“I’m coming to that. Her love of display costs money, and has compelled her husband to resort to fraudulent practices. And besides, such extravagance concerns your Highness also, as tending to emphasize the contrast already apparent between the frugal simplicity of your Highness’s court and the dazzling pomp of these petty kings—a contrast which has already made a pretty deep impression upon our foreign visitors. Thus, quite recently, the Bavarian minister, who had come from a banquet at Ebesfalva to Aranyosi, remarked in a flattering tone to Dame Kapi, in my hearing, that she was the real Princess of Transylvania.”
“He said that, did he?” cried the Prince, becoming much interested. “Go on with your narrative. So he said that Kapi’s wife was the real Princess, eh?”
“Yet strip from off her her costly pearls and diamonds, and you will see that in regard to beauty and majesty she is not fit to lace the shoes of her Highness the Princess Apafi.”
“Go on! go on!”
“Well, one fine day this same Kapi came to me, and told me that your Highness had been commanded by the Palatine to arrest and deliver me over to him.”
“I receive a command! I know absolutely nothing about it.”
“Unfortunately I believed his words, and imagining myself caught between two fires, I made over my Transylvanian property to Kapi to save it from confiscation, he at the same time delivering to me an undertaking to re-transfer the estates as soon as possible. Meanwhile I resolved to fly to Poland, and stay there till the storm blew over. Kapi gave me two guides, who were to conduct me through the mountain-passes to the frontier; but at the same time he secretly informed the frontier sentinels that I was a spy sent by the Emperor to explore Transylvania, and was now desirous of returning unobserved. So the rogues waylaid me, robbed me of all my money and papers, and dragged me to Fehervár, where my innocence came to light, but my money and papers were of course hopelessly lost. And now this Kapi actually maintains that I sold him all my property, and I’ve nothing in the world but this leather knapsack round my neck, with which I must now beg my way about.”
“Be of good cheer. I will give you the most exemplary satisfaction,” returned the enraged Prince.
“It is a matter which also concerns your Highness’s own dignity,” replied Balassa. “These great lords behave in as high-handed a fashion as if they had absolutely no superior.”
“Be easy. I will very soon show them who is the real Prince of Transylvania.”
Apafi, full of indignation, then left the audience-chamber.
A storm was gathering over the heads of two great men who stood in Teleki’s way.
Book II
The Devil’s Garden
I
The Patrol
Clement the Clerk stuck his pen behind his ear and recited to himself the elegant verses which he had just composed, two hundred strophes in all, almost every line of which ended in fuerat, with a sporadic fuisset in between.
Michael Apafi used regularly to repent whenever he had offended anyone, and he therefore could not rest till he had compensated the itinerant scholar Clement for the snub he had administered to him, and this he did by making the unsophisticated poet his—Patrol-officer.
In those days many agreeable duties were connected with this office—duties which Clement simply left alone, devoting himself instead to the composition of epics and chronicles, which he manufactured in great abundance.
At that moment he was casting his eyes over a great epic, in which he recorded how his Highness, Prince Michael Apafi, had gone out against Érsekújvár to besiege it; how with splendid valour he had arrived there; how, on beholding the foe, he had drawn his sword; how, after mature deliberation, he had turned back again; and how, finally, he and all his heroes had returned home again safe and sound.
Poetic distraction had so completely absorbed the faculties of Clement the Clerk, that a week had already elapsed since his servant had made off with his master’s spurred jackboots, without the latter, in his capacity of Patrol-officer, thinking of pursuing the runaway; but in fact he was confined within a vicious circle, inasmuch as every time he thought of inquiring for his boots, it occurred to him that his servant had stolen them; and every time he thought of going out and inquiring for his servant, it occurred to him that he had no boots. What could he do then under such circumstances but sit down again, and write poems in absolutely endless quantities?
His room had not been swept out for weeks, naturally therefore there was no lack of dust and cobwebs; but, by way of contrast, the deal floor all around the solitary table was mottled with inkblots. The table itself had only two legs, the place of the others being supplied by layers of bricks.
The poet scribbles, erases, and nibbles at his pen; on the windowsill lies a piece of bread and some cheese; it occurs to the poet that it has been put there for him to eat; but first he must use up the ink still remaining in his pen, and in doing so another idea occurs to him, and after that a third, and then a fourth; meanwhile mice come skipping out of a hole beneath the windowsill, frisk about the bread and cheese, nibble away at it till not a morsel remains, and then skip back into their holes again. The poet having wearied out his Pegasus, starts up, looks for his bread and cheese, and perceiving that only the crumbs remain on the windowsill, concludes that he has already eaten his fill, so sits him down again and goes on writing.
While he is thus plaguing himself for the benefit of posterity, somebody begins scratching at the door, and after groping about the door-hinge in search of the door-latch, finds it at last, and shakes it
