Books: Prince Zilah, v3
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Jules Claretie >> Prince Zilah, v3
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"You would live far from Paris, far from the world, far from everything?"
"In a kennel of dogs, under the lash of a slavedriver; breaking stones,
begging my bread, if you said to me: 'Do that, it is atonement!'"
"Well!" cried Andras, passionately, his lips trembling, his blood
surging through his veins. "Live buried in our Hungary, forgetting,
forgotten, hidden, unknown, away from all, away from Paris, away from
the noise of the world, in a life with me, which will be a new life!
Will you?"
She looked at him with staring, terrified eyes, believing his words to be
some cruel jest.
"Will you?" he said again, raising her from the floor, and straining her
to his breast, his burning lips seeking the icy ones of the Tzigana.
"Answer me, Marsa. Will you?"
Like a sigh, the word fell on the air: "Yes."
CHAPTER XXXIV
A NEW LIFE
The following day, with tender ardor, he took her away to his old
Hungarian castle, with its red towers still bearing marks of the ravages
of the cannon--the castle which he never had beheld since Austria had
confiscated it, and then, after long years, restored it to its rightful
owner. He fled from Paris, seeking a pure existence, and returned to his
Hungary, to the country of his youth, the land of the vast plains. He
saw again the Danube and the golden Tisza. In the Magyar costume, his
heart beating more proudly under the national attila, he passed before
the eyes of the peasants who had known him when a child, and had fought
under his orders; and he spoke to them by name, recognizing many of his
old companions in these poor people with cheeks tanned by the sun, and
heads whitened by age.
He led Marsa, trembling and happy, to the door of the castle, where they
offered him the wine of honor, drank from the 'tschouttora',
the Hungarian drinking-vessel, the 'notis' and cakes made of maize
cooked in cream.
Upon the lawns about the castle, the 'tschiko' shepherds, who had come on
horseback to greet the Prince, drank plum brandy, and drank with their
red wine the 'kadostas' and the bacon of Temesvar. They had come from
their farms, from their distant pusztas, peasant horsemen, like soldiers,
with their national caps; and they joyously celebrated the return of
Zilah Andras, the son of those Zilahs whose glorious history they all
knew. The dances began, the bright copper heels clinked together, the
blue jackets, embroidered with yellow, red, or gold, swung in the wind,
and it seemed that the land of Hungary blossomed with flowers and rang
with songs to do honor to the coming of Prince Andras and his Princess.
Then Andras entered with Marsa the abode of his ancestors. And, in the
great halls hung with tapestry and filled with pictures which the
conquerors had respected, before those portraits of magnates superb in
their robes of red or green velvet edged with fur, curved sabres by their
sides and aigrettes upon their heads, all reproducing a common trait of
rough frankness, with their long moustaches, their armor and their hussar
uniforms--Marsa Laszlo, who knew them well, these heroes of her country,
these Zilah princes who had fallen upon the field of battle, said to the
last of them all, to Andras Zilah, before Ferency Zilah, before Sandor,
before the Princesses Zilah who had long slept in "dull, cold marble,"
and who had been no prouder than she of the great name they bore:
"Do you know the reason why, equal to these in devotion and courage, you
are superior to them all! It is because you are good, as good as they
were brave.
To their virtues, you, who forgive, add this virtue, which is your own:
pity!"
She looked at him humbly, raising to his face her beautiful dark eyes, as
if to let him read her heart, in which was only his image and his name.
She pressed closely to his side, with an uneasy, timid tenderness, as if
she were a stranger in the presence of his great ancestors, who seemed to
demand whether the newcomer were one of the family; and he, putting his
arm about her, and pressing to his beating heart the Tzigana, whose eyes
were dim with tears, said: "No, I am not better than these. It is not
pity which is my virtue, Marsa: it is my love. For--I love you!"
Yes, he loved her, and with all the strength of a first and only love.
He loved her so that he forgot everything, so that he did not see that in
Marsa's smile there was a look of the other side of the great, eternal
river. He loved her so that he thought only of this woman, of her
beauty, of the delight of her caresses, of his dream of love realized in
the air of the adored fatherland. He loved her so that he left without
answers the charming letters which Baroness Dinati wrote him from Paris,
so far away now, and the more serious missives which he received from his
compatriots, wishing him to utilize for his country, now that he had
returned to it, his superior intelligence, as he had formerly utilized
his courage.
