at the wrist. He cared little for outward appearance. He wanted his clasps of gold, but it did not matter if the stuff did shine with grease, or the trimming was moth-eaten. From his broad Turkish girdle no sword hung, but behind was stuck a battle hammer, and above his boot-tops appeared a knife-hilt, studded with turquoises. In all his motions, there was an arrogance that brooked no contradiction, and expressed an immoderate love of fighting. Whoever met him was in peril, since a mere glance at his face was enough to give offence,—speaking was entirely out of the question; what another said, he neither listened to, nor answered; what he himself said, he said only for himself; if he spoke directly to any one, it was a command to which it was not customary to reply, as that provoked a blow from his crooked stick.

"Go, child, go to church," he said to himself, and limped away.

Yet there was one who heard him; his inseparable companion, Master Mathias; the strong body needed the support of somebody's shoulder, and the soul too needed a support: it was not so large as the body, but found room in a very small space, and could not fill this great form. Master Mathias had to think for his lord, in whose soul no smallest thought originated, only instinct roused him, and passion swept him along.

Master Mathias directed the memorial feast. He assembled the guests appropriate for such an occasion; carousers, buffoons, mendicants, and travelling scholars, persecuted clergy, beggarly nobility, outlaws, who carried their house on their back and their bread in the folds of their cloak, Slavic fiddlers and Polish Jews all together; all that seemed ready to celebrate the day of mourning in eating and drinking and outdoing one another in follies. Knife, fork and spoon each guest brought with him in his boot. Three long tables were spread in the vaulted halls, with places for two hundred guests. There were tin plates for the food, wooden pitchers for the beer, tin cups for the wine, and narrow-throated flasks for the brandy, which was a great delicacy, and only the masters could drink it. At the end of the carouse went around the "Bratina," the glass that nobody must set down, and that every one must drain to the bottom. Then, too, there must be some entertainment for the revellers; the bagpiper begins it with a gay song to dispel care; not only piping, but dancing at the same time; then follow two tall students, barefooted in outgrown clothes, with unkempt, disordered hair; these begin to sing, at first pious Latin songs of past events, and of the differences between Heaven and Hell; the guests give them beer, wine, and mead, and they begin to sing more wantonly, mixing Slavic and Hungarian with their Latin; the entire company join in; only the Lord of the Castle mutters to himself, "He would have understood these songs best of any of them; it was he who taught these fellows." "He" was the son, whose funeral feast they were now celebrating.

The scholars were almost ready to drop with drinking, when Master Mathias sent for three Galician Jews, who were shoved into the hall, bound together by their forelocks, their beards sprinkled with pepper. Whenever one of them sneezed violently, and so jerked the heads of the other two, everybody laughed, but the master, whose eyes filled with tears. "In this too, he was master, he knew how to joke with the Jews; ah, he was a wit!" So the feast went on; it was already midnight, and the guests began to sing alone and to tumble against one another; then they brought in the final cup which each one was to empty at a single draught. There was great laughter, for its capacity was beyond any of them. The Lord again murmured to himself; "Ah, worthless set! He could out-drink them all. Nobody knows how, now."

Then at the drinking of this last cup, all the guests recalled some incident of the dead, and toasts were given, one as foolish as another. "All good for nothing. He was the only one who knew how to drink to the dead. The departed souls must have roared with laughter when they heard him. Sit down there, you can't come up to him." The sport ended with a wrestling match. Two or three of the befuddled lords strove together; the stronger was to throw the other under the table; but there was one martial youth whom all together could not drive out of his corner. "Oh, if he were only here; he would master you! He was not afraid of any two! He could even knock my arm down. How many times I've seen him drive out the whole company with a loaded cane." When the scuffling became general, pitchers and plates flew, tables and chairs were overturned, benches broken, canes whizzed through the air, and men with bruised heads groaned and swore; then suddenly a door opened, and in came the procession.

