"What was the name of the man he murdered?" demanded Lorand with renewed disquietude.
"As I have told you, you shall know soon: the story will not run away from me! only listen further.
"One day--it might have been twelve years since the day we shook off the dust of the Heidelberg school from our boots--I received a parcel from Heidelberg, from the Local Council, which informed me that a certain Dr.
Stoppelfeld had left me this packet in his will.
"Stoppelfeld? I racked my brains to discover who it might be that from beyond the border had left me something in his testament. Finally it occurred to me that a long light-haired medical student, who was famous in his days among the drinking clubs, had attended the same lectures as we had. If I was not deceived, we had drunk together and fought a duel.
"I undid the packet, and found within it a letter addressed to me.
"I have that letter still, but I know every word by heart so often have I read it. Its contents were as follows:
""MY DEAR COMRADE:
""You may remember that, on the day before your departure from Heidelberg, one of our young colleagues, Lorincz aronffy, looked among his acquaintances for seconds in some affair of honor. As it happened I was the first he addressed. I naturally accepted the invitation, and asked his reason and business. As you too know them--he told me so--I shall not write them here. He informed me, too, why he did not choose you as his second, and at the same time bound me to promise, if he should fall in the duel, to tell you that you might follow the matter up. I accepted, and went with him to the challenged. I explained that in such a case a duel was customary, and in fact necessary; if he wished to avoid it, he would be forced to leave the academy. The challenged did not refuse the challenge, but said that as he was of weak const.i.tution, shortsighted and without practice with any kind of weapons, he chose the American duel of drawing lots!""
... Topandy glanced by chance at Lorand"s face, and thought that the change of color he saw on his countenance was the reflection of the flickering flame in the fire-place.
"The letter continued:
""At our academy at that time there was a great rage for that stupid kind of duel, where two men draw lots and the one whose name comes out, must blow his brains out after a fixed time. a.s.ses! At that time I had already enough common sense, when summoned to act as second in such cases, to try to persuade the princ.i.p.als to fix a longer period, calculating quite rightly that within ten or twelve years the bitterest enemies would become reconciled, and might even become good friends: the successful princ.i.p.al might be magnanimous, and give his opponent his life, or the unsuccessful adversary might forget in his well-being, such a ridiculous obligation.
""In this case I arranged a period of sixteen years between the parties.
I knew my men: sixteen years were necessary for the education of the traitorous schoolfox[58] into a man of honor, or for his proud, upright young adversary to reach the necessary pitch of _sang froid_ that would make a settlement of their difference feasible.
[Footnote 58: _i. e._, Schoolfox, a term of contempt.]
""aronffy objected at first: "At once or never!" but he had finally to accept the decision of the seconds: and we drew lots.
""aronffy"s name came out.""
... Lorand was staring at the narrator with fixed eyes, and had no feeling for the world outside, as he listened in rapt awe to this story of the past.
""The name that was drawn out we gave to the successful party, who had the right to send this card, after sixteen years were pa.s.sed, to his adversary, in order if the latter deferred the fulfilment of his obligation, to remind him thereof.
""Then we parted company, you went home and I thought we should forget the matter as many others have done.
""But I was deceived. To this, the hour of my death, it has always remained in my memory, has always agonized and persecuted me. I inquired of my acquaintances in Hungary about the two adversaries, and all I learned only increased my anguish. aronffy was a proud and earnest man.
It is surely stupidity for a man to kill himself, when he is happy and faring well: yet a proud man would far rather the worms gnawed his body than his soul, and could not endure the idea of giving up to a man, whom yesterday he had the right to despise, of his own accord, that right of contempt. He can die, but he cannot be disgraced. He is a fool for his pains: but it is consistent.""
Lorand was shuddering all over.
""I am in my death-struggles," continued Stoppelfeld"s letter: "I know the day, the hour in which I shall end all; but that thought does not calm me so much, seeing that I cannot go myself and seek that man, who holds aronffy in his hands, to tell him: "Sir, twelve years have pa.s.sed.
Your opponent has suffered twelve years already because of a terrible obligation: for him every pleasure of life has been embittered, before him the future eternity has been overclouded; be contented with that sacrifice, and do not ask for the greatest too. Give back one man to his family, to his country, and to G.o.d--" But I cannot go. I must sit here motionless and count the beats of my pulse, and reckon how many remain till the last.
""And that is why I came to you: you know both, and were a good friend to one: go, speak, and act. Perhaps I am a ridiculous fool: I am afraid of my own shadow; but it agonizes and horrifies me; it will not let me die. Take this inheritance from me. Let me rest peacefully in my ashes.
So may G.o.d bless you! The man who has aronffy"s word, as far as I know, is a very gracious man, it will be easy for you to persuade him--his name is Sarvolgyi.""
... At these words Topandy rose from his seat and went to the window, opening both sides of it: so heavy was the air within the room. The cold light of the moon shone on Lorand"s brow.
