"But I don"t mean to take a step backwards."
"Listen to me quietly. Don"t fly into a rage. Sit down beside me. You need have no great fear of me. I am not a luring demon. I have not a word to say against what you"ve said. Do whatever your soul bids you. I ask for nothing more. Don"t you believe that I"ve a good heart also?"
"I believe that you"ve a little too much heart."
"Perhaps all that my heart led me to do was sinful. I was mad. I was blind. Pa.s.sion got hold of me; but the feeling I had for you would not have been out of place in heaven itself. When I am alone, I am always with you; and when I think of anything I think of you. I wish you to go onwards and upwards along the rugged path that you have entered upon; but can you do it here, with a leaden weight on your feet, a padlock on your mouth, and a strait jacket on your body?"
""Tis because it _is_ heavy that I must needs carry my burden."
"But how much more brilliant would be the success of your struggle if you could continue it on a foreign soil--in free France, for instance!
Just think! If you were now to appear in Paris, the leaders of the French literature would receive you with open arms. The French public would enrol you among its great writers, and then you might write of the glory, the sufferings, and the heroic struggles of Hungary, and of the amiable qualities of its people; you might write all this with perfect freedom, from the very bottom of your heart, and millions and millions, the whole round world, would read your writings, and not merely a handful of people, as here at home. There you would be a rich man, here you are only a day-labourer. Here you might sing like a Tyrtaeus, and the world outside would hear nothing of it; but if you raised your voice abroad in the midst of a great nation and a cosmopolitan capital, your voice would be like the horns of Joshua before the walls of Jericho."
Ah! how luring was the panorama.... To become a great French writer! To be raised aloft on the shoulders of the most glorious of nations! What here at home was but the crack of a whip in my hands, would there be a thunderbolt!
"But it is impossible," I objected. "How could I possibly force my way to the frontiers of France from the depths of Tordona, through my own country, through Austria, through Germany, without a pa.s.sport, without money, in a semi-Asiatic garb? Just as well might I cast myself down from the mountain-top in the belief that I could fly."
"Well, come now, I have a very good plan to suggest to you. I"ve got an English pa.s.sport. Have I not told you exactly how I got it? None besides yourself knows that I have it, except, of course, the officials who have _vised_ it on the way. In this pa.s.sport the blank for my travelling companion has not yet been filled up. You asked me just now why I did not insert the name and description of Balvanyossi. Now, I"ll tell you. n.o.body is pursuing him. I always intended to fill up that blank with your name. You won"t have to sacrifice much beyond that little moustache and beard of yours, and resigning yourself to speak nothing abroad but French and German. I appoint you my secretary. I myself am an English lady. We mustn"t go _via_ Vienna. But the way is clear in the direction of Breslau. I have quite enough money for us both. I still retain the hundred ducats which I received at Debreczin.
We shall do sumptuously with this till we get to Paris. My capital in the Vienna bank I can leave where it is, or I may have it sent after me, and the interest from it will suffice for your modest needs at the beginning of your residence at Paris, so that you will not have to resort to the emigrants" fund. When once you have won a position for yourself in Continental literature you will need no further a.s.sistance from anybody. You will be able to refund to me what I advanced to you as a loan. Only as a loan remember, not as a gift; still less do I expect anything in exchange, not even a warm pressure of the hand. I am simply your proselyte whose mission it is to make straight the way of the prophet."
It was a seductive picture, and still more seductive was she who presented it to me.
To be free! To be able to p.r.o.nounce my name boldly in the face of every one who met me! Not to tremble at the pattering of every footstep at my door! To fight for great ideas in the company of great and n.o.ble minds!
And how her _eyes_ sparkled as she said these words, like the parhelia in the glowing girdle of a solar halo! And her face was as open as a child"s. I could have sworn that she was an artless virgin opening her heart for the first time to a true sentiment. Her hands were folded as if in prayer.
Had I wavered but a hair"s-breadth, I must have plunged down into the abyss.
Ah! what a different man I should have become. Had I fled with her, I should now be the grand master of the Realists, for there is as much erotic flame, satiric vein, and luxurious fancy in me as in them; but I have not used these qualities, because I write for a Hungarian public.
Had I flown with her, millions would have read my works, and fathers and mothers would have cursed me as the corrupter of their children. And I should have laughed at them, and tapped the fat paunch, which as an idealistic writer I have never been able to acquire.
And whither would this reinless, bridleless pa.s.sion have hurried me had I been swayed by such a fascinating Calypso, whose every movement was a charm, whose every word was a snare, who was herself the personified joy of a Mohammedan paradise? For, remember, I was then only four-and-twenty!
Fortunately, a sober thought still remained in my head.
"I mean to remain in my own land," I said abruptly.
"Why?"
"I will not forsake those who arose at my word. If they lie on the earth, I also will lie down beside them. I will take my share of the suffering of which I was the cause."
"You won"t remain out in the cold for ever, of course. Haven"t you, then, the hope that those who have sought refuge abroad will one day return in triumph? Then you also will return home at the head of the reprieved."
Even this weapon she managed to turn against me! Oh, what a weak coat of mail it was that defended me--only a single word!
"I have given my word that I"ll not depart from hence," I said softly.
"To whom?"
"To her who gave me her word that she would come and seek me here."
"Your wife?"
"Yes."
"And if she seeks you, what then?"
"She will bring me liberty."
"How? In what way?"
"I don"t know."
"You don"t know, and yet you believe?"
"I believe with my whole heart."
"And you never think what may be the price of such freedom?"
"I spurn such a thought as often as it arises."
"You believe in a woman"s loyalty, a woman"s virtue?"
"I do."
"Then you are a very happy man!"
During this conversation I continued my drawing, and she called my attention to several objects in the landscape which had escaped me.
Shortly after that she began a very ordinary conversation about the weather.
"Look! the prophecy of the old forester is well-nigh fulfilled. The sky is quite overcast. The snowstorm will surprise us here."
"Then, perhaps, it may be as well to call our friend out of his hiding-place?"
"Oh, that will be very easy! I need only give him one signal. He himself selected it from the romance "Ivanhoe"--the note of the hero"s horn--"Wasa hoa!" At this signal he will appear immediately."
"Well, I can scarcely see to sketch any more, it is so dark."
"Then you are determined to go to that little village down there?"
"Yes."
"No news from the world will ever penetrate thither."
"That will be all the better for me."
"You have heard nothing of what is going on outside all this time, I suppose?"
"Nothing pleasant."