Debts of Honor Part 65

"No, you know I never drink wine."

"Never? Not to-day either? Not even to my health?"

I looked at him. Why did he wish to make me drink to-day especially?

"No, Lorand. You know I am bound by a promise not to drink wine, and a man of honor always keeps his promises, however absurd."

I shall never forget the look which Lorand gave me at these words.

"You are right, old fellow:" and he grasped my hand. "A man of honor keeps his promises, however absurd...."

And as he said so, he was so serious, he gazed with such alarming coldness into the eyes of Gyali, who sat next to him. But Pepi merely smiled. He could smile so tenderly with those handsome girlish round lips of his.

Lorand patted him on the shoulder.

"Do you hear, Pepi? My brother refused to drink wine, because a man of honor keeps his promises. You are right, Desi. Let him who says something keep his word."

Then the banquet began.

It is a peculiar study for an abstainer to look on at a midnight carousal, with a perfectly sober head, and to be the only audience and critic at this "divina comedia" where everyone acts unwittingly.

The first act commenced with the toasts. He to whom G.o.d had given rhetorical talent raises his gla.s.s, begs for silence,--which at first he receives and later not receiving tries to a.s.sure for himself by his stentorian voice;--and with a very serious face, utters very serious phrases:--one is a master of grace, another of pathos: a third quotes from the cla.s.sics, a fourth humorizes, and himself laughs at his success, while everybody finishes the scene with clinking of gla.s.ses, and embraces, to the accompaniment of clarion "hurrahs."

Later come more fiery declamations, general outbursts of patriotic bitterness. Brains become more heated, everyone sits upon his favorite hobby-horse, and makes it leap beneath him; the socialist, the artist, the landlord, the champion of order, everyone begins to speak of his own particular theme--without keeping to the strict rules of conversation that one waits until the other has finished: rather they all talk at once, one interrupting the other, until finally he who has commenced some thrilling refrain hands over the leadership to all: the song becomes general, and each one is convinced from hearing his own vocal powers, that nowhere on earth can more lovely singing be heard.

And meantime the table becomes covered with empty bottles.

Then the paroxysm grows by degrees to a climax. He who previously delivered an oration now babbles, comes to a standstill, and, cuts short his discomfiture by swearing; there sits one who had already three times begun upon some speech, but his bitterness, mourning for the past, so effectually chokes his over-ardent feelings that he bursts into tears, amidst general laughter. Another who has already embraced all his comrades in turn, breaks in among the gypsies and kisses them one after the other, swearing brotherhood to the ba.s.s fiddler and the clarinetist.

At the farther end of the table sits a choleric fellow, whose habit it is always to end in riotous fights, and he begins his freaks by striking the table with his fist, and swearing he will kill the man who has worried him. Luckily he does not know with whom he is angry. The gay singer is not content with giving full play to his throat, helping it out with his hands and feet: he begins to dash bottles and plates against the wall, and is delighted that so many smashed bottles give evidence of his triumph. With a half crushed hat he dances in the middle of the room quite alone, in the happy conviction that everybody is looking at him, while a blessed comrade had come to the pa.s.s of dropping his head back upon the back of his chair, only waking up when they summon him to drink with him--though he does not know whether he is drinking wine or tanner's ooze.

But the fever does not increase indefinitely.

Like other attacks of fever, it has a crisis, beyond which a turn sets in!

After midnight the uproarious clamor subsided. The first heating influence of the wine had already worked itself out. One or two who could not fight with it, gave in and lay down to sleep, while the others remained in their places, continuing the drinking-bout, not for the sake of inebriety, merely out of principle, that they might show they would not allow themselves to be overcome by wine.

This is where the real heroes' part begins, of those whom the first gla.s.s did not loosen, nor the tenth tie their tongues.

Now they begin to drink quietly and to tell anecdotes between the rounds.

One man does not interrupt another, but when one has finished his story, another says, "I know one still better than that," and begins: "the matter happened here or there, I myself being present."

The anecdotes at times reached the utmost pitch of obscenity and at such times I was displeased to hear Lorand laugh over such jokes as expressed contempt for womankind.

I was only calmed by the thought that "our own" were long in bed--it was after midnight--and so it were impossible for mother or someone else out of curiosity to be listening at the keyhole, waiting for Lorand's voice.

All at once Lorand took over the lead in the conversation.

He introduced the question "Which is the most celebrated drinking nation in the world?"

He himself for his part immediately said he considered the Germans were the most renowned drinkers.

This a.s.sertion naturally met with great national opposition.

They would not surrender the Magyar priority in this respect either.

Two peacefully-inclined spirits interfered, trying to produce a united feeling by accepting the Englishman, then the Servian as the first in drinking matters--a proviso which naturally did not satisfy either of the disputing parties. Lorand, alone against the united opinion of the whole company, had the audacity to a.s.sert that the Germans were the greatest drinkers in the world. He produced celebrated examples to prove his theory.

"Listen to me! Once Prince Batthyany sent two barrels of old Goncz wine to the Brothers of Hybern. But the duty to be paid on good Magyar wine beyond the Lajta[71] was terrible. The recipients would have had to pay for the wine twenty gold pieces[72]--a nice sum. So the Brothers, to avoid paying and to prevent the wine being lost, drank the contents of the two barrels outside the frontier."

[Footnote 71: A river near Pressburg, the boundary between Austria and Hungary.]

[Footnote 72: Probably 200 florins.]

Ah, they could produce drinkers three times or four times as great, this side of the Lajta!

But Lorand would not give in.

"Well, your namesake, Pepo Henneberg," related Lorand, turning to Gyali, "introduced the custom of drawing a string through the ears of his guests, who sat down at a long table with him, and compelled them all to drain their beakers to the dregs, whenever he drank, under penalty of losing the ends of their ears."

"With us that is impossible, for we have no holes bored in our ears!"

cried one.

"We drink without compulsion!" replied another.

"The Magyar does all a German can do!"

That a.s.sertion, loudly shouted, was general.

"Even draining gla.s.ses as they did at Wartburg?" cried Lorand.

"What the devil was the custom at Wartburg?"

"The revellers at Wartburg, when they were in high spirits used to load a pistol, and then to fill the barrel to the brim with wine: then they c.o.c.ked the trigger, and drained this curious gla.s.s one after another for friendship's sake."

(I see you, Lorand!)

"Well, which of you is inclined to follow the German cavaliers'

example?"

Topandy interrupted.

"I for one am not, and Heaven forbid you should be."

"I am."

--Which remark came from Gyali, not Lorand.

I looked at him. The fellow had remained sober. He had only tasted the wine, while others had drunk it.