A Son of the People/Chapter 5

his back on the great gates, Rosenstein the Jew walked away towards the plain.

To his right and left as he walked, the county of Heves, with Bideskút, Kisfalu, and Zárda, stretched out in all its midsummer splendour; as far as the eye could reach, waving fields of golden wheat, the finest the world produces, graceful plumed heads of maize, and the glistening green of water-melons gladdened the eye with their richness and plenty. The Jew’s gaze rested contentedly, and somewhat sarcastically on all the rich property, and, every now and then, he rubbed his thin, shrivelled hands together.

The roads, as is usual during the dry season, were lined with deep ruts and fissures, and the Jew’s feet became sore with hard and weary walking. But he seemed not to care. Thoughts, which evidently were exceedingly pleasant, helped to soften the hard road for him, and his hand wandered lovingly to the pocket, lately filled to overflowing with bank notes, now comparatively empty, save for the document that bore the prodigal lord’s signature.

The road along which Rosenstein was walking is bordered on either side for some distance with tall, slender poplars, the silver-lined leaves of which trembled at every breeze; in front, far ahead, could be dimly guessed the vast sandy plain, with its ruddy arid soil, its deep blue sky overhead, and its quaint tumble-down inn on the wayside.

All was silence and peace around, save for the occasional distant sound of a herd of wild horses, galloping madly across the plain, or overhead the strident cry of the stork calling to its mate; only in the heart of the solitary human wayfarer, in the midst of this vast peaceful immensity, there lurked passions, turbulent and wild, envy, hatred, and malicious triumph.

Rosenstein seemed to feel no fatigue. He had walked for three hours along the dreary road, and had now at last caught sight of the quaint wayside inn, a kilometre only beyond.

The Jew with the diffidence taught to his race by centuries of derision had gradually come near. His narrow, light-coloured eyes peered anxiously round, evidently in search of someone. Loud laughter and mocking comments from the two sturdy young peasants who were sitting, sipping their wine, and smoking their long pipes lazily greeted his arrival.

Rosenstein ventured a few modest raps on the table, but as no one came in answer, he gathered up sufficient courage to peep in at the door.

“Don’t dare to enter my kitchen, you dirty Jew!” said a shrill voice from within.

“No! I would not for worlds, and I would not trouble you at all, only Kemény András from Kisfalu has told me to meet him here.”

“Well! he has not come yet, and you cannot wait inside here!”

The interior of the inn looked decidedly cooler than the exterior, for through the thickly thatched roof and walls, mostly wood and mud, the fierceness of the sun could hardly enter; close to one of the windows, the owner of the shrill voice sat; a buxom figure of a lowland peasant woman, in multi-coloured petticoats, full-sleeved lawn shift and tight-fitting corselet; she was lazily turning her spinning-wheel with one foot, while her well-shaped fingers deftly spun the fine flax thread. The fire in the huge earthen oven had been allowed to die out, and on it shone the many vessels, pots and pans glistening with polish, which had served to cook the mid-day meal.

With a sigh the Jew had turned away from the door, and the inviting coolness within, and taken humbly his seat in the very glare of the sun, for the young peasants had disdainfully refused to make way for him at the table under the willow tree. There he sat patiently, not daring to ask for wine or even water, for fear his presumption might entail his banishment from the precincts of the inn altogether, when he would perforce have had to wait on his feet, until it was Kemény András’ good pleasure to arrive. His ears, however, well-trained to catch every scrap of conversation, that was not meant for them to hear, were sharply on the alert. The two young herdsmen lazily smoking their long pipes, and drinking deep draughts of Hungarian wine, were whispering excitedly together. The Jew, while seemingly overcome with fatigue and the heat, his eyes closed, his mouth open, lost not a word of what they said.

The young peasants were discussing the eternal topic of the lord of Bideskút’s mysterious buildings and contrivances, that were supposed to do the work, they and their fathers before them had done with their own hands.

“I have heard my master say,” said the one, “that it will grind as much corn in one day, as would take a month, with six windmills at work to do; and that three men with it can do the work of twenty.”