In front, disguised as a woman, came Bajozzo, and behind him a company in monks' cowls, and priestly garb, and all began to sing the familiar song of mockery, which scoffs at monks, imitates the litany of the pilgrim, and ends with a wild dance. That rouses those of the drunken company who can still stand up to join the pilgrims and follow on, through the halls and corridors of the castle, and out of doors, that the people may enjoy the sport. In the great banquet hall remain only those entirely overcome by drunkenness, or by blows, who lie stretched out on the floor; one and another tries to solve the problem how a four-footed beast can stand on two feet, and failing in his experiment, returns to all four. Only the House-Lord sits quietly in his place, with his flask of Polish brandy before him; strong as it was, it was none too strong for him. He gazed fixedly into the glowing wicks of burned-out candles, and let fall sentences that no one heeded. "How many jokes he knew! Even when I scolded him, he would make me laugh. I could not do anything with him, he was so strong. If I tried to beat him, he beat me.—If I wouldn't give him money, he would catch my Jews on the street, and take it from them.—He had a great mind!—He might have been a candidate for the Palatinate—He might have lived to be a hundred years old—He was only twenty-five—and three, that makes twenty-eight,—true, but those three don't count—for he has been dead since then—but why is he dead? because his horse made a mis-step in battle, otherwise he would have killed the other man—is that justice?—A fine world this where the four feet of a horse are the judge—that donkey of a priest says he will turn to dust—my son, dust! It's a lie.—More likely it'll be gold—to-morrow I'll have his coffin opened.—There he lies in the vault of a papist church.—What's that? What did they put him there for? Because he wanted it—he wanted it, himself.—So he could torment the saints after his death—I wonder if he does!—I wonder if he goes and hits Saint Anthony in the nose—I wonder if he gets up in the ghostly hours to hit the bell—What's that!—Is that the sound of a bell? Who heard it?—Anybody else?—Here, Master Mathias, where are you? Did you hear anything?" Nobody answered. The sleeping and drunken snored, the carousers had quartered themselves in the cellar and begun drinking afresh. In the great banquet hall, only the House-Lord was still awake, and he thought that he was dreaming.

The little bell in the church tower rang! Grazian sprang out of his arm-chair—seized his cane—steadying himself against the wall, he made his way out to the north tower, from which he could get a clear view of the church. The moon, just ready to set, lighted up the tower windows, and one could still see the bell swaying back and forth; it had stopped ringing, but the reverberation still trembled in the air.

"What's that? Who's there?" stammered Grazian, and leaned far out of the window. "Stop that noise down there, so I can hear." Another instant, and he could see, too. One of the long Gothic windows of the church suddenly blazed with light. "See there! What's that!" Against the bright window stood out the shadows of human figures. They vanished, appeared again and raised their hands. Grazian gathered all his strength that he might shout in the fulness of his rage at the ghosts—"Who are you? Away with you!" He fell, and the next morning was found stretched out before the open window: it was with difficulty they could bring him back to life.

CHAPTER VI.

