Tales from Jókai

TRANSLATED FROM THE HUNGARIAN
BY R. NISBET BAIN

WITH COMPLETE BIOGRAPHY AND PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT OF MAURUS JÓKAI

LONDON
JARROLD & SONS, 10 & 11, WARWICK LANE, E.C.
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Dr. Maurus Jókai's Novels

The Green Book
Black Diamonds
Pretty Michal
The Lion of Janina
A Hungarian Nabob
Dr. Dumany's Wife
The Poor Plutocrats
The Nameless Castle
Debts of Honor
The Day of Wrath
Eyes Like the Sea
Halil the Pedlar (The White Rose)
'Midst the Wild Carpathians
The Slaves of the Padishah

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For Love and Ransom.

By Esme Stuart. Author of "Harum Scarum," &c. Illustrated by Harold Piffard. 3s. 6d.

A Romance of Tennyson-Land.
Over Stony Ways.

By Emily M. Bryant. With Notes by T. F. Lockyer, B.A. Also Six Full-page Photographs of Somersby and other Bits of Tennyson-Land. 6s.

'Neath the Hoof of the Tartar; or, The Scourge of God.

By Baron Nicolas Josika—the Sir Walter Scott of Hungary. Translated by Selina Gaye. With Photogravure Portrait of Author, and Preface by R. Nisbet Bain. 6s.

Half in Jest.

By W. Clinton Ellis, Author of "Our Family Portraits." 6s.

More Tales from Tolstoi.

Translated from the Russian by R. Nisbet Bain. With Biography brought up to date, and Photogravure Portrait of Count Leo Tolstoi. 6s.

Tales from Tolstoi.
(Fourth Edition.)

Translated from the Russian by R. Nisbet Bain. With Portrait and Biography of Count Leo Tolstoi. 6s.

Tales from Gorky.
(Sixth Edition.)

Translated from the Russian of Maxim Gorky by R. Nisbet Bain. With Photogravure Portrait and Biography of Author. 6s.

London
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PREFACE

Besides his romances, Jókai has, from time to time, published volumes of shorter stories which, in the opinion of many good Magyar critics, contain some of his most notable work. The present selection will enable English readers to judge of the merits of these stories for the first time. It does not profess to be the best selection which might be made. Many excellent tales could not be included within its narrow limits; others again, equally good, suit Hungarian rather than British taste. But, anyhow, it claims to be fairly representative, and to give a taste of the many widely differing qualities of the most Protean of romancers. Numbers I. and IX., for instance, are models of what historical tales should be, and could only have been written by an author gifted with the historical imagination; Numbers II. and V. are light comic sketches; Number VIII. is a ghost story which Dickens might have written; Numbers III. and IV. are narratives of a grimmer order, with touches of horror not unworthy of the author of "Pretty Michal;" Number VI. is a faithful and picturesque narrative of social life in old Poland—evidently studied with care; while in Number VII. Jókai gives full rein to his wondrous imagination, and his Pegasus actually carries the reader right away to the capital of the lost island of Atlantis!

Finally, a bibliographical note. The earliest in date of these stories is Number VII., which was originally published, in 1856, under the title of "Oceánia." Next in chronological sequence come Numbers I.-IV., which are to be found in the collection "Jókai Mór Dekameronja," published in 1858. Number VIII. first appeared in the collection "A Magyar világból," 1879; Number V. is taken from "Humoristicus papirszeletek," 1880; Number IX. from "Kis Dekameron," 1890; and Number VI. is the first story in the volume entitled, "Kétszer Kettö-negy," 1893.

R. NISBET BAIN.

May, 1904.

CONTENTS

BIOGRAPHY OF JÓKAI

Jókai Mór

At the general meeting of the Hungarian Academy on October 17, 1843, the secretary reported that the 100-florin prize for the best drama of the year had been awarded to Károly Obernik's Föur és pór (Squire and Boor), but that another drama, entitled Zsido fiú (The Jew Boy), had been honourably mentioned, and, indeed, in the opinion of one of the judges, Joseph Bajza, was scarcely inferior to the prize-play itself. The author of the latter piece was a youth of eighteen, Maurus Jókai, a law student at Kecskemet, whose literary essays had already begun to attract some notice in the local papers. That name is now one of the most illustrious in Hungary, and one of the best known in Europe.

Maurus Jókai was born at Rév-Komárom on February 18, 1825. His father, Joseph, a scion of the Ásva branch of the old Calvinist Jókay family, was a lawyer by profession, but a lawyer who had seen something of the world, and loved art and letters. His mother came of the noble Pulays. She was venerated by her son, and is the prototype of the downright, masterful housewives, with warm hearts, capable heads, and truant sons, who so frequently figure in his pages. Maurus was their third and youngest child and the pet of the whole family. He seems to have been a super-sensitive, very affectionate lad, always fonder of books than of games, but liking best of all to listen to the innumerable tales his father had to tell of the Napoleonic wars, in which he himself had borne a humble part, or of the still more marvellous exploits and legends of the old Magyar heroes. It was doubtless from his father that Maurus inherited much of his literary and artistic talents.

At a very early age little Maurus was remarkable for an extraordinarily vivid imagination, but this quality, which, at a later day, was to bring him both fame and fortune, made his childhood wretched. Naturally timid, his nervous fancy was perpetually tormenting him. He had a morbid fear of being buried alive; old, long-bearded Jews and stray dogs inspired him with dread; his first visit to a day-school, at the age of four, was a terrifying adventure, though his father went with him. Even now, however, the child's precocity was prodigious. To him study was no toil, but a passion. His masters could not teach him quickly enough.

In his twelfth year occurred the first calamity of his life. He was summoned from his studies to the death-bed of his beloved father, a catastrophe which he took so much to heart that he fell seriously ill, and for a time his own life was despaired of. He owed his recovery entirely to "my good and blessed sister Esther," as he ever afterwards called her, who nursed him through his illness with a rare and skilful devotion. He recovered but slowly, and for the next five years was haunted by a black melancholy which he endeavoured to combat by the most intense application to study. At the Comorn Gymnasium, whither he was first sent, he had the good fortune to have for his tutor Francis Vály, subsequently his brother-in-law, a man of rigid puritan principles, profound learning, and many-sided accomplishments, in every way an excellent teacher, who instructed him in French, English, and Italian, and prepared him for college. Vály's influence was decidedly bracing, and his pupil rewarded his conscientious care with a lifelong gratitude. It was Vály, too, who first taught Jókai the useful virtue of early rising. Summer and winter he was obliged to be in his tutor's study at five o'clock every morning. The habit so acquired was never abandoned, and is the simplest explanation of Jókai's extraordinary productivity. By far the greater part of his three hundred volumes has been written before breakfast.

From the Gymnasium of Comorn Jókai proceeded, in 1841, to the Calvinist college at Pápá. It was here that he fell in with a number of talented young men of his own age, including that brilliant meteoric genius Alexander Petöfi, who was presently to reveal himself as one of the greatest lyric poets of the century. The young men founded a mutual improvement society, whose members met regularly to criticise each other's compositions, and Jókai was also one of the principal contributors to the college magazine. Yet curiously enough he displayed at this time so much skill as a painter, sculptor, and carver in ivory that many seriously thought he would owe the future fame which every one already predicted for him rather to his brush and chisel than to his pen.

In 1843, his mother sent him to Kecskemet to study jurisprudence, and in the fine, bracing air of the Alföld, or great Hungarian plain, amidst miles of orchards and vineyards, the delicate young student recovered something like normal health. It was here, too, that he was first brought into contact with the true Magyar folk-life and folk-humour, and as he himself expressed it, "became a man and a Hungarian writer." Forty-nine years later he was to record his impressions of the place in the exquisite tale "A sarga rózsa" (The Yellow Rose), certainly one of the finest of his later works. It was at Kecskemet, too, as already mentioned, that he now wrote his first play, The Jew Boy. At the same time he won a considerable local reputation as a portrait-painter.

Yielding to the wishes of his friends, Jókai now resolved to follow his father's profession, and for three years continued to study the law with his usual assiduity at Comorn and Pest. In 1844 he obtained his articles, and won his first action. It had needed no small heroism in an ambitious youth of nineteen to submit to the drudgery of the law after such a brilliant literary début as the honourable mention of his first play by the Hungarian Academy in a prize competition (though his admirers certainly never will begrudge the time thus spent in a lawyer's office, where he picked up some of his best comical characters, mainly of the Swiveller type); but, yielding now to natural bias, Jókai made up his mind to go to the capital, and try his luck at literature. Accordingly, in 1845, the youth (he was barely twenty), undismayed by many previous terrifying examples of misery and ruin, cited in terrorem by his apprehensive kinsmen, flitted to Pest with a manuscript romance in his pocket. His friend Petöfi, who had settled there before him, and was becoming famous, received him with open arms, and introduced him to the young army of literati whom he had gathered round him at the Café Pillwax, as "a true Frenchman." In those days such a description was the highest conceivable praise. The face of every liberty-loving nation was then turned towards France, and thence the dawn of a new era was confidently anticipated. The young Magyars read nothing but French books. Lamartine's "History of the Girondists" and Tocquevelle's "Democracy" were their Bibles. Petöfi worshipped Beranger, whom he was speedily to excel, while Jókai had found his ideal in Victor Hugo. "This school might easily have become dangerous to us," says Jókai, "had not its influence, fortunately, coincided with the opening up of a new and hitherto unexplored field—the popular romance. Hitherto it had been the endeavour of Magyar writers to write in a style distinct from the language of ordinary life. Our group, on the other hand, started with the idea that it was just the very expressions, constructions, and modes of thought employed in everyday life that Hungarian writers ought to take as the fundamental principle of their writing, nay, that they should even develop ideally beautiful poetry itself from the life of the common people. . . . My own ambition," he adds, "was to explore those regions where the hoof of Pegasus had hitherto left no trace." And in this he certainly succeeded when he wrote his first considerable romance "Hétköznapok."

The novel had been successfully cultivated in Hungary long before Jókai appeared upon the scene. As early as 1794, Joseph Kármán had written "Fanni hagyományai" (Fanny's Legacies), obviously suggested by "Pamela," and still one of the best purely analytical romances in the language. A generation later, two noblemen, Baron Joseph Eötvös and Baron Michael Jósika, Jókai's elder contemporaries, respectively founded the didactic novel with a purpose and the historical romance. Eötvös, one of the most liberal and enlightened spirits of his age, fought, almost single-handed, against the abuses of feudalism in his great "A falu jegyzöje" (The Village Notary), while Jósika, an intelligent disciple of Walter Scott, enriched the national literature with a whole series of original historical romances which gave to Hungarian prose a new elevation and a distinction. But "Hétköznapok" was something quite new—so much so, indeed, that Jókai himself was doubtful about it, and determined that it should stand or fall by the verdict of the academician Ignatius Nagy, one of the most productive and ingenious writers of his day, whose influence was then at its height, and who was regarded as an oracle by literary "young Hungary." Jókai, who had never seen the great man before, approached him with considerable trepidation, which was not diminished by the very peculiar appearance of this Aristarchus. "He had," Jókai tells us, "a most embarrassing face covered with dark-red spots right up to his astonishingly lofty forehead, whose shiny baldness was half cut in two, as it were, by a bright black peruke. He had also an inconceivably big red nose, at which, however, you had no time to be amazed, so instantly were you spell-bound by a couple of squinting eyes—one of which glared as fixedly at you as if it was made wholly of stone. His voice, on the other hand, was as the voice of a little child. And within this repulsive frame dwelt the noblest of souls, in this crippled body the most energetic of characters. From no other strange face did I ever get a kinder glance than I got from those stiff, fishy eyes, and that rich voice announced to me my first great piece of good luck. Upon his recommendation, the publisher Hartleben agreed to publish my first romance, and gave me 360 silver florins for it—in those days an immense fortune to me. I had no further need now to go scribbling all day long in a lawyer's office at six florins a month."

