Peter the Priest Part 7

"What! deny his G.o.d!"

"Denies the Trinity, believes Christ only a good man, and the Holy Ghost only a white dove; nothing more."

"But you will free me from him, won't you?" entreated the maiden, clasping the young man's knees.

"With your a.s.sent."

"How could you get here? Whence did you come?"

"Truly, I have taken my way through the lower regions to come to you; a long underground pa.s.sage, that men worse than the devil planned for the destruction of mankind, and that is still filled with evidences of their deeds of terror. It is frightful to wander there. The secret of this hidden way, I learned from an old yellowed book, which had made ten wise men fools, and whose secret was finally revealed by a Fool. This book too was a work of the Devil, but the real h.e.l.l and the genuine Devil, Fate has shown me in another form. The inexorable rules of our order compel me to serve as instructor and confessor in the house of that woman, who, in my opinion, is worse than Belial and all his demons. I am at the castle of the Lady of Madocsany."

The maiden put her hand on her heart and caught her breath.

"This is my h.e.l.l and my Devil; day after day to see the woman whom I have hated since our first acquaintance. Offensive is the woman, however beautiful she may be, who is ever eager to disclose to a man the feelings of her heart, which ought to be a secret to divine, a prize to win, a treasure to guard for their possessor. Still more ought this woman to have concealed her secret, for every one of her thoughts was inspired by sin; her husband still lived. How she became a widow was a burden on her conscience. How she treated me--may she answer for it to G.o.d! Her secrets told in confession rest in my breast under the seal of the sacrament. I must in G.o.d's name absolve her from sins that my human heart cannot forgive. Day after day must I look upon that face whose accursed smile destroyed our fortunes. I must lend an ear to her diabolical words of enticement, which she whispers to me under the mantle of confession. Is not that worse than h.e.l.l?"

The maiden pressed his hand, and said in soothing tones, "You are right; yours is the greater suffering. I will not complain."

"Your sufferings too are well known to me. This demon entertains me daily with bad news about you. She knows everything that happens in your house, and she takes special delight when she can distress me with such tales. But let us not waste our time in complaining. We must part. I have a long way to go underground and must arrive while it is still dark, so no one can mark the entrance by which I go. Answer me one question. Do you wish to go into a convent?"

"It is my one wish."

"It shall be fulfilled. I must first tell your decision to the Abbess of a convent, so that when I take you away through the underground pa.s.sage to the Madocsany Castle, a nun may be waiting for you there with a closed carriage. Great prudence and careful preparations are necessary.

We must agree upon the day for meeting here again."

"Next Sunday."

"Well, then, any Sunday after midnight. I cannot get away earlier, for it is so late before the spoiled child who is entrusted to my care falls asleep, and the Fool who keeps vigils with me becomes drunk."

"But tell me," asked the maiden, "How could you guess that you would find me here at this hour? Did vision tell you?"

"Even if I deceive the whole world, I will tell you only the truth. I have had no visions; neither ecstacy nor second-sight revealed this to me. I had certainty. To-day is the anniversary of your brother's death, and to-night it is celebrated in your castle with a carouse. You could not remain in the house, where every nook and corner was filled with their disgusting gluttony. Here only, could you find protection--at your brother's grave, where you could pray through the frightful night. You must pray, first for the soul of your brother, and then for his murderer's--the whole litany from beginning to end. Finally, I decided that if I did not find you here, I would pa.s.s through the church door into the castle. Many buffoons are there now, disguised in monk's cowl, and it would not have been difficult for me to join them and look for you."

The young man saw a look of terror on Magdalene's face, and she seized him by the hand.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

She said nothing; she only thought what if her beloved had been torn to pieces by the bears in his attempt to pa.s.s to the castle. But she would not say this to him, lest she waken his fears for her, a weak woman; she must always pa.s.s to the church through such perils.

"I was thinking," she said, with a constrained, distressed smile, "what if you had found the door locked when you tried to go out of the church?"

"I knew for a fact that the door of the church is never locked. Your father has given orders that it shall always remain open. Every corner of this church has its sad history, but none more sad than the history of the door."

"You know it?"

"I heard it from the tormentor of my soul. It will be better for you not to know it; you have enough in your misfortune."

"I beg of you, tell me this story. The knowledge that another has suffered still more gives me consolation. Who was it?"

"Your older sister, Sophie."

"I remember her; she was tall and beautiful, with large dark eyes. How often I stroked her beautiful rosy cheeks, when she took me in her lap, for I was still a child. And then I remember when they laid her in her coffin, I stroked her cheeks again, but they were marble-white and cold."

"There she rests," said the young man, pointing to the wall, where two marble tablets were in sight, one large, one small; on one was a large cross, on the other a small one; then the date. On the smaller tablet one year more than on the larger, and that was all the inscription.

"Why is there neither name nor inscription?" asked Magdalene, stunned.

"There are two of them, mother and child."

"And why are their names not on the tablets?"

