""Look now, my dear dame, I know very well that humorous habit of yours of never remaining long in one nest. You deal with your sweethearts on a sort of give-and-take system. You are here to-day and off to-morrow.
Supposing now, that in the exercise of my marital authority, I were to inflict an edifying chastis.e.m.e.nt upon you for your flightiness, you might easily take it into your head to bolt, and there should I be left in the lurch for the finger of scorn to point at. A Calvinist schoolmaster cannot submit to the fate of an ordinary man. If my wife were to leave me, I should be expelled from the Church with contumely.
Then I should have to flee. I should be as good as excluded from human society. Now, I am very well satisfied with my present condition. I have a fixed salary of six hundred florins in good hard cash, and my perquisites amount to about as much again. I live honourably, you see, and I cannot afford to stake everything on a throw of the dice."
"Then I talked big also.
""Listen to me!" I said. "I have capital sufficient to bring me in as much as your yearly income--that is to say, twenty-five thousand florins. I will make over the whole amount to you by way of a dower, and I am ready to forfeit it all in case I am unfaithful to you.""
"And didn"t your Esaias capitulate even then?" I inquired of Bessy.
"He asked for three days to think about it. I immediately hastened to you to signify my desire that your guardianship might cease."
"Then Esaias has still two days" grace," I said. "I hope and trust he may be inwardly illuminated to say no!"
"Then you do not approve of my determination?"
"I am a friend of truth, and I understand a little about prophecy too.
It doesn"t matter to me if you surrender all your capital as a sort of shrift-money, and your house as well."
"Such a man as he is worthy of it."
"I"ll take your word for it. You are something of an expert in such matters! But one thing I strongly advise you to do: keep the garden attached to the house at your own disposition."
"Why?"
"That you may have it planted full of cherry-trees. I know the natural history of the Calvinist-schoolmaster species. I know that what once he has promised he always performs. I also know the natural history of the lady with the eyes like the sea, and it is my belief that you will frequently give occasion for the employment of cherry-tree stems."
At this the fair lady sprang from her chair, boiling over with rage.
"What a gross monster it is! Poet indeed! A pedantic lout is what I call you! They"ve done very well to lock you up. This is the last time that we shall ever talk to each other."
And with that she went, or rather flounced, away.
But I gave a great sigh of relief.
"May she keep her word, and never, never come back again!" I said.
One of the first things I saw, on my release from prison, was the announcement in the newspapers of the solemnization of the marriage. The bank also informed me by letter that the amount there standing to the credit of my ward had been transferred to her husband"s name.
Well, at last Bessy had got the _ne plus ultra_ of husbands. For, really, the man who has reached his two-and-thirtieth year without sinning against the canonical prescriptions must indeed be a superlative treasure in the eyes of a lady who knows how to appreciate the value of such renunciation.
CHAPTER XX
CONFESSION
Well, the long and short of it is, confess I must, that I have a sweetheart for whose sake I have been unfaithful, not only to my wife, but to my muse also--a sweetheart who has immeshed me in her spider"s web, and sucked my heart"s blood dry, who has appropriated my best ideas, made me scamper after her from one end of the kingdom to the other, and whose slave I was and still am. Often have I wasted half my fortune upon her, and rushed blindly into misfortune to please her. For her have I patiently endured insult, ridicule, and reprobation. For her sake I have staked life and liberty.
Sometimes, when I have felt the pinch of her tyranny, I have tried to escape from her; but she has enticed me back again and would not let me go.
Now, if she had been some pretty young damsel, there might have been some excuse for me. But she was a nasty, old, painted figure-head of a beldame; a flirting, faithless, fickle, foul-mouthed, scandal-mongering old liar, whom the whole world courts, who makes fools of all her wooers, and changes her lover as often as she changes her dress.
Her name is _Politica_,[114] and may the plague take her.
[Footnote 114: Politics.]
There was one particular year in which I was over head and ears in love with her, and did absolutely everything she wanted. On her account I fell out with a good friend of mine who was the very right hand of my newspaper. I fought (also on her account) a duel with pistols with another good friend of mine, who had no more offended me than I had ever offended him, in fact, we had always respected each other most highly.
But Politica insisted upon it, and so we banged away at each other. Then she hounded me on against a third good friend of mine, who was an excellent fellow, and a Hungarian Minister of State to boot, and induced me to endeavour to thwart his election. And I actually _did_ make this excellent fellow"s election fall through, this good friend whom I respected, loved and honoured. Politica demanded it. What a parade she made when she dragged me along after her triumphal car! She actually made me believe that I was now the most famous man in the whole kingdom!
And she made me _pay_ for her precious favours, too! What _pet.i.ts soupers_ for five hundred men at a time! What hundreds of carriages!
What toilets!... But in those days I was quite wrapped up in her.
After my great triumph a torrent of congratulatory letters and telegrams showered down upon me. I had actually upset a Cabinet Minister! That _was_ a triumph! Every one who, at any time, or under any circ.u.mstances, had been acquainted with me, called upon me after my brilliant success. Old school-fellows with whom I had formerly fought in the playground now recollected me. There was a brisk demand for my autograph. I was proud of it all. I was not even surprised, therefore, when one afternoon they brought into me a visiting card with the name "Mrs. Esaias Medvesi" upon it.
It was very natural that she also should visit me. The sunbeams of my glory had melted the ice of her displeasure. Six years had now pa.s.sed since I had seen her. I could imagine how she had filled out in the meantime. Well taken care of, with no vexations to worry her, hara.s.sed by no pa.s.sions, what other fate could possibly await my fair ideal than--to grow fat?
All the more startled was I, therefore, when I _did_ see her.
She had grown quite gaunt. Her old-fashioned dress, which had been made to fit fuller forms, hung loosely about her. Her face, once so rosy and gay, was now lean and haggard; sombre wrinkles, which met together beneath her chin, had taken the place of her roguish dimples. Only by her eyes could I recognise her: they were still the eyes of yore.
When she saw me she forced a smile, but I could see how much it cost her.
I have never thought it a proper question to ask any one whose face has altered a good deal, "Are you ill?" but she herself led up to it.
"I have greatly changed, haven"t I? "Tis a wonder that you recognise me.
I have been very ill. I have just come from the doctor. I have been suffering from a quartan ague, which our country doctors could not drive away."
"But otherwise you are all right, I trust?"
"No, I am not. I fancy that my physical ailment is only as stubborn as it is, because my mind also is not as it should be."
I asked her what was the matter.
"I have come on purpose to tell you. You always gave me good advice, and I never took it. It may be that I wouldn"t take it even now; but at least it would relieve my mind to tell you all about it. I have a secret desire which is destroying my whole soul: I go to sleep with it, and I wake up with it."
"What desire can it be?"
"If you but look at my face, you can easily see that it is no sinful affection."
"And yet it must be kept secret?"
"Yes, for I go about day and night with the thought of becoming a Catholic."
I was so startled by this, that in my amazement I knew not what to say to her.
"It is my fixed resolution. The only thing that can give to my soul peace on earth and salvation in heaven is conversion to the Roman Catholic Church."