The fellow representing the carnival rose in his bier, distended his broad mouth, and grinned in the superrector's face. He was an honest brushmaker's apprentice. The whole crowd burst into roars of laughter and derisive yells. Everyone instantly guessed that the superrector had sought for Valentine Kalondai in the carnival's coffin.
Old Zwirina was very angry and ashamed.
"You may take him to hell, if you like!" cried he to the crowd of revelers, and, by way of jocose emphasis, he gave the backward part of the carnival horse a spanking thump, but received a kick in return which sent him sprawling into the mud. The horse, which lost one of the red slippers of its hind feet in consequence, then bolted off like mad, while Simplex yelled like a cockney horseman on a runaway nag, tugged at the reins, and implored the laughing crowd to stop the beast. But the mob only chivied the horse all the more, till it had far outdistanced its panting escort. When at last he arrived in the neighborhood of the churchyard, Simplex blew his trumpet with all his might, and at the shrill sound two stout lads leaped up out of the cemetery ditch, leading after them a horse saddled and bridled.
"Valentine!" cried Simplex, "ecce tuum Bucephalum!"
Then the man forming the hinder part of the carnival steed sprang quickly forth from beneath the horsecloth. It was not the Turk Ali, but Valentine Kalondai.
The condemned convict threw himself upon the horse and galloped off.
Simplex and the comrades who had assisted him in the execution of this stratagem threw their masquerading costumes into the churchyard ditch, and after making a wide circuit of the town, returned to it by the Leutschau gate as if they knew nothing at all about it.
The Turk Ali had exchanged rôles with Valentine in the gates of the cloister.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Lenten penance succeeds the carnival revels.
When they brought the news to Augustus Zwirina that Valentine Kalondai had happily escaped, the big fat man suddenly grew blue in the face, and was struck down with apoplexy on the spot. So swiftly did death overtake him that he had not even time to make his will.
This extraordinary case made a huge sensation throughout the town. Whole processions of acquaintances thronged the house of mourning, and in the courts of the Zwirinas there was wailing and woe.
Now the courtyard of the Kalondais was only separated from that of the Zwirinas by a narrow partition wall. When then Dame Sarah heard the lamentations in her neighborhood, and learnt the cause thereof, viz., that her son had managed to escape and that the superrector had died of grief in consequence, she planted herself in the passage, and, despite the keenness of a February morning, began to sing the psalms in which King David celebrates the humiliation of his enemies. The louder grew the lamentations next door, the louder she sang her revengefully exultant psalms.
Who could forbid her? Were they not sacred songs?
On the day of the funeral, too, she sat on the balcony of her house, and while the priests and the choristers below were intoning dirges by the side of the bier, and the relations of the dead man accompanied these mournful songs with their sobs, the butcher's widow, dressed in white, as if she were holding high festival, mingled her exultant songs of triumph with their sobs and dirges.
And henceforward, through the still watches of the night, when everyone was asleep, Dame Sarah sang her psalms and exulted over her fallen and humiliated enemies.
Who could forbid a poor forlorn widow to seek comfort for her afflicted soul in spiritual songs?
As for Henry Catsrider, he was driven from his profession three days later for putting to shame the dignity of his office, the reputation of the city, and the majesty of the law by his bungling. On the same scaffold which he himself had erected his own apprentices tore his red mantle from his shoulders and the red cap from his head, struck him three times in the face before all the people with the great silver seal hanging round his neck (which was a gift from the King of Poland), and finally drove him away amid the derisive laughter of the crowd.
What became of the degraded headsman, how and where he ended his days, on these points nothing has ever been recorded.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
In which it is shown how ghosts haunt churchyards.
The adherents of the disgraced faction did not cease persecuting Valentine Kalondai.
From the very first they had sent pursuers after him who had followed hard upon the fugitive; but at a certain inn, when they were already close upon him, two men, evidently instructed beforehand, met him with a fresh horse. The fugitive mounted and was instantly off again, while his pursuers thought it best to slowly ride their jaded nags back to town.
The new superrector, young Ignatius Zwirina, calculated thus: Valentine Kalondai will one of these days come back of his own accord to the neighborhood of Kassa. His beloved rests there in the churchyard ditch, and he will never be able to keep away from the spot where she whom he loves so much reposes.
So in the ditch where pretty Michal had been cast he kept nine musketeers in ambush, night and day, that they might seize Valentine when he came thither, and shoot him down if he sought to fly.
The trap was laid for him, and they made certain that he would fall into it.
Nor did he remain long away.
In the first stormy night, when the Lenten wind drove the shapeless clouds from one end of the sky to the other and shook the leafless trees, and the will-o'-the-wisps darted about among the graves, a lonely horseman approached the churchyard from the plains.
A poplar which had been torn down by the storm marked the spot where pretty Michal lay.
"I hear the tramp of horses' hoofs," murmured one of the musketeers in the ditch.
"What if it be the devil riding on a buck-goat?"
"Yes, indeed, who else would think of riding over the plains at such a time?"
"Look how the will-o'-the-wisps are dancing!" said a third, raising his head a little above the ditch.
From time to time, a reddish tongue of flame shot up from among the graves, casting a lurid glimmer on the angels praying on the monuments.
Then it seemed as if the deep notes of a horn were mingling with the howling of the storm. It sounded like a subterranean music. A shudder ran down the backs of the musketeers in the ditch and their teeth chattered.
"An accursed signal that!"
When the midnight rider reached the churchyard, he dismounted from his horse, bound it to an elderberry tree, and replied to the signal with a trumpet-blast of his own, whereupon a spectral flame shot up among the tombstones.
"Do you hear that? The devils are answering one another."
"It is either the devil or Valentine Kalondai."
"If it be Valentine Kalondai he will come hither, and we will take him prisoner; but if it be the devil 'twere best to leave him alone."
That was very sage advice, certainly.
The horseman found the churchyard-gate open and went in.
He went straight to the spot where he had seen the flames shoot up.
It was no will-o'-the-wisp, no perambulating spirit, but Simplex, who, to scare the watchers and guide Valentine, had ignited lycopodium powder from time to time.
"Hush!" said he to his approaching friend, "they are on the watch."
"Let them watch!" murmured Valentine; "I have a sword with me. Though I should die on the spot for it, I mean to speak to my beloved."
"You shall speak to her. Follow me! but duck your head that they may not see us."
With that he led Valentine along among the graves till they came to a large monument. It was a red marble obelisk, surmounted by a wreathed urn. The bed round the grave was planted with violets and primroses with an ivy border. On the pediment lay several wreaths.
"Look there!" said Simplex, drawing a dark lantern from beneath his mantle; "look and read!"
Valentine drew near and saw on the splendid monument the name, "Augustus Zwirina," followed by a long litany of the deeds and services of that distinguished citizen.
"Why have you led me to the grave of my mortal foe?" asked Valentine sternly.
"It is not your mortal foe who sleeps here," returned Simplex, "but pretty Michal. The night after they had buried your mortal foe, I came to the churchyard with the faithful Ali. Then we set to work and dug out the coffin of pretty Michal and brought it hither, and placed it where the coffin of Zwirina had been laid, and now you can be quite easy in your mind, for your beloved reposes in consecrated ground, and flowers bloom over her all the year round."
Valentine threw himself with his face to the ground.
"Listen how the ghosts are weeping!" said one of the watchers to his comrade.
"Depend upon it, Beelzebub is tormenting them!"
"Don't look back or they'll twist your neck for you!"
After Valentine had wept to his heart's content, and consoled himself with the reflection that his tears would filter through the mound to his sleeping love and give her sweeter dreams, he arose and said to Simplex:
"But suppose the thing becomes known?"
"There are only three of us who know anything about it. One is Ali the Turk; your mother has emancipated him, and he has now gone home to Thessaly. The second is the grave, and the grave tells no tales. I myself am the third, and I can keep as silent as the grave."
Valentine pressed his faithful friend to his heart and covered him with kisses. And then he kissed the grave and the flowers which covered it:
"Don't you hear how the specters are kissing each other?" whispered one of the musketeers.
