"It is a dreadful world. How would the women manage to live if they couldn't chatter?"

"They could sew their children's clothes."

"Perhaps you haven't heard that Petofi's widow has married again?"

Ah, that was indeed a murderous thrust! A calculated, well-aimed, poisonous dart where there was a weak joint in my coat of mail.

"What do you say?" cried I, in a perfect pa.s.sion.

"It is a fact known to everybody."

"Petofi's wife! Then what has become of Petofi?"

"He fell at the battle of Segesvar."

"Who saw him fall?"

"A Honved officer who testified to the fact. This was quite enough for his widow. She immediately went to the altar with another young writer, who was not perhaps such a knightly hero as your friend, but who is a pleasant young man in a good official position, moving in the best society, and who is able to a.s.sure his wife a comfortable existence."

Every one of this woman's words went right through my heart.

Now, indeed, after years have elapsed, I can say that poor Julia did well to confide her fate to a good and worthy man. She had a child, and had duties towards that child. But at that moment a heavier blow could not have descended upon my head. The death of our martyrs, let it be never so cruel, was not nearly such terrible news to me as the news that the martyrs had been forgotten.

That any woman could ever forget Petofi! The woman whom the poet had encompa.s.sed with the rays of his soul of flame! That the poet should be able to make himself immortal to the whole world and not to her whom he had worshipped!

No doubt the widow was right, she will be blessed in the next world, and there Petofi himself will justify her--the righteous are always just; but to me this news seemed to open the very gates of h.e.l.l. If the gra.s.s can grow so quickly over my overthrown idol, what am I, I should like to know? A frog enclosed in a tree, whose calling it is to live for a hundred years--beneath the bark!

"I won't believe it! I won't believe it! I won't believe it!"

She laughed at me. "Now wriggle away!" she seemed to say.

From the crown of my head to the heel of my foot I was full of bitterness. If such a thing as this could happen, why shouldn't that other thing happen, too? Why shouldn't another fallen writer forget the promise he had made to his wife, seize the hand of his former ideal, and fly away with her out into the world? That would be t.i.t for tat.

Her two eyes flamed as she looked at me and laughed. It was just as if she knew she had wounded me and would fain stir me up to vengeance.

She had destroyed my idol: belief in a woman's heart.

Women were all alike!

"No, no, no! My wife is not like other women."

I sat down on the edge of the precipitous rock, made a speaking-trumpet of the palms of both hands, and called loudly down into the valley "Wasa hoa!"

The echo repeated my words. And not long afterwards could be heard from below the proud refrain:--

"Whom he meets upon his way Him he cruelly doth slay; But if a pretty girl draw near, Ah, then what gayer cavalier!

Tremble and quake ye tongues that lie, And speak his name all whisp'ringly: Diavolo, diavolo, diavolo!"

As the song drew nearer, I packed up my traps and clasped my stick all ready to say good-bye.

"Forget what we have been speaking about!"

I said this.

"Have we been speaking about anything, then? I didn't know!" replied the lady with the eyes like the sea.

"Adieu!"

"Adieu!"

I was quite persuaded that we should never meet again.

I did not wait till my friend had climbed up again out of his hole. They would easily find one another. The snow had already begun to fall in thick flakes. I set off homewards.

The snowstorm drove full against me as I proceeded. I had very nearly lost myself in the forest. The evening had fallen early; by the time I had descended from the hill it was quite dark.

But still darker was what I carried with me in my brain--the black thought that there was now no such thing as love or loving remembrance in the world. Where we fall, there we lie, and none cares. Some of us die, and there is none to mourn us; the rest of us remain alive, and mourn over ourselves.

How fair is the fate of a fallen tree. There it lies, and the ground-ivy covers it.

If the wild beasts were to tear me to pieces now, n.o.body would know where I had perished.

At last I stumbled upon the linden spring.

This was a good guide. The stream flows right along beside the house of the Csanyis; one can get home by keeping near its banks, even in the dark.

My soul blamed me for having pa.s.sed so much time by the Pagan Altar with that "other" woman.

The snow now completely covered the fields, and through it in serpentine flight darted the threefold stream. The autumn leaves were still on the trees, their crowns bent down beneath loads of snow. The whole landscape was sombre, but it was not more sombre than my soul.

Suddenly, like a ray of hope, the window-light of the little house in which I was lodging flashed out before me. It stood at the end of the village, and was the last house of all.

I was utterly wearied both in body and soul when I arrived at last at the little dwelling.

It had neither courtyard nor enclosure. It stood right out upon the road. The carts and ploughs stood there beneath a shed. There are no thieves here.

The door of the house is never bolted, and it opens out upon a little pa.s.sage. On the right-hand side of this pa.s.sage lie kitchen and store-room; on the left the living-rooms, and a side chamber, which served me as a bedroom, and the rest of the family as a sort of withdrawing-room. It is the only room in the house which has a deal floor, all the other floors are of clay.

The kitchen door was also open, and a large fire was blazing on the open hearth. My hostess with her serving-maid was busy baking and boiling.

When I bade her good evening, she glanced at me with a roguish smile.

"Ei, ei! A nice time to come home, I must say! But go into the room--supper will be ready presently."

I went into the room.

By the lighted stove sat my wife!

Rapturous joy drove every other thought out of my soul.