Midst the Wild Carpathians Part 7

The head cook is scarcely able to force his way through the gaping mob of pet.i.tioners a.s.sembled here, who must wait till the Prince has dined, and are regaled in the meantime with wine, roast meats, and pastry, getting in short everything but what they came for--justice.

Within the dining-room itself the gentlemen and ladies are by this time in a merry mood. The meal has already lasted a pretty long time, and is likely to last a good while longer.

French gastronomic science seemed to have reserved all her masterpieces for Kemeny's banquet. Nature's three kingdoms have been laid under contribution to tickle the human palate. Every extravagant and extraordinary delicacy invented by Epicureanism, from the days of Lucullus to the days of Gallic gourmandism, is here in abundance. Here is to be seen every sort of foreign and domestic wine, in artistically-carved and gorgeously-coloured Venetian flasks, placed in huge silver refrigerators; game, large and small, of the rarest kind, on silver dishes; transparent, rose-coloured, quivering jellies with names unp.r.o.nounceable by Hungarian lips; Indian fruits preserved in cane sugar; _ragouts_ of c.o.c.ks' combs; enigmatical-looking snails, fit rather for the eye than for the palate; gigantic lobsters and the rarer kinds of marine fish fantastically disposed; meats which men who have already eaten to surfeit can only make believe that they enjoy by a supreme effort of the imagination; dishes which a true man would only eat by way of penance; immense pasties made entirely of pikes' livers; large baskets of rosy swans' eggs, which the guests may boil for amus.e.m.e.nt in little silver egg-boilers placed over spirit-lamps in front of them, and other wonderful dishes innumerable, the purpose of which is not immediately obvious to ordinary children of men, and everything in such profusion as would have more than sufficed for six times the number of guests present. Then too there were there all sorts of spiced drinks to suit every one's taste, from punch-royal to Polish brandy. Nothing was forgotten.

Behind every guest stands a little page, who whisks away his well-filled plate from him the instant he turns his head, and places before him a clean one instead. Behind the Prince's chair stands the son of Count Ladislaus Csaky, who is right proud that a son of his should have the privilege of filling and refilling the Prince's pocal.

And the Prince's pocal has to be filled pretty often. Transylvanian banquets generally ended with a wager on the part of the gentlemen to drink one another under the table. At such banquets John Kemeny has no equal. Now too he invites the bolder spirits to take up the usual challenge. The greater part of the guests, however, decline the invitation. Only three persons respond to the Prince's challenge. The first is Wenzinger, the leader of the German mercenaries, a big, raw-boned man, with a closely-shaven head, bright blue eyes, somewhat stooping neck, and scarcely visible grey eyebrows. The second is Paul Beldi, Captain-General of the Szeklers, a grave, handsome, amiable-looking man with a very high forehead. The wine he has taken gives a sparkle to his gentle eyes, and his taciturn lips are parted in a half-smile--drink produces no other effect upon him. He wears a simple yellow camelot dolman, with a scarlet, silver-embossed girdle round the waist; his white s.h.i.+rt-collar extends far over his dark-blue kerchief.

His smoothly-combed hair is parted down the middle, brushed behind his ears, and falls in long locks over his shoulders. The man with delicate white hands who sits opposite to him, Denis Banfi, Lord-Lieutenant of Klausenburg, is the third compet.i.tor. He is a middle-aged, broad-shouldered, haughty-looking man, with an air of savage truculence on his aristocratic face. His thick black beard has never yet been touched by a razor. His dark, chestnut brown locks lie in spiral rolls upon his forehead, and flow down over both shoulders in rich crisp curls. His round face is red by nature, but wine has now made it redder than ever. His sparkling eyes glance defiantly around. When he addresses any one he strokes his double chin, screws his neck on one side, and speaks in a sharp, irritating tone, at the same time throwing back his haughty head provocatively, and a.s.suming an expression of endless condescension. His dress consists of a purple dolman with large enamelled b.u.t.tons, and over that a short, heavy, white silk tabard trimmed with swan's-down, the sleeves of which are slit up to the elbows and garnished with rubies. His golden knightly belt is thrown over his shoulder with lordly negligence.

