Part 5 (2/2)

”Now you know what is the meaning of this melancholy house, whose door the ivy enters with the close of a man's life from time to time. You know that the family brings its suicides. .h.i.ther to burial, because elsewhere they have no place. But you know also that in this awful sleeping-room there is s.p.a.ce for only _one_ person more, and the second will find no other resting-place than the grave-ditch!”

With these words grandmother pa.s.sionately thrust us both from her. In terror we fell into each other's arms before her frenzied gaze.

Then, with a shrill cry, she rushed toward us and embraced us both with all the might of a lunatic; wept and gasped, till finally she fainted utterly away.

CHAPTER II

THE GIRL SUBSt.i.tUTE[4]

[Footnote 4: In former days it was the custom for a Magyar and a German family to interchange children, with a view to their learning the two languages perfectly. So f.a.n.n.y Fromm is interchanged with Desiderius aronffy.]

A pleasant old custom was then in fas.h.i.+on in our town: the interchange of children,--perhaps it is in fas.h.i.+on still. In our many-tongued fatherland one town is German-speaking, the other Magyar-speaking, and, being brothers, after all to understand each other was a necessity.

Germans must learn Magyar and Magyars, German. And peace is restored.

So a method of temporarily exchanging children grew up: German parents wrote to Magyar towns, Magyar parents to German towns, to the respective school directors, to ask if there were any pupils who could be interchanged. In this manner one child was given for another, a kind, gentle, womanly thought!

The child left home, father, mother, brother, only to find another home among strangers: another mother, other brothers and sisters, and his absence did not leave a void at home; child replaced child; and if the adopted mother devoted a world of tenderness to the pilgrim, it was with the idea that her own was being thus treated in the far distance; for a mother's love cannot be bought at a price but only gained by love.

It was an inst.i.tution that only a woman's thought could found: so different from that frigid system invented by men which founded nunneries, convents, and closed colleges for the benefit of susceptible young hearts where all memory of family life was permanently wiped out of their minds.

After that unhappy day, which, like the unmovable star, could never go so far into the distance as to be out of sight, grandmother more than once said to us in the presence of mother, that it would not be good for us to remain in this town; we must be sent somewhere else.

Mother long opposed the idea. She did not wish to part from us. Yet the doctors advised the same course. When the spasms seized her, for days we were not allowed to visit her, as it made her condition far worse.

At last she gave her consent, and it was decided that we two should be sent to Pressburg. My brother, who was already too old to be exchanged, went to the home of a Privy Councillor, who was paid for taking him in, and my place was to be taken by a still younger child than myself, by a little German girl, f.a.n.n.y, the daughter of Henry Fromm, baker.

Grandmother was to take us in a carriage--in those days in Hungary we had only heard rumors of steamboats--and to bring the girl subst.i.tute back with her.

For a week the whole household sewed, washed, ironed and packed for us; we were supplied with winter and summer clothing: on the last day provisions were prepared for our journey, as if we had intended to make a voyage to the end of the world, and in the evening we took supper in good time, that we might rise early, as we had to start before daybreak.

That was my first departure from my home. Many a time since then have I had to say adieu to what was dearest to me; many sorrows, more than I could express, have afflicted me: but that first parting caused me the greatest pain of all, as is proved by the fact that after so long an interval I remember it so well. In the solitude of my own chamber, I bade farewell separately to all those little trifles that surrounded me: G.o.d bless the good old clock that hast so oft awakened me. Beautiful raven, whom I taught to speak and to say ”Lorand,” on whom wilt thou play thy sportive tricks? Poor old doggy, maybe thou wilt not be living when I return? Forsooth old Susie herself will say to me, ”I shall never see you again Master Desi.” And till now I always thought I was angry with Susie; but now I remark that it will be hard to leave her.

And my dear mother, the invalid, and grandmother, already so grey-haired!

Thus the bitter strains swept onward along the strings of my soul, from lifeless objects to living, from favorite animals to human acquaintances, and then to those with whom we were bound soul to soul, finally dragging one with them to the presence of the dead and buried. I was sorely troubled by the thought that we were not allowed to enter, even for one moment, that solitary house, round the door of which the ivy was entwining anew. We might have whispered ”G.o.d be with thee! I have come to see thee!” I must leave the place without being able to say to him a single word of love. And perhaps he would know without words.

Perhaps the only joy of that poor soul, who could not lie in a consecrated chamber, who could not find the way to heaven because he had not waited till the guardian angel came for him, was when he saw that his sons love him still.

”Lorand, I cannot sleep, because I have not been able to take my leave of that house beside the stream.”

My brother sighed and turned in his bed.

My whole life long I have been a sound sleeper (what child is not?) but never did it seem such a burden to rise as on the morning of our departure. Two days later a strange child would be sleeping in that bed.

Once more we met together at breakfast, which we had to eat by candle-light as the day had not yet dawned.

Dear mother often rose from her seat to kiss and embrace Lorand, overwhelmed him with caresses, and made him promise to write much; if anything happened to him, he must write and tell it at once, and must always consider that bad news would afflict two hearts at home. She only spoke to me to bid me drink my coffee warm, as the morning air would be chilly.

Grandmother, too, concerned herself entirely with Lorand: they enquired whether he had all he required for the journey, whether he had taken his certificates with him--and a thousand other matters. I was rather surprised than jealous at all this, for as a rule the youngest son gets all the petting.

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