The town in black

By Mikszáth Kálmán

Kálmán Mikszáth (1847-1910), generally held to be the leading Hungarian novelist of the late 19th-century, is still widely read today. Writer, journalist, and politician, he was a master story teller with a sound psychological insight and a taste for irony, which he applied to his beautifully crafted stories and novels. His main achievement was the portrayal of the decaying gentry whose tenuous grip on power he treated with a mixture of sharp-witted satire, amazement, often compassion. The Town in Black, his last novel published after his death in 1911, lays before the reader a world split into the village gentry and the town bourgeoisie, the former possessing rank but lacking money, the latter in possession of money, but lacking rank. A heady mix of unforgettable characters, social criticism and politics intricately interwoven with a love story, The Town in Black makes for enjoyable and entertaining reading.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Corvina Kiadó
• Release date: Nov 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9789631359145

Book preview

Kálmán Mikszát

---

Corvina

Mikszáth Kálmán

The town in black

Corvina Kiadó Kft.

www.corvinakiado.hu

ISBN: 978-963-13-5914-5

Created: eKönyv Magyarország Kft.

Chapter One

Sundry preliminaries and details knowledge of which is imperative

A renowned alispán of Szepes County was Pál Görgey in Thököly’s time. It was a wicked, uncertain world. On Monday the labancwould be masters, while on Wednesday thekurucgave the orders ¹ . One had to walk on eggshells, and a false step cost a man his head. It was, however, true that at the time men’s heads were cheaper than eggs. All the same, power is power, and people’s attitude to it is the same as that of the morphine addict: they want ever greater doses. For when all is said and done, power is merciless only upwards, and downwards always merciful.

Pál Görgey was quite a wealthy man, and his family had been in positions of corresponding importance in the Szepes region; now, however, they were not what they had been under the Árpáds of old, God rest them, even if He did visit their country with eternal unrest.

Ah, time went by and by, and the Görgeys slipped a little lower. Their first ancestor Arnold and his sons had borne the office of Count of the Saxons and had been the greatest of oligarchs on the Polish marches. This Arnold had enticed the Saxons into the unpopulated Szepes region, but one could not treat the Transylvanian Saxons in the way that the Pied Piper of Hamelin did. Those Saxons were clever and the sound of the pipe had no effect on them; they required promises and privileges, and they got them. Indeed, the king, His Majesty Béla IV ² , granted a little land to Arnold himself, too, an area between the Dunajec and the silky waters of the Poprád, because the Árpáds were bountiful kings and measured land not by the cadastral acre but from river to river. Arnold’s sons likewise were men of valour, especially Count Jordán. László IV ³ endowed them with the village of Görgő, from which they derived their name.

As lords of huge tracts of land they played first violin in Szepes. A whole line of countssprang from them, and for many generations they occupied the alispán’s seat ⁴ . God alone knows, however, in what way the earth turned (perhaps on a sword-point), but suffice it to say that as time passed they became poorer and poorer and new dynasties rose above them. Along came the mighty families of Csák, Zápolya and Thurzó, and at the time in question the Csákys, who upstaged them and pushed them ever farther down in matters of glory and importance. The Dunajec and the Poprád flowed on where they always had done, but the lands between them were no longer theirs, and what remained here and there were trifles; the family tree had, as it were, reached the end of its life, and no longer produced leaders and statesmen but at the most mere alispáns and szolgabírós ⁵ , and although the septuagenarian Gipsy woman of Késmárk told Mihály Görgey that the family tree was just as hale and hearty as ever; it was living through a time of winter and repose, to be sure, which would last two hundred years, after which it would begin again to put forth a new branch which would spread into all the family trees of seventy-seven lands.

Our hero Pál Görgey now belonged only among the so-called wealthy common nobility together with the Berzeviczkys, Jekelfalussys, Máriássys and Darvases, but his sister Katalin was married to a Darvas at Osgyán in Gömör County ⁶ . I mention the nexus ⁷ rather than the two or three thousand acres that belonged to the fort-like Görgő farmhouse with its bastions because the measure of a gentleman was his nexus, not the estate. In those days it was just as easy to acquire a large estate with a great nexus as it is these days, when I write, to acquire a great nexus with a large estate. The true-blue aristocrats such as the Balassas and Csákys have had their ups and downs, sometimes having five or six castles in their possession, sometimes nothing but the clothes in which they hid in dark forests, seeking refuge in woodsmen’s hovels and thatched cottages; but this is, so to speak, nothing of consequence, a little sport, and they pay it scant attention. The king takes away and the king gives back, because nexus is what counts; if one member of a family puts bad wood on the fire, a second or a third is meanwhile sure to be rubbing against the royal mantle, and gradually everything comes to order.

There was therefore nothing remarkable about the shrinking of the Görgey estates, or even their having nothing, but the harm came from their falling from the ranks of the dynastic families. Why and how this arose is not worth dwelling on. There was at the time a formula for happiness: Fight well and marry well. Well, they probably married badly, because the annals show that they fought well enough. Later they went astray in other ways: they picked the wrong king in the days of János Szapolyai and Ferdinand ⁸ , and then chose the wrong God by accepting the teachings of Luther.