"No doubt Lucifer is caressing them!"
"And whither then have you removed Augustus Zwirina?"
"Why, where he ought to be, of course! We laid the good man in the churchyard ditch in the place intended for Michal, and all the asses of the town will come and nibble their thistles over his head from one year's end to the other."
"Listen how the ghosts are laughing!"
"I would not go among them if they gave me the whole city of Kassa."
Even the howling wind seemed to take up the ghostly laughter and carry it on further. It was indeed a ghastly jest—a jest fit even to provoke a loud peal of laughter in a churchyard at midnight, that pretty Michal and the author of her death should have changed places with each other, that pretty Michal should have been laid in the flower-strewn bed, in the grave dug in consecrated ground and watered with tears, while the author of her death should have been cast forth into the churchyard ditch, to gaze up at the asses when they came to chew the thistles over his head.
"Now that you have spoken with your beloved, hasten away!"
"God bless you, my loyal comrade! Greet my dear mother. Tell her that to-morrow I am off to the wars. Eger is to be stormed. Tell her to pray that I may die a glorious death!"
With that he hastened back to his horse and darted away into the waste night.
"The ghost is riding back to his realm!"
"All good spirits praise the Lord!"
And if Dame Sarah prayed as her son desired her, her prayer was certainly heard in heaven. At the brilliant assault by which the city of Eger was won back to Hungary, Valentine Kalondai died a hero's death on the field of honor.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
In which everyone at last gets his deserts.
Old Zurdoki, whose unseemly amours had been the cause of the tragedy of two loving hearts, so far from being sobered by this sad occurrence, so far from taking to heart the blood of the gentle lady which had flowed through his foul fault, had no sooner escaped from Poland with a part of the Prince's routed troops (the rest had been carried away captive to the Crimea by the Tartars) than he set about another evil prank. Failing to seduce one of the pretty women, he now spread his nets for the second.
Here, too, he soon found a willing go-between. Even if Red Barbara were no more, there was still enough of witches and to spare. Was not Annie, the wife of the kopanitschar, at hand? So far from being scared at the fearful fate of her superior, she burned to occupy the vacant place of honor in the witches' ranks. For the saying of the sages, that from the blood of one martyr a hundred others spring up, is equally true when applied to evil-doers. Among sinners also there are enthusiasts who count it an honor to suffer for hell, and where one felon is executed a hundred are always ready to step into his shoes. This was especially the case with witches. The burnt and tortured members of that grim sisterhood always had immediate and innumerable successors. The world seemed too small to hold them all. The love of evil notoriety took possession of them like a sort of intoxication, and plunged into the abyss even those who otherwise would never have thought of becoming witches. It is thus that we are able to explain why Annie undertook a far more dangerous commission than even that by which Barbara had found her death. Moreover, the dazzling promises of Zurdoki, who was no niggard with his money, had also great weight with her. And Zurdoki was now richer than ever. George Rakoczy, when the Crim Tartars invaded Hungary, had intrusted the whole of his treasures to Zurdoki to conceal them in Berga Castle. On the way thither as much of this treasure might be lost as Zurdoki pleased. Who amid the hurly-burly of those troubled times would ever think of calling him to account for it?
So Zurdoki intrusted to Annie the billet-doux which he had written to the lovely Isabella, the spouse of Count Hommonai. He had not been very particular in his style, nor had he wasted his ardor in romantic effusiveness, but he went straight to the point like the man of business he was. He said he was ten times richer than Hommonai, and if the countess were kind to him, he would give her three hundred ducats down and a diamond collar such as princesses wear, besides making a will in her favor, whereby she would inherit after his death a city, a castle, two-and-twenty villages, and all the flocks, herds, and studs thereunto belonging.
Zurdoki, therefore, did not woo very romantically, perhaps, but for all that the letter was full of burning love. He thought that the handsomeness of the gift would make the lovely lady forget the ugliness of the giver.
But Isabella was very wroth when she received this shameful proposal. She immediately took the letter to her husband, and begged him to order the bearer of it to be exemplarily whipped. They were then dwelling at their castle at Saros.
"No," said Count Hommonai; "why whip the bearer of the letter, it is the writer who deserves a whipping." And he there and then dictated to his wife the answer she was to send to Zurdoki, which was so worded as to seem to consent to his proposition.
Annie, whom Isabella also rewarded most handsomely, took back the letter and delivered it to the ancient Celadon.
The object of Hommonai's stratagem was to get Zurdoki into his hands, so Zurdoki fell into the trap which he himself had laid.
Count Hommonai had an occasion ready to hand. He had a pair of old retainers, a coachman and a female lodge-keeper, both of Turkish extraction, and living together as man and wife after the Turkish fashion. These the count had converted to the Calvinistic Christian faith, and now they were to be united at the altar according to the Christian rite.
Such cases used to make a great sensation, for in those days, when the Turk was a mighty potentate who had two-thirds of Hungary in his power, and kept the remaining third in constant fear and trembling, it was an extraordinary phenomenon when a Mussulman pair voluntarily denied the Prophet and went over to the Christian faith. Therefore, all the neighboring gentry were invited from far and near, and most of them came, so that Count Hommonai's castle had to be enlarged in all haste by wooden annexes, so as to provide suitable accommodation for the servants of so many guests.
To this memorable wedding Zurdoki was also invited. Indeed it may be said that it was mainly on his account that the whole affair was got up.
He was well aware of this; but he fancied that the lady had arranged it all for love of him, whereas it was the husband's doings, and there is always a great difference between the motives of a husband and the motives of a wife.
Zurdoki arrived on the day of the wedding and brought thirty retainers with him. Hommonai received him very heartily, and did not once allude to the old theme of dispute; nay, he even allowed the old coxcomb to dance attendance upon his wife and whisper all sorts of tender compliments in her ear.
The ceremony was conducted with all due solemnity, and the behavior of the converted couple engrossed all the attention of the assembled guests. They could talk of nothing but how the bridegroom could not draw the ring off his finger; how he gave the bride his left hand instead of his right; how the bride, under the influence of the baptismal water, began to sneeze; and how the bridegroom drained the chalice to the very dregs instead of only sipping it; and how both of them, when they should have said "yes," only shook their heads, which, with the Turks, signifies assent. Who, under such circumstances, had any time to notice that Zurdoki was constantly whispering to the lady of the house?
Next followed a splendid banquet of four-and-twenty courses. During the meal Simplex played on the farogato, so as to put even the gypsy musicians to shame. Since Valentine's death he had entered the service of Count Hommonai as trumpeter, at a salary of five hundred gulden and his keep, which shows in what high estimation a skillful trumpeter was held in those days.
After the meal was over the ladies withdrew to their rooms to dress for the dance, but the gentlemen remained behind over their cups.
Then, according to a good old custom of Russian origin, the "fratina" went from hand to hand. This "fratina" was a silver pocal, set with precious stones and engraved with many sage saws, and the men drank to each other out of it and drained it to the very dregs. No one laughed at him who fell in this contest. The servants simply picked him up and carried him into his bedroom, that he might there sleep off his carouse.
He to whose head the wine flew soonest was the host himself. He very soon had had enough, and laid his head down on the table. They quickly carried him away.
"This wine really is very strong," said Zurdoki. "I suppose the vintage is of the year of the great comet? It has got into my head too." And with that his tongue began to loll out, his head sank back in his easy-chair, and the tankard fell from his hand.
"He's had his fill too," said the guests, whereupon four servants raised him from his chair and carried him to his room.
But Zurdoki was not drunk after all; he had only been pretending. As soon as he was alone in his room he locked the door, and sought for a tapestried door concealed at the foot of the bed. Through this he proceeded to a little corridor which led direct into the countess's room.
The time of the rendezvous could not have been better chosen. The guests who had not already succumbed to the wine proceeded from the dining-room to the dancing-room, and there practiced a martial dance among themselves till the fumes of the wine had evaporated and the ladies assembled, when they began to dance together the palotás, the polonaise, the torch dance, and the dance of the three hundred widows.
