Chapter 19

And now Master Vendel's head began to wave very disastrously; his whole appearance was one large, living, fat complaint. It was like that feeling which a man experiences when he knows that there is something the matter with him, something seriously wrong, but cannot exactly tell what it is.

"Hanzli, my lad!" he exclaimed at last, in a very weak voice, after they had exhausted their telegraphic repartee; "Hanzli, tell me what is the matter with you."

Hanzli raised both his shoulders to his ears, extending the palms of his hands outwards, and lifted his eyebrows to the top of his forehead--implying by this gesture that he knew very well what was the matter with him, but was wise enough to keep it to himself.

"Hm!" replied Vendel, and was again silent. He would not force the lad to speak--an excellent policy, if intentional; for when words are not forced, they force themselves. Hanzli by degrees shambled up nearer his master, and after fidgeting about, coughing, and standing on one leg, he suddenly turned round, placed his finger on the side of his nose, and stooping to a level with Vendel's ear, whispered into it:

"Indeed, indeed, master, the misfortune is this, and this alone,--that you have no heir."

"What have I not, Hanzli?"

"That you have no son or daughter."

At these words Vendel's eye opened wide, and he struck the table with a force which sent the four-quart tankard dancing about as if the tartar were in it; then, holding up his enormous face, he began to look out of himself. An entirely new idea seemed to thrill through him, as if he had just been assured that perpetual motion had not yet been discovered, and that he was the man to discover it.

"You are right, Hanzli!" he exclaimed; "I have no son or daughter; and what if I had?"

"Why then, you see, master," said Hanzli, looking behind him at each word, "you see there would be something for the wife to do--somebody to quarrel with, that you might not be always disturbed; and then you could sit all day in the large arm-chair drinking and sleeping, and the children would come and kiss your hand morning and evening, and you could take them on your knee and tell them of the far-famed Rübezahl,[67] and if they made a noise you could scold them yourself; and then, in after years, all the excellent mysteries of the noble art of brewing would devolve on them, and you would leave a renowned progeny after you; and how nice all this would be!"

[Footnote 67: The subject of an old German legend.]

Vendel's pride felt all the weight of this argument: his eye glistened, his clenched fists were raised to his mouth, and he smiled as complacently as a Tyrolian cheese, and sighed so deeply, that it might have been a hurricane on Lichtenstein's estate. This poetical turn was still more imposing than the melancholy one, but it did not last long. Vendel's ideas were forced to descend from their airy regions, for the door opened, and a profane figure entered, carrying the pole of a cart as a staff, and advanced with heavy steps to the farthest end of the long table, where he seated himself on a bench, and grumbling out, in a tone which would have put a bear to shame, "Wine here!" he elbowed himself out of his mantle, and pushed the long pole behind him.

The intruder was a middle-aged man, tall and muscular; his skin was of a dark reddish brown, and shone as if it had been rubbed with oil; his black knotty hair was divided in the middle, and fell in matted clusters on either side; and his beard was spiral, and twisted like a gipsy's farewell.[68]

[Footnote 68: Gipsy's farewell--a byword, because they generally terminate the last notes of their music by various turns and windings of the air.]

He wore a high csalma,[69] in the top of which was stuck a red pipe; and a large brass monogram, the initials of the lord of the domain, was fastened on one side.

[Footnote 69: A kind of toque worn by the peasants in some districts.]

Wine was placed before him, which he swallowed in silence, only now and then grumbling something inarticulately to himself. When he had drunk a few glasses, he took the pipe out of his csalma, and lighting it at the candle, leant upon one elbow and began to smoke. He seemed upon no ceremony, and was evidently no stranger in the house. Hanzli stood before him with his mouth open, and his hands behind his back; and Vendel reclined in his arm-chair, giving full scope to the flights of his imagination.

At last the silent guest, tired of leaning on one elbow, exchanged it for the other, and, nodding condescendingly to Hanzli, he emptied his pipe; and again leaning on his arm, and drawing his mouth fearfully to one side with his fist, exclaimed: "Well, Hanzli deak,[70] have you heard that the French are coming?"

