"I don"t think any one around here knows it. That is why his residence has been called the Nameless Castle."
"But how is it possible that the name of a man who has lived here three years is not known?"
"Well, that is easily explained. He never goes anywhere, never receives visitors, and his servants never call him anything but "the count.""
"Surely he receives letters by post?"
"Yes, frequently, and from all parts of the known world. Very often he receives letters which contain money, and for which he is obliged to give a receipt; but no one has yet been able to decipher the illegible characters on the letters addressed to him, or those of his own hand."
"I should think the authorities had a right to demand the information?"
"Which authorities?"
"Why--"he," Bernat bacsi."
"I? Why, what business is it of mine?"
"The authorities ought to inquire who strangers are, and where they come from. And such an authority is "he"--Bernat bacsi!"
"Hum; does "she" take me to be a detective?"
"But you surely have a right to demand to see his pa.s.sport?"
"Pa.s.sport? I would rather allow myself to be thrown from the window of the county-house than demand a pa.s.sport from any one who comes to Hungary, or set my foot in the house of a gentleman without his permission!"
"Then you don"t care what people do here?"
"Why should we? The n.o.ble does as he pleases, and the peasant as he must."
"Suppose the man in the Nameless Castle were plotting some dreadful treason?"
"That would be the affair of the king"s attorney, not mine. Moreover, nothing whatever can be said against the tenant of the Nameless Castle.
He is a quiet and inoffensive gentleman."
"Is he alone? Has he no family?"
"That the Herr Justice is better able to tell your ladyship than am I."
"Ah! Then, _Herr Hofrichter_," inquired the lady of the manor, turning toward the justice, "what do _you_ know about this mysterious personage?
Has he a wife?"
"It seems as if he had a wife, your ladyship; but I really cannot say for certain if he has one."
"Well, I confess my curiosity is aroused! How is it possible not to know whether the man is married or not? Are the people invisible?"
"Invisible? By no means, your ladyship. The nameless count and a lady drive out every morning at ten o"clock. They drive as far as the neighboring village, where they turn and come back to the castle. But the lady wears such a heavy veil that one can"t tell if she be old or young."
"If they drive out they certainly have a coachman; and one might easily learn from a servant what are the relations between his master and mistress."
"Yes, so one might. The coachman comes often to the village, and he can speak German, too. There is a fat cook, who never leaves the castle, because she can"t walk. Then, there are two more servants, Schmidt and his wife; but they live in a cottage near the castle. Every morning at five o"clock they go to the castle gate, where they receive from some one, through the wicket, orders for the day. At nine o"clock they return to the gate, where a basket has been placed for the things they have bought. But they never speak of the lady, because they have never seen her face, either."
"What sort of a man is the groom?"
"The people about here call him the man with the iron mouth. It is believed the fat cook is his wife, because he never even looks at the girls in the village. He will not answer any questions; only once he condescended to say that his mistress was a penniless orphan, who had nothing, yet who got everything she wanted."
"Does no one visit them?"
"If any one goes to the castle, the count alone receives the visitor; the lady never appears; and no one has yet had courage enough to ask for her. But that they are Christians, one may know from their kitchen: there is always a lamb for dinner on Easter; and the usual _heiligen Stritzel_ on All Saints". But they never go to church, nor is the pastor ever received at the castle."
"What reason can they have for so much mystery, I wonder?" musingly observed the baroness.
"That I cannot say. I can furnish only the data; for the deductions I must refer your ladyship to the Herr Doctor."
"Ah, true!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed her ladyship, joining in the general laughter.
"The doctor, to be sure! If you are the county clock, Herr Doctor, surely you ought to know something about our mysterious neighbors?"
"I have two versions, either of which your ladyship is at liberty to accept," promptly responded the doctor. "According to the first "authentic" declaration, the nameless count is the chief of a band of robbers, who ply their nefarious trade in a foreign land. The lady is his mistress. She fell once into the hands of justice, in Germany, and was branded as a criminal on her forehead. That accounts for the heavy veil she always wears--"
"Oh, that is quite too horribly romantic, Herr Doctor!" interrupted the baroness. "We cannot accept that version. Let us hear the other one."