"Hétköznapok" was published, in two volumes, in 1846. The book caused a profound sensation. Its very extravagance suited the taste of an age steeped in Eugene Sueism, and Petöfi, in introducing Jókai to Professor Roye as "a writer who writes French romances in Magyar," hit off both the book and its author to a nicety. It was just the brilliant, exuberant, fanciful sort of thing that a clever youth with a boundless imagination, and no knowledge whatever of the world, would be likely to produce. Still, even the writers who pointed out its crudities and morbidities, praised its striking originality and charm of style, and though it gave but a faint indication of the real genius of the author it brought him into notice, and editors began to look kindly upon him. Thus Frankenburg, the editor of the literary review Életképek, who had just parted with his dramatic critic for being a little too unmerciful to the artistes, was induced to take on Jókai in his place. By way of honorarium, he offered the young aspirant a free seat at the theatre and ten florins a month. But Jókai's year of office came to an end the very first week. To make up for his predecessor's want of gallantry, and obeying the dictates of his youthful enthusiasm, he lauded every lady artiste to the skies. "I can honestly say," Jókai tells us, with evident enjoyment of the laugh against himself, "that I meant every word of it. It was then that I saw a ballet for the first time in my life, and it was my solemn conviction that I was bound by a debt of gratitude to say a good word for the excellent damsel who exhibited her natural charms to the public eye with such magnanimous frankness. And a pretty lecture Frankenburg read me for it, too. 'Delightful Sylphid, indeed!—a clumsy stork, I should say!' Still, that might have passed. But it was my magnifying of Lilla Szilágyi, who took the part of Smike in The Beggars of London, which did the business for me. I called her 'a lovely sapling!' and promised her a brilliant future in her dramatic career. 'Leave her alone—she has no reputation at all,' said the editor. 'Then she'll get one!' said I. 'But you'll never get to be a critic,' said he. And so, for Lilla Szilágyi's sake, I laid down my rôle of critic; and yet I was right, after all, for she really did become a great artiste. I felt this snub very much at the time, but now I bless my fate that things fell out as they did. Fancy if now my sole title to fame rested upon my reputation as a dramatic critic!—terrible thought!"

A few days afterwards a new career suddenly opened out before Jókai. Paul Királyi, the editor of the Jelenkor, invited Jókai to join his paper as a correspondent at a salary of thirty-five florins a month. Of course he jumped at it; a newspaper contributor in Hungary was then a personage of some importance. About the same time he passed his first legal examination, and became a certificated lawyer. His diploma, if not præclarus, was, at any rate, laudabilis. The oral rigorosum he passed through brilliantly, but, oddly enough, his Hungarian style was not considered satisfactory. The publication of his diploma was a sufficiently dignified excuse for a visit to his native place. He was well received in the bosom of his family; the whole clan Jókai came together for dinner at his mother's, and for supper at the house of his brother-in-law, Francis Vály. The two Calvinist ministers of the place were also invited, and one of them toasted him as "the ward of two guardians, and guardian of Two Wards," the first allusion being to their spiritual guardianship, and the second to his new drama, The Two Wards. "It was the first toast that ever made me blush," says Jókai. The next day was fixed for the meeting of the County Board, and at the end of the proceedings his diploma was promulgated. On the same day his mother gave him his father's silver-mounted sword and the cornelian signet-ring with the old family crest upon it, which the elder Jókai had been wont to wear. "Democrat as I am," says Jókai, "I frankly confess that to me there was a soul-steeling thought in the reflection that with this sword my worthy ancestors, much better men than I, had defended their nation and constitution of yore, and that this signet-ring had put the seal upon their covenanted rights for all time."

On returning to Pest, he found awaiting him a letter from Petöfi, informing him that he had just married Julia Szendrey, and begging Jókai to seek out a convenient lodging where they and he could live together. That a newly married husband should invite his faithful bachelor comrade to live with him under the same roof was, as Jókai well remarks, a fact belonging to the realm of fairy-tale. Jókai immediately hunted up a nice first-floor apartment in Tobacco Street, consisting of three rooms and their appurtenances, the first room being for the Petöfis, the second for himself, while the intermediate one was to be a common dining-room, each with a separate entrance. The young couple came in during the autumn; they kept one maid, and Jókai had an old man-servant to wait upon him. The furniture was primitive. Mrs. Petöfi, who had left the mansion of her wealthy and eminent father without either dowry or blessing—the family utterly opposing the match, and visiting the enamoured young lady with the full weight of their heavy displeasure—had not so much as a fashionable hat to put on, and sewed together a sort of head-dress of her own invention, which, when finished, she had not the courage to wear. They had nothing, and yet were perfectly happy, and so was Jókai. Their dinners were sent in from a tavern, the Golden Eagle, close at hand, and their chief amusement was to learn English and laugh at each other's blunders.

A quarrel with the naturally irritating and overbearing Petöfi put an end to this symposium, and, doubtless to every one's relief, Jókai started a bachelor establishment of his own, consisting of a couple of rooms, which he furnished himself. Properly speaking, it only became a bachelor's establishment when he entered it. Previously thereto it had been occupied by a little old woman, popularly known as Mámi, who kept a well-known registry office for servants, and the consequence was that a whole mob of cooks, parlour-maids, and nursery-maids invaded Jókai's premises at all hours, under the persuasion that he could provide them with places. This constant flow of petticoats to his door not only disturbed his work terribly, but was sufficient to have brought a less studious and conscientious man into disrepute. It was at this time that Jókai became the responsible editor of the Életképek during the temporary absence of Frankenburg, and so began his political career. The Életképek was one of the most widely read journals of those days. Under Frankenburg's able editorship it had become the leading radical print, and it was no small glory for Jókai that, despite his youth, he should have been thought worthy of directing it. It numbered among its contributors some of the most brilliant names in the Hungarian Literature, from Vörösmarty to Arany. His literary colleagues assembled regularly at Jókai's lodgings to discuss current political events, and more than one idea of reform was hatched under the wing of the Életképek. It was in this occupation that the stormy, headlong month of March, 1848, found our hero. It was to tear him away from his moorings and cast him upon a veritable sea of troubles; but it was also to arouse and develop his capabilities in the school of life and action.

On February 23, 1848, a revolution broke out at Paris, and in a couple of days Louis Philip was a dethroned exile. Such a facile victory of liberal principles encouraged other liberty-loving nations to follow the example of the mother of constitutions, and the Hungarians were among the first to rise. In the Diet, Louis Kossuth eloquently demanded equality before the law, a popular representative parliament, and an independent, responsible ministry; but the new wine of nineteenth-century liberalism speedily burst the old bottles of obsolete, if picturesque, constitutional forms, and the direction of the movement, which became more and more impetuous every moment, slipped from the control of the cautious diplomatists and politicians at Vienna into the hands of the enthusiastic journalists and demagogues of Budapest. Amongst these, young Jókai, from the first, took a leading part. Early in the morning of March 15, he and his friends, Petöfi, Vasváry, and Bulyovszky, met in Jókai's room, by lamplight, and his comrades entrusted him with the framing of a manifesto, based upon the famous Twelve Points, or Articles of Pest, drawn up the day before by Joseph Irinyi, embodying the wishes of the Hungarian nation. This done, they rushed out into the public squares and harangued the mob, which had assembled in thousands. But speech-making was not sufficient; they wanted to do something, and the first thing to be done was, obviously, to give practical application to the doctrine of a free press. So they determined to print forthwith the Twelve Articles, the Manifesto, and Petöfi's incendiary song, "Talpra Magyar," without the consent of the censor. What followed must be told in Jókai's own words:—

"The printing-press of Landerer and Heckenast was honoured with this compulsory distinction. The printers, naturally, were not justified in printing anything without the permission of the authorities, so we turned up our sleeves and worked away at the hand-presses ourselves. The name of the typewriter who set up the first word of freedom was Potemkin! While Irinyi and other young authors were working away at the press, it was my duty to harangue the mob which thronged the whole length of Hatváni Street. I had no idea how to set about it, but it came of its own accord. My worthy and loyal contemporary, Paul Szontagh, occasionally quotes to me, even now, some of the heaven-storming phrases which he heard me utter on that occasion, e.g. '. . . No, fellow-citizens! he is no true hero who can only die for his country; he who can slay for his country, he is the true hero!' That was the sort of oratory I used to practise in those days. Meanwhile the rain was beginning to fall, and rain is the most reactionary opponent of every revolution. But my people were not to be dispersed by the rain, and all at once the whole street was filled with expanded umbrellas. I was outraged at the sight. 'What, gentlemen!' I thundered, from the corner of the street, 'if you stick up your umbrellas now against mere rain-drops, what will you stick up against the bullets which will presently begin to fall?' It was only then that I noticed that there were not only gentlemen around me, but ladies also. I exhorted the ladies to go home. Here they would get dripping wet, I said, and some other accident might befall them. 'We are no worse off here than you are,' was the reply. They were determined to wait till the printed broad-sides were ready. Not very long afterwards, Irinyi appeared at the window of the printing-office, for to get out of the door was a sheer impossibility. He held in his hands the first printed sheets from the free press. Ah, that scene, when the very first few sheets were distributed from hand to hand! . . . And now a young county official was seen forcing his way through the dense crowd right to the very door of the printing-office, and from thence he addressed me. The Vice-Lieutenant of the county, Paul Nyáry, sent word that I was to go to him at the town hall. 'Why should I go?' I cried, from my point of vantage. 'I'll be shot if I do! If the Vice-Lieutenant of the county wants to speaks to me, let him come here! We are "the mountain" now.' And Mohammed really did come to 'the mountain,' and, . . . what is more, he came to approve of what we had done hitherto, and then to go along with us to the town hall to ratify the articles of the liberal programme. . . . The town hall was crammed to suffocation. Those who were called upon to speak, stood upon the green table, and remained there afterwards, so that at last the whole magistracy of the county, and I and all my colleagues, were standing on the table. The Burgomaster announced from the balcony of the town hall that the town of Pest had adopted the Twelve Articles, and with that the avalanche carried the whole of the burgesses along with it. . . . In the evening the town was illuminated, and a free performance was given at the theatre, Bánk Bán, Katona's celebrated historical drama, being the piece selected. But the mob, which, by this time, was in a state of ecstasy, had no longer the patience to listen to the sublime declamations of the Ban Peter. It called for 'Talpra Magyar!' (Up, up, Magyars!), the Hungarian Marseillaise. What was to be done? The brilliant court of King Andrew II., with the Queen and Bánk Bán to boot, had to form a group round Gabriel Egressy, who, in a simple attila, and with a sword by his side, stood in the middle of the stage and declaimed, with magnificent emphasis, Petöfi's inspiring poem. . . . Then the band struck up the Rákóczy march, so long prohibited in Hungary because of its supposed revolutionary tendency. This naturally increased the excitement instead of extinguishing it. . . . Then a voice from the gallery suddenly cried, 'Long live Tancsis!'—Tancsis, by the way, was a political prisoner who had been released that very morning from the citadel of Buda by the mob—and with that the whole populace suddenly roared with one voice, 'Tancsis! Tancsis!' A frightful tumult arose. Tancsis was not at hand. He lived somewhere in a distant suburb. But even had he been near, it would have been a cruel thing to have dragged on to the stage a poor, worn-out invalid, that he might merely make his bow to the public. But what was to be done? 'Well, my sons,' said Nyáry, with whom I was standing in the same box, 'you have awakened this great monster; now see if you can put him to sleep again!' All my young friends, one after the other, attempted to address the people. . . . The curtain was let down, but then the tumult grew more than ever, the gallery stamped like mad; it was a perfect pandemonium. Then an idea occurred to me. I could get on to the stage from Nyáry's box. I rushed on through the side wings. A pretty figure I cut, I must say. I was splashed up to the knees with mud, from scouring the streets all day. I wore huge goloshes; my battered cylinder, surmounted by a gigantic red feather, was drenched with rain, so that I could easily have thrust it under my arm and made a crush hat of it. I looked around me and perceived Egressy. I told him to draw up the curtain; I would harangue the people from the stage. Rozsa Laborfalvi, who played the part of 'Queen Gertrude,' came towards me. She smiled upon me with truly majestic grace, greeted me, and pressed my hand. She was wearing the Magyar tricolour cockade—red, white, and green—on her bosom, and she took it off and pinned it on my breast. Then the curtain was raised. When the mob beheld my muddy, saturated figure, it began to shout afresh, and the uproar gradually became a call for every one to hear me. When at last I was able to speak, I delivered myself of this masterly piece of oratory: 'Brother citizens! Our friend Tancsis is not here, he is at home in the bosom of his family. Allow the poor blind man to taste the joy of seeing his family once more.' It was only then that I became conscious of the nonsense I was talking. How could a blind man see his family? If the mob began to laugh I was done for! It was the tricoloured ribbon which saved me. 'Regard this tricoloured cockade on my breast!' I cried. 'Let it be the badge of this glorious day! Let every man who is freedom's warrior wear it! It will distinguish us from the hirelings of slavery. These three colours represent the three sacred words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! Let every one in whom Magyar blood and a free spirit burns wear them on his breast.' And so the thing was done. The tricoloured cockade preserved order. Whoever wished to pin on the tricoloured cockade had to hurry home first. Ten minutes later the theatre was empty, and the next day the tricoloured cockade was to be seen on every breast. . . . In the intoxication of my triumph I hastened after Rozsa Laborfalvi as soon as this scene was over and pressed her hand. And with that pressure our engagement began. . . . And the honeymoon was in keeping with the engagement. The roar of cannon and the clash of arms was the music that played at my wedding."

