The Nameless Castle

by Maurus Jokai

  The count snatched his wrist from the doctor’s grasp, and cried angrily:

  “But I don’t need a doctor, or any medicine. There is nothing at all the matter with me. I don’t want anything from you, but to know who brought you here.”

  “Beg pardon,” retorted the offended doctor. “I was summoned, and came through this dreadful storm. I was told that the Herr Count was seriously ill.”

  “Who said so? Henry?” demanded the count, rising on one knee.

  Henry did not venture to move or speak.

  “Did you fetch this doctor, Henry?” again demanded the invalid, with expanded nostrils, panting with fury.

  The doctor, fancying that it would be well to tell the truth, now interposed politely:

  “Allow me, Herr Count! Herr Henry did not come alone to fetch me, but he came with the gracious countess; and on foot, too, in this weather.”

  “What? Marie?” gasped the invalid; and at that moment his face looked as if he had become suddenly insane. An involuntary epileptic convulsion shook his limbs. He fell from the bed, but sprang at the same instant to his feet again, flung himself like an angry lion upon Henry, caught him by the throat, and cried with the voice of a demon:

  “Wretch! Betrayer! What have you dared to do? I will kill you!”

  The doctor required nothing further. He did not stop to see the friendly promise fulfilled, but, leaving his lances, elixirs, and plasters behind him, he flew down the staircase, four steps at a time, and into the pouring rain, totally forgetting the ischias which threatened his leg. Nor did he once think of a carriage, or of a human dromedary,—not even of a lantern, or an umbrella,—as he galloped down the dark road through the thickest of the mud.

  When the count seized Henry by the throat and began to shake him, as a lion does the captured buffalo, Marie stepped suddenly to his side, and in a clear, commanding tone cried:

  “Louis!”

  At this word he released Henry, fell on his knees at Marie’s feet, clasped both arms around her, and, sobbing convulsively, pressed kiss after kiss on the little maid’s wet and muddy gown.

  “Why—why did you do this for me?” he exclaimed, in a choking voice.

  The doctor’s visit had, after all, benefited the invalid. The spontaneous reaction which followed the violent fit of passion caused a sudden turn in his illness. The salutary crisis came of its own accord during the outburst of rage, which threw him into a profuse perspiration. The brain gradually returned to its normal condition.

  “You will get well again, will you not?” stammered the little maid shyly, laying her hand on the invalid’s brow.

  “If you really want me to get well,” returned Ludwig, “then you must comply with my request. Go to your room, take off these wet clothes, and go to bed. And you must promise never again to go on another errand like the one you performed this evening. I hope you may sleep soundly.”

  “I will do whatever you wish, Ludwig—anything to prevent your getting angry again.”

  The little maid returned to her room, took off her wet clothes, and lay down on the bed; but she could not sleep. Every hour she rose, threw on her wrapper, thrust her feet into her slippers, and stole to the door of Ludwig’s room to whisper: “How is he now, Henry?”

  “He is sleeping quietly,” Henry would answer encouragingly. The faithful fellow had forgotten his master’s anger, and was watching over him as tenderly as a mother over her child.

  “He did not hurt you very much, did he, Henry?”

  “No; it did not hurt, and I deserved what I got.”

  The little maid pressed the old servant’s hand, whereupon he sank to his knees at her feet, and, kissing her pretty fingers, whispered:

  “This fully repays me.”

  The next morning Ludwig was entirely recovered. He rose, and, as was his wont, drank six tumblerfuls of water—his usual breakfast.

  Of the events of the past night he spoke not one word.

  At ten o’clock the occupants of the Nameless Castle were to be seen out driving as usual—the white-haired groom, the stern-visaged gentleman, and the veiled lady.

  That same morning Dr. Tromfszky received from the castle a packet containing his medical belongings, and an envelop in which he found a hundred-guilder bank-note, but not a single written word.

  Meanwhile the days passed with their usual monotony for the occupants of the Nameless Castle, and September, with its delightfully warm weather drew on apace. In Hungary the long autumn makes ample amends for the brief spring—like the frugal mother who stores away in May gifts with which to surprise her children later in the season.