Of all the Görgeys, however, it was Pál that had inherited most from his ancestors; little of their estates, of course, but all of their haughtiness. He was a big, burly man, and from his piercing grey eyes there issued such a chill that there might have been two balls of ice beneath his bushy eyebrows. He had a coarse, ruddy face, but when he spoke at the County Assembly a sharp mind gleamed from it and it looked handsome. Beneath his nose hung a heavy moustache, but he no longer sported a beard that by this time consisted of sparse red hairs, while his forehead bulged prominently and the wrinkles on it gave rise to expectations of cunning and harshness. His lips he kept, for the most part, tightly compressed; no smile played about them, though they often quivered with rage. That face was, as it were, a landscape on which the sun never shone and was only occasionally illumined by lightning.

So large was his head that he had to have his hats specially made by János Kammleitner, the celebrated hatter of Lőcse; there was, however, a good brain in that head. He could do as he pleased with the noble County. Although he was only forty-two, he had been elected alispán three times, always unanimously. He set great store by that unanimity, because after every election he concluded the proceedings with the daring statement:

My noble brethren! If there is so much as one among you that does not wish me to be alispán, let him speak, and I will not accept the office, so help me God!

Of course, a regular silence of the grave followed. The noble brethren certainly would not have spoken out, but everyone secretly wished that his neighbour would jump at the chance. That was, however, considered a death-leap. Pál Görgey himself probably took it quite seriously as a sign of popularity, as did those present, at the same time reasoning within themselves: I can do without him, actually, but the rest like him, so I’d be silly to take that leap.

Popularity! A remarkable little item. It is the one commodity the semblance of which is worth as much as the reality. Indeed, perhaps more, because if a man is considered popular it can take him a long way in public life even if he is deeply hated. On the other hand it leads to nothing if one is loved but does not appear so. Realities are surely rocks of granite, but the greatest careers are nevertheless built on appearances.

Frankly, Pál Görgey was universally disliked, but the attribute of loved and respected had become so encrusted on his person that no one dared to chip it off. He was considered ruthless, vain, ill-tempered, suspicious and conceited, not to mention lazy. These bad qualities were, however, in part only appearance. His ruthlessness and so-called bullying could be traced back to his tendency to sudden outbursts of passion. At such times he was quite beside himself, but when he had cooled down he recovered his composure and regretted what he had done, and at times would make amends.

Once, it is said, he was taken ill during an Assembly at Lőcse ⁹ ; he caught a chill, and his orderly, András Plasznyik, fed him quinine day and night, but he shook terribly with cold and no medicine was of any use; after lying there for some days in his lodging in County Hall he sent his hussar to Görgő to ask his housekeeper, Mrs Marják, to send his flannel vest. The hussar brought it, but as he was putting it on he noticed that the top button was missing, at which he fell into a wild rage, leapt out of bed, flung on his clothes, rushed outside, mounted the hussar’s horse tethered there, and galloped off.

What on earth? exclaimed the gentlemen of the County in astonishment.

For the love of God, what’s Your Honour up to? gasped the orderly in terror, as he met him.

Got to go home for a moment, he replied hoarsely, his eyes gleaming wildly, to box my housekeeper’s ears.

He galloped for half-an-hour down the old twisting road to Görgő, during which time his rage ran out of steam, and on arrival he turned round nice and quietly, having lost his chill through the great outburst of temper.

So well did he know himself in that respect that he kept the stocks, whipping-post, fetters and other implements of justice locked in a closet, and after each occasion of use one of the ostlers had to take the key to a lofty branch of the poplar that grew in the courtyard and tie it on with string. Then when it was needed the alispán would take his gun and fire at the key until it clattered down. That afforded him some entertainment, and as it sometimes took him an hour to hit the key — his hands trembled so in his rage — he usually did so only when he had become calmer, and therefore took a calmer and cooler view of the malfeasance that he intended to punish and excused himself in the majority of cases from carrying out whimsical sentences.

No doubt he endeavoured to act justly, and so was not a wicked man. No, no, Görgey was merely an embittered sort, whom blows rendered nervous. It was no good his being the brains of the County if he could not do three things: forget, eat and sleep. What would he not have given for a good, sound sleep! He had the entire race of cockerels removed from the vicinity of the mansion, those of neighbouring peasants, too, and the cowherd that sounded his horn at dawn received twenty-five lashes. It was not advisable to disturb his postprandial nap in particular, as many found out, because sleep in the afternoon is sweet. Night-time sleep is God-given, but that in the afternoon one steals from the County if one is a County official. That is why it is so precious.

