A Bride of the Plains

In the meanwhile, in the barn time had been flying along on the wings of enjoyment. Ever since six o'clock, when vespers were well over and the gipsies had struck up the first c...

Inside the barn the guttering candles were burning low. No one thought of blowing them out, so they were just left to smoke and to smoulder, and to help render the atmosphere ev...

Andor with a sigh of heartbroken disappointment now turned to go into the inn. He had the key in his hand which my lord the young count had given him with a careless laugh and a...

To-day was the vigil of St. Michael and All Angels, there would be vespers at half-past four, and the bride and bridegroom should certainly find the time to go to church for hal...

And time slipped by with murmurings of words that have no meaning save for one pair of ears. Andor talked fondly and foolishly, and Elsa mostly was silent. She had loved this wa...

"It seems to be pretty well known about the place. You seemed to have been talking about it pretty freely that you were going to Fiume to meet your brother when the ship he is o...

Stranger, if you should ever be driving on the main road between Szeged and Arad, tell your driver to pull up at the village of Marosfalva; its one broad street runs inland at r...

"I came to see if Béla was still here," said Andor, as soon as the door had closed on Leopold Hirsch. "One or two chaps whom I met awhile ago told me that he had not been seen i...

But what of Elsa during this time? What of the sorrow, the alternating hope and despair of those weary, weary months? She did not say much, she hardly ever cried, but even her m...

The little village inn kept by Ignácz Goldstein was not more squalid, not more dark and stuffy, than are the village inns of most countries in Europe. Klara did her best to keep...

But now it is all over, the final bar of the csárdás has been played, the last measure trodden. From the railway station far away the sharp clang of a bell has announced the dol...

He belonged to the ancient family of Rákosy, who had owned property on both banks of the Maros for the past eight centuries, and Feri Rákosy, the twentieth-century representativ...

A week went by after the funeral before Elsa saw Andor again. She had not purposely avoided him, any more than she had avoided everyone else: but unlike most girls of her class...

And now there he was, as of old, sitting, as was his wont, on the corner of the table, his two strong hands firmly grasping Elsa's wrists. She held him a little at arm's length,...

The bunda was very heavy. Elsa dragged it over her knee, and sat down on a low stool in the open doorway. She had pulled the table a little closer, and on it were her scissors,...

But the daily routine of everyday life went on at Marosfalva just as it had done before the double tragedy of St. Michael's E'en had darkened the pages of its simple history.

Pater Bonifácius' kindliness, his gentle philosophy and unquestioning faith exercised a soothing influence over Elsa's spirits. The one moment of rebellion against Fate and agai...

The girl thus roughly apostrophized turned slowly round. She seemed neither hurt nor even surprised at the young man's exhibition of temper. In her blue eyes there was a strange...

Kapus Irma went out after supper to hold a final consultation with the more influential matrons of Marosfalva over the arrangements for to-morrow's feast. Old Kapus had been put...

And now the shadows of evening were slowly invading the plains. The autumn wind, lulled for a time to rest with the setting of the sun, had sprung up in angry gusts, lashing up...

How Klara Goldstein spent that terrible night she never fully realized. After half an hour or so she dragged herself up from the floor. Full consciousness had returned to her, a...

They had reached the small cottage where old Kapus and his wife and Elsa lived. It stood at the furthest end of the village, away from the main road, and the cool meadows beside...

He turned back quietly into the room, and went to sit at his usual place, across the corner of the table. Elsa, mechanically, absently, as one whose mind and soul and heart are...

It was now close on eight o'clock and more than two hours ago since first the dawn broke over that low-lying horizon line which seems so far away, and tinged the vast immensity...

And so in Marosfalva there was no wedding on the festival day of S. Michael and All Angels; instead of that, on the day following, there was a solemn Mass for the dead in the sm...

An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone...

She waited for a moment with her ear glued to the front door until the last echo of the men's footsteps had completely died away in the distance, then she ran to the table. The...

He could not see Elsa till she was quite close to him, and even then he could only vaguely distinguish the quaint contour of her wide-sleeved shift and of her voluminous pettico...

By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could hav...

Pater Bonifácius had placed his kindly hand on the girl's hunched-up shoulders, and there was something in his touch which seemed to soothe the wild paroxysm of her grief. She r...

Elsa stood for a moment quite still there in the dark, with the silence of the night and all its sweet sounds encompassing her, and the scent of withered flowers and slowly-dyin...

By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstei...