Part 8 (1/2)

”Dummer kerl!”[10]

[Footnote 10: ”Stupid fellow!”]

I remember well, that was the first t.i.tle of respect I received from him.

Planting his knuckles on the top of my head, he performed a tattoo with the same all over my head.

That is called, in slang, ”holz-birn.”[11] By this process of ”knuckling” the larger boys showed their contempt for the smaller, and it belongs to that kind of teasing which no self-respecting boy ever would allow to pa.s.s unchallenged. And before this girl, too!

[Footnote 11: Literally ”Wild-pear” (_wood-pear_) a method of ”knuckling” down the younger boys.]

Henrik was taller than I, by a head, but I did not mind. I grasped him by the waist, and grappled with him. He wished to drag me in the direction of my bed, in order to throw me on to it, but with a quick movement I cast him on his own bed, and holding his two hands tight on his chest, cried to him:

”Pick up the bun immediately!”

Henrik kicked and snarled for a moment, then began to laugh, and to my astonishment begged me, in student tongue, to release him: ”We should be good friends.” I released him, we shook hands, and the fellow became quite lively.

What astonished me most was that, at the time I was throwing her brother, f.a.n.n.y did not come to his aid nor tear out my eyes, she merely laughed, and screamed her approval. She seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself.

After this we all three looked for the fragments of Henrik's broken bun, which the good fellow with an expression of contentment dispatched on its natural way; then f.a.n.n.y produced a couple of secreted apples which she had ”sneaked” for him. I found it remarkable beyond words that this impertinent child's thoughts ran in the same direction as my own.

From that hour Henrik and I were always fast friends; we are so to this day. When we got into bed I was curious as to the dreams I should have in the strange house. There is a widely-spread belief that what one dreams the first night in a new house will in reality come to pa.s.s.

I dreamed of the little snub-nose.

She was an angel with wings, beautiful dappled wings, such as I had read of not long since in the legend of Vorosmarty.[12] All around me she fluttered: but I could not move, my feet were so heavy, albeit there was something from which I ought to escape, until she seized my hand and then I could run so lightly that I did not touch the earth even with the tips of my feet.

[Footnote 12: A great Hungarian poet who lived and died in the early part of this century. He wrote legends and made a remarkable translation of some of Shakespeare's works.]

How I worried over that dream! A snub-nosed angel-- What mocking dreams a man has, to be sure.

The next day we were early astir; to me it seemed all the earlier, as the window of our little room looked out on to the narrow courtyard, where the day dawned so slowly, but Marton, the princ.i.p.al a.s.sistant, was told off to brawl at the schoolboy's door, when breakfast was being prepared:

”Surgendum disciple!”

I could not think what kind of an a.s.sault it was, that awoke me from my dream, when first I heard the clamorous clarion call. But Henrik jumped to his feet at once, and roused me from my bed, explaining, half in student language, half by gesture, that we should go down now to the bakery to see how the buns and cakes were baked. There was no need to dress; we might go in our night clothes, as the bakers wear quite similar costumes. I was curious, and easily persuaded to do anything; we put on our slippers and went down together to the bakery.

It was an agreeable place; from afar it betrayed itself by that sweet confectionery smell, which makes a man imagine that if he breathes it in long enough he will satisfy his hunger therewith. Everything in the whole place was as white as snow; everything so clean; great bins full of flour; huge vessels full of swelling dough, from which six white-dressed, white-ap.r.o.ned a.s.sistants were forming every conceivable kind of cake and bun; piled upon the shelves of the gigantic white oven the first supply was gradually baking, filling the whole room with a most agreeable odor.

Master Marton, when he caught sight of me, began to welcome me in a kind of broken Hungarian ”Jo reggelt jo reggelt!”[13]

[Footnote 13: Good morning.]

He had a curious knack of putting the whole of his scalp into motion whenever he moved his eyebrows up or down; a comical peculiarity of which he availed himself whenever he wished to make anyone laugh, and saw that his words did not have the desired effect.

Henrik set to work and competed with the baker's a.s.sistants; he was clever at making dainty little t.i.tbits of cakes quite as clever as anyone there; and pleasure beamed on his face when the old a.s.sistant praised his efforts.

”You see,” Marton said to me, ”what a ready a.s.sistant he would make! In two years he might be free. But the old man is determined he shall learn and study; he wants to make a councillor of him.” With these words Marton, by a movement of his eyebrows, sent the whole of the skin on his head to form a bunch on the crown, for all the world as if it had been a wig on springs.

”Councillor, indeed! a councillor who gnaws pens when he is hungry!

Thanks; not if they gave me the tower of St. Michael. A councillor, who, with paper in hand and pen behind ear, goes to visit the bakers in turn, and weighs their loaves in the balance to see if they are correct weight.”

It seemed that Marton did not take into consideration any other duties that a councillor might have besides the examining of bakers'