[Footnote 70: Scholar, student.]

"Ah, indeed!" cried Hanzli, starting; "from Turkey?"

Hanzli had studied about two years, and knew something of geography. He could speak a little Hungarian, too, and Moravian, and German--just enough of each to prevent him being sold in any of them (had there been anybody to buy him), and he jumbled all these languages together so strangely, that it would have been difficult to say which one he meant to speak.

"Indeed, I cannot tell that; I do not know where they come from," replied the guest. "But this much is certain, that they all carry their heads under their arms, have eyes in their shoulders, and when they get hold of a man they snap his head off--kakk it goes!"

Hanzli raised his hands to his neck: he thought they had got him already.

"Just so," continued the guest, wiping his bearded chin with the sleeve of his coat. "Then all their generals eat two pounds of iron, every morning, and wash it down with a pint of vitriol."

"By all the saints!" exclaimed Hanzli, opening his mouth and eyes; "have you seen them yet, Andras-gazda?"

"I was at a place where they were talking about them: my godfather's niece has a bridegroom whose brother is serving with the green csako hussars--they have just quartered a troop in the district, and it was he who related it."

At the word 'hussar,' Vendel's attention began to be excited; it was the only word he understood in Hungarian, and it brought to his recollection so much poultry which had been carried off by the kites, and so many barrels of wine which the great bell[71] had paid, and still pays for to the present day.

[Footnote 71: In Hungary, there is a proverb that unpaid debts will be collected by the great bell.]

But it is a bad thing to mention the evil one, for he is sure to be prowling about the garden; and Vendel-gazda had scarcely time to summon to his imagination that human being metamorphosed into the inhuman called a hussar, before the door burst open, as if Sisera's army had arrived, and six moustached figures, each one smarter and more agile than the last, entered with a clash of arms, which would have disturbed the philosophy of any honest peace-loving Bohemian in Christendom; and instead of seating themselves at the table, as any other reasonable Christians would have done, they clinked and rattled about here and there, making jests on the pictures of Cossack feats on the walls, with their pendants of Spring, Summer, and Winter.

One among them was a singularly handsome youth, with raven hair, and eyes which flashed like lightning; his pointed dark moustache was provokingly becoming, and his figure as supple as a young leopard's, but he was certainly the most unreasonable of the party: he gave no rest to man or beast, and was the bane of every honest soul with whom he came in contact. Scarcely had he entered, than he stumbled over Hanzli, who was gaping in solemn wonder at the new-comers, his back bent and his neck stretched forward, as if he were trying to personify the letter S.

"Your servant, nephew!" exclaimed the hussar, thrusting his fingers among the youth's hair, and making it all stand on end; "well, what have you been about since we last met?"

As they had never met in their lives before, this question and the cockatoo _frisure_ so embarrassed Hanzli, that he seized the bottle which stood before Andras-gazda and raised it to his lips, with as little ceremony as if that good man had not been sitting behind it.

"Have you lost your senses?" cried Andras-gazda, seizing the tails of Hanzli's coat.

"Make haste, man!" cried a voice deeper than any bass fiddle; "thunder and storms! make haste, man, and bring something to drink, or else"--and then followed a torrent of oaths, which it would be difficult and highly unbecoming to render into any known language.

The voice proceeded from under the huge moustache of the hussar sergeant, who had seated himself on the bench with an imposing dignity that became his rank.

Hanzli disappeared, but in a few minutes he shuffled back, and placed a brilliantly coloured plate before the sergeant.

"Did I ask for anything to eat, you stork, that you have brought me a plate instead of a glass?"

Hanzli again disappeared, and returned with a glass of foaming beer, which he placed before the hussar, handing him a fork at the same time.

"What the tartar do you take me for?" cried the hussar furiously, "that you should suppose I am going to drink such confounded stuff, as never before entered the mouth of any of my kindred!"

Hanzli's confusion increased at every step, till at last he could not find his own hands.

Oh, the worthy German dragoons! they were much more reasonable guests; they knew how to appreciate the good barley-bree! Then each had his own place, and his own tankard, beside which he would sit half the night singing honest German songs, or treating of Kant's philosophy, till some had fallen asleep on their benches, and others under them!