Every living being had to walk past his windows on tiptoe, and when he rose from lunch (an event marked by the discharge of a cannon on the ramparts) the nearby mill had to cease grinding because the noise would have disturbed him. Everyone took care to make not a sound; well might not creak, chain might not rattle, mortar might not be pounded, because His Worship was taking a nap. Singing and loud conversation were forbidden. Even old Mihály Apró, the gardener, if imperative necessity caused him to pass the windows, retained sufficient of his little wits to take off his hobnailed boots of Muscovy leather and in winter to put on felt boots, while in summer he would go barefoot through the danger-area.

On one occasion it happened that Apró’s grandson came to visit during the school holidays. They doted on the dear boy, who was becoming quite a gentleman because his father, a confectioner of Késmárk, was having him trained for the priesthood because of his delicate constitution. The poor, worthy elderly couple lavished upon him every attention, even warming the chair he was to sit on, and lo and behold! they left him to his own devices for perhaps no more than a minute or two, and what happened? (Oh God, oh God, these children will always find something that they’re not allowed to do.) The boy found a harmonica on top of some cupboard, took it and went outside with it into the shady courtyard, sat down under the linden right beside the alispán’s bedroom window and merrily began to play the doleful old song:

Buda, oh Buda, who would believe

How many bold Magyars for you did bleed?

This had gone on for no more than a minute, if that, before the people in the courtyard ran over to warn him. Mrs Apró (by then a shuffling little woman) simply flew, her clean, starched skirts crackling and rustling, and snatched the harmonica from his hand.

Hush, you wretch! Come away at once!

She tugged at him, covering him with protective affection and her apron, and led him off by the shortest route, because she could hear the window opening (Oh, my Lord and Creator!) and a sharp, commanding voice grumbled:

Right, what’s going on?

No answer came, only a rustling of bushes and shrubs that faded into the distance.

With eyes bloodshot and starting from his face he rushed out into the courtyard, which Apró by long tending had made as lovely as a fairy garden. He had planted magnificent bushes among the tall trees and was at the time depicting in splendid flowers the armorial achievements of the County of Szepes, which consisted of a combination of those of the Thurzós, Berzevickys and Draveczkys, with the unicorn of the Korotnoky family. On Sundays peasants used to come from distant parts to gaze on the wonder, because they attributed it not to Apró’s skill but to the very soil, which had put forth of itself the arms of Szepes County in coloured flowers as a sign that royal rank was now about to come to a man of Szepes.

(We had certainly come close, but it was all over by then. Thököly and his wife were in exile far away in the East ¹⁰ .)

The servants were just taking the plants for the fine coat of arms from their pots when Pál Görgey appeared on the porch.

Bring that harmonica player here, he bellowed. Take him alive or dead, but do it at once.

He ground his teeth in his rage. He had ugly yellow teeth, which showed him to be progressive. (Progressive was what people were called at the time who had learned from the Turks and adopted the manly delights of smoking.)

The servants looked at one another, rigid with fear, and old Apró turned white as chalk, while Mrs Marják began scrubbing the waffle-iron with some kind of white powder.

Who was it? he demanded grimly.

No one answered, although everyone knew; the servants were fond of the Aprós and remained silent for their sake.

Mrs Marják, you must have seen.

No, I didn’t, answered Mrs Marják recklessly, may I be bent like this. (She had the good sense in the meantime to keep her fingers straight.)

Well, you’re all leading me a fine dance, Görgey raged. Do none of you know?

Again, no reply.

Don’t even you know, Preszton? (That was the hajdú’s name.)

No, Your Worship, sir.

Nor you either, Mátyás? (This to the coachman.)

Nor I, he croaked in a stifled voice.

Very well then, very well, you’re very decent people, and he ground his teeth with a blood-curdling laugh (he was at his most merciless when he played the nice man), "but if you don’t produce the harmonica-player within half an hour Ill have the lot of you thrashed. Dixi ¹¹ ."

With that he withdrew into the mansion with dreadful mutterings, and could be heard slamming doors and kicking the dogs which went everywhere and lay in the rooms. Their pitiful howls could be heard outside and made one’s hair stand on end.

Great was the disquiet in the courtyard, and the servants whispered together, discussing what they were to do, should they hand over the schoolboy or not, and his old grandmother, Mrs Apró, wrung her hands: she would never live through the day, she would rather go and jump down the well than let her grandson suffer punishment. (My God, my God, what would my poor daughter have to say about it?)

On hearing the boy’s grandmother weep and wail, old Apró too lost his head and, being no man of action, ran to his room to find not his head but his rosary. As a good Catholic he began to tell his beads in case it helped, and only Mrs Marják put her hands on her hips.

Well, I won’t let that poor delicate boy be misused for the sake of any pagan! Never fear, my boy, I’ll protect you. (She stroked the schoolboy’s head, as he trembled at her side.) Go into the kitchen and I’ll lock you in. Not even Father Herkó will go in there as long as I’m in charge. You just go in there and sit quietly until it all blows over. You’ll find a little cheese tart and a goose-leg in the pantry. Now, I’ll be off and I’m taking the key with me. You just put your mind at rest, Mrs Apró!

