Eyes Like the Sea Part 1

Eyes Like the Sea.

by Mor Jokai.

PREFACE

The pessimistic tone of Continental fiction, and its p.r.o.nounced preference for minute and morbid a.n.a.lysis, are quite revolutionizing the modern novel. Fiction is ceasing to be a branch of art, and fast becoming, instead, a branch of science. The aim of the novelist, apparently, is to lecture instead of to amuse his readers. Plot, incident, and description are being sacrificed more and more to the dissection of peculiar and abnormal types of character, and the story is too often lost in physiological details or psychological studies. The wave of _Naturalism_, as it is called (though nothing could really be more unnatural), has spread from France all over Europe. The Spanish and Italian novels are but pale reflections of the French novel. The German Naturalists have all the qualities of the French School, minus its grace. In Holland, the so-called _Sensitivists_ are at great pains to combine a coa.r.s.e materialism with a sickly sentimentality. Much more original, but equally depressing, is the new school of Scandinavian novelists represented by such names as Garborg, Strindberg, Jacobsen, Loffler, Hamsun, and Bjornson (at least in his later works), all of whom are more or less under the influence of Ibsenism, which may be roughly defined as a radical revolt against conventionality. In point of thoroughness some of these Northern worthies are not a whit behind their fellow craftsmen in France. The novel of the year in Norway for 1891 was a loathsomely circ.u.mstantial account of slow starvation. There is a lady novelist in the same country who could give points to Zola himself; and nearly every work of Strindberg's has scandalized a large portion of the public in Sweden. Nay, even remote Finland has been reached at last by the wave of _Naturalism_ in fiction, and Respectability there is still in tears at the perversion of the most gifted of Finnish novelists, Juhani Aho. In the Slavonic countries also the pessimistic, a.n.a.lytical novel is paramount, though considerably chastened by Slavonic mysticism, and modified by peculiar political and social conditions. Though much n.o.bler in sentiment, the novel in Poland, Russia, and Bohemia is quite as melancholy in character as the general run of fiction elsewhere. A minor key predominates them all. There is no room for humour in the mental vivisection which now pa.s.ses for _Belles-lettres_. We may learn something, no doubt, from these _fin de siecle_ novelists, but to get a single healthy laugh out of any one of them is quite impossible.

There is, however, one country which is a singular exception to this general rule. In Hungary the good old novel of incident and adventure is still held in high honour, and humour is of the very essence of the national literature. This curious isolated phenomenon is due, in great measure, to the immense influence of the veteran novelist, Maurus Jokai, who may be said to have created the modern Hungarian novel,[1] and who has already written more romances than any man can hope to read in a life-time. Jokai is a great poet. He possesses a gorgeous fancy, an all-embracing imagination, and a constructive skill unsurpa.s.sed in modern fiction; but his most delightful quality is his humour, a humour of the cheeriest, heartiest sort, without a single _soupcon_ of ill-nature about it, a quality precious in any age, and doubly so in an overwrought, supercivilized age like our own. Lovers of literature must always regret, however, that the great Hungarian romancer has been so prodigal of his rare gifts. He has written far too much, and his works vary immensely. Between such masterpieces, for instance, as "_Karpathy Zoltan_" and "_Az arany ember_" on the one hand, and such pot-boilers as "_Nincsen Ordog_," or even "_Szerelem Bolondjai_," on the other, the interval is truly abysmal. But that such a difference is due not to exhaustion, but simply to excessive exuberance, is evident from the story which we now present for the first time to English readers. "_A tengerszemu holgy_" is certainly the most brilliant of Jokai's later, and perhaps[2] the most humorous of all his works. It was justly crowned by the Hungarian Academy as the best Magyar novel of the year 1890, and well sustains the long-established reputation of the master.

Apart from the intensely dramatic incidents of the story, and the originality and vividness of the characterization, "_A tengerszemu holgy_" is especially interesting as being, to a very great extent, autobiographical. It is not indeed a _professed_ record of the author's life-like "_Emlekeim_" (My Memoirs) for instance. It professes to be a novel, and a most startling novel it is. Yet in none of Jokai's other novels does he tell us so much about himself, his home, and his early struggles both as an author and a patriot; _he_ is one of the chief characters in his own romance. Of the heroine, Bessy, I was about to say that she stood alone in fiction, but there is a certain superficial resemblance, purely accidental of course, between her and that other delightful and original rogue of romance, Mrs. Desborough, in Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson's "More New Arabian Nights," though all who have had the privilege of making the acquaintance of both ladies will feel bound to admit that Jokai's Bessy, with her five husbands, is even more piquant, stimulating, and fascinating than Mr. Stevenson's charming and elusive heroine.

