A Son of the People/Chapter 18

knew in the village exactly how Rosenstein, the Jew lived, and no one could really boast of ever having entered the small cottage, in which he had lived for over a quarter of a century. He kept neither man nor maid, so must have done every kind of work for himself, from stewing his own “gulyás,” to looking after his own chickens, of which he kept a few in the bit of garden at the back, and his cow, a beautiful milcher, from the Kisfalu herd, which he had bought from Kemény András. Every Saturday, however, old Róza, Darázs Laczi’s mother, had to go and do his work for him; on that day, although he could not go to Synagogue, since there was no such place of worship, nearer than the one at Gyöngyös, he kept his Sabbath most strictly, and remained all day indoors, doing absolutely nothing, but take his meals, which Zsuzsi cooked for him, and to whom he gave ten kreutzer (about twopence) every Saturday for her trouble.

Kemény András looked with some doubt, through the half-open door into that cottage, on the following afternoon; it seemed so dark and close within. He knocked several times at the door, before he heard a shuffling footstep across the room, and Rosenstein’s husky voice, asking who was there.

“It is I, Kemény András, Rosenstein.”

“My poor house is too much honoured,” said the Jew, barring the way across the threshold; “if you desired to speak with me, I would have gone, where you had bidden me.”

“Let me in, man,” said Kemény peremptorily, “what I have to say to you, cannot be said at a wayside inn, or on the road, and my time is short.”

Without waiting for the Jew’s reply, András pushed him on one side and went in. He had to stoop, as he crossed the threshold, for the doorway was low, and heavy rafters supported the thatched roof. At first he could see nothing round him, for the tiny window was masked by an old coat, which was nailed across it, so as to entirely obstruct the daylight. The heat inside was overpowering, for there was a huge fire in the great earthenware oven, on which something, that was strongly flavoured with garlic, was simmering gently.

As András’ eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he noticed a table in the middle of the room, of dark polished wood, on which were spread several papers. Before it a chair had apparently been hastily pushed aside. Otherwise the room appeared empty; at the further end, a door led to an inner room, beyond which was the tiny garden, and a shed for the cow.

Rosenstein had hurriedly endeavoured to collect the papers, scattered on the table.

“Leave those alone,” said András, putting his hand over them, “I expect those papers are the ones, about which I have come to speak to you. But take that rag from off the window; I must have some light.”

“The villagers are so inquisitive, your Honour,” protested Rosenstein, whose sallow cheeks, had become of a pale ashen colour, as András, sitting on the edge of the table, had picked up all the papers, and was preparing to look over them.

“I told you to let in more light,” said the peasant peremptorily. The Jew obeyed. For fully five minutes there was silence, during which time András, quietly, read each paper through, whilst Rosenstein watched anxiously every varying expression of his face, as he read. When András had finished, he replaced the papers on the table.

“Do you remember,” he asked quietly, “that some eight months ago, I once told you, that I would thrash your very life out of you, if ever I found you out, trying to deceive me?”

“Your Honour …” began Rosenstein protesting.

“I said, do you remember?” interrupted András still very quietly.

There was no reply. The Jew looked frightened; once or twice, he passed his tongue over his lips, which seemed parched, and his knees shook under him visibly, as he dropped into the chair.

“I have brought with me,” resumed András, who was still sitting on the edge of the table, “the riding-whip, with which I thrash my herdsmen, if I catch any of them, ill-using a dumb brute, unnecessarily. I have only struck a beast once with it, and that was a pig, which had turned savage, and bitten a shepherd in the leg. To-day I shall use it upon you, because you have not only deceived me, and brought my good name to shame, but because you have cruelly and unnecessarily ill-used one, who had done you no wrong, and brought him to the verge of ruin.”

“Your Honour …” protested Rosenstein again.

“I have not done yet. When I have finished with the thrashing I intend to give you, you will hand over to me, the papers relating to the loan of 100,000 florins, which you made upon the house of Bideskút (which is not here, among these papers on the table), in exchange for the sum of 105,000 florins, which I shall hand over to you, this being at a fair rate of interest, upon the money you lent six months ago. As for these papers here, they are valueless, and when you have had your thrashing, we will destroy them.”