Deep stillness reigned throughout the church. Any other maiden would have been afraid to kneel here. The moon shone through the window, and lighted up the carving on the altar, the figure of the martyr, that bound to a tree and pierced through with arrows, writhed in his pain; lighted up, too, the dragon trampled under foot by the victorious archangel, the heavy candelabra, with their wax candles burned down, and finally the altar picture itself, with the figure of the Saint, with the monsters and the seductive woman. The moonlight crept in farther, and lighted up the marble slab under which her brother rested—a prostrate figure, with hands folded on the breast. In the tower hooted the owls, and the death-bird screamed. In the garden outside, the two bears growled to show that they were still on watch. From the castle hall, from time to time, sounded the noise of the drunken revellers. Magdalene would have gladly entered a convent, where her broken heart could have found most peace, but her father would not listen to it. He wanted to marry her, but no suitor came; the young nobility shunned the castle, they pitied the maiden for her sad fate, but they shrunk before the evil nature of her father. The mourning bride and raging father-in-law alike repelled them, and the more mournful the maiden, the more raging became Grazian Likovay. Amid all terrors for the maiden, the most frightful were these wild banquets. It was from these that she sought refuge in the darkness of the church. She knew well that such a revel was nothing but a wild chorus of blasphemy. A hundred throats at once derided Heaven, the future state, and the departed souls,—and this was the way in which the dead brother's memory was celebrated. She tried with her prayers to crowd out the drunken yells on their upward path; while the revellers wandered to the cellars, and their wild cries sounded on the air as if they came from the very bowels of the earth. The maiden trembled as if in fever. The moonlight had left the windows; the church now lay in darkness: only high up on the tower the moon yet shone on the lonely bell. She gazed upwards. Suddenly it seemed to her as if the bell were in motion. Was it an hallucination? Did her dream make visions so real? The bell rang! Then it tolled as for the welfare of a dying soul. And yet the bell had no rope, and there was no one to pull it if it had. In her astonishment new marvels followed. The darkness in the church began to give way to a twilight; 'twas the twilight that comes in dreams. The altar picture shone; around the brow of the saint gleamed an aureole, while the form of the seductive woman grew black. Before this marvel, the maiden sank trembling on her knees. "O God, my Lord!" she murmured. The last notes of the bell were dying away, and at the same moment dropped down with a rolling sound the picture of Saint Anthony of Padua with all its terrifying adjuncts, and in the space thus left vacant stood a living figure. Again it was Anthony of Padua in monk's cowl, barefooted, with tonsured head, a lighted torch in his hand. The maiden in terror clasped both hands to her breast. Did this vision bring death for her? Would that it might be so! The living figure stepped down from the frame of the altar picture, and striding over books and stools came nearer. With a gentle cry of terror the maiden sprang up, stretched out both hands in entreaty, and turned away her face. She heard her name, "Magdalene." Everything swam around her,—she fell in a swoon to the ground. When she recovered consciousness, she saw those eyes beaming upon her, whose glow was more wonderful than that of the sun. Perhaps dreams come in a swoon. Dreams are deceivers; who knows how many worlds her soul had wandered through in this short dream, how many eternities she had lived through; she feared the phantom no more. With his name on her lips she awoke, "Tihamer." To her he was always only "Tihamer." "Have you come down from Heaven to me?" The young monk shook his head sadly. He might with assurance have said that he came down from the realms of the dead, so pallid was his countenance, so cold his hands. The wax candle that he had brought with him now stood in a candlestick on the altar and lighted up their faces. The young man spoke in a subdued and gentle voice. "Be not astounded, I am no marvel, nor ghost, nor spirit from the other world. I am a living, miserable man. The rumor of my death was false. It was not my head that the Turks cut off in prison, but my servant's, who had changed clothes with me."

"And this dress of yours?" whispered Magdalene, touching his rough monk's cowl.

"This is my mourning garb for you, and for the whole world lost to me. My name is Father Peter. I belong to the order of Jesuits. No longer your beloved and betrothed—no longer the hope of your future, nor your support in misfortune. No longer your defender against men, but only your mediator between Heaven and earth, Father Peter."

The maiden knelt before him and fervidly kissed his hand.

"Father!"

The youth sighed deeply.

"You could not belong to me, so I give you to the Lord, you could not be my bride, so you shall be Heaven's bride. I am come to make smooth the way, to prepare the way whither you long to go."

"To a convent? Then you know! Is it true, you have talked with me in my dreams?"

"Not in your dreams. I will not deceive you. Sound reason has brought me to the knowledge that after this staggering blow that has fallen on your heart, you must long to enter a convent. Your father will not allow it; he intends to marry you to the Pole Berezowsky."

"I do not know him at all."

"I know him; this bridegroom intended for you is an ugly decrepit old drunkard, who has already buried six wives, and furthermore is a Socinian."

"What! deny his God!"

"Denies the Trinity, believes Christ only a good man, and the Holy Ghost only a white dove; nothing more."

"But you will free me from him, won't you?" entreated the maiden, clasping the young man's knees.

"With your assent."

"How could you get here? Whence did you come?"

"Truly, I have taken my way through the lower regions to come to you; a long underground passage, that men worse than the devil planned for the destruction of mankind, and that is still filled with evidences of their deeds of terror. It is frightful to wander there. The secret of this hidden way, I learned from an old yellowed book, which had made ten wise men fools, and whose secret was finally revealed by a Fool. This book too was a work of the Devil, but the real Hell and the genuine Devil, Fate has shown me in another form. The inexorable rules of our order compel me to serve as instructor and confessor in the house of that woman, who, in my opinion, is worse than Belial and all his demons. I am at the castle of the Lady of Madocsany."

The maiden put her hand on her heart and caught her breath.

