"Thank you, I cannot drink. I"m a teetotaler," I said.
I was now thoroughly convinced that they were going to drink themselves mad drunk preparatory to knocking our brains out. And, indeed, they did drink a cask of wine between the five of them, yet when they rose from the table not one of them so much as staggered.
While they were treating the gipsies, the robber-chief approached me again.
"Well, old chap" (devil take him with his old chap!), "so you neither eat, nor drink, nor dance, eh? How, then, do you amuse yourself? Do you play cards?"
And with that he produced a pack from his pocket. So he wanted to find out how much money I had in my pocket, eh?
"I know no game at cards."
"Well, I"ll pretty soon teach you one. It is quite easy. Look, now! I put one card here and another card there. You lay upon this, and I lay upon that, and whichever of us draws a court card of the corresponding suit takes the stake."
The rascal was actually teaching _me_ _Landsknecht_, and I was obliged to pretend to learn from him.
What could I do? I was obliged to sit down and play with him. I had in my pocket a lot of coppers. I thought I might as well risk them, so I put them on the table.
"What! We don"t play for browns here! We are not b.u.mpkins. Here"s the bank!" and with that he flung upon the table a whole heap of silver florins and gold ducats.
I also had a few small silver coins in my purse, and, with much fear and trembling, I placed one of them on the first card. He dealt out, and I won the stake. The rascal paid up. Not for the world would I have taken up the money, I left it where it was. A second and a third time I won.
Again I did not gather my stakes. The fourth, fifth, sixth time, every time, in fact, fortune smiled on me. I began to perspire. It is a frightful situation when a man plays cards with a scoundrel and wins his money continually. The seventh stake also was mine. By this time a whole army of silver coins stood before me. A cold sweat began to trickle down my temples. Why couldn"t I be as lucky as this at Presburg, at the club, during the session of the Diet? Again I staked the whole lot, inwardly praying that I might lose it all. In vain, for the eighth time I won. I was a doomed man, there could be no doubt about it. The rascal smiled, and said: "Well, old chap, you cannot very well be in love with the pretty Countess, for you win at cards so shamefully." The rascal even dared to chaff me. I trembled in every limb when the ninth deal began.
Yes, sure enough, again it fell to my share. The robber struck the table with his fist, and laughed aloud. "Well, old chap," he cried, "if you go on winning like this I shall lose the whole county of Bihar in an hour"s time," and with that he pocketed what money remained and rose from the table. I took my courage in both hands and ventured to offer him the money I had won. The fellow looked me up and down as haughtily as a Hidalgo. "What do you take me for?" said he; "pick up your winnings at once or I"ll pitch you and them out of doors." Good heavens! what was I to do with all this money? money enough to be murdered for, and I had no doubt they _would_ beat me to death for it presently. I took it all and gave it to the gipsy musicians. And only after I had done it did I reflect what a foolish thing it was to do. For how could I more clearly have betrayed the fact that I was indeed a man of unlimited means?
The silly gipsies thereupon gathered round me and insisted upon playing me an air. What was my favourite air, they asked? I got out of it by referring them to the Countess. I told them to play _her_ favourite air, and she would accompany it with her voice.
The Countess certainly did not require much pressing. She began to sing with her delightful siren voice--
"Summer and winter, the _puszta_[10] is my dwelling,"
[Footnote 10: The Hungarian heath.]
and so sweetly, so enchantingly did she sing, that I quite forgot my surroundings and fancied I was in a private box at the Budapest casino.
I actually began to applaud.
The robber-chief also applauded. And now he said he would teach the Countess _his_ favourite song. And then the madcap rascal roared out some rustic melody which certainly _I_ had never heard before.
"Well, old chap," he said, when he had finished, "it is now your turn to sing us something."
I was in a terrible pother. _I_ sing? I _sing_ in that hour of mortal anguish? I, who didn"t know a single note except "Home, Sweet Home."
"I can"t sing at all," I said. And that wicked, frivolous woman began laughing at me frightfully, as involuntarily I fell a-humming an air from some opera. I may mention I have a horrible hoa.r.s.e sort of voice, not unlike a peac.o.c.k"s.
"If you won"t sing," she said to me in French, "we shall all be insulted, see if we don"t."