Zurdoki found the countess in her chamber; she had been waiting for him, and was quite alone.
The old inamorato at once fell down upon his knees before the lovely lady, and to convince her of the sincerity of his passion laid at her feet the promised gifts; a purse filled with gold, the collar of brilliants, and the will and testament, authenticated by the seal of a cathedral chapter.
"All this is thine, my beloved, if thou wilt receive me favorably."
"Get up, sir! and you will certainly have a warm reception," replied the lovely Isabella.
At this the enamored old buck sprang to his feet, as fiery and lusty as a young weasel.
On the wall opposite were life-size portraits of Count Hommonai and his wife, but between them hung a beautiful Venetian mirror in a cut-glass frame. The old vulture placed himself before this mirror, and, stroking his gray mustache, exclaimed very complacently, as if rejoicing in his beauty: "Come now, my lord Count Hommonai, which of us two is the handsomer fellow now?"
"Why, I am, of course, and always shall be!" cried Count Hommonai; for he was behind the picture, which opened like a tapestried door, and out he stepped.
The terror-stricken Zurdoki stood there with his mouth wide open. He now perceived that they had been fooling him all along.
Count Hommonai did not exchange many words with him, but seized him by the collar and thrust him into the room where all the other guests were dancing. They were not a little astonished to see their host and his friend, who, as they fancied, had been overcome with wine, now appear among them quite brisk and sober. But what astonished them still more was the circumstance, that whereas they had both been carried off to their respective bedrooms a few moments before, they now both came out of the countess's chamber.
"Look, gentlemen!" cried the count derisively, "look at that old buck-goat who would fain browse in my garden!"
At this, a roar of laughter greeted the discomfited Lothario, and his terror at being caught in forbidden ways now turned into furious rage at being mocked in public. Perceiving his page, to whom he had intrusted his sword when he sat down at table, he beckoned to him, tore the weapon from his hand, and planting himself in front of Hommonai, exclaimed:
"Shame, confusion on you, to entice a nobleman into a trap and ridicule your guest in your own house! But you shall not boast of it to anyone, and the marriage feast which you arranged on my account shall now be turned into a funeral wake. You must fight me, sir!"
Hommonai's only intention had been to make the old libertine a butt and a laughing-stock. He had, therefore, no weapon with him. But when Zurdoki drew his sword and challenged him to single combat, he also called his page, sent him for a rapier, and stood on his defense. The guests in the hall fell back to give the combatants room. Nobody attempted to intervene. It was only right that such an insult should be settled by arms.
First the furious Zurdoki aimed a mighty blow at the count, but miscalculating the length of his saber, the point of his weapon only grazed the yellow, gold-gallooned jack-boots of the count, and then struck the floor. But the blow which Hommonai dealt him in return settled him on the spot, and he breathed forth his filthy soul at the feet of the aggrieved husband.
And everyone present said it served him right. Hommonai ought to have killed him a year ago at least. Then Zurdoki would not have persuaded Prince George Rakoczy to undertake his unlucky campaign, then many good Hungarian warriors would not have fallen into captivity, and Hungary and Transylvania would not have been wasted with fire and sword.
But when the Countess Isabella heard that her husband had killed the old fool, she said:
"What a pity he had but one life! He has only atoned for the blood of my poor Michal. Valentine Kalondai is still unavenged."
They then called the maids, who cleansed the floor with hot water. Meanwhile the host led his guests into the castle gardens, and told them of all the miserable plots in which the evil-minded old libertine had played a part, down to his latest intrigue when he had attempted to seduce the countess. To prove his words he produced the gifts and the will which were to have served as a decoy, and gave them to the Protestant bishop who had celebrated the wedding of the Turkish couple, that he might employ them for the benefit of the College of Sarospatak. Zurdoki had spent not a farthing on church or school, but now his sinful liberality was to be turned to pious uses.