But the Magyar people have no conception of the ecstatic, or of beer-drinking; and it would be morally impossible to cut German or philosophy out of their nature.

Vendel-gazda had so completely lost all presence of mind, that he actually raised the tankard three times to his lips before he perceived that it was empty. From his earliest childhood he had grown up with the idea that every honest soul should keep clear of hussar soldiery; but he was not quite certain as to whether Mistress Vicza had been educated in the same principles.

Beneath the cupboard, with its head resting on Vendel's slippers, lay his favourite curly-haired, tail-clipped poodle, emitting now a half sneeze in its sleep, and now a snarl, as if in sympathy with its master's feelings.

"Good evening to you, Master Host," exclaimed the mischief-loving hussar, at the same time striking him on the shoulder as familiarly as if he had been one of his own recruits.

Vendel opened his eyes--that is, his eye--as wide as possible; while the hussar, seizing his enormous palm, gave it such a hearty slap that the room echoed with the sound, and then shaking it after the Hungarian fashion till the whole of the fat Colossus trembled like jelly, he sat down on the bench beside him, and thrust his finger and thumb into the open snuff-box, which the good man held in the other hand. In trying to find a place for his feet under the table, he trod so hard on the stump of the sleeping poodle's tail that it actually crackled, sending the poor animal howling most lamentably round the room, while his howls were re-echoed by all the six or eight dogs in the court-yard.

"Come, come, don't make such a noise," said the hussar; "what if I had stood on your nose?" And as the dog returned to its accustomed place at its master's feet, he got hold of its head between his knees and filled its nostrils with snuff; while the poor animal, endeavouring to bite, bark, and sneeze at the same time, exhibited the most ludicrous appearance. Everybody in the room was ready to split with laughter; even Hanzli ventured to grin, and thereby incurred the displeasure of his gracious master, who turned his eye upon him severely, as if to say: "I take the joke from the soldiers, because they are hussars; but you are Hanzli, and you have no business to laugh."

Meanwhile, poor Vendel's nose grew longer and longer. "What a terrible race!" thought he to himself; "they respect neither heaven nor earth, never drink beer, take an honest man's snuff to give it to his dog, and then laugh at the whole affair! Heaven preserve us! what may not come next?"

What indeed!

Mankind has a singular propensity for thrusting his nose wherever he hears laughter or noise; and considering this weakness, what should be more natural than that all the inhabitants of the kitchen should press to the door of the beer-room to hear what was going on, and consequently that Mistress Vicza, with her eyes burning like two coals, should immediately follow in the track of the "linen folk?"

But no sooner did the sparkling eyes, the rosy cheeks, and the elastic figure of Mistress Vicza make its appearance, than the hussar started from his post beside Vendel, and bounded towards the door.

"Ah, sweet one! I have not seen you yet," he exclaimed, proceeding _brevi manu_ to span the small waist of the pretty hostess.

"For shame, sir!" exclaimed Mistress Vicza, extricating herself from the hussar's grasp; and then, running over to her husband, she began to caress and fondle him--drawing his cap over his head, and trying to make room for herself on the bench beside him--though, at the very moment she was kissing the dear old man, her bright eyes glanced slily at the handsome hussar. (_Pro memoria_ to every married man--when his wife kisses up one of his eyes, let him look well after her with the other.)

Our hero, in order to repair his fault, after looking about him and twisting his moustache, turned suddenly towards the group of servants assembled at the door, and seizing the nearest, a plump, rosy-faced little girl, with long plaited hair tied with gay ribbons, he imprinted a hearty kiss on her cheek, on which she screamed so loudly that he started back in alarm, bounding over the tables and chairs in his way.

"I'll settle your wits for you, master, if you can't behave better than that!" cried a deep voice in echo to the scream.

"How now! what is the matter, countryman?" said the hussar, peering into the bold countenance of the hardy peasant.

"'What is the matter?' that girl there is my bride; and I'll soon let you know what the matter is, if you dare to touch her again!"

