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A Hungarian Nabob: A Romance, a novel by Maurus Jokai |
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Chapter 20. Secret Visitors |
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_ CHAPTER XX. SECRET VISITORS Soon came winter. The cold, frosty, snow-laden season began; nothing but white forests, white fields, are to be seen in every quarter of the level _Alfoeld_, and as early as four o'clock in the afternoon the dark-grey, lilac-coloured atmosphere begins to envelope the horizon all round about, rising higher and higher every moment, till at last the very vault of heaven is reached, and it is night. Only the snowy whiteness of the plain preserves some gleam of light to the landscape. Pale fallow stripes appear to have been drawn across the snowy expanse; they are the tracks of the sledges, stretching from one village to another. Karpathy Castle seemed to make the uniform monotonous landscape still more melancholy. At other times the windows, of an evening, shed their light far and wide, and merry groups of sportsmen bustled about the well-filled courtyard; but now, scarcely more than a gleam of light was to be seen in two or three of the windows, and only the blue smoke of the chimneys showed that it was still inhabited. Alone on these dun-coloured roads, in the fall of the long winter evening, a peasant's sledge, without bells, might have been seen gliding along through that featureless, semi-obscure wilderness towards Karpathy Castle. In the rear of the sledge sat a man wrapped in a simple mantle; in front, a peasant, in a sheepskin _bunda_, was driving the two lean horses. The sitter behind frequently stood up in the sledge, and swept the plain on every side, as if he were in search of something. The preserves of the Karpathy estate loomed darkly before him, and by the time they reached a ramshackle old wooden bridge, the visitor perceived what he sought. "Those are pine-trees, are they not?" he inquired of the coachman. "Yes, young sir; one can recognize them from a distance, for they are still green when the others have shed their leaves." They were the only trees of the sort in the whole region. They had all been planted in Squire John's time. "Here we will stop, old comrade. You return to the wayside _csarda_; I will take a turn about here alone. I shall not be longer than an hour away." "It would be as well were I to accompany you, young sir, if you mean to take a stroll, for wolves are wont to wander hither." "It is not necessary, my good friend, I am not afraid." And with that the stranger dismounted from the sledge, and, taking his axe in his hand, directed his way through the snowy field to the spot where the pines stood out darkly against the snow-white plain. What was beneath those pines? The family vault of the Karpathys, and he who came to visit it at that hour was Alexander Boltay. The young artisan had heard from Teresa on her return home that Fanny was dead. The great lady had been lowered into her tomb for the worms just as the wife of the poorest artisan might have been, and her tomb was perhaps still more neglected than the tomb of the artisan's wife would have been. Then Alexander opened his heart to the old people. He meant, he said, to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of the dead dear one whom he worshipped both in life and in death, and to whom, now that she was under the ground, he might confess his love, he had as much right now to her death-cold heart as anybody else in the world. The two old people did not attempt to dissuade him; let him go, they thought; let him take his sorrow there and bury it; perchance he will be lighter of heart when he has wept himself out there. In the ice-bound season the young man set out, and from the description which Teresa gave him, he recognized the funereal pine-grove which John Karpathy had had planted round the family vault, in order that there it might be green when everything else was white and dead. He quitted the sledge, and cut across the plain, while the driver returned to the wayside _csarda_. Meanwhile a pair of horsemen might have been seen slowly approaching from the opposite direction. One of them was a little in the rear of the other, and led four hardy hounds in a long leash. "I see the trail of a fox, Martin," said the foremost horseman, calling the attention of the one behind to the trail. "We can easily track him through the fresh snow if we look sharp, and can catch him up before we reach Karpatfalva." The groom appeared to confirm his master's assertion. "Follow the trail as straight as you can, and hand over two of the hounds to me while I make a circuit of the wood yonder." With that he took over two of the dogs, and sending his escort on in front, turned aside, slowly wading through the snow. But the moment his man was out of sight, he suddenly changed his direction, and strode rapidly towards the pine grove. On reaching the trench which surrounded it, he dismounted, tied