"The hour is critical," wrote his old friends. "An attempt is being made
to awaken in Hungary, against the Russians, whom we like, memories of
combats and extinct hatreds, and that to the profit of a German alliance,
which is repugnant to our race. Bring the support of your name and your
valor to our cause. Enter the Diet of Hungary. Your place is marked out
for you there in the first rank, as it was in the old days upon the
battlefield."
Andras only smiled.
"If I were ambitious!" he said to Marsa. Then he added: "But I am
ambitious only for your happiness."
Marsa's happiness! It was deep, calm, and clear as a lake. It seemed to
the Tzigana that she was dreaming a dream, a beautiful dream, a dream
peaceful, sweet, and restful. She abandoned herself to her profound
happiness with the trustfulness of a child. She was all the more happy
because she had the exquisite sensation that her dream would have no
awakening. It would end in all the charm of its poetry.
She was sure that she could not survive the immense joy which destiny had
accorded her; and she did not rebel against this decree. It seemed to
her right and just. She had never desired any other ending to her love
than to die beloved, to die with Andras's kiss of forgiveness upon her
lips, with his arms about her, and to sink with a smile into the eternal
sleep. What more beautiful thing could she, the Tzigana, have wished?
When the Prince's people saluted her by that title of "Princess" which
was hers, she trembled as if she had usurped it; she wished to be Marsa
to the Prince, Marsa, his devoted slave, who looked at him with her great
eyes full of gratitude and love. And she wished to be only that. It
seemed to her that, in the ancient home of the Zilahs, the birthplace of
soldiers, the eyrie of eagles, she was a sort of stranger; but, at the
same time, she thought, with a smile:
"What matters it? It is for so short a time."
One day Prince Zilah received from Vienna a large sealed envelope.
Minister Ladany earnestly entreated him to come to the Austrian capital
and present, in the salons of Vienna and at the imperial court, Princess
Zilah, of whose beauty the Austrian colony of Paris raved.
Marsa asked the Prince what the letter contained.
"Nothing. An invitation to leave our solitude. We are too happy here."
Marsa questioned him no further; but she resolved that she would never
allow the Prince to take her to that court which claimed his presence.
In her eyes, she was always the Tzigana; and, although Menko was dead,
she would never permit Zilah to present her to people who might have
known Count Michel.
No, no, let them remain in the dear old castle, he living only for her,
she breathing only for him; and let the world go, with its fascinations
and its pleasures, its false joys and its false friendships! Let them
ask of life only what truth it possesses; an hour of rest between two
ordeals, a smile between two sobs, and--the right to love each other.
To love each other until that fatal separation which she felt was coming,
until that end which was fast advancing; her poor, frail body being now
only the diaphanous prison of her soul. She did not complain, as she
felt the hour gently approach when, with a last kiss, a last sigh, she
must say to Andras, Adieu!
He, seeing her each day more pale, each day more feeble, was alarmed;
but he hoped, that, when the winter, which was very severe there, was
over, Marsa would regain her strength. He summoned to the castle a
physician from Vienna, who battled obstinately and skilfully against the
malady from which the Tzigana was suffering. Her weakness and languor
kept Marsa, during the cold months, for whole days before the lofty,
sculptured chimney-piece, in which burned enormous logs of oak. As the
flames gave a rosy tinge to her cheeks and made her beautiful eyes
sparkle, Andras said to herself, as he watched her, that she would live,
live and be happy with him.
The spring came, with the green leaflets and the white blossoms at the
ends of the branches. The buds opened and the odors of the rejuvenated
earth mounted subtly into the soft air.
At her window, regarding the young grass and the masses of tender verdure
in which clusters of pale gold or silvery white gleamed like aigrettes,
Marsa said to Andras:
"It must be lovely at Maisons, in the Vale of Violets!" but she added,
quickly:
"We are better here, much better! And it even seems to me that I have
always, always lived here in this beautiful castle, where you have
sheltered me, like a swallow beaten by the wind."
