Like a sigh, the word fell on the air: "Yes."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV. A NEW LIFE

The following day, with tender ardor, he took her away to his old Hungarian castle, with its red towers still bearing marks of the ravages of the cannon--the castle which he never had beheld since Austria had confiscated it, and then, after long years, restored it to its rightful owner. He fled from Paris, seeking a pure existence, and returned to his Hungary, to the country of his youth, the land of the vast plains. He saw again the Danube and the golden Tisza. In the Magyar costume, his heart beating more proudly under the national attila, he pa.s.sed before the eyes of the peasants who had known him when a child, and had fought under his orders; and he spoke to them by name, recognizing many of his old companions in these poor people with cheeks tanned by the sun, and heads whitened by age.

He led Marsa, trembling and happy, to the door of the castle, where they offered him the wine of honor, drank from the 'tschouttora', the Hungarian drinking-vessel, the 'notis' and cakes made of maize cooked in cream.

Upon the lawns about the castle, the 'tschiko' shepherds, who had come on horseback to greet the Prince, drank plum brandy, and drank with their red wine the 'kadostas' and the bacon of Temesvar. They had come from their farms, from their distant pusztas, peasant hors.e.m.e.n, like soldiers, with their national caps; and they joyously celebrated the return of Zilah Andras, the son of those Zilahs whose glorious history they all knew. The dances began, the bright copper heels clinked together, the blue jackets, embroidered with yellow, red, or gold, swung in the wind, and it seemed that the land of Hungary blossomed with flowers and rang with songs to do honor to the coming of Prince Andras and his Princess.

Then Andras entered with Marsa the abode of his ancestors. And, in the great halls hung with tapestry and filled with pictures which the conquerors had respected, before those portraits of magnates superb in their robes of red or green velvet edged with fur, curved sabres by their sides and aigrettes upon their heads, all reproducing a common trait of rough frankness, with their long moustaches, their armor and their hussar uniforms--Marsa Laszlo, who knew them well, these heroes of her country, these Zilah princes who had fallen upon the field of battle, said to the last of them all, to Andras Zilah, before Ferency Zilah, before Sandor, before the Princesses Zilah who had long slept in "dull, cold marble," and who had been no prouder than she of the great name they bore:

"Do you know the reason why, equal to these in devotion and courage, you are superior to them all! It is because you are good, as good as they were brave.

"To their virtues, you, who forgive, add this virtue, which is your own: pity!"

She looked at him humbly, raising to his face her beautiful dark eyes, as if to let him read her heart, in which was only his image and his name. She pressed closely to his side, with an uneasy, timid tenderness, as if she were a stranger in the presence of his great ancestors, who seemed to demand whether the newcomer were one of the family; and he, putting his arm about her, and pressing to his beating heart the Tzigana, whose eyes were dim with tears, said: "No, I am not better than these. It is not pity which is my virtue, Marsa: it is my love. For--I love you!"

Yes, he loved her, and with all the strength of a first and only love.

He loved her so that he forgot everything, so that he did not see that in Marsa's smile there was a look of the other side of the great, eternal river. He loved her so that he thought only of this woman, of her beauty, of the delight of her caresses, of his dream of love realized in the air of the adored fatherland. He loved her so that he left without answers the charming letters which Baroness Dinati wrote him from Paris, so far away now, and the more serious missives which he received from his compatriots, wishing him to utilize for his country, now that he had returned to it, his superior intelligence, as he had formerly utilized his courage.

"The hour is critical," wrote his old friends. "An attempt is being made to awaken in Hungary, against the Russians, whom we like, memories of combats and extinct hatreds, and that to the profit of a German alliance, which is repugnant to our race. Bring the support of your name and your valor to our cause. Enter the Diet of Hungary. Your place is marked out for you there in the first rank, as it was in the old days upon the battlefield."

Andras only smiled.

"If I were ambitious!" he said to Marsa. Then he added: "But I am ambitious only for your happiness."

Marsa's happiness! It was deep, calm, and clear as a lake. It seemed to the Tzigana that she was dreaming a dream, a beautiful dream, a dream peaceful, sweet, and restful. She abandoned herself to her profound happiness with the trustfulness of a child. She was all the more happy because she had the exquisite sensation that her dream would have no awakening. It would end in all the charm of its poetry.

She was sure that she could not survive the immense joy which destiny had accorded her; and she did not rebel against this decree. It seemed to her right and just. She had never desired any other ending to her love than to die beloved, to die with Andras's kiss of forgiveness upon her lips, with his arms about her, and to sink with a smile into the eternal sleep. What more beautiful thing could she, the Tzigana, have wished?

