Eyes Like the Sea: A Novel

by Mór Jókai

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE DEMON'S BAIT

  I said in the last chapter that the lady was looking straight into myeyes with the glance of Circe. Then she shrugged her shoulders, flungherself down beside the fire-ashes, and began to blow the cinders so asto entice a flame from the smouldering embers.

  "It's useless to give advice to me, for I always do exactly thecontrary. Let us rather have a chat together. What is your fate, now?"

  "The fate of the grub when it is in its chrysalis."

  "Then it was not without cause that I went to you that evening when youshut your door in my face? And yet I only said what I did because Ifeared that either the gibbet or suicide awaited you on the path youchose to take."

  Here her voice trembled, her chin, her lips twitched convulsively, andher eyes filled with tears.

  A lady in tears is dangerous!

  I did _not_ hasten to dry her tears. On the contrary, I replied withcool cynicism:

  "Every career has its own peculiar _maleficium_--drowning awaits thesailor, shooting the soldier; the doctor may fall a victim to anepidemic; the glass-maker suffers from caries; choke-damp kills theminer; and he who meddles with politics runs a chance of being hanged orguillotined."

  "No, no! They shall not do it!" she cried hoarsely, seizing my hand inboth her own.

  "I do not want them to do it," I said, "and that is why I am hidingmyself here at the back of beyond."

  "But how long is this to go on? What future do you see before you?"

  "For the present I am like the convalescent beggar whose promenadingdoes not go beyond the house-door. I thought of beginning a littlefarming in this valley and forgetting all my dreams of glory. I shallbecome an agriculturist."

  "Very nice! And your wife?"

  "She will join me."

  "And you seriously think so? You think she'll come and settle down withyou in a hut with a clay floor and a straw roof, like the one you areliving in now."

  "It's a palace compared with what we lived in in our Debreczin days.When my wife did the cooking--for we had no servant--we loved each otherbetter than ever. In a little house loving hearts are nearer to eachother than in a large palace."

  "It was possible then, no doubt. I have experienced the same thing. Butthis is quite different. When a man has such brilliant hopes, want is noaffliction. It will be over soon, he thinks. But to enter upon miserywith the knowledge that it will last till death, is beyond the power ofresignation. And particularly with a woman! Believe me, I know my ownsex. Your wife, who now stands at the summit of her artistic fame,cannot quit her brilliant career. No! If you were an angel she couldnot."

  I could not defend my point of view against her. Stern reality was onher side; on my side were only faith and imagination.

  "I believe in my wife's promise to deliver me out of my difficultposition."

  "I can't imagine how. She cannot do what I can do for Balvanyossi--inother words, accuse herself and say: 'It was not he who proclaimedfreedom on March 15th. It was not he who wrote those heart-stirringarticles to the nation. It was not he who edited those newspapers; nothe who went to battle with the armies; not he who inspired the Honvedsat the siege of Buda: but I.' Your wife cannot take your fault on hershoulders."

  I couldn't help laughing.

  "I would not let her."

  "But let us suppose that a great _artiste_, a renowned beauty, mightperhaps manage by some means or other to procure an amnesty for herhidden husband" (and as she said this she discharged murderous,envenomed darts at me from the corners of her eyes), "what will be yoursubsequent lot when you return to Pest as a rebel amnestied at theintercession of his wife? The earth and the sky which you used to adorehave vanished. No poet, no newspaper, no publisher: what will you do?Will you enter a lawyer's office again to copy deeds, issue summonses,and serve writs at so much a day? Or will you translate comedies (underofficial protection) at fifty florins each for the National Theatre; orpaint fashionable portraits of butchers' wives at five florins apiece?Or, perhaps, you'll do nothing at all, but live simply under the wing ofyour wife as 'the actress's husband,' and see a woman bending beneaththe load of sustaining a household--accomplishing the most exhaustingwork; coming home after her day's acting is over, tired to death,excited, unstrung. See her, poorly though she be, hurry from oneprovincial town to another, acting uncongenial parts, so as to scrapetogether a little money wherewith to satisfy the Jews with whom she hasto haggle for the material for her costumes. And the husband must lookon at all this with his arms folded, or, if he does anything at all, mayperhaps paint the flowers for her costumes, which she herself will thensew on with her own hands."