R. NISBET BAIN.

[Footnote 1: I do not forget _Karman_, _Josika_, and _Eotvos_, but the former was an imitator of Richardson, and the two latter of Walter Scott.]

[Footnote 2: I say "perhaps," as I can only claim to have read twenty-five out of Jokai's one hundred and fifty novels.]

EYES LIKE THE SEA

CHAPTER I

SEA-EYES--MONSIEUR GALIFARD--THE FIRST NEEDLE-p.r.i.c.k

Never in my life have I seen such wonderful eyes! One might construct a whole astronomy out of them. Every changeful mood was there reflected; so I have called them "Eyes like the Sea."

When first I met pretty Bessy, we were both children. She was twelve years old, I was a hobbledehoy of sixteen. We were learning dancing together. A Frenchman had taken up his quarters in our town, an itinerant dancing-master, who set the whole place in a whirl. His name was Monsieur Galifard. He had an extraordinarily large head, a bronzed complexion, eyebrows running into each other, and short legs; and on the very tip of his large aquiline nose was a big wart. Yet, for all that, he was really charming. Whenever he danced or spoke, he instantly became irresistible. All our womankind came thither on his account; all of them I say, from nine years old and upwards to an age that was quite incalculable. I recall the worthy man with the liveliest grat.i.tude. I have to thank him for the waltz and the quadrille, as well as for the art of picking up a fallen fan without turning my back upon the lady.

Bessy was the master's greatest trouble. She would never keep time; she would never take to the elegant "_pli_," and he could never wean her from her wild and frolicsome ways. Woe to the dancer who became her partner!

I, however, considered all this perfectly natural. When any one is lovely, rich, and well-born, she has the right to be regarded as the exception to every rule. That she was lovely you could tell at the very first glance; that she was rich anybody could tell from the silver coach in which she rode; and by combining the fact that every one called her mother "Your Ladys.h.i.+p" with the fact that even the "country people"

kissed her hand, you easily arrived at the conclusion that she must be well-born. Her lady-mother and her companion, a gentlewoman of a certain age, were present at every dancing lesson, as also was the girl's aunt, a major's widow in receipt of a pension. Thus Bessy was under a threefold inspection, the natural consequence of which was that she could do just as she liked, for every one of her guardians privately argued, "Why should I take the trouble of looking after this little girl when the other two are doing the same thing?" and so all three were always occupied with their own affairs.

The mother was a lady who loved to bask on the sunny side of life; her widowhood pined for consolation. She had her officially recognised wooers, with more or less serious intentions, graduated according to rank and quality.

The companion was the scion of a n.o.ble family. All her brothers were officers. Her father was a Chamberlain at Court; his _own_ chamber was about the last place in the world to seek him in. The young lady's toilets were of the richest; she also had the reputation of being a beauty, and was famed for her finished dancing. Still, time had already called her attention to the seriousness of her surroundings; for Bessy, the daughter of the house, had begun to shoot up in the most alarming manner, and four or five summers more might make a rival of her. Her occupation during the dancing hour was therefore of such a nature as to draw her somewhat aside lest people should observe with whom and in what manner she was diverting herself, for there is many an evil feminine eye that can read all sorts of things in a mere exchange of glances or a squeeze of the hand, and then, of course, such things are always talked to death.

But it was the aunt most of all who sought for pretexts to vanish from the dancing-room. She wanted to taste every dish and pasty in the buffet before any one else, and well-grounded investigators said of her, besides, that she was addicted to the dark pleasure of taking snuff, which naturally demanded great secrecy. When, however, she was in the dancing-room, she would sit down beside some kindred gossiper, and then they both got so engrossed in the delight of running down all their acquaintances, that they had not a thought for anything else.

So Bessy could do what she liked. She could dance _csardas_[3] figures in the Damensolo; smack her _vis-a-vis_ on the hands in the _tour de mains_, and tell anecdotes in such a loud voice that they could be heard all over the room; and when she laughed she would press both hands between her knees in open defiance of Monsieur Galifard's repeated expostulations.

[Footnote 3: The national dance of Hungary.]

One evening there was a grand practice in the dancing-room. With the little girls came big girls, and with the big girls big lads. Such lubbers seem to think that they have a covenanted right to cut out little fellows like me. Luckily, worthy Galifard was a good-natured fellow, who would not allow his _proteges_ to be thrust to the wall.