"The second is more likely to be the true one. Four years ago the newspapers were full of a remarkable abduction case. A stranger--no one knew who he was--abducted the wife of a French officer from Dieppe.
Since then the betrayed husband has been searching all over the world for his runaway wife and her lover; and the pair at the castle are supposed to be they."
"That certainly is the more plausible solution of the mystery. But there is one flaw. If the lovers fled here to Fertoszeg to escape pursuit, the lady has chosen the very worst means to remain undiscovered. Who would recognize them here if they went about in the ordinary manner? The story of the veil will spread farther and farther, and will ultimately betray them to the pursuing husband."
By this time the reverend Herr Mercatoris had got the better of his bad teeth, and was now ready to join the conversation.
"Gentlemen and ladies," he began, "allow me to say a word about this matter, the details of which no one knows better than myself, as I have for months been in communication with the nameless gentleman at the castle."
"What sort of communication?"
"Through the medium of a correspondence, which has been conducted in quite a peculiar manner. The count--we will call him so, although we are not justified in so doing, for the gentleman did not announce himself as such--the count sends me every morning his copy of the Augsburg "Allgemeine Zeitung." Moreover, I frequently receive letters from him through Frau Schmidt; but I always have to return them as soon as I have read them. They are not written in a man"s hand; the writing is unmistakably feminine. The seal is never stamped; only once I noticed on it a crest with three flowers--"
"What sort of flowers?" hastily interposed the baroness.
"I don"t know the names of them, your ladyship."
"And what do you write about?" she asked again.
"The correspondence began by the count asking a trifling favor of me. He complained that the dogs in the village barked so loud; then, that the children robbed the birds" nests; then, that the night-watchman called the hour unnecessarily loud. These complaints, however, were not made in his own name, but by another person whom he did not name. He wrote merely: "Complainant is afraid when the dogs bark." "Complainant loves birds." "Complainant is made nervous by the night-watchman." Then he sent some money for the owners of the barking dogs, asking that the curs be shut indoors nights; and some for the children, so they would cease to rob the birds" nests; and some for the watchman, whom he requested to shout his loudest at the other end of the village. When I had attended to his requests, he began to send me his newspaper, which is a great favor, for I can ill afford to subscribe for one myself. Later, he loaned me some books; he has the cla.s.sics of all nations--the works of Wieland, Kleist, Borne, Lessing, Locke, Schleiermacher. Then we began to write about the books, and became entangled in a most exciting argument.
Frau Schmidt, who was the bearer of this exchange of opinions, very often pa.s.sed to and fro between the castle and the parsonage a dozen times a day; and all the time we never said anything to each other, when we happened to meet in the road, but "good day." From the letters, however, I became convinced that the mysterious gentleman is neither a criminal, nor a fugitive from justice, nor yet an adventurous hero who abducts women! Nor is he an unfortunate misanthrope. He is, on the contrary, a philanthropist in the widest sense--one who takes an interest in everything that goes on about him, and is eager to help his suffering fellows. In a word, he is a philosopher who is happy when he is surrounded by peace and quiet."
The baroness, who had listened with interest to the reverend gentleman"s words, now made inquiry:
"How does this nameless gentleman learn of his poor neighbors" needs, when neither he nor his servants a.s.sociate with any one outside the castle?"
"In a very simple manner, your ladyship. He has a very powerful telescope in the tower of the castle, with which he can view every portion of the surrounding region. He thus learns when there is illness or death, whether a house needs repair; and wherever anything is needed, the means to help are sent to me. On Christmas he has all the children from the village up at the castle, where he has a splendid Christmas tree with lighted tapers, and a gift for every child,--clothes, books, and sweets,--which he distributes with his own hand. I can tell you an incident which is characteristic of the man. One day the county arrested a poor woman, the wife of a notorious thief. The Herr Vice-palatine will remember the case--Rakoncza Jutka, the wife of the robber Satan Laczi?"
"Yes, I remember. She is still in prison," a.s.sented the gentleman referred to.