The lady whose heart and hand Jókai won under such stimulating circumstances was in every way worthy of him. Born at Miskolcz in 1817, Judith Laborfalvi-Benké, to give her her full family name, was thus eight years her husband's senior. Her father, Joseph Benké, a retired actor, and subsequently a teacher at the Roman Catholic girls' school at Miskolcz, permitted her, in her sixteenth year, to try her fortune on the stage, at Budapest. But the first attempt was a decided failure, and she returned home, apparently disillusioned. A second attempt proved much more successful. Her fine figure, handsome face, and sweet voice now made a great impression, and the experienced stage-manager, Egressy, recognizing her great capabilities, encouraged her to proceed. By 1837 she had superseded Madame Kantor, hitherto the chief heroine of the Magyar stage, and henceforth, till her retirement from the stage in 1859, was accounted one of the leading Hungarian actresses. Her best rôles were "Volumnia," "Lady Macbeth," "Adrienne Lecouvreur," "Mary Stuart" in Schiller's play of that name, and "Queen Gertrude" in Bánk Bán. She had already reached the height of her fame when she gave her hand to young Jókai, and it was her courage and devotion which sustained him during the dark years of trial and depression upon which he was now about to enter.

But at first there was no thought of calamity. Jókai flung himself heart and soul into the revolutionary movement. He converted the literary Életképek into a political organ of the most uncompromising character, which he edited along with Petöfi; rejected the aristocratic terminal "y" of his name for the more democratic "i,"[1] and adopted for his journal the motto: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." Yet Jókai was no friend of unnecessary violence; and when his co-editor, Petöfi, during Jókai's absence for a few days on his honeymoon (he married Rozsa Laborfalvi on August 27, 1848), inserted, contrary to his solemn promise, an abusive tirade against the poet Vörösmarty, Jókai severely blamed his friend's want of straightforwardness in an editorial in Életképek. Petöfi instantly and most virulently attacked Jókai in the columns of the same paper; accused him of ingratitude, declined to be lectured, threw up his co-editorship, and broke off all intercourse with him. Some coolness had previously arisen between the two friends owing to Petöfi's taking it upon himself to disapprove of Jókai's marriage, and communicating his views on the subject to Jókai's mother, who had disapproved of it all along. Jókai naturally resented both the criticism and the interference, and the rupture was unfortunately final, as Petöfi perished mysteriously at the Battle of Segesvár, twelve months later, before there had been any reconciliation. For now the Hungarian revolution tore every true Magyar along with it, and wonderful, incredible things were the order of the day. On September 24, 1848, Kossuth received the permission of the Hungarian Parliament to organize a rising of the population in the Alföld, or great Hungarian plain, and young Jókai was sent down thither as one of his chief agents; but, as if to illustrate that singular blend of common sense and exaltation which has always characterized the Magyar in politics, the ardent author of "Hétköznapok" was accompanied by a sort of bodyguard of soberer youths, who were to cut him short without ceremony whenever his eloquence carried him too far. It was on this occasion that Jókai enlisted the services of the famous robber-chief, Alexander Rózsa,[2] for the national cause, and obtained his pardon from the Government. On the outbreak of the Vienna Revolution at the beginning of October, Kossuth sent Jókai and Csernátonai to promise the Viennese assistance, but the movement was crushed before any such assistance could be rendered. In the beginning of December, Jókai accepted the invitation of the publishers, Landerer and Heckenast, to edit the leading Pest newspaper, Pesti Hirlap, in place of Csengery, who had become a member of the Government. He announced, as the substance of his programme, the bringing about of "the unity and independence of the Hungarian State." After subjugating Vienna, the Austrian army advanced against Pest. On December 30 the inhabitants threw up earthworks at the foot of the Gilbert hill, working night and day without distinction of age or sex, Jókai and his wife amongst them. After the battle of Móor, January 1, 1849, when the Imperialists defeated Perczel and his Honvéds, the Jókais followed the Hungarian Government to Debreczen. Here also Jókai supported himself by journalism, and on February 22 started the Esti Lapok as the organ of the Constitutional Liberals as opposed to the Marczius Tizenötödike, the organ of the extreme Radicals. Yet Jókai himself was not infrequently carried away by his patriotism, and actually proclaimed the republic in his newspaper two days before the Diet unanimously dethroned the Hapsburgs (April 14, 1849). When the Honvéds recaptured the fortress of Buda, the Government and the Diet returned to Pest, and Jókai, as editor of both the Esti Lapok and the Pesti Hirlap, powerfully contributed to encourage the nation in its struggle for independence. In a month's time, however, the Hungarian Government, now threatened by a combination of the Russians and Austrians, were obliged to take refuge, first at Szegedin, and finally at Arad, Jókai accompanying them to both places. He has described this portion of his life in a few eloquent sentences. "Out into the desolate world we went, in the depths of a Siberian winter, with everything crackling with cold, forcing our way along through the snowy desert of the Alföld, with the retreating Honvéd army, passing the night in an inhospitable hut, where the closed door had frozen to the ground by the morning, and the roll of drums and the blare of trumpets aroused us to toil on still further. . . . My wife went everywhere with me. She quitted a comfortable home, sacrificed a fortune, a brilliant career, to endure hunger, cold, and hardship with me. And I never heard her utter one word of complaint. When I was downhearted she comforted me. And, when all my hopes were stifled, she shared her hopes with me. And she worked like the wife of a Siberian convict. She did not play the part of a peasant girl now, she was a serving woman in grim earnest."

[1] One often sees the names of Hungarian celebrities with prefixed "de's" or "von's" in English newspapers. This is quite inaccurate, the Magyar language admitting no such honorific particles.

[2] Rózsa's doings are recorded in Jókai's "Lélekidomar." An English translation of the book was rejected by an eminent Scotch publisher a few years ago as too improbable, yet the events there recorded are literally true.

After the catastrophe of Világos, when the unconquerable Görgei voluntarily surrendered the last fragments of his exhausted army to the Russians so as to baulk the Austrians of a triumph they did not deserve, Jókai was saved from captivity by the ingenious audacity of János Rákóczy, Kossuth's secretary, who hired a carriage and horses, disguised himself as a coachman, and, with the utmost nonchalance, drove right through the advancing Muscovites. Picking up his wife again at Gyula, Jókai set off for the remote little hamlet of Tardoná, a place "walled off from the rest of the world" by dense beech forests, where hundreds of thousands of pigs were every year fattened for the Servian market. Here Jókai lived at the house of his friend, the local magistrate, Béni Csányi, for nearly six months, principally occupied in landscape painting, while his indefatigable wife hastened back to Pest to resume her engagement at the National Theatre (they had for the time no other means of subsistence), and attempt to save him from proscription. From August to the middle of October Jókai knew absolutely nothing of what was going on in the world. Tardoná was a corner of the earth whither no visitor ever came, and where the inhabitants themselves went nowhither. At last his wife rejoined him, and told him that his hermit-like seclusion would soon be over. She then took from her bosom a carefully concealed tiny grey schedule, which was a great treasure in those days. It was the guarantee of his liberation—a common passport. It should be explained that when the fortress of Comorn capitulated, months after the war was over everywhere else, it was on condition that every officer of the garrison should be provided with a passport guaranteeing his life and liberty, and dispensing him from enrolment in the Austrian army. Jókai's wife had contrived to procure for him such a passport in the simplest way in the world. A friend of hers, Vincent Szathmary, wrote Jókai's name down on the list of the capitulating officers as a third lieutenant, and handed the passport bearing his name to his wife. This had been Madame Jókai's idea from the first, and was the reason why Jókai had been hidden away so carefully by her among the beech forests of Tardoná till she had safely carried out her innocent conspiracy.

Jókai's life was now safe, but extreme caution was still by no means superfluous. It was not till some time later that he ventured to return to Pest from Miskólcz under the pseudonym of János Kovács,[3] living most of the time at his wife's lodgings, or at an inn among the hills of Buda. The military government (Hungary was then under martial law, with Czechs in all the chief posts of trust) was inclined to be indulgent to literature, but spies and traitors were about, and to his eternal shame a Magyar lawyer, Hegyesi by name, hoping to curry favour with the authorities at Vienna, informed against Jókai and thirty-four other Hungarian writers, whom he pronounced worthy of death. They were defended in a long memorial by their countryman, the advocate, János Kossalko, who demonstrated that the Hungarian literature was not the cause of the Hungarian revolution, but was only the echo of public opinion. Not till 1850 was it possible for Jókai to follow a literary career once more. His first works were written under the name of his dog "Sajo;" but in 1851 he contributed under his own name to the columns of the Magyar Emlék Lapok and the Remény, two of the new reviews, as well as to the Délibáb, founded by Count Leo Festetics. It was now that Mrs. Jókai suggested the starting of a popular illustrated weekly, to be called Vasárnapi Ujság. But the difficulty was how to find an editor for this new venture. Jókai's name was in such bad odour with the Austrian Government that he himself was out of the question, but at last a suitable editor was found in Albert Pakh, a popular humorist of great merit, who had only been prevented from participating in the revolution by a lingering illness, which had confined him to the hospital during the whole of 1848-9, so that he escaped being amongst the proscribed. But if Pakh was the editor, Jókai was the soul of the Vasárnapi Ujság, and it was his pen which quickly gave it vogue and celebrity. In particular the extremely humorous dramatic criticisms, which he contributed to the paper every week in the form of letters under the pseudonym "Kakas Márton,"[4] were the chief delight of the reading public. Kakas Márton's obiter dicta were everywhere quoted. Kakas Márton meerschaums and Kakas Márton clays, with bowls in the shape of cock-headed men, were on sale at every shop in the capital. "O tempi passati," cries Jókai, reviewing that period nearly forty years afterwards, "what a popular character I was, to be sure! I really was in the mouth of the nation in those days."

[3] John Smith.

[4] Martin Cock.

In 1856 Jókai broke entirely new ground by starting the first Hungarian illustrated comic paper, under the title of Nagy Tükör (Great Mirror), but better known by its later title of Üstökös (The Comet), which he edited for the next fourteen years. Inestimable were the services which Üstökös rendered to Hungary. It taught the nation to laugh and live in hope of better times. It was also the training school of the first Magyar caricaturists and comic artists. Jókai himself contributed to it with his pencil as well as his pen, and some of the best comic cuts in the Üstökös were by "Kakas Márton." In course of time all the comic talent of the nation was attracted to the Üstökös, and a whole army of notable humorists supported its editor. It was in the columns of the Üstökös that Arany's famous satire, "Poloska," first appeared; it was the Üstökös which discovered and educated János Jánko, the prince of Magyar caricaturists; it was the Üstökös which refused to take the gendarmes or the censorship too seriously, and scourged with its satiric lash the blunders and absurdities of the Bach régime, which laboured so hard to germanize Hungary.

The Üstökös had a literary supplement to which Jókai contributed numerous novels. It was here that appeared his masterly little tale "A debreceni lunatikus" and the great romance "Rab Raby," in which the utter impossibility of reforming a high-spirited nation against its will is so dramatically demonstrated. This story is also remarkable for the best existing characterization of Kaiser Joseph II.

