Chapter VII: Part II: I (1)

THE SEA-DOVE.

From Dumanyfalva to Vernöcze the high-road makes a circuit of a two hours' ride, but we took a short cut by a cross-road through Siegfried's deer-park, which is about ten thousand acres in extent. The whole park was fenced in with high iron railings, and this fence alone had cost the neat little sum of one hundred and fifty thousand florins. Yet it was worth its cost, for, before its erection, the Vernöczys had to pay yearly about twenty-five thousand florins for damage done by their game upon the crops in the neighbouring fields. At the big iron gate a ranger with two loaded rifles was waiting for us. He handed the rifles to the two servants, and then took his seat on the box with the coachman.

It was a beautiful wood through which we drove--all of giant larch trees of a century's growth, perfuming the air with ambrosial odours. The bright rays from our lanterns attracted the deer, and they stood gazing at us with their glittering eyes. One of the bucks bellowed at us, and one of the little fawns came almost under the wheels. Pheasants, startled from sleep by the noise of our wheels, soared above our heads. From the depths of the forest mysterious voices met our ears: the woodcock's hoarse call, the roebuck's deep bellow, the wild boar's grunt, the squirrel's chatter, and the shrill cries which announce the presence of the wild peacock. What a difference between this lordly forest and my small twenty-acre park! Red squirrels, gray squirrels, gambolling among the boughs, playing with acorns and hazelnuts; thrushes, blackbirds, nightingales, and greenfinches, chirruping and twittering, were all the game I had.

In vain we endeavour to bring high nobility and plain gentry into one class. They are divided by the game-park. We are only visitors there, kindly invited, kindly received, but visitors still, and we can never repay the compliment. Therefore I consider we should always think twice before we accept the invitation.

It was past midnight when we finally arrived at Siegfried's shooting-box, a beautiful pavilion in the Swiss style, with a large verandah to the east, facing the magnificent château. Between the two buildings extended a clear, broad lake, with silvery willows on the nearer side, and grand old lime-trees on the side toward the mansion. Graceful white and black swans swam on the lake, and two tiny little wherries lay ready for a boating excursion. The south side of the shooting-box had "altdeutsch" windows of coloured glass, and wooden shutters with heart-shaped perforations on the outside. On the nearer side of the lodge was a beautiful green lawn and a few somewhat neglected rose-beds.

The shooting-box was a comfortably large and luxuriously-furnished building, and afforded accommodation for thirty guests. The couches in the different sleeping apartments were all covered with deerskin spreads, and the furniture was all in harmony with the purpose and style of the building.

I left my window ajar for the night, so as to be up early, and my plan succeeded. The dew still glittered upon the tender petals of the roses when I was up and sauntering among the flowers. I had brought my "Malmaison" and "Sultan of Morocco" roses with me, and also my budding-knife and the sap for budding. "What a surprise for them," I thought, "when they find these beautiful flowers instead of the wild suckers." I had put my roses into a glass of water, and was now preparing for the performance by cutting off the collateral shoots and removing the inconvenient thorns. Just as I had taken one of the "Sultan of Morocco" roses out of the water, I heard steps on the gravel, and a musical voice cried--

"Gardener, do you hear?"

I turned around, and beheld two beautiful young girls hurrying toward me. One of them, a tiny little creature, was of the blonde type, with long, golden curls and a face of cream and roses. One startling, bewitching little black mole was seen on one of the dimpled cheeks. Her eyebrows were dense, of a golden-brown, and arched over a pair of large, glittering brown eyes. The corners of her little mouth curved upward in a smile, and the cherry lips were always open and moving. Her little hands were busy gesticulating, explaining, acting, and never at rest; a picture of the entire little personage.

The other girl was a tall, slender, willow-like figure, with raven hair pushed high above the marble forehead. Her skin was clear and transparent, but with hardly a tinge of colour. Her straight, black brows and long black lashes overhung a pair of deep blue, or rather sea-green, eyes, and her little coral mouth was so small that the idea struck me that it must hurt her to speak, and therefore she liked to hold her peace.

Both were in morning dress, appropriate to the country. The blonde wore a dress of some sort of light Japanese silk, covered with a pattern of great painted birds and flowers. The dark girl had a Nile-blue gown of some light material, and in style somewhat resembling the Greek.

The verandah had prevented me from perceiving their approach. Now they hastened toward me with the easy composure with which we meet some old friend, or--a servant. Of course, I had no difficulty in recognising the equestrian amateurs of the previous day, and it was easy to guess that they repeated their mistake of that afternoon, by taking me for a gardener. I had no intention of undeceiving them, and did not take off my hat, but stood with the "Sultan of Morocco" between my teeth, and my hands engaged with the budding-knife.

"Do you hear?" said the little blonde, now coming near; "cut me a bud of these 'Gloire de Dijons.' No! one of these 'Marshal Niels'; not this, the other, that is just opening!"

I was correctly dressed for the occasion, and quite in proper style for a country visit: tanned shoes, knickerbocker jacket, Pepita waistcoat, Madapolam shirt-collar, Bismarck _en colère_ scarf, Panama hat. "My darling, does not that content you?" Still these girls took me for a servant. Well, let it pass!