There was, beneath the window, stretching out like a ribbon of silver, a
road, which the mica dust caused, at times, in the sunlight to resemble a
river. Marsa often looked out on this road, imagining that she saw again
the massive dam upon the Seine, or wondering whether a band of Tzigani
would not appear there with the April days.
"I should like," she said one day to Andras, "to hear again the airs my
people used to play."
She found that, with the returning spring, she was more feeble than she
had ever been. The first warmth in the air entered her veins like a
sweet intoxication. Her head felt heavy, and in her whole body she felt
a pleasant languor. She had wished to sink thus to rest, as nature was
awakening.
The doctor seemed very uneasy at this languidness, of which Marsa said:
"It is delicious!"
He whispered one evening to Andras:
"It is grave!"
Another sorrow was to come into the life of the Prince, who had known so
many.
A few days after, with a sort of presentiment, he wrote to Yanski Varhely
to come and spend a few months with him. He felt the need of his old
friend; and the Count hastened to obey the summons.
Varhely was astonished to see the change which so short a time had
produced in Marsa. In seven months her face, although still beautiful,
had become emaciated, and had a transparent look. The little hand, white
as snow, which she gave to Varhely, burned him; the skin was dry and hot.
"Well, my dear Count," said Marsa, as she lay extended in a reclining-
chair, "what news of General Vogotzine?"
"The General is well. He hopes to return to Russia. The Czar has been
appealed to, and he does not say no."
"Ah! that is good news," she said. "He must be greatly bored at
Maisons; poor Vogotzine!"
"He smokes, drinks, takes the dogs out--"
The dogs! Marsa started. Those hounds would survive Menko, herself,
the love which she now tasted as the one joy of her life! Mechanically
her lips murmured, too low to be heard: "Ortog! Bundas!"
Then she said, aloud:
"I shall be very, glad if the poor General can return to St. Petersburg
or Odessa. One is best off at home, in one's own country. If you only
knew, Varhely, how happy I am, happy to be in Hungary. At home!"
She was very weak. The doctor made a sign to Andras to leave her for a
moment.
"Well," asked the Prince anxiously of Varhely, "how do you think she is?"
"What does the doctor say?" replied Yanski. "Does he hope to save her?"
Zilah made no response. Varhely's question was the most terrible of
answers.
Ensconced in an armchair, the Prince then laid bare his heart to old
Varhely, sitting near him. She was about to die, then! Solitude! Was
that to be the end of his life? After so many trials, it was all to end
in this: an open grave, in which his hopes were to be buried. What
remained to him now? At the age when one has no recourse against fate,
love, the one love of his life, was to be taken away from him. Varhely
had administered justice, and Zilah had pardoned--for what? To watch
together a silent tomb; yes, yes, what remained to him now?
"What remains to you if she dies?" said old Yanski, slowly. "There
remains to you what you had at twenty years, that which never dies.
There remains to you what was the love and the passion of all the Zilah
princes who lie yonder, and who experienced the same suffering, the same
torture, the same despair, as you. There remains to you our first love,
my dear Andras, the fatherland!"
The next day some Tzigana musicians, whom the Prince had sent for,
arrived at the castle. Marsa felt invigorated when she heard the
czimbalom and the piercing notes of the czardas. She had been longing
for those harmonies and songs which lay so near her heart. She listened,
with her hand clasped in that of Andras, and through the open window came
the "March of Rakoczy," the same strains which long ago had been played
in Paris, upon the boat which bore them down the Seine that July morning.
An heroic air, a song of triumph, a battle-cry, the gallop of horses, a
chant of victory. It was the air which had saluted their betrothal like
a fanfare. It was the chant which the Tzigani had played that sad night
when Andras's father had been laid in the earth of Attila.
"I would like," said Marsa, when the music had ceased, "to go to the
little village where my mother rests. She was a Tzigana also! Like
them, like me! Can I do so, doctor?"
The doctor shook his head.
"Oh, Princess, not yet! Later, when the warm sun comes."