his horse to a bush and the dogs to his saddle bow and waded across the narrow ditch. By the light of the snow it was easy to find his goal. A large white marble monument arose by the side of a green tree, on the top of it was the sad emblem of death, an angel with an inverted torch. The horseman stood alone before the monument--this visitor was Rudolf. Thus both of them had come at the same time, and it was the will of Fate that they should meet there before the tomb. Rudolf hastened confidently towards the white colonnaded monument and stood rooted to the ground with amazement on perceiving the figure of a man, apparently in a state of collapse, half sitting, half kneeling on the pedestal. But the man was equally amazed to see him there. Neither recognized the other. "What are you doing here, sir?" asked Rudolf, who was the first to recover his composure, drawing nearer to the pedestal. Alexander recognized the voice, he knew that it was Rudolf, and could not understand why he should have come to that place at that hour. "Count Szentirmay," he said gently, "I am that artisan to whom you showed a kindness once upon a time; be so good as to show yet another kindness to me by leaving me here alone and asking no questions." Then Rudolf recognized the young man, and it suddenly flashed across his mind that the dead woman before she became Dame Karpathy had been engaged to a poor young artisan who had so bravely, so chivalrously, exposed himself to death for her sake. Now he understood everything. He took the young man's hand and pressed it. "You loved this lady? You have come hither to mourn over her?" "Yes, sir. There's nothing to be ashamed of in that. One may love the dead. I loved that woman, I love her now, and I shall never love another." Rudolf's heart went out to the young man. "You remain here," he said, "I will leave you to yourself. I will wait in the cemetery outside, and if I can be of any service to you command me." "Thank you, sir, I will go too; I have done what I came here to do." The name of the dear departed was inscribed on the tomb in golden letters, and these letters gleamed forth in the light of the snow: "Madame Karpathy, _nee_ Fanny Meyer." The young artisan removed his cap, and with the same respect, the same reverence with which one touches the lips of the dead, he kissed every letter of the word "Fanny." "I am not ashamed of this weakness before you," said Alexander, standing up again, "for you have a noble heart, and will not laugh at me." Rudolf answered nothing, but he turned his head aside. God knows why, but he could not have met the young man's eyes at that moment. "And now, sir, we can go." "Where will you spend the night? Come with me to Szentirma!" "Thank you; you are very good to me, but I must return this very hour. The moon will soon be up, and there will be light enough to see my way by. I must make haste, for there's lots for me to do at home." He could not prevail upon him; a man's sorrow has no desire to be comforted. Rudolf accompanied him to the wayside _csarda_, where the sledge was awaiting him. He could not restrain himself from warmly pressing the artisan's hand and even embracing him. And Alexander did not guess the meaning of that warm grasp, or why this great nobleman was so good to him. Shortly afterwards the sledge disappeared in the darkness of the night by the same road by which it had come. Rudolf returned to the pine-trees, and paid another visit to the white monument. There he stood and thought of the woman who had suffered so much, and who, perhaps, was thinking of him there below. Her face stood before him now as it had looked when she had followed with her eyes the rejected amaranth; as it had looked when she galloped past him on her wild charger; as it had looked when she had hidden it on his bosom in an agony of despairing love, in order that there she might weep out her woe, amidst sweet torture and painful joy, that secret woe which she had carried about with her for years. And when he thought on these things, his fine eyes filled with tears. He noticed the imprints of the knees of the departed youth, where he had knelt on the pedestal of the monument in the snow, and he fell a-thinking. Did not this woman, who had so suffered, lived and died, deserve as much? And he himself bent his knee before the monument. And he read the name. Like a spectral invitation, those five letters, F-a-n-n-y, gleamed before him so seductively. For a long time he remained immersed in his own reflections, and thought--and thought-- At last he bent down and kissed the five letters one after another, just as the other young fellow had done. Then he flung himself on his horse. His errant groom, not finding his master, was impatiently blowing his horn in every direction. Rudolf soon came up with him, and half an hour later they were in the courtyard of John Karpathy's castle. Karpathy had invited Rudolf to hasten to him that very night. _ |
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