At the head of the table sits John Kemeny himself, with the consorts of Beldi and Banfi one on each side of him. Kemeny, despite his frequent intercourse and close relations with the West, still prefers to adopt the oriental costume. He is characterized by short clipped hair, a long beard, a grave, dignified face, and a curt, monosyllabic style of speech. The ruling expression of his face is an unmistakable, fatalistic indifference to everything about him, an indifference which was ere long to overwhelm him in so terrible a catastrophe.

One of the ladies by his side, Banfi's wife, is a delicate, nervous, gentle being, scarcely twenty years old. Ever since her sixteenth year she has stood beneath the influence of her violent, imperious husband, and is now almost as timid as a child. She scarcely ever dares to raise her eyes, and then only to look at her lord, whom she loves idolatrously. Her neck and shoulders are covered by a heavy, watered silk dress, fastened by a row of diamond b.u.t.tons. Round her neck twines a gold chain, between each of the large broad links of which sparkles an emerald. A silk coif set with pearls adorns her head, reaching half-way down over her forehead, and jealously hiding the blonde locks of the lovely lady.

On the other side, between her husband and the Prince, sits Beldi's wife, still a dazzling beauty. Her complexion ordinarily has the tint of the white rose, but is now all aglow with the fire of the banquet: her flushed cheeks seem literally to burn. Her coquettish black eyes roam hither and thither. A seductive magic lurks in her eyebrows, and when she lowers her long eyelashes over her burning eyes, how ravis.h.i.+ng she is! Her black locks are held together, not by a coif, but by strings of pearls artistically intertwined and fastened behind to a little diamond diadem, from which a long gold filigree veil descends to the ground. Her dress consists of a tight-fitting, cherry-coloured kirtle of Hungarian velvet, wide open in front and fastened over her embroidered cambric smock by strings of pearls. Her snow-white shoulders peep half out of the short, puffed sleeves, which are fastened in the middle by huge opal clasps, leaving bare her exquisitely-shaped arms. She wears bracelets of large oriental pearls, and a pale pink rose is stuck nonchalantly in her bosom.

The guests sitting at the far end of the table are plainly scandalized by the coquettish ways of the siren, who, although she has a marriageable daughter, still presumes to appear publicly in an open kirtle; but the Prince, the impetuous Banfi, and even her own dove-like husband, who wors.h.i.+ps his wife, appear to be all the more delighted with her in consequence.

The drinking wager had already somewhat exhilarated the worthy gentlemen, so that they began to mingle their songs with the music which had been playing in the gallery ever since the banquet began, when the captain of the guard, Gabriel Haller, suddenly rushed into the room with a very serious face, and hastening to the Prince, whispered a couple of words in his ear. Kemeny looked first at him and then at the gla.s.s he held in his hand, emptied it with the utmost composure, and then burst into a loud peal of laughter.

"Pray tell your tidings to the company, that they may know what is going on," cried he to Haller, in a loud voice.

Haller hesitated.

"Come! Out with it. You could not, if you tried, invent anything half so entertaining. Stop playing up there, will you! This is something like a joke."

The company urged Haller to lose no time in pa.s.sing the joke on.

"There is not much to tell," said Haller, shrugging his shoulders. "It is only that Ali Pasha has proclaimed Michael Apafi Prince of Transylvania."

"Ha! ha! ha!" resounded on all sides. The Prince, with comic affectation, turned first to one and then to the other.

"Who is the individual? Does any one know him? Has anybody ever heard of him?"

Lady Banfi turned pale and clung tightly to her husband's arm, who leaned his elbow on the table and replied with sublime indifference--

"The poor devil is, I believe, a very distant connection of mine. He has married some relation or other of my wife's. He was for a long time a slave among the Tartars, and the Turks (being wroth with us just now) have no doubt only released him on condition that he allows himself to be made Prince. He must be clean out of his senses."

At this all the gentlemen laughed still more loudly than before.

"Well, we'll go and inaugurate him," said Kemeny sarcastically, throwing back his head.

"That has already been done, your Highness," put in Haller.

"Where? By whom?" asked the good-humoured Prince, with arched eyebrows.

"At Kis-Selyk, by the Diet!"

Kemeny intimated by a wave of his hand and a contraction of his eyebrows that this explanation was not quite clear to him.

