A Bride of the Plains Read online

  Ignácz Goldstein's barn has always been the setting in which the final drama of the happy year is acted. After that night spent there in dancing and music and merry-making, down goes the curtain on the comedy of life and the tragedy of tears begins.

  Since five o'clock in the afternoon the young people have[Pg 18] been dancing—waltzing, polkaing, dancing the csárdás—mostly the csárdás, the dance of the nation, of the people, the most exhilarating, most entrancing, most voluptuous dance that feet of man have ever trod. The girls and lads are indefatigable, the slow and languorous Lassu (slow movement) alternates with the mad, merry csárdás, they twirl and twist, advance, retreat, separate and reunite in a mad, intoxicating whirl. Small booted feet stamp on the rough wooden floor, sending up clouds of dust. What matter if the air becomes more and more stifling? There are tears and sighs to be stifled too.

  "Ho, there, czigány! Play up! Faster! Faster! 'Tis not a funeral dirge you are playing."

  The gipsy musicians, hot and perspiring, have blown and scraped and banged for fifteen solid hours; no one would ever think of suggesting that a gipsy needed rest; the clarinetist, it is true, rolled off his seat at one time, and had to be well shaken ere he could blow again, but the leader—as good a leader, mind you, as could be found in the kingdom—had only paused when the dancers were exhausted, or when bite and sup were placed before him. There they were, perched up on a rough platform made up of packing-cases borrowed from the station-master; the czimbalom player in the centre, his fat, brown hands wield the tiny clappers with unerring precision, up and down the strings, with that soft, lingering tone which partakes of the clavecins and the harp alike. At the back the double-bass, lean and dark, with jet-black eyes that stare stolidly at his leader.

  There is a second fiddle, and the fat clarinetist and, of course, the leader—he whose match could not be found in the kingdom. He stands on the very edge of the rough platform, his fiddle under his chin, and he stoops well for[Pg 19]ward, so that his hands and instrument almost touch the foremost of the dancing pairs.

  They—the dancers—crowd closely round the gipsy band, for so must the csárdás be danced, as near the musicians as possible, as close together as the wide, sweeping petticoats of the girls will allow.

  Such petticoats! One on the top of the other, ten or a dozen or more, and all of different colour: the girls are proud of these petticoats—the number of them is a sign of prosperity; and now as they dance and swing from the hips these petticoats fly out, caught by the currents of air until they look like gargantuan showers of vividly-coloured petals shaken by giant hands.

  Above the petticoats the girls' waists look slim in the dark, tight-fitting corslet, above which again rises the rich, olive-tinted breast and throat; full white sleeves of linen crown the bare, ruddy arms, and ribbons of national colours—red, white and green—float from the shoulders and the waist.

  The smooth, thick hair is closely plaited, from the crown of the head in two long, tight plaits; it is drawn rigidly away from the forehead, giving that quaint, hard finish to the round, merry face which is so characteristic of the Asiatic ancestry.

  Each one of them a little picture which seems to have stepped straight out of a Velasquez canvas, the bell-shaped skirt, the stiff corslet, the straight, tight hair and round eyes full of vitality.

  The men wear their linen shirt and full trousers with fringed, embroidered ends, the leather waistcoat and broad belt covered with metal bosses and wrought with bright-coloured woollen threads. They get very excited in the mazes of the dance, they shout to the gipsies to play faster[Pg 20] and ever faster; each holds his partner tightly round the slim waist and swings her round and round, till she stumbles, giddy and almost faint in his arms.

  And round the dancers in a semicircle the spectators stand in a dense crowd—the older folk and the girls who have not secured partners—they watch and watch, indefatigable like the dancers, untiring like the musicians. And behind this semicircle, in the dark corners of the barn, the children foot it too, with the same ardour, the same excitement as their elders.

  The last csárdás of this memorable night! It is eight o'clock now, and through the apertures in the log wall the brilliant light of this late summer's morning enters triumphant and crude.

  Andor is dancing with Elsa—pretty, fair-haired Elsa, the daughter of old Kapus Benkó,[1] an old reprobate, if ever there was one. Such a handsome couple they look. Is it not a shame that Andor must go to-day—for three years, perhaps for ever?