Journalism and caricature indeed represent but a tithe of Jókai's work during this period. The revolutionary war was no sooner over than he began to write that series of novels and tales which was to make him famous throughout Europe. Roughly speaking, these earlier novels fall into two categories: (1) battle-pieces, descriptions of the vicissitudes of the late war, recounted with all the vividness of an alert spectator, who was also a born story-teller; and (2) historical romances of the long Turkish captivity under which Hungary had groaned from the beginning of the sixteenth to nearly the end of the eighteenth century. Among the first set may be mentioned, "Forradalmi és csataképek" (Revolutionary and Battle-pieces) 1850, and "Egy bujdosó naplója" (Diary of an Outlaw) 1851; while the latter set includes, "Erdély aranykora" (The Golden Age of Transylvania) 1852, with its sequel, "Torökvilág Magyarorszagon" (The Turkish World in Hungary), 1853. These tales of the Turkish rule in Magyarland, independently of their æsthetic value, were veritable parables. Every one who read them when they first came out, knew very well whom he was to understand by "The Turks." Every one knew that the author had only given the griefs and grievances of the Magyars an historical setting and an oriental colouring to evade the scrutiny of the censorship. Every one knew that the author's patriotic allusions and attacks applied as much to the Austrian tyranny of the nineteenth as to the Ottoman tyranny of the seventeenth century. Through the woof of these gorgeously oriental stories could be read the transparent reminder and encouragement that the kingdom had survived a worse overthrow than the present one, and that if Magyarland rose again from her grave, it would not be the first time she had done so. Even the terrible Turkish deluge had not swept away the Hungarian nation. Light had followed upon darkness; there was hope in the future because the past had never been desperate. As historical romances, moreover, both these tales stand very high, higher even than the romances of Sienkiewicz, because they possess humour, a quality in which the great Pole is deficient. In both cases, Jókai based his narrative on the contemporary chronicles of Cserey, who lived at Prince Michael Apafy's court. He found most of his characters ready to hand, and where Cserey fails him, Jókai's own historical imagination fills up the gaps. It is true that in the obviously invented portions of these stories (e.g. the Azraele episodes), the daring fancy of the author sometimes carries him far beyond the bounds of even poetic licence. It is equally true that both stories suffer from want of unity; they are rather loosely connected series of brilliant pictures than one continuous narrative. But the dramatic force, the fascinating style, and the inexhaustible inventiveness of the author, carry his readers breathlessly over every obstacle, and they contain some of the finest humour, and some of the most splendid descriptions of natural scenery in modern literature.

The admiration excited by these noble productions rose still higher, when, in 1853-1854, Jókai published his two great social romances, "A Magyar Nábob" (The Hungarian Nabob), and its sequel, "Kárpáthy Zoltán" (Sultan Karpathy), which, in the opinion of some Hungarian critics, indicate the high-water mark of his authorship. In my opinion the first of these novels, which paints to the life the old Hungarian aristocracy of the earlier part of the last century in the person of János Kárpáthy, is incomparably the best. The sequel, besides the inevitable objection that it is a sequel, suffers from ultra-sensibility and a moralizing tendency. The hero of "Kárpáthy Zoltán" can scarce be said to belong to real life at all, and he is plainly meant to be the model, the ideal of the rising generation. The story is also far too long. But it contains many brilliant episodes, amongst them the famous description of the terrible overflow of the Danube in the thirties, and numerous passages of almost faultless beauty. On December 11, 1858, Jókai was elected a member of the Hungarian Academy, and his name was henceforth numbered among the national classics.

But now a new career, the career of politics, was about to be thrown open to Jókai. At the beginning of 1860 it was becoming pretty evident that that monstrously artificial amalgamation, the unified absolute Austrian Monarchy of 1849, was weakening in every joint, and that no amount of forcible riveting could keep it together much longer. Warned by the loss of the Italian provinces, the statesmen of Vienna were now inclined to follow different political principles, and recognizing that the depressed and embittered Hungarian nation must be an important factor in any political reconstruction, they were now prepared to make certain substantial, if limited, concessions to the Magyars. The October diploma of 1860 explained his Majesty's views on the subject, and the Hungarian Estates were summoned in April, 1861, to consider the Imperial offer of a new constitution, which would have degraded Hungary into a mere province of the Austrian Empire. The Austrian statesmen imagined that the spirit of the Hungarian nation had been broken by twelve years of oppression. They were mistaken. The Magyars would have nothing to say to the proposed central Reichstag, which was to assemble at Vienna as the representative of all the lands of the Hapsburg monarchy, Hungary included. Under the masterly guidance of Francis Deák, the Hungarians insisted on the legal continuity of the Hungarian State, and would accept nothing short of full autonomy. Jókai took part in the Diet of 1861 as deputy for Siklos, and a member of the uncompromising party whose motto was: "All or nothing." On May 24 he delivered his maiden speech, and was instantly recognized as one of the best debaters in the House. He was no impassioned orator, as from his writings we might have been led to suppose he would be; but adopted from the first a quiet, conversational style, appealing generally to right feeling and common sense; whilst his unfailing wit and humour invariably charmed his audience, even when he took the unpopular side, which he sometimes felt bound to do, for, though a consistent Liberal he was always far above party prejudice. On the dissolution of the short-lived Diet of 1861, which was far too independent for the Austrian Government, the constitutional struggle was carried on in the public press, where Jókai was one of the foremost champions of Magyar rights. In the most dangerous times, when the sensitive central Government frequently flung journalists into prison for a single word, Jókai in the Üstökös worried the authorities with all the darts and arrows of his wit and humour, and in 1863, when he founded Hon (The Country), as the political organ of Coloman Tisza and his colleagues, he brought to bear the heavier ordnance of reason and argument. He had to go to Vienna in person to solicit permission to bring this journal out, and had first to promise that he would not attack the Government.

"I promise heartily to support the Vienna Government," answered Jókai, "if only it will endeavour to do justice to the Hungarian nation, and fulfil its legitimate wishes." The Hon had only been out a week when a catastrophe occurred which must be told in Jókai's own words: "I had founded a political paper. I was its responsible editor and publisher. My assistants were the matadors of the Liberal party. We soon had a large public. . . . One day an admirably written article was sent to me, signed by one of the most illustrious of the Hungarian magnates (Count Alexander Zichy). Without more ado I published it. It was a loyal, patriotic article, on purely constitutional lines, showing, in the most matter-of-fact way, the justice and the necessity of constitutional government for Hungary. Because of this article the Governor brought both the Count who wrote it, and the editor who inserted it, before a court-martial. He signified to the pair of us beforehand that he meant to make a three months' job of it. The court-martial consisted of a colonel, a major, a captain, a senior and a junior lieutenant, a sergeant, a corporal, and a private, the last four of whom were Czechs. Before this 'areopagus' I delivered a powerful defence in German, to which they naturally replied: 'March!' The tribunal condemned us to twelve months' hard labour in irons, on bread and water, with loss of nobility and a fine of eleven hundred florins. When the sentence was read out, I said to the President: 'This is very odd, the Governor promised us only three months.' To this the President replied, with a smile: 'Yes, three months for the incriminatory article, but nine more for your high-flying defence.' Our sentence was for no offence against the press laws. Oh dear no! We were condemned for inciting to a breach of the peace. Count Zichy and I had been throwing stones at the windows and breaking the gas-lamps. It was as public brawlers that we were sent to cool our heels in jail. . . . Nevertheless, the whole of my life in prison was a mere joke. . . . The Commandant himself, with whom I lodged, came every day to tell me funny stories, and then took me out for long country walks. He had my writing-table, my books, my carpentering and sculptural tools brought into my 'dungeon,' and there it was that I turned out the bust of my wife. The Commandant, also, was passionately fond of carpentering, so we worked together at our lathes as if for a wager. I was also allowed to have with my bread and water the best that money could purchase from the inn. In the afternoon my friends from the Casino Club looked in to play cards with me. . . . Once I took my fellow prisoner and my jailor to my villa at Svabhegy, where my wife had made ready for me a splendid supper. I tapped my new wine, and we amused ourselves to such a very late hour, that when we returned to my dungeon it was as much as we could do to make them let us in again. And then my visitors! In the whole course of my life I never received so many visitors as during the month that my year's captivity lasted. . . . I was sought out by all sorts of good friends, who came from far—lords and ladies, countesses and actresses. . . . In fact, I had too much of a good thing. How could I work when my admirers were crowding at my lathe all day long? At last, with tears in my eyes, I had to beg my jailor to sentence me to solitary confinement for a couple of hours every day, and wrote on my door the hours when I was free to receive company. 'Wasn't I in prison?' I asked."

After the dissolution of the Diet, the provisional government did all in its power to cajole the opposition and make the nation accept the October diploma; but its efforts were frustrated by the tact and the tenacity of Deák, and, in 1865, his Majesty was again obliged to summon the Diet in which Jókai once more represented Siklós. Even now the Austrian statesmen were very reluctant to compose their differences with Hungary on equal terms; but the disasters of the intervening Austro-Prussian war made them, at last, more compliant. After Sadowa, a composition with Hungary became absolutely necessary for the very existence of the Austrian Empire; the idea of a unified composite state was definitely abandoned; the Hungarians, following the advice of Deák, loyally co-operated in bringing about a composition[5] on equal terms with Austria, and on June 8, 1867, the crown of St. Stephen was placed upon the head of his Apostolic Majesty. Hungary had once more become independent.

[5] Curiously enough the German word Ausgleich has generally been used in England to designate this arrangement. Yet Ausgleich and its Hungarian equivalent Kiegyezés simply mean composition.

Independence was secured, but much had to be done in the way of pacification and reconstruction after all that the nation had suffered. Jókai contributed powerfully to readjust past differences and unite all the forces of the nation for the nation's good. This is the chief object of his romance "Új földesúr" (The New Landlord) published in 1863 (memorable also as the first of his works that was translated into English[6]), where the antagonisms of the old conservative Magyar squirearchy, exemplified in Adam Gárómvölgyi, and the interloping German landlords, as represented by Ankerschmidt, are finally adjusted by a happy love-match between younger members of the long-clashing families. In every respect this romance is one of Jókai's best works, and as a truthful picture of the gloomy transitional period between 1850 and 1863, is of considerable historical importance. A fine symbolism, too, runs through the story. The "fair Theiss," as purely an Hungarian as the Volga is a purely Russian river, plays a leading part in the story. We see her in all her moods, and when, in time of flood, she rises in her wrath and sweeps away all the fetters laid upon her by the Austrian surveyors and engineers, the reader guesses, as he was meant to guess, that the days of such petty tyrants as the comic minor characters, Mikwesek, Maxenpfutsch, and Strajf are numbered. To the same period belong a whole dozen of Jókai's most notable stories, e.g. "Politikai divatok" (Political Fashions), dealing with the triumphs and horrors of the civil war, and containing a glowing eulogy of his heroic, self-sacrificing wife; "Az arany ember" (A Man of Gold), one of the most dramatic and stimulating novels ever penned with magnificent descriptions of Danubian scenery; "Feketegyémántok" (Black Diamonds), which caught the English fancy more, perhaps, than any of his other works; and the wondrous "A jövö század regénye" (The Romance of the Coming Century), as ingenious and suggestive as the happiest of Jules Verne's or Mr. Wells's semi-scientific romances.

[6] By Mr. Patterson in 1868.

And, at the same time, this indefatigable worker, not content with throwing off literary masterpieces at the rate of two a year, was taking a leading part in current politics. The Composition was, after all, but the starting-point of modern Hungarian politics. It now became evident that Deák's original programme was not thoroughgoing enough for the needs of an independent Hungary, and every one looked upon the leader of the opposition, Coloman Tisza, who first came into prominence as the formulator of the famous "Bihar points" in 1868, as the coming man. To this party, the Left Centre, Jókai at once attached himself, and became its chief publicist, and one of its best speakers. For nine-and-twenty years (1867-96) he was a member of the Diet; even when (as in 1872) he was defeated in one constituency he was elected in another, and at the very beginning of his political career (1869) he had the supreme satisfaction of worsting a cabinet minister, Stephen Gorove, at the polls. It was during the earlier years of the long administration (1875-90) of his friend, Coloman Tisza, that Jókai exercised a constant and considerable political influence, both as a parliamentary debater and as editor of the Government organ, Hon (The Country). His usual seat was on the second ministerial bench, just behind the premier, and whenever he rose to speak he always commanded the attention of a crowded and expectant house. More than once his eloquence extricated the Government from a tight place. Among his more notable speeches may be mentioned: "What does the Opposition want—revolution or reform?" delivered in 1869; "The Left Centre the true party of reform," spoken in 1872, and his celebrated speech on the Budget of February 26, 1880. In those days he was a most ardent politician, ready, if necessary, to fight as well as talk and write for his opinions. Thrice he has fought duels, happily bloodless, with political opponents; but it was as the editor of the Hon (incorporated in 1882 with the Ellenör, under the title of Nemzet) that he rendered his party the most essential service, and in most of the political cartoons of the day he is generally represented waving the Hon as a banner, or charging with it as a bayonet. The ultra-Conservative comic paper, Borszem Janko, was particularly fond of caricaturing this consistent and courageous champion of enlightened Liberalism, and his earnest, gentle face, with the honest eyes, ample beard and fierce moustache, is conspicuous in nearly every number from 1868 onwards. Thus in the number for August 23, 1868, the coloured frontispiece represents Jókai as a huge black-bearded, bald head, furiously editing four newspapers at the same time, a nimble quill being stuck between each of its diminutive hands and feet. His increasing baldness is an inexhaustible subject for the raillery of this exceedingly clever print, especially on the occasion of his dramatic jubilee (he is the author of numerous successful plays, which are, however, inferior to his novels) at Klausenburg, in 1871, when he is depicted in ancient Roman costume, with a Red Indian feather head-dress, beating a huge drum on a Greek triumphal car. In 1896, Jókai quitted active politics, and in the following year was made a member of the House of Magnates.