Mrs Marják went round the garden and from there by a little gate went straight to the pasture, where the Gipsies from the village were making mud-bricks. The oldest Gipsy was Peti, a rascally individual from his youth. Mrs Marják caught sight of him and persuaded him with honeyed words to take the blame for the harmonica. After much bargaining he agreed and allowed himself, in return for a four-week old piglet and two white loaves, to be taken to the master’s door.

The servants loitering in the courtyard and Mrs Apró realised how crafty Mrs Marják had been (she was not just a handsome head of hair), and welcomed Peti the rescuer with great affection, and with all manner of reassurances and spiritual encouragement helped to usher him into the presence of His Honour, and only the two-faced Preszton disconcerted him by whispering in his ear: I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, Gipsy.

It seemed that now he himself was not feeling too happy about the affair, and certain signs indicated that he would have liked to escape, but Mrs Marják took a firm grip on his collar, marched up to the door of the study and with a grand gesture, so to speak, tossed him in.

Here’s the culprit, Your Honour, she exclaimed eagerly.

The alispán, who was quietly smoking his chibouk, sprawled on a couch covered with a bearskin, gave him a long, tired look.

Ah! he said indifferently, and yawned. You play the harmonica nicely, Petyuskó! Mrs Marják, give him a Rhenish forint and four ells of cloth.

Numerous similar incidents could be quoted to demonstrate that it was hard to fathom Pál Görgey. He was inscrutability itself. Whatever he did, however, was never held against him. An unusual good fortune danced in his path and held up such distorting mirrors before his misdeeds that they seemed almost becoming. Another would long ago have been killed, but he was defended. Leave the poor man alone. You have to understand people. That great spirit of his. He’s still upset about his wife. He’s in mourning, and you mustn’t judge a man at such a time. Irascible, sour, harsh, it just goes to show what a great heart he has.

Some, however, whispered (audiatur et altera pars ¹² ) something to the effect that time had by then purged the great grief from his heart and left his bad qualities, and that he was not the cold ascetic that he showed himself publicly to be, and that when evening spread its cloak over the mansion of Görgő shadows were often to be seen flickering over the walls and the rustle of skirts heard in the deserted corridors.

Those that knew Pál Görgey better did not believe it, he was not that sort of person, but those that knew the young peasant wives of Görgő better than they knew him had no doubts, because the young married women of Görgő were famous far and wide for their beauty and their coquetry alike, and certainly the majority of the men bit the dust in contest with the King of Késmárk.

These scandals about the wild man that took wing aroused well-merited annoyance in the closer confines of the Görgey family, with its Puritan morals, and it was only the easy-going János Görgey, Pál’s much older brother, that passed them off with a joke:

I don’t really believe it, but if he does so, it’s no crime. It’s ten years now since poor Karolina died. He’s not made of wood, you know, and if he were, he’s no headboard on some grave. And in any case, in ten years even that will decay. And when all’s said and done, whose business is it? One adds to one’s peasantry as best one may.

His wife, Mária Jánoki, gave János a resounding thump on the back for those words, but with that the question of her brother-in-law was wiped off the slate, and with her he was like the rest of the family, because János was the family oracle; he might not be as clever as his brother Pál, but he was a good kinsman, a great kuruc, and at heart as pure as freshly-fallen snow.

Well, yes, Pál Görgey had been widowed those ten years and had since then become a wild man. So he was called in the family. Old János used to say to him straight out: You’ve jumped out of the Görgey coat of arms, brother. (The arms of the Görgey family bore a wild man, perhaps in token of their clearing of forest land.)

Previously he had been a merry, calm, loveable person, but that death had left his nerves in shreds. It is said that even then deep down in his heart there was much goodness and feeling, but since the loss of his wife he had become so immersed in grief that he could seldom break out of it. That was when he had become irritable, flighty, despotic, in a word, a wild man, and then he was censured for it, but now people censured him for not continuing to be a wild man. Is the world not mad?

As for the deceased lady, she was indeed to be lamented. We lay in the ground a true pearl, were the opening words of the eulogy spoken by Sámuel Podolinczi, who himself burst into tears at the funeral though he would have had cause to curse, too.

If Karolina Jekelfalussy had been renowned far and wide for her beauty as a girl, what of her as a young bride! We read in the Porubszky chronicle that by the age of seventeen she had received ninety-six proposals, and her proud father György Jekelfalussy would on no account give her in marriage to Kristóf Máriássy (although he struck him, as he did his daughter, as a dashing and wealthy suitor) until she had received the round hundred. And so Kristóf Máriássy took it upon himself craftily to persuade a number of his good friends to make spurious proposals so that the old man’s whim should be accommodated. Thus along went Pál Görgey with his big head, just for a joke, and goodness! what came of it but that they fell passionately in love with one another; there was not another thought of Máriássy (the fair sex are all the same), the wedding took place and that was that. Imre Thököly himself opened the dancing with the lovely bride and became so intoxicated that he actually embraced her two or three times, to the evident displeasure of the bridegroom.