  "It will not last for ever--other times will come."

  "Other times! You think other times will come, eh? Now, that is what Ifear most of all. I know you well. You are not the sort of man who cancontent himself with the thought--what is past is over! You will neverforget what you used to be, still less what you meant to be. The gloryof fame is not forgotten as easily as a pawned jewel. You will againfall into those straits from which you have been set free."

  And the woman saw right into my soul. My face is so maladroit that itnever could keep a secret. You can read my features like an open book.When I am frightened, it is vain for me to pretend that I am plucky.When I'm in a rage, it is useless for me to affect calmness--nobody istaken in by it. I cannot even haggle over a bargain properly, people canread from my face what I have to give. This woman could see where mysoul was wandering in secret, far, far away, in a gloriously arisenHungary of the future. And she regarded this talk of turning farmer aslittle more than the incoherent delirium of a fevered visionary.

  "Let it be as you say," I said.... "If I live I will build a tower outof the ruins of my country's glory; if I die, my grave will become analtar. Vainly does this coward flesh of mine tremble in every nerve. Iam neither a hero nor a giant. The report of a gun makes me tremble; Igrow pale in the presence of death; grief draws tears from me--but Iwill not depart from my set path. If I cannot write under my own name, Iwill write under the name of my landlord's dog. I will be 'Sajo.'[87]We'll bark if we can't speak, but we'll not be silent."

  [Footnote 87: My works "_Forradalmi es csatakepek_," "_Bujdoso naploja_"were written under the pseudonym _Sajo_.--JOKAI.]

  The lady, in terror, seized me by both arms.

  "For Heaven's sake, take care! A step backwards, and you'll fall overthe rock."

  "But I don't mean to take a step backwards."

  "Listen to me quietly. Don't fly into a rage. Sit down beside me. Youneed have no great fear of me. I am not a luring demon. I have not aword to say against what you've said. Do whatever your soul bids you. Iask for nothing more. Don't you believe that I've a good heart also?"

  "I believe that you've a little too much heart."

  "Perhaps all that my heart led me to do was sinful. I was mad. I wasblind. Passion got hold of me; but the feeling I had for you would nothave been out of place in heaven itself. When I am alone, I am alwayswith you; and when I think of anything I think of you. I wish you to goonwards and upwards along the rugged path that you have entered upon;but can you do it here, with a leaden weight on your feet, a padlock onyour mouth, and a strait jacket on your body?"

  "'Tis because it _is_ heavy that I must needs carry my burden."

  "But how much more brilliant would be the success of your struggle ifyou could continue it on a foreign soil--in free France, for instance!Just think! If you were now to appear in Paris, the leaders of theFrench literature would receive you with open arms. The French publicwould enrol you among its great writers, and then you might write ofthe glory, the sufferings, and the heroic struggles of Hungary, and ofthe amiable qualities of its people; you might write all this withperfect freedom, from the very bottom of your heart, and millions andmillions, the whole round world, would read your writings, and notmerely a handful of people, as here at home. There you would be a richman, here you are only a day-labourer. Here you might sing like aTy
rtaeus, and the world outside would hear nothing of it; but if youraised your voice abroad in the midst of a great nation and acosmopolitan capital, your voice would be like the horns of Joshuabefore the walls of Jericho."

  Ah! how luring was the panorama.... To become a great French writer! Tobe raised aloft on the shoulders of the most glorious of nations! Whathere at home was but the crack of a whip in my hands, would there be athunderbolt!

  "But it is impossible," I objected. "How could I possibly force my wayto the frontiers of France from the depths of Tordona, through my owncountry, through Austria, through Germany, without a passport, withoutmoney, in a semi-Asiatic garb? Just as well might I cast myself downfrom the mountain-top in the belief that I could fly."

