He strode about the island and brooded on the future.
"What can I give this child? Much money? They know nought of money here.
Great estates? This island suffices. Shall I take him with me and make him into a great and wealthy man? But the women could not part with him.
Shall I take them too? But even if they consented, I could not do it; they would learn what I am, and would despise me. They can only be happy here: only here can this child hold up its head, where none can ask its name."
The women had called it Adeodatus (Gift of G.o.d). It had no other name.
What other could it have?
One day when he was wandering aimlessly, deep in thought, about the island, striding through the bushes and weeds, Timar came suddenly to a part where the dry twigs crackled under his feet. He looked round; he was in the melancholy little plantation of dead walnut-trees. The beautiful trees were all dried up: spring had not clothed them with fresh green foliage, and the dead leaves covered the ground.
An idea struck Michael in this vegetable cemetery. He hastened back to the hut. "Therese, have you still the tools you used in building your house?"
"There they are on the shelf."
"Give them here. I have an idea; I will fell the dead walnuts and build of them a little house for Dodi."
Therese clasped her hands in astonishment. But Noemi"s answer was to kiss her little Dodi and say to him, "Dost thou hear?"
Michael interpreted the wonder on Therese"s face as incredulity. "Yes, yes," he persisted, "I will build the house myself without any help--a little house like a jewel-case, like those the Wallachians build, lined with beautiful oak; mine shall be of walnut, and fit for a prince. I will drive every nail myself, and it shall be Dodi"s house when he gets bigger."
Therese only smiled. "That will be fine, Michael. I too built my nest as the swallows do; I formed the walls of clay, and thatched my roof with rushes. But carpentry is not one man"s work; the old saw has two handles, and one can not manage it alone."
"But are we not two?" cried Noemi, eagerly. "Can"t I help him? Do you fancy my arm is not strong enough?" and she turned her sleeve up to her shoulder to show off her arm. It was beautifully formed, yet muscular, fit for Diana. Michael covered it with kisses from the shoulder down to the finger-tips, and then said, "Be it so."
"Oh, we will work together," cried Noemi, whose lively fancy had seized on Michael"s suggestion with lightning speed. "We will both go out into the wood; we will make a hammock for Dodi and sling it from the branches. Mother shall bring us out our meals, and we will sit on the planks we have sawn, and take our dinner out of the same plate: how good it will taste!"
And so it did. Michael took the ax and went out to the walnut-grove, where he set to work. Before he had felled and topped one tree his hands were blistered. Noemi told him women"s hands never got sore. When three trees were cut down, so that one trunk could be laid across the other two, Michael wanted Noemi"s help. She was quite in earnest, and attacked the task bravely. In her slender form lay stores of strength and endurance. She handled the great saw as cleverly as if she had been taught to do it.
Michael gradually got used to the dressing of the walnut planks; the ax, too, did good service, and Noemi admired him greatly. "Tell me, Michael," she asked him one day, "have you never been a carpenter?"
"Oh, yes," he answered, "a ship"s carpenter."
"And tell me, how did you become such a rich man that you can stay away a whole summer from your work, and spend your time elsewhere? You are your own master, I suppose? You take orders from no one?"
"I must tell you all about it some day," said Michael; and yet he never told her how he became rich, so as to be able to spend weeks on the island sawing wood. He often related to Noemi stories of his adventurous journeys through all lands, but in his romantic tales he never said anything about himself. He escaped inquisitive pressure by working hard all day; and when he lay down at night, it was not the time to tease him with questions, though many wives take advantage of the opportunity.
During the long time Timar spent in the ownerless island, he had gradually become convinced that it was by no means so concealed as to be unknown: its existence was known to a large cla.s.s of visitors. But they never revealed it to the outer world. Smuggling, on the banks of this wooded river, was a regular profession, with its own const.i.tution, its own schools, its secret laws, forming a state within a state. It often surprised Timar to find among the willow-copses of the island a canoe or a boat, watched by no one. If he came back a few hours later, it was no longer there. Another time he stumbled on great bales of goods, which also had disappeared when he returned. All the mysterious people who used the island as a resting-place seemed purposely to avoid the neighborhood of the hut; they went and came without leaving a footmark on the turf. There were cases, however, in which they visited the hut; and then it was always Therese who received their visit. When Almira gave the signal that strangers were coming, Timar left his work and retired into the inner room; he must not be seen by any stranger. It is true the beard he had grown had altered him considerably, but yet some one might come who had seen him elsewhere. The wild people always came to Therese if they had been hurt; they often frequented places where they were likely to be wounded. Sometimes they had deep, dangerous gunshot wounds, which they could not show to the regimental surgeon, for the result would be a court-martial; but the island lady knew of healing salves, could reduce fractures, bind up wounds, and prescribe medicines for fevers. She was sought by sick people who kept secret their abode, for they knew the physicians would never endure this quack-doctoring. She reconciled enemies who dared not go to law, and consoled criminals who repented of their sins, with the hope of G.o.d"s mercy. Often some fugitive, tired and exhausted with hunger and thirst, came to her threshold. She asked not, "Whence do you come or whither do you go?" She took him in, and let him go when restored and refreshed, after filling his pouch with food.
