Kitabı oku: «The Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life», sayfa 31
CHAP. VII
The month of March is notoriously fatal to the inmates of the Hungarian prisons. The typhus fever increases in that month to a fearful violence. It is but natural that the year of Tengelyi's captivity should have exhibited the average amount of disease and mortality in the Dustbury county gaol. Nothing, indeed, appeared more natural to the Dustbury people. They looked upon the sufferings of their fellow-creatures with so much indifference that a stoic might have envied them; and as for the prison coffin, which was put in requisition more than once a day, it was to them a matter of light and fanciful conversation.
The medical inspector of the county of Takshony – and here our readers must pardon us a short digression on the merits of the Hungarian medicinal police, for the man who filled that important office, and whom we shall take the liberty of most particularly introducing to the public, had devoted his whole life to the elucidation and exemplification of that great official problem, how far it is safe, and even profitable, to neglect and disobey the orders of superior boards and committees?
It is now some years since a terrible disease prevailed among the cattle throughout the country. Pursuant to an order of the High Court, all communication was interdicted between the counties; the county of Takshony too was placed in a state of unenviable isolation, and a rigorous prohibition was published against the importation of foreign (that is to say, not Takshony) cattle.
And what was the consequence? One of the justices having bought some cattle in a neighbouring county, insisted on taking them to his estate. The sanitary commissioner and the border guards protested; and the justice, who was accustomed to have his oxen and sheep in the fields of his neighbours, was now precluded from taking them to his own fields. But a state of things which involved so gross a violation of the laws of property, could not possibly last. For the medical commissioner of the county remarked with great fairness, that the order of the High Court stated expressly that no foreign cattle should be allowed to enter the county, but that it was perfectly ridiculous to suppose that any oxen belonging to a county magistrate could be foreign cattle. Some few months after this lucid decision, which, strange to say, did not obtain the unqualified approval of the High Court, this meritorious servant of the public proposed to an assembly of magistrates to prohibit the transit of cattle for the term of one month, since it was proved by the experience of years that the disease among the cattle had always broken out in this particular month, just about the time of the Dustbury cattle market. There was not at the time any disease among the cattle in the neighbouring counties; but one thing is certain, viz., that the landed proprietors of Takshony realised enormous sums by the sale of their oxen. A variety of other measures might be adduced to prove that the medical commissioner was fully deserving of the high degree of popularity which he enjoyed. It now remains to be told how it happened that this deserving patriot was elected to the important post of a county commissioner of public health.
When his predecessor, the late commissioner, died, – the worthy man was notorious for killing pheasants and larks with the same sized shot, and drugging all his patients with the same modicum of pills, – the lord-lieutenant and the Estates of Takshony had a tussle on the appointment of a medical officer. The lord-lieutenant promised the place to a distinguished young man of excellent conservative principles. He was a Roman Catholic; he had a diploma; he had been tutor to a magnate, and he had written several poems and charades. But the Estates of the county of Takshony laughed at his Excellency's recommendation, and, insisting on their right of election, they chose another man, and one of whose abilities the county was utterly ignorant. But it was said of him that he knew French, English, and the breeding of silkworms, that he was an honorary member of sundry foreign agricultural societies, that he had studied medicine and law at the university of Sharosh-Patak, and that he was a Calvinist. But the election was annulled; the county was divided into two hostile camps, and the contest lasted above a twelvemonth, when the rival candidates were forced to withdraw from the field, and the hostile factions united in favour of a third party; the reigning medical commissioner of the county. He was a Lutheran, and as such he was agreeable to his Excellency, who hated the Calvinists, and to the Estates, who bore an equal hate to the Romanists. The successful candidate was not of the conservative nor indeed of any other party; he had never been a tutor; he was ignorant of foreign languages, and of the breeding of silkworms; he was not a member of any learned society either at home or abroad; and he was therefore agreeable to all parties, and (as Kriver said) a born angel of peace for the county of Takshony.
Dr. Letemdy, the medical commissioner, was a great man. He treated every one of his patients according to the very system which that individual patient preferred to all others. This accommodating temper of his was, like virtue, its own reward. If the patients had the worst of it, the fault was their own; and besides, Dr. Letemdy had a number of champions on his side. The homœopathists said it served the patient right, for the fool insisted on being treated allopathically; and when the patient refused to be bled, the allopathists raved about the fatal theories of the homœopathists. Add to this that he advised the old bachelors to marry and the young ladies to dance; that he sent the married ladies to the watering-places, and that he indulged his male patients with tobacco, gulyashus, tarhonya, and wine; and it is but natural that Dr. Letemdy was held in great veneration, not only in his own county, but also in the districts and "demesnes that there adjacent lay."