“We do not hear much about it in the kitchen,” replied the other, “but my mother has learnt a good bit from Jankó, my lord’s valet; and he says that my lord sits up now till the middle of the night, with one candle and some huge books in front of him, and, although Jankó has learnt to read and to write, he could not make head or tail of what was in those books, the letters all seemed mixed up anyhow,”

“You may be sure the devil has printed them himself: truly the holy Virgin can have nothing to do with things that in some mysterious way do the work of twenty men. Mark me, evil will come on your lord and his house, sooner or later.”

“What can come but evil, of bringing the devil into the village. Jankó told my mother that the big books came from a place called England.”

“I once saw a picture,” said the other, mysteriously, “of some people, that the pater over at Árokszállás told me came from England. They looked very like what we do,” he added thoughtfully.

“Only they have big teeth, and red hair, like the Jews. England is very far from here.”

“Yes, you have to get in a boat, and go across the sea, to get there; I have heard my lady say that.”

“How can you cross the sea without being drowned?” asked the herdsman who had first spoken.

“I do not know,” said the other, shaking his head sadly at the immensity of the problem.

“It would be better if my lord went on the sea and got drowned, rather than make himself one with the devil, and bring some terrible misfortune on the village, ay, probably on the whole county.”

“If any evil comes on the village through these contrivances of Lucifer, we will have to fight the devil, somehow. We have sisters, mothers, wives; we must protect them from Satan.”

Their whisperings had become very low, the Jew tried in vain to catch any more snatches of their conversation, an awed superstitious look was on both their young faces; their bronzed cheeks were quite pale, and their bright dark eyes peered anxiously round as if expecting every moment to see the evil one appear from out the wall. Rosenstein caught them both pointing the first and fourth finger at him, while expectorating three times on the ground in his direction, a sure way of keeping Satan at a distance, should he have chosen the disguise of a Jew usurer in which to haunt the county of Heves.

The sun was gradually sinking lower and lower on the horizon. The intense heat had somewhat subsided, and the two young herdsmen, having finished their wine, prepared to depart to rejoin their herds.

They turned into the inn to pay their few groats for the drink, and kiss the buxom landlady, as is always customary when she happens to be young and comely, and her husband not within sight.

Far out on the horizon, a tiny speck had gradually grown larger as it drew nearer, and Rosenstein, with a sigh of contentment, noted that the speck soon assumed the shape of a man on horseback. The two herdsmen as they departed down the road had also looked at the fast approaching speck, and pronounced it to be Kemény András on his black mare; nearer and nearer it drew, and now Rosenstein could easily distinguish the broad figure and bronzed face of the rich peasant as he rode saddle and stirrupless at break-neck speed, his white lawn shirt and full trousers fluttering in the breeze, as if they were the wings which helped the swift-footed mare on her wild career.

The pretty landlady came to her door to greet the new guest, for he always had a merry jest for her, ay! and often a bright bit of ribbon, or a shiny locket, which he had bought from some pedlar on the way, and gladdened her heart and her vanity with it.

Kemény András had brought his mare to a standstill, and she stood calm and placid, not having turned a hair during her mad canter, while her master dismounted, and patted her sleek neck, and whispered soft endearing words to her, to which she responded by rubbing her nose against his hand.

The Jew did not dare approach him, until it was András own good pleasure to notice the humble presence of the descendant of Israel, Truly a fine figure was that typical representative of a prosperous Hungarian peasant. Tall, above the average of his race, with straight, broad shoulders, his face bronzed by the sun, his foot, small and arched, firmly planted on the soil, Kemény András was decidedly good to look at, as every girl in the county of Heves had declared for the past ten years, since it had transpired that old Kemény had proved himself to be the miser, which everyone had always suspected him to be, and had died, leaving coffers full of gold and bank notes, which made his handsome son nearly as rich as my lord.

The old man—András’ father—had been a curious figure among his fellow peasants on this side of the Tarna, in his shabby bunda (huge sheepskin mantle), and his coarse linen, and with his sharp features, tightly compressed lips, and bushy eyebrows, so different to the merry, open countenance of a Hungarian peasant

It was vaguely whispered, that far back, some hundreds of years ago, the Keménys had had a Jewish ancestress, and it was generally admitted that from that hereditary taint—for taint it was for any peasant to have even a drop of Jew blood in his veins—old Kemény had inherited his love of money, his avarice, his greed of gain.