I cut off one of the roses, and began to pare off the thorns with my knife, when she angrily stamped her little foot on the grass. "What are you paring the thorns off for? I don't like a rose without thorns, I want a rose with thorns; this looks stripped!" and, pulling the rose out of my hand, she held it over to her companion.

"_Tiens! Ca m'embête_!"

To her she spoke French; to me, German. The girl took the rose without a word; for her it was good enough without the thorns. I prepared to cut another bud for the capricious fair one, when she asked, "What rose is that in your mouth?"

"A Sultan of Morocco," I said, taking the rose from my lips.

"Give me this," with an imperative gesture.

"This is for grafting," I tried to explain.

"But I want it!" was the haughty reply, and she impatiently held out her bit of a hand for the rose. I handed it to her, and for a moment she buried her little nose in it and then tried to fasten it to her dress. Presently a thought seemed to strike her, for she lifted the rose to her lips, and then, turning to me again, asked--

"Has the Count returned home?"

"He has," I answered.

"He did not come alone? A gentleman came with him, did he not?"

I answered in the affirmative.

"Are they asleep yet, do you think? Which is his window?"

"Whose? The Count's?"

"No, that I know! The stranger's?"

"The one that is open," I said, wondering what she meant. She looked around, and observed a double step-ladder standing in front of a tree. "Bring that ladder," she said to me, "and put it in front of that window."

I began to perceive her intention, and, much amused, I fetched the ladder. "Shall I hold it?" I asked, with seeming innocence.

"No. Go back to your work!"

I submitted, and went back to my roses, where the other girl was still standing. The little blonde vixen, as Siegfried had called her, went up the ladder, throwing me a haughty glance because I had the impertinence to watch her movements.

As I prepared for work again, I noticed that in the chalice of each flower, two or more green cetonias were to be found. The cetonia beetle is the deadliest foe of the rose, destroying it entirely, and since my boyhood, when I used to practise gardening at home, and was taught to kill a cetonia wherever I found it, I could not bear the sight of the glittering, green beetle. I was just crushing one under my foot, when the dark-haired girl near me cried out--

"Why do you kill that poor cetonia?"

"Because it injures the roses," I said.

"Well, let them alone! Who cares for the roses?"

"Who cares for the roses?" Is not that strange? A young girl taking the side of the harmful destroyer against the innocent victim!

The blonde descended the ladder, and her face, her hands, and her walk betrayed that she was vexed. I was very much amused. Was it not a joke that she had climbed up to my window to present me with my own rose, the rose she had taken out of my mouth? And was it not amusing to see her angry, because I had had the sauciness to watch the movements of those tiny slippered feet in pink stockings as they mounted the ladder and revealed a bewitching little ankle?

The black-haired girl turned to her and complained--"See, he kills our cetonias!" Whereupon the little one, with a queenly mien, stepped in front of me and said--

"I forbid you to do that! Do not dare to hurt my cetonias!"

I could not repress a smile, as I answered, "I shall duly obey. I had no right to interfere, as these cetonias do not belong to me."

"I really think that fellow is laughing at us!" said the little one, with arching brows, when the other, who had been watching me for some moments, made some whispered remark, and then the fair head and the dark one were put close together in earnest consultation.

On one of my hands I wore an antique carnelian seal-ring, with my family crest, and a large solitaire, the gift of a grateful patient. These rings, rather unusual upon the finger of a common gardener, had caught the eye of the dark-haired girl, and she could not but notice that my hands and nails were not those of a labourer. For a while they looked shyly at me, while they busied themselves in gathering into their garden hats all the cetonias they could, as if afraid that, after their departure, I should avenge myself by a general onslaught on their _protégées_. Presently the blonde stepped up to me, and, touching the carnelian on my hand with her finger, she said--

"Are you a nobleman?"

I answered by an anecdote.

"A German journalist had to translate an item on sea-turtles from an English paper. He did not exactly understand what a turtle was; but he know of turtle-doves, which are in German called _Turtel-tauben_, and, as he did not want to trouble himself to look for the expression in a dictionary, _turtle-doves_ it remained. He wrote of the bird, that it comes out of the sea to the sand of the shore, lays its eggs in that sand, carefully and safely scratching them in, and smoothing the surface with its front paws. These front paws of a turtle-dove perplexed him, and he did what he ought to have done before: he looked in the dictionary and found that the sea-turtle was no dove at all."

"Hem!" said the little one, looking with charming astonishment at the other girl; and then she turned to me again, and, lifting a threatening little finger at me, she said--

"Now, don't you go and betray us to anybody. Promise!"

"You have my knightly word," I said; "_parole d'honneur_!" But, unable to suppress my mirth any longer, I broke into a ringing laugh, and both girls fled as fast as they could.

On returning to my room, I found Siegfried there. "My aunt's footman has already been here to invite us to breakfast," he said. "When in the country she is always an early riser, and so are the children. I wonder they have not been running about yet. They used to."

I did not tell him that they had been running about already; but, stepping up to the window, I found the rose which the fair girl had laid upon the sill, and, fastening it in the button-hole of my jacket, made ready to follow up the invitation for breakfast.

