Pretty Michal Part 2

Now, indeed, the reverend gentleman was as fairly caught as ever the devil was by a witch's foot. To this reply there was absolutely no rejoinder.

"I'll take him to task for it to-morrow," said he, "and meantime I postpone the inquiry. After it is over, however, I shall require the name of this rascally seducer. And now, my daughter Michal, proceed to your chamber and consider yourself in arrest there for the next four and twenty hours."

And thus ended the festive day on which Henry Catsrider was ordained a priest.

CHAPTER III.

Wherein is clearly shown that he who tends the sheep is much more honorable than he who slaughters them.

Next morning the reverend gentleman sent for Henry and submitted him to a very severe cross-examination, which lasted for more than an hour. When Henry at last departed, he was not only as red as a boiled crab, but he made his exit head foremost and somewhat precipitately; from which circ.u.mstance the maid-servants, who were listening all the time at the kitchen door, drew various conclusions.

Immediately afterward the reverend gentleman's bell rang three times, which signified that Miss Michal was wanted in the library.

The reverend gentleman was in full canonicals; he united in himself at that moment both the paternal and the maternal authority. He was surrounded by open books, like a general in the midst of his staff; other books, bound in pigskin, stood on the shelves like a phalanx drawn up in battle array, and on the cupboards and presses stood stuffed birds and the skeletons of various animals, like so many witnesses or accusers. The human skeleton in the corner seemed particularly on the alert. The electrical machine was also in readiness to contribute its flashes; but the only being among all these objects which gave any sign of life was the big clock, on the top of which stood a little dog, which kept time with the pendulum by wagging his tail and thrusting out his tongue.

Michal, during the whole of the following examination, fixed her eyes steadily on the mechanical dog; and ever afterward, when she looked back upon that momentous interview, she always saw before her the figure of the little dog wagging his tail and thrusting out his tongue.

"My daughter Michal," began the scholar, "I have spoken to the candidate of faith and love, and learnt everything from him. On my asking him whether he had a father, he answered yes. What is he? A man of position who dwells at Zeb, and is the chief judge of the place. I asked him why he had left his father and given himself out for an orphan. He said he had done so because his father was a Catholic, while he himself desired to become a Protestant clergyman.

Such a desire is certainly most praiseworthy. A young man who is ready to eat the bread of affliction rather than be false to his conscience reveals a great character. Moreover this answer is the best defense to the charge you have brought against him, viz., that of daring to make a proposal of marriage without his father's consent. The law does not recognize the consent of a Catholic father, but only of a Protestant. Therefore Henry Catsrider stands absolved from the accusation that he knowingly perpetrated a fraud.

Reticence after all is not falsehood. Then, too, his new confession of faith releases him from all parental authority, thus putting the father completely out of court."

The big folios and the stuffed birds signified their approval by saying nothing, and the skeleton also was silent as to the fact that his own head had formerly been severed from his body because he had put into practice similar subtleties in his lifetime; only the automatical dog kept on wagging his tail, as if to say, "No, no!"

and professing his scorn of the professor's sophisms by thrusting out his tongue.

Michal answered not a word.

"Thus all your negations are confuted, and now let us hear your affirmations. What is the name of the young man who has presumed to make you a declaration of love?"

"Valentine Kalondai."

The learned man no sooner heard this name than he smote violently with the palm of his hand on the volume of Macrobius lying open before him.

"'Quis hominum?'--What sort of a man is he?"

"An honest man!" cried Michal, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

"What do you know about it? You only go by his outward appearance.

'Quanta especies sed cerebrum non habet'--a handsome face but no brains. 'Non bene casta caro quae bene pasta caro'--Well fed, ill bred. But I have had occasion to learn something about the fellow's inner man. 'Flocci, nihili'--A feather brain, a nonent.i.ty. 'Cla.s.sis primae exultimis'--Always the first in his cla.s.s, counting from the bottom. And how about his morals? He is a wine-bibber. 'Ubi vinum intrat, ibi ratio exit'--When the wine's in, the wit's out. He is a dancer and a serenader. He goes about with musicians and other lewd fellows. All that, indeed, might have been overlooked; but do you know what the trade of his parents was, ay, and still is? Did he confess _that_ to you in his sinful correspondence? And this trade, remember, he must carry on to his dying day, for he does not know enough--far from it--to raise him to a higher rank. Do you know whose wife you would be if your senseless wish were to be fulfilled?"