Well now, what’s the matter? What are you grumbling at, Görgey? smiled the prince at the wedding breakfast. "She’s mine more than yours. If I’m King ¹³ of Upper Hungary (he had just received the title from the Sultan), who is the Queen of Upper Hungary?"

His words appeared to be a joke, but must have contained a grain of seriousness too. Even during the honeymoon he turned up in Görgő once or twice, incognito, with a single horseman as escort, like any ordinary rider. That annoyed Görgey and when on one occasion he was in Késmárk with a deputation Thököly pleasantly informed his wife that he was going to Görgő in the next few days for a nice little holiday he reddened and growled in reply:

We shall not be at home in the next few days.

Thököly frowned. Mihály Bereviczky tugged at Görgey’s dolman-like black coat with tactless goodwill and begged him in an undertone:

"Look after your head, young man, per amorem dei. ¹⁴ "

To which the young man replied with a haughty, dismissive gesture:

That is His Highness, so let His Highness look after it, but my wife is mine, and I’ll look after her.

Thököly was pleased at the reply and burst out laughing.

If you’re no longer prepared to be my host, be my guest instead.

And he detained him for lunch, which was no small honour in the eyes of the gentlemen of the deputation. After that Thököly never again came to Görgő. Was that because he harboured a grudge? God alone knows. Perhaps it was simply that he no longer had the time.

The ray of sunlight that shone most brightly on his career at that time soon faded. That was because it was a bad ray, shining not from the heavens but from the eyes of the Sultan, and the Sultan often closed his eyes when he should not have done, or when the shadow of anger appeared in them. In a word, the glorious struggles came to an end. Thököly became a man of no account, musing on his memories somewhere in Turkey. In Hungary the bad old days returned. A couple of dull, gloomy years followed. Only in the Görgő mansion did happiness and satisfaction rule. Karolina became a delightful young woman, good enough to eat. Pál Görgey could not have required another thing to make a perfect Paradise. Even the timidity which had previously gnawed at him vanished from his heart. Who could steal his Karolina from him? Who would dare, when even Thököly had not dared?

But a greater lord even than Thököly was already on the way to take her: death. In 1689 the lovely wife of Pál Görgey gave birth to a girl and closed her eyes for ever after asking in a weak, failing voice for the new-born child to be given to her and saying that she should be christened Rozália.

Pál Görgey’s despair surpassed anything imaginable. He roared, tore his clothes, tried to lash out and bite like a wild beast. His conduct at the funeral was spoken of for years. When the priest, the Reverend Sámuel Podolinczi, came to conduct the obsequies he flew into a terrible rage.

Who is that man? he shrieked. What does he want here? I won’t let him take Karolina away! No, no. Get out of here!

For God’s sake, dear fellow, have some sense, Darvas tried to quieten him. Aren’t you ashamed to treat the servant of the Lord in that fashion?

What? Servant of the Lord, I’ve got a little score to settle with your master. Don’t let him go, he bawled in a fevered paroxysm. I just need to keep his servant here if I can’t get my hands on Himself, who has taken away my darling. So this is your servant, is he, you merciless God? And he raised his hands menacingly to Heaven. Very well. Hey you, men, Preszton, Szlimicska, give him twenty-four lashes this minute. (Pál Görgey was still a szolgabíróin those days.)

The assembled mourners were shocked and their hair stood on end at the dreadful outbursts, but the priest calmly raised his eyes to Heaven: Forgive him, Lord, for it is his pain that cries out, while the kinsfolk were ashamed but could not bring him to his senses; finally, in order that the service could proceed, three strong men, János Görgey, Kristóf Jekelfalussy and Dávid Horánszky, with great difficulty took Pál by force and locked him in the cellar, and thus the lovely lady was buried in the absence of her husband.

Chapter Two

Suspicion

The power of a circumspect Providence may surely be recognised in the smallest affairs, and now too it so contrived that at the same time the wife of János Görgey, Mária Jánoki, had given birth to a little girl, who had received the name of Borbála, and was by then six weeks old. The worthy lady, as her milk was sufficient, decided that she would take to herself this second baby also and suckle it herself. She could not simply abandon her, motherless, to a servant. The people of the time were ignorant, and did not believe that blue blood could be formed in a noble child from the white milk of a peasant wet-nurse. So it was that later, as soon as it was possible to have a little talk with her brother-in-law Pál, the infant went off to the mansion at Toporc.