"Wouldn't you rather shave before going down?" asked Siegfried, with a disapproving look at my face. "My valet has an easy hand, and is very reliable."

"No, thank you!" I said, and with that I took his arm and we went down.

Near the lake was a mass of beautiful dolomite rock, a forerunner of the high mountains further on. The face of the rock was all overgrown with birch trees, and wild roses and other flowers were peeping out of the thick moss and bush. At the foot of the rock was a clearing, surrounded with pines, their drooping foliage forming a shady roof above the little circuit of ground. In the wall of the rock was a grotto, overrun with henna leaves, hedge-plant, and other creepers. Out of one of the walls of the grotto broke, murmuring and rippling, a clear mountain spring, which, meeting with another and uniting with it to form a rivulet, flowed across the flowery plain, emptying itself into the lake by a series of cascades.

In the centre of this space the breakfast-table was set--the shining silver, the glittering crystal, and the creamy china forming a pleasant contrast to the rural simplicity of the chairs and table and the green roof and walls above and around.

Countess Diodora was already there, expecting us. The two girls were in the grotto, pretending to be busy with the preparations for breakfast.

Countess Diodora was strikingly handsome. Tall of stature and fully developed, her movements had all the elasticity of youth and all the majesty of a goddess. Her Creole complexion was in harmony with the great almond-shaped eyes, the Minerva forehead, Grecian nose, and shell-shaped mouth with its coral-red lips. Her head was crowned with a tiara of heavy black tresses, more precious and beautiful than any artificial ornament.

Siegfried led me to her and presented me with the following words--

"At last I am able to introduce my hitherto invisible friend. Do not be amazed at his present resemblance to our common progenitors, the Simians--that is, if we believe the evolutionists; but our friend here has no intention of claiming that affinity. His sprouting moustache and beard are a token of patriotic zeal, and a sacrifice upon the altar of national idiosyncrasy. Henceforth he will be known as a Hungarian in appearance also, and nobody will be justified in calling him an Austrian."

The lady smiled at the humorous introduction, and extended both her hands, which were somewhat large, but magnificently shaped. Could I do less than kiss both? The smile that flitted over her queenly features gave her the appearance of a veritable goddess.

"Is it not odd," she asked, "that we know each other so well, yet have never met until this moment?" Her voice was a rich, deep contralto, and very sweet.

"I have already enjoyed the happiness of seeing your ladyship," said I, smiling.

"Indeed? And where?"

"In my own garden. If I am not greatly mistaken, your ladyship and the two young ladies, your cousins, were yesterday at the pains to immortalise me by taking my photograph."

"Impossible!" she cried. "It could not have been you! With the spade in hand, and--oh, it is too odd!" And she broke into a loud laugh.

A laughing Pallas! The two girls ran but of the grotto to see what the staid Diodora was laughing at. "Come on, Cenni," said the lady to the little blonde: "here is the gardener of yesterday; the one you have photographed along with his garden."

But by that time the little one knew me well enough; she had recognised the rose in my button-hole, and, with pretended anger, she ran toward me, took hold of the collar of my jacket, and gave it a hearty pull.

"You are an artful and dangerous cheat and deceiver--that is what you are!" she said. "Why did you deceive us this morning, and make sport of us? Let us treat you as a gardener, and send you on errands? Why did not you tell us who you were?"

Siegfried came to my help. "How could he? He did not know you; maybe he took you for your own maids. If you had told him who you were, he would have returned the compliment."

"But you won't betray us to anybody?" she said, holding up, as if in prayer, her little hands, that looked like the delicate petals of the white lily. "You won't tell anybody of our conversation at the rose bushes? If you promise, I'll give you a kiss; I will, indeed!"

"But, Cenni!" cried Countess Diodora, shocked, "what expression is that again?"

The little one looked like a scolded school-girl, who does not know what crime she has been punished for, and said, poutingly--

"But I want him to keep the secret, and I must give him a reward."

"You always forget that you are no longer a little girl of twelve years, but a grown-up young lady, although, God knows, you do not look like it!" said the countess, with a humorous shake of the head.

"Now you great debater and future lawgiver, what do you say to this offered reward? Answer _ex tripode_!" said Siegfried, laughingly.

"I say that I am no usurer, and cannot take unlawful interest," I replied.

"Bravo! bravissimo! A usurer! Unlawful interest he calls a kiss! Oh, what a moral fellow!" cried Siegfried; but Countess Diodora observed that breakfast was waiting, and that we had time enough for ventilating academic questions afterward.

At the table I sat between Countess Diodora and Countess Flamma. The latter turned to me, and said in her quiet and sober way--

"But I discovered soon enough that the sea-turtle was not a sea-dove, did I not?"

"What are you talking about sea-doves?" asked the countess; "it seems you have secrets in common already."

I opened my mouth to answer, when the little blonde opposite to me sprang up and put her little shell-coloured hand to my lips. "No betrayal, if you please! You have given your knightly word!"

"I am mute!" I said, bowing to her with a smile.

"I declare!" said the countess, "knightly word, turtle-dove! Why, what mystery is this? Flamma was complaining something about the cetonias."

"Oh, that is nothing," said Cenni, lightly, "and that may be spoken of; but the 'step-ladder,' the 'Sultan of Morocco,' and the 'sea-dove' are strict secrets, and never to be mentioned anywhere."