"Who then were present? Where were the Estates? All the men of any importance in the land are here with us."

"There were Stephen Apafi, Nalaczi, Kun, Daczo, and some two hundred Szeklers."

"Well, we'll go and count them as soon as we have disposed of our other affairs," said the Prince contemptuously. "Pray give Master Haller a chair!"

"But they are not awaiting us there. They are marching against us. By this time they must be at Segesvar."

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Kemeny. "I suppose, then, Master Michael Apafi thinks to drive us out of the country with his couple of hundred Szeklers."

But now Wenzinger rose from his chair, and remarked with soldierly precision--

"Does your Highness wish me to concentrate the army? We have eight thousand armed men, and, if it please your Highness, we will disperse this mob of nondescripts so effectually that not a couple of them shall remain together."

"Keep your seat!" commanded Kemeny, who treated the whole affair with the most sovereign contempt. "Sit down again and drink! Let them come a little nearer! Why should we inconvenience ourselves by going out against them? We can then take the whole lot together bag and baggage. I much regret, my lord Denis Banfi, that this fellow is a kinsman of yours; but, out of regard for you, I will take care that he is not broken on the wheel--I will simply have him _stuffed_!"

Kemeny's witticism was received with uproarious laughter.

"Give Master Haller a gla.s.s. And you up there! go on playing where you left off."

And once more the music resounded. The gipsy band now played a _csardas_.[12] The gentlemen clinked gla.s.ses and sang in unison. The guards outside joined in the song. The gla.s.ses flew against the wall.

Every one was ready to dash his gla.s.s into a thousand pieces except Gabriel Haller, who, being the last comer and therefore tolerably sober, was ashamed to destroy the expensive Venetian crystals so recklessly.

[Footnote 12: _Csardas_ [pr. _chardash_]. The national dance of Hungary. It is danced in 3/4 time by single couples, who improvise the figures. It commences with a very slow and stately movement, gradually quickening into a furious gallop.]

"Come! down with it! Let the splinters fly!" roared the Prince at him, and to please his Highness Haller dutifully but gingerly rapped his gla.s.s against the table till it broke off clean at the neck, quite decently and respectably, whereupon he bowed low to his Highness with obsequious humility.

Dame Banfi sighed at the thought of her kinswoman; but Banfi, to show how very little he cared about the matter, leaped from his chair, and with the wild music of the _csardas_ ringing in his ears, invited the lovely Lady Beldi to a dance.

The merry siren did not require twice bidding. Banfi pa.s.sed his arm around her slender waist, pressed her tightly to his breast, and whirled away with her. The fiery beauty hung with elfin airiness on her partner's arm.

Then all the other gentlemen present, carried away by Banfi's example, also leaped from their seats and whirled away with their fair neighbours, till the whole company resolved itself into a maze of fantastically revolving figures, every one dancing, applauding, and huzzahing to his heart's content.

Banfi was an impetuous, hot-blooded man who loved pretty women in general and at all times. Now, moreover, he was heated with wine, and thus it came about that as his lovely partner was dangling on his arm and her glowing cheeks came very near to his, he suddenly so far forgot himself as to press the bewitching dame to his breast and imprint a burning kiss upon her lips.

Lady Beldi shrieked aloud, and instantly repulsed the self-forgetful Lothario. Banfi, much confused, cast a glance around him; but apparently every one was so taken up with his own amus.e.m.e.nt, that neither the shriek nor the kiss had been observed.

Nevertheless, Lady Beldi, very much offended, left off dancing, and when Banfi began stammering some sort of an apology, she sharply told him to be off and leave her.

Banfi will one day have to pay very dearly for that kiss!

n.o.body had observed it, however, save him whom it most concerned--the husband. Beldi's eyes had seen it. Oh! you must not imagine that an uxorious husband is never jealous. Even though he makes as though he hears and sees nothing, he sees and hears and observes all the same. He had seen Banfi kiss his wife, although he feigned not to perceive his consort's confusion as, excited and indignant, she went in search of him. He took her by the hand and led her out of the room. When they got outside, he bade her go to her lodgings and dress for a journey.

"Whither are we going?" asked the agitated lady.

"Home to Bodola!"