What could I do? With the dart of terror in my heart, and the pressure of mortal fear in my throat, I piped forth my "Home, Sweet Home." I felt all along I was making a woeful mess of it. Up to the middle of the song the Countess behaved with great decorum; but just as I was working my way up to the most pathetic part, and brought out a most cruel flourish, she burst out laughing, and the whole band of robbers began to laugh with her, till at last I also was obliged to smile, though, oddly enough, there was no joke in it at all, as far as I could see.
Then they fell to dancing again. The Countess was indefatigable. And so it went on till broad daylight. When the sun shone through the windows she said to the robber how obliged she was for the entertainment, but enough was as good as a feast, and would he, therefore, put to the horses and let us be off?
Well, now at last we shall all be knocked on the head straightway, I thought.
The robber went out, hunted up the coachman and the lackey, gave the necessary orders, and came back to say the carriage was awaiting us.
No doubt they meant to shoot us down on the road.
I got into the carriage far more alarmed than I was when I got out of it. It was a suspicious circ.u.mstance that he did not separate me from my companion. Evidently they intended to make sure of us and murder us all together.
The rascal himself took horse, galloped along by the side of our carriage, and conducted us to the turnpike-road, so as to put us on our way. Then he raised his cap, wished us a merry evening, and galloped back again.
Only when we came to Zerind did I venture to believe that I was alive.
Only then did I begin to reproach the Countess for involving us in an adventure which might have ended miserably enough. Suppose, I said, these rascals had not been afraid of me? Why, then they might have practised all sorts of _sottises_ upon her. And then to dance with vagabonds in a _csarda_ till dawn of day! Unpardonable!
All the way to Arad I was indulging myself with the hope that if I was very civil to the Countess she would not give me away by revealing the secret of this disreputable adventure. At six o"clock we reached Arad, and as we dismounted at the door of the reception-room, she told three of my acquaintances what had befallen us. Of course every one speedily knew of our misadventure. So I was not even able to tell the story my own way.
And, again, she was the loveliest woman at the ball. And she knew it, and that was one of the chief reasons why she came. It is true she did not dance a step. She excused herself by saying she was tired to death.
I can well believe it. From midnight to dawn she had danced nineteen _csardases_. Why, I, who hadn"t danced at all, could hardly stand on my legs.
As for me, I hastened to the card-room. Now that fortune has embraced you, hug her tight, I thought to myself. At one table they were playing _Landsknecht_. "Now"s your time--make a plunge," I said to myself. But I had the most cursed luck. I lost a thousand florins straight off.
Fortune evidently only pursues you when she sees that you are afraid of her.
Six months later I came across a newspaper in which was an account of the summary conviction and execution, by hanging, of the famous robber-chief, Jozsi.
I took the newspaper to the Countess Stephen Repey, and showed it to her.
"Fancy," she said, when she had read the case through, "and such a good dancer as he was, too."
III
THE SHERIFF OF CASCHAU--A FRAGMENT OF AN OLD CHRONICLE[11]
[Footnote 11: The idea of this story was subsequently expanded into the novel "Pretty Michal."]
It happened the same year that, in the place of old Tobias Kesmarki, the hundred electors of the city of Caschau, to wit, forty-five Hungarians, forty Germans, and fifteen Wends, after due deliberation and by common consent, elected as Sheriff his Honour Michael Doronczius, as being a man of understanding and blameless life, and respected by all men.
The hundred burgesses, having so done, went forth in solemn procession, headed by their Honours the Furmenders[12] and the Conrector, to the burial-ground outside the gates, where the whole ground was thickly strewn with straw, it being Water Cross Day,[13] when it is sore cold, and the feet of men grow numb in the very council chamber.
[Footnote 12: Guardians of the orphans and poor.]
[Footnote 13: The Feast of the Epiphany.]
But it was the custom that the newly elected Sheriff should always be dug into his office in the churchyard, where humanity is least of all disturbed by official cares, nay, where, rather, the bulging tombs all around bid him remember that righteousness and good deeds alone abide upon the earth, while all else turns to dust.
Wherefore, with no accompaniment of music, the Sheriff elect and the retiring Sheriff, accompanied by the town councillors, proceed to the churchyard to perform this ceremony, standing within the gate of the churchyard, there to await the masters of the City Guilds coming with their salutations.
All of them came in procession to meet the Sheriff elect, with the badges of their respective Guilds. One by one they salute the new Sheriff, but none of them give him gifts; they do but show them to him, and then take them back again, to signify that he hath first to deserve these same gifts before he receive them.