Siegfried clapped his hands in surprise. "Riddle after riddle! and to think that I myself have brought this boy to the house only last night for the first time in his life, and introduced him not an hour ago, and--talk of his being shy in the company of ladies!--he is head over ears in conspiracy with both of the girls, when I thought he had never seen them, and they did not know him at all!"

II.

"WHAT IS THE DEVIL LIKE?"

"We not know him?" asked the little one. "Why, we have his photograph in our album! Only he looks much nicer there. Such a Lord Byron face!"

"Well, this is really audacious!" cried Siegfried, "with such a face to appear before ladies! Coarse and stubby like that of a Slav field-labourer, and yet such a young lady as that calls it a Lord Byron face! Now I see that the old proverb is right, and a man has to be but one shade handsomer than the Devil, for women will find him handsome enough."

"Only that the proverb is a paradox in itself. The Evil One is not ugly; on the contrary, he is beautiful!" said Diodora.

"_Quien sabe_?" answered Siegfried. "I have seen his portrait in the Greek churches, in a large wall-painting, and there he is represented as a bandy-legged, ox-tailed, black-faced monster, with a pair of big horns on his forehead. Then, again, I have seen the Devil in the opera, as Göthe and Gounod's creation of Mephistopheles in _Faust_, and there he wore a goat's-beard and red-feathered cap, was a little lame in one leg, and had a baritone voice. He was not in the least beautiful."

"You ought to read Klopstock, then, and Milton," said Countess Diodora. "Their Devils are enchantingly handsome men, with pale faces, and deep, sorrowful eyes; and that is the real demon-type as given by the classics: for, originally, the Devil was not known as an evil spirit, but was an angel. Only he was haughty and ambitious, and tried to rival and dethrone the Almighty. It was after he was defeated, and due punishment was dealt to him, that he became the representative of Evil, and, after the creation of man, the tempter and seducer."

"So part of the Devil's corruption is due to man kind," said Siegfried, ironically.

"If you read the Cabalists and Gnostics you will learn how sinful pride had its downfall, and the angel fell. Still, in all his humiliation and his banishment from grace and glory, he never lost his beauty, and this is natural; for who would listen to the temptations of an ugly monster? A seducer must needs be handsome. In the old Jewish Scripture, from before Moses' time, the Evil Spirit is represented by a woman, Lilith, the ideal beauty. In the same manner Menander has painted Sybaris, and of Socrates it is said that he lived in intimate friendship with the demon."

Siegfried had made a desperate onslaught on the sandwiches; now he turned in comical vexation to me, and said--

"Friend, brother, help! for this learned woman is slaying me with pandects, and, if the Devil has such a champion, what can poor I do against him?"

It was a difficult task. If I said that she was right, she would scorn me as a simple, empty-headed flatterer. If, on the other hand, I tried to contradict her, she was sure to conquer me with arguments. So I thought I would plead scepticism.

"Indeed, I can't," was my reply. "All I have to say is that I do not believe in the existence of an actual Devil at all. I positively deny the existence of evil spirits or devils."

"Ah!" said the countess, astonished and seemingly dismayed, "do you know that such a negation includes a denial of the fundamental truths of all religion also? Turn wherever you will, and you will find that the Roman Catholic faith expressly commands us to believe in the Devil. The Protestants, with Martin Luther at the head, have in speech and writing gone so far as to compose a whole Shamanism of the Devil's special qualities; and so on in all positive religions. Are you an infidel, a so-called Freethinker, and not a Christian?"

At first I smilingly referred her to Becker's "Bewitched World," which made all belief in an actual Devil completely ridiculous, showing to demonstration that such a being is simply impossible. She answered me with Spinoza. I again spoke of Thomasius, whereupon the countess declared me a Rationalist.

Siegfried smiled, and smoked his cigarette complacently, and the two girls listened innocently and wonderingly to the strange dispute.

"You see, my lady," said I at last, "I am a physician, and I know of no bodily or mental ailment that is without some foundation or reason. I know of miasmata, spores, bacilli, as sources of bodily diseases, of inherited or fancied maladies, infections, contagions, and their proper remedies: vaccination, disinfection, prophylactics; but an invisible, immaterial spirit, which we ought to know by the title of Devil, has nothing to do with any of these. All evil-doers, murderers, etc., are prompted to the mischief they do by some abnormity in their brains, or by some powerful egotistic motive, as jealousy, revenge, greed, ambition, etc.; but the temptation is always material--a benefit they want to secure by their crime--never a spiritual Devil. We may fairly say that all crimes committed without a visible motive are founded upon lunacy, a disorder of the brain. I do not believe in one being, either corporal or spiritual, that would do mischief purely for mischief's sake, out of evil principle, of pure malice. I do not believe that any being exists which would inflict sorrow on others just in order to rejoice at the despair of the victims. The so-called hellish passions and inclinations in man are really created by that which is beneath him, the animal part of him, the material element, and it is superfluous to look to that which is above him, a spirit, for a motive."

As I pronounced this conviction, the four persons present looked at each other and then at me, in wonder and defiance, but without a word. For a moment a chilly presentiment crept over me--a shadowy warning that the declaration I had just made would prove the _fatum_ of my life.