"This is my Hell and my Devil; day after day to see the woman whom I have hated since our first acquaintance. Offensive is the woman, however beautiful she may be, who is ever eager to disclose to a man the feelings of her heart, which ought to be a secret to divine, a prize to win, a treasure to guard for their possessor. Still more ought this woman to have concealed her secret, for every one of her thoughts was inspired by sin; her husband still lived. How she became a widow was a burden on her conscience. How she treated me—may she answer for it to God! Her secrets told in confession rest in my breast under the seal of the sacrament. I must in God's name absolve her from sins that my human heart cannot forgive. Day after day must I look upon that face whose accursed smile destroyed our fortunes. I must lend an ear to her diabolical words of enticement, which she whispers to me under the mantle of confession. Is not that worse than Hell?"

The maiden pressed his hand, and said in soothing tones, "You are right; yours is the greater suffering. I will not complain."

"Your sufferings too are well known to me. This demon entertains me daily with bad news about you. She knows everything that happens in your house, and she takes special delight when she can distress me with such tales. But let us not waste our time in complaining. We must part. I have a long way to go underground and must arrive while it is still dark, so no one can mark the entrance by which I go. Answer me one question. Do you wish to go into a convent?"

"It is my one wish."

"It shall be fulfilled. I must first tell your decision to the Abbess of a convent, so that when I take you away through the underground passage to the Madocsany Castle, a nun may be waiting for you there with a closed carriage. Great prudence and careful preparations are necessary. We must agree upon the day for meeting here again."

"Next Sunday."

"Well, then, any Sunday after midnight. I cannot get away earlier, for it is so late before the spoiled child who is entrusted to my care falls asleep, and the Fool who keeps vigils with me becomes drunk."

"But tell me," asked the maiden, "How could you guess that you would find me here at this hour? Did vision tell you?"

"Even if I deceive the whole world, I will tell you only the truth. I have had no visions; neither ecstacy nor second-sight revealed this to me. I had certainty. To-day is the anniversary of your brother's death, and to-night it is celebrated in your castle with a carouse. You could not remain in the house, where every nook and corner was filled with their disgusting gluttony. Here only, could you find protection—at your brother's grave, where you could pray through the frightful night. You must pray, first for the soul of your brother, and then for his murderer's—the whole litany from beginning to end. Finally, I decided that if I did not find you here, I would pass through the church door into the castle. Many buffoons are there now, disguised in monk's cowl, and it would not have been difficult for me to join them and look for you."

The young man saw a look of terror on Magdalene's face, and she seized him by the hand.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

She said nothing; she only thought what if her beloved had been torn to pieces by the bears in his attempt to pass to the castle. But she would not say this to him, lest she waken his fears for her, a weak woman; she must always pass to the church through such perils.

"I was thinking," she said, with a constrained, distressed smile, "what if you had found the door locked when you tried to go out of the church?"

"I knew for a fact that the door of the church is never locked. Your father has given orders that it shall always remain open. Every corner of this church has its sad history, but none more sad than the history of the door."

"You know it?"

"I heard it from the tormentor of my soul. It will be better for you not to know it; you have enough in your misfortune."

"I beg of you, tell me this story. The knowledge that another has suffered still more gives me consolation. Who was it?"

"Your older sister, Sophie."

"I remember her; she was tall and beautiful, with large dark eyes. How often I stroked her beautiful rosy cheeks, when she took me in her lap, for I was still a child. And then I remember when they laid her in her coffin, I stroked her cheeks again, but they were marble-white and cold."

"There she rests," said the young man, pointing to the wall, where two marble tablets were in sight, one large, one small; on one was a large cross, on the other a small one; then the date. On the smaller tablet one year more than on the larger, and that was all the inscription.

"Why is there neither name nor inscription?" asked Magdalene, stunned.

"There are two of them, mother and child."

"And why are their names not on the tablets?"

"They had no names."

"I do not understand you."

"You ought not to. It is a sad story. They too loved one another, more passionately than we. They too suffered, still more than we. They too were disturbed by your father in their love. Shame was to him preferable to a son-in-law. His daughter died the day her child was born, and was buried here; a year later the child followed; and when they brought her here to bury her beside her mother and opened the church door, your father stumbled over the body of his daughter; the unhappy girl had been buried in a trance, had wakened, struggled to the church door, found it locked, and so perished pitiably at its threshold."