An epidemic disease is the touchstone of a physician. It is here he has to prove not only his skill, but also his courage, his devotion, his philanthropy. The typhus fever which raged in the Dustbury gaol gave Dr. Letemdy a favourable opportunity to display his brilliant qualities; and candour compels us to state that he did display them to a most dazzling extent; for, considering that the great duty of a medical commissioner consists in preventing the extension of an infectious disease, and considering that he was in daily communication with the first families of Dustbury: he made an heroic sacrifice of his feelings, as a physician and a man of science, by never once crossing the threshold of the infected place. The prisoners were thus left to their fate and to Nature; the druggist's bill was remarkably moderate, and Dr. Letemdy could not, in justice, be accused of having adopted a false treatment in the case of any of the many deaths which were daily reported to him, and which he, excellent man! entered, though with a bleeding heart, on the register.
The majority of the Dustbury prisoners were not generally discontented with their involuntary place of residence. Cheerful society, wine, brandy, gambling, singing and laughing, indemnified them, especially in winter, for the pleasures of liberty; and, indeed, there were some of the noble and ignoble inmates of the place who strove hard in autumn, and would not be satisfied till they were safely housed in what they considered their winter quarters.
But in the month of March of the year 18 – the Dustbury gaol was a place of howling and gnashing of teeth.
There was a sick ward in the prison. The Estates of the county, obedient to superior orders, had one room and six beds prepared for the sick among the prisoners. And although there were only five hundred people in the gaol, it so happened that the sick ward was always full; nor was it possible, during the prevalence of the epidemic, to separate the infected from those who were in health; each remained on the spot where the hand of disease struck him. The upper rooms had from thirty to eighty prisoners, and from two to three corpses daily. Many of the vaults were absolutely emptied by the death of their inhabitants.
The prisoners were moody and desponding. Even the boldest shrunk from the sight of death in its ghastliest form; and the very haiduks who did the service of the prison, spoke of the scenes which they witnessed with pity and even with tears. The cells which once resounded with riotous laughter and wild songs, were now silent as the grave; but when night came on, the slow measure and the lugubrious sound of hymns was heard to rise from the loopholes which led to the streets. The sound was like the groaning of a vast multitude. And at night, too, the sentinel on his lonely post listened to the prayers of the prisoners, to the confused and earnest murmur which rose on the air and was hushed in silence. The prisoners conversed but little, and always in whispers. When the haiduks entered the gaol in the morning, to take them to their usual exercise in the yard, they found the wretches clinging to the iron railings of their cells, each crying out and entreating them to open his cell first, that he might not lose any of the precious moments of air and sunshine. Some who were struggling with the disease, and who could not stand or walk, crept up the steps and lay on the pavement of the yard, happy to breathe the fresh air of the morning and to see the bright sun before they died.
Among the prisoners in the cell next to the steps were two brothers. They were herdsmen, and the sons of honest parents. An hour of youthful frolic had brought them into the hands of the justice, and from thence to gaol. The younger of the two, a mere child, was the first to fall ill, and his brother tended him as a mother would her infant. It was he who had persuaded his younger brother to do the deed for which they were imprisoned; and was he to see that brother die? He implored the haiduks to send for a doctor, or to procure his brother's release. He said he would willingly suffer the punishment for both. "Let them keep me here two years instead of one! let them keep me here for ever, but let that poor boy go! He is innocent! I told him to do it!" cried he, wringing his hands, and entreating the corporal of the haiduks. Even the eyes of that hardened man filled with tears as he replied, that the entreaties of the prisoner were of no avail, the county having resolved to confine all the inmates of the prison to its precincts to prevent the disease from spreading. As the days wore on, and when there was no hope of the lad's recovery, the unfortunate young man spoke to no one. At the hour of recreation he seized his brother's wasted form, took him to the yard, sat down by his side, and taking the poor boy's head in his arms, remained quietly sitting there during the short half-hour which they were allowed to stay out. One day a haiduk said to him: "Why do you drag him about with you? Don't you see he is dead?" The prisoner shuddered. He looked at the body which lay by his side. He kissed it – but there was no breath! He put his hand to its heart: it had ceased to beat! He stared into its eyes, they were fixed and glazed! its limbs were stiff and cold. "He is dead!" cried the prisoner, with a broken voice, as he reeled and fell. They took him back to the cell, but he never regained his consciousness. He, too, fell a victim to the epidemic.
