by Mór Jókai
CHAPTER XXI.
SUNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT.
The poplar trees on KA?rA?s Island are clothing themselves with green,while yellow and blue flowers dot the turf. The whole island is averitable little paradise. It forms the summer residence of a familyof wealth and taste. On the broad veranda, which is shaded from themorning sun by a damask awning, stands a cradle hung with dainty whitecurtains; and in the cradle sleeps a little baby. In a willow chair atthe foot of the cradle sits the mother, in a white, lace-trimmedwrapper, her hair falling in natural curls over her shoulders andbosom. A young man sits before an easel opposite the lady, and paintsher miniature, while at the other end of the veranda a three-year-oldboy is engaged in coaxing a big Newfoundland dog to serve as pony tohis little master.
This young mother and these children are A-dA?n Baradlay's wife andchildren, and the young man is his brother JenA'. Without JenA' to bearher company, the young wife might lose her reason, thinking of herabsent husband, imagining his perils, and waiting weeks for any newsfrom him. JenA' knows how to dispel her fears: for every anxiety he hasan antidote, and when all else fails he rides to the next town andbrings back cheering tidings--in which, alas, there may be but fewwords of truth.
The young artist is not satisfied with his picture. He has a decidedartistic bent and talks of going to Rome to study; but this likenessthat he is now trying to paint baffles him. It seems to lacksomething; although the features are correctly drawn, the whole has astrange and unnatural look.
"BA(C)la, come here, little nephew."
The boy left the Newfoundland dog and ran to his uncle.
"Look here, look at this picture and tell me who it is."
The little fellow stared a moment at the painting with his great blueeyes. "A pretty lady," he answered.
"Don't you know your mamma, BA(C)la?" asked the artist.
"My mamma doesn't look like that," declared the boy, and ran back tohis four-footed playmate.
"The likeness is good," said Aranka encouragingly; "I am sure it is."
"But I am sure it is not," protested JenA', "and the fault is yours.When you sit to me you are all the time worrying about A-dA?n, and thatproduces exactly the expression I wish to avoid. We want to surprisehim with the picture, and he mustn't see you looking so anxious andsad."
"But how can I help it?"
Alas, what tireless efforts the young man had put forth to cheer uphis sister-in-law! How carefully he had hidden his own anxiousforebodings and predicted an early triumph for the cause of freedom,when his own heavy heart told him it could not be.
A faint cry from the wee mite of humanity in the cradle diverted themother's attention, and as she bent over her baby and its cry turnedto a laugh, the young artist caught at last on her face the expressionhe had been waiting for,--the tender, happy look of a fond mother.
* * * * *
In the castle at Nemesdomb the moon was shining brightly through thewindows. It fell on the family portraits, one after another, and theyseemed to step from their frames like pale ghosts. Brightest andclearest among them all was the likeness of the man with the heart ofstone.
Back and forth glided a woman's form clad in white. One might havethought a marble statue from the family vault had left its pedestal tojoin the weird assembly in the portrait gallery. The stillness of thenight was broken from time to time by a sigh or a groan or a stifledcry of pain. What ghostly voices were those that disturbed the quietof that moonlit scene?
The whole Baradlay castle had been turned into a hospital by itsmistress and opened to the warriors wounded in the struggle forfreedom; and it was these poor soldiers whose cries of pain now brokethe stillness of the night. Two physicians were in attendance; thelibrary was turned into a pharmacy and the great hall into a surgeon'soperating-room, while the baroness and her women spent their dayspicking lint and preparing compresses.
Standing in the moonlight before her dead husband's portrait, thewidow spoke with him. "No," said she firmly, "you shall not frightenme away. I will meet you face to face. You say to me: 'All this isyour work!' I do not deny it. These groans and sighs allow neither younor me to sleep. But you know well enough that bloodshed and sufferingwere inevitable; that this cup of bitterness was, sooner or later, tobe drained to the bottom; that whoever would enjoy eternal life mustfirst suffer death. You ask me what I have done with your sons. Theexact contrary to what you bade me do. Two of them are fighting fortheir country; one of the two is wounded, and I may hear of his deathany day. But I repent not of what I have done. I await what destinyhas in store for us, and if I am to lose all my sons, so be it! It isbetter to suffer defeat in a righteous cause than to triumph in anunrighteous one."
She left the portrait and sought her own apartment, and the moonlightcrept on and left the haughty face on the wall in darkness.