  Down at the lake, a merry crowd of naked children disported in the water; their shouts and laughter could be heard at the castle. Ludwig fully understood the deep melancholy which had settled on Marie’s countenance. Her sole amusement, her greatest happiness, had been taken from her. Other high-born maidens had so many ways of enjoying themselves; she had none. No train of admirers paid court to her. No strains of merry dance-music entranced her ear. Celebrated actors came and went; she did not delight in their performances—she had never even seen a theater. She had no girl friends with whom to exchange confidences—with whom to make merry over the silly flatterers who paid court to them; no acquaintances whose envy she could arouse by the magnificence of her toilets—one of the greatest pleasures in life!

  She had no other flatterers but her cats; no other confidantes but her cats; no other actors but her cats. The world of waves had been her sole enjoyment. The water had been her theater, balls, concert—the great world. It was her freedom. The land was a prison.

  Again it was the full of the moon, and quite warm. The tulip-formed blossoms of the luxuriant water-lilies were in bloom along the lake shore. Ludwig’s heart ached with pity for the little maid when he saw how sorrowfully she gazed from her window on the glittering lake.

  “Come, Marie,” he said, “fetch your bathing-dress, and let us try the lake again. I will stay close by you, and take good care that nothing frightens you. We will not go out of the cove.”

  How delighted the child was to hear these words! She danced and skipped for joy; she called him her dear Ludwig. Then she hunted up the discarded Melusine costume, and hastened with such speed toward the shore that Ludwig was obliged to run to keep up with her. But the nearer she approached to the bath-house, the less quickly she walked; and when she stood in the doorway she said:

  “Oh, how my heart beats!”

  When Ludwig appeared with the canoe from behind the willows, the charming Naiad stepped from the bath-house. The rippling waves bore the moonlight to her feet, where she stood on the narrow platform which projected into the lake. She knelt and, bending forward, kissed the water; it was her beloved! After a moment’s hesitation she dropped gently from the platform, as she had been wont to do; but when she felt the waves about her shoulders, she uttered a cry of terror, and grasped the edge of the canoe with both hands.

  “Lift me out, Ludwig! I cannot bear it; I am afraid!”

  With a sorrowful heart the little maid took leave of her favorite element. The hot tears gushed from her eyes, and fell into the water; it was as if she were bidding an eternal, farewell to her beloved. From that hour the child became a silent and thoughtful woman.

  Then followed the stormy days of autumn, the long evenings, the weeks and months when nothing could be done but stay in doors and amuse one’s self with books—Dante, Shakspere, Horace. To these were occasionally added learned folios sent from Stuttgart to Count Ludwig, who seemed to find his greatest enjoyment in perusing works on philosophy and science. Meanwhile the communication by letter between the count and the erudite shepherd of souls in the village was continued.

  One day Herr Mercatoris sent to the castle a brochure on which he had proudly written, “With the compliments of the author.” The booklet was written in Latin, and was an account of the natural wonder which is, to this day, reckoned among the numerous memorable peculiarities of Lake Neusied
l,—a human being that lived in the water and ate live fishes.

  A little boy who had lost both parents, and had no one to care for him, had strayed into the morass of the Hansag, and, living there among the wild animals, had become a wild animal himself, an inhabitant of the water like the otters, a dumb creature from whose lips issued no human sound.

  The decade of years he had existed in the water had changed his skin to a thick hide covered with a heavy growth of hair. The phenomenon would doubtless be accepted by many as a convincing proof that the human being was really evolved from the wild animal.

  Accompanying the description was an engraved portrait of the natural wonder.

  The new owner of Fertöszeg, Baroness Katharina Landsknechtsschild, had been told that a strange creature was frightening the village children who bathed in the lake. She had given orders to some fishermen to catch the monster, which they had been fortunate enough to do while fishing for sturgeon. The boy-fish had been taken to the manor, where he had been properly clothed, and placed in the care of a servant whose task it was to teach the poor lad to speak, and walk upright instead of on all fours, as had been his habit. Success had so far attended the efforts to tame the wild boy that he would eat bread and keep on his clothes. He had also learned to say “Ham-ham” when he wanted something to eat; and he had been taught to turn the spit in the kitchen. The kind-hearted baroness was sparing no pains to restore the lad to his original condition. No one was allowed to strike or abuse him in any way.