In a cell adjoining his there was a man who moved even his fellow-prisoners to compassion. He had passed ten years in gaol: his hair was turning grey; his body had lost its former strength; but the term of his punishment was all but over. Only a few weeks were wanting to the day to which he looked for his return to the world, broken in health, but rid of his chains. Nobody expected him. Nobody was to receive him and greet him; but he was to be free! That one thought made up for all he had suffered. When the fever broke out in the gaol, he grew anxious and restless: he asked his fellow-prisoners how they did? he asked the haiduks whether there were any deaths? For the first time in his life, he was afraid of death; for the first time in his life, he had an earnest hope. Two days before his liberation he was taken ill. His despair was fearful to behold. He told the bystanders that he expected to be a free man in forty-eight hours: he talked of his native village and of his plans for the future, and that he intended to live an honest life, if, indeed, his life were spared. He prayed and wept. He cursed the hour of his birth; he hurled his maledictions against God, who had kept him alive all these long years to deprive him of the fruits of his hopes and his patience. He doted on life; after ten years' absence, the world seemed a paradise to him; there was a deep yearning in his soul for the fresh green meadow, the glassy expanse of the river, and the wide and boundless view over the Puszta. He had dreamed of these things during the long weary nights of his captivity; and now, when there was but the space of one single step between him and this longed-for bliss, now, now he was to die! Now, even before he was free! even before the chains were off his hands! There was the glow of fever in his brain, turning, whirling, and distorting the things of this earth before his burning eyes: but that one thought was uppermost even in the wild ravings of fever; and his wailing voice was heard to lament the fate which robbed him of liberty.
At length death set him free! And many were there in that prison who gasped for freedom, and found it in the grave.
And, after all, if they had been but guilty! If there had not been men, aye, and women, too, who died in that prison by no fault of theirs! For the law of Hungary, that nobody can be punished until he has been sentenced by a competent judge, is a privilege of the nobility; and thus it would be difficult to point out any prison in which there are not a great many people, in consequence of an information against them, – and that but too often unfounded, – who for years suffer as much and more than the greatest criminals. This was the case in the Dustbury prison.
Among a variety of people who were arrested at the suit of some unknown informer, there was one man who was perfectly innocent, and who, after an incarceration of five months, had not yet been able to find out how, why, and wherefore he was in gaol. The poor man, whom his fellow-prisoners despised for his very honesty, sat apart from the rest in a corner of his cell. His young wife had done and sacrificed her all to obtain her husband's liberation. Three times daily did she come to the windows of the prison and looked in, and he, shaking off his despondency, came up to the window and told her that he was well, asking for his father and mother and his children; and when he felt that his voice trembled with inward weeping, he entreated her to go away, because he would not have her know how much he suffered. Völgyeshy's mediation availed the poor woman at length to prove her husband's innocence. Early in the morning, when the prison was opened, she went down to the cell; but her husband lay senseless on the straw. He was discharged, and a few days afterwards death set his seal to the warrant of his deliverance.
There were but two men who strove to soften the sufferings of these poor creatures. One of them was Vandory; the other was the Catholic priest of Dustbury. Religious questions ran at that time very high in the county, and the adherents of the two sects were engaged in a violent controversy about the most legitimate method of solemnising marriages between Protestants and Catholics. Vandory and the Catholic priest thought proper (in spite of the general displeasure which their proceedings excited) rather to act than to talk religion. The church militant was sufficiently represented in the county of Takshony; perhaps it was not amiss that there were at least two men who opined that the Church had some other duties besides fighting its own battles; and that amidst the violence of the contending parties there were two men who devoted themselves to peace-making, to instructing and comforting the quarrelsome, ignorant, and distressed. Whenever Vandory could manage to leave Tissaret for Dustbury, he passed the greatest part of his time in the prison. The priest followed his example; and the words of bliss and comfort of the two curates gave new hope to many a wretched heart. Some indeed there were who scorned the messengers of peace, but even they came at length round, and listened to them; for what man, especially in a season of distress, can do without the comforts of religion?