As a physician, I had given very much attention to disturbances of the mind; nervous distractions, diseases of the brain. In lunatic asylums I had had frequent opportunity of observing the different manifestations of extravagances of the mind diseased. There are cases in which simulation is identical with the symptoms of actual insanity, others in which it is mistaken for such; but still the simulator is never quite sane. I had speculated about the hidden motives of apparently motiveless crimes. I had seen a gallant youth, whose noble, manly features inspired love and confidence, and who yet had murdered many victims of his bestial desires; had lured them on, and killed them.

I had seen a tender, innocent, pleasant-looking young girl, with a winning smile on her ruby lips, after she had poisoned all the members of her family in turn; and I had known a miracle-working virgin, who had for years and years befooled and deceived aged and experienced men. All these and more I had seen, but all had possessed one common peculiarity which betrayed them as belonging to that large and unhappy class we term lunatics, and their mental disorder was revealed in a clear, glittering glance, cold and keen as a steel blade. The moment that unlucky assertion had escaped me, I saw my companions stare at each other and then at me, and in the eyes of all four of them I clearly discerned and recognised the same cold, keen, and gloomy expression. I felt a shock of terror, and then I laughed at my own folly. A professional habit of mentally examining and distinguishing all persons as sane and healthy, or diseased, I thought, and I tried to joke the matter away.

"Let us make a bargain, countess! We will leave the demon to those who cannot spare him; for there are people who would greatly protest against being robbed of their devils--as, for instance, some Western nations who worship him instead of God. They say God is good, and won't hurt them, anyhow, but the Devil must be bribed by compliments to keep him from doing mischief. Therefore they raise altars to him, and set up his images with many ceremonies. The Yakoots and Chuckches believe in a double creation, and think that all good things are created by God, and all bad things by the Devil."

"It would not hurt you to be of the same creed," said Countess Diodora.

"For instance, to believe that the rose was created by God and the cetonia by the Devil," I replied, smilingly.

"And why those?" she asked. "My niece has complained to me that you crush these beautiful little beetles to death. In what have they offended you?"

"Offended me? Do you hold me capable of such petty malice? I kill the cetonias because they are the deadliest foes of the rose; or, rather, as they love the rose, and in loving destroy the flower, I must call the cetonia the most dangerous friend of the rose."

"However, the beetles are necessary to my nieces, and therefore they must live."

"Necessary?" I cried. "How so?"

The blonde girl went into the grotto and, returning, brought with her a large teak board, upon which a Chinese sun-bird was enamelled. The bird was only half finished as yet, but it was the most artistic, tasteful, and delightful enamel-work I had ever seen, and all of it was composed of the delicate lids of the beetle-wings. The cetonias vary in colour: some of them are red with a tinge of gold; others green and gold; others again the colour of darkened copper, and still others in a metallic blue, like steel. All these were carefully arranged and pasted upon the teak board in a wonderful mosaic, the sun-bird's head and wings consisting of red, its neck of blue, and its breast of green cetonia-wings. I looked admiringly at the work. So, then, they had not protected the cetonias out of some sentimental fancy for them, but for industrial purposes. This changed my conception of the matter entirely; for the better in some respects--in some for the worse.

"So you save the life of the beetle in order to rob them of their wings?" I asked them, reproachfully.

"These are only their winter wings which we take off; their summer wings they keep, and we give them their liberty again. It is summer now; they have no need of their winter wings at present."

Well, this was girlish logic and philosophy: I have taken what I wanted, you must make the best of what I have left you. Rather a striking piece of egotism!

"Do you know that the cetonia contains poison?" asked I.

"What kind of poison?" was the inquiring response, given with great quickness.

"The poison," I said, evasively, "that gives the motive to the Bánk-Bán tragedy."

At these words Siegfried puffed a whole cloud of tobacco-smoke full in my face, and at any other time I should have strongly resented the insult; but this time he was right. The explanation was, even as an allusion, objectionable in the presence of girls. Nevertheless I could perceive through the cloud of smoke that the pale face of Flamma had coloured violently, and that Cenni pouted and pushed the sun-bird away. The innocents were not so very innocent, after all.

"Is not this beetle identical with the holy scarabæus of the Egyptians?" asked Countess Diodora.

"No. Because the cetonia lives on roses; and of the holy scarabæus Herodotus tells us that he dies of the odour of roses. As soon as the roses begin to bloom the scarabæus vanishes."

This interested the girls, and we continued the subject. I told them of the South American Hercules-beetle, that is as fond of liquor as any human tippler, and I really thought that I had succeeded in turning the conversation from the horned devil to the horned beetle, when Countess Diodora said--

"You are too much of a naturalist. This won't do, and you must try to amend. To deny God is bad enough, but He is kind and forgiving, and the infidel may yet be saved; but to deny the Devil is sure destruction, for the Devil knows no mercy, and he takes his revenge on the insulter."

I looked up astonished and met her eyes. Again I detected that bewildering cold glitter, and with an involuntary shiver I turned away.

III.

THE FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER.

