Read Ebook: Orleans'in neitsyt: Romantillinen murhenäytelmä by Schiller Friedrich Avellan Edvin Translator

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Ebook has 901 lines and 31918 words, and 19 pages

Amongst the army of guests there was one man who towered above the others--tall, muscular, with broad shoulders, dome-like breast, and head proudly erect, whose long locks, like a rich black pavilion, flowed right down over his shoulders. His thick dark eyebrows and his coal-black moustache gave an emphatically resolute expression to his dark olive-coloured face, whose profile had an air of old Roman distinction.

This was the bridegroom, Prince Ghyka.

When the father of the bride introduced the new arrivals to the other guests, his first action was to present them to Prince Ghyka, not forgetting to relate how courteously the young Count had executed his commission as to the transfer of the kisses, which, having been received with general hilarity, suggested a peculiarly bold idea to the flighty young man.

And before anyone had quite taken in the meaning of his concluding words, the handsome youth, with that fascinating impertinence with which he was wont to subdue men and women alike, bent over the charming bride, and while her face blushed for a moment scarlet red, imprinted a noiseless kiss upon her pure marble forehead. And this he did with such grace, with such tender sprightliness, that nothing worse than a light smile appeared upon the most rigorous faces present.

At this there was a general outburst of laughter amongst the guests. Any sort of absurdity could be forgiven Emeric, for he managed even his most practical jokes so amiably that it was impossible to be angry with him.

But the cheeks of two damsels remained rosy-red--Mariska's and Flora's. Women don't understand that sort of joke.

The bridegroom, half-smiling, half-angry, stroked his fine moustache. "Come, come, my lad," said he, "you have been quicker in kissing my bride than I have been myself."

But now the reverend gentlemen intervened, the bells rang, the bridesmaids and the best men took possession of the bride and bridegroom, the ceremony began, and nobody thought any more of the circumstance, except, perhaps, two damsels, whose hearts had been pricked by the thoughtless pleasantry, one of them as by the thorn of a rose, the other as by the sting of a serpent.

And now, while for the next hour and a half the marriage ceremony, with the assistance of the Most Reverend Patriarch, the Venerable Archdeacon, three-and-thirty reverend gentlemen of the lower clergy, and just as many secular dignitaries, is solemnly and religiously proceeding, we will remain behind in the ante-chamber, and be indiscreet enough to worm out the contents of the two well-sealed letters which have just been brought in hot haste from Kronstadt for Emeric T?k?ly by a special courier, who stamped his foot angrily when he was told that he must wait till the Count came out of church.

One of the letters was from Michael Teleki, and its contents pretty much as follows:--

"MY DEAR SIR AND SON,

"Our affairs are in the best possible order. During the last few days our army, 9,000 strong, quitting Gyulafeherv?r, has gone to await Achmed Pasha's forces near D?va, and will thence proceed to unite with Kiuprile's host. War, indeed, is inevitable; and Transylvania must be gloriously in the forefront of it. Do not linger where you are, but try and overtake us. It would be superfluous for me to remind you to take charge of my daughter Flora on the way. God bless you.

"P.S.--Her Highness the Princess awaits a safe delivery from the mercy of God. His Highness the Prince has just finished a very learned dissertation on the orbits of the planets."

The second letter was in a fine feminine script, but one might judge from it that that hand knew how to handle a sword as well as a pen.

It was to the following effect:--

"MY DEAR FRIEND,

"I have received your letter, and this is my answer to it. I can give you no very credible news in writing, either about myself or the affairs of the realm. A lover can do everything and sacrifice everything, even to life itself, for his love. I do not judge men by what they say, but by what they do. All the same, I have every reason to think well of you, and I shall be delighted if the future should justify my good opinion of you.

"Your faithful servant,

"ILONA.

"P.S.--I shall spend midsummer at the baths of Mehadia."

The noble bridal retinue, merrily conversing, now returned from the chapel to the castle, the very sensible arrangement obtaining, that when the guests sat down to table each damsel was to be escorted to her seat by a selected cavalier known to be not displeasing to her. The only exceptions to this rule were the right reverend brigade, and Achmed Pasha and Feriz Beg, the two Turkish magnates present, whose grave dignity restrained them from participating in this innocent species of gallantry.

First of all, as the representative of the Prince of Transylvania, came Emeric T?k?ly, conducting the aged mother of the bridegroom, the Princess Ghyka; after him came Paul B?ldi, leading the bride by the hand. B?ldi's wife was escorted by the master of the house, and her pretty little golden-haired daughter Aranka hung upon her left arm.

Feriz Beg was standing in the vestibule with a grave countenance till Aranka appeared. The little girl, on perceiving the youth, greeted him kindly, whereupon Feriz sighed deeply, and followed her. The bridegroom led the beautiful Flora Teleki by the hand.

On reaching the great hall, the company broke up into groups, the merriest of which was that which included Flora, Mariska, and Aranka.