"Nix cache-cache spielen, Monsieur Maurice. Allons! Walzer geht an. Nur courage. Ne cherchez pas toujours das allerschlekteste Tanzerin! Fangen sie Fraulein Erzsike par la main. Valsez la."[4] And with that he seized my hand, led me up to Bessy, placed my hand in hers, and then "ein, zwei."

[Footnote 4: "Don't play hide-and-seek, Master Maurice. Off you go! 'Tis a waltz, remember. Come, come! courage. Don't always pick out the worst partner. Take Miss Bessy by the hand. Waltz away!"]

Now, the waltzes of those days were very different from the waltzes we dance now. The waltz of to-day is a mere joke; but waltzing then was a serious business. Both partners kept the upper parts of their bodies as far apart as possible, whilst their feet were planted close together.

Then the upper parts went moving off to the same time, and the legs were obliged to slide as quickly as they could after the flying bodies. It was a dance worthy of will-o'-the-wisps.

The master kept following us all the time, and never ceased his stimulating a.s.surances: "Tres bien, Monsieur Maurice! ca va ausgezeiknet! 'Alten sie brav la demoiselle! Nix auf die Fusse schauen.

Regardez aux yeux. Das ist riktig. Embra.s.siren ist besser als embarrasiren! Pouah! Da liegst schon alle beide!"[5]

[Footnote 5: "Very good, Master Maurice! That's capital! Hold the lady nicely! Don't look at your feet. Look at her eyes. That's right! To embrace is better than to embarra.s.s. Pooh! There, they both are together!"]

No, not quite so bad as that! I had foreseen the inevitable tumble, and in order to save my partner I sacrificed myself by falling on my knees, _she_ scarcely touched the floor with the tip of her finger. My knee was not much the worse for the fall, but I split my pantaloons just above the knee. I was annihilated. A greater blow than that can befall no man.

Bessy laughed at my desperate situation, but the next moment she had compa.s.sion upon me.

"Wait a bit," said she, "and I'll sew it up with my darning-needle."

Then she fished up a darning-needle from one of the many mysterious folds of her dress, and, kneeling down before me, hastily darned up the rent in my dove-coloured pantaloons, and in her great haste she p.r.i.c.ked me to the very quick with the beneficent but dangerous implement.

"I didn't p.r.i.c.k you, did I?" she asked, looking at me with those large eyes of hers which seemed to speak of such goodness of heart.

"No," I said; yet I felt the p.r.i.c.k of that needle even then.

Then we went on dancing. I distinguished myself marvellously. With a needle-p.r.i.c.k in my knee, and another who knows where, I whirled Bessy three times round the room, so that when I brought her back to the _garde des dames_, it seemed to me as if three-and-thirty mothers, aunts, and companions were revolving around me.

CHAPTER II

MY FIRST DISTINCTION--MY FIRST GRIEVANCE--THE DAMENWALZER--THE FRIGHTFUL MONSTER--THE READJUSTED SCARF--THE SECOND NEEDLE-p.r.i.c.k

I am really most grateful to Monsieur Galifard. I have to thank him for the first distinction I ever enjoyed in my life. This was the never-to-be-forgotten circ.u.mstance that when my colleagues, the young hopefuls of the Academy of Jurisprudence at Kecskemet, gave a lawyers'

ball, they unanimously chose me to be the _elotanczos_.[6] To this day I am proud of that distinction; what must I have been then? On the heels of this honour speedily came a second. The very same year, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, on the occasion of the compet.i.tion for the Teleki prize, honourably mentioned my tragedy, "The Jew Boy," and there were even two competent judges, Vorosmarty and Bajza,[7] who considered it worthy of the prize.... When, therefore, I returned to my native town, after an absence of three years, I found that a certain _renommee_ had preceded me. I had also very good reasons for returning home. The legal curriculum in my time embraced four years. The third year was given to the _patveria_, the fourth year to the _jurateria_.[8] Every respectable man goes through the patveria in his own country, but the _jurateria_ at Buda-Pest.

[Footnote 6: The dancer who leads off the ball.]

[Footnote 7: Two of the most eminent Hungarian poets.]

[Footnote 8: Different branches of Hungarian law.]

And I had something else to boast of, too. In my leisure hours I painted portraits, miniatures in oil. So well did I hit off the Judge of Osziny (and he did not give me a sitting either) that every one recognised him; but a still greater sensation was caused by my portrait of the wife of the Procurator Fiscal, who pa.s.sed for one of the prettiest women in the town.

And yet, despite all this, when in the following Shrovetide the Lord Lieutenant gave a ball to the county (they were something like Lord Lieutenants in those days), I was _not_ called upon to open the ball!

Ungrateful fatherland!