Part 70 (2/2)
So he continued:
”Yes, believe me: the lively scamp was actually jealous of me. He almost killed me--yet we are very true to our memories.”
Desiderius could not comprehend what madness had come over his brother, that he wished to bring him and Melanie together into such a false position. Perhaps it would be good to start the matter at once and interrupt the conversation.
On Madame Balnokhazy's face could be read a certain contemptuous scorn, when she looked at Lorand, as if she would say: ”Well, after all, prose has conquered the poetry of honor, a man may live after the day of his death, if he has only the phlegm necessary thereto. Flight is shameful but useful,--yet you are as good as killed for all that.”
This scorn would soon be wiped away from that beautiful face.
”Mesdames,” said Desiderius in cold tranquillity. ”Beyond paying my respects, I have another reason which made it my duty to come here. I must explain why your solicitor has not returned to-day, and why he will not return for some time.”
”Great Heavens! No misfortune has befallen him?” cried Madame Balnokhazy in nervous trepidation.
”On that point you may be quite rea.s.sured, Madame: he is hale and healthy; only a slight change in his plans has taken place: he is just now flying west instead of east.”
”What can be the reason?”
”I am the cause, which drove him away, I must confess.”
”You?” said Madame Balnokhazy, astonished.
”If you will allow me, and have the patience for it, I will go very far back in history to account for this peculiar climax.”
Lorand remarked that Melanie was not much interested to hear what they were saying of Gyali. She was indifferent to him: why, they were already affianced.
So he began to say pretty things to her: went into raptures about her beautiful curls, her blooming complexion, and various other things which it costs nothing to praise.
As long as he had been her lover, he had never told her how beautiful she was. She might have understood his meaning. Those whom we flatter we no longer love.
Desiderius continued the story he had begun.
”Just ten years have pa.s.sed since they began to prosecute the young men of the Parliament in Pressburg on account of the publication of the Parliamentary journal. There was only one thing they could not find out, viz:--who it was that originally produced the first edition to be copied: at last one of his most intimate friends betrayed the young man in question.”
”That is ancient history already, my dear boy,” said Madame Balnokhazy in a tone of indifference.
”Yet its consequences have an influence even to this day; and I beg you kindly to listen to my story to the end, and then pa.s.s a verdict on it.
You must know your men.”
(What an innocent child Desiderius was! Why, he did not seem even to suspect that the man of whom he spoke was the designated son-in-law of Madame Balnokhazy.)
”The one, who was betrayed by his friend, was my brother Lorand, and the one who betrayed his friend, was Gyali.”
”That is not at all certain,” said Madame. ”In such cases appearances and pa.s.sion often prove deceptive mirrors. It is possible that someone else betrayed Mr. aronffy, perhaps some fickle woman, to whom he babbled of all his secrets and who handed it on to her ambitious husband as a means of supporting his own merits.”
”I know positively that my a.s.sertion is correct,” answered Desiderius, ”for a magnanimous lady, who guarded my brother with her fairy power, hearing of this betrayal from her influential husband, informed Lorand thereof in a letter written by her own hand.”
Madame Balnokhazy bit her lips. The undeserved compliment smote her to the heart. She was the magnanimous fairy, of whom Desiderius spoke, and that fickle woman of whom she had spoken herself. The barrister was a master of repartee.
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