The melancholy father was for weeks not in his right mind, and Mrs Marják worried him constantly that his little daughter could scarcely be adequately fed, but he had not yet been able to visit her when the news arrived that Birike, the daughter of János and his wife, had died. As she had been a late child, rather the runt of the litter (her parents already had grown-up children), her death caused little stir among the family. Such a child was not yet anyone. She was unfamiliar, unknown. She had gone and was there no more. The relations made a great fuss, but as the weather was snowy — it was winter — did not make much of a showing at the funeral because of the bad roads. It was very quietly, although with evident and profound grief, that the parents accompanied their little departed one to the family vault. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred, but then when Pál paid a visit to Toporc at Whitsuntide (it was amazing, the child could even laugh by then) he formed all manner of impressions. He looked for the beloved features of Karolina in the undeveloped little face and failed to find them. He looked at her for hours with that in mind. The child was bonny, sweet, but she was not her. Oh, she was not her. Now and then something gleamed in the little eyes that reminded him of Karolina’s doe-like gaze, but it quickly faded and had perhaps been a figment of his imagination. The little one was plump, as angels are depicted in Catholic churches, dimples played around her mouth, and when she caught sight of János she began to wave her arms as if opening her wings and wanted to go to him, whereas when his sister-in-law put her into her father’s arms she burst into tears: she was afraid of him. So where was the child’s instinct? A strange unease came over him to which he scarcely dared put a name. His head swam, and his thoughts wandered this way and that like calves in a mist. He frowned whenever she cried and János picked her up from the cradle, rocked her and comforted her with all sorts of baby-talk until he had coaxed back her brilliant smile. It was amazing that he was not embarrassed, with his greying hair, to be seen by the young lawyer’s clerks, who clearly laughed at him behind his back: Why, the alispán’s gone mad, he’s turned into a nursemaid.

And even if she were his child Pál continued to weave the multicoloured fabric of imagination as if weaving the jibes of the clerks, but that thought was so much in his head that around it there fluttered, like unwanted flies, all the glimmerings of his roaming mind.

Why was János so fond of the child? Was that natural? Someone else’s child? A grave alispán like him? (Actually, at that time János Görgey was stillsub-alispán.) And then his sister-in-law too worshipped her. And their own dead child was not even mentioned. She was dead, so she was not there, they did not care. Once or twice Pál referred to her, but their faces scarcely clouded. They took it as if a canary had died in the house. János said something to the effect that anyone whose little feet had not yet touched the ground had not yet lived, was still in Heaven, and in any case little Birike had died while still in swaddling clothes — not yet a child in arms — but this one was different: she was a young lady. Aren’t you, my little poppy-seed, you’re a young lady, come on, do a little laugh for your daddy as well.

But Rózsika certainly did not laugh but grumbled and crept round to the back of János’s head; and it is no wonder that that was when the wild man became such, his face dark and sour, his exterior completely neglected, his beard unkempt, hair hanging over his face; it was not only the children that took fright at him but also adults of both sexes.

Young Master György, a smart, ten-year-old Késmárk schoolboy, had hurried home for the Whitsun festivities. Pál spotted him as suitable material for his observations and called to him from a distance:

Do you hear me, schoolboy? So you’ve got a holiday for Whitsun? When do you go to school, I’d like to know. As I see it you’re only the sort of pupil that Pista Sváby is, asking the schoolmasters to let him go home when his mother’s killed a goose.

Uncle Pali, I’m the sort of schoolboy that doesn’t ask for anything, not even holidays.

Ah, I can see you’re a Görgey. What do you want to be?

A soldier, replied György proudly.

Quite so, but soldiers have to be obedient, my lad.

That’s right. I know how to be obedient, but not to ask for things. I come home when I’m let out.

"Really, friend of virtue ¹⁵ , how many times have you been home lately?"

At Christmas, Easter and now.

What about when your little sister died?

I didn’t come home then.

Why was that?

Because I didn’t know she’d died.

What? Didn’t they even write and tell you?

No.

So when did you find out? From whom?

My father told me one day afterwards, when he came to see me in Késmárk.

And was your father very upset, did he look sad?

I suppose so.

What do you mean, couldn’t you see him?

I didn’t look at his face.

And weren’t you sorry about your little sister?

Young György pondered, seeming to extract the truth from himself, because he had been strictly brought up never to speak an untruthful word.

I didn’t know her, he answered eventually and decisively.

But surely you saw her at Christmas.

Yes, but…

So you know what she was like… Think back, come on, try hard, Pál Görgey urged him.

Well, not like anything.

What sort of talk is that? his uncle burst out.

I understand, uncle, that little children aren’t like kittens, which are always tabbies or black or grey, and you can tell which is which. I can only tell which are girls because they wear skirts.

"Go away, you asinus ¹⁶ . Do you mean to say that Borbála looked exactly the same as Rozália? If that was the case, how would your mother have known which was her own?"

Oh, it was easy for her, because she knew what ribbon she’d put on each of them.

That naive conversation did not satisfy Pál Görgey but irritated him somewhat, and when, three days later, he had kissed his little daughter good-bye as she lay, snuffling gently, asleep in her cradle, taken leave of his brother and sister-in-law, and was on the way to Görgő drawn by his four greys, he reflected on that touching gentleness, the kindness, that they had showed him, entertaining him with happy talk and avoiding all topics that might even remotely touch the wounds in his soul, an agonising suspicion took shape within him, grew imperceptibly and then suddenly exploded: what if his Rozália was in fact their Borbála, and it was Rozália that had died?