The same day our political friends and partisans came, and we held a conference. From that day on I was a daily guest in Vernöcze, and when occasionally I spent a night at home in my own house, next morning I was sure to feel restless and uneasy, and persuaded myself that political reasons required my presence in Vernöcze, and that I must make haste to go there.

A number of times the illustrious ladies of the Vernöcze castle descended from their lofty situation to pay a visit to my lowly house, and on these occasions I played the host, and set before them what my cellar and buttery afforded. Then I conducted them through the chambers in which were stored my late uncle's beloved curiosities, and I told them of the horrors of the olden time, and the history of this ancient seat of my family. There was the story of a walled-up wife and murdered lovers, and we had our "Woman in White" and our "Red Templar," who, at the stroke of midnight, duly stalked through locked rooms and corridors, and performed all the actions that could be expected of real and respectable ghosts. These phantoms the countess rather envied me, for Vernöcze could boast of no such token of old nobility; yet the Vernöczys were counts and the Dumanys only plain gentry.

Of course, I was an ardent admirer of the three fairies, only I could not exactly tell which of the three I admired most. Countess Diodora's philosophical intellect impressed me as much as Countess Cenni's unruly activity; and Countess Flamma's pensive silence affected me none the less, and I looked at her with the reverential awe of the priest before the Holy Virgin.

Only one thing puzzled me. Here were three beautiful, gifted, high-born, and wealthy young women, and not one of them had a real, earnest, and sincere suitor. Of course, there were a number of young aristocrats paying court to them, and very much inclined to carry on a little bit of flirtation; but all in an easy-going, although certainly very respectful and distant way; but of a real, true attachment I could perceive no sign. Once I had ventured a remark to this effect in Siegfried's presence, whereupon he explained that the two younger countesses were mere school-girls yet, and nobody would have the audacity to think of a serious courtship in that quarter as yet, while, as to Countess Diodora, she would never marry at all. She repudiated the very idea of marriage, and would no doubt, sooner or later, enter a convent as abbess.

This explanation, to tell the truth, did not satisfy me. If the two young ladies were such forbidden fruit at present, why bring them in constant contact with young men? And, as to Countess Diodora's intention to become a nun, I had my strong doubts. True, she was religious, even to bigotry, but she was not averse to the pleasures of the world, and I did not believe in her inclination to give them up of her free will. I rather believed that men were afraid of her, for such learned and strong-minded women can be only the wives of yet wiser and more strong-minded men, or else of fools, who willingly become their slaves.

To me Countess Diodora was conspicuously kind, and showed me an exceptional preference--that is, she did me the honour to select me as her antagonist in debate.

When she supported one paradox, I would support the opposite, and we kept up a constant battle with intellectual weapons. She was a great reader; so was I. She had travelled a good deal; so had I, and, as it chanced, we had observed the same countries and scenes. On art, architecture, literature, I gave judgment with the same startling audacity as she, only that my opinions were in direct opposition to hers.

Still in matters of politics our views were harmonious. I had the same Conservative principles as she, and I heartily agreed with all that she uttered on that point. This was the first step to our mutual understanding. The second step was taken when we joined each other in defence of our principles against persons of opposing views; and the third step, which lifted me not only to a level with my new and beautiful ally, but even above her, was gained by me in a controversy on professional science, with especial relation to physicians. The countess, in a very spirited bit of banter, ridiculed the whole profession and its science, stating that, in her belief, our entire pathology, therapeutic, etc., was not worth the sand strewn over the prescriptions. She declared that in the treatment of internal maladies medical science has made no progress since Galen's time, and our most renowned professional celebrities are no wiser than Paracelsus. Our medicines, according to her opinion, were either baneful poisons, or of no higher sanative power, at the best, than the waters of Lourdes. She also was afflicted with bodily pain at times, but never yet had she submitted to any professional treatment. No physician had ever entered her bed-room or parted the tapestry hangings around her bed, and never yet had she tasted of any kind of medicine.

I listened complacently to her talk, and did not interrupt her with a word. After she had finished, I said--

"Allow me to contradict, and, at the same time, convict you. You have never spoken of your special ailment to me up to this moment. I have never heard of it before this, and I need not put any questions either to you or to others in regard to it. Yet, by simply looking at you, I can tell you from what you are suffering--that you are a victim of occasional nervous attacks of greater or less severity, and I can tell you exactly how these paroxysms commence, what symptoms they show, and all the particulars of your ailment."

She stared at me, quite perplexed. "You are right!" she said at last, and there was not a man alive who could boast that she had ever said as much to him. She asked me how I came to know or to guess the nature of her sufferings, and I told her that I had had great experience in the treatment of nervous disorders, and that her case was by no means hopeless. That although it was impossible to entirely and permanently cure the disease and drive away its attacks, yet it might be greatly diminished. The paroxysms might be reduced in duration and violence, and that without administering any poisonous drugs--simply by proper massage.

"Then I am sorry that we have no female physicians as yet; for I would never submit to that treatment from a male physician."

"And do you know that this shrinking is one of the symptoms of the malady, and at the same time its main foundation?"

"How so?"