The girl grew pale. There had been nothing said about this in the correspondence.

The professor took down his note-book and read out the name and description of the accused:

"'Parentes, Sarah, vidua macellarii'--Sarah, the butcher's widow.

His father was a butcher, and he will be a butcher too. People who work in blood! What do you say to that? Can the daughter of the clergyman become the wife of a butcher? And when she has to choose between a man who tends the sheep of the Lord and a man who slaughters cattle, how can she possibly give her hand to the latter?

Have I brought you up all these years only that your lot may be an eternal shedding of blood? To wake up with blood every day, and every day to lie down with blood! Every day to smell blood on the hand of him who embraces you! To be bound to a man whose calling in life it is to lay violent hands on G.o.d's creatures! Have you really the courage to choose such a lot?"

The mechanical dog wagged his tail and put out his tongue.

It seemed to Michal as if everything was turning round and round: the portraits of the scholars, the stuffed birds, even the skeleton with its clattering joints. How could she defend herself against so many?

The scholar saw from the corpse-like pallor of his daughter's face the crus.h.i.+ng impression his words had produced upon her. It was in a much gentler voice that he now continued:

"Now go to your room, or rather to your little garden, and think over what I've just been saying. Write first of all in your copy book: 'Fathers have their children's welfare more at heart than the children themselves.' Yet the decision shall rest with you alone.

Your fate is in your own hands. I'll do no violence to your feelings. If indeed there be really more strength in your heart than I ever antic.i.p.ated, show it now! If you have the courage to knit your life to those who work in blood, give us a specimen of it at home here. You have two pretty doves in a cage. I bought them for you on your birthday. Slaughter them with your own hand and make some broth of them; you may prepare it any way you like. It doesn't matter to me now. I shall then know your decision. Go now, and think the matter over!"

Pretty Michal went down into the garden and walked to and fro among the rose trees. In the middle of the path was the dovecote, and in it were the two fan-tailed pigeons which she had to slaughter, she who had never had the heart to kill so much as a kitchen fly. If she could have had her own way she would have liked everyone to have been a vegetarian. And now she was to kill her favorite doves.

She had no one to whom she could turn for advice, no one to whom she could pour out her griefs. Here was a case in which neither the philosophers, nor the calf-bound polyhistors, nor yet her daily playfellows, the flowers, could be of the slightest a.s.sistance. She had no other friends than the flowers, and they could only tell her what they knew themselves, _e. g._, that the virginal lily loves the garlic, although the one exhales perfumes and the other stinks; and the n.o.ble anthora withers away whenever it is planted beside the najollus for although the latter certainly has splendid blossoms, (the corolla is a helmet whereon sit two doves), it nevertheless brings destruction upon its fair neighbor--and so on _ad nauseam_.

And then she began thinking that perhaps the feeling which had been nourished in her breast by this exchange correspondence was not exactly love after all. She had only seen the young man from afar, only spoken to him in her dreams. She might easily renounce him. She had no mother to tell her difficulties to, and from her father she had learnt nothing but cold prudence. Mathematics is a pitiless science. According to mathematics, love is not a number which counts, but a mere cipher. Among geometrical figures you will find every conceivable shape but nothing in the shape of a heart. She could get no further information about her lover. The games of ball in the market-place were now forbidden, and who knew but what poor Valentine was locked up besides? It was so easy to find a pretext.

Perhaps he had renounced her himself already. Perhaps he had gone back to his native place.

Should she therefore sacrifice her favorite doves for his sake?

At noon the same day Michal brought both the doves to her father, not roasted or stewed on a dish, but alive in their cage, whereupon the professor kissed his dutiful little daughter on both cheeks.

Three weeks later he united pretty Michal and Henry Catsrider in holy wedlock, and gave them both his parental as well as his sacerdotal blessing.

Valentine Kalondai had had no opportunity of doing anything desperate in the meantime. After the a.s.sembled Consistory had publicly upbraided him for all the sins he had hitherto committed--to wit: his dancing in the woods; his keeping a big dog; his propensity to all kinds of idle jesting; his playing truant at church; his consorting with fiddlers and trumpeters; tussling with night watchmen; making the beadle drunk and dressing him up in woman's clothes; smoking in the streets, etc.--he was sent to jail for a week, and then solemnly expelled from the Keszmar Lyceum with the _consilium abeundi_, and thus prevented from doing anything whereby he might perhaps have prevented the consummation of his rival's wedding. So the ceremony was performed without let or stay, and pretty Michal became the wife of the man who tended the Lord's flock instead of the man who slaughtered the sheep.

