Eyes Like the Sea — 13 - Chapter 12, part 1
THE MEETING AT THE PAGAN ALTAR
After Telepi had gone back, a deep melancholy took possession of me.
My wife was ill, and I had never even dreamt of the possibility of such a thing.
What if she were to die without being able to exchange a last adieu?
She wants to set me free, she says; but how?
She cannot tell me.
She cannot tell anybody.
Why should she have any secrets from me?
Ah!
that green-eyed monster is a bad guide to the imagination.
A celebrated actress can so readily find protectors.
Perhaps they are men in authority, who hold life and death in their hands.
Oh, eternal darkness, do not deprive me of the light of my reason!
Suppose I were to gain readmittance into the world at such a price as that!
This condition of mind was becoming absolutely unendurable.
Sometimes the desire seized me to rush out of the forest, knock at the door of the first Commandant I came to, and give up my name: "I am that notorious rebel--take my head, I'll pay the price!"
But my given word, my word of honour, held me back.
Ah!
a man's word of honour must be kept, even though it be only given to his wife.
I had promised to go nowhere.
But surely the forest is nowhere, and that Precipice Stone is, indeed, the most out-of-the-way nowhere in the whole world.
Thither no man ever goes.
Thither at least I am free to go.
My first, not very successful, picture of the great panorama I had sent to my wife.
I would now have another try at it.
One fine autumn morning I again took up my lead-loaded stick, and said to my dear good hostess that she was not to expect me home to dinner that day, as I was going to scramble up to the Pagan Altar and sketch there.
The gentry call this rocky pinnacle the Pagan Altar; the peasants call it the Precipice Stone.
"But don't stay long," said Mrs. Csányi; "suppose your dearest were to arrive in the meantime?"
My dearest!
As if she thought of seeking me out!
They only put me off with promises, just as they tell a sick child that he shall have a rocking-horse when he gets well.
It was exactly seven weeks since she had left me.
What an endless time!
I made my way at once towards the linden spring, and thence up the forest hill-side by the often-trodden familiar path.
The nuts came showering down; the frost had already tweaked the Cornelian cherries.
I
crammed my knapsack full of both: I shall have a luxurious banquet to-day.
I also found a large coral-coloured mushroom; roasted in embers, it would make a tit-bit worthy of a gourmet.
It was about ten o'clock when I got up to the Pagan Altar.
When I went out upon the rocky ledge, a truly wondrous scene spread itself out before me; it was quite certain that _I_ should never be able to paint it.
The whole kingdom was under the sea!
The autumn mist, like a snow-cloud, covered the whole landscape to the very horizon, from which towered vast snowy peaks and snowy cupolas; in other places the misty mantle resembled frozen waves, out of which here and there rose round, blackish islands, the peaks of the higher mountains.
It was a faithful image of reality: nothingness.
There was nothing left now.
I could calculate pretty surely on the mist descending at midday, and painting field and forest with frost; but till then I could sketch nothing.
So I lay down upon the rocky ledge, and marvelled at this motionless, huge, white winding-sheet which covered a whole realm.
I had no thought of eating now.
I hung up my knapsack with my bread and bacon on a spruce-fir tree, and when I had looked my fill of wonder at the sea of mist, I watched the itinerant ants who, following their regular road, crept right over my body, never troubling themselves very much about the circumstance that a giant, like a mountain range, lay right across their path.
At this height not even the thrush's whistle broke the stillness.
The sun shone down.
Not a breeze was stirring.
My head was resting on a large green mossy stone; I felt like dropping off to sleep.
All at once, as if I really were dreaming, from somewhere not very far off a song rang out:-- "Lo!
on the mountain top A valiant man doth stand, And on his trusty weapon rests His stalwart good right hand."
It was a man's voice, and I seemed to recognise it.
My first feeling was joy.
I was about to meet some old acquaintance in that vast wilderness.
It only occurred to me afterwards that this would be contrary to my compact.
I was to meet no man who could possibly recognise me.
But it was too late to avoid him now.
Only one single path led up to the summit of the Precipice Stone, whether one came from Tordona or from Malyinka, and my songster was evidently coming from the latter place.
The next verse of the song sounded very much nearer:-- "Lo!
on his _kalpag_[69] see A blood-red nodding plume;
A mantle black surrounds his neck, His wild eye lowers with gloom."
[Footnote 69: The tall fur hat, generally plumed, which forms part of the Hungarian national costume.
] And now I heard a woman's voice also.
Some one was telling the singer not to sing while climbing.
So there was a pair of them!
And as the singer gradually mounted higher and higher, his figure also became visible from behind the rocky ledge.
