Eyes Like the Sea Part 7

Petofi then related, quite calmly, that our common friend, the worthy lawyer, wished to take to wife the daughter of a landed proprietor at Gran. The girl's parents were Catholics, the bridegroom was a Calvinist, they therefore would not permit the marriage. But the young people really loved each other. So there was nothing for it but to steal the bride.

The thing was quite clear. I could make no objection. When a man is poet and Protestant, girl-stealing in such a situation becomes a duty. Just then a great parliamentary strife was going on concerning mixed marriages. It was Guelph and Ghibelline over again. One had to choose one's party.

So on the following day I really did set out with Petofi to steal a girl for the benefit of a third friend. The affair succeeded beyond all expectation. We had no need of the darkness of midnight and scaling ladders, the mere appearance of Petofi and myself at the bride's house was sufficient; the parents gave way, and the priest united the two lovers. Yet for all that we always made much of our damsel-robbing adventure. And, indeed, it seemed likely to turn out a dangerous precedent. Example is contagious.

But I returned home with the guilty consciousness that I had absolutely spoiled the _soiree_. I expected that I should be pretty severely taken to task for it. How should I put things to rights again?

I discovered how to make amends, but it was not without great artfulness that I succeeded.

Our city was not only the capital of the county, but a fortress.

Consequently one might frequently come upon vehicles in our streets which consisted of little more than a round chest on two wheels, crammed full of water-b.u.t.ts from the Danube, ammunition, bread, and sacks of meal, and between the poles of these conveyances were fastened a couple of human beings in garments of grey baize, with twenty-pound chains fastened to their legs. The creatures were called in plain Hungarian--slaves.[21] You could hear the rattling of their fetters from afar. On certain days while the self-same creatures were suffering the flogging with sticks, which was part of their sentence, their woful cries resounded through the whole town. Thus the rattling of chains and the howls of woe were a sort of speciality in our town. And the sight of those starved faces too! From my childish years upwards this slave-life used to disturb my dreams.

[Footnote 21: They were prisoners condemned to penal servitude.]

I got up an agitation among the more enthusiastic of the youths and maidens of our town on behalf of the poor slaves. If the affair had succeeded, I should of course never have bragged about it; but as I failed in it, I may as well make a clean breast of it.

It was determined, at my suggestion, to invite Bessy's mother to be the president of our philanthropic society. A deputation set off at once to her house, and, naturally, I was its spokesman. The distinction thus conferred upon her quite wiped out my former offence, and I was again taken into favour.

The first problem in any case was to establish our beneficent scheme on a sound, financial basis, and the simplest way of getting funds was by means of an amateur entertainment. Of this, too, I was the manager. With very great difficulty the programme was finally settled. Overture: _Beatrice di Tenda_.--"What's the watchword? Death, torture, ruin, to the betrayers of the fatherland!" rendered by the glee club of the College. After that a flute duet from _Lucia di Lammermoor_, piped by the local musical society and a young lawyer. That was to be followed by a humorous recitation of my own: "Gregory Sonkolyi"; then came an exhibition of legerdemain by Muki Bagotay; and last of all, as _piece de resistance_, Bessy's fiddling.

It was a terrible business to bring all this about. We had rehearsals every day at Bessy's house. I was very busy just then. I ought to have been working as an articled clerk, but I'm quite sure I never looked at a law-book. At last, however, it was possible to fix the day on which the concert would come off.

Meanwhile, the time was approaching when I ought to have pa.s.sed my _patvaria_, and gone through my _jurateria_. My elder brother Charles wrote to a well-known lawyer at Pest, who had a large practice, to take me into his office as a juratus. And as winter was also drawing nigh, and I was about to go far, far away into a strange world, my good and ever-blessed mother was busying herself about my outfit. Nowadays people will regard it as a fable, but say it I must, that all the linen I wore during the time when I was a juratus was spun by my mother's own hands.

I verily believe that that s.h.i.+rt, spun by a mother's hand, and worn by me, was the magic web which turned aside so many of the blows of fate.

A tailor and a weaver lived in some of the smaller houses we possessed; we had no need of the help of strangers. My mother also provided me with a good winter overcoat.

It was really a capital overcoat, which covered me down to the very heels, a real Mens.h.i.+kov overcoat, very fas.h.i.+onable forty years later, but in those days worn by n.o.body but the porters of the Benedictine Order.