  [1] In Hungary the surname precedes the Christian name.

  The tears that have struggled up to Elsa's tender blue eyes, despite her will to keep them back, add to the charm of her engaging personality, they help to soften the somewhat serious expression of her young face. Her cheeks are glowing with the excitement of the dance, her graceful figure bends to the pressure of Andor's arm around her waist.

  Ten or a dozen cotton petticoats are tied round that slim waist of hers, no two of a like colour, and as she twists and twirls in Andor's arms the petticoats fly out, till she looks like a huge flower of many hues with superposed corollas, blue, green, pink and yellow, beneath which her small feet[Pg 21] shod in boots of brilliant leather look like two crimson stamens.

  The tight-fitting corslet bodice and the full, white sleeves of the shift make her figure appear peculiarly slim and girlish, and her bare throat and shoulders are smooth and warmly tinted like some luscious fruit.

  No wonder that Andor feels this dance, this movement, the music, the girl's sweet, quick breath, going to his head like wine. Elsa was always pretty, always dainty and gentle, but now she is excited, tearful at the coming parting, and by all the saints a more exquisite woman never came out of Paradise!

  The semicircle of spectators composed of older folk draws closer round the dancers, but the other couples remain comparatively unheeded. It is Elsa and Andor whom everyone is watching.

  He is tall and broad-shouldered, with the supple limbs of a young stag, and the mad, irresponsible movements of a colt. His dark eyes shine like two stars out of his sun-burnt face; his muscular arms encircle Elsa's fine waist with a grip that is almost masterful. The wide sleeves of his linen shirt flutter above his shoulders till they look like wings and he like some messenger of the gods come to carry this exquisite prey off from the earth.

  "What a well-matched couple!" murmur the older women as they watch.

  "Elsa will be the beauty of the village within the next year, mark what I say!" added a kindly old soul, turning to her neighbour—a slatternly, ill-kempt, middle-aged woman, who was casting looks on Andor and Elsa that were none too kind.

  "Hm!" retorted the latter, with sour mien, "then 'tis[Pg 22] as well that that good-for-nothing will be safely out of the way."

  "I would not call Andor good-for-nothing, Irma néni,"[2] said one of the men who stood close by, "he has not had much chance to do anything for himself yet. . . ."

  [2] Aunt Irma—the words aunt (néni) and uncle (bácsi) are used indiscriminately in Hungary when addressing elderly people, and do not necessarily imply any relationship.

  "And he never will," snapped the woman, with a click of her thin jaws, "I know the sort—always going to do wonderful things in a future which never comes. Well! at any rate while he is a soldier they will teach him that he is no better than other lads that come from the same village, and not even as good, seeing that he has never any money in his wallet."

  "Andor will be rich some day," suggested the kindly old soul who had first spoken, "don't you forget it, Irma néni."

  "I have no special wish to remember it, my good Kati," retorted Irma dryly.

  "I thought," murmured the other, "seeing that Andor has really courted Elsa this summer that . . . perhaps . . ."

  "My daughter has plenty of admirers," said Irma, in her bitter-toned, snappish way, "and has no reason to wait for one who only may be rich some day."

  "Bah! Lakatos Pál cannot live for ever. Andor will have every fillér of
his money when he dies, and Pál will cut up very well."

  "Lakatos Pál is a youngish man—not fifty, I imagine," concluded Irma with a sneer. "He may live another thirty years, and Elsa would be an old woman herself by then."

  [Pg 23]The other woman said nothing more after that. It was no use arguing the point. Irma was the wife of old Kapus—both of them as shiftless, thriftless, ill-conditioned a pair as ever stole the daylight from God in order to waste it in idleness. How they came to be blessed with such a pretty, winning daughter as Elsa an all too-indulgent God only knew.

  What, however, was well known throughout the village was that as Kapus and his wife never had a crown to bless themselves with, and had never saved enough to earn a rest for themselves in their old age, they had long ago determined that their daughter should be the means of bringing prosperity to them as soon as she was old enough for the marriage-market.