  This brochure had a twofold effect upon the count. He became convinced that the monster which had frightened Marie was not an assassin hired by her enemies, not an expert diver, but a natural abnormity that had acted innocently when he pursued the swimming maid. Second, the count could not help but reproach himself when he remembered that he would have destroyed the irresponsible creature whom his neighbor was endeavoring to transform again into a human being.

  How much nobler was this woman’s heart than his own! His fair neighbor began to interest him.

  He took the pamphlet to Marie, who shuddered when her eyes fell on the engraving.

  “The creature is really a harmless human being, Marie, and I am sorry we became so excited over it. Our neighbor, the lovely baroness, is trying to restore the poor lad to his original condition. Next summer you will not need to be afraid to venture into the lake again.”

  The little maid gazed thoughtfully into Ludwig’s eyes for several moments; evidently she was pondering over something.

  There had risen in her mind a suspicion that Ludwig himself had written the pamphlet, and had had the monster’s portrait engraved, in order to quiet her fears and restore her confidence in the water.

  “Will you take me sometime to visit the baroness?” she asked suddenly.

  “And why?” inquired Ludwig, in turn, rising from his seat.

  “That I, too, may see the wonderful improvement in the monster.”

  “No,” he returned shortly, and taking up the pamphlet, he quitted the room. “No!”

  “But why ‘No’?”

  PART IV

  SATAN LACZI

  CHAPTER I

  Count Vavel (thus he was addressed on his letters) had arranged an observatory in the tower of the Nameless Castle. Here was his telescope, by the aid of which he viewed the heavens by night, and by day observed the doings of his fellow-men. He noticed everything that went on about him. He peered into the neighboring farm-yards and cottages, was a spectator of the community’s disputes as well as its diversions. Of late, the chief object of his telescopic observations during the day were the doings at the neighboring manor. He was the “Lion-head” and the “Council of Ten” in one person. The question was, whether the new mistress of the manor, the unmarried baroness, should “cross the Bridge of Sighs”? His telescope told him that this woman was young and very fair; and it told him also that she lived a very secluded life. She never went beyond the village, nor did she receive any visitors.

  In the neighborhood of Neusiedl Lake one village was joined to another, and these were populated by pleasure-loving and sociable families of distinction. It was therefore a difficult matter for the well-born man or woman who took up a residence in the neighborhood to avoid the jovial sociability which reigned in those aristocratic circles.

  Count Vavel himself had been overwhelmed with hospitable attentions the first year of his occupancy of the Nameless Castle; but his refusals to accept the numerous invitations had been so decided that they were not repeated.

  He frequently saw through his telescope the same four-horse equipages which had once stopped in front of his own gates drive into the court at the manor; and he recognized in the occupants the same jovial blades, the eligible young nobles, who had honored him with their visits. He noticed, too, that none of the visitors spent a night at the manor. Very often the baroness did not leave her room when a caller came; it may have been that she had refused to receive him on the plea of illness. During the winter Count Vavel frequently saw his fair neighbor skating on the frozen cove; while a servant propelled her companion over the ice in a chair-sledge.

  On these occasions the count would admire the baroness’s graceful figure, her intrepid movements, and her beautiful face, which was flushed with the exercise and by the cutting wind.

  But what pleased him most of all was that the baroness never once during her skating exercises cast an inquiring glance toward the windows of the Nameless Castle—not even when she came quite close to it.

  On Christmas eve she, like Count Vavel, arranged a Christmas tree for the village children. The little ones hastened from the manor to the castle, and repeated wonderful tales of the gifts they had received from the baroness’s own hands.

