Part 62 (1/2)
Lorand put the letter down before him and laid his fist heavily upon it.
”Must I know what is in that letter?
”Suppose she writes that she loves me, and awaits happiness from me, that her love can outbalance a whole lost world, that she is ready to follow me across the sea, beyond the mocking sneers of acquaintances, and to disappear with me among the hosts of forgotten figures!
”No. I shall not break open this letter.
”My last step shall not be hesitating.
”And if what seems such a chance meeting is nought but a well planned revenge? If they have all along been agreed and have only come here together that they may force me to confess that I am humiliated, that I beg for happiness, for love, that I am afraid of death because I am in love with the smiling faces of life; and when I have confessed that, they will laugh in my face, and will leave me to the contempt of the whole world, of my own self....
”Let them marry each other!”
Lorand took the beautiful note and locked it up in the drawer of his table, unopened, unread.
His last thought must be that perhaps he had been loved, and that last thought would be lightened by the uncertainty: only ”perhaps.”
And now to prepare for that journey.
It was Lorand's wont to carry two good pistols on a journey. These he carefully loaded afresh, then hid them in his own traveling trunk.
He left his servant to pack in the trunk as much linen as would be enough for two weeks, for they were going to journey farther.
Topandy had two carriages ready, his traveling coach and a wagon.
When the carriages drove up, Lorand put on his traveling cloak, lit his pipe and went down into the courtyard.
Czipra was arranging all matters in the carriages, the trunks were bound on tightly and the wine-case with its twenty-four bottles of choice wine, packed away in a sure place.
”You are a good girl after all, Czipra,” said Lorand, tenderly patting the girl's back.
”After all?”
Was he really so devoted to that pipe that he could not take it from his mouth for one single moment?
Yet she had perhaps deserved a farewell kiss.
”Sit with my uncle in the coach, Pepi,” said Lorand to the dandy, ”with me you might risk your life. I might turn you over into the ditch somewhere and break your neck. And it would be a pity for such a promising youth.”
Lorand sprang up onto the seat and took the reins in his hands.
”Well, adieu, Czipra!”--The coach went first, the wagon following.
Czipra stood at the street-door and gazed from there at the disappearing youth, as long as she could see him, resting her head sadly against the doorpost.
But he did not glance back once.
He was going at a gallop towards his doom.