  Elsa was beautiful! Thank the good God for that! Kapus had never saved enough to give her a marriage-portion either, and had she been ugly, or only moderately pretty, it would have been practically impossible to find a husband for her. But if she became the beauty of Marosfalva—as indeed she was already—there would be plenty of rich men who would be willing to waive the question of the marriage-portion for the sake of the glory of having captured the loveliest matrimonial prize in the whole countryside.

  "Leave Irma néni alone, mother," said the man who had first taken up the cudgels in favour of Andor; "we all know that she has very ambitious views for Elsa. Please God she may not be disappointed."

  From more than one group of spectators came similar or other comments on pretty Elsa and her partner. The general consensus of opinion seemed to be that it was as well Andor was going away for three years. Old Kapus and his wife would never allow their daughter to marry[Pg 24] a man with pockets as empty as their own, and it was no use waiting for dead men's shoes. Lakatos Pál, the rich uncle, from whom Andor was bound to inherit some day, was little past the prime of life. Until he died how would Andor and a penniless wife contrive to live? For Lakatos Pál was a miser and hoarded his money—moreover, he was a confirmed bachelor and woman-hater; he would do nothing for Andor if the young man chose to marry.

  Ah, well! it was a pity! for a better-looking, better-matched pair could not be found in the whole county of Arad.

  "Lucky for you, Béla, that Andor goes off to-day for three years," said a tall, handsome girl to her neighbour; "you would not have had much chance with Elsa otherwise."

  The man beside her made no immediate reply; he was standing with legs wide apart, his hands buried in the pockets of his trousers. At the girl's words, which were accompanied by a provocative glance from her large, dark eyes, he merely shrugged his wide shoulders, and jingled some money in his pockets.

  The girl laughed.

  "Money won't buy everything, you know, my good Béla," she said.

  "It will buy most things," he retorted.

  "The consent of Irma néni, for instance," she suggested.

  "And a girl's willingness to exchange the squalor of a mud hut for comfort, luxury, civilization."

  Unlike most of the young men here to-night, who wore the characteristic costume of the countryside—full, white linen shirt and trousers, broad leather belt, embossed and embroidered and high leather boots, Béla was dressed in a[Pg 25] town suit of dark-coloured cloth, cut by a provincial tailor from Arad. He was short of stature, though broad-shouldered and firmly knit, but his face was singularly ugly, owing to the terrible misfortune which had befallen him when he lost his left eye. The scar and hollow which were now where the eye had once been gave the whole face a sinister expression, which was further accentuated by the irregular line of the eyebrows and the sneer which habitually hovered round the full, hard lips.

  Béla was not good to look on; and this is a serious defect in a young man in Hungary, but he was well endowed with other attributes which made him very attractive to the girls. He had a fine and lucrative position, seeing that he was his Lordship's bailiff, and had an excellent salary, a good house and piece of land of his own, as well as the means of adding considerably to his income, since his lordship left him to conclude many a bargain over corn and plums, and horses and pigs. Erös Béla was rich and influential. He lived in a stone-built house, which had a garden round it, and at least five rooms inside, with a separate kitchen and a separate living-room, therefore he was a very eligible young man and one greatly favoured by mothers of penniless girls; nor did the latter look askance on Béla despite the fact that he had only one eye and that never a pleasant word escaped his lips.

  Even now he was looking on at the dancing with a heavy scowl upon his face. The girl near him—she with the dark, Oriental eyes and the thin, hooked nose, Klara Goldstein the Jewess—gave him a nudge with her brown, pointed elbow.

  "I wouldn't let Andor see the temper you are in, my friend," she said, with a sarcastic little laugh; "we don't[Pg 26] want any broken bones before the train goes off this morning."

  "There will be broken bones if he does not look out," muttered the other between his teeth, as he drew a tightly clenched fist from his pocket.

  "Bah! why should you care?" retorted Klara, who seemed to take an impish delight in teasing the young man, "you are not in love with Elsa, are you?"

  "What is it to you?" growled Béla surlily.

  "Nothing," she replied, "only that we have always been friends, you and I—eh, Béla?"