  Every Sunday the count saw the lady from the manor take her way to church, on foot if the roads were good; and on her homeward way he could see her distribute alms among the beggars who were ranged along either side of the road. This the count did not approve. He, too, gave plenteously to the poor, but through the village pastor, and only to those needy ones who were too modest to beg openly. The street beggars he repulsed with great harshness—with one exception. This was a one-legged man, who had lost his limb at Marengo, and who stationed himself regularly beside the cross at the end of the village. Here he would stand, leaning on his crutches, and the count, in driving past, would always drop a coin into the maimed warrior’s hat.

  One day when the carriage drew near the cross, Count Vavel saw the old soldier, as usual, but without his crutches. Instead, he leaned on a walking-stick, and stood on two legs.

  The count stopped the carriage, and asked: “Are not you the one-legged soldier?”

  “I am, your lordship,” replied the man; “but that angel, the baroness, has had a wooden leg made for me,—I could dance with it if I wished,—so I don’t need to beg any more, for I can cut wood now, and thus earn my living. May God bless her who has done this for me!”

  The count was dissatisfied with himself. This woman understood everything better than he did. He felt that she was his rival, and from this feeling sprang the desire to compete with her.

  An opportunity very soon offered. One day the count received from the reverend Herr Mercatoris a gracefully worded appeal for charity. The new owner of Fertöszeg had interested herself in the fate of the destitute children whose fathers had gone to the war, and, in order to render their condition more comfortable, had undertaken to found a home for them. She had already given the necessary buildings, and had furnished them. She now applied to the sympathies of the well-to-do residents of the county for assistance to educate the children. In addition to food and shelter, they required teachers. Such sums as were necessary for this purpose must be raised by a general subscription from the charitably inclined.

  The count promptly responded to this request. He sent the pastor fifty louis d’or. But in the letter which accompanied the gift he stipulated that the boy whose mother was in prison should not be removed from Frau Schmidt’s car
e to the children’s asylum.

  It was quite in the order of things that the baroness should acknowledge the munificent gift by a letter of thanks.

  This missive was beautifully written. The orthography was singularly faultless. The expressions were gracefully worded and artless; nothing of flattery or sentimentality—merely courteous gratefulness. The letter concluded thus:

  “You will pardon me, I trust, if I add that the stipulation which you append to your generous gift surprises me; for it means either that you disapprove the principle of my undertaking, or you do not wish to transfer to another the burden you have taken upon yourself. If the latter be the reason, I am perfectly willing to agree to the stipulation; if it be the former, then I should like very much to hear your objection, in order that I may justify my action.”

  This was a challenge that could not be ignored. The count, of course, would have to convince his fair neighbor that he was in perfect sympathy with the principle of her philanthropic project, and he wrote accordingly; but he added that he disapproved the prison-like system of children’s asylums, the convict-like regulations of such institutions. He thought the little ones would be better cared for, and much happier, were they placed in private homes, to grow up as useful men and women amid scenes and in the sphere of life to which they belonged.

  The count’s polemic reply was not without effect. The baroness, who had her own views on the matter, was quite as ready to take the field, with as many theoretic and empiric data and recognized authorities as had been her opponent. The count one day would despatch a letter to the manor, and Baroness Katharina would send her reply the next—each determined not to remain the other’s debtor. The count’s epistles were dictated to Marie; he added only the letter V to the signature.

  This battle on paper was not without practical results. The baroness paid daily visits to her “Children’s Home”; and on mild spring days the count very often saw her sitting on the open veranda, with her companion and one or two maid-servants, sewing at children’s garments until late in the evening. The count, on his part, sent every day for his little protégé, and spent several hours patiently teaching the lad, in order that he might compete favorably with the baroness’s charges. The task was by no means an easy one, as the lad possessed a very dull brain. This was, it must be confessed, an excellent thing for the orphans. If the motherly care which the baroness lavished on her charges were to be given to all destitute orphans in children’s asylums, then the “convict system” certainly was a perfect one; while, on the other hand, if a preceptor like Count Vavel took it upon himself to instruct a forsaken lad, then one might certainly expect a genius to evolve from the little dullard growing up in a peasant’s cottage.