The banquet began. The endless loving-cup went round, the faces of the guests grew ever cheerier, the bride conversed in whispers with her handsome neighbour. Opposite to them the bridegroom, with equal courtesy, exchanged from time to time a word with the fair Flora, but the conversation thus begun broke down continually, and yet both the lady and the prince were persons of culture, and had no lack of mother-wit. But their minds were far away. Their lips spoke unconsciously, and the Prince grew ever gloomier as he saw his bride plunging ever more deeply into the merry chatter of her gay companion, and try as he might to entertain his own partner, the resounding laughter of the happy pair opposite drove the smile from his face, especially when Flora also grew absolutely silent, so that the bridegroom was obliged, at last, to turn to the Patriarch, who was sitting on his right, and converse with him about terribly dull matters.

Meanwhile, a couple of Servian musicians began, to the accompaniment of a zithern, to sing one of their sad, monotonous, heroic songs. All this time Achmed Pasha had never spoken a word, but now, fired by the juice of the grape mediatized by his sherbet-bowl, he turned towards the singers and, beckoning them towards him, said in a voice not unlike a growl:

"Drop all that martial jumble and sing us instead something from one of our poets, something from Hariri the amorous, something from Gulestan!"

At these words the face of Feriz Beg, who sat beside him, suddenly went a fiery red--why, he could not have told for the life of him.

"Do you know 'The Lover's Complaint,' for instance?" inquired the Pasha of the musician.

"I know the tune, but the verses have quite gone out of my head."

Feriz Beg was preparing to object, with the sole result that all the women were down upon him immediately, and begged and implored him for the beautiful song. So he surrendered, and, tucking up the long sleeve of his dolman, set the writing materials before him and began to write.

They who drink no wine are nevertheless wont to be intoxicated by the glances of bright eyes, and Feriz, as he wrote, glanced from time to time at the fair face of Aranka, who cast down her forget-me-not eyes shamefacedly at his friendly smile. So Feriz Beg wrote the verses and handed them to the musicians, and then everyone bade his neighbour hush and listen with all his ears.

The musician ran his fingers across the strings of his zithern, and then began to sing the song of the Turkish poet:

"Three lovely maidens I see, three maidens embracing each other; Gentle, and burning, and bright--Sun, Moon, and Star I declare them. Let others adore Sun and Moon, but give me my Star, my belov?d!"

General applause rewarded the song, which it was difficult to believe had not been made expressly for the occasion.

"Who would think," said Paul B?ldi to the Pasha, "that your people not only cut darts from reeds, but pens also, pens worthy of the poets of love?"

"Oh!" replied Achmed, "in the hands of our poets, blades and harps are equally good weapons; and if they bound the laurel-wreath round the brows of Hariri it was only to conceal the wounds which he received in battle."

When the banquet was over, T?k?ly, with courteous affability, parted from his fair neighbour, whom he immediately saw disappear in a window recess, arm-in-arm with Flora. He himself made the circuit of the table in order that he might meet the fair Aranka, but was stopped in mid-career by his host, who was so full of compliments that by the time T?k?ly reached the girl, he found her leaning on her mother's arm engaged in conversation with the Prince. Aranka, feeling herself out of danger when she had only a married man to deal with, had quite regained her childish gaiety, and was making merry with the bridegroom.

T?k?ly, with insinuating grace, wormed his way into the group, and gradually succeeded in so cornering the Prince, that he was obliged to confine his conversation to Dame B?ldi, while T?k?ly himself was fortunate enough to make Aranka laugh again and again at his droll sallies.

The Prince was boiling over with venom, and was on the verge of forgetting himself and exploding with rage. Fortunately, Dame B?ldi, observing in time the tension between the two men, curtseyed low to them both, and withdrew from the room with her daughter. Whereupon, the Prince seized T?k?ly's hand, and said to him with choleric jocosity: "If your Excellency's own bride is not sufficient for you, will you at least be satisfied with throwing in mine, and do not try to sweep every girl you see into your butterfly-net?"

T?k?ly quite understood the bitter irony of these words, and replied, with a soft but offensively condescending smile: "My dear friend, your theory of life is erroneous. I see, from your face, that you are suffering from an overflow of bile. You have not had a purge lately, or been blooded for a long time."

The Prince's face darkened. He squeezed T?k?ly's hand convulsively, and murmured between his teeth:

"One way is as good as another. When shall we settle this little affair?"

T?k?ly shrugged his shoulders. "To-morrow morning, if you like."

"Very well, we'll meet by the cross."

The two men had spoken so low that nobody in the whole company had noticed them, except Feriz Beg, who, although standing at the extreme end of the room with folded arms, had followed with his eagle eyes every play of feature, every motion of the lips of the whole group, including Dame B?ldi and the girl, and who now, on observing the two men grasp each other's hands, and part from each other with significant looks, suddenly planted himself before them, and said simply: "Do you want to fight a duel because of Aranka?"

"What a question?" said the Prince evasively.

"It will not be a duel," said Feriz, "for there will be three of us there," and, with that, he turned away and departed.

"How foolish these solemn men are," said T?k?ly to himself, "they are always seeking sorrow for themselves. It would require only a single word to make them merry, and, in spite of all I do, they will go and spoil a joke. Why, such a duel as this--all three against each other, and each one against the other two--was unknown even to the famous Round Table and to the Courts of Love. It will be splendid."

At that moment the courier, who had brought the letters, forced his way right up to T?k?ly, and said that he had got two important despatches for him.

"All right, keep them for me, I'll read them to-morrow. I won't spoil the day with tiresome business."

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