Many know her whose religion is silence, and there is no bond which binds master and disciple so closely as this. Every one knows that no money is to be found here; even avarice has no reason to wish her ill.
Timar could be certain of having found a place over which centuries might pa.s.s before the history of its inhabitants should be drawn into that chaos we call the world. He could go on with his carpentry without fearing that the news would leak out that Michael Timar Levetinczy, privy councilor, landowner, banker, had turned into a woodcutter in an unknown island; and that, when he rested from his hard labor, he cut willow branches to shelter a poor orphan child which had neither parents nor a name of its own. What joys he knew here! how he listened for the first word the child could speak! The little man had such trouble to shape his unskillful lips to the words. "Papa," of course, was the first; what else could it be? The child learns also to understand the sorrowful side of life; when a new tooth comes, what pain and sleepless nights must be endured! Noemi remains at home with it, and Michael runs back from his work to see how little Dodi is. He takes the child from Noemi and carries him about, singing lullabies to him. If he succeeds in putting Dodi to sleep and soothing his pain, how triumphant he is! He sings--
"For all the gold the world could hold, I would not give my Dodi"s curl."
One day Michael suddenly found that he had grubbed up and cut down all the timber. So far the work had prospered; but now he found he could not get on. House-carpentry is a trade like any other, and must be learned, and he had not spoken the truth when he said he understood it.
Autumn drew near. Therese and Noemi were already used to think it quite natural for Timar to leave them at this season; he must of course earn his bread. His business is of a sort which gets on by itself in the summer, but in winter he must give himself up to it. They knew that from other tradespeople. But in another house the same idea reigned. Timea believed Michael had business which obliged him to spend the summer away from home: at that season the management of his estates, of his building and export contracts, demanded all his attention.
From autumn to spring he deceived Timea, from spring to autumn he deceived Noemi. He could not be called inconsistent.
This time he left the island earlier than in other years. He hastened back to Komorn, where all his affairs had progressed in his absence beyond his expectations. Even in the government lottery the first prize must needs fall to him; the long-forgotten ticket lay buried somewhere in a drawer under other papers, and not till three months after the drawing did he bring it out, and claim the unhoped-for hundred thousand gulden, like one who hardly cares for such a trifle. The world admired him all the more. He had so much money, people said, that he wished for no more.
What could he do with it?
He began by sending for celebrated cabinet-makers from Szekler and Zarand, who understand the building of those splendid wooden houses which last for centuries--real palaces of hard wood. The Roumanian n.o.bility live in such houses as these, which are full of beautiful carving inside. The house and its furniture, tables, chairs, and wardrobes, are all the work of one hand. Everything in it is of wood--not a single bit of iron is used.
CHAPTER II.
THE WOOD-CARVER.
On his return home, Michael found Timea somewhat unwell. This induced him to call in two celebrated doctors from Vienna in order to consult them about his wife"s health. They agreed that a change of climate was necessary, and advised a winter sojourn in Meran; so Michael accompanied thither his wife and Athalie. In the sheltered valley, he chose for Timea a villa in whose garden stood a pavilion built like a Swiss _chalet_. He knew that Timea would like it. In the course of the winter he often visited her, generally in the company of an elderly man, and found that, as he expected, the _chalet_ was her favorite resort.