The effect of Vandory's words upon the prisoners was truly miraculous. When he entered the gaol, when they heard his voice, and even his step, their faces were radiant with joy. The inmates of the wards which he entered assembled round him in respectful silence, and the kind and loving manner with which he addressed them softened the hearts even of the most hardened. But most powerful was his influence on the Jewish glazier, on the man who was suspected of being an accessory to the assassination of Mr. Catspaw. The circumstance of his having been found in the attorney's chimney made his evidence of the greatest importance in the Tengelyi process; and Völgyeshy, the notary's counsel, insisted on the Jew being confined in a separate cell. The sheriff seconded this demand. A room, which was originally destined for the keeping of firewood, was prepared for the reception of the prisoner, who was at once consigned to it, to the unbounded delight of Mr. James Bantornyi, who considered this mode of disposing of the Jew as a glorious victory of the principles of solitary confinement. Lady Rety, indeed, objected to what she called an unnecessary harshness, in the case of a man of whose innocence she protested she was convinced. So strong was her feeling on this head, that she even condescended to visit the prisoner once or twice; and though she with genuine humility insisted on the turnkey keeping the secret of these visits, that generous man was equally eager to proclaim to the world this fresh instance of the condescension and charity of the excellent Lady Rety. Indeed, that charity was the more meritorious, inasmuch as no one else pitied the Jew. Nobody spoke to him. The very haiduk who brought him his scanty allowance of bread and greens treated him with contempt, and the prisoner was abandoned to all the torments of solitude. He had no hopes of the future, no gladdening reminiscences of the past.
Gladdening reminiscences! He was a Jew; that one word tells his whole history. Born to be a sharer of the distress of his family, brought up to suffer from the injustice of the masses, cast loose upon the world, to be not free but abandoned; struggling for his daily bread, not by honest labour, for that is forbidden to a Jew, but by trickery and cunning; crawling on the earth like a worm which anybody may tread upon and crush; hated, hunted, persecuted, scouted: such was his past. Such are the sufferings common to the Jews in Hungary; but Jantshi had a heavier burden to bear than the generality of Jews. His disgusting ugliness made him suspected even before he was guilty; and now that his features were still more distorted by fear, he was the very picture of misery and wretchedness. But nobody pitied him; and it seemed that he himself doubted whether any one could pity him. Vandory found him moody and uncommunicative; the curate saw that the Jew considered him as a spy. He strove hard to gain the prisoner's confidence; but in vain! Jantshi received him with the deepest humility. He replied to every question, and he seemed to have no objection to become a convert; but everything he said showed that he considered the curate's visits as a kind of examination.
This state of things changed suddenly when the prisoner was taken ill. He, too, was seized with the epidemic. His case was hopeless. He lay alone in his room; there was no one by to cool his parched lips with a draught of water. It seemed as if the people out of doors reckoned him as one of the dead; for even Lady Rety was quite comfortable in her mind when she understood that there was no hope of the patient's recovery, and that his delirious ravings were incoherent. Vandory alone showed his kindness of heart, by doing all he could for the poor man. When in Dustbury he called upon him twice a-day, and hired a woman to sit up with him. Awaking from his delirious dreams, the Jew saw Vandory sitting at his bedside; when he started up at night, moaning for water to slake his burning thirst, the nurse came and gave him to drink; and when he asked who it was that sent her, she told him it was Vandory. The curate was to him a providence, a guardian angel; in his wildest dreams he called for him, imploring his help; and as the days passed by, as he grew weaker and weaker, when the tide of the fever turned back, leaving his mind clear and unoppressed for the last time, he called out for Vandory; "For," said he to the nurse, "I cannot die unless I speak to the curate, and thank him for all he has done for me. Besides, there is a secret, – something which Mr. Vandory cares to know, and which I ought to tell him. I entreat you, my dear good woman, go and see whether he has come from Tissaret!"
The old woman left the cell, and shortly afterwards the curate entered it. On seeing him Jantshi broke out into a paroxysm of tears.
"Be comforted, my friend!" said Vandory, with deep emotion. "God is merciful, and His mercy will not forsake you!"
The prisoner seized Vandory's hand. His tears drowned his voice: he was silent.
"You are much better now," said the curate, sitting down by the bed. "You will recover, I am sure; and I trust you will be a useful member of society."
