"Valla told me of Menko"s arrest. I knew that Menko had left Paris, and I was very anxious to find where he had gone. Valla learned, at the Italian emba.s.sy in Paris, of the affair of this Labanoff and of the real or apparent complicity of Michel Menko; and he told me about it. When we were talking over the means of obtaining the release of a man held by Muscovite authority, which is not an easy thing, I know, we thought of you, and I have come to your Excellency as I would have gone to the chief of the Legion of Students to demand his aid in a case of danger!"
Yanski Varhely was no diplomat; and his manner of appealing to the memories of the past was excessively disagreeable to the minister, who, however, allowed no signs of his annoyance to appear.
Count Ladany was perfectly well acquainted with the Warsaw affair. As an Hungarian was mixed up in it, and an Hungarian of the rank and standing of Count Menko, the Austro-Hungarian authorities had immediately been advised of the whole proceeding. There were probably no proofs of actual complicity against Menko; but, as Josef Ladany had said, it seemed evident that he had come to Poland to join Labanoff. An address given to Menko by Labanoff had been found, and both were soon to depart for St.
Petersburg. Labanoff had some doubtful acquaintances in the Russian army: several officers of artillery, who had been arrested and sent to the mines, were said to be his friends.
"The matter is a grave one," said the Count. "We can scarcely, for one particular case, make our relations more strained with a--a friendly nation, relations which so many others--I leave you to divine who, my dear Varhely--strive to render difficult. And yet, I would like to oblige you; I would, I a.s.sure you."
"If Count Menko is not set at liberty, what will happen to him?" asked Yanski.
"Hmm--he might, although a foreigner, be forced to take a journey to Siberia."
"Siberia! That is a long distance off, and few return from that journey," said Varhely, his voice becoming almost hoa.r.s.e. "I would give anything in the world if Menko were free!"
"It would have been so easy for him not to have been seized by the Russian police."
"Yes; but he is. And, I repeat, I have come to you to demand his release. d.a.m.n it! Such a demand is neither a threat nor a cases belli."
The minister calmed the old hussar with a gesture.
"No," he replied, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth; "but it is embarra.s.sing, embarra.s.sing! Confound Menko! He always was a feather-brain! The idea of his leaving diplomacy to seek adventures! He must know, however, that his case is--what shall I say?--embarra.s.sing, very embarra.s.sing. I don"t suppose he had any idea of conspiring. He is a malcontent, this Menko, a malcontent! He would have made his mark in our emba.s.sies. The devil take him! Ah! my dear Count, it is very embarra.s.sing, very embarra.s.sing!"
The minister uttered these words in a calm, courteous, polished manner, even when he said "The devil take him!" He then went on to say, that he could not make Varhely an absolute promise; he would look over the papers in the affair, telegraph to Warsaw and St. Petersburg, make a rapid study of what he called again the "very embarra.s.sing" case of Michel Menko, and give Varhely an answer within twenty-four hours.
"That will give you a chance to take a look at our city, my dear Count.
Vienna has changed very much. Have you seen the opera-house? It is superb. Hans Makart is just exhibiting a new picture. Be sure to see it, and visit his studio, too; it is well worth examining. I have no need to tell you that I am at your service to act as your cicerone, and show you all the sights."
"Are any of our old friends settled here?" asked Varhely.
"Yes, yes," said the minister, softly. "But they are deputies, university professors, or councillors of the administration. All changed! all changed!"
Then Varhely wished to know if certain among them whom he had not forgotten had "changed," as the minister said.
"Where is Armand Bitto?"
"Dead. He died very poor."
"And Arpad Ovody, Georgei"s lieutenant, who was so brave at the a.s.sault of Buda? I thought that he was killed with that bullet through his cheek."
"Ovody? He is at the head of the Magyar Bank, and is charged by the ministry with the conversion of the six per cent. Hungarian loan. He is intimately connected with the Rothschild group. He has I don"t know how many thousand florins a year, and a castle in the neighborhood of Presburg. A great collector of pictures, and a very amiable man!"
"And Hieronymis Janos, who wrote such eloquent proclamations and calls to arms? Kossuth was very fond of him."
"He is busy, with Maurice Jokai, preparing a great book upon the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, a book patronized by the Archduke Rudolph. He will doubtless edit the part relative to the kingdom of Saint Stephen."