"Because, if your views of propriety were not distorted, you would apply for help in time, and not wait until you are past cure; but you grow up with the conviction that it is a shame and a degradation to confess your physical weaknesses to a male physician, yet you are by no means ashamed--nay, you consider it a duty and a virtue--to confess your mental and moral failings to a priest, although he is a man as well as the physician, and the sins you confess are sometimes more degrading and shameful than the sores of your body."

She looked at me for quite a while. "Again you are right," she said, and with that broke off the conversation.

At that period, every day brought some political meeting or party conference, and the leaders of the coming elections, head-drummers, and subalterns swarmed into Vernöcze, bringing all sorts of news, asking for all sorts of information, and Countess Diodora was at the head of everything--presiding at the councils, assisting them all with her advice, never tired, never slackening in spirit or courage, and never forgetting her position as hostess--and a bountiful hostess, too.

When the discussion approached the financial question, she said to me with rare delicacy--

"This is no affair of yours; leave that to us. You can meanwhile go and look for the girls in the park."

And I, in spite of my professional sagacity, in spite of the knowledge and experience I had gained, I was such a greenhorn--such a simple fool--that I actually believed in the existence of a fund raised for the especial purpose of sending such shining political stars, such rare celebrities, as the Honourable Cornelius Dumany, into Parliament, there to enlighten the minds of his compatriots, and to be a blessing to his country; although, if any one had asked me how I had deserved to be held in such high esteem, I could not have found an answer! Oh, vanity and conceit! How easily you are caught in the meshes of cunning deception!

The "girls," as they were invariably called, were on the lawn looking for four-leaved clovers, and the little blonde declared that she was bent on finding one, for whoever found it first was sure to be married first. I laughed, and, looking down, I saw one little quatrefoil just at my feet. I gathered it, and presented it to the little blonde countess, but she refused to accept it. "No," she said, "everybody must keep his own fortune. You have found the leaf, and you will get married first, and within the year."

"Ought not I to know something of the coming happiness in advance?" I asked, smilingly. "Surely I can't get married without my own knowledge!"

"Just you keep quiet. Mockery is not becoming to you; but tell us in good earnest, why don't you marry? You ought to."

"Why, then, in good faith, I do not marry because the girls that would not reject me I do not care for, and those that I might care for would not accept me."

"How do you know? First tell us what qualities a girl must possess to make you care for her."

"Well, I suppose I must obey your ladyship's wishes. In the first place, then, she must be young and pretty; then she must be intellectual, prudent, and well educated; and, finally, she must have a kind heart and a sweet disposition; if she is merry and bright also, I shall like her the better. Yes, there is something else: I should like my future wife to be always elegant and stylish, and I should like to give her a splendid home and keep her in luxury; but, as my own little Slav kingdom is not sufficient for my notion of the term, therefore she must also have a fortune of her own. Yet, if a woman, or let me rather say a young girl, should possess all these qualities at once, which I think unlikely, I would not take her if I were not fully convinced that she married me for love. So, you see, with these pretensions I am likely to live and die a bachelor."

"Not necessarily. I, for instance, know a lady who answers to your description as if you had drawn her portrait."

"Indeed? You seem bent on proving that the four-leaved clover was a true prophet of marriage. You want to make the match?"

"Why not? But, indeed, I am speaking in good faith. Why don't you marry Aunt Diodora?"

"Because I have more sense than those poor birds who shatter their heads and beaks in flying against the reflected rays of the lighthouse."

"I don't understand the simile."

"Do you know the story of Turandot?"

"No. Novels and comedies I dare not read yet; but I should like to know, for Aunty Diodora is nicknamed 'Princess Turandot.' I have often heard her spoken of by that name. I think that Turandot must be a fictitious creature, who tortures all her suitors to death, for aunty is also very unkind to them. Only that is no fault of hers; it is her misfortune to have nobody sue for her hand except simpletons. All these sweet-spoken, flattering, aping, thought-snatching, cajoling, empty-headed wooers my aunt calls monkeys, and not men. A man must have the courage to oppose her, defend his own opinion against her and all the world, to gain her respect and her confidence. This you have done. Oh, we girls know well enough what impression a man has made on another girl!"

This was a startling confession. Here was a little girl, who was treated and spoken of as quite a baby; yet, in spite of her unacquaintance with novels and comedies, she seemed to be very well versed in all matters of love and matrimony.

"Yes," she continued, "I have noticed it plainly enough, and quite frequently. Whenever you are away she is gloomy, and melancholy, and out of spirits; but, as soon as she sees you or hears your voice, she brightens up and is good-humoured and pleasant. When, the other day, Flamma and I had made some remark about you--some light jest--she gave us such a sermon! telling us that men were all so different, and that you were, among them, like a real diamond among coloured glass. Oh, if I could tell you all! But you are proud and disdainful, I see. Perhaps you want to wait until Countess Diodora Vernöczy makes you a humble offer of her hand, and then maybe you would be proud, and consider about it."

"Perhaps I should. Give me leave, ladies, to tell you a story--the history of a very intimate friend, and from beginning to the end true to the letter. I shall invent nothing."

IV.

THE HISTORY OF MY FRIEND.

As soon as I promised them a story, the two young girls sat down on a low bench beneath a jasmine bush, and I sat down on the bowling-green at their feet; or, rather, I kneeled there before them. Do not think that we were left without a proper guard, for we could be seen from the balcony of the house, and on the mountain-ash tree was an old missel-thrush that kept on chirruping and twittering, "Take care, you boy! take care!"