  "Well, come now, I have a very good plan to suggest to you. I've got anEnglish passport. Have I not told you exactly how I got it? Nonebesides yourself knows that I have it, except, of course, the officialswho have _vised_ it on the way. In this passport the blank for mytravelling companion has not yet been filled up. You asked me just nowwhy I did not insert the name and description of Balvanyossi. Now, I'lltell you. Nobody is pursuing him. I always intended to fill up thatblank with your name. You won't have to sacrifice much beyond thatlittle moustache and beard of yours, and resigning yourself to speaknothing abroad but French and German. I appoint you my secretary. Imyself am an English lady. We mustn't go _via_ Vienna. But the way isclear in the direction of Breslau. I have quite enough money for usboth. I still retain the hundred ducats which I received at Debreczin.We shall do sumptuously with this till we get to Paris. My capital inthe Vienna bank I can leave where it is, or I may have it sent after me,and the interest from it will suffice for your modest needs at thebeginning of your residence at Paris, so that you will not have toresort to the emigrants' fund. When once you have won a position foryourself in Continental literature you will need no further assistancefrom anybody. You will be able to refund to me what I advanced to you asa loan. Only as a loan remember, not as a gift; still less do I expectanything in exchange, not even a warm pressure of the hand. I am simplyyour proselyte whose mission it is to make straight the way of theprophet."

  It was a seductive picture, and still more seductive was she whopresented it to me.

  To be free! To be able to pronounce my name boldly in the face of everyone who met me! Not to tremble at the pattering of every footstep at mydoor! To fight for great ideas in the company of great and noble minds!

  And how her _eyes_ sparkled as she said these words, like the parheliain the glowing girdle of a solar halo! And her face was as open as achild's. I could have sworn that she was an artless virgin opening herheart for the first time to a true sentiment. Her hands were folded asif in prayer.

  Had I wavered but a hair's-breadth, I must have plunged down into theabyss.

  Ah! what a different man I should have become. Had I fled with her, Ishould now be the grand master of the Realists, for there is as mucherotic flame, satiric vein, and luxurious fancy in me as in them; but Ihave not used these qualities, because I write for a Hungarian public.Had I flown with her, millions would have read my works, and fathers andmothers would have cursed me as the corrupter of their children. And Ishould have laughed at them, and tapped the fat paunch, which as anidealistic writer I have never been able to acquire.

  And whither would this reinless, bridleless passion have hurried me hadI been swayed by such a fascinating Calypso, whose every movement was acharm, whose every word was a snare, who was herself the personifiedjoy of a Mohammedan paradise? For, remember, I was then onlyfour-and-twenty!

  Fortunately, a sober thought still remained in my head.

  "I mean to remain in my own land," I said abruptly.

  "Why?"

  "I will not forsake those who arose at my word. If they lie on theearth, I also will lie down beside them. I will take my share of thesuffering of which I was the cause."

  "You won't remain out in the cold for ever, of course. Haven't you,then, the hope that those who have sought refuge abroad will one dayreturn in triumph? Then you also will return home at the head of thereprieved."

  Even this weapon she managed to turn against me! Oh, what a weak coat ofmail it was that defended me--only a single word!

  "I have given my word that I'll not depart from hence," I said softly.

  "To whom?"

  "To her who gave me her word that she would come and seek me here."

  "Your wife?"

  "Yes."

  "And if she seeks you, what then?"

  "She will bring me liberty."

  "How? In what way?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't know, and yet you believe?"

  "I believe with my whole heart."

  "And you never think what may be the price of such freedom?"

  "I spurn such a thought as often as it arises."

  "You believe in a woman's loyalty, a woman's virtue?"

  "I do."

  "Then you are a very happy man!"

  During this conversation I continued my drawing, and she called myattention to several objects in the landscape which had escaped me.Shortly after that she began a very ordinary conversation about theweather.

  "Look! the prophecy of the old forester is well-nigh fulfilled. The skyis quite overcast. The snowstorm will surprise us here."

  "Then, perhaps, it may be as well to call our friend out of hishiding-place?"

  "Oh, that will be very easy! I need only give him one signal. He himselfselected it from the romance 'Ivanhoe'--the note of the hero'shorn--'Wasa hoa!' At this signal he will appear immediately."

  "Well, I can scarcely see to sketch any more, it is so dark."

  "Then you are determined to go to that little village down there?"

