Lorand put the letter down before him and laid his fist heavily upon it.
"Must I know what is in that letter?
"Suppose she writes that she loves me, and awaits happiness from me, that her love can outbalance a whole lost world, that she is ready to follow me across the sea, beyond the mocking sneers of acquaintances, and to disappear with me among the hosts of forgotten figures!
"No. I shall not break open this letter.
"My last step shall not be hesitating.
"And if what seems such a chance meeting is nought but a well planned revenge? If they have all along been agreed and have only come here together that they may force me to confess that I am humiliated, that I beg for happiness, for love, that I am afraid of death because I am in love with the smiling faces of life; and when I have confessed that, they will laugh in my face, and will leave me to the contempt of the whole world, of my own self....
"Let them marry each other!"
Lorand took the beautiful note and locked it up in the drawer of his table, unopened, unread.
His last thought must be that perhaps he had been loved, and that last thought would be lightened by the uncertainty: only "perhaps."
And now to prepare for that journey.
It was Lorand"s wont to carry two good pistols on a journey. These he carefully loaded afresh, then hid them in his own traveling trunk.
He left his servant to pack in the trunk as much linen as would be enough for two weeks, for they were going to journey farther.
Topandy had two carriages ready, his traveling coach and a wagon.
When the carriages drove up, Lorand put on his traveling cloak, lit his pipe and went down into the courtyard.
Czipra was arranging all matters in the carriages, the trunks were bound on tightly and the wine-case with its twenty-four bottles of choice wine, packed away in a sure place.
"You are a good girl after all, Czipra," said Lorand, tenderly patting the girl"s back.
"After all?"
Was he really so devoted to that pipe that he could not take it from his mouth for one single moment?
Yet she had perhaps deserved a farewell kiss.
"Sit with my uncle in the coach, Pepi," said Lorand to the dandy, "with me you might risk your life. I might turn you over into the ditch somewhere and break your neck. And it would be a pity for such a promising youth."
Lorand sprang up onto the seat and took the reins in his hands.
"Well, adieu, Czipra!"--The coach went first, the wagon following.
Czipra stood at the street-door and gazed from there at the disappearing youth, as long as she could see him, resting her head sadly against the doorpost.
But he did not glance back once.
He was going at a gallop towards his doom.
And when evening overtakes the travelers, and the night"s million lights have appeared, and the tiny glowworms are twinkling in the ditches and hedges, the young fellow will have time enough to think on that theme: that eternal law rules alike over the worlds and the atoms--but what is the fate of the intermediate worms? that of the splendid fly? that of ambitious men and nations struggling for their existence? "Fate gives justice into the two hands of the evil one, that while with the right he extinguishes his life, with the left he may stifle the soul."
CHAPTER XIX
f.a.n.n.y
Some wise man, who was a poet too, once said: "the best fame for a woman is to have no fame at all." I might add: "the best life history is that, which has no history."
Such is the romance of f.a.n.n.y"s life and of mine.
Eight years had pa.s.sed since they brought a little girl from Fursten-Allee to take my place: the little girl had grown into a big girl,--and was still occupying my place.
How I envied her those first days, when I had to yield my place to her, that place veiled with holy memories in our family"s mourning circle, in mother"s sorrowing heart; and how I blessed fate, that I was able to fill that place with her.
My career led me to distant districts, and every year I could spend but a month or two at home; mother would have aged, grandmother have grown mad from the awful solitude had Heaven not sent a guardian angel into their midst.
How much I have to thank f.a.n.n.y for.
For every smile of mother"s face, for every new day of grandmother"s life--I had only f.a.n.n.y to thank.
Every year when I returned for the holidays I found long-enduring happy peace at home.
Where everyone had so much right every day madly to curse fate, mankind, the whole world; where sorrow should have ruled in every thought;--I found nothing but peace, patience, and hope.
It was she who a.s.sured them that there was a limit to suffering, she who encouraged them with renewed hopes, she who allured them by a thousand possible variations on the theme of chance gladness, that might come to-morrow or perhaps the day after.
And she did everything for all the world as if she never thought of herself.
What a sacrifice it must be for a fair lively girl to sacrifice the most brilliant years of her youth to the nursing of two sorrow-laden women, to suffering with them, to enduring their heaviness of disposition.
Yet she was only a subst.i.tute girl in the house.
When I left Pressburg and the Fromm"s house her parents wished to take her home; but f.a.n.n.y begged them to leave her there one year longer, she was so fond of that poor suffering mother.
And then every year she begged for another year; so she remained in our small home until she was a full-grown maiden.
Yes Pressburg is a gay, noisy town. The Fromm"s house was open before the world and the flower ought to open in spring--the young girl has a right to live and enjoy life.
f.a.n.n.y voluntarily shut herself off from life. There was no merriment in our house.
My parents often a.s.sured her they would take her to some entertainments, and would go with her.
"For my sake? You would go to amus.e.m.e.nts that I might enjoy myself?
Would that be an amus.e.m.e.nt for me? Let us stay at home.--There will be time for that later."
And when she victimized herself, she did it so that no one could see she was a victim.