The Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life. Eötvös József
man who, sitting at Tengelyi's side, counts the petals of a flower, while his eyes are directed to the blue mountain-tops of Tokay looming in the distance, appears still more advanced in age, and his mild and regular features form a striking contrast to the severity which is the leading characteristic of Tengelyi's face. That face exhibits the traces of fiery passions and fierce contentions, which, though soothed into oblivion, might still under circumstances break forth afresh; while Vandory's features might be likened to a clear sky, on which the passing storm has left no trace. Vandory's appearance needs no aid from his clerical dress to inform you that you accost one of those men whom God has sent to represent his mercy upon earth. The notary's bearing shows an honest man, who had but little happiness in the world, – while Vandory is a living demonstration of the old adage, that virtue is its own reward, even in this world of ours.
Vandory at length interrupted the silence which the two friends had observed for the last half-hour, by saying, "Where are your thoughts, my friend?"
"I scarcely know," was Tengelyi's reply. "I thought of my youth, – of Heidelberg, – of my career as a 'jurat.' Do you sometimes think of Heidelberg? I do; and whenever my thoughts return to the green mountains and the bright rivers of that country, I feel inclined to quarrel with fate for casting my lot in this desolate champaign."
"Do not, I pray, abuse our country," said Vandory, smiling. "What can be greener than this meadow? Is not that river beautiful, flowing as it does among the reeds? And what can be more striking than the far steeples and the mountains of Tokay? As for the blue sky and the rays of the setting sun, they are beautiful anywhere. You are very unjust, sir, and that is the long and the short of it."
"And you are the greatest optimist I ever met with," rejoined Tengelyi; "there is not a man on earth but you can talk of his good qualities, and by the hour too. But your taking this country under your protection makes me verily believe that God, for all that he is omnipotent, cannot create anything so bad but that you would hit upon some redeeming point in it."
"Why should I quarrel with His works?" said Vandory. "We ought to be at peace with all men, – and with all countries, too," added he, smiling.
"We ought – but all cannot!"
"We can. Believe me, we are all optimists, every man of us. God made his creatures for happiness; and as Scripture says that heaven and hell are both peopled by the denizens of paradise, so is each joy and each sorrow the result, not of our nature, but of our will."
"But experience!" interposed Tengelyi.
"Experience proves but what we wish it to prove. If you are pleased with the present, you will find pleasant reminiscences in the past, and vice versâ. Go merrily to the glass, and you will see a smiling face in it; and even Echo, lovelorn woman though she be, will speak in joyful notes, if you but address her with accents of joy."
Tengelyi laughed. "There is no disputing with you. I trust when Mr. Catspaw's 'canonisation' comes on, that they will retain you as Heaven's advocate. You will then have a fair chance of showing how many occasions for the exercise of signal virtues that worthy Catspaw gave in his life; for every body who ever refrained from thrashing him, exercised the virtue of self-denial to a remarkable extent. The very hare which the young gentlemen are hunting down yonder ought to be counselled not to appeal to you. You would tell her that to be hunted to death is a hare's happiness and pride. Indeed," added Tengelyi, with great bitterness, "you have undertaken quite as difficult a task in endeavouring to convince your parishioners of what you are pleased to call their happiness, and in pointing out to them for what they ought to be thankful to Providence."
But this taunt was lost upon Vandory, whose whole attention was with the hunt, which then took the direction of the Turk's Hill. "This is savage sport," cried the clergyman at length, "one unworthy of Christian men. I cannot understand how men of education and parts can delight in it!"
"Still it engages your interest," said Tengelyi; and, casting a look at the hunting-party, who were just assembled round the body of the wretched hare, he added, with a sigh, "Alas! these men are happy!"
"As for me," repeated Vandory, "I cannot understand how men of education can delight in that sort of thing."
"I dare say you cannot," rejoined Tengelyi, smiling. "Rarely as we understand the sorrows of others, their joys are a sealed book indeed. But this sport is much the same with other enjoyments which pride or strength procures us. To spy an object out, to hunt it, to gain upon it, and at length to seize it, is indeed a happy feeling – no matter whether the object is a hare or whether it is the conquest of a country. It is always the same sensation; and the difference, if any, is for the spectator, but not for the actor."
"But this is cruel. Consider the sufferings of the poor animal! What an unequal contest! A score of dogs and horsemen after one hare. It is really shocking."
"You are quite right about the inequality," retorted Tengelyi, "but where in this world do you see a fair fight? The cotton-lord and the factory-workman – the planter and the negro – they are all unequally matched. Believe me, friend, hare-hunting is not a very cruel sport, if compared to some which I could name."
Vandory sighed, and though, as an optimist, fully convinced of Tengelyi's being in the wrong, he resolved to reserve his reply; for Akosh Rety and his party, seeing the two friends on the hill, advanced from the plain and put a stop to the conversation.
Of the company which now assembled round the notary and the old clergyman, there can be no doubt that my lady-readers would be most struck with Akosh Rety and Kalman Kishlaki. They were very handsome; indeed it was a common saying in the county of Takshony, that handsomer young men could not be found in any six counties of Hungary. They showed to great advantage after the hunt, with their flushed faces, and their curly hair escaping disorderly from beneath their small round hats. Their short blue shooting-coats, too, gave them an appearance of great smartness, and – but I am conscious of my duty as a Magyar author, and I know that the Justice ought to have the precedence in his own district. I therefore beg leave to introduce to my honoured readers the justice and his clerk, Mr. Akosh Rety's companions in the hunt.
Learned men maintain that our country is inhabited by a race of classic, viz., of Scythian, origin. At times we may forget this fact; for, even among the men whose names most unmistakeably proclaim our Eastern source, there are many whom any one but a philologist would class with quite a different race of people. It is notorious that the current of the Rhine loses itself in mud and sand. Even so are the descendants of families who were glorious in their generation, intent upon magnifying their fathers by eschewing to eclipse the brilliancy of ancestral fame. There are men of whose high descent we are only reminded by the impossibility to conceive what they could live on, unless it were on the inheritance of their fathers.
Far different is Paul Skinner, the justice of the district. Every doubt about the authenticity of our national origin must vanish on seeing him on his dun horse and lighting his pipe; for Paul Skinner is a striking evidence of the fact that the Scythian blood of our ancestors still flourishes in the land.
For the benefit of those unacquainted with the administration of Hungary, I ought to remark that the office of a district justice is unquestionably the most troublesome and laborious in the world. A district justice is a firm pillar of the state; he upholds public order, – he protects both rich and poor, – he is the judge and the father of his neighbourhood; without him there is no justice – or, at the least, no judicature. All complaints of the people pass through his hands; all decrees of the powers that be are promulgated and administered by him. The district justice regulates the rivers, makes roads, and constructs bridges. He is the representative of the poor, the inspector of the schools; he is lord chief forester whenever a wolf happens to make its appearance; he is "protomedicus" in the case of an epidemic; he is justice of the peace, the king's advocate in criminal cases, commissioner of the police, of war, of hospitals; in short, he is all in all, – the man in whom we live, move, and have our being.
If, among the six hundred men holding that office in our country, there is but one who neglects his duty, the consequence is that thousands are made to suffer: a want of impartiality in one of them kills justice for many miles round; if one of them is ignorant, Parliament legislates in vain for the poor.