The Golden Age in Transylvania Part 24

Madame Banfy fell back in her chair, clasped her hands over her heart in terror and struggled for breath. A trembling cry broke from her lips and they did not close again. It was as if some one had cut the strings of her heart with a sword. Half-fainting she stared at her husband as if doubting whether his words could have been in earnest or whether she ought not to take them for a horrible jest.

"You are unhappy," Banfy went on, "and I cannot help you. You love to dream and I do not understand you in the least. Possibly my soul does hurt yours, but it is unintentional. It is a fact that your feelings hurt mine and that I will not endure. I recognize no tyrant over me, not even in love. I will not be importuned even with tears. Let us tear our hearts apart. Better for us to do it now while they would still bleed, than to wait until they fall apart naturally. Better for us to separate now while we love each other, than to wait until we come to hatred."

During this terrible speech the lady struggled, gasping for breath, as if some dread phantom oppressed her heart and robbed her of speech, until at last her pa.s.sion made its way by force and she uttered the piercing cry:

"Banfy, you have killed me!"

Her voice, the expression of her face, seemed to make Banfy tremble; and though he was already on the point of leaving the room in haste, he stopped half-way and looked once more at his wife. He did not notice at this moment that the door had opened and that some one had entered. He saw only that in the face of his wife, so ravaged with despair, there came suddenly an indescribably distressed smile; this forced smile on her agonized features was something terrible. Banfy thought his wife was losing her mind. But Madame Banfy rose, bustling from her seat and cried out,

"Anna, my dear sister," and rushed to the door.

Then for the first time Banfy turned toward the door and saw Anna Bornemissa, wife of Michael Apafi.

This keen-eyed woman had not failed to take in the situation in which she had surprised these married people, although they knew well how to a.s.sume a calm air in an instant; but she acted as if she had noticed nothing. She drew Margaret to her breast and extended her hand to Banfy in the most friendly fas.h.i.+on. Her sister had not yet fully recovered.

"I heard your voices outside," said Madame Apafi, "and that is why I came here without being announced."

"Oh yes, we were laughing," said Madame Banfy, and made haste to dry her tears with her handkerchief.

"To what circ.u.mstances are we indebted for this extraordinary good fortune?" asked Banfy, hiding his confusion behind rare courtesy.

"As you did not bring my sister to me," began Madame Apafi with smiling reproach, "I came on a visit to my poor relative exiled to Hungary."

Banfy felt the sting under these last words and said as he stroked his beard:

"Here my lovely sister-in-law can do with me what she pleases. She can use me as the target of her wit and overthrow me with her jests.

Before the Prince's throne, in the national hall, we face each other as foes. Here on the contrary you are my ruler. Here I am nothing except your most loyal subject, who does homage to your grace and is beside himself with joy that he may have you as a guest."

While he was saying this Banfy threw his arms around the dignified Madame Apafi with familiarity. Not without significance he added turning to his wife, "It is to be hoped that you will not be jealous of Anna."

Madame Apafi took it upon herself to answer in Margaret's place.

"I am more inclined to think that you cannot trust yourself to me."

"If you were my wife that might be so. And that came very near being the state of affairs; there was a time when I wanted to marry you."

"But it did not advance beyond the beginning," replied the Princess with a laugh.

"We recognized each other soon," continued Banfy. "Two such heads as ours would have been too much for one house; there is not even room for them both in one country. We both like to rule and we should have been well sold if we had been obliged to obey each other. It is better as it is; we have both found our corresponding halves; you, Apafi; and I, Margaret; and we are both happy."

With these words Banfy kissed his wife's hand tenderly, which she acknowledged with equal tenderness, and then he left the two sisters alone. Anna with sweet seriousness laid her hand on her sister's, who looked up to her with a smile, like an innocent child to her good genius.

"You have been crying," began Madame Apafi. "It is of no use for you to a.s.sume the appearance of good spirits."

"I have not been crying," replied Margaret, a.s.serting her a.s.sumed calm with astonis.h.i.+ng strength of mind.

"Very well, I am glad that you hide it. It shows that you love him; and if ever you needed to love your husband, to watch over and protect him, it is now."

"Your words bewilder me. You seem to have something extraordinary to say."