When the Prince's people saluted her by that t.i.tle of "Princess" which was hers, she trembled as if she had usurped it; she wished to be Marsa to the Prince, Marsa, his devoted slave, who looked at him with her great eyes full of grat.i.tude and love. And she wished to be only that.

It seemed to her that, in the ancient home of the Zilahs, the birthplace of soldiers, the eyrie of eagles, she was a sort of stranger; but, at the same time, she thought, with a smile:

"What matters it? It is for so short a time."

One day Prince Zilah received from Vienna a large sealed envelope.

Minister Ladany earnestly entreated him to come to the Austrian capital and present, in the salons of Vienna and at the imperial court, Princess Zilah, of whose beauty the Austrian colony of Paris raved.

Marsa asked the Prince what the letter contained.

"Nothing. An invitation to leave our solitude. We are too happy here."

Marsa questioned him no further; but she resolved that she would never allow the Prince to take her to that court which claimed his presence.

In her eyes, she was always the Tzigana; and, although Menko was dead, she would never permit Zilah to present her to people who might have known Count Michel.

No, no, let them remain in the dear old castle, he living only for her, she breathing only for him; and let the world go, with its fascinations and its pleasures, its false joys and its false friendships! Let them ask of life only what truth it possesses; an hour of rest between two ordeals, a smile between two sobs, and--the right to love each other. To love each other until that fatal separation which she felt was coming, until that end which was fast advancing; her poor, frail body being now only the diaphanous prison of her soul. She did not complain, as she felt the hour gently approach when, with a last kiss, a last sigh, she must say to Andras, Adieu!

He, seeing her each day more pale, each day more feeble, was alarmed; but he hoped, that, when the winter, which was very severe there, was over, Marsa would regain her strength. He summoned to the castle a physician from Vienna, who battled obstinately and skilfully against the malady from which the Tzigana was suffering. Her weakness and languor kept Marsa, during the cold months, for whole days before the lofty, sculptured chimney-piece, in which burned enormous logs of oak. As the flames gave a rosy tinge to her cheeks and made her beautiful eyes sparkle, Andras said to herself, as he watched her, that she would live, live and be happy with him.

The spring came, with the green leaflets and the white blossoms at the ends of the branches. The buds opened and the odors of the rejuvenated earth mounted subtly into the soft air.

At her window, regarding the young gra.s.s and the ma.s.ses of tender verdure in which cl.u.s.ters of pale gold or silvery white gleamed like aigrettes, Marsa said to Andras:

"It must be lovely at Maisons, in the Vale of Violets!" but she added, quickly:

"We are better here, much better! And it even seems to me that I have always, always lived here in this beautiful castle, where you have sheltered me, like a swallow beaten by the wind."

There was, beneath the window, stretching out like a ribbon of silver, a road, which the mica dust caused, at times, in the sunlight to resemble a river. Marsa often looked out on this road, imagining that she saw again the ma.s.sive dam upon the Seine, or wondering whether a band of Tzigani would not appear there with the April days.

"I should like," she said one day to Andras, "to hear again the airs my people used to play."

She found that, with the returning spring, she was more feeble than she had ever been. The first warmth in the air entered her veins like a sweet intoxication. Her head felt heavy, and in her whole body she felt a pleasant languor. She had wished to sink thus to rest, as nature was awakening.

The doctor seemed very uneasy at this languidness, of which Marsa said:

"It is delicious!"

He whispered one evening to Andras:

"It is grave!"

Another sorrow was to come into the life of the Prince, who had known so many.

A few days after, with a sort of presentiment, he wrote to Yanski Varhely to come and spend a few months with him. He felt the need of his old friend; and the Count hastened to obey the summons.

Varhely was astonished to see the change which so short a time had produced in Marsa. In seven months her face, although still beautiful, had become emaciated, and had a transparent look. The little hand, white as snow, which she gave to Varhely, burned him; the skin was dry and hot.

"Well, my dear Count," said Marsa, as she lay extended in a reclining-chair, "what news of General Vogotzine?"

"The General is well. He hopes to return to Russia. The Czar has been appealed to, and he does not say no."

"Ah! that is good news," she said. "He must be greatly bored at Maisons; poor Vogotzine!"

"He smokes, drinks, takes the dogs out--"

The dogs! Marsa started. Those hounds would survive Menko, herself, the love which she now tasted as the one joy of her life! Mechanically her lips murmured, too low to be heard: "Ortog! Bundas!"

Then she said, aloud:

"I shall be very, glad if the poor General can return to St. Petersburg or Odessa. One is best off at home, in one's own country. If you only knew, Varhely, how happy I am, happy to be in Hungary. At home!"

She was very weak. The doctor made a sign to Andras to leave her for a moment.

"Well," asked the Prince anxiously of Varhely, "how do you think she is?"

"What does the doctor say?" replied Yanski. "Does he hope to save her?"