"Oh, dear, reverend sir!" said the Jew, with a firm voice; "it's all over with me! I feel that I must die; but it is not for that I weep. I have not had so much joy in the world that I should regret to leave it. I never knew my father and mother; and a poor Jew's life is very little worth. When I'm once underground, they will perhaps cease from troubling me. But, reverend sir, when I think of all you have done for me – for me, whom people treat like a dog; and when I think that you, who did this, are a Christian, and that it is you, sir, whom I – " Here the prisoner's voice was lost in tears. He covered his face with his hands, and sobbed.
It struck Vandory that this was the time to impress upon Jantshi the necessity of his conversion to a purer faith. He therefore told him that God was indeed merciful, and willing to receive the homage, of the humblest heart; and that Christ —
But the Jew shook his head. "No, reverend sir," said he, with a sigh; "do not ask me to do it. I will never abandon the faith of my fathers. How utterly lost a wretch I must be if, after having clung to that faith all my life (it was my only virtue, sir), I were now to abjure it. There is nothing in the world I would not do for you, sir; but do not ask me to do this!"
"My son," said Vandory, "do not think I wish for your conversion for my sake. It would be a grievous sin if I were to ask you to consult any thing but your own conviction in this, the most important step in life. But I urge the matter for your own sake – for the sake of your soul's welfare. The religion of Christ is the religion of love – "
"The religion of love!" cried the Jew, with something like a sneer. "Sir, go and ask the Jews, my brothers, what they know of that love? If all Christians were like yourself, sir," added he, in a softer tone, "I might possibly have left my faith, and accepted theirs. I, for my part, have found but few good men among the Jews. As it is, I wish to die in my father's faith. But there is a secret on my soul which I must communicate to you before – I am fast going, I fear!"
Vandory moved his chair close to the bed, and the Jew detailed to him the circumstances of the robbery of the documents, and the share which the Lady Rety and the attorney had in the perpetration of that crime.
"But who killed the attorney?" asked Vandory. "You ought to know. The place where you were found allowed you to hear all that happened in the room."
"I heard it all. It was Viola who did the deed. He spoke to the attorney, and I know his voice."
"Wretched man! Why did you not state this in your examination?" sighed Vandory. "You know that another man, an innocent man, is accused of the crime, and you know that your confession alone can save his honour and his life!"
"You ask me why I did not state it?" replied Jantshi, staring at the curate. "The lady, who is as great a lawyer as any in the county, told me that the suspicion would lie with me if I were to speak in Tengelyi's favour."
"But what business had you in the place where they found you?"
The Jew shook his head.
"I implore you," said Vandory. "I entreat you – "
"Why shouldn't I say it!" cried Jantshi. "I've sworn to keep the secret; but this woman has abandoned me in my distress, why then should I spare her? Listen! I will tell you. The day before the murder, the Lady Rety and the attorney had a quarrel. He refused to give her the papers which he had taken from Viola. The lady sent for me, and promised me two thousand florins, if I would – "
The curate clasped his hands in astonishment and horror.
"If Viola had not anticipated me," whispered the Jew, "I would have killed the attorney!"
He fell back upon his pillow. Vandory sat silent and lost in thought. Jantshi's tale had filled him with horror, but with hope too, for it held out a chance for Tengelyi. Rising from his seat, he said,
"My friend, thank God that He has given you strength and time to repent and atone for your sins. What you have told me suffices to clear the notary from suspicion; but to make your testimony effectual, you must repeat it in the presence of two witnesses."
"Am I to repeat what I shudder to think of?" said the Jew, mournfully.
"It is your duty. How can you expect God to show you mercy, if you refuse to atone for your sin?"
"I will do it!" said Jantshi, after a pause. "The notary is your friend. I will do it for your sake!"
"If you are too weak," said Vandory, deeply moved by these words and the way in which they were uttered; "if you are weak now, you had better take rest. In a few hours – "
"No! sir, no! Now or never! In a few hours I shall have ceased to speak. Come back at once, reverend sir! Tell anybody to come. I'll tell them all, for I am a dying man. I care not for the sheriff's displeasure. He cannot harm me now!"
"You need not say any thing to excite Lady Rety's displeasure," said Vandory. "Your transactions were chiefly with the attorney, you need not tell them any thing about your intentions – "
"But I will tell them!" cried the Jew, with a savage exultation. "I will have my revenge. That woman was my evil genius! She led me on to crime, and abandoned me in my distress!"
"And is this the moment to think of revenge?" said the curate.
The Jew was silent. At length he replied, "Let it be done as you wish it. I will do anything to please you. But," added he, "go at once. My time is very short, sir."
Vandory called the nurse, and hastened away.