"You must have wondered already at my coming here. You can well understand that I have not come without a reason. We have both of us one person to fear, in like degree, and of whom we must be jealous; and if we do not understand each other one of us may lose an individual dear to her."

"Speak, oh speak!" replied Madame Banfy, and drew her sister down to her on a sofa in a corner of the room.

"Our husbands have hated each other from the first. They were always of opposite opinions, in different parties, and had become accustomed to consider each other as foes. Woe to us if this hatred should come to open battle and we should see our dear ones fall at each other's hands."

"I can a.s.sure you positively that Banfy cherishes no unfriendly intentions toward your husband."

"I am not afraid of Apafi's overthrow, but of your husband's. The throne to which he was called by force has worked a great change in Apafi. I notice with astonishment that he is beginning to be jealous of his power. Already at Neuhausel he expressed himself in the presence of the Grand Vizier as disturbed because Gabriel Haller had aspirations toward the Prince's crown; in consequence of which the Vizier had poor Haller beheaded at once without my husband's knowledge. Even now Apafi recalls the message which your husband once had sent to him, that in a short time he would tear his green velvet cloak from off his shoulders."

"Oh my G.o.d, what must I fear!"

"Nothing so long as I have not lost my husband's favor. While others sleep I am awake at my husband's side and keep watch for the manifestations of his feelings; and G.o.d has given me the strength to be able to struggle against monsters who would drown in blood the memory of his rule. In spite of all this, now and then there appears in my husband a condition of mind when my influence loses all its magic, when he steps out of his own nature and his gentleness turns to a brutality demanding action. Then his eyes, which at other times overflow with tears at the death of a servant, become bloodshot and seem eager for murder; he who at other times is so cautious, then becomes hasty. And this condition, I blush to acknowledge to you, is drunkenness. I do not bring it up against him as a complaint, the man we love has no faults for us, we forgive him everything"--

"With one exception--his infidelity."

"That too--that too," the Princess made haste to add. "When his life is at stake we must forgive that too."

"Oh, Anna," said Margaret, in distress, "you leave me to suspect mysteries that you do not reveal."

"What you must learn, you shall. A little time since, your husband with proud recklessness set himself against a mighty party which joined with kings against kings. It may be said that your husband intends to thwart fate. He is proud enough not to take into consideration the peril which he has raised up against himself in this way. Or perhaps he thinks that those who are whetting their weapons against a ruling king would defer an instant if one of your people should show his face against them. Banfy has insulted, mocked and threatened the men, and tangled the threads in their fine-spun plans; in fact he has insulted both them and the Prince face to face, and that too in the presence of each other."

Madame Banfy folded her hands timidly.

"I see the storm that is gathering over Banfy's head."

"In his drunkenness Apafi has let fall allusions in my presence that have filled my soul with terror, and for the sake of others I am not willing that Apafi's hand should be the one to strike him. On all sides they are going to seek occasions of quarrel with him. I will exert myself to keep off the blow, but if it must fall you shall ward it from him. We two must keep the love of our husbands to the uttermost that we may be able in this spiritual power to throw ourselves between them if they should attack each other. Think how terrible it would be if one should fall by the hand of the other, and one of us should have caused the other's mourning!"

"What shall I do? Oh my G.o.d, what can I do, where does my strength lie?"

"Your strength? In love, watchfulness and self-sacrifice," replied Madame Apafi, striving by her own strong soul to fill her weak sister's with courage.

The fate of two men was in that moment given over into the hands of two angels: and the fate of these two men was one with the destiny of Transylvania.

CHAPTER XIII

THE NIGHT

When Dionysius Banfy left his wife's room and went down the back stairway to the hall of the ground floor, he saw a young rider bound into the courtyard. The rider was covered with dust and foam; when he sprang from his horse, the tired beast lay down. The rider asked hastily for Banfy, who recognized in him Gabriel Burko, and went to him with the question:

"What's the matter?"

"My lord," began the exhausted rider, recovering his breath, "Ali Pasha has attacked Banfy-Hunyad."

"Very good," said Banfy, who appeared to take pleasure in the fact that fate offered his agitated soul something to crush. "Call George Veer," he shouted to his men. "And do you tell me, as soon as you have your breath, just what has happened."