Oh, God! Was it possible? He drew a sharp breath, and began to question whether it was.

And why should it not be? János was a man of the noblest spirit, the most exemplary brother in the world. He was generous even to strangers, and was known all around as Patronus et pater lutheranorum ¹⁷ . His soft heart inspired him to sublime acts. And Mari was a worthy wife to him. The embodiment of noble poetry. More than a woman, Mari was a saint.

‘So, let’s suppose that Rozália had died,’ reasoned Pál inwardly. ‘János and Mari would be very worried about how I would take it, whether the shock would drive me mad. And as they were discussing how to break it to me, bearing in mind the consequences, either Mari or János thought of a solution, and said to the other something like: Do you know what I’ve thought of, my dear? The child has died but we ought to spare Pál. That tiny soul has gone to her mother, but if he finds out Pál’s soul won’t follow his loved one’s, but will go into eternal darkness and confusion. So lets not tell him that Rozália’s died, we’ll say that it was Borbála. What have we to lose? Our Borbála will still be alive and we can love her, see her, take pleasure in her, nothing will have changed except that she’ll be called Rozália. In fact one day we might be able to tell him, so as to get our daughter back, and he won’t mind, because by then everyone will have got over that sorrow. But consider what he will gain. Everything. Without this he’s lost, accursed, but with it he’ll be saved for life, for public affairs, for the country, he’ll be able to get back on his feet and even be happy. And we’ve got our other two daughters, true, they’re married, but this one too will marry, and don’t forget either that our married daughters’ children will soon learn to walk and will be running about here in the garden; but he, Pál, has nobody.

All this Pál composed in his mind and it was at once clear to him why János and his wife had taken the child’s death so lightly (because she hadn’t been theirs) and furthermore why they so worshipped the one that remained (because older parents are usually more enthusiastic about their children than younger ones), and finally why she did not take after Karolina and why the profound instinct of identity of blood did not show itself in the little one.

This strange suspicion grew and developed in him like a boil; at first it was only uncomfortable, but later it became painful and prevented him sleeping. Two or three weeks later he went to Toporc again and sniffed around with the passionate enthusiasm of a detective, questioned the servants, watched his brother and sister-in-law, dreamed up the craftiest methods of finding out something definite, but the matter became more and more unclear. He had moments when he could explain everything about the other side of the coin. Oh, my God, I’m being silly, these good people make such a fuss of the child in order to heal my wound by this display of affection, and they don’t mention the death of little Borbála so as to keep my spirit from sombre thoughts. They didn’t make a fuss? What do I know about what they felt? The little one doesn’t take after Karolina? Well, does the little apple in embryonic form look like the big apple of last year? And will it not by the end of the summer? No, no, what I’ve been thinking is foolishness.

Oh dear, it was no use trying to escape, those soul-tormenting nightmares slept only for moments as they turned over to their other side and again rose up and tortured him. He tried to bury his own grief in that of others. He went around the villages as szolgabíró, and in his little spare time he hunted, sometimes to the point of exhaustion, but he shot nothing. Meanwhile the desire came over him to open his soul to someone. Perhaps the person to whom he divulged his thoughts would laugh in his face, make fun of him, and as a result he would feel easier. He no longer trusted his own judgement, although he himself, not only others, was very much addicted to it. But precisely because he was a shrewd observer he knew that the cleverest of men will drive himself into a false opinion.

But who could he tell of his suspicion? He thought of Mrs Marják. She was a faithful soul, she had seen little Rozália for three or four days and had helped to bathe her until she had been taken away. Karolina had brought Mrs Marják with her and he felt somehow, by a superstitious instinct, that in this way he would satisfy due form and by a mysterious, inexplicable thread would be speaking of it to Karolina herself.

István Rolly, the clerk of the court, was away one day, and the szolgabíró was lunching alone. He called to her as she busied herself at the sideboard.

I say, Mrs Marják, tell me, who does little Róza take after?

Her mother, of course, who else? she replied straightforwardly. Or perhaps you don’t think so?

I for one can detect no resemblance, continued the szolgabíró with a sigh.

Mrs Marják shrugged.

None, none at all, Görgey complained further. Isn’t that odd?

Odd? Why should it be? If there’s anything odd about it it’s certainly not in that innocent little angel, but in the fact that no two eyes see alike. Is that true or is it not?

Quite right, Mrs Marják, and I wouldn’t even mention it if the circumstance didn’t bother me that one of the two little babies had died. And all the other things.

Other things? I see.

Well, you know, all kinds of silly ideas come into your mind when you suffer from insomnia as I do, and the thought comes to me, under such circumstances, that the little girl might have been exchanged.

Mrs Marják swallowed that idea like a lizard catching a juicy insect. She lived and died for scandal and was happy when she could winkle out some dirt and spread it about, but so innocent and kindly was the face with which Providence had endowed her, so deep, so sincere her eyes, and so artful the way in which she used her wicked tongue that it seemed impossible to find her engaged in scandalmongering or bad faith. Her method was never to make statements but only to ask questions, always to ask questions, and imperceptibly to prime those questions with innuendo.