"Frightful!" stammered the maiden, shuddering, and glancing with a look of terror at the two tablets.

"That is why there are no names inscribed. Since then, Grazian Likovay never has this church door locked."

"Let us hurry away from here," said the maiden, trembling. "Will you come here next Sunday about midnight?"

"I will come; but you must hurry away now."

They parted with a pressure of the hand.

Father Peter had to pass through the hiding-place behind the altar picture, which with all its demons resumed its place. For some time the face of Saint Anthony was surrounded with a halo of light from the torch of the departing monk. The small bell in the tower rang again, for it was connected by hidden clock-work with the secret passage-way. Formerly, when the castle had been held by the Hussites, this bell rung, by its secret clock-work, had given warning when any one was approaching from Madocsany. When the bell stopped ringing, the altar picture was again in darkness. It was two minutes past midnight; outside the cock crowed. The maiden, as she went toward the church door, looked timidly before and behind to see if her sister Sophie were present; outside a still greater terror waited. One bear lay across the threshold asleep. She needed only to summon all her courage and climb over him; but the other was awake, grimly gnawing a bone that he could not crush in his teeth. "Help me, God," sighed the maiden, and ran past the creature, throwing her honey-cakes as she went. The wild beasts let her pass unharmed, but it would have been better for her had they torn her to pieces, then would she have been a beautiful martyr and saint in Paradise.

CHAPTER VII.

Idalia was the baptismal name of the Lady of Madocsany; her other name was Venus. This name is often found in calendars even at the present day, and was quite customary in this part of the country. With this name at her baptism, a fatal ban was pronounced upon her. The Lady did not know that she had inherited not only the beauty of the goddess, but also her nature too. When she loved, she loved with mad passion, and when she ceased to love, she hated in the same way, and her hate was deadly. "Venus armicida." Her passion never cooled. It only changed its flame, but always burned in one way or another. She had married early the man of her choice, a handsome hero when he married her, a broken-down old man when he left her a widow, though the number of years between was only eight. It was said he had drunk himself to death. Perhaps there was a magic drink mingled with his wine.

Idalia had so thrown herself into the Olympic life her name justified that she had her little son baptized Cupid. The poor Slavic priest was made to believe that this was only the childish name for Cupa, who was known to be a national saint and martyr. In one house lived Venus and Cupid. The lady cherished her son with truly animal love; everything was allowed him. She never let him out of her sight even in her love adventures. The child could remember several such instances when they had galloped off three in the saddle,—the knight, the child, and the mother. Lady Idalia had run away from her husband, but every time had cajoled her way back. Tihamer Csorbai was the last object of her passion, and because this remained unanswered, she had been most furious. She destroyed every hindrance between the two. Blood must flow to separate Tihamer from his first beloved. Idalia's husband must sink into his grave that Tihamer might be more closely united to her, and now the whole plan had been made futile; she had found Tihamer again, but as Father Peter. The man she had adored was now a permanent guest within her house, but farther from her than ever before. Not earthly hands, but heavenly fields, separated them; and how many projects of insurrection did her heated brain plan against hated Heaven. In the warm, starlit nights of summer, from the room of the monk below, rang forth the mournful psalms with which he stormed Heaven. At the same time, the lady sat in her balcony and struck her harp and sang enticing songs, telling all the secrets of a passion-torn soul. The song was intended for a confession of love. Did Father Peter hear? He must have heard them. Is every feeling in his heart turned to stone that he cannot feel nor awake?

"Sit down on the edge of my bed, Father Peter," whispered the child, uneasily tossing about on his sleepless couch "I have something to say to you. Either the devils or the good spirits brought you here."

"Why do you say that, my child?"

"Before you came, my mother was very fond of me; she always called me, 'my diamond,' 'my ruby,' 'my saint,' 'my little dove,' or 'my little angel.' When she took me in her lap, she kissed me to the very finger tips; whatever I asked her for, she gave me at once, or if she did not, I pulled her hair, and then she would laugh and kiss me again. She never looked cross at me, but now that you are here, I am of no further value to her. I am no more her 'diamond' or 'golden treasure;' when she looks at me, she makes such a face that I have to run away. If I ask my prettiest for something, she puts out her tongue at me. If I make the smallest mistake, she whips me with rods and threatens me with the lash. If I try to kiss her, she spits like a cat. This makes me think that the devils brought you here."

