Peter the Priest Part 4

When they were left alone, the Lady began to laugh. Her pleasure was as pa.s.sionately violent as her anger; she clapped her hands and pressed them to her head.

"Aha! So you're here, are you? At last! You are not dead! You did not go out into the wild world! You have come to me! A hundred times I have called you; a thousand times I have waited for you; but always in vain.

When I did not expect you, you are before me! Ha ha! And in what a masquerade have you slunk in, Tihamer Csorbai!"

And with that she laid both hands on the monk's shoulders, rested her dimpled chin on her arm, and laughed in his face with her sparkling eyes.

"My name is Father Peter," said the monk calmly. And without change of countenance, he suffered the Lady to press him to her breast with all her might.

"That's not true!" she cried, seizing violently the monk's rough garment over his breast. "It's only a disguise," and she tore open the coa.r.s.e cowl on his breast, expecting to see a gold-trimmed, buckled cloak of velvet. In its stead was a coa.r.s.e shirt of unbleached linen, such as all Jesuits wore, down to the humblest begging monk; and where this coa.r.s.e shirt parted on his breast, could be seen around his neck a chain of steel with iron cross. The points on the links of the chain and the sharp edges of the cross had left b.l.o.o.d.y prints on his neck, from her violent embrace. But he endured both the embrace and the torture without a smile, without a word.

"I am what I seem to be," he said coldly. The tone of his voice was so cold, his glance so steely hard, that from the face of the Lady suddenly vanished the smile, and with it every charm. With dignity she drew herself to her full height, rubbed her hands, gazed with her black eyes in terror at the cross, her whole body quivered; then she clasped both hands to her brow, throwing back her head. "'Tis a dream! Waken me! Give me water."

"We are awake, my Lady," said the monk, "What you see is the reality."

"Tihamer----"

"--is dead."

"But not in the struggle against the Turks?"

"No, only in the struggle against self."

"'Tis two years since we have heard anything of you."

"Yes, since that unfortunate duel, in which I killed somebody with whom I would gladly exchange my rest every night. You know the cause."

"Do not call it to mind. Rage fills my whole body."

"Every night his ghost comes to me."

"Why didn't you make more thorough work of it? His ghost leaves me in peace." And with that she smiled seductively. The man understood the words and understood the smile. This woman was a queen of sinners; all heart, and yet heartless. If she were to go to h.e.l.l, she would seduce the Devil, and instead of being among the d.a.m.ned, would take her place at Beelzebub's side as his wife.

"The Lord of Mitosin has cursed me," said the monk.

"How often has he cursed me! Every word he speaks is a curse. If all took effect, there would be no thunder left in Heaven or devil in h.e.l.l.

I laugh at his curse."

"But he really has cursed me. At the funeral feast of his son, he hurled after me the words, that if he ever caught sight of my face again, he would put his daughter in a boat, push her out on the sea in the black night, and leave her to perish."

"And your love for her was so great that for this reason you went out into the wide world,--nay, more, you went out of the world--you became a monk! And yet you could not free yourself from her. Her charm brought you back again, that you might be near her, might even see her again. Am I not right?"

Envy and jealousy blazed in her glance.

"No. I made a pilgrimage to Rome, and was received into the Jesuit order. The Provincial, finding that I was of this vicinity ordered me to the monastery of Madocsany."

"Whither you never wanted to come."

"I had to obey. And since then, I have been spending my years of penance here. I have done the most menial work. Begged from village to village, and tortured my body and my soul."

"Just to see her once more!"

"To avoid her."

"What! Have you not yet seen her? Not heard of her? She is more beautiful than ever and still unmarried. She waits for you."

"She waits in vain! Even in prayer, I do not venture to approach her. I am what I have become--a rigid, unfeeling monk. Only in my hands do I carry the rose-wreath, not on my brow. Its fragrance is no more sweet; its thorns give no more pain."

"And you are the one the Jesuit convent selected to send to me!"

"The rest were all afraid of you."

"On account of my bad reputation; and yet they do not know me at all.

You had most cause to fear, for you know me, and yet you came--to the woman whom you hate, whom you despise, at whose warm whisper you shudder, whom you have so often thrust aside, and of whom you know that she clings to you so madly that she will never give you up to G.o.d, or Devil, or angel! Whose windows are written all over with your name, who when she is silent, and when she speaks, and when she dreams, thinks only of you! And yet you came!"

"The command was given and I obeyed."

"And why are you here?"

"To fulfil a sacred mission."

"Ha, ha! What mission?"

"To instruct your son in the true faith, and in worldly knowledge."

"I understand. They are afraid that if I get angry, I will take my son with me to Saros-Patak, and make a Calvinist of him; and will my wealth to that college; they have a holy dread of that."

"Possibly."

"But you have still another sacred mission. As I understand from their letter, the Jesuits never send an instructor into a family except with the t.i.tle of Father Confessor. You are to be my Father Confessor."

"I know it."

"You know it. And do not suspect that what I shall whisper in your ear day after day, will be not only my curse, but also yours. That you who must absolve my soul of the sin, if sin it is, renew that sin day by day; that when you lay your hand upon my head in blessing, every one of your five fingers will burn in my red hair as in glowing coals. Do you know that?"

"I know it."

"And yet you venture to incline your ear when I kneel before you and venture to hear me when I whisper, 'Father I have sinned;' I love a man with a maddening love that sets my brain on fire; I cannot pray, for his name ever rushes to my lips; I cannot look to the saints above, for everywhere I see his face; I cannot do penance, for I love my sin, and am ever returning to it; I had a good, true husband who was as gentle as a lamb; this good and gentle husband I tortured to death--perhaps I even caused his death--I exulted and rejoiced in my widow's veil for I thought, Now he whom I seek can be mine; ah, my sin, my sin! But his heart would not incline to me for he loved another,--a more beautiful, a better, an innocent maiden; and I disturbed their union, I roused her father and brother against him, I sowed enmity between them, and he killed the brother of his betrothed, and so I tore them from each other.

My sin! My sin! Hear me, G.o.d in Heaven! I did not come to you to pray, but I will contend with you. This man I love more than my soul's salvation, the man to whom I pray rather than to Heaven, whose heart Thou first didst take from me, and now dost take him too. Thou hast chained him to Thine altar, but I will not leave him to Thee, I will tear him from Thine altar, and if Thou wilt not permit me to be happy on earth, to be blessed in Heaven with him, then will I be d.a.m.ned in h.e.l.l with him. Father, I will sin!"

The woman rocked on her knees in the dust before the man, kissing his feet, and with her hand beating her unrepentant breast.

A deep sigh was wrung from the heart of Father Peter. He turned his face away, and laying a trembling hand on the woman's head, sobbed with stifled voice, "May G.o.d pity you your sins, poor wretched woman!" And then he let her lie sobbing on the ground, and let her drag herself along the marble floor, following his footsteps and kissing them, one after the other.

CHAPTER IV.