"They had no names."

"I do not understand you."

"You ought not to. It is a sad story. They too loved one another, more pa.s.sionately than we. They too suffered, still more than we. They too were disturbed by your father in their love. Shame was to him preferable to a son-in-law. His daughter died the day her child was born, and was buried here; a year later the child followed; and when they brought her here to bury her beside her mother and opened the church door, your father stumbled over the body of his daughter; the unhappy girl had been buried in a trance, had wakened, struggled to the church door, found it locked, and so perished pitiably at its threshold."

"Frightful!" stammered the maiden, shuddering, and glancing with a look of terror at the two tablets.

"That is why there are no names inscribed. Since then, Grazian Likovay never has this church door locked."

"Let us hurry away from here," said the maiden, trembling. "Will you come here next Sunday about midnight?"

"I will come; but you must hurry away now."

They parted with a pressure of the hand.

Father Peter had to pa.s.s through the hiding-place behind the altar picture, which with all its demons resumed its place. For some time the face of Saint Anthony was surrounded with a halo of light from the torch of the departing monk. The small bell in the tower rang again, for it was connected by hidden clock-work with the secret pa.s.sage-way.

Formerly, when the castle had been held by the Hussites, this bell rung, by its secret clock-work, had given warning when any one was approaching from Madocsany. When the bell stopped ringing, the altar picture was again in darkness. It was two minutes past midnight; outside the c.o.c.k crowed. The maiden, as she went toward the church door, looked timidly before and behind to see if her sister Sophie were present; outside a still greater terror waited. One bear lay across the threshold asleep.

She needed only to summon all her courage and climb over him; but the other was awake, grimly gnawing a bone that he could not crush in his teeth. "Help me, G.o.d," sighed the maiden, and ran past the creature, throwing her honey-cakes as she went. The wild beasts let her pa.s.s unharmed, but it would have been better for her had they torn her to pieces, then would she have been a beautiful martyr and saint in Paradise.

CHAPTER VII.

VENUS AND HER SON.

Idalia was the baptismal name of the Lady of Madocsany; her other name was Venus. This name is often found in calendars even at the present day, and was quite customary in this part of the country. With this name at her baptism, a fatal ban was p.r.o.nounced upon her. The Lady did not know that she had inherited not only the beauty of the G.o.ddess, but also her nature too. When she loved, she loved with mad pa.s.sion, and when she ceased to love, she hated in the same way, and her hate was deadly.

"Venus armicida." Her pa.s.sion never cooled. It only changed its flame, but always burned in one way or another. She had married early the man of her choice, a handsome hero when he married her, a broken-down old man when he left her a widow, though the number of years between was only eight. It was said he had drunk himself to death. Perhaps there was a magic drink mingled with his wine.

Idalia had so thrown herself into the Olympic life her name justified that she had her little son baptized Cupid. The poor Slavic priest was made to believe that this was only the childish name for Cupa, who was known to be a national saint and martyr. In one house lived Venus and Cupid. The lady cherished her son with truly animal love; everything was allowed him. She never let him out of her sight even in her love adventures. The child could remember several such instances when they had galloped off three in the saddle,--the knight, the child, and the mother. Lady Idalia had run away from her husband, but every time had cajoled her way back. Tihamer Csorbai was the last object of her pa.s.sion, and because this remained unanswered, she had been most furious. She destroyed every hindrance between the two. Blood must flow to separate Tihamer from his first beloved. Idalia's husband must sink into his grave that Tihamer might be more closely united to her, and now the whole plan had been made futile; she had found Tihamer again, but as Father Peter. The man she had adored was now a permanent guest within her house, but farther from her than ever before. Not earthly hands, but heavenly fields, separated them; and how many projects of insurrection did her heated brain plan against hated Heaven. In the warm, starlit nights of summer, from the room of the monk below, rang forth the mournful psalms with which he stormed Heaven. At the same time, the lady sat in her balcony and struck her harp and sang enticing songs, telling all the secrets of a pa.s.sion-torn soul. The song was intended for a confession of love. Did Father Peter hear? He must have heard them. Is every feeling in his heart turned to stone that he cannot feel nor awake?

"Sit down on the edge of my bed, Father Peter," whispered the child, uneasily tossing about on his sleepless couch "I have something to say to you. Either the devils or the good spirits brought you here."

"Why do you say that, my child?"

"Before you came, my mother was very fond of me; she always called me, 'my diamond,' 'my ruby,' 'my saint,' 'my little dove,' or 'my little angel.' When she took me in her lap, she kissed me to the very finger tips; whatever I asked her for, she gave me at once, or if she did not, I pulled her hair, and then she would laugh and kiss me again. She never looked cross at me, but now that you are here, I am of no further value to her. I am no more her 'diamond' or 'golden treasure;' when she looks at me, she makes such a face that I have to run away. If I ask my prettiest for something, she puts out her tongue at me. If I make the smallest mistake, she whips me with rods and threatens me with the lash.