Pretty Michal Part 12

Some person who had been eavesdropping outside all the time giggled aloud, and then was heard the voice of a man blaspheming the name of G.o.d, and gnashing his teeth with rage.

Surely that was not the parson of Great Leta?

Certainly not. But what has become of him? Well, after the work of yesterday night and to-day, the doors of every church are shut against Henry Catsrider, and the steps leading to every pulpit are broken down as far as he is concerned.

The old vihodar had taken very good care that his son should never be a clergyman again.

And Michal remained alone with her phantoms.

She thought upon the vanished days of her maidenhood; of the innocent joys amidst which her days had glided so sweetly away; of the studies, which had always been a source of delight to her.

Whither had vanished all those joys and all those studies? What availed her now the books of all those learned men? What to her now was moral philosophy, horticulture, or domestic economy? Here there was no morality, no garden, no home! Her life at home had been a monastic life, but it was a veritable heaven compared with this h.e.l.l.

But when she fell a-thinking how happy she might have been if she had given her hand to him whom her heart had chosen--who was not perhaps very learned, but certainly upright, honest, good-hearted, and over head and ears in love--then indeed evil thoughts began to arise within her.

When the moon shone through the iron bars of her window she could not help thinking what a nice time the witches must have of it; they had only to bestride their broomsticks and scud through the air, even narrow iron bars could not stop them.

What if her forsaken sweetheart were thinking of her now? Would he ever learn into what depths of misery the mistress of his heart had fallen?

While she was thinking of these things, and drying her streaming eyes, she suddenly heard in the court below the tune of one of her favorite songs, which ran thus:

The cloud wherein the crow doth stay, The dark black cloud will pa.s.s away!

Someone was playing this air on a Hungarian field-trumpet.

This instrument is called the farogato, and very few know how to play it. It is certainly a difficult instrument. Let anyone but a connoisseur attempt to blow it, and he will bring forth a sound not at all unlike the howl of a dog on whose tail someone has trodden.

But he who really knows the secret of the field-trumpet can play thereon every imaginable air, in tones which will go to one's very heart. You'll find yourself weeping without exactly knowing why. The good old songs, as they come forth from the instrument, recall to you the lullaby which your mother used to sing at your cradle, and the hymn which was sung at your father's burial. It does you good and makes you sad at the same time. But when a real connoisseur takes up the farogato and blows into it with all his might, then indeed he brings forth notes which excite the martial sentiments of every hearer, notes which can be heard for two miles round. It sounds just as if a host were marching forth to battle and to victory.

It was this instrument which, thirty years later, inspired the rebel troops of Rakoczy in the campaigns. After the insurrection was over, therefore, the peace-abiding government collected together all the farogatos in the land and destroyed them, just as if they had been so many double-mortars. Only a single specimen still remains, which is exhibited as a great curiosity in the Royal Museum at Buda-Pest, and only a single man in the whole land knows how to play it.

We have said this much about the farogato in order to give some idea of the great joy which arose in Michal's heart, when she suddenly heard it playing her favorite song.

Her father had often spoken to her about an out-at-elbow vagrant student, whom the scholars derisively nicknamed Simplex, and who had wrought much mischief there with his music by enticing the sons of the Muses away from their studies thereby. Kalondai, in particular, had to thank this fellow for the corruption of his morals, in fact they were hand and glove. Besides that, Simplex was a low fellow, who had not been ashamed to serve a twelve months' apprenticeship with the civic trumpeter of Zeb, and since then had spent all his time in gadding about the country as an itinerant musician, earning a penny here and a penny there at wedding feasts and such like riotous entertainments. All this the learned professor had told his daughter in high dudgeon; but what a comfort it was to her that she knew it now. From the fact that she heard all her favorite songs played one after the other in the courtyard below, she drew the following conclusion: If Simplex has come hither, it is only because Kalondai sent him. If he is staying here, it is certainly only because he wants to find out something about me. When he discovers what my position is, he will return to his bosom friend and tell him everything.

And the thought consoled her.

For hours and hours she listened in the beautiful moonlight to the well-known melancholy strains, which her serving-maids used to sing when they heard the field-trumpet's blare outside. She, too, had now and again hummed "The Hunter's Song," or "The Polish Lay of the Three Hundred Widows," with its ghostly finale supposed to represent the Dance of Death.

Simplex played these airs very prettily. Michal could have listened to him all night.

Early in the morning Pirka appeared, and brought her the wine posset spiced with cloves, cinnamon, and muscat-nut.

While she was sipping it, Michal angrily asked: "Who is that tiresome man who keeps on blowing his trumpet all night in the courtyard below?"

She was already learning to be sly. It is ever so with women. Treat them with tenderness and affection, and they are as gentle as doves and speak straight out what they think. But just bully, offend, or persecute them, and they become as crafty as serpents. No one teaches them deceit, and yet they are masters in it. Then they think before they speak, and their tongues say one thing and their hearts another.