"Presumptuous mortal, quake and fear When thou his awful name dost hear: Diavolo, Diavolo, Diavolo!"
Yet nobody quaked so much as Fra Diavolo himself, when he perceived a human shape stretched before him on the ground as he scaled the very summit of the rocky ledge.
And certainly I was not a very reassuring spectacle, as, with my sheepskin cap pressed closely to my head, and a large cudgel in my fist, I slowly rose from my knees.
I recognised him before he recognised me.
"Your servant, Bálványossi!
Why, how did you manage to get here, where not even the bird that flies can come?"
Then his terror was turned into joy.
"Ah, ha!
my poet-friend!
What a divine encounter here in Heaven above!"
With that he hastened up to me and we embraced.
By this time his lady companion had also got the better of the rocky zig-zag which led up to the mountain ledge.
It was now the turn of my own heart to stop beating.
That female shape was Bessy--the sea-eyed beauty!
How came they two to be together?
How came they to be both here at the same time?
But it was no vision.
The fair lady recognised me instantly.
Her face, red already from her mountain scramble, could be no redder at the sight of me, nor could her bosom heave more than it was heaving now; but on her face there was a sort of holding-back expression.
Friend Valentine perceived the look of amazed inquiry on my face, and turning with true histrionic humour towards his lady-companion, introduced her to me with the words, "My grandmother!"
At this witticism the lady laughed, and I had sufficient self-control not to reply to this introduction with a single word.
"Then come to my bosom, my son, for I am thy grandfather."
"It is very strange we should meet here," I put in.
But my friend's features suddenly darkened as if he were obeying a stage direction like, "here he suddenly assumes a grave face."
"First of all, my dear friend," said he, "I demand your word of honour not to reveal to any one in the created world that you have seen me.
You know that I am now Tihamér Rengetegi till the old blonde hair grow again (what I'm wearing now is a wig); for a heavy price is fixed upon my head.
A word, and I am lost.
Your _parole_ that you'll say nothing about me?"
"The promise must be mutual, then," I replied.
"I just as solemnly require you to say not a word to anybody about me, for I also am in hiding here."
At this he began to laugh.
It was a stage laugh, for he placed his hand on his stomach, crooked his back, and turned upon his heel, choking with laughter.
"And you also are hiding away here from the Germans!
Well, that _is_ a joke!"
I inquired somewhat brusquely what there was to laugh at.
"Why, at your hiding--hiding away from the Imperialists.
You, of all people!
Why, don't you know, then, that very many deputies defended themselves before the court-martials by declaring themselves former contributors to your _Esti Lap_?
[70] Why, every one knows that you were the organ of the peace party at Debreczin.
Every one is well aware that you were the ally of the Imperialists."
[Footnote 70: _Evening News_.
] At this I at once flew into a rage.
"Have you ever seen the _Esti Lap_?"
"No, I've not actually _seen_ it, but it was the general opinion among us soldiers that you were higgling with the Imperialists."
At this Bessy intervened by giving a good tug at her friend's collar.
"Rubbish!
Such rumours are only circulated by pot-house heroes like yourself.
He certainly was no traitor!
Would that all who open their mouths so loudly were as good patriots?"
My friend, with sheepish obsequiousness, hastened to readjust his opinion to the satisfaction of his "grandmother."
"Good, good!
I never believed a word of it myself--why should I?"
said he.
"The best proof that I am not what calumny would make me is the fact of my meeting you here at the Pagan Altar; and again I beg of you to tell nobody that we have met."
Here Bessy again intervened.
"I'll answer for that.
I shall now be constantly at the side of this honest gentleman, and if his tongue begins to wag, my hand will be ready to stop it for him."
Mr. Valentine laughed.
"What a woman it is!
She really has a most rapid hand.
Not a day passes but she lets me feel the weight of her palm."
At this I made a very critical face.
My good friend could read very well from it that I wished to know by what right his cheeks were allowed to feel the force of Bessy's rosy palms day by day.
"We met together in camp, and the field-chaplain blessed our union to the roaring of guns and the beating of drums."
That was right enough, surely!
Bessy's eyes were raised towards me as if she could add a great deal to this short history.
Friend Valentine thought it good to become loudly enthusiastic.
"What a woman, my friend!
A heroine!
A perfect Jeanne d'Arc!
We were bound together by a whole chain of wonders and exploits.
She was not my consort--nay!
she was much more, my companion in arms.
I'll tell you the whole thing one of these days."
"That will do...."
"What?
That will do?
Are you, then, so poor-spirited?
_I_ am ready to meet the spectres of the darkness face to face.