  "Yes."

  "No news from the world will ever penetrate thither."

  "That will be all the better for me."

  "You have heard nothing of what is going on outside all this time, Isuppose?"

  "Nothing pleasant."

  "It is a dreadful world. How would the women manage to live if theycouldn't chatter?"

  "They could sew their children's clothes."

  "Perhaps you haven't heard that Petofi's widow has married again?"

  Ah, that was indeed a murderous thrust! A calculated, well-aimed,poisonous dart where there was a weak joint in my coat of mail.

  "What do you say?" cried I, in a perfect passion.

  "It is a fact known to everybody."

  "Petofi's wife! Then what has become of Petofi?"

  "He fell at the battle of Segesvar."

  "Who saw him fall?"

  "A Honved officer who testified to the fact. This was quite enough forhis widow. She immediately went to the altar with another young writer,who was not perhaps such a knightly hero as your friend, but who is apleasant young man in a good official position, moving in the bestsociety, and who is able to assure his wife a comfortable existence."

  Every one of this woman's words went right through my heart.

  Now, indeed, after years have elapsed, I can say that poor Julia didwell to confide her fate to a good and worthy man. She had a child, andhad duties towards that child. But at that moment a heavier blow couldnot have descended upon my head. The death of our martyrs, let it benever so cruel, was not nearly such terrible news to me as the news thatthe martyrs had been forgotten.

  That any woman could ever forget Petofi! The woman whom the poet hadencompassed with the rays of his soul of flame! That the poet should beable to make himself immortal to the whole world and not to her whom hehad worshipped!

  No doubt the widow was right, she will be blessed in the next world, andthere Petofi himself will justify her--the righteous are always just;but to me this news seemed to open the very gates of hell. If the grasscan grow so quickly over my overthrown idol, what am I, I should like toknow? A frog enclosed in a tree, whose calling it is to live for ahundred years--beneath the bark!

  "I won't believe it! I won't believe it!
I won't believe it!"

  She laughed at me. "Now wriggle away!" she seemed to say.

  From the crown of my head to the heel of my foot I was full ofbitterness. If such a thing as this could happen, why shouldn't thatother thing happen, too? Why shouldn't another fallen writer forget thepromise he had made to his wife, seize the hand of his former ideal, andfly away with her out into the world? That would be tit for tat.

  Her two eyes flamed as she looked at me and laughed. It was just as ifshe knew she had wounded me and would fain stir me up to vengeance.

  She had destroyed my idol: belief in a woman's heart.

  Women were all alike!

  "No, no, no! My wife is not like other women."

  I sat down on the edge of the precipitous rock, made a speaking-trumpetof the palms of both hands, and called loudly down into the valley "Wasahoa!"

  The echo repeated my words. And not long afterwards could be heard frombelow the proud refrain:--

  "Whom he meets upon his way Him he cruelly doth slay; But if a pretty girl draw near, Ah, then what gayer cavalier! Tremble and quake ye tongues that lie, And speak his name all whisp'ringly: Diavolo, diavolo, diavolo!"

  As the song drew nearer, I packed up my traps and clasped my stick allready to say good-bye.

  "Forget what we have been speaking about!"

  I said this.

  "Have we been speaking about anything, then? I didn't know!" replied thelady with the eyes like the sea.

  "Adieu!"

  "Adieu!"

  I was quite persuaded that we should never meet again.

  I did not wait till my friend had climbed up again out of his hole. Theywould easily find one another. The snow had already begun to fall inthick flakes. I set off homewards.

  The snowstorm drove full against me as I proceeded. I had very nearlylost myself in the forest. The evening had fallen early; by the time Ihad descended from the hill it was quite dark.

  But still darker was what I carried with me in my brain--the blackthought that there was now no such thing as love or loving remembrancein the world. Where we fall, there we lie, and none cares. Some of usdie, and there is none to mourn us; the rest of us remain alive, andmourn over ourselves.

  How fair is the fate of a fallen tree. There it lies, and the ground-ivycovers it.

  If the wild beasts were to tear me to pieces now, nobody would knowwhere I had perished.

  At last I stumbled upon the linden spring.