The monk answered nothing, but stroked the boy's head with his hands, and the child prattled on.

"But when I stop to think how good you are to me, that you won't let my mother abuse me, that you make excuses for me when she scolds me, that you take the lash right out of her hand; when I make a mistake, you don't tell her anything about it; when she gets angry with me, you soothe her with gentle words; that you never hurt me, never get angry at me, always entreat me kindly, and warn me gently; then I think it must be the good spirits brought you to this house."

The monk took the boy's cold hands in his and warmed them.

"Now, day before yesterday, I begged her so prettily to take me up in her lap, because my head hurt me very badly, and if she would just kiss it once the pain would go right away, she scolded me for it. She said my head pained me because I ate so many unripe peaches and honeycakes, and she took away the honeycake that you brought me,—would not let me taste it even, but threw it to the little dog Joli,—how could I help crying? That made her very angry, and she made a face at me like those she makes at her maid when she pulls her hair, or at the haiduk when he pours the sauce over her gown; and when I knelt before her, begging her not to be angry, she took a large buckle out of her cap and threatened me with it, and then she hissed at me through her teeth, 'You bastard! Oh, if you were not in the world!' I was afraid she would murder me. I begged her to put that cruel thing back into her hair. 'You'd better pray God, or you'll go the way of the Cseiteburg children. Go, get the Fool to tell you why the dead weep nights in the Cseiteburg.' So to-night, when I went to bed, while you were singing psalms in the next room, I begged the Fool to tell me the story of the Cseiteburg children, until he finally consented, and told me."

The child still trembled under the impression of the story, and his teeth chattered.

"Now come close to me, so that nobody can hear. I don't dare say it out loud. Now then! Once upon a time, there lived in the Cseiteburg a beautiful lady, a widow who had two little children just my age, twins that came into the world together, and always played together. The beautiful lady fell in love with a handsome knight who came often to the castle, and whom she wished to marry. Once the knight said to her, he would like to marry her if there were not 'four eyes in the way.' The beautiful woman thought he must mean the four eyes of her two children, and that he would not marry her because there were these two children of her first marriage. So she called Mistress Dorko, the old nurse of the children, and said to her 'Take these two pins,' and with that she drew two long gold pins out of her cap, 'and go lead the children out to play in the forest; when they have played enough, and grow weary, put them to sleep in your lap and thrust these long pins through their temples. The handsome knight shall not say that there are "four eyes in the way" of our love.' The bad old Dorko did as her lady commanded. She took the two little boys out into the wood to play, waited until they had grown tired, then took them in her lap and told them about the fairy Helen until they fell asleep: then she drew out both the big pins and stuck one of them through the head of one of the boys. The other boy woke at his cry, and when he saw what old Dorko had done to his brother, he began to cry and beg her not to stick the pin through him. He promised her a cloak with buckles, horses, carriage, and a piece of land, if she would spare him. He promised her the whole of Cseiteburg, as soon as he inherited it. But the wicked nurse could not be moved by his tears and prayers, she pierced the second one through with the big gold pin, and then she left them in the depths of the forest, covered with dry leaves; the cuckoos sounded their funeral knell, and the nightingale sang their death dirge. The same day came the handsome knight to the beautiful lady in the castle. And the beautiful lady said to him, full of joy, '"The four eyes" are no longer in our way, the two children lie out there covered with leaves, the cuckoo has tolled them to the grave, the nightingales have sung for them. Now you can make me your wife.' The handsome knight was beside himself at these words. 'Alas, beautiful lady, beautiful widow! I did not mean "the four eyes" of the children, but our own four eyes were in the way of our love.' And thereupon he fled out of the castle, and never came back again. Since then, the ghosts weep all night long at Cseiteburg. This is true, isn't it, Father Peter?"

"A foolish story, sprung from a Fool's brain. Don't believe it, my little one."

"But I do believe it, for I've seen the beautiful lady myself. Her eyes rolled so wildly, she drew her lips together, she gnashed her teeth, and her hair streamed down her back, and as her cap fell back, she seized the pin in her hand—and I almost felt its point in my temples!"