I'll set in motion the avalanche which shall wrench the world from its hinges."
I left him to set his avalanche in motion while I went to gather dry twigs and leaves and make a heap of them.
Meanwhile Valentine declaimed to the clouds.
"What a spectacle!
The whole realm a sea!
We stand alone, like the co-operating Demiurges at the creation, in the face of chaos."
"Have you got your troupe together?"
I inquired, thus bringing him down at once from his pedestal.
"My troupe?
That's just what I am going about now.
Brutus must play the fool until his day has come.
But when once the hour of retribution arrives, we will rise as one man and win back our outraged liberties."
"With my bludgeon, I suppose?"
"Oh, not with that sort of thing," said friend Valentine, with haughty condescension.
"I have no secret to hide from you.
An American hero of freedom has invented a weapon which, placed in the hand of a simple citizen, will give him an irresistible advantage over the hireling soldiery.
Its English name is 'revolver.'
I have one by me.
Thanks to my acquaintances beyond the ocean, I have managed to provide myself with it.
Look here!"
With that he produced from his side pocket a pistol, the like of which I had never seen before.
It was the Colt revolver, for discharging five shots.
You loaded it in front, and with this object in view, you had to shove out the cartridge cylinder and sprinkle powder out of the powder-flask in every loop-hole; at the end of the bullet was a nail, which had to be made firm with a cork-stopper, then the bullet had to be driven into the barrel by means of a hammer and ramrod, then the cartridge cylinder had to be fastened down again into its place, and pyramids of priming powder piled on the top of it--while the enemy was supposed to be looking on all the time and watching good-naturedly to see what would come of it all.
Friend Valentine had immense confidence in his wondrous firearm.
"You can see that I am prepared for every conceivable emergency.
My faith, I will sell my life dearly!
I may tell _you_, for you will not betray me.
Beneath this Pagan Altar is a cave, the existence of which is known only to the initiated.
I have selected it for my hiding-place.
When the chase against me begins, and a whole brigade of gendarmes marches out to seize me, I will creep into this cave; victuals and brandy for a whole week are already there for me; let them riot round me then as they like."
I could not help laughing at these wise precautions.
But friend Valentine's explanations became still more fiery.
"My friend!
a single narrow little path leads to this cave.
The bears used possibly to resort thither in the days when bears camped in the beech districts.
If they attempt to storm me there, I can defend myself with this revolver against a whole host."
All this time I had been employed in piling up a nice little heap of dry twigs and leaves, which I now set on fire with my flint and steel.
Friend Valentine caught me nervously by the hand.
"What are you doing, my friend?"
"Lighting a fire, my friend."
"Why, my friend?"
"To cook bacon with, my friend."
"They will see the blaze of our fire from below."
"How _can_ they see when the mist is so thick there?"
He admitted that I was right, and allowed me to ignite my heap, which immediately began to crackle merrily.
Meanwhile, friend Valentine went and stood on the edge of the Precipice Stone to watch the mist, and from time to time informed me of the changes of scene that were going on: now the mists were beginning to break, now they were rising, the houses would be visible almost immediately.
And all the time I was toasting slices of bread by the fire, and after that slices of bacon, allowing the bacon fat to drip gradually down and soak through the toast with a deftness that would have done honour to a professional cook.
Bessy took it into her head to follow my example.
"Give me the bread and bacon out of the knapsack," said she to Valentine.
"But what necessity for it is there now?"
"I must have it at once."
And with that she went up to him and began rummaging in the knapsack.
"Why, what a prosaic nature is yours!"
said Valentine reproachfully to the lady.
"At such a sublime moment, too, in the presence of such a glorious spectacle!
Just look at that magnificent scene!
The whole of the cloud of mist is rising like a stage curtain.
The gigantic theatre appears like magic from behind the hanging cloudy tapestries.
Behold the sunlit heights, the white shimmering houses.
And now a fresh mountain-chain emerges crowned with dim forests.
Just as if they were of massive gold...."
"Give me the bacon, I say."
"My heart, my blood is thine, but ask me not for bacon!
Look how the earth rises up before us; nothing but mountains, mountains, mountains!
Still nothing to be seen of the dome of Heaven!
And that deep divine calm around us!
Only from the distant forge resounds the measured thud of the sledge hammer, as though one heard the throbbing of the heart of the universe!
And does not thine own heart beat faster in this sublime place?"
"It throbs, it throbs!
Right sorely does it throb!
But we'll look at the august spectacle a little later."
"What!
Not look when an instant like this is worth a world?"