András, thereupon, calmly took off his mantle, and drew from out his belt, a short-handled whip of twisted leather.

Rosenstein was positively livid. Though he was well used to sundry thrashings from hot-tempered noble borrowers, there was a nasty look in András’ eyes, which foretold that the present experience, would be decidedly more unpleasant than any in the past. But the astute Jew was not a man to be taken unawares: no doubt, when he first entered upon the hazardous game, which he now stood a sad chance of losing, he had prepared for an eventuality like the present one. He knew that he would not always be able to keep creditor and debtor apart, and that, sooner or later, an unpleasant encounter with his rich employer would be the inevitable result.

“Your Honour,” he said with absolute calm, whilst András cracked his whip through the air, “you think I have deceived you, and, perhaps to a certain extent I have done so, but not quite so much as you think. I cannot save my poor old shoulders from your riding-whip, seeing that you have the advantage over me in point of strength and age, but, surely if I have deserved a beating, you would not be cowardly enough to thrash me, who am weak, and let him, who is strong, and far guiltier than I, go free.”

“What is it to me. if someone else helped you, in doing your lying, cheating trade; I have not had any dealings with other miscreants save you. But if it will ease your sore shoulders to see those of your accomplice smart, well! if you will name him to me, I promise you he shall not come off second best.”

Rosenstein was quietly chuckling to himself, and looking at the young peasant, from under his shaggy eyebrows, with a satirical smile playing upon his thin lips.

“Even if that accomplice is the lord of Bideskút, Kisfalu and Zárda?” he asked. “Look here, your Honour,” he added, as András, puzzled, had paused a moment, giving the Jew a chance to speak, “I do not, of course, know with what lies the noble lord over at Bideskút has been stuffing you up; whatever they were, you have evidently believed them, and have come here, thinking that I was the vilest thing on earth, only fit to be touched with the same whip, with which you thrash your pigs. But when your Honour read books on law, and studied Latin with Pater Ambrosius, you must have learnt also the good sound saying: that one man’s tongue is good, till the other man’s begins to wag. If your Honour desires to be just, you will hear me, and then decide whose shoulders are more worthy of your riding-whip.”

It was obvious that András would listen, for he had folded his arms over his chest, and placed the whip on the table, by his side.

“As I said before,” resumed Rosenstein, whose voice now was perfectly assured and steady, “I do not know what stories your Honour has heard. I will tell it, such as it all really happened, the truth of which I swear by our forefather Abraham, by Isaac, Jacob, and by Moses the law-giver. The noble lord wanted some money, a great deal of money; your Honour perhaps has no idea, how much went into that wonderful mill, which has never ground yet a thousand bushels of wheat. You were willing to lend his lordship what was more than a reasonable amount of money on the security of Kisfalu first, then of Bideskút, and finally of Zárda. I am a poor man, and no farmer, but I say it humbly that the money you lent, was quite as much as the land was worth. But the most noble lord wanted more, a great deal more; his mill, his machinery, his improvements swallowed up the money you lent, and like the ogres, children are frightened with, when they had swallowed all, they wanted more. The owner of Bideskút, Kisfalu and Zárda had no more land to offer as security; I could not, as he wanted, ask your Honour to lend any more; I had some money put by. Is that a sin? … Your Honour’s father put a couple of millions into a wine barrel. I sank mine into a Hungarian nobleman’s bottomless pockets. … But, mind you, I had no security … only my lord’s august name at the bottom of a piece of a paper. … You understand these things … the worse the security … the heavier the interest. … I had no wish to part with my money, in order, merely to gratify the whims of an arrogant, spendthrift lord, I had no cause to love him, for, whenever I refused to lend him all the money he wanted, he had me whipped by his lacqueys. … Once he forced me, to break the laws of my religion, and stuffed pig’s meat down my throat, in order to make his kitchenmaids laugh. … No! I did not love him … but I lent him money … at interest … just interest … you must judge me rightly … and consider … I had no security.”