"Don't think of it any more. Don't give way to your fancies."

The child seized the monk's hand in both of his:

"You won't leave me, will you? You won't let anything happen?"

"Don't be afraid, my son; I will stay with you always, no one shall do you any harm. I will take care of you, and protect you."

"But why do you not love her, then? My two eyes are not in your way. How often have we fled from this house together on horseback, my mother and I with a knight; she never would let me go from her side. And then when we came back in a carriage, she fairly wore me out with her kisses, called me her sweet child, and when we came back to my father, she would hold me out, and I must beg him in his anger not to draw his sword against her. I caressed his cheeks, that he might be cajoled into forgiving. I never failed her, and why is she angry with me? Why? Because you do not love her. Do love her. Throw off your monk's cowl. Marry my mother. Be my real father. Do as she demands. Love her! Love her! Then will she be as sweet as honey, and as beautiful as a fairy. But when she does not love, she is as bitter as gall and as hateful as a witch."

Father Peter quieted the child in his wild imaginations, until he fell asleep again.

The sound of a harp and passionate songs of love floated through the night air. Father Peter left the child's room with agitated feelings, and hurried along the corridors to the balcony where Idalia confided her heart's sorrow to the forest and the stars. The sound of his step aroused the lady from her dreams. She looked at him in surprise as he approached. Father Peter took her by the hand, and drew her into the room. Idalia's heart began to beat violently. She thought that the hand which he now laid on her shoulder would draw her to his breast, until now ice, now melted by the volcanic glow of her love.

"Kneel down," said the priest, "Confess your sin at once."

"What sin? You know all," murmured the woman, while she sank down under the iron pressure of his hand.

"Your past that as yet has no name—what you carry about in your heart—that monster must be stifled while it still exists only as a thought. What is this thought of yours?"

The woman was silent for a time, meditating contradiction and crafty evasion, but at length she yielded and said in a whisper, "I intended to kill my child."

"Cursed be the heart in which such a thought could arise."

"If my heart is the mother of this monster, yours is the father; such devils result when fire and frost come together."

"Are you mindful of God and the future life?"

"Don't speak to me of God or of the future life! When I go there, and see God face to face, I shall say: I am the one—I did it! Hadst Thou given me cold blood, I might have been a frog, but thou gavest me warm blood, and I became a human being. Hadst Thou created me man, I might have been a Cain; Thou hast made me a woman, and I have become an Eve. In this way didst Thou fashion my woman's heart; it was Thou that didst create my passions, that didst make my eye a magnet, that didst give my lips their charm; it is Thou that dost send thoughts to the wakeful, and dreams to the sleeping; and now wilt Thou condemn Thy own creation unheard? If Thou art my Creator, Thou didst create me thus; if Thou art all-knowing, Thou knewest this before."

"Woman, blaspheme not God!"

"Is then truth blasphemy of God? What is my crime,—that I love you? What then are you in the sight of God, that you are surrounded by such enkindling darts? Are you His archangel—His cherub? Turn not away from me; I am not going to reproach you—not you, nor the saints, nor God. It was not Satan taught me all this. I have read the great book that you call Holy Scriptures through from beginning to end. I have tried to find a place in it which counts the love of woman as a sin, but I have found none such. It was only a human being who could hit upon the unnatural thought that there were human beings who could not love. Let the cowl cover the man who could impose such a covering—whose heart dared not beat under it. Is not such an act a sin against God? Is not this the murder of a human being—this slow killing of one in the likeness of God? Does the poisoner do anything worse when he gives his victims the means of passing away slowly? Have not other men discovered the antidote for it? You do not know this perhaps. See! As easy as it is to put on this sable cowl, this shroud for a living body, just so easy is it to strip it off. Do not flee! Stay here—listen to me. I might have a sin to confess. I promise you I will not kill, but I will call back into life a dead man, and that is indeed a sin heavy enough. You are this dead man. I have mourned you hundreds of times. Allow me to call you forth from your cold tomb by my tears. Listen to me. We will go from here right to Transylvania, where the Hungarian belief flourishes. We will go out to the Protestant church. Many are doing it already, you know. A third of the land is Protestant; I am sure they cannot all go to Hell. Nobody can persecute us there. See! I have two iron chests full of treasure; there we can live like lords in luxury and splendor, such as you were accustomed to before you gave over your lands to the Jesuits. We'll snap our fingers at the world. Or, if it pleases you better to be poor and God-fearing, I am willing. I will go with you to the poorest village, where there is a tower with a weather-vane; there you shall become a Calvinist preacher, a rector, or a Levite; I will be your faithful wife; will wash and weave, spin flax, and endure misery; I will become God-fearing, my lips shall forget to scold and curse, and shall learn to sing psalms. If I should become quarrelsome, you may beat me, shut me up, and make me fast, and I will be always faithful to you; only throw aside this cloak of death."