Be that as it may, his life at Kisfalu—a tumble-down thatched farm he rented from the lord of Bideskút—was known to be of the most parsimonious kind. While he was young, he kept one servant to wash and cook for him, fed himself on pumpkin, milk and rye bread, slept on the bare boards, and never set foot in either inn or church, where, of necessity, he would have had to leave some kreutzers (farthings) behind.

Gradually, year by year, he added first a field, then another, then bits of vineyard to the farm, while his cattle, horses, pigs and sheep multiplied exceedingly. But old Kemény never changed his mode of life. He now had to employ a great deal of labour in his fields and vineyards, for this he paid the few coppers or the measures of wheat as wages that were customary, neither more nor less. He was his own overseer, and spared himself neither morning, noon nor night. His rents he paid in kind, as the lord of Bideskút demanded, but on the surplus he neither fed nor clothed himself as all—peasant or noble—do in the Hungarian lowlands. He ate neither wheaten bread, nor drank good wine, he wore no fine linen, nor warm woollen garments; all his produce, animal and vegetable, he sold every year to the Jew traders, and at a high price too, for the lands round Kisfalu proved fatter and richer than some of Bideskút itself. As to what he did with the money he amassed year after year, no one in Árokszállás, or the other villages round, ever knew. He spoke to no one, never stopped to gossip on Sunday afternoons, or at even, when the work was done. The sowers, reapers, grape-gatherers and wine-pressers were never allowed within the actual precincts of the farm; what was due to them for their labour, in money or in kind, he gave them, but never a word that would give anybody the least idea of what was going on within that shrewd, thin head of his. As for the Jew Rosenstein, who did all his selling for him and who was the only and very frequent visitor at the farm, it was of course quite impossible to glean anything in the way of information from him; for even had any of the shepherds or herdsmen so far bemeaned [sic] themselves as to gossip with a Jew, old Rosenstein would never have spoken of any financial transaction in which he had a hand.

Late in life old Kemény gave still further food for gossip, by marrying, without giving previous warning of his intention of doing so to anyone for miles around. He had always been considered, owing to his parsimonious habits and eccentricities, such a confirmed bachelor, that the news, that he had one day gone to the other side of the Tarna and brought home a bride, took the village by storm. Great hopes were at first entertained of hearing from the new wife all that had been a mystery in old Kemény’s life; but either that the inhabitants of the opposite side of the Tarna were also a secretive and parsimonious lot, or that the wife was drilled to obey her husband, certain it is that Kemény Etelka proved as mysterious, as silent as her lord. She went to church every Sunday, true; but she never stopped outside the porch for a bit of gossip; she never placed a single copper in the plate, and though her husband rented the biggest farm in the county of Heves, she never wore anything but a cotton dress, and always walked to church barefoot. She was a pale, gentle creature, and many noticed that, during Mass, she very frequently cried.

Two years after their marriage András was born. A fine boy he was from the first, and much admired by all the women, when his mother brought him to church with her. There was absolutely no preventing his being kissed and petted, when he walked so proudly by her side, his little dark head erect, his bright eyes looking proudly round him. His mother had to stop now every Sunday outside the church to hear his praises sung by every woman in the village.

“Ah, the beautiful little angel!”

“A true Magyar!”

“The handsomest boy, this side of the Tarna!”

And it was with difficulty the mother succeeded in parrying the indiscreet questions, which inevitably followed this overflow of admiration for her boy.

As for old Kemény, it was impossible to kindle a spark of pride in him, by talking to him of his boy.

“Another mouth to feed,” he would say dolefully.

“Why! you niggardly old miser, you have enough and to spare, to feed a dozen sturdy lads like your little András boy. What is the use of hoarding? He will never want” And one or two of the older peasants, contemporaries of his own, would try to break through the barrier of old Kemény’s impenetrable silence over his own affairs.