The natural phenomenon before us really was very fine, as the whole misty cloud rose swiftly from the mountains, covering with a deep shadow the sky that up to that moment had been shining bright and blue before us, and at the same time unfolding before us the muffled panorama of hill behind hill beneath our feet; the solar rays, like the broad diverging spokes of a huge wheel, shot down from the cloudy rifts with a milky sort of glare.
It would really have been a majestic scene but for the false, disturbing pathos of friend Valentine.
"Nay, nay!
I cannot view it standing on my feet!
Here one should go down upon one's knees.
Here the gods themselves walk abroad!"
Valentine plumped down upon his knees, and because Bessy would not follow his example, he wound his arm around her and clasped her to his breast.
She, however, was impatient at his insipid vapourings.
"You are just like that professor," said she, "who held up his oil-lamp against the moon that his guests might see her better."
"Elizabeth!"
sighed the Celadon bitterly (Bessy was a name which could not be emphasized with sighs so well as Elizabeth), "dost thou not remember that solemn moment when we said to one another, 'How sweet it would be to die together this instant'?
Has not our common friend said (here he looked at me), 'A good death is better than a bad life'?
Come, let us verify that saying: wrapped in each other's embrace, heart throbbing responsive to heart, a dizziness, a plunge forward from this rock, and then a delicious flight whose goal will be the stars!"
"Go away with you!
Don't make a fool of yourself!
I have no wish to plunge into Heaven!"
"But I'll bear thee thither with me like a Valkyrian.
And thou, my friend, wilt immortalize our final catastrophe in a heroic ballad."
And with that he seized the lady by the arm, and rushed with her upon the steep rocky ledge.
"Hast thou said thy prayers to-day, Desdemona?"
Bessy looked towards me with a timid look.
I pretended to observe nothing.
What had I to do with these amorous passages?
I was frizzling bacon.
"Dost thou doubt me capable of dying with thee at this moment?"
cried Valentine Bálványossi, with his wig awry over his eyes.
Then the lady cried with a supplicating voice: "Nay; but help me, dear Maurice!"
"Very well, I _will_ help you," thought I; "I did it once before, so you say.
Poets have long arms."
"Friend Valentine," said I, without rising from my squatting position beside the frizzling bacon, "don't you see those two men with muskets coming up this way along the mountain path?"
"Wha-a-at, two m-m-men with mus-us-kets?"
said the hero, his rumbling bass-baritone voice suddenly dwindling into a piping treble.
"Where are they?"
All his longing for death had instantly vanished, and he immediately released his victim from his embrace.
I indicated the approaching strangers with my toasting-fork.
"There!"
Then he also saw them.
"Br-r-rother, those are gend-end-end-armes!"
"Possibly they _are_ gend-end-armes, for there are two of them."
"Put out the fire at once!"
"I would if I could, but I can't now.
And if I did, what good would that do?
They have seen it already."
"I told you not to make a fire here."
But now Bessy turned furiously upon him.
"It is your stagey spouting that has saddled us with them.
What business had you to go declaiming on the mountain tops?
The people fancy you are murdering some one."
"They are coming straight towards us," gasped friend Valentine.
"If they get hold of me, I am lost."
I tried to reassure him: "Come, come!
recollect there are two of us;
with my loaded cudgel and your revolver we shall offer a stubborn resistance."
"Br-r-other, they have guns which hit at four hundred yards, while my revolver has only a range of thirty, and it doesn't always hit the mark even then.
We cannot risk so much.
It is quite another thing when I am in the dark cave, and they are out in the light, for then I can see them, but they can't see me."
"Then you'll hide away in your cave, I suppose?"
"Oh, not for my own life's sake, but for the sake of my country, whose fate I carry in my bosom.
The heels of my boots are full of secret despatches from England and Turkey.
I am not free to stake everything so lightly."
"Well, go and hide yourself, by all means!"
But then Bessy put in a word: "'Tis all very well, but what's to become of me.
I cannot crawl on all fours into your big bear-garden."
"Nor would I allow it.
Is not our common friend here?
He will remain here.
_You_ will not run away, will you?
I am sure they don't know you.
Your portrait has appeared nowhere, but mine has gone from hand to hand.
A full description of my personal appearance flutters at every street corner.
If they come, say that it was you who kicked up that row; say that she is your wife."
"I won't say that."
"Then do what you like.
I rely upon you, mind!"
"That's all very well," cried Bessy peevishly, "but what will happen afterwards?
If you remain in your hole, and our good friend goes home, what am I to do all alone here by myself on the top of a rock?
I shall never find my way home through this wood."
Then my friend, with cheap generosity, made this magnanimous offer:-- "Dear friend, take her home with you."
So that was to be the _dénouement_ of this odd drama!