Rosenstein had told this extraordinary tissue of falsehoods with perfect self-possession. All his nervousness had gone, and as he proceeded with his narrative, he wore such an air of truth, and the whole circumstances seemed so absolutely plausible, that András was fairly staggered. More and more puzzled, he tried to read the Jew’s very thoughts, beneath the mask of bland innocence he wore, and his honest mind refused to grasp the obvious fact, that one of the two men,—the lord or the Jew,—was telling him a complete tissue of lies. Being simple and honest, he had a great desire to be just, and, in a matter of rectitude, both Jew and lord, seemed to him, to have an equal right to be believed.

Rosenstein through his very calling in life, was accustomed to note every change in a human face. The young peasant’s keen frank eyes were the very mirror of his mind within, and the Jew soon saw that his narrative had had a sufficient air of truth to have, at any rate, severely shaken András’ conviction of his guilt.

“After all,” he resumed after a pause, “I do not expect you to believe my words without proofs. Here are the papers relating to three loans which I made to my lord. They are signed: Bideskúty Gyuri; he will not deny his own signature; he cannot do it. … I do not know what lies he has told your Honour. A man who has no respect for religion, can have no respect for truth … but he cannot deny his signature.”

“He does not deny any signature, but he says you made him sign two papers, which he never read. He owns that he had the money, that he agreed to pay the usurious interest, set forth on your papers, but, although he does not deny, that the signature at the bottom of the papers which I hold is his, he says he knows nothing of their contents.”

“And does your Honour, who know something about business, really believe that a man would be fool enough, to put his name to papers, without knowing what they contain?” asked Rosenstein, with a shrug of the shoulders.

He had,—perhaps unknown to himself,—played his trump card here. There was no doubt, that, to the peasant, the idea of Bideskúty professing not to have read the contents of the papers he had signed, was absolutely preposterous; although, until he had spoken to Rosenstein, he had never actually discredited the noble lord’s statement, now that it was jeered at by the Jew, it struck him again forcibly as shiftless, beyond the bounds of possibility.

Once more he took up the papers, that were lying on the table, and read them through very carefully, with a more and more puzzled air. They certainly bore out the Jew’s statements to the full; although in them, Bideskúty acknowledged the debt, and agreed to pay the usurious interest charged therein, there was no mention of any security whatsoever. Triumphantly, the Jew watched his face.

“After the fire, your Honour, when my lord required more money, and I began to feel that perhaps my speculation was becoming hazardous, I exacted the house and grounds of Bideskút as security for the next loan. I was obliged to do that in my own interests, as a wholesome weapon over his head. Remember, it is all I have as security for the vast sums of money I have lent; whilst I hold that, I can enforce the payment of the interest on the other loans. I know the noble lord would not part with the house as long as he had a quarter of wheat left, which he could throw to me, when I became pressing.”

“I was prepared to take over the loan on the house,” said András, “and brought the money with me to-day.”

“How can your Honour suggest such a thing?” said Rosenstein with amazement. “If I part with that one security I hold, what chance have I, not only of ever seeing a florin of the principal, but of being able to enforce the payment of the interest? You hold Kisfalu, Bideskút, Zárda as security … what chance would I have?”

“If you seize the house of Bideskút, and drive the noble lord and his family away from their home, you have no better chance of getting the remainder of your principal and interest, and, according to your statement, you will then have paid 950,000 florins for a house, a garden, a few stables, and two or three fields.”

“The house is comfortable,” said the Jew placidly. “I can live in it, if I like. I am a poor man, with simple tastes; the garden and the fields will yield me all I want.”

“Why, man! the house will fall into ruin, if it is uninhabited. Ten years hence, unless you keep it in proper repair, your 950,000 florins will not fetch as many pence.”

“Suppose, your Honour,” said the Jew, with slow emphasis, “that I am content to pay 950,000 florins for the pleasure of seeing that man a beggar, and without a home, the man who amused himself, by seeing me whipped by his herdsmen, and by forcing pig’s meat down my throat?”