"Is not that the sun?" said Marsa, pointing to the April rays entering
the old feudal hall and making the bits of dust dance like sparks of
gold.
"It is the April sun, and it is sometimes dangerous for--"
The doctor paused; and, as he did not finish, Marsa said gently, with a
smile which had something more than resignation in it--happiness:
"For the dying?"
Andras shuddered; but Marsa's hand, which held his, did not even tremble.
Old Varhely's eyes were dim with tears.
She knew that she was about to die. She knew it, and smiled at kindly
death. It would take away all shame. Her memory would be to Andras the
sacred one of the woman he adored. She would die without being held to
keep that oath she had made not to survive her dreamed-of happiness, the
union she had desired and accepted. Yes, it was sweet and welcome, this
death, which taking her from Andras's love, washed away all stain.
She whispered in his ear the oft-repeated avowal:
"I love you! I love you! I love you! And I die content, for I feel
that you will love me always. Think a moment! Could I live? Would
there not be a spectre between you and your Marsa?"
She threw her arms about him as he leaned over the couch upon which she
lay, and he made a gesture of denial, unable to speak, for each word
would have been a sob.
"Oh, do not deny it!" she said. "Now, no. But later, who knows?
On the other hand, you see, there will be no other phantom near you but
mine, no other image but mine. I feel that I shall be always near you,
yes, always, eternally, my beloved! Dear death! blessed death! which
renders our love infinite, yes, infinite. Ah, I love you! I love you!"
She wished to see once more, through the open window, the sunny woods and
the new blossoms. Behind those woods, a few leagues away, was the place
where Tisza was buried.
"I should like to rest by her side," said the Tzigana. "I am not of your
family, you see. A princess, I? your wife? I have been only your
sweetheart, my Andras."
Andras, whiter than the dying girl, seemed petrified by the approach of
the inevitable grief.
Now, as they went slowly down the white road, the Tzigani played the
plaintive melancholy air of Janos Nemeth, that air impregnated with
tears, that air which she used so often to play herself--
"The World holds but One Fair Maiden!"
And this time, bursting into tears, he said to her, with his heart
breaking in his breast:
"Yes, there is but thee, Marsa! but thee, my beloved, thee, thee alone !
Do not leave me! Stay with me! Stay with me, Marsa, my only love!"
Then, as she listened, over the lovely face of the Tzigana passed an
expression of absolute, perfect happiness, as if, in Zilah's tears, she
read all his forgiveness, all his love, all his devotion. She raised
herself, her little hands resting upon the window-sill, her head heavy
with sleep--the deep, dreamless sleep-and held up her sweet lips to him:
when she felt Andras's kiss, she whispered, so that he barely heard it:
"Do not forget me! Never forget me, my darling!" Then her head drooped
slowly, and fell upon the Prince's shoulder, like that of a tired child,
with a calm sweet smile upon her flower-like face.
Like the salute they had once given to Prince Sandor, the Tzigani began
proudly the heroic march of free Hungary, their music sending a fast
farewell to the dead as the sun gave her its last kiss.
Then, as the hymn died slowly away in the distance, soft as a sigh, with
one last, low, heart-breaking note, Andras Zilah laid the light form of
the Tzigana upon the couch; and, winding his arms about her, with his
head pillowed upon her breast, he murmured, in a voice broken with sobs:
"I will love only, now, what you loved so much, my poor Tzigana. I will
love only the land where you lie asleep."
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
An hour of rest between two ordeals, a smile between two sobs
Anonymous, that velvet mask of scandal-mongers
At every step the reality splashes you with mud
Bullets are not necessarily on the side of the right
Does one ever forget?
History is written, not made.
"I might forgive," said Andras; "but I could not forget
If well-informed people are to be believe
Insanity is, perhaps, simply the ideal realized
It is so good to know nothing, nothing, nothing
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Man who expects nothing of life except its ending
Not only his last love, but his only love
Pessimism of to-day sneering at his confidence of yesterday
Sufferer becomes, as it were, enamored of his own agony
Taken the times as they are
Unable to speak, for each word would have been a sob
What matters it how much we suffer
Why should I read the newspapers?
Willingly seek a new sorrow
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