Jókai's career, on the whole, has been a singularly happy and successful one. His worst misfortune was the death of his revered wife, on November 20, 1886, when he sought oblivion and consolation in travel, and visited Italy for the second time.[7] His third visit was paid thirteen years later, when he spent his honeymoon in Sicily with his second wife, the comic actress, Bella Nagy, whom he married in September, 1899, when he was already seventy-four years old. It is strange, considering his linguistic attainments, manifold interests, and the vast range of his writings, how seldom Jókai has quitted Hungary. Apart from his brief Italian tours, a fortnight at Berlin and Prague in 1874, and a couple of days in Bosnia, in 1886, represent the whole of his foreign touring. Yet there is scarce a country in Europe which he has not made the scene of one or other of his romances. He enjoyed the sovereign triumph of his life in 1894, when the whole nation rendered homage to the nestor of Magyar Letters by celebrating his golden jubilee as a national festival, on which occasion he received the ribbon of St. Stephen from the King, the freedom of every city in Hungary, and a cheque for 100,000 florins from the Jubilee Committee on account of the profits derived from a national edition de luxe of his works in a hundred huge volumes, illustrated by all the leading Hungarian artists. Since 1894, Jókai has produced at least twenty-five fresh volumes, and their quality demonstrates that the power and brilliance of the veteran are absolutely unimpaired. There is no sign of decay or even of deterioration. "A Tengerszemü Hölgy" won the Academy's prize in 1890, as the best novel of the year, while "A Sárga Rózsa" (The Yellow Rose), written three years later, in the author's sixty-eighth year, is pronounced by so severe a critic as Zoltan Beöthy to be one of the abiding ornaments of the national literature.

[7] His first visit was in 1876, but he only stayed a fortnight.

Out of Hungary, Jókai, even now is far less known than might have been expected, though within the last six years no fewer than fifteen out of his two hundred romances have been translated into English. But this apparent neglect is readily to be accounted for. In the first place, Jókai is so national, so thoroughly Magyar, that much of his finest, most characteristic work was written entirely for Hungarians, or appeals to them alone. This especially applies to his journalistic work and to his satirico-political humoresks, which are excellent, unique even, of their kind, and yet can have but little interest for foreigners. In the second place, the fashion of modern fiction has changed since the author of "A Hungarian Nabob" began to write. Jókai is a conteur par excellence, a conteur of the old school. Most of his novels are tales, "yarns," if you like, not "documents" or "studies." He has also all the faults of the romantic school to which he indisputably belongs—excessive sensibility, fantastic exaggeration, and a penchant towards melodrama, though in his masterpieces he can be as true to life and draw character as cunningly as the best of the modern novelists. In the third place, Jókai writes in a non-Aryan language of extraordinary difficulty, whose peculiar idioms and constructions must necessarily baffle the ingenuity of the most practised translator. It is very much easier, for instance, to give an English reader a tolerably correct idea of Tolstoi's style than of Jókai's. I speak from experience. Yet the fact remains that Jókai is, at last, decidedly making way amongst us. The tale proper, the novel of incident in all its varieties, is again coming into vogue, and Jókai is one of the greatest tale-tellers of the century. Moreover, there is a healthy, bracing, optimistic tone about his romances which appeals irresistibly to normal English taste. He is never dull, dirty, perverse, or obscure, and more fun (and that, too, of the very best sort) is to be found in any half-dozen of his works than in the whole range of modern Slavonic or Scandinavian literature.

R. NISBET BAIN.

Since the above lines were written, the great Magyar writer has passed away (May 5th), and Hungary can but show her respect to one of the greatest of her sons by standing bareheaded at his grave. To the very last his inexhaustible pen was busy. Only at the beginning of this very year he published his 202nd novel: "Where money is, there God is not;" and, still later, his name appeared for the last time in a collection of brief autobiographies of living Hungarian authors. Jókai's sketch of himself is of the briefest, but it contains two facts which cannot but interest and touch English readers. He there tells us that he taught himself the elements of English, without assistance, in order that he might read Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe" in the original language, and that "Boy Dickens" (he is not the first foreigner by any means who has taken "Boy" to be Dickens' Christian name) was the object of his youthful admiration, and one of his earliest delights was the perusal of "The Pickwick Papers."

R. NISBET BAIN.

TALES FROM JÓKAI

I
THE CELESTIAL SLINGERS

In the days when Kuczuk was the Pasha of Grosswardein, the good city of Debreczen had a very bad time of it. This whimsical Turk, whenever some little trifle had put him out of humour with the citizens of Debreczen, would threaten to ravage the town from end to end with fire and sword, cut the men to mincemeat, carry off all the women into captivity, pack up all the treasures of the town in sacks, and sow with salt the place where once it had stood.

At first the prudent and pacific magistrates of Debreczen used to soothe the heavy displeasure of the whimsical Pasha with fair-spoken entreaties, good words, and precious gifts; but one day Master Stephen Dobozy was elected governor, and being a short-necked, fiery-tempered man, it so happened that when, for some cause or other, Kuczuk Pasha again began to murmur against them, and threatened the Debreczeners that this time he really would come to them, Dobozy sent back this message: "Let him come if he likes."

At this Kuczuk Pasha flew into a violent rage, immediately mounted all his troops, set off that very night, and early next morning stood before Debreczen. "Here I am!" cried he.

The city had no ramparts, no trench, no drawbridge. Its whole defence consisted of twelve rugged towers, in which the citizens were wont to keep a look-out for nomadic freebooters—mouldering brick edifices with rush roofs, which would have fallen to pieces at the first cannon-shot, provided outside with crazy wooden ladders terminating in a circumambient wooden corridor by which you could ascend into the towers, so that if the ladders were plucked away from the towers nobody would be able to get out of them again.

Each of these tower-shaped shanties guarded a gate, standing at a respectful distance therefrom, so as not to stand in the way of any possible impetuous foe who might perhaps run his foolish head against a tower and knock it down.

Nothing testifies more clearly to the true nature of these fortresses than the fact that a stork's nest was planted on the summit of each one of them, where the worthy animals, standing every evening on one leg, clappered for hours at a time, as if it was they who guarded the city.

Kuczuk had timed his arrival so well that at one and the same moment a division of his army halted at every gate, and a large round cannon, which he had taken the precaution to load, was planted opposite each of the white-brick towers. It was thus that he wished to speak with the Debreczeners.

Meanwhile there came hastening out of the town a Greek named Panajoti, a native of Stambul and an old acquaintance of Kuczuk Pasha. Whenever the magistrates of the town had any particularly ticklish message to deliver to the Pasha, they always sent Panajoti, well aware that he, at any rate, would not be impaled straight away.

"Well, what have the magistrates of Debreczen to say for themselves?"

"Gracious, sir, surely this Master Stephen Dobozy is a little cracked, for no sooner did thy threats reach us than he immediately packed all the women-folk, girls, and children into waggons, and sent them off to Tokai; then he proclaimed by roll of drum that whoever had anything of value was to tear it to pieces, or cut it down and fling it into the wells, and the moment the enemy attacked the town it was to be set on fire at all four quarters, especial attention being given to every tower and church, whereupon every one was to grasp the shaft of his lance, or sit on his horse if he had one, and say by which gate he meant to depart. And they were to take care never to show their faces again in the neighbourhood of Debreczen, and thus Kuczuk Pasha would be afraid when in the presence of the sublime Sultan they asked him what had become of the great city of Debreczen, which had so faithfully paid so much and so much tribute to the Porte, made presents to all the viziers one after another, supplied the Turkish armies with meal and provender, let him boast before the Divan that he has burnt it to ashes and sown the site of it with salt in a fit of pique, simply because his pipe did not draw, and see what they'll say to him then!"

That was the message which Master Stephen Dobozy sent to the Pasha, and Panajoti repeated it to him word for word.

"Accursed stiff-necked Calvinist!" exclaimed the Pasha, wrathfully, "he's quite capable of doing it, too, the rascal! But don't you be afraid that a city like Debreczen will be extirpated from the face of the earth simply because he chooses to lose his temper, for Debreczen is so necessary to this spot that if it did not exist already the Turks would have to build it. The dog knows very well that I don't want to devastate the town, else he would not speak so big to me."

Panajoti solemnly assured the Pasha that the inhabitants of Debreczen were resolved to risk the uttermost, and that the moment the Pasha blew a trumpet or aimed a gun at them, the whole place would instantly flame up and be of no further use to anybody. All their treasures had already been buried, the girls and women were safe away on the other side of the Theiss, and the men were so furious that they had all laid hold of their swords and scythes, and would be very difficult to manage, so embittered were they.

The Pasha perceived that Panajoti was right. For once the Debreczeners had got the better of him. So he withdrew the squadrons that he had marshalled before the gates, sent away his guns, and said that he would be merciful to Debreczen. They might take his word for it that he meant to hurt no one, and would henceforth deal graciously with them. Moreover, he warmly praised Master Stephen Dobozy for his courageous and determined conduct, and assured him that he should never have cause to repent his behaviour. On the contrary, if ever he should be in trouble let him have recourse to him, the Pasha; he might always rely on his patronage. And if ever he should come to Grosswardein, he was to make a point of coming to see him, the Pasha; Master Dobozy might always be quite sure that he would be made to feel perfectly at home.

And with that he returned to Grosswardein, with his guns and his army in the same order in which he had come.

The Debreczeners breathed a great sigh of relief, and every one praised and exalted his Honour the Sheriff for so valiantly showing all his claws. The Turk evidently perceived that he was a man who would stand no nonsense.

Kuczuk Pasha had no sooner arrived at Grosswardein than he sent for Badrul Beg, the vizier of the Moorish cavalry, and entrusted him with a special mission.

"This evening," said he, "before dusk, take five hundred horsemen and set off in the direction of Diószeg. Inquire of every person you meet coming or going: 'Does this road lead to Nagy-Kálló?' and then let them go again. This do before nightfall, and then turn suddenly away from the Diószeg road and wade about among the marshy meadows on the left-hand side to obliterate your traces, and when you get out into the fields on the other side you will find the shepherds who look after the sheep and oxen, and take them off with you to Létá. When you perceive the towers of Létá, cut down your guides, and, cautiously approaching the place, turn off into the great forest there. In this forest you will come upon a lime-burner, or a herdsman, who will lead you through the forest to where it comes to an end at Hadház. There again trample your guides beneath your feet, and remain in ambush. On the morrow, or the day after that, or perhaps in a week's time—and till then you will stick to the forest—you will perceive four or five hundred waggons going towards Tokai. These waggons will be packed full with select girls and women, and with lots of money and knickknacks, you may be sure. Seize every blessed one of them. If there are any men with them, cut the men down. What money you find with them distribute among your soldiers. The women-folk, on the other hand, bring hither to me. You understand what I say? Remember that you carry your head in your hands, so keep an eye upon it."

Badrul Beg understood the command and withdrew. The Moorish vizier was just the man to execute the charge committed to him, for he was capable of traversing the whole realm from end to end, through forest and morass, till he came to his appointed place without once dismounting, and there he would contentedly lounge about in ambush, with an empty belly for weeks together, till he had done what he was told to the very last iota.

But Kuczuk Pasha thus apostrophized the good Debreczeners: "So you would smile at me, you would laugh at me? You would rejoice over me, eh? Very well, laugh your fill now while you can, for the day is at hand when it will be your turn to weep."

On the broad highway leading to Tokai a long series of waggons was approaching Hadház; it was the caravan of the Debreczen women.