“Plenty, and to spare?” rejoined the old man, crossly, “when not a groat have I got, even to buy myself a pair of boots. Plenty, indeed, when every florin, every ear of wheat, every blade of grass has to go into my lord of Bideskút’s pocket, in payment of rent for the tumble-down old farm.”

“Then you are either a liar or a fool, old chap, for if it takes every bit of a field to pay the rent of that field, it is the work of an ass to labour it.”

And loud laughter greeted this speech of undisputable logic.

This sort of banter angered old Kemény exceedingly, and all reference to his supposed wealth drove him into a perfect fury. As he grew older, therefore, he gradually ceased every intercourse with his fellow, men, avoided the village altogether, and never walked down the main roads. The labourers all declared that, during one entire vintage time he was never once seen to open his lips. He was soon positively hated by all, and deep was the compassion felt for the gentle wife, who had never known a day’s pleasure, never been allowed to dance the csárdás, in the great barn on Sunday afternoons, or to join the wedding and christening parties, as they occurred in the village.

As for András, as he grew up, life seemed indeed a dreary thing. His father, who never spared himself, knew no mercy for him. Every season of the year was one of incessant toil for the fast-growing lad. He became his father’s overseer, his drudge, his slave, not one single groat did he ever get, to spend in merry-making with the young peasants of his own age in the village inn, not one with which to buy a bit of ribbon, for the girl who had looked coquettishly at him, during Mass on Sunday. From morning to night it was toil, in the fields, the yards or the vineyards, and many were the heavy blows that fell on his young shoulders from his stern father’s knotted stick.

Gradually the bright, sunny expression in his eyes faded, and a kind of defiance seemed to perpetually sit on his proud, handsome face. He was soon old enough to notice, that his father was an object of hatred and derision, his mother and himself one of contempt and compassion; he saw how much coarser was his linen, how much shabbier his boots than those of the shepherds or herdsmen, who worked for wage, and slept under the blue vault of heaven; he saw that his mother walked barefoot, whilst Zsuzsi, Panna, Mariska, wore beautiful red boots; he saw that she never put a farthing in the plate for the good old Pater; and all that galled him, and made him hate the tyrant, whose eccentric miserliness deprived him of all the pleasures, which made life bright to others as young as himself.

“András! the gipsies over from Gyöngyös are going to play in the barn this afternoon. You will come?” asked a young lad of him one Sunday morning.

András bit his lip hard. He would have loved to come and hear his favourite tunes, played by the picked men of the county, and to show the pretty girls how well he could step the csárdás; but gipsy music and pretty girls meant money, fifty kreutzers at least for the one, and twenty for the others for a bit of ribbon or a handkerchief, and András, the rich farmer of Kisfalu’s son, had not a copper coin in his pockets.

“I will not come,” he said a little sadly.

“The gipsies will have plenty of money from all of us,” said another kindly; “it will not matter if you do not give them anything.”

“And why should I not give them anything?” retorted András, fiercely, “if I want to hear the czigány, I could do so. But I said I would not come. It is no one’s business to ask my reasons.”

“No one did ask you, András,” said one of the herdsmen, shrugging his shoulders, whilst another laughed and turned away.

“But I do ask you, why your hair is black and your moustache short. And, if you do not tell me why your impudent tongue happens to be red, I will …”

In that country where the sun is hot, and the tempers fierce, a quarrel often arises out of the merest banter. A jest roughly expressed and misunderstood, a word, inadvertently spoken, and tumultuous passions rise to the surface, like the bubbles in a glass of champagne; knives are brought out, eyes glare, lips are compressed, and often a severe wound, sometimes even a sudden and tragic death, is the outcome of a quarrel of five minutes, between comrades of a lifetime.

András had become livid with rage, his eyes glared round him, as if in defiance to the whole village to dare make fun of him. His hand had sought and grasped the heavy clasp-knife inside his belt, and the other fell heavily on the shoulder of the daring mocker, forcing him to turn and face him, whom he had ventured to deride.

“Hey! hey! and what do I see? My children, the day of the Lord will surely not be polluted by your quarrels. Kemény András, put back your knife! your mother—ah! she is a saint!—will be waiting at the cross-road for you; shall I go and tell her that I left her only son with a knife in his hand, after he has promised half an hour ago, to forgive so that he may be forgiven. Come, come, give me that knife, and do not look so fiercely at me. I am only a weak old man, and not worth quarrelling with.”