The young ladies had stripped a heap of the slender Pimprinpáre stalks, from which they began to braid chains and other ornaments, while I related the following story:--

"My friend is a descendant of the noblest families of Hungary, and a count by birth. During the Revolution of 1848 he was one of the bravest and most heroic defenders of the national cause, and his great personal attractions, manly beauty, athletic strength, intellectual power, and high moral integrity, united with an iron will and the tender heart of a woman, made him distinguished above many. Of him it was said that, even as a man, he obeyed every command of his mother, but could never be made to obey that of any potentate of the world."

"Is that paragon of a man alive yet?" asked Cenni.

"He is. Only he is an old eagle now, for our friendship dates from the time when he gave me a ride on his knees, while I blew the whistle he had brought me. During our national struggle for liberty in 1848 he served as a captain of the ---- Hussars, and, after the Russian invasion, and the final overthrow of the national cause, he made good his escape to England. Of course, his lands and goods were seized, and he was sentenced to death; but, as he could not be caught and hanged in person, he was hanged in effigy--that is, his portrait was nailed to the gallows.

"The same high qualities which had distinguished him at home distinguished him abroad. A great many Hungarian refugees had found a home in England, especially in that gigantic metropolis, London; and it is said of them, in general, that of all political emigrants they behaved best. They never quarrelled, never grumbled, and never conspired. Everyone hastened to find a mode of earning a decent living for himself, and none of them were too proud or too lazy to work. Every one of them was honestly and diligently engaged in some business.

"My friend had some acquaintances among the English nobility, and he was soon introduced, and speedily became at home in English high life. Among those aristocratic families with which he had frequent intercourse was one in which there was a young girl, an orphan and an heiress. She was beautiful and intellectual, like Countess Diodora, and competition for her hand was naturally high among the young and old bachelors, and marriageable men of their set. Singularly enough, the young stranger, who never thought of such good fortune, at last felt compelled to believe that the open preference the lady showed him was more than common courtesy, and more than the friendly, even sisterly regard with which most ladies of his acquaintance honoured him. He could not but admire her beauty, her grace, and accomplishments, and he was ready and willing enough to fall in love with so much charm and loveliness. His courtship, if so it must be termed, although the lady was doing the greater part of the wooing, was short and successful, and they were married.

"The marriage took place on the Isle of Wight, at that time the favourite haunt of the Hungarian refugees. Two of the latter, the one a renowned politician, the other a famous general, were witnesses, and the wedding breakfast was quite an event. But when, after the bridal cake had been cut and the toasts drunk, the guests retired, and the young couple were left alone, the fair young bride said to the happy groom:--

"'I beg your pardon for leaving you to your own company, but I must retire to change my dress, for my yacht is waiting, and I shall start for France in two hours.'

"He gazed at her in utter amazement 'Why, dearest,' he said, 'don't you know that Louis Napoleon denies us Hungarians even the privilege of passing through France, and that for me to go there is equivalent to imprisonment, possibly death?'

"'I know it, and I do not ask you to accompany me. I shall go there alone. I yearned for independence and liberty, and for the coming years I could get it only as a married woman. I was in need of a husband, or of his name, and my choice fell upon you, because I did not dare to play this trick on one of our English Hotspurs. Of you I know that you are too gentle and too noble withal to injure a woman. So good-bye to you, count, for I do not think that we shall ever set eyes on each other again!'

"With that the fair goddess left her husband of two hours' standing, humiliated, stunned, without money, bereft of his former occupation, to which, as her husband, he could not return; left him for ever; and he was such a gentle fool that he did not even for a moment think of revenge upon the woman who had robbed him of the last and only treasure he possessed, his spotless name and honour, and had ruined him for ever.

"For twenty-five years the poor victim of the fair deceiver could not with decency extricate himself from the meshes of the net which she had thrown over him. After some years he found a good, pure, and true heart that was full to the brim with love for the unhappy man--so much so that she sacrificed position, family, and reputation for his sake, and accompanied him from country to country, through danger and poverty, sharing his cares and troubles, and consoling him with her love and fidelity. To this woman, who was his real wife, he could not give the legal name and position she merited, and the curse that had been laid on his own life was heavy upon his innocent children, for he could not carry them to the baptismal font, could not christen them as his own. In England he could not secure a divorce, to France he could not go, and home to Hungary he dared not come. For twenty-five years he dragged these heavy chains on his weary limbs, until Hungary had risen from her prostration, had become a constitutional state with a free Parliament, and had crowned her king, and called home her banished children from the nooks and corners of the world. Then only, when again at home and in full possession of his ancestral castle and estates, then only a legal divorce set him at liberty and left him free to bestow his name upon his faithful, loving companion and their children. But when that time had at last arrived, my friend was an old man with silvery beard and a bald head. The fairy that was the cause of so much suffering had taken nothing of him but his name, of which she was in need; but what is a name? Nothing but the lid, the tender coverlet of the beetle's wing. She did not kill the poor beetle, and she set him free; he was allowed to live with his winter wings."