  This was a good guide. The stream flows right along beside the house ofthe Csanyis; one can get home by keeping near its banks, even in thedark.

  My soul blamed me for having passed so much time by the Pagan Altar withthat "other" woman.

  The snow now completely covered the fields, and through it in serpentineflight darted the threefold stream. The autumn leaves were still on thetrees, their crowns bent down beneath loads of snow. The whole landscapewas sombre, but it was not more sombre than my soul.

  Suddenly, like a ray of hope, the window-light of the little house inwhich I was lodging flashed out before me. It stood at the end of thevillage, and was the last house of all.

  I was utterly wearied both in body and soul when I arrived at last atthe little dwelling.

  It had neither courtyard nor enclosure. It stood right out upon theroad. The carts and ploughs stood there beneath a shed. There are nothieves here.

  The door of the house is never bolted, and it opens out upon a littlepassage. On the right-hand side of this passage lie kitchen andstore-room; on the left the living-rooms, and a side chamber, whichserved me as a bedroom, and the rest of the family as a sort ofwithdrawing-room. It is the only room in the house which has a dealfloor, all the other floors are of clay.

  The kitchen door was also open, and a large fire was blazing on the openhearth. My hostess with her serving-maid was busy baking and boiling.

  When I bade her good evening, she glanced at me with a roguish smile.

  "Ei, ei! A nice time to come home, I must say! But go into theroom--supper will be ready presently."

  I went into the room.

  By the lighted stove sat my wife!

  Rapturous joy drove every other thought out of my soul.

  I don't know what I said. I wouldn't believe she was there till I hadcaught her in my arms and embraced her tightly.

  'Tis true, 'tis true, 'tis true--loyalty, love, sweet remembrance stillbelong to this world!

  She told me afterwards--very briefly--how ill she had been. She hadwanted to come before, but couldn't; as it was, she had left Pest bystealth, and had come with a passport made out under a false name. Shehad suffered much on the way. She had gone astray in the snowstorm inthe beech woods, and it had been as much as she could do to find her wayagain. She had been terrified by the wolves, whose howls even nowresounded from the woods.

  And all the while I suffered the mental torture of a man who hears theperson who _is_ talking to him and the person who _has been_ talking tohim at the same time. I saw the one figure and I saw the other also.

  Our good host, worthy Beno Csanyi, as he sat by the table, kept onmumbling in his beard: "That's something like a woman--that _is_ a wife,if you like!"

  Well, now that we are both together again, what does it all matter?

  Yes, but how long shall we be together again?

  My wife must go back the day after to-morrow. Only grudgingly had thedirector of the theatre allowed her a four days' leave. On the fifth dayshe must play.

  But my captivity was soon to draw to a close.

  My wife took a carefully concealed piece of paper from her breast; itwas a tiny little grey schedule, but that little schedule was in thosedays a great treasure. It was the guarantee of my liberation--a Comornpassport.

  It was a very simple method of deliverance, as simple as the egg ofColumbus.

  When the fortress of Comorn capitulated, each of the officers of thegarrison there received a passport which guaranteed his life andliberty, and also dispensed him from enrolment in the Austrian army. Mywife managed to procure me such a passport in the simplest way in theworld. There was a brother of Szigligeti's in the Comorn garrison,Vincent Szathmary (Szathmary was their family name), who wrote my namedown in the list of the capitulating officers as a Honved lieutenant,and handed the passport bearing my name to my wife.

  This was the reason why I was obliged to remain in concealment in themeantime.

  Thus my dove had brought me two leaves of the olive-branch, namely, lifeand liberty; but how about the third? I had still to wait for that. Iwas not free to come forth till I got it. I should have to wait till shecame back for me a second time. I no longer ran any risk of beingcondemned, but I might still run the risk of being interned at my nativeplace, Comorn, and that would have been a fresh torment for me.

  Then my wife asked me: "Have you been thinking of me also all thistime?"

  And if I had not been able to answer, "Always of thee!" and if, whilesaying this, I had not been able to look her honestly in the face, shewould have been amply justified in tearing the passport to pieces andflinging the fragments in my face.