“You have besieged us in form?”
“I do not deny it, your Highness.”
“It was you who brought the ambassador to the Princess?”
“Such is indeed the case, your Highness.”
“And it was you who then advised him to present himself in this masquerade in order to lure me hither more easily?”
“I did it all, your Highness.”
“Then you have done a very foolish thing, Master Michael Teleki.”
“That remains to be seen, your Highness,” replied the minister proudly, conscious of his own intellectual superiority.
Meanwhile Dame Apafi had entered the room; her princely robes well became her princely aspect. All the gentlemen present hastened forward to do her homage. But Apafi also advanced quickly towards her, put his arm through hers, and with marked tenderness endeavoured to lead her into his cabinet.
“No; let us remain here,” cried the Princess; “there will be plenty of time later on to look at your Dutch clocks. Far more serious matters claim our attention first. These gentlemen from Hungary desire an audience.”
Apafi exploded at once.
“I know beforehand what they want, and I have declared once for all that I will hear no more of the matter.”
“But you will surely listen to me. I too am an Hungarian woman, and in the name of my fatherland I implore the Prince of Transylvania for help. None shall say that I rule the Prince in secret. Look now, I advance openly before his throne, and I beg of him protection for Hungary, whose sons are called strangers in Transylvania, though I, her daughter, am the Princess.”
From Apafi’s looks it was clear that he would much rather have listened to the Hungarian gentlemen than to his own consort. But he was caught in a trap. She stood before him as a petitioner. There was no escape.
Teleki bade the pages in waiting at the door admit no one else. Apafi, with a gesture of impatience, sat down in an armchair, and resigned himself to listen to his consort; but Anna had scarcely commenced to speak, when the rattling of a coach was heard in the courtyard, and shortly afterwards heavy footsteps resounded in the corridors, and a stern, dictatorial voice, with which everyone appeared to be familiar, asked if the Prince was in. The pages said No, and tried to stop the intruder, but exclaiming, “Out of my way, you brats!” he burst open the door and forced his way into the room. It was none other than Denis Banfi.
He had just descended from his carriage. His cheeks were much redder than usual, and his eyes sparkled. He went straight towards the Prince and cried, without the slightest preamble—
“Do not listen to these gentlemen, your Highness! Do not listen to a single word.”
The Prince smiled and greeted Banfi.
“God preserve you, my cousin,” said he.
“Pardon me, your Highness, if in my great haste I neglected to salute you; but when I heard that the Hungarian gentlemen were here in audience, I was quite beside myself with rage. What do you want?” continued he, turning towards the Hungarians; “not satisfied, I suppose, with ruining your own country with your unruliness, you must needs come hither to disturb us likewise?”
“You speak of us,” remarked Teleki, with quiet sarcasm, “as if we belonged to some outlandish Tartar stock, and as if we had been cast hither from heaven only knows what sort of savage, distant land.”
“On the contrary, I know you only too well, ye Hungarian lords. I speak of you as men whose turbulence has, time out of mind, been ruinous to Transylvania. The people of Hungary are idiots one and all.”
“I beg you not to lose sight of the fact that I too am one of them,” said the Princess.
“I know it; and it is with anything but satisfaction that I see the will of your Highness predominant here.”
Dame Apafi, with an expression of wounded dignity, turned towards her brother-in-law.
“Whatever you may say, I will not cease to be your good kinswoman and well-wisher,” and with these words she quitted the room.
“You might at least have addressed the Prince more becomingly,” remarked Teleki, sharply.
“Have I then spoken one word to the Prince?” asked Banfi, shrugging his shoulders. “How can I even reach his Highness when you are always standing in the way? I am and always will be the enemy of those who have no right whatever to stand on the steps of the throne, and you are one of them, Master Michael Teleki. Oh, don’t imagine that the reasons which make you so enthusiastic in the Hungarian cause are hidden from me. You are not content with being the first in Transylvania after the Prince; you would fain become Palatine of Hungary27 as well. Ha! ha! how you all befool one another. The French promise aid to the Hungarians; the Hungarians promise Teleki the dignity of Palatine; Teleki promises Apafi a kingly crown, and ye lie, the whole lot of you; ye deceive and are deceived.”
“Sir,” replied Teleki, bitterly, “is that the way to speak to guests, to exiled, unhappy fellow-countrymen?”
“Don’t teach me how to be generous,” retorted Banfi, proudly. “At my house the poor and the persecuted have ever found an asylum, and if these fugitive gentlemen wish us to share house and home with them, I’m ready to do so. Here’s my hand upon it. But just as I should be out of my senses to burn my own house down, so now too I protest against the conflagration of my country; and if you do not cease from troubling a peaceful land, I’ll leave no stone unturned till I have driven you all out.”
“We ought not to be surprised at this tone, my friends,” said Teleki, with bitter scorn, turning towards the Hungarians. “His Excellency here has been so very recently amnestied by the Prince, that he imagines he is still at war with us.”
Apafi, who had been sitting on burning coals, now interposed.
“Cease this bickering. We dismiss you all. You see that sundry of our councillors are against