Is Your Worship saying that she’s been exchanged? (And her mouth remained open in amazement.) Oh, my God, my God, that would mean that our little Róza’s with her mother now. Oh Lord, Holy Father, (she crossed herself in pious fashion) lead us not into temptation! So she’s been exchanged?

Now, I’m not stating a fact, protested Görgey, it just crossed my mind.

Crossed your mind? the housekeeper pondered, and gave a twist to the press that held the napkins. What a fine mind Your Worship has, what a fine mind! Why don’t things like that occur to me, though I hear about so many things that happen?

She mentioned an Osztroluczky boy, who had been exchanged sometime ages ago, and she had also heard of a girl being exchanged, whose name she had forgotten, all she remembered was that she had been the daughter of a Count and her parents had lived in Kassa. Indeed, more and more tales of children being exchanged poured in quick succession from her memory, where they had been stored like assorted items in a jackdaw’s nest.

But those cases all turned out well, she stated. A birthmark provided the solution. The trouble is, if I may say so, that there wasn’t a birthmark the size of a poppy seed on our little saint’s white body. It seems that in years gone by children were born with lots.

Now you’re talking nonsense again!

Talking nonsense? she defended herself with a docile casting down of the eyes. Of course, of course, I’m only the ignorant widow of a poor skinner. How could I say anything clever? Because either it’s true — in which case what do you want to hear from me? I can’t do anything about it — or it’s not true, in which case why does Your Worship say that I’m talking nonsense?

Hoho, Mrs Marják! You’re becoming prickly, said he half in jest, but actually he was pleased that Mrs Marják’s suspicions were becoming aroused.

Really! A fine state of affairs! I’m prickly, I’m cantankerous. Because I don’t say a word, because my heart is much too soft ever to breathe anything bad against the gentry of Toporc.

Come, come! exclaimed Görgey crossly. The way I see things, what has happened has only been done out of goodness.

I suppose so, Mrs Marják seized upon the tactful word. Out of goodness. Oh my God, whatever else? Can there be any greater goodness than parental love? Can there be anything more pious, more pleasing in the sight of God? And are the gentry of Toporc capable of anything other than goodness and perfection? How grateful the child must be that a caring parental hand leads to the paradise of worldly good things. Especially if nothing harms it while it’s alive, if it doesn’t have to be afflicted by war, by violence, by usury. If that’s all there is to say, let’s call her Rozália in future. Who’ll suffer by that? Nobody, but for her it’s good, she’ll inherit Görgő with the mansion, the land, the mills and the forests.

Rubbish! muttered Görgey in an undertone, speaking rather to himself. Even without her my brother’s children would inherit Görgő, because the Darvases have no children.

Mrs Marják was outdone. She withdrew her head between her shoulders and muttered at a wasp that had come in through the window and was buzzing around her.

Shoo, you nasty thing! We can’t hear what we’re saying because of you. This thing is annoying me as well, and I never upset anybody… They’ll inherit even without her, does Your Honour say? That may well be true. Your Honour knows best. I’m saying the wrong thing because I don’t know all there is to know. What could the simple widow of a skinner know? All I know is that I shall like it best if everything goes to the real Rozália. But what am I talking about the real Rozália for, as if she were not the real Rozália? Nothing in this world happens without a cause, everything that happens has its reason, as the Reverend Podolinczi says. Borbála can’t become Rozália without a reason, because one way or another Görgő would go to her in time and she’d be well off, even if nothing better turned up, but would Jekelfalu and Lesznice, the Jekelfalussy estates, automatically go to her? That again only Your Honour knows, you tell me.

She cast her gentle, artless gaze at her master and saw him recoil as if struck by an invisible blow.

Go to Hell! he growled angrily and banged on the table, at which the glasses and plates jumped as the cloth slipped, and Mrs Marják too moved not actually to Hell, but into the kitchen; Hell she left for Görgey.

A new perspective had opened before him. He had not thought of this. This was a new approach. The mind of a nobleman does not work like that. This approach was there, however, and once again Mrs Marják’s sensible mind had found the clue. But could one think János and his wife capable of such underhand behaviour? Certainly not. János Görgey would not become involved in such falsehood out of self-interest. He would, if he could do great good by it. Quite so, but what if that by which he would be doing good would at the same time be to his advantage? Would he reject it merely because it was also advantageous? Perhaps he was not quite such a puritan as that. When it came to it, everyone had an eye to the main chance, and such things happened even in the best of families. He ran in his mind over the rich families of his acquaintance, and how they had acquired their estates. In every case a trifling blemish was certainly to be found. Perhaps even the Emperor himself was not above reproach. There was no shortage of deceit and trickery if one studied the rights of ownership. Acquisitiveness was present in the depths of every stout Hungarian heart and sprang forth when no one would expect it. Pál Görgey would certainly not put his hand in the fire in good faith even for the sake of