When I appeared at the amateur rehearsals at Bessy's house in this prematurely born Mens.h.i.+kov, a circle was instantly formed round me, and every one asked me, with ironical congratulations, where I had had it made. Was it possible to get the fellow of it? Bessy even remarked that there was room for two in it, and I was not a bit offended with her.

When I withdrew (a letter, just arrived from Pest, called me home), I scarcely had time to close the door behind me, when I heard an outburst of merriment inside. When, however, I had got out into the street and turned round to have a last look at the house I had left behind me, lo and behold! all the windows were filled with groups of smiling faces, amongst which I saw Bessy's face also. "They are all in a very good humour to-day," I thought to myself.

Hastening home, I found there the letter from the Pest lawyer, in which he informed me, with official brevity, that there was a vacant place for a juratus in his office, which I might occupy. If, however, I did not come and claim it within three days, the vacant place would be given to some one else. The amateur entertainment had been fixed for Sunday, and it was now Tuesday. If I am not there by Friday, another will sit in my place. But what will become of the concert? Ought I to leave Bessy in the lurch--so faithlessly?

And how about the poor slaves?

Perhaps the lawyer at Pest would make a bargain with me and give me a couple of days' grace? I sat down to reply to him: "Wors.h.i.+pful Mr.

Advocate--I feel in duty bound to say, in reply to your honourable communication----" Yes, but what? I must tell him some lie or other.

Nay, not a lie, only a freak of fancy. A sudden illness? No, that's no joke. An uncompleted piece of law business, which I must finish for my old chief? The Pest lawyer will never believe that. What pretext could I hit upon to steal a little more time?

While I was still biting my pen, my mother came into the room, and said to me: "Where have you been, my dear son?"

I said I had been at Bessy's house.

Then she said: "Now, tell me, my darling, why do you run after these great people? Don't you see that they are only making fun of you?"

Something like a cold ague fit ran down my back.

Hadn't I myself seen and heard them laugh at me, and didn't know it? and here was my mother who had neither seen nor heard it, and yet _she_ knew it!

Not another word did I say, but I went on with my letter ... "that I will come to Pest at once to-morrow morning, and take the place of juratus offered by you."

I then showed my mother both letters, whereupon she rewarded me with that blessed smile of hers which has made her face so unforgettable to me.

She immediately packed up my belongings and placed in my hand what little money she had put by, so that I might not want for anything in the expensive capital. I wanted to write to Bessy with an apology for my sudden departure.

"Don't go scribbling to them," said my mother; "I'll go myself to-morrow to her ladys.h.i.+p and tell her what has happened."

The following afternoon I was sitting on the steamer, and in three days I arrived at Pest.... And for this sudden change of fortune I had to thank my Mens.h.i.+kov alone.

CHAPTER V[22]

OLYMPIAN STRIVINGS

[Footnote 22: This chapter is somewhat condensed.]

It was Petofi who introduced me to my a.s.sociates of the "Table of Public Opinion" (as the long table close to the counter in the Cafe Pillwax was called), and who got me a place there. "This is a true Frenchman!" said Petofi, as he presented me to his young army of _literati_ who were a.s.sembled there. In those days this was the highest conceivable praise.