"Ah! is that the case? who knows but that she would prefer me, after all?" replied the hussar, and, leaping over the table, he once more seized this living organ of sound, who screamed louder than before.

"Storms of Karpath!" shouted Andras, starting up, and kicking the bench from before him; then dashing his cap on the ground, he began tucking up the sleeves of his shirt.

"You want to fight, I suppose?" said the hussar, smiling complacently; "but swords are not made out of scythes, and you had better leave a hussar alone."

"That I shall not, when he touches my bride, were he a dog-faced Tartar! I shall beat him not only out of this, but out of the world too, if he had a thousand souls! I don't care for your sword, Master Hussar;" and loosing the mantle from his neck, the sturdy peasant seized the pole he had brought with him, and held it forth with an arm as knotty as an oak.

"Don't be foolish, now, Andras!" cried the little girl, running over to the pole-gladiator, and endeavouring to pacify him.

"Keep yourself out of the way, Panna," said Andras; "this is no time for trifling; I'll show him who is master here!"

"Why now, Andras, if you are determined to fight, I will get a weapon of your own dimensions," and, laughing gaily, the hussar opened the door and went into the court.

"Bring what you like, the beam of a mill, or an oak-tree, I don't fear you, with six others at your back!" cried the athletic labourer, assuming an offensive and defensive position with his back to the wall.

"Don't be reckoning on us," said the sergeant; "we have nothing to say to you--the lad can stand for himself."

"You will probably part company soon," muttered Andras, waiting with open eyes for the hussar's return.

He appeared at length, with neither a mill-beam nor an oak tree, but a long, slender reed, which he had pulled out of the roof.

"What! do you dare to make a fool of me?" cried Andras furiously.

"Not I," replied the hussar seriously, and stepping up to him, he began shaking the reed before his antagonist's face, who tried in vain to catch it, growing more impatient every instant, as the reed tickled his nose and mouth, and the gay laugh of the hussar rang in his ears, till at last, maddened with fury, he swung violently round and dashed the great cart-pole with such violence before him, that it brought down a shower of lime and mortar from the opposite wall, against which it fell, after causing great havoc on its way--several chairs and tables lay despoiled of arms and legs on the ground, and the two-eared tankard before Vendel-gazda was shivered into a thousand splinters; while Hanzli lay below one of the tables contemplating the scene at full length. What became of the hussar, or how he managed to escape in that critical moment, Heaven only knows; but when Andras looked about him, after this feat of annihilating rage, he found the reed still at his mouth, like a cigar twelve feet long, and the hussar standing opposite to him as before.

A general burst of laughter responded to Andras's gape of astonishment.

"Well, if ever I saw a match for that since I lived at Kiliti!" exclaimed the perplexed peasant, rubbing his eyes.

But what were mine host Vendel's feelings during all this excitement? he who loved peace and quiet, to what had he come at last? Disorder and misrule had taken possession of his house, he heard oaths which made his hair stand on end, his snuff-box was rifled without permission, his poodle's tail trod upon, he himself laughed at, and finally, open war carried on in his presence, and his favourite tankard, which had been esteemed and honoured, and had grown old in his house, was destroyed for ever, never to be used again, even beyond the grave, where he hoped to meet the three wives who had gone before him! It was more than a Bohemian-German brewer, who wore a night-cap, and was married for the fourth time, could be expected to bear.

"Go to your beds, my good folk!" he exclaimed, addressing his household in piteous accents, and rising solemnly from his seat; "let me get away from hence, Viczikam; let my bed be warmed with hot irons, for I am ill, very ill, and perhaps I may die. Alas! I am sick, sick! Vicza, I am dying!"

"For Heaven's sake, what is the matter?" cried his wife in a tone of great alarm, which was echoed by all the servants, who were of course much alarmed also.

"Bring elder-flowers from the attics," cried Mistress Vicza; "get a linseed poultice directly, boil water for the tea, and warm the pans; you, Hanzli, run to the barber's for leeches. Beatrice, lay down the bed immediately, and prepare hot irons--the gazda is sick, very sick; his head burns like an oven, and his hand is as cold as a frozen turnip; make haste--fly! two steps for one!"

