Part 5 (1/2)
”I don't see it in that light. This irritability will do you no good.”
”On the contrary it keeps me up. If I had not always given vent to my feelings I should have been lying on a sick-bed long ago. Take these few thalers, go after that good-for-nothing, and tell him that I am very angry with him, and therefore he must try in future to deserve my confidence better, in which case I shall not forget him. Tell him to wait in the gate for the letter I am about to write, and when once he has it in his hand let him get out of Transylvania as speedily as he can. Remind him that I don't yet know about what happened in the square at Klausenberg, and if I did know I would have him flogged out of the realm; so let him look sharp about it.”
Nalaczi laughed and went out.
Teleki sank back exhausted on his pillows, and made his page rub the back of his neck violently with a piece of flannel.
At that instant the Prince entered. His face was wrath, and all because of his sympathy. He began scolding Teleki on the very threshold.
”Why don't you lie down when I command you? Does it beseem a grown-up man like you to be as disobedient as a capricious child? Why don't you send for the doctor; why don't you be blooded?”
”There is nothing the matter with me, your Highness. It is only a little _haemorrhoidalis alteratio_. I am used to it. It always plagues me at the approach of the equinoxes.”
”Ai, ai, Michael Teleki, you don't get over me. You are very ill, I tell you. Your mental anxiety has brought about this physical trouble. Does it become a Christian man, I ask, to take on so because my little friend Flora cannot have one particular man out of fifteen wooers, and a fellow like Emeric, too--a mere dry stick of a man.”
”I don't give it any particular importance.”
”You are a bad Christian, I tell you, if you say that. You love neither G.o.d nor man; neither your family, nor me----”
”Sir!” said Teleki, in a supplicating voice.
”For if you did love us, you would spare yourself and lie down, and not get up again till you were quite well again.”
”But if I lie down----”
”Yes, I know--other things will have a rest too. The bottom of the world isn't going to fall out, I suppose, because you keep your bed for a day or two. Come! look sharp! I will not go till I see you lying on your bed.”
What could Teleki do but lie down at the express command of his Sovereign.
”And you won't get up again without my permission, mind,” said the Prince, signalling to young Cserei, and addressing the remainder of his discourse to him. ”And you, young man, take care that your master does not leave his bed, do you hear? I command it, and, till he is quite well, don't let him do any hard work, whether it be reading, writing, or dictation. You have my authorisation to prevent it, and you must rigorously do your duty. You will also allow n.o.body to enter this room, except the doctor and the members of the family. Now, mind what I say!
As for you, Master Teleki, you will wrap yourself well up and get yourself well rubbed all over the body with a woollen cloth, clap a mustard poultice on your neck and keep it there as long as you can bear it, and towards evening have a hot bath, with salt and bran in it; and if you won't have a vein opened put six leeches on your temples, and the doctor will tell you what else to do. And in any case don't fail to take some of these _pilulae de cynoglosso_. Their effect is infallible.”
Whereupon the Prince pressed into Teleki's hand a box full of those harmless medicaments which, under the name of dog's-tongue pills, were then the vogue in all domestic repositories.
”All will be well, your Highness.”
”Let us hope so! Towards evening I will come and see you again.”
And then the Prince withdrew with an air of satisfaction, thinking that he had given the fellow a good frightening.
Scarce had he closed the door behind him than Teleki beckoned to Cserei to bring him the letters which had just arrived.
The page regarded him dubiously. ”The Prince forbade me to do so,” he observed conscientiously.
”The Prince loves to have his joke,” returned the counsellor. ”I like my joke, too, when I've time for it. Break open those letters and read them to me.”
”But what will the Prince say?”
”It is I who command you, my son, not the Prince. Read them, I say, and don't mind if you hear me groan.”