Then they returned to the dancing-room; the fiddles, flutes, and farogatos struck up, and the guests danced over the very spot where Zurdoki's blood had flowed, just as if absolutely nothing had occurred.
And surely you cannot express your contempt for a man more emphatically than by dancing over the spot where his blood has been, only an hour after his death!
Simplex, from whose contemporary diary we have compiled this history, most of whose events the narrator had himself witnessed and experienced, subsequently entered the service of Achatius Baresai, whom the Padishah had made Prince of Transylvania in George Rakoczy's stead. He also accompanied his Highness on his journey to Turkey. His latest memoirs are dated from Stamboul. What ultimately became of him no one has ever been able to find out.
CHAPTER XL.
All things pass away, but science remains eternal.
But the learned Professor David Fröhlich continued for many years to implant the sciences in the youthful mind, and enrich the world with his inventions. Down to the very day of his death he was in constant correspondence with the most distinguished European scholars, and was still informed about everything which was going on in foreign parts.
But what had become of his daughter Michal he never could find out.
Oftentimes, indeed, he would cast her horoscope and compare its various aspects; but he always arrived at precisely the same conclusion, viz., that his daughter Michal was now leading a most blissful life in some far-distant land, the very name of which was unknown to him.
And perhaps it really was so!
THE END.
Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the original edition have been corrected.
A missing period was added after "CHAPTER XXXI" in the Table of Contents.
In Chapter I, "with real enthusiasm,;" was changed to "with real enthusiasm;".
In Chapter II, "the more merciful harum palzarum" was changed to "the more merciful harum palczarum", missing quotation marks were added after "the god-fearing and the godless" and before "Write in your book", and an extraneous quotation mark was removed after "marry within thy station!".
In Chapter III, "he aswered yes" was changed to "he answered yes".
In Chapter IV, "neck and skull were thown backward" was changed to "neck and skull were thrown backward", a missing quotation mark was added after "fire upon them in return", and "mixed up in a skirmrish" was changed to "mixed up in a skirmish".
In Chapter IX, "commited such crimes" was changed to "committed such crimes", and "humilated wretch" was changed to "humilated wretch".
In Chapter XI, "of one her favorite songs" was changed to "of one of her favorite songs".
In Chapter XIV, "passed the kopanitscha of Hamer" was changed to "passed the kopanitscha of Hamar".
In Chapter XVI, "Gönez" was changed to "Göncz", and "Gönezer cask" was changed to "Gönczer cask".
In Chapter XVIII, "Simplex was caried back to his dungeon, and there he had leasure" was changed to "Simplex was carried back to his dungeon, and there he had leisure".
In Chapter XIX, "great red wheels" was changed to "great red wheals".
In Chapter XXII, "Frölich could have heard" was changed to "Fröhlich could have heard".
In Chapter XXIII, "my pretty young misstress" was changed to "my pretty young mistress".
In Chapter XXVI, "her daughter-in law's lovely hair" was changed to "her daughter-in-law's lovely hair".
In Chapter XXVII, "the good Countess Hommonia" was changed to "the good Countess Hommonai", and "Kalondai preceived the danger" was changed to "Kalondai perceived the danger".
In Chapter XXVIII, "was then of that pecular yellowish tinge" was changed to "were then of that peculiar yellowish tinge".
In Chapter XXIX, "Valentine Kolondai desired to challenge" was changed to "Valentine Kalondai desired to challenge".
In Chapter XXX, "With grandoise aplomb" was changed to "With grandoise aplomb", and "Frölich possessed" was changed to "Fröhlich possessed".
In Chapter XXXI, "makiug the circuit of the town" was changed to "making the circuit of the town", and "The Calvinists saluted prety Michal" was changed to "The Calvinists saluted pretty Michal".
In Chapter XXXIII, a quotation mark was added after "három pálczára".
In Chapter XXXVI, "ag reat dispute" was changed to "a great dispute".
In Chapter XXXVIII, an extra quotation mark was removed before "look and read".
In Chapter XXXIX, "Zurdoki aimed a mighy blow" was changed to "Zurdoki aimed a mighty blow".