The following day, with tender ardor, he took her away to his old
Hungarian castle, with its red towers still bearing marks of the ravages
of the cannon--the castle which he never had beheld since Austria had
confiscated it, and then, after long years, restored it to its rightful
owner. He fled from Paris, seeking a pure existence, and returned to his
Hungary, to the country of his youth, the land of the vast plains. He
saw again the Danube and the golden Tisza. In the Magyar costume, his
heart beating more proudly under the national attila, he passed before
the eyes of the peasants who had known him when a child, and had fought
under his orders; and he spoke to them by name, recognizing many of his
old companions in these poor people with cheeks tanned by the sun, and
heads whitened by age.
He led Marsa, trembling and happy, to the door of the castle, where
they offered him the wine of honor, drank from the ‘tschouttora’, the
Hungarian drinking-vessel, the ‘notis’ and cakes made of maize cooked in
cream.
Upon the lawns about the castle, the ‘tschiko’ shepherds, who had come
on horseback to greet the Prince, drank plum brandy, and drank with
their red wine the ‘kadostas’ and the bacon of Temesvar. They had come
from their farms, from their distant pusztas, peasant horsemen, like
soldiers, with their national caps; and they joyously celebrated the
return of Zilah Andras, the son of those Zilahs whose glorious history
they all knew. The dances began, the bright copper heels clinked
together, the blue jackets, embroidered with yellow, red, or gold,
swung in the wind, and it seemed that the land of Hungary blossomed with
flowers and rang with songs to do honor to the coming of Prince Andras
and his Princess.
Then Andras entered with Marsa the abode of his ancestors. And, in
the great halls hung with tapestry and filled with pictures which the
conquerors had respected, before those portraits of magnates superb
in their robes of red or green velvet edged with fur, curved sabres by
their sides and aigrettes upon their heads, all reproducing a common
trait of rough frankness, with their long moustaches, their armor and
their hussar uniforms--Marsa Laszlo, who knew them well, these heroes
of her country, these Zilah princes who had fallen upon the field of
battle, said to the last of them all, to Andras Zilah, before Ferency
Zilah, before Sandor, before the Princesses Zilah who had long slept in
“dull, cold marble,” and who had been no prouder than she of the great
name they bore:
“Do you know the reason why, equal to these in devotion and courage, you
are superior to them all! It is because you are good, as good as they
were brave.
“To their virtues, you, who forgive, add this virtue, which is your own:
pity!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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