Topandy, standing then at the window, continued the thrilling story he had commenced. He could not sit still to relate it. Nor did he speak as if his words were for Lorand alone, but as if he wished the dumb trees to hear it too, and the wondering moon, and the shivering stars and the shooting meteors that they might gainsay if possible the earthy worm who was speaking.
"I at once hurried across to the fellow. I was now going with tender, conciliatory countenance to a man whose threshold I had never crossed, whom I had never greeted when we met. I first offered him my hand that there might be peace between us. I began to appraise his graciousness, his virtues. I begged him to pardon the annoyances I had previously caused him; whatever atonement he might demand from me I would be glad to fulfill.
"The fellow received me with gracious obeisance, and grasped my hand. He said, upon his soul, he could not recall any annoyance he had ever suffered from me. On the contrary he calculated how much good I had done him in my life, beginning from his school-boy years:--I merely replied that I certainly could not remember it.
"I hastened to come straight to the point. I told him that I had been brought to his home by an affair the settlement of which I owed to a good old friend, and asked him to read the letter that I had received that day.
"Sarvolgyi read the letter to the end. I watched his face all the time he was reading it. He did not cease for a moment that stereotyped smile of tenderness which gives me the shivers whenever I see it in my recollections.
"When he was through with the letter, he quietly folded it and gave it back.
""Have you not discovered," he said to me with pious face, "that the man who wrote that letter is--mad?"
""Mad?" I asked, aghast.
""Without doubt," answered Sarvolgyi; "he himself writes that he has a disease of the nerves, sees visions, and is afraid of his shadow. The whole story is--a fable. I never had any conflict with our friend aronffy, which would have given occasion for an American or even a Chinese duel. From beginning to end it is--a poem."
"I knew it was no poem: aronffy had had a duel, but I had never known with whom. I had never asked him about it any more after he had, to my question, "perhaps you have murdered someone?" answered, "Yes." Plainly he had meant himself. I tried to penetrate more deeply into that man"s heart.
""Sir, neighbor, friend,--be a man! be the Christian you wish to be thought: consider that this fellow-man of ours has a dearly-loved family. If you have that card which the seconds gave you twelve years ago, don"t agonize or terrify him any more; write to him that "the account is settled," and give over to him that horrible deed of contract. I shall honor you till my death for it. I know that in any case you will do it one day before it is too late. You will not take advantage of that horrible power which blind fate has delivered into your hand, by sending him his card empty to remind him that the time is up. You would pardon him then too. But do so now. This man"s life during its period of summer, has been clouded by this torturing obligation, which has hung continuously above his happiness; let the autumn sunbeams shine upon his head. Give, give him a hand of reconciliation now, at once!"
"Sarvolgyi insisted that he had never had any kind of "cartell": how could I imagine that he would have the heart to maintain his revenge for years? His past and present life repudiated any such charge. He had never had any quarrel with aronffy, and, had there been one, he would long ago have been reconciled to him.
"I did not yet let the fellow out of my hands. I told him to think what he was doing. aronffy had once told me that, should he perish in this affair, I was to continue the matter. I too knew a kind of duel, which surpa.s.sed even the American, because it destroyed a man by pin-p.r.i.c.ks.
So take care you don"t receive for your eternal adversary the neighboring heathen in exchange for the pious, quiet and distant aronffy.
"Sarvolgyi swore he knew nothing of the affair. He called G.o.d and all the saints to witness that he had not the very remotest share in aronffy"s danger.
""Well, and why is aronffy so low-spirited?"
""--As if you should not know that," said the Pharisee, making a face of surprise: "not know anything about it?
""Well I will whisper it to you in confidence. aronffy has not been happy in his family life. You know, of course, that when he came home he married, and immediately joined the rebel army. With a corps of volunteers he fought till the end of the war, and returned again to his family. But he has still that worm in his soul.""
It was well that the fire had already died out:--well that a dark cloud rolled up before the moon:--well that the narrator could not see the face of his listener, when he said that:
"And I was fool enough to believe him. I credited the calumny with which the good fame of the angelically pure wife of an honorable man had been defiled. Yes, I allowed myself to be deceived in this underhand way! I allowed myself to rest calm in the belief that there is many a sad man on the earth, whose wife is beautiful.
"Still, once I met by chance aronffy"s mother, and produced before her the letter which had been accredited a fable. Her ladyship was very grateful, but begged me not to say a word about it to aronffy.
"I believe that from that day she paid great attention to her son"s behavior.
"Four years I had managed to keep myself at a respectful distance from Sarvolgyi"s person.
"But there came a day in the year, marked with red in my calendar, the anniversary of our departure from Heidelberg.
"Three days after that sixteenth anniversary I received a letter, which informed me that aronffy had on that red-letter day killed himself in his family circle."