The temptation was strong. When passion and sorrow blend together in one flame, then perhaps the heart of a dead man may withstand. But the youth was protected by his talisman—that other face on the other side of the Waag. The monk's cowl alone would not have protected his heart against these darts; his ascetic vows, the sacred oil, would have been a weak safeguard against the charm of this Circe. But the loving, suffering face of the maid of Mitosin stood between them like Heaven. The sunbeam smites in vain on the summit of the Alps, for this is already in Heaven, and Heaven is cold. Tihamer had left his heart before the altar in Mitosin,—it was not to be found.

"Return, poor sinner," he said with the gentleness of a confessor, "God will pardon your rebellious thoughts, and will set you free from this evil spirit that has possessed you. Learn to pray."

"I will not learn to pray!" cried the woman excitedly. "When you read the liturgy at mass, I always say to myself: It is not true! It is not true! It is not true! When you sing the hymn of praise to the Holy Mother, I murmur to myself, Love me, and not the Virgin Mother; You are my life! you are my death! you are my devil! you are my idol! if you wish to make me blessed, make me blessed here below, and in the future I will be condemned in your stead."

"Then let your condemnation begin here below," said Father Peter, aroused from his monastic calm. "For if it is true that you can love a man to the extent of despising the whole world and renouncing the blessedness of Heaven, then indeed will it be the torments of Hell for you to see the man you love passing daily before you like the vision of one dead, like a ghost in the clear daylight, like a phantom in a living body—to see him, and to say to yourself, 'You put to death this man, you threw this shroud over him, you closed the grave upon him, and neither violence nor prayer nor the magic of Hell can wake him up again!' It was you who killed me. I am your victim. I am the ghost that pursues you. I am your judgment from God!"

Idalia shuddered convulsively as she lay on the ground, and bit her bare arms.

"When I was sent here to you," continued Father Peter, "I begged the Prior to send me into the desert of Arabia among the wild Druses rather than to your house: he left me only one choice, I might go as servant of the Holy Inquisition in Spain, or come here. I made my choice. I preferred to endure torture rather than to torture others. But believe me, he who endures the touch of hot oil does not suffer such torment as I do when your hot breath touches me; and the Spanish boot does not so crush the bones of the victim, as my heart is crushed under your accursed passion; and yet I came here although I knew that you would pursue me with this frightful love of yours: and I shall stay here, although I know that you will very soon torture me to death with your still more frightful hatred. Your house is my torture-chamber—I am here to suffer to the end."

Idalia fell lifeless upon the cold marble.

"May God pardon you," whispered the youth, "I pardon you. May you be able to pardon yourself."

With that he raised her up from the floor, held her firmly with his strong hands by the shoulder, and so compelled her to remain seated and look him in the eye.

"Finally, rest assured that I will accomplish what I was sent here for; your son will I guard, protect, and train to good. Let no one venture to do him any harm. The Fool I shall drive from his side, and shall no longer suffer him to poison the child's dreams with his frightful tales. You have cast him off. I will adopt him; and from this time he shall be my son, and shall never again come near you. I am prepared to have you deal with his spiritual father as you did with his father in the flesh."

With these words, he let go his grasp and withdrew. Idalia stood for some time like a living statue in her white gown, while her flowing hair enveloped her bare arms. Then she shuddered and dragged herself to the wall, like a wild beast fatally shot; there she found a support on which she laid her head—it was cold marble, the base of the statue of her dead husband. The cold stone cooled her, perhaps,—the fever that throbbed in her temples.

Father Peter went back to his lonely quarters, and found the child still resting quietly as he had left him. The child was sleeping sweetly and smiling in his dreams.