It was the good old priest, who, having said his Mass, was going home for his mid-day meal, his well-worn shabby old cassock held high above his lean shanks to protect it from the mud. Quite gently he placed his kindly hand on András’ wrist, and the young man let fall to the ground the knife that he held.

Then, without a word, he turned and fled towards the cross-road, on the way to Kisfalu, where his mother stood waiting for him.

After that episode, he, like his father, ceased to go to church, he wished to avoid the mocking laughter and the kindly sympathy, which alike stung and wounded his pride. With passionate devotion he poured all the pent-up flood of his intensely affectionate nature on the mother, who bore her hard lot with such exemplary patience. Worked to death almost, as he often was, on field and farm, he never was too tired to try and lighten some of his mother’s tasks. For her he would wash and cook, ay! spin and weave, for the sake of the delight of seeing the loved one rest peacefully for an hour in her arm-chair.

These two, mother and son, were all in all to each other. Their pride had shot them out from their own little world, yonder in the village, and even out in their fields. From the head of the house, the father, the husband, they had neither sympathy, nor even ordinary kindness. His greed of money seemed to grow with age. A kind of monomania had seized him. He suspected his own wife and son, and kept his money and his affairs as much hidden from them as from everyone else. They knew that he was passing rich, for András by now was an experienced farmer, and knew the value of those rich fields, those fine vineyards, those numerous herds of sheep, but the pleasures that those riches could give, the plentiful fare, the merry-making, dancing, czigány music, abundant wine, were all denied to them. As to the authority of him, who was her lord and master, his father, neither wife nor thought for one moment to question. In that land, where civilisation is still in its infancy, a kind of worship surrounds the head of the house; he is placed there by God himself, with divine rights over all his family; they neither question his decisions, however unreasonable they may seem, nor deny him their respect, however thoroughly he may have forfeited it.

And thus a few years sped on, and András was now two-and-twenty: the most hard-worked, the most robust and practical tiller and reaper of the soil on the lowlands. From his hard training he had learnt to work without complaint, to be content with little, to keep his own counsel and to despise money; from his own heart he had learnt one thing only, but that he had learnt thoroughly, namely to love his mother. All ideas of love in another direction, the love for a being, who was not his own flesh and blood, but; oh! who was so infinitely dearer, that was denied to him. If at times thoughts of a wife and family flitted through his mind,—for does not a hermit also dream of paradise?—he perforce had to chase them away. Old Kemény last year had said:

“I married when I was fifty. When András is that age, I shall be underground, then he can do as he pleases; till then I cannot allow another mouth to be fed under this roof.”

And in this, as in all things, what could András do, but obey? and chase dreams of a brighter future, far into the distance?

One memorable day, old Kemény, apparently still full of vigour, fell, struck as a withered oak by a sudden blast. After a hard day’s work in the vineyards, while András had stolen half an hour’s respite from wine-pressing, in order to help his mother, with the bread-baking, two sturdy lads brought the old miser home, on a rough stretcher, put hastily together. He seemed to know no one. His tongue babbled half-articulate sounds, his face was distorted, all awry. The village doctor bled him, and, though floods of thick dark blood flowed from his arm, it seemed in no way to bring him to consciousness. For two long days he still breathed on; András and his mother watched him dutifully to the last. At times they thought that something oppressed the brain already o’erclouded by death; at times the lifeless eyes would almost resuscitate, to glower anxiously round. But, whatever he wished to say, whatever parting injunction he may have wished to leave to his son, András never knew; he and his mother did not weep when they at last closed the eyes of their hard taskmaster, gone to his eternal rest. They asked the kind old priest to say a dozen Masses for the repose of his soul, and András, with his own hand, knocked together the boards of oak, which contained his father’s remains.

Old Kemény found his place among his kind, in the little churchyard at Árokszállás, his wife had twined two wreaths of marguerites and cornflowers, which she placed on his grave: they faded the same afternoon, as the sun was very hot, and they were never replaced.