When he returned to Komorn he set to work to build just such another _chalet_ as the one at Meran. The cabinet-maker he had brought with him was a master of his art. He copied the _chalet_ and its furniture in the minutest detail; then he installed a large workshop in Timar"s one-storied house in the Servian Street, and there set to work. No one was to know anything about it--it was to be a surprise. But the architect required an apprentice to help him, and it was difficult to find one who could hold his tongue. There was nothing for it but to turn Timar himself into an apprentice, and he now vied with his master from morning to night with chisel and gimlet, in carving, planing, polishing, and turning. But as to the cabinet-maker himself, if you had closed his mouth with Solomon"s seal, you could not have made him discreet enough to refrain from letting out the secret to his Sunday evening boon companions, of the surprise Herr von Levetinczy was preparing for his wife. First they made the different parts and fitted them together: then the whole, as fast as it was ready, was set up in the beautiful park on the Monostor. He himself, a regular Crsus, does not shrink from working all day like a laborer, and is as good at the tools as if he were a foreman. He does not trouble about his own affairs, he leaves them to his agents, and saws and carves the whole day long in the workshop. But they must not let it go further, for the gracious lady was to have a surprise when she came home. Naturally the whole town heard of it, and so did Frau Sophie, who wrote to Athalie, who told Timea, so that Timea knew beforehand that Michael, when she came home in the spring, would drive with her some fine day to the Monostor hill, where they had a large orchard: there, on the side overlooking the Danube, she would find her dear Meran pavilion exactly copied, her work-basket at the window, her favorite books on the birchwood shelves, her cane chair on the veranda. All this to surprise her; and she must smile as if much pleased, and when she praised the maker, she would hear from him, "You must not compliment me, gracious lady, but my apprentice." "Who executed the best carvings, who made the footstool, these elegant bal.u.s.trades, these columns and capitals?" "My apprentice." "And who was he?" "The n.o.ble lord of Levetinczy himself. All this is his work, gracious lady."
And then Timea would smile and try to find words to express her thanks.
Only words: for he may heap treasures on his wife, or give her black bread that he had earned by his labor; he can not purchase her affection.
And so it was. In the spring Timea came back. The Monostor surprise was skillfully planned, with a splendid banquet and a troop of guests. On Timea"s face hovered a melancholy smile; on Timar"s, reserved kindness; and on those of the guests, envious congratulation. The ladies said no woman was worthy of such a husband as Timar, he was an ideal husband; but the men said it was not a good sign when a husband tried to win his wife"s favor by presents and attentions.
Only Athalie said nothing: she sought a clew to the mystery and found none. What had come to Timar? His countenance betrayed something like happiness; what was he concealing under his care for Timea? In company he was bright and cheerful, unconstrained and at ease with Athalie, sometimes even taking her for a turn in the cotillon. Was he really happy, or was he indifferent? It was vain for him to try and win Timea"s heart; Athalie knew that by her own experience. She had found plenty of wooers, but refused them all--all men were alike to her; she had only loved one, whom now she hated. She alone understood Timea.
But Michael she could not fathom. He was a man of pure gold, without a speck of rust upon him.
When spring came, Timar again called in the physicians to p.r.o.nounce on Timea"s health. This time she was advised to try the sea-bathing at Biarritz. Michael took her there, arranged her apartments, took care that she should be able to compete in dress and equipages with English peeresses and Russian princesses, and left a heavy purse with her, begging her to bring it back empty. He was generous to Athalie, put her down as Timea"s cousin in the visitor"s list, and she too was to change her dress five times a day, like Timea. Could any one better fulfill the duties of the head of a family?
Then he hurried away, not homeward, but to Vienna; there he bought the whole furniture of a workshop, and had it sent in chests to Pancsova.
Here he had to invent some pretense to get the boxes over to the island.
Caution was most necessary. The fishermen, who often saw him go round the Ostrova Island in a boat, and not return for months, had puzzled their heads as to who he was and what brought him here. When the cases arrived, he had them conveyed to the poplar-groves of the left bank of the Danube, and there unloaded. Then he called in the fishermen, and said they must get them over to the lonely island--they contained arms.
That one word was enough to sink the secret to the bottom of the sea.
Henceforward he could go backward and forward by day or night, no one would ever mention his name. They all knew now that he was an agent of the Servian and Montenegrin heroes of the insurrection, and the rack would not have extorted information from them. He became a sacred personage in their eyes. In this way, in order to hide himself in darkness, he deceived every one with whom he exchanged a word. The fishermen ferried over the cases at night, and Timar with them; they looked out for a place on the sh.o.r.e where the thickest bushes grew, and carried the boxes there, and when Michael would have paid them, they would not accept a groschen from him, only grasping his hand.
He remained on the island, and the fishermen left him. It was a splendid moonlight night; the nightingale sung on its nest. Michael went along the bank till he came to the path, and pa.s.sed the place where he had left off his work last year; the trunks were carefully covered with rushes to keep the wet off.
He approached the little dwelling on tiptoe. It was a good sign that he heard no noise. Almira does not bark, because she is sleeping in the kitchen so as not to wake the child. All is well in the house.
How should he announce himself, and surprise Noemi? He stood before the little window, half covered by climbing roses, and began to sing--
"For all the gold the world could hold, I would not give my Dodi"s curl."
He was not disappointed; a moment later the window opened, and Noemi looked out with a face radiant with joy. "My Michael," whispered the poor child.
"Yes, thy Michael," he murmured, clasping the dear head in both arms.