CHAPTER IV.

Wherein are described all manner of robbers and dangers, wherefrom the righteous are wondrously delivered.

Henry had made up his mind to take his young wife to Zeb immediately after the wedding, before settling down at the parsonage of Leta. It was ten years since he had seen his father, who was naturally full of wrath and sorrow at the disappearance of his son. But a fair daughter-in-law would, no doubt, be the best mediator between them.

At any rate, there was no harm in trying, for the old man was very rich and Henry was his only son. Many a wrinkled brow has been stroked smooth again ere now by the soft hand of a pretty woman.

The learned Professor Frohlich himself fully approved of this plan, for although the books of the philosophers are full of golden maxims which demonstrate that all earthly treasures are but dross, nevertheless, in this practical world of ours, where one can get nothing without money, a little money is ever so much better than any amount of golden maxims.

Besides, the old gentleman had very little of the good things of this world to bestow upon his daughter. Alchemy could no more make gold then than it can now.

It was as much as he could do to dower the bride with new gowns and underlinen, and here, too, he looked rather to simplicity than to splendor. Instead of giving his daughter silk and satin robes, he impressed upon her the wise saw: 'Mulier superbe amicta, in facie picta, in sermone ficta--non uni vitio est addicta'--The woman who flaunts in frippery, paints her face, and talks mincingly, is the slave of more than one vice already. The husband must see to the rest, and the husband in this case was but a poor, hungry parson, whose benefice for a whole year to come would be but an empty t.i.tle.

During all that time he must be content with a curate's pay. After that, however, he would certainly do very well, especially if his father helped him with a little ready money to go on with.

Meanwhile a journey had to be undertaken, and a journey in those days was no joke. The mountain roads could only be crossed on horses or mules, and the beasts, drivers and all, had to be hired. Then, for security's sake, you had to wait till a regular caravan had a.s.sembled, for the whole region was blackmailed in those days by three powerful bands of robbers, whose leaders were called Janko, Bajus, and Hafran. Janko was famed for his physical strength and agility, Bajus for his craft and cunning, but Hafran, or Raven, as the Slovacks called him, for his ferocity. Each of them commanded from fifty-five to sixty men. Sometimes they all united and fought regular pitched battles with the soldiers and police sent out to capture them. It was, therefore, not advisable for single families or small parties to undertake long journeys like that from Keszmar to Zeb. One had to make arrangements months beforehand, and wait till the dealers in cloth, haberdashery, and spices were ready to set out with their wares for Eperies; these were then usually joined by a dozen or so of butchers and cattle-dealers from Lower Hungary, as many cattle-drovers, half a dozen strolling fiddlers, sundry Slovack linen and oil merchants, and some thirty students traveling homeward in vacation and provided with stout bludgeons; thereto were, of course, to be added the drivers of those who had to make the journey by horse or mule, or pay for the transport of their goods, so that the whole caravan generally numbered one hundred and fifty strong, and the robbers would think twice before venturing to attack so large a party. On this occasion, moreover, Fortune added to their company a Polish n.o.bleman who had been on a visit to his kinsmen in Hungary, and was returning home with an escort of forty men-at-arms. Whoever was disposed to go a two days' journey from Keszmar might safely commend his soul to G.o.d in such a goodly company.

Now although the good and learned Professor David Frohlich could not endow his daughter with much worldly wealth, yet by way of compensation he gave her richly of what he himself possessed, for his parting present was a sack-load of wonder-working medicinal herbs. Among them was the "weapon balsam," which he fully directed her how to use in case her husband was wounded by the way. In such a case she was first of all to stick into the wound a piece of wood of the same shape as the weapon which had inflicted it, and then draw it out and anoint it with the balsam. The wound would then infallibly heal--in course of time. In case, however, of a gunshot wound, when the bullet remained in the body, she was to beat flat and bind upon the wound a leaden bullet which had previously shot a wild boar, for it is well known that all such bullets attract and draw out all other bullets. In one corner of the sack he stuck that valuable counselor in all the ills of life, the book "Georgica Curiosa," which was an inventory of all the healing herbs with which the sack was filled. Nay, his love for his daughter made the worthy man part with even his most precious talisman--the plague amulet.