Five hundred waggons toiling one after another, filled with nothing but women and children, not a single man among them—no, not so much as a man's finger to raise a whip, for the women themselves even drove the horses. Those among the fugitives whom God Himself had created of the masculine gender had their hands nicely folded away under swathing-bands, and were called—babies.

Nothing but a pack of women and girls. Imagine the good humour, the racket which accompanied them on the way! They were telling each other how his Honour the Sheriff had driven the Turks from the town, how frightened they had been, and all the rest of it; they had enough to talk about for weeks to come. Rich indeed is the fancy of souls saved from a great peril.

At the head of every waggon as coachman sat a young woman driving the horses on, and singing one of those melancholy old songs which were then usually sung from the Theiss to Moldavia, perhaps this one, which began—

"The little duck is bathing in the lake so black,
My mother in Poland gets ready the cooking-jack;"

or perhaps this—

"If they ask thee for me, say
I'm a slave far, far away,
Hands and feet in irons bound;"

which last was greatly in fashion then, God knows, and many a poor Magyar sang it from his heart.

And then a whole row of waggon-women would take up the song and make the whole canopy of heaven ring with it; the poor little larks soaring up there were quite vanquished in this singing contest.

Towards evening the whole caravan halted by a green mound standing out upon the level plain. Who knows who raised it? or whether our bones or others were in it? Our bones certainly, for the whole plain around was a blank desert.

Not a village, not a town anywhere near; only a solitary hut surrounded with ricks or stacks might be seen here and there, far apart from each other; not a trace of arable land; the whole district is nothing but pasturage for flocks and herds.

From time to time the Fata Morgana exhibits her juggleries, but we are accustomed to it now, and nobody is deceived thereby. She inundates the distant landscape with an undulous sea, but nobody wishes to bathe in it. She shows us umbrageous woods, but nobody hastens to refresh himself there. She conjures up cities and palaces which nobody takes the trouble to admire. We, the sober children of men, have discovered the meaning of all these enchantments, and don't care a rap what sort of marvel this faded old fairy lays before us.

But on this particular day the Fata Morgana was in a peculiarly good humour. Very rarely does the sun burn so fiercely as it did then. The earth regularly cracked beneath it, and the beds of waterpools became dried clayey hummocks. It was just the day for the Fata Morgana's elfin extravagances. A pack of young girls, the dreamiest spectators imaginable, were ascending a green hill to gaze down upon the marvels of atmospheric phenomena.

All round about surges the boundless sea full of swiftly advancing waves; from time to time figures rise out of it silhouetted against the sky. There are swimming blue islands, which grow up and swell out as the women gaze at them, green forests overspread their shores, the shadows of the trees are visible in the water; and then, suddenly, the island sinks lower, the waves of the sea rise, and clash together over its highest point. And now on the other side arise vast aërial palaces with transparent towers and hazy blue temples, and these also are tossed up and down by that elfin wag as if they were swimming upon it, and when she has tired of them she makes endless havoc of them, and towers and cities tumble together into a heap of ruins; and then the sea also disappears, and the eye sees nothing but a flock of migratory cranes coming slowly along.

The girls on the hill begin explaining the phenomenon to each other.

"Look! that building over there was just like the church at Debreczen with the two towers. And that other one that has just fallen to pieces is like the watch-tower at the gates of Grosswardein—it is just as crazy looking."

"Girls, girls!" scolded a young bride, who was suckling her plump little baby at the foot of the hill, "one ought not to joke about such things. It is not right to recognize any place in the Fata Morgana. Woe will befall the town which she shows. Have done with such profane prattling!"

"Look!" suddenly cried they all, and the word died away on their lips; every one looked, with eyes petrified by wonder and terror.

What was it that had suddenly come to light in the sky?

Towards Hadház, high above the aërial road, the misty shape of a horseman was suddenly sketched out against the pallid sky—a real warrior on horseback, with a quiver on his shoulder, a peaked turban on his head, and his hand on his hip. The whole shape was magnified against the distant horizon into gigantic proportions, which made one's heart beat to look at it; the feet of the horse did not touch the ground, and below and through them one could see the sky. The whole thing looked like the bright-blue shape of an armed phantom cast upon the pale, yellow sky.

"O Lord, forsake us not!" murmured the terrified and helpless crowd at the sight of this strange apparition, which natural philosophers have seen so often and in so many places, and have since explained, though they know neither the why nor the wherefore of it.

The shapes of men far away swam forth into the sky, magnified into gigantic spirits of the mist. Every moment fresh and fresh shapes emerged from the aërial billows, all of them armed giants. Some only emerged from the surface of the delusive sea as far as the bodies of their horses; of others one could only see the heads and shoulders; some had their shadows joined on to their bodies, others showed double shadows glued together at different ends with heads, arms, and weapons turned upwards and downwards, and suddenly the whole thing slowly dissolved, and nought remained behind in the sky but two broad wheel-like spokes, two bright-blue ribbons of light on a misty, yellowish background, shining upwards from the earth.

"Alas, alas! the Turks and Tartars are lying in wait for us," exclaimed the women, confused, terrified, without friend or counsellor, in the midst of the wilderness.

The mothers clasped their children to their breasts, the girls scattered about their precious kerchiefs and ornaments, that while the robbers were picking them up they themselves might have time to escape. Every one believed that the danger was at their very heels.

"Let's be off! Let's be off! By the Böszörmény road! Let us fly through the pasture lands! Hasten! hasten!"

The mob of poor desperate creatures turned aside from the road; the waggons, greatly to the damage of the horses, plunged along over the fields where there was no sign of a track. Nobody sang any more now, whether songs or hymns, but a pious soul here and there sighed in secret as she looked behind her, first into the formidable distance, and then up into the familiar sky. "Thou, O Almighty," they whispered, "Thou who in Thy heaven hath marvellously revealed to us the lying-in-wait of our evil foes, defend us, Thy poor weak servants, from our evil pursuers, who have none to trust in save Thee alone, O God of heaven!"

And, indeed, the Lord was to work yet other marvels that day.

As the flying women were still looking timorously behind them, the sportive phenomena suddenly disappeared from earth and sky; on the break-up of the Fata Morgana the horizon became sharply visible again, and the birch forests of Hadház loomed forth faintly blue in the distance. Clouds with sharply defined silver linings arose in the sky from that direction as if the tempest were puffing gigantic frothy bubbles before it; gradually the horizon grew darker and darker, dark-blue clouds came crowding up one on the top of another; it was as though a deep voice in the distance were roaring: "Fly, fly!"

And the waggons went jingling and clattering along towards the confines of Szörmeny.

Badrul Beg had now been lying in ambush in the forest of Hadház for two days. He had performed everything which Kuczuk Pasha had commanded him in his own way. Every one from whom he had inquired the way he had cut down immediately after he had done him that service, so that he should not betray him. Every one of his band was forced to remain on the spot where he stood, nobody was allowed to quit the forest, and every inhabitant of the environs who happened to stray thither accidentally died before he could betray what he had seen. They were all shot down by arrows, arrows which utter no sound, and never brag of their heroic deeds as the big-mouthed guns do.

Nobody should betray them, nobody should carry tidings concerning them to the women and girls of Debreczen. And God?—Ah! He sees these women thus hastening to destruction, He looks at them through the mirror of the Fata Morgana, and hides from them the crafty snare laid for them in the very nick of time. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

On the evening of the third day the sentinels stationed on the border of the forest informed Badrul Beg that far off in the puszta a long line of dust could be seen, as if hundreds and hundreds of waggons were coming along one after another.

"It is they!"

Badrul Beg mounted to the top of a hillock, that he might see for himself—perchance he was the enormous giant whose misty form had first appeared in the sky, with the quiver on his shoulder and the peaked turban on his head.

"It is they! Only let them come nearer! Nobody can warn them of their danger—nobody!"

But suddenly the approaching line of dust stops, remains stationary for some moments, and then suddenly begins to start off sideways, and, so far from slowly creeping on nearer, darts aside among the hedges with dart-like rapidity.

Badrul Beg looked furiously around him. "Which of you can have betrayed us to them?" he cried.

As if suddenly answering his question, the whole forest fell a-soughing. The tall, slim birch trees began to rustle and shiver; a frightful hurricane had arisen over the plain, howling and roaring, and enveloping the whole firmament with clouds of yellow dust.

Badrul was not used to fear the tempest—Kuczuk Pasha did not allow him to.

"Forward with your lances!" he cried to his horsemen. "Split the tempest with the points of them! After those fugitives! Out upon the open plain!"

Hah! but out on the plain there it was another Master who commanded now. In the midst of the open country, midway between pursuers and pursued, came scudding along the bride of the tempest, the wild whirlwind, that slim fairy who dances so majestically right over the smooth plain with her comet-like head among the clouds, as if her scattered locks were floating there, while her legs, like spindles, were twirling in the dust. She sways to the left, curtseying with her slim body, and throwing back her defiant head ever higher and higher. Woe to all frail and perishable creatures who come in her way, for she will tear them to pieces and scatter them abroad. The roofs of houses, haystacks, prominent trees, if once they are caught in the savage sweep of her garment, she hurls up to the sky, and then dashes to the earth again with furious caprice. After her, murmuring and growling, comes her angry bridegroom—the thunderstorm—who pursues his defiant bride with a fiery whip in his hand; with his whip he will scourge her if he catches her. Ah! the love of the elemental spirits is terrible.

The whirlwind in an instant enveloped the band of Badrul Beg in such a cloud of dust that nobody knew from thenceforth whether he were going backwards or forwards. The air was darkened. One horseman could not see his next fellow for the whirling dust, in whose murkiness he could not even distinguish the lightning flashes, he could only hear the approaching thunder as it rolled along the sky, shook the earth, and silenced the savage howl of the tempest.

Badrul Beg's charger reared beneath him, the wind took the turban from his head and tore the pennant from his lance.

"Ah, thou god—thou God of the Magyars!" thundered the Moor, shaking his fist at the sky. "Thou hast taken the part of Thine own people, but for all that Thou shalt not save them from me!"

At the very moment when the presumptuous wretch uttered this blasphemy, a stony substance smote his shoulder, so that his arm hung down benumbed at his side.

What was that?

Nothing but a large piece of ice, coming before the rest by way of warning. Immediately afterwards heaven discharged, as from slings, its rattling, clattering stones, jagged lumps of ice came plunging down from the sky. Some of them were like birds' eggs, others like transparent nuts, others like the heads of spiked clubs, ten little pieces all glued together, with a murderous lump in the middle of a pound's weight. The lightning flashed incessantly, sending its messages from one quarter of the heavens to the other, the ice-flogged earth in the distant plain gave forth a sound as if it were about to collapse beneath the falling sky.

"Allah Kerim! Allah Akbar!" exclaimed the freebooters, vainly flying from the pursuant hailstones, which smote them down from every side with frightful velocity. The neighing of the tortured and terrified horses made the din still more terrible, and the boldest were dismayed by the sweeping lightning flashes which plunged down among them with fiery heads, illuminating the dense body of hail which seemed to have dissolved into millions of diamonds and silver bullets in its descent from above.

"There is no deliverance save with the 'Lord God!'" howled the Turks. And off they plunged whithersoever their horses took them, some in the direction of the forest they had just quitted, where the wind-shattered trees received them, others galloped on still further, and plunged into a stream which the water-spout within an hour had swollen into a raging river. Others again, flying before the hurricane, fell right within its path, were struck down and scattered about miles away. When the tempest had passed over, Badrul Beg could only find fifty horsemen. Of these about twenty lay dead on the ground, scattered far and wide, with frightful wounds on their foreheads, twisted limbs and broken legs; in some cases horse and rider had been struck dead together, others had been so buried by the ice that only their hands appeared above the frozen mass. The whole plain presented the spectacle of a desert strewn over with stones and pebbles of different sizes, but all equally white and cold.

The sons of the Ethiopian palm desert had never seen ice before.

"Lo! what wonders befall in this earth!" said Badrul Beg, in his dismay. "Who can fight against Heaven? The God of the Magyars works miracles on their behalf! Allah defend us from the wrath of this strange god!"

Nevertheless, he was not quite certain whether Kuczuk Pasha would be inclined to believe him if he were to return with a shattered host after letting the women go. How could he believe from mere hearsay a marvel the like of which no true believer had ever heard? But he could have no surer witness than these iron trunks, which he had brought with him to hold the jewels of the captured women, if he filled them with the cold white stones slung by the celestial slings; when he saw those the Pasha must give credence even to a story bordering upon the marvellous.