András looked astonished, even awed, in spite of himself by the tone of bitter, deadly hatred, which made the words come out of the Jew’s mouth, like the hissing of a poisonous snake. Again there was a long pause, Kemény András was quite at a loss to know what to do. The whole thing nauseated him. So many lies had been told, there was so much greed, so much cupidity, so much hatred on one side, such hopeless tbriftlessness on the other, that it seemed absolutely impossible to mediate with equal justice to both, There is no doubt that but for a fair girlish vision, which, with provoking persistency haunted his dreams, he would have left the careless, arrogant lord to his fate; but, before him, his fancy conjured up a pathetic picture of that curly head, bent down under a weight of sorrow, of those forget-me-not eyes dim with tears, of that sweet mouth lined with care, and perhaps want. …

Great God! such a vision, haunting him by day and by night, seen in the fitful light of the moon, or mirrored across the plain by the fairy Morgana, would drive him mad, and sap his manhood, his pride, reduce him to an imbecile visionary, the laughing-stock of the county of Heves. …

“Look here, Rosenstein,” he said at last, “I am pledged to see justice done, in this unfortunate business. My lord’s tale is very different to yours. …”

“I have the papers,” repeated the Jew, obstinately. “He denies any knowledge of them.”

“Does he deny his signature?” persisted Rosenstein.

“No, he does not; but …”

“There is no but, your Honour; you must in all justice admit that. You have seen all the papers. Here,” he added, taking another from his breast-pocket, “is the one, relating to the last loan … the one on the house of Bideskút. … He promises to pay back the principal and interest, in six months; failing which I have the right to seize his house. There is no argument possible. I am within my rights; and, your Honour cannot say I have wronged you in any way. Your money is perfectly secure; what he has agreed to pay you, he can pay or not, as he pleases; the land is well worth foreclosing on. … I have nothing but the house … the house I mean to have, unless the noble lord fulfils his engagements to me … which by his own signature he has agreed to do. This is my last word. … Your Honour is just … Read the papers … you will see that I am within my rights.” Unfortunately, of that fact, there was absolutely no doubt, and Kemény András felt how hopeless any question of temporising would be. It would only stave off the inevitable ruin by a few months. If the Jew had spoken the truth—and there certainly was every material proof that he had—then, obviously it would be the grossest injustice to him, to advance the money to Bideskúty; thus taking over the mortgage of the house, and, for ever depriving Rosenstein of any weapon with which he might enforce, at least the part repayment of all the money he declared he had lent in the past, and of all the interest in the future.

“Look here, Rosenstein, supposing all you say is correct … now do not interrupt me, I said supposing, as there are two of you, each with a different tale … you have admitted yourself that three of the loans are unsecured, but that for the pleasure of seeing a poor old man and his family turned out of the home, which has belonged to their ancestors for hundreds of years, you are willing to lose the bulk of your principal and interest. … Now, will you tell me, what would induce you to forego that pleasure entirely? … in other words, what money would you take, for every scrap of paper you hold, which bears the signature “Bideskúty?”

Rosenstein had been expecting this all the time. In order to have this question put to him, he had lied and sweated now, for over an hour, but not a line of his thin countenance, expressed triumph or satisfaction, as he said placidly:

“I will own to your Honour, that I have often thought that my lord would one day put such a question to me. If the thought occurred to me, just after a whipping from his servants, I invariably dismissed it, for I knew that I should refuse to take a penny less than my due.”

“But, suppose, for argument’s sake, that it was I, who put that question to you? What then?”

Perhaps imperceptibly, certainly unconsciously a shade,—oh! it was the merest shade—of softness passed over Rosenstein’s hard face and his voice was not so sharp and hissing, when he replied:

“Your Honour is the only person in the lowlands who speaks to me, as to a man, and not to a dog. You have never borrowed money of me, and given me a blow, as part interest. Once I fainted in the heat of the sun: you had me taken inside your house, and tended me, till I was able to be on my feet again: when every other peasant or lord in the county would have kicked the fainting Jew to one side. … If your Honour will make me a fair and just offer for these papers, I will take it. But your Honour must remember that you are throwing away your money, on an arrogant lord, who will give contempt in return for kindness, insult for generosity. The lord of Bideskút can be nothing to a peasant of Heves. Let your Honour think well before you waste your father’s savings on a spendthrift magnate who looks upon you as the dirt beneath his feet.”