The face of every liberty-loving nation was turned towards France, and from thence we expected the dawn of the new era. We read nothing but French books. Lamartine's "History of the Girondists" and Tocqueville's "Democracy" were our bibles. Petofi wors.h.i.+pped Beranger, I had found my ideal in Victor Hugo.... This school might easily have become dangerous to us had not its influence fortunately coincided with the opening up of a new and hitherto unexplored field--popular literature. Hitherto it had been the endeavour of Hungarian writers to write in a style which was distinct from the language of ordinary life. Our group, on the other hand, started the idea that it was just those very constructions, expressions, and modes of thought employed in every-day life that Hungarian writers ought to take as the fundamental principle of their writing; nay, that they should even develop the ideally beautiful, poetry itself, from the life of the common people.... As belonging to this camp of ours I must also reckon Sigismund Czako, who acclimatized the modern drama to our stage with marked success; and finally Anthony Csengery, the editor of the _Pesti Hirlap_, who wrote nothing in the way of _belles lettres_ himself, but whose immense erudition and thorough knowledge of literature enabled him to exercise a most beneficial influence over the whole of our group. Amongst our older writers also, Vorosmarty and Bajza watched over us with stimulating encouragement; but it was Ignatius Nagy in particular who befriended us, and of him I have the most pleasant recollections.... At this time he was a cripple. He was rarely to be seen in the street, and then only on his wife's arm. He stopped at home all day at his writing-table, writing those life-like sketches of the little world of Buda-Pest which testify to such a serene good-humour. The first time I saw him was when I went to speak to him about my novel, "Hetkoznapok." He had a most embarra.s.sing face covered with dark-red spots right up to his astonis.h.i.+ngly lofty forehead, whose s.h.i.+ny baldness was half cut in two, as it were, by a bright black peruke. He had also an inconceivably big red nose, at which, however, you had no time to be amazed, so instantly were you spell-bound by a couple of squinting eyes, one of which glared as fixedly at you as if it were made wholly of stone. His voice, on the other hand, was as the voice of a sick child. And within this repulsive frame dwelt the n.o.blest of souls, in this crippled body the most energetic of characters. From no strange face did I ever get a kinder glance than I got from those stiff fishy eyes, and that sick voice announced to me my first great piece of good news. Upon his recommendation, the publisher Hartleben agreed to publish my first romance, and gave me for it 360 silver florins. In those days that was an immense fortune to me. I had no further need to go scribbling all day long in a lawyer's office at six florins a month. And his fatherly solicitude for me went still further.

He introduced me to Frankenburg as a dramatic critic. The editor of the _Eletkepek_ had just parted with his dramatic critic (he had been a little too unmerciful to the artistes), and was looking out for a new colleague. By way of honorarium he offered me a free seat at the theatre, and ten florins a month. But my year of office came to an end the very first week. To make amends for the sins of my predecessor, I lauded every artist to the skies, according to the dictates of my youthful enthusiasm. And I can honestly say that I wrote it all from my very heart. It was then that I saw a ballet for the first time in my life. It was my solemn conviction that I was bound by a debt of grat.i.tude to the excellent damsel who exhibited her natural charms to the public eye with such magnanimous frankness. And a pretty lecture Frankenburg read me for it too! "Delightful Sylphid indeed! A clumsy stork, I should say!" Still, _that_ might have pa.s.sed. But it was my magnifying of Lilla Szilagyi who took the part of Smike in the _Beggars of London_ which did the business for me. I said of her that she was "a lovely sapling!" and promised her a brilliant future in her dramatic career. "Leave her where you found her! She has got no heart that's certain!" said the editor. "Then she'll get one!" said I. "But you'll never get to be a critic," said he.

And so, for Lilla Szilagyi's sake, I laid down my _role_ of critic, and yet I was right after all, for, as Madame Bulyovszky, she really did become a great artiste. Now, however, I bless my fate that things fell out as they did. Terrible thought: fancy if I now only had the reputation of a famous--critic!

A few days after that, a new career suddenly opened before me. Paul Kiralyi invited me to join his newspaper, the _Jelenkor_, as a correspondent. He offered me a salary of thirty-five florins a month. Of course I jumped at it. Newspaper writing was a very grateful task in those days. The paper appeared thrice a week. That was quite sufficient to give us all the news. It is different now. Nowadays more murders, suicides, and burglaries occur in the twenty-four hours than occurred in a whole twelvemonth then.

And a newspaper contributor was then a personage of some importance. Let me give an example:--

I lived with the dramatist, Szigligeti. In the summer we occupied a whole flat in a brand-new house in Pipe Street, and there I had a room of my own, with an exit opening on the staircase. The other flats were empty. The Szigligetis flitted during the summer to the suburbs of Buda.

Thus I had the whole of the first floor of the new house at my disposal, to my great satisfaction, for I could work away quite undisturbed. In the autumn, however, the Szigligetis returned, and the adjoining flats at the same time got new tenants. The very next night I discovered, to my horror, with whom I was living under the same roof. It was the wife of the possessor of a flower-garden, who also kept a dancing academy.

What afternoons, what nights I pa.s.sed!

At last I could stand it no longer, and I implored Szigligeti to appeal most energetically to the authorities against the nuisance. Szigligeti fully shared my indignation himself, so he posted off at once to the Town Captain to lay his complaint.

"Sir," said he, "the proprietress of a flower-garden has settled down in my immediate neighbourhood."

"But flowers must bloom somewhere, I suppose?"

"But the people dance the livelong night."

"That doesn't injure any one, surely?"

"But after dancing they sit down to rest."

"That is very natural."