So he nicely filled four large trunks right up to the brim with ice, and binding them on the backs of two horses, himself trotted after them. For the sake of greater security, he kept the keys of all the boxes himself, and sealed up their locks with sealing-wax.

It took him a couple of days to get back to Grosswardein, for he went a bit out of his way to collect together his scattered soldiers; and a sorry lot they were, with their broken limbs, battered heads, and black and blue bodies. All the time a burning sun shone down upon them from morn to eve, and the water was dripping from under the iron trunks, and exhaling in vapour from above them at the same time. On reaching Grosswardein, he appeared before Kuczuk Pasha with a broken arm and a downcast face, and told him the whole story, the very telling of which made him tremble.

Kuczuk Pasha's face grew very wrath at this fairy tale, and not a word of it would he believe. Then Badrul Beg had the iron trunks brought forward to corroborate him, that he might see with his own eyes the stones of the celestial slingers.

And lo! when the seals were broken and the locks were opened, there was nothing at all in the trunks. There was not a trace of the celestial stones.

Badrul Beg rent his clothes.

"Merciful Allah!" he cried, "lo! the God of the Magyars has caused to disappear from the locked boxes the stones with which he stoned my warriors to death!"

"Miserable coward!" thundered Kuczuk Pasha, who did not believe a single word of it all. "I suppose the meaning of it is that those valiant amazons have given you a good drubbing?"

Whereupon they led Badrul Beg forth from his presence, and hung him up in front of the gate, and there he hung till evening. As for the Moors who were with him, they were first decimated, and then the rest had their ears cut off and were sent to Belgrade.

But the women of Debreczen at the very same time returned unharmed to the arms of their dear ones. To the very end of his life Kuczuk Pasha firmly believed that it was they who had drubbed Badrul Beg so roundly, and from henceforth he held them in the greatest respect.

This story is recorded in the archives of the noble city of Debreczen, and ye who read thereof reflect that God still exists, and that He is always able to defend His chosen from His high heaven, and now also His arm is not shortened.

II
THE COMPULSORY DIVERSION—AN OLD BARON'S YARN

I wonder, my dear fellows, if any of you know the Countess Stephen Repey, the younger one I mean, not the old lady, that little Creole princess—my little black-eyed cobold, as I call her? Mine indeed, pish! I don't mean that, of course. That is only a façon de parler. All of us, my dear fellows, as you very well know, have sighed after her enough, at some time or other, but none of you have had, like me, the luck to travel at night with her in the same coach. Well, naturally, her maid was there too. Still it was a great bit of luck all the same. But no more of such luck for me, thank you.

One day, at her castle of Kérekvár, it suddenly occurred to the Countess, quite late in the evening, that the Casino ball at Arad[8] was coming off on the morrow, and she must be there at all hazards. No sooner said than done. The horses were put to at once, and as there was nobody with her but me, she said: "I pray you, my dear Baron, be so good as to escort me to Arad."

[8] The Cheltenham of Hungary.

Well, when it came to "dear Baron," what on earth could I say? "Countess! ma déesse, it is very dark; we shall only get upset and break our legs, and how can we dance with broken legs? We shall have to cross the three Körös rivers, the bridge over one of them is sure to be crazy as usual, and in we shall plump. Then at Szalenta we shall have to pass through the deuce of a wood, full of robbers, and I shall never be able to defend you single-handed against the whole lot of them. And besides, what need is there to hurry? Early to-morrow morning, after a nice cup of tea, you have only to step into your carriage, your four bay horses will fly with us to Arad, and by the evening you will be quite ready with your toilet."

That's what I said, but you know how it always is, try and persuade a woman not to do a thing, and she'll insist on doing it all the more. She didn't want to drive her horses to death, she said, and whoever heard of wanting to rest after a short journey like that. Besides, she loved so to travel by night. What with the stars and the frogs, it was so beautiful, so romantic, and much more such stuff. But bless you, that was a mere pretext. The fact was, she had suddenly got the idea into her darling little noddle, and nothing in heaven or earth could turn her from her purpose.

Enfin, I was between two stools. I had either to go with her or remain alone in the castle. Of course I chose the former alternative, especially after she gave me permission to sit opposite to her in the coach.

I enjoyed myself splendidly, I can tell you. The Countess, by degrees, absolutely loaded me with her favours. First of all she put her handbag in my lap, to which she presently added a muff; next she hung a reticule upon my arm; finally she entrusted to me a couple of band-boxes, after that she fell asleep. I could have asked anything I liked of her, especially when the coach stumbled and she awoke in terror and began asking for all her belongings one after another, dozing off again when she was quite sure they were all there. Later on, the lady's-maid began to groan: "O Lord! how my head aches!"—whereupon I also pretended to fall asleep.

Suddenly we all started up in alarm, the coach had suddenly moved sideways, and then come to a dead stop as if it had fallen into a ditch.

My Countess also awoke and asked, stupidly, what was the matter.

The lackey leaped from the box and came to the carriage window.

"Your ladyship, I am afraid we have lost our way."

"Well, what of that?" said the Countess; "we can't stop here; there's a road in front of us, I suppose, and we are bound to arrive somewhere if we only follow it."

"Yes, but——"

"Yes, but—what do you mean? The road must lead somewhere, I suppose?"

"Saving your ladyship's presence, we are in the Szalenta wood."

"Well, the Szalenta wood is no trackless wilderness. We shall get to the end of it in a couple of hours."

"Yes, your ladyship, but the coachman is afraid."

"The coachman! What business has he to be afraid? there's nothing about that in his contract, is there?"

"He's afraid of some mischief befalling your ladyship."

"What has the coachman to do with me, I should like to know?"

Here I thought it my duty to intervene.

"Countess, ma déesse, this is no joke. This comes, you see, of nocturnal excursions. Here we are camping out in the middle of a forest, and the robbers who abound in this forest will come and take our horses, our money, and our lives. I only wish I had a revolver."

But the little demon only laughed, and, before I could prevent it, she had opened the coach door and leaped out.

"Oh! what a splendid night. How fragrant the forest is; how the glow-worms sparkle in the grass. Have you no eyes, Baron?"

Eyes, indeed! when I couldn't see three paces before me for the darkness.

"But surely I see something shining through the trees over there," she continued.

My blood grew cold within me. We were approaching some robbers' den evidently.

The coachman answered the question from his box with the voice of a man who is already being throttled.

"That, your ladyship, is the pot-house which the country people call the 'guest-detaining csárdá.'"[9]

[9] Inn.

"Guest detaining! Bravo! The very thing for us. Let's hasten thither."

I was desperate. "For God's sake, Countess, what would you do? Why, that csárdá is a notorious resort of thieves, where they would kill the whole lot of us; a regular murder-hole, whose landlord is hand in glove with all the ruffians of the district, and where numbers and numbers of people have come to an evil end."

The naughty girl only laughed at me. She told me I had read all these horrors in the story-books, and there was not a word of truth in any of them. She admitted, indeed, that if there had been another inn she would have gone to that in preference, but as this was the only one we had no choice. She then ordered the coachman to drive the horses along very gingerly, while she went before on foot to show him the way.

Every lamentation and objection was useless, we had to stumble along in the direction of that cursed csárdá, for she threatened to go alone if we were afraid to come too.

It is a fact that that naughty little fairy was afraid of nothing.

When we drew nearer to the csárdá, a merry hullabooing sort of music suddenly struck upon our ears, though all the windows were closed by shutters.

"Mon Dieu! it is absolutely full of robbers."

"You see how it is," remarked the Countess, mischievously; "we started to go to a ball, and at a ball we have arrived. No one, you see, can avoid his fate"—and thereupon, with appalling foolhardiness, she marched straight towards the door.

For a moment I really thought I should have turned tail, left her there, and made a bolt of it. But, noblesse oblige. And besides, I couldn't, for Mademoiselle Cesarine, the lady's-maid, had gripped my arm so tightly that I was powerless to release myself. The poor creature was more than half dead with fright; at any rate, she was only half alive when we followed the Countess together.

Even outside the door we could hear quite distinctly the wild dance-music and the merry uproar proceeding from a parcel of men inside; but my Countess was not a bit put out by it. Boldly she opened the door and stepped into the csárdá.

It was a large, long, dirty, whitewashed room, where in my first terror I could see about fifty men dancing about. Subsequently, when I was able to count them, there turned out to be only nine of them, including the landlord, who did not dance, and three gipsies who provided the music. But it seemed to me that five stalwart ruffians were quite enough to deal with our little party.

They were all tall fellows, who could easily hit the girders of the roof with their clenched fists, and strapping fellows too, with big, broad shoulders; their five muskets were piled up together in a corner.

Well, we were in a pretty tight place, it seemed to me. The rascals when they saw us instantly left off dancing, and seemed to be amazed at our audacity. But my Countess said to them, with a charming smile—

"Forgive me, my friends, for interrupting your pastime. We have lost our way, and as we couldn't go any further in the dark, we have come here for shelter, if you will give it to us."

At these words one of the fellows, sprucer and slimmer a good deal than the others, gave his spiral moustache an extra twirl, took off his vagabond's hat, clapped his heels together, and made my Countess a profound bow. He assured her she was not inconveniencing them in the least; on the contrary, they would be very glad of her society. "I am the master here," he added, "Józsi Fekete" (the famous robber, by the way), "at your ladyship's service. But who, then, is your ladyship?"

Before I could pull the Countess's mantilla to prevent her from blurting out who she was, she had already replied: "I am the Countess Repey, from Kérekvár."

"Then I am indeed fortunate," said the rascal. "I knew the old Count. He fired after me with a double musket on one occasion, though he did not hit me. Pray sit down, Countess."

A pleasant introduction, I must say.

The Countess sat down on a bench, the fellow beside her; me they didn't ask to take a seat at all.

"And where did your ladyship think of going on such a night?"

(I winked at her: "Don't tell him.")

"We were going to Arad, to the Casino ball."

("Adieu all our jewels," I thought.)

"Oh, then you have come here just at the nick of time. Your ladyship need not go a step further, for we are giving a ball here, if you do not despise our invitation. We have very good gipsy musicians—the Szalenta band, you know. They can play splendid csárdáses."

The rascal didn't stand on ceremony in the least, but no sooner did they begin dashing off the csárdás, than he threw his buttoned dolman half over his shoulder, and seizing the Countess round the waist, twirled her off amidst the lot of them.

Another fellow immediately hastened up to Mademoiselle Cesarine, and ravished her away in a half-fainting condition; but she had no need to think of herself, for she was passed from one hand to another so that her feet never touched the ground.

As for my Countess, she excelled herself. She danced with as much fire and vivacity as if she were sweeping over the waxed floor of the assembly rooms at Arad. Never have I seen her so amiable, so charming, as she was at that moment. I have seen Hungarian dances at other times, and have always been struck by their quaintness, but nobody ever showed me how much there was really in them as that good-for-nothing rascal showed me then.

First of all he paced majestically round with his partner, as if this were the proudest moment of his life, gazing haughtily down upon her from over his shoulder; then he would shout down the music when at its loudest—and it was pretty loud too—and emerge from the midst of the throng after his partner, she all the time swaying modestly backwards and forwards before him, like a butterfly which touches every flower but lights on none; and, indeed, I am only speaking the truth when I say that her feet never seemed to touch the earth. The fellow, foppishly enough, would keep bending towards her as if he were about to embrace her on the spot, and then would stop short, stamping with one foot and flinging back his head haughtily, alluring the enchanting little fairy hither and thither after him. Sometimes he would rush right up to her as if about to cast himself upon her bosom, and then, with a sudden twirl, would be far away from her again, and only the glances of their eyes showed that they were partners. Presently, as if in high dudgeon, he would turn away from his partner, plant himself right in front of the gipsy musicians, and prance furiously up and down before them, and after thus dancing away his anger, suddenly patter back to the Countess, and seize and whirl her round and round as if he were a hurricane and she a leaping flame.

During this spacious pastime I was constantly agonized by the thought that perhaps this mad rogue in his excitement might permit himself some unbecoming demonstration towards the Countess. The temptation you know was great. The Countess was entirely in his power, the fellow was a gallows-bird, with the noose half round his neck already; an extra misdeed or two, more or less, could do him no further harm. I was firmly resolved that if he insulted the Countess by the least familiarity, I would make a rush for the piled-up muskets, seize one of them, and shoot the villainous trifler dead. I affirm on my honour that this I was firmly resolved to do.