  And she turned her large, lustrous eyes upon him, peering at him through her long black lashes. She was a handsome girl, of course, and she knew it—knew how to use her eyes, and make the men forget that she was only a Jewess, a thing to be played with but despised—no better than a gipsy wench, not for a Hungarian peasant to look upon as an equal, to think of as a possible mate.

  Béla, whose blood was hot in him, what with the wine which he had drunk and the jealous temper which was raging in his brain, was nevertheless sober enough not to meet the languorous glances which the handsome Jewess bestowed so freely upon him.

  "We are still friends—are we not, Béla?" she reiterated slowly.

  "Of course—why not?" he grunted, "what has our friendship to do with Andor and Elsa?"

  "Only this: that I don't like to see a friend of mine make a fool of himself over a girl who does not care one hairpin for him."

  Béla smothered a curse.

  "How do you know that?" he asked.

  [Pg 27]"Everyone knows that Elsa is over head and ears in love with Andor, and just won't look at anyone else."

  "Oho!" he sneered, "everyone knows that, do they? Well! you can tell that busy-body everyone from me that before the year is out Kapus Elsa will be tokened to me, and that when Andor comes back from having marched and drilled and paced the barrack-yard he will find that Kapus Elsa is Kapus no longer, but Erös, the wife of Erös Béla, the mother of his first-born. To this I have made up my mind, and when I make up my mind to anything, neither God nor the devil dares to stand in my way."

  "Hush! hush! in Heaven's name," she protested quickly, "the neighbours will hear you."

  He shrugged his shoulders, and murmured something very uncomplimentary anent the ultimate destination of those neighbours.

  Some of them certainly had heard what he said, for he had not been at pains to lower his voice. His riches and his position had made him something of an oracle in Marosfalva, and he held all the peasantry in such contempt that he cared little what everyone thought of him. He therefore remained indifferent and sulky now whilst many glances of good-humoured mockery were levelled upon him.

  No one, of course, thought any the worse of Erös Béla for desiring the beauty of the village for himself—he was rich and could marry whom he pleased, and that he should loudly and openly proclaim his determination to possess himself of the beautiful prize was only in accordance with the impulsive, hot-headed, somewhat bombastic temperament of the Magyars themselves.

  Fortunately those chiefly concerned in
Erös Béla's loudly spoken determination had heard nothing of the colloquy between him and the Jewess. The wild, loud[Pg 28] music of the csárdás, their own gyrations and excitement, shut them out entirely from their surroundings.

  Their stamping, tripping, twirling feet had carried them into another world altogether; Ignácz Goldstein's barn had become a fairy bower, they themselves were spirits living in that realm of bliss; there was no longer any impending separation, no military service, no blank and desolate three years! Andor, his arm tightly clasped round Elsa's waist, his head bowed till his lips touched her bare shoulder, contrived to whisper magic words in her ear.

  Magic words?—simple, commonplace words, spoken by myriads of men before and since into myriads of willing ears, in every tongue this earth hath ever known. But to Elsa it seemed as if the Magyar tongue had never before sounded so exquisite! To her the words were magic because they wrought a miracle in her. She had been a girl—a child ere those words were spoken. She liked Andor, she liked her father and her mother, little Emma over the way, Mari néni, who was always kind. She had loved them all, been pleased when she saw them, glad to give them an affectionate kiss.

  But now, since that last csárdás had begun, a strange and mysterious current had gone from Andor's arm right through her heart; something had happened, which caused her cheeks to glow with a fire other than that produced by the heat of the dance and made her own hands tremble when they rested on Andor's shoulder. And there was that in his look which made her eyes burn and fill with tears.

  "You are beautiful, Elsa! I love you!"

  She could not answer him, of course; how could she, when she felt that her throat was choked with sobs? Yet she felt so happy, so happy that never since the day of her[Pg 29] first communion, when Pater Bonifácius had blessed her and assured her that her soul was as white as that of an angel—never since then had she known such perfect, such absolute happiness. She could not speak, she almost thought once that she was going to faint, so strange was the thrill of joy which went right through her when Andor's lips rested for one brief, sweet moment upon her shoulder.