Rosenstein had said this very solemnly, and, while he spoke, the ugly look of deceit and cupidity seemed to have left his face. His stooping back was erect, his eyes looked straight before him, there was a certain dignity in his spare form, clad in the long threadbare garment; the centuries of humiliations, of buffetings, seemed forgotten and contempt as absolute, as withering, as that of the Hungarian nobleman for the despised race, appeared in every line of the thin, satirical mouth, for the spendthrift, arrogant lord, who had trampled him under foot.

No doubt the young peasant felt the truth of the Jew’s words, the folly of his own hopes, which, at this critical juncture, were, in spite of himself, surging within his heart. Half absently, he collected the four papers, which Rosenstein was handing to him, and the hand, which, as if in weariness, he passed over his eyes, trembled visibly.

“I wish to be just with you, Rosenstein, but I have not much money left. If—what seems to me inevitable—Kisfalu and Zarda pass into my possession, after the settling up of these affairs, I must keep some of it, to use if any calamity of flood or fire overtake me. But I will give you 300,000 florins for these pieces of paper, provided my lord gives his consent to the bargain.”

Not with a look, did Rosenstein betray his triumph. He closed his eyes, no doubt in order to thoroughly enjoy the glorious vision which the young peasant was holding out before him. His deceit, his astuteness had profited him, beyond the dreams of avarice; never for a moment did remorse enter his grasping soul, at the hideous way, in which he was deceiving a just and honourable man. The Jew in Eastern Europe stands at war with the rest of the population; beaten, buffeted, derided, often injured, his only weapon is his money; with it, he gets his revenge, on peer and peasant, and wields it mercilessly against all, as a poor vengeance, for all he has to endure. He bears insults, blows, contempt of every kind, but on the subject of money he is the master, for he has the superior intellect, and the careful thrift, the lack of which brings his oppressors, sooner or later within his clutches. Rosenstein had himself owned that, from Kemény András he had never received anything but kindness, and the hideous advantage he was taking of the young peasant’s sense of justice, was not aimed at the individual, it was race against race, and András was paying more than a quarter of a million, in expiation of all the Jew had endured at other hands than his.

“You are hard upon a poor man,” said Rosenstein at last.

“It is my last word,” replied András decisively.

“Will you give me time to think?”

“Yes, a week from to-day. I must speak with my lord, he will also want time to think.”

Rosenstein noticed how dreamily he spoke, saw the strange, wistful look in the young man’s eyes, and, probably his shrewd mind guessed what was passing in that honest brain, for a curious smile parted his thin lips; he rubbed his bony hands one against the other, and across his eyes there flashed that look of deadly hatred.

“Shall I wait upon your Honour this day week at the inn, or at Kisfalu?”

“Neither. I will come myself, and bring the money … if my lord consents.”

He took up his cap and his riding-whip, and, nodding to the Jew, found himself in the village street again.

All seemed as bright and as gay as ever. Easter Monday had brought young men and maids without. The former armed with squirts and watering-cans, were deluging the pretty girls as they passed, in true Easter Monday custom; whilst the latter, courting the watering, proud of their dripping skirts, and wet hair, made but mock pretence at running away from their tormentors; seeing that the girl, whose clothes remain dry on this day, can have but few adorers.

András watched the merrymakers come and go for a few minutes; a year ago he would have been the first to snatch a kiss from every pretty girl, after having rendered her helpless under a deluge of water. To-day his heart seemed shut off from all his friends, and companions; it was filled with hopeless longing for a star as far above him, as those in heaven, for a fairy vision, as bright and as elusive, as those, Fata Morgana draws on the horizon, beyond the plain.