The servants dispersed right and left to their various appointments, and some, directed by Mistress Vicza, seized Vendel by the arms and legs, and carried him off, neck and crop, to his bedroom, where they rolled him up in three feather-beds and half-a-dozen pillows, and made him drink a quart of camomile and as much elder-tea; while Mistress Vicza sat beside him with a hand-brush, which she applied unmercifully if he attempted to move hand or foot from under the feather-beds.

This is the village cure for every complaint. The patient is boiled in his own soup, and if he does not suffocate, or die of apoplexy, he is sure to be cured.

Vendel-gazda was at first only shamming ill. He wished to be in peace and quiet, and he wished to be made much of; but Mistress Vicza had fairly outwitted him, and he ended by believing what he had himself invented; he felt that it was either the heat or the cold, but some sort of fever it certainly was. The hot tea which he had drunk, the sack of linseed porridge which had been placed on his stomach, the vesicatorium applied to his soles, the anxious faces about him, the tiptoe tread, the odour of vinegar poured on heated iron to carry off infection, the hands laid on his forehead, the whispered opinions, all gave rise to those peculiar sensations experienced at the beginning of an illness--a sort of congealment in the head, and a swarming sensation throughout the whole system.

"Vicza!" whispered the patient from beneath the feather beds, from which only his nose was seen rising like a main-mast; "Vicza, I am thirsty!"

"The czerjo fu[72] will be here directly, my dear old man, and then you can drink it; meanwhile, you may suck your lips a little."

[Footnote 72: Thousand-sweets, an herb.]

Alas! it was not czerjo-fu tea that Vendel wanted to drink, but he did not dare to say so.

"See, here it is, hot and bitter, for my dear old man! wait, I will pour some into the saucer--now, drink it, and you will be quite well; but take care not to burn your mouth."

"Brrrrrphü!" exclaimed the self-made patient, shuddering, as he took the first mouthful; "this must be poison!"

"Poison indeed! it is excellent physic. I will drink some myself; there now--delightful! it will cure you perfectly--drink now, my old man, drink it, quick! come now, drink it when I tell you."

In short, _nolens volens_, Vendel was obliged to open his mouth, and swallow what is erroneously called a thousand sweets, but is, in truth, a hundred thousand bitters.

It is a well-known fact that strong bitters produce a strong appetite, and this was the case thirty years ago, just as at present.

Vendel-gazda contented himself for some time by sighing deeply, and grimacing with his nose, which was the only part of his body in active condition, till at last, no longer able to control his impatience, he beckoned to Mistress Vicza, and whispered something in a beseeching tone, accompanied by a cannibal expression of countenance.

"You insatiable cormorant!" said Mistress Vicza angrily, "what will you want next?" and, drawing the capacious night-cap over his head, she bade him go to sleep, and left the room.

A deep and heavy sigh burst from poor Vendel's lips.

What the mystic word may or may not have been, has remained a secret to historians. Psychologians and philosophers, however, who are initiated in the sacred mysteries of gastronomy, may explain it in the simple expression, "I am hungry."

Mistress Vicza, however, recommended the sufferer to forget his tortures in sleep.

But Vendel could not sleep. Fearful and strange apparitions rose before his hungry imagination. Now a gigantic mast of Augsburg sausage sailed past, followed by an immeasurable side of bacon; now a host of rosy, smiling Bohemian pampuskas, their preserves squeezing out from every corner, came flying and leaping around him; anon a respectable beer-flask floated gravely by, with its venerable crown of white foam, accompanied by a roasted pig of unusual dimensions; then followed in diverse rotation, the whole system of bakes, stews, and roasts, and all sorts of nameable and nameless hashes, minces, and rich soups, emitting their savoury odours and aromatic flavours.

"Oh, hundredfold unhappy man that I am, not to be able to devour all these!" said the hungry brewer to himself, as swallowing his saliva, he turned to the wall, and tried to say his prayers.

But how could he pray under such circumstances? hungry and thirsty, with the water actually running from his mouth; besides which, the loud voices in the next room scolding, laughing, and fighting, were by no means calculated to inspire devotional feeling.