So that was why Michal complained so angrily about that tiresome man. She knew by instinct that the best way to keep him in the house was to complain of him.

"Oh, my darling!" said Barbara Pirka, "don't say that! He is my trumpeter, quite a superior young man, I a.s.sure you."

"And pray when will he take himself off and let people sleep o'

nights?" she asked with dissembled bitterness.

"He is not so easily got rid of, darling! If you were to chuck him out of doors with a pitchfork he would come in again through the window. He enjoys himself amazingly with the lads! Would you believe it, they got up a fine dance last night! There was no lack of partners either, for each of the lads brought in a large watch-dog, made it stand on its hind-legs, and danced with it that way. If you had been there you'd have split your sides for laughing. Last of all, everyone made his partner kiss the musician. Ha! ha! ha!"

"The beast!" cried Michal, wiping her mouth in disgust. "And why then does he not run away from a place where they treat him so vilely?"

"I'll tell you, my dear little squirrel! 'tis because he is desperately in love with me."

Then Michal thought how great must be the friendship of these two men, when one of them is willing to live as a guest in the headsman's house, make sport for the headsman's henchmen, endure their brutal jests, nay, even make love to this domestic witch, simply to bring his friend tidings of the woman who has been the cause of all his misery!

All that day Barbara Pirka did not bring Michal the clothes in which she had come, nor did Michal again put on the fine dress which had been given to her. She preferred to feign illness and lie in bed.

But Henry dared not show his face to her all that day.

Neither on that nor yet on the following day did he appear before her. He was waiting till Michal got up.

She, however, would take nothing but broth, so that she might say she was ill and not be obliged to get up.

And night after night she listened at the window to the farogato, and it sometimes seemed to her as if someone was urging the musician to play with all his might.

Meanwhile Henry steadily plied his trade. The better to inure him to it, he was never allowed to be sober for a moment. They gave him heavy beer to drink which muddled his head. They gave him garlic to eat, and the very consciousness that he has eaten garlic is sufficient to make a man regard himself as the enemy of all refinement. The coa.r.s.e jests which he heard from his father's henchmen, familiarity with dirt and filth, the drunken orgies into which he was plunged, so brutalized him that at last he absolutely did not know how to approach such a tenderly nurtured creature as Michal in a propitiatory manner. So he learnt to sing filthy songs instead, and vied with the headsman's lads themselves in cursing and swearing.

If the reverend professor could have seen his son-in-law now he would have fancied that this was an homunculus whom some alchemist had inflated with another and an inferior soul.

That his wife had driven him out of her bedchamber was not regarded as anything extraordinary. In these days the women of Zeb were so shamefaced and coy that it was considered by no means proper for young married people to begin billing and cooing while the honeymoon was yet young. Nay, it was even requisite that the husband when he stole the first kiss from his bride should bear away the marks of her ten nails in his face, just as if he had been engaged in taming a wild panther; while a woman who at the beginning of the honeymoon was able to pitch her husband twice out of the bridal-chamber could reckon upon reaping a whole harvest of praise.

It was consequently nothing unusual if a modest young spouse, with a good opinion of herself, abstained from eating during the first few days of her honeymoon, or even made as though she had been struck dumb. It showed that she had been piously brought up, that was all.

It was only when this self-imposed abstinence lasted long enough to endanger the lady's life that third parties stepped in and put a stop to it.

So Michal had her own way entirely, neither getting up, nor dressing, nor speaking, nor taking any nourishment to speak of.

But on Friday, when Pirka came in to see her, Michal sneezed violently. Now when anybody sneezes on Friday it signifies that his enemies will triumph over him. So, at least, Pirka interpreted it.

Then she observed that the iron window shutters had been left open all night, and she scolded Michal for it.

"It is not good," she said, "to sleep in moonlight, for it draws all the strength out of one's heart." Then she whispered to Michal that to-day the young master was going to accomplish his masterpiece.

What that masterpiece was, Michal had little difficulty in guessing.

On such occasions, to each of the headsman's a.s.sistants is given a flask of brandy wherewith to strengthen his heart. The master himself partakes of brandy mingled with hartshorn and sunflower dew, which (we have it on the authority of Arnoldus de Villanova) is such an efficacious cordial that so long as a man drinks thereof he will probably never die.

It chanced, moreover, that on this very day Henry was bitten by a strange dog, and as there was no knowing whether the beast might not be mad they made young Catsrider swallow a large pill of very pungent spices as an antidote; and no doubt this too had an inflammatory effect upon his blood.

Add to this that the old master on this particular evening gave a great feast to all his apprentices, at which they first drank heavy old beer and then strong red wine. The apprentices on this occasion mocked Henry unmercifully, and called him a milksop, fit only to be stuck up in a corner and beaten with a spindle by his wife. The wine mounted to his head, and the blood and the gibes did the rest. The feast was no sooner over than Henry went straight to the door of Michal's chamber, set his shoulders against it, and tore it off its hinges.