"Ha! ha! He will have a difficult task when he comes to the recital of the battle at Raab against Francis Joseph in person! He commanded at Raab himself, as you must remember well."
"Yes, he did, I remember," said the minister. Then, with a smile, he added: "Bah! History is written, not made. Hieronymis Janos"s book will be very good, very good!"
"I don"t doubt it. What about Ferency Szilogyi? Is he also writing books under the direction of the Archduke Rudolph?"
"No! no! Ferency Szilogyi is president of the court of a.s.sizes, and a very good magistrate he is."
"He! an hussar?"
"Oh! the world changes! His uniform sleeps in some chest, preserved in camphor. Szilogyi has only one fault: he is too strongly anti-Semitic."
"He! a Liberal?"
"He detests the Israelites, and he allows it to be seen a little too much. He embarra.s.ses us sometimes. But there is one extenuating circ.u.mstance--he has married a Jewess!"
This was said in a light, careless, humorously sceptical tone.
"On the whole," concluded the minister, "Armand Bitto, who is no longer in this world, is perhaps the most fortunate of all."
Then, turning to Yanski with his pleasant smile, and holding out his delicate, well-kept hand, which had once brandished the sabre, he said:
"My dear Varhely, you will dine with me to-morrow, will you not? It is a great pleasure to see you again! Tomorrow I shall most probably give you an answer to your request--a request which I am happy, very happy, to take into consideration. I wish also to present you to the Countess. But no allusions to the past before her! She is a Spaniard, and she would not understand the old ideas very well. Kossuth, Bem, and Georgei would astonish her, astonish her! I trust to your tact, Varhely. And then it is so long ago, so very long ago, all that. Let the dead past bury its dead! Is it understood?"
Yanski Varhely departed, a little stunned by this interview. He had never felt so old, so out of the fashion, before. Prince Zilah and he now seemed to him like two ancestors of the present generation--Don Quixotes, romanticists, imbeciles. The minister was, as Jacquemin would have said, a sly dog, who took the times as he found them, and left spectres in peace. Well, perhaps he was right!
"Ah, well," thought the old hussar, with an odd smile, "there is the age of moustaches and the age of whiskers, that is all. Ladany has even found a way to become bald: he was born to be a minister!"
It little mattered to him, however, this souvenir of his youth found with new characteristics. If Count Josef Ladany rescued Menko from the police of the Czar, and, by setting him free, delivered him to him, Varhely, all was well. By entering the ministry, Ladany would thus be at least useful for something.
CHAPTER x.x.x. "TO SEEK FORGETFULNESS"
The negotiations with Warsaw, however, detained Yanski Varhely at Vienna longer than he wished. Count Josef evidently went zealously to work to obtain from the Russian Government Menko"s release. He had promised Varhely, the evening he received his old comrade at dinner, that he would put all the machinery at work to obtain the fulfilment of his request. "I only ask you, if I attain the desired result, that you will do something to cool off that hotheaded Menko. A second time he would not escape Siberia."
Varhely had made no reply; but the very idea that Michel Menko might be free made his head swim. There was, in the Count"s eagerness to obtain Menko"s liberty, something of the excitement of a hunter tracking his prey. He awaited Michel"s departure from the fortress as if he were a rabbit in its burrow.
"If he is set at liberty, I suppose that we shall know where he goes,"
he said to the minister.
"It is more than probable that the government of the Czar will trace his journey for him. You shall be informed."
Count Ladany did not seek to know for what purpose Varhely demanded, with such evident eagerness, this release. It was enough for him that his old brother-in-arms desired it, and that it was possible.
"You see how everything is for the best, Varhely," he said to him one morning. "Perhaps you blamed me when you learned that I had accepted a post from Austria. Well, you see, if I did not serve the Emperor, I could not serve you!"
During his sojourn at Vienna, Varhely kept himself informed, day by day, as to what was pa.s.sing in Paris. He did not write to Prince Zilah, wishing, above everything, to keep his errand concealed from him; but Angelo Valla, who had remained in France, wrote or telegraphed whatever happened to the Prince.
Marsa Laszlo was cured; she had left Dr. Sims"s inst.i.tution, and returned to the villa of Maisons-Lafitte.
The poor girl came out of her terrible stupor with the distaste to take up the thread of life which sometimes comes after a night of forgetfulness in sleep. This stupor, which might have destroyed her, and the fever which had shaken her, seemed to her sweet and enviable now compared to this punishment: To live! To live and think!