But there was no necessity for it. The dancers finished the three dances, the robber-chief politely conducted his partner back to her place, and respectfully kissed her hand, after thanking her heartily for her kindness; and with that he approached me, and amicably tapping me on the shoulder, inquired—

"Well, old chap, can't you dance?"

Fancy calling me old chap.

"Thank you," I said, "I cannot."

"More's the pity;" and back he went to the Countess.

"I beg your ladyship's pardon," he began, "for not being sufficiently prepared for the reception of such distinguished guests, but I hope you will indulgently accept what we have to offer you; it is not much, but it is good."

So he meant to give us not only the ball, but the supper after it.

And a splendid banquet it was, I must say. A large caldron full of stewed calf's flesh was produced, put upon the long table, and we all took our places round it. Of plates and dishes there was no trace. Every one used his own claws, by which I mean to say that, with a hunk of bread in one hand, and a clasp-knife in the other, we fished up our marrow-bones from the caldron itself.

As for my Countess, she fell to as if she had been starving for three days. The robber-chief fished up for her, with his brass-studded clasp-knife, the reddest morsels of flesh (they literally swam in pepper), and piled them up on her white roll. It was something splendid, I can tell you.

Suddenly it occurred to the rascal that I was not eating.

"Fall to, old chap," said he. "Stolen goods make the fattest dishes, you know."

Nice company, eh?

"Thank you, I can't eat it; it is too much peppered," I said.

"All right; so much the more for us."

The wine, naturally, was sent round in the flask; not a glass was to be seen. Józsi Fekete, as is the way with boors, first drank from the flask himself, and then, having wiped the mouth of it with his wide shirt-sleeve, presented it to the Countess. And, bless my heart, she took it, and drank out of it. An amazing woman, really!

Then the flippant rogue turned to me, and offered me a drink.

"Come, drink away, old chap," he said (why always harp upon my grey hairs), "for of course you are going to make a night of it."

"Thank you, I cannot drink. I'm a teetotaler," I said.

I was now thoroughly convinced that they were going to drink themselves mad drunk preparatory to knocking our brains out. And, indeed, they did drink a cask of wine between the five of them, yet when they rose from the table not one of them so much as staggered.

While they were treating the gipsies, the robber-chief approached me again.

"Well, old chap" (devil take him with his old chap!), "so you neither eat, nor drink, nor dance, eh? How, then, do you amuse yourself? Do you play cards?"

And with that he produced a pack from his pocket. So he wanted to find out how much money I had in my pocket, eh?

"I know no game at cards."

"Well, I'll pretty soon teach you one. It is quite easy. Look, now! I put one card here and another card there. You lay upon this, and I lay upon that, and whichever of us draws a court card of the corresponding suit takes the stake."

The rascal was actually teaching me Landsknecht, and I was obliged to pretend to learn from him.

What could I do? I was obliged to sit down and play with him. I had in my pocket a lot of coppers. I thought I might as well risk them, so I put them on the table.

"What! We don't play for browns here! We are not bumpkins. Here's the bank!" and with that he flung upon the table a whole heap of silver florins and gold ducats.

I also had a few small silver coins in my purse, and, with much fear and trembling, I placed one of them on the first card. He dealt out, and I won the stake. The rascal paid up. Not for the world would I have taken up the money, I left it where it was. A second and a third time I won. Again I did not gather my stakes. The fourth, fifth, sixth time, every time, in fact, fortune smiled on me. I began to perspire. It is a frightful situation when a man plays cards with a scoundrel and wins his money continually. The seventh stake also was mine. By this time a whole army of silver coins stood before me. A cold sweat began to trickle down my temples. Why couldn't I be as lucky as this at Presburg, at the club, during the session of the Diet? Again I staked the whole lot, inwardly praying that I might lose it all. In vain, for the eighth time I won. I was a doomed man, there could be no doubt about it. The rascal smiled, and said: "Well, old chap, you cannot very well be in love with the pretty Countess, for you win at cards so shamefully." The rascal even dared to chaff me. I trembled in every limb when the ninth deal began. Yes, sure enough, again it fell to my share. The robber struck the table with his fist, and laughed aloud. "Well, old chap," he cried, "if you go on winning like this I shall lose the whole county of Bihar in an hour's time," and with that he pocketed what money remained and rose from the table. I took my courage in both hands and ventured to offer him the money I had won. The fellow looked me up and down as haughtily as a Hidalgo. "What do you take me for?" said he; "pick up your winnings at once or I'll pitch you and them out of doors." Good heavens! what was I to do with all this money? money enough to be murdered for, and I had no doubt they would beat me to death for it presently. I took it all and gave it to the gipsy musicians. And only after I had done it did I reflect what a foolish thing it was to do. For how could I more clearly have betrayed the fact that I was indeed a man of unlimited means?

The silly gipsies thereupon gathered round me and insisted upon playing me an air. What was my favourite air, they asked? I got out of it by referring them to the Countess. I told them to play her favourite air, and she would accompany it with her voice.

The Countess certainly did not require much pressing. She began to sing with her delightful siren voice—

"Summer and winter, the puszta[10] is my dwelling,"

[10] The Hungarian heath.

and so sweetly, so enchantingly did she sing, that I quite forgot my surroundings and fancied I was in a private box at the Budapest casino. I actually began to applaud.

The robber-chief also applauded. And now he said he would teach the Countess his favourite song. And then the madcap rascal roared out some rustic melody which certainly I had never heard before.

"Well, old chap," he said, when he had finished, "it is now your turn to sing us something."

I was in a terrible pother. I sing? I sing in that hour of mortal anguish? I, who didn't know a single note except "Home, Sweet Home."

"I can't sing at all," I said. And that wicked, frivolous woman began laughing at me frightfully, as involuntarily I fell a-humming an air from some opera. I may mention I have a horrible hoarse sort of voice, not unlike a peacock's.

"If you won't sing," she said to me in French, "we shall all be insulted, see if we don't."

What could I do? With the dart of terror in my heart, and the pressure of mortal fear in my throat, I piped forth my "Home, Sweet Home." I felt all along I was making a woeful mess of it. Up to the middle of the song the Countess behaved with great decorum; but just as I was working my way up to the most pathetic part, and brought out a most cruel flourish, she burst out laughing, and the whole band of robbers began to laugh with her, till at last I also was obliged to smile, though, oddly enough, there was no joke in it at all, as far as I could see.

Then they fell to dancing again. The Countess was indefatigable. And so it went on till broad daylight. When the sun shone through the windows she said to the robber how obliged she was for the entertainment, but enough was as good as a feast, and would he, therefore, put to the horses and let us be off?

Well, now at last we shall all be knocked on the head straightway, I thought.

The robber went out, hunted up the coachman and the lackey, gave the necessary orders, and came back to say the carriage was awaiting us.

No doubt they meant to shoot us down on the road.

I got into the carriage far more alarmed than I was when I got out of it. It was a suspicious circumstance that he did not separate me from my companion. Evidently they intended to make sure of us and murder us all together.

The rascal himself took horse, galloped along by the side of our carriage, and conducted us to the turnpike-road, so as to put us on our way. Then he raised his cap, wished us a merry evening, and galloped back again.

Only when we came to Zerind did I venture to believe that I was alive. Only then did I begin to reproach the Countess for involving us in an adventure which might have ended miserably enough. Suppose, I said, these rascals had not been afraid of me? Why, then they might have practised all sorts of sottises upon her. And then to dance with vagabonds in a csárdá till dawn of day! Unpardonable!

All the way to Arad I was indulging myself with the hope that if I was very civil to the Countess she would not give me away by revealing the secret of this disreputable adventure. At six o'clock we reached Arad, and as we dismounted at the door of the reception-room, she told three of my acquaintances what had befallen us. Of course every one speedily knew of our misadventure. So I was not even able to tell the story my own way.

And, again, she was the loveliest woman at the ball. And she knew it, and that was one of the chief reasons why she came. It is true she did not dance a step. She excused herself by saying she was tired to death. I can well believe it. From midnight to dawn she had danced nineteen csárdáses. Why, I, who hadn't danced at all, could hardly stand on my legs.

As for me, I hastened to the card-room. Now that fortune has embraced you, hug her tight, I thought to myself. At one table they were playing Landsknecht. "Now's your time—make a plunge," I said to myself. But I had the most cursed luck. I lost a thousand florins straight off. Fortune evidently only pursues you when she sees that you are afraid of her.

Six months later I came across a newspaper in which was an account of the summary conviction and execution, by hanging, of the famous robber-chief, Józsi.

I took the newspaper to the Countess Stephen Repey, and showed it to her.

"Fancy," she said, when she had read the case through, "and such a good dancer as he was, too."

III
THE SHERIFF OF CASCHAU—A FRAGMENT OF AN OLD CHRONICLE[11]

[11] The idea of this story was subsequently expanded into the novel "Pretty Michal."

It happened the same year that, in the place of old Tobias Kesmarki, the hundred electors of the city of Caschau, to wit, forty-five Hungarians, forty Germans, and fifteen Wends, after due deliberation and by common consent, elected as Sheriff his Honour Michael Dóronczius, as being a man of understanding and blameless life, and respected by all men.

The hundred burgesses, having so done, went forth in solemn procession, headed by their Honours the Fürmenders[12] and the Conrector, to the burial-ground outside the gates, where the whole ground was thickly strewn with straw, it being Water Cross Day,[13] when it is sore cold, and the feet of men grow numb in the very council chamber.

[12] Guardians of the orphans and poor.

[13] The Feast of the Epiphany.

But it was the custom that the newly elected Sheriff should always be dug into his office in the churchyard, where humanity is least of all disturbed by official cares, nay, where, rather, the bulging tombs all around bid him remember that righteousness and good deeds alone abide upon the earth, while all else turns to dust.

Wherefore, with no accompaniment of music, the Sheriff elect and the retiring Sheriff, accompanied by the town councillors, proceed to the churchyard to perform this ceremony, standing within the gate of the churchyard, there to await the masters of the City Guilds coming with their salutations.

All of them came in procession to meet the Sheriff elect, with the badges of their respective Guilds. One by one they salute the new Sheriff, but none of them give him gifts; they do but show them to him, and then take them back again, to signify that he hath first to deserve these same gifts before he receive them.

First of all the millers approach him and exhibit to him a fine white loaf of well-winnowed wheat, and say—

"We will nourish thee with fine white loaves after this sort, if thou wilt be a faithful Sheriff unto us."

Then the vintners, who in those days were a rich and goodly Guild, address him in like manner, and exhibit to him a cask of red wine.

In like manner the weavers, the furriers, and the cobblers all allured the new Sheriff with the hope of receiving of their masterpieces, to wit, beautiful white pieces of cloth, rich cambric, shaggy furs, and bravely embroidered shoes, if so be he remain faithful to their city to the end of his term.

Last of all come the carpenters, who exhibit to the new Sheriff a brand-new waggon, to which horses are harnessed, filled with smoothly planed boards.

And when the master of the Guild of Carpenters stands before the Sheriff, he thus addresses him—

"Behold, now, we have piled up this brave heap of hornbeams that we may burn thee therewith if thou do betray us."

It was usual to say this on the occasion of the election of a Sheriff in the city of Caschau, and nobody was offended thereby. For in those sad times we were often forced to defend our cities with fire and steel against foes of three different nations, whilst as a fourth enemy we reckoned the numerous freebooters, who had turned Turks after once being Christians, and prowled in the environs of the city at night, to snap up any women and children who might fall in their way and sell them to the Turks. And our fifth enemy were the malefactors lurking in the town itself; and our sixth enemy was the terrible pestilence which so often visited our gates; while our seventh and most ancient adversary was the infernal Evil One himself, from whom Heaven in its mercy defend us. Thus in those days the Sheriff had to defend the city against seven divers sorts of enemies, and see to it that they were all kept well outside the gates, wherefore he had to sustain many sieges, guard the walls day and night, cudgel in fist, persecute evildoers, or threaten them with the terrible hárum palzarum,[14] fumigate or steep in lye all goods brought into the city by foreign chapmen, avert religious strife, frustrate the wiles of Satan, always endeavouring to judge righteous judgments, neither for the sake of lucre nor because of any interior impulse pronouncing any sentence which might call to Heaven for vengeance or make Hell applaud.