“Dowager Lady George Saint Pauli,” continued the lady imperturbably, “every scion of whose family is as noble and illustrious as the Prince himself. I too have never forgotten what name I bear, but have proudly confessed it before princes and generals—yea, even before greater men than your Excellency.”
“Well, well, your ladyship. All that I know by heart, for I have heard it from your own lips twenty times before. Come, tell me quickly what you want.”
“Quickly, forsooth! Perchance your Excellency imagines that it is possible to tell in a few words why the suit between us has lasted four years already, and why the suit between the town of Klausenburg and my family has been pending for three-and-sixty years?”
“To cut matters short, I will tell you the whole story myself,” interrupted Banfi; “your ladyship can make your comment afterwards. Your ladyship possesses a ruinous den in the midst of the Klausenburg marketplace—”
“I beg your pardon—a manor-house just as good as your lordship’s own castle.”
“This shanty has for a long time disfigured the marketplace. In vain has the town-council negotiated with and sued your family in order to have the house pulled down.”
“And we have not surrendered it. Quite right. A genuine nobleman never sells property which he has purchased with his blood. It belongs to me, and within my four walls neither Prince nor Diet has the right to command. No, nor you either, my Lord-General.”
“My good lady, I never asked you to give me this venerable ruin for nothing. I offered you ten thousand florins for it. For that sum I could have bought up the whole gipsy quarter, though there is no such dilapidated house there as yours.”
“Keep your money, sir. I’ll not give up my house. My seven-and-seventieth ancestor bought it two centuries ago, and therefore I’ll not barter it away. In it I was born; in it died my father and my mother. If it offends your Excellency’s eye to look down upon my beggarly house from your splendid mansion, pray look the other way; but at least do not grudge me the poor pleasure of spending the remainder of my days in the room where my poor husband breathed his last sigh; and let me tell you, sir, that I wouldn’t take a palace in exchange for it.”
The widow’s sobs at the recollection of her deceased husband here enabled Banfi to put a word in, and he replied with passionate vehemence—
“What I have said shall be done. The masons are already on their way to pull down the house. The ten thousand florins you can have on application to the town-council.”
“I don’t want them. Throw them to your dogs,” cried the woman furiously. “Am I a peasant that you turn me thus out of my property? Whoever dares to step across my threshold shall be driven out with a broomstick like a cur. I have appealed to the Prince and to the Estates, and there you have the sealed mandate in which the Diet forbids all and sundry to invade my property. I’ll nail it upon the gate—’tis engrossed in a good, legible hand—and then I’ll see who dares to break into my house.”
“And I tell you that tomorrow your house will be razed to the ground, even if it be surrounded by armalists, and then the Diet may build you a new one if it is so disposed.”
And with that Banfi turned away in high dudgeon, and almost ran into Nalaczi.
The two men greeted each other with constrained politeness; and while Dame Saint Pauli went off cursing, Nalaczi, after drawing a long breath, began in the sweetest of tones—
“His Highness the Prince desires to bring a very unpleasant matter to the notice of your Excellency.”
“I am all attention.”
“The Turk has thrice this year extorted gifts from us under various pretexts.”
“You ought not to give them to him.”
“If we don’t he will force upon us as Prince the refugee Nicholas Zolyomi, now under the protection of the Porte.”
“Let him come! We will kick him out again.”
“Bravely spoken! But the Prince, weary of so much discord, and somewhat fearful besides, has resolved to amnesty Zolyomi and allow him to return.”
“In God’s name let him do so then!”
“Right, quite right! But your lordship knows very well that Zolyomi’s estates are now in your lordship’s possession; the Prince therefore finds himself compelled to request your lordship to surrender these estates to the returning Zolyomi, if it would not greatly inconvenience your lordship.”
Nalaczi had been a little too curt in the delivery of his message, although he had done his best to sugar it with respectful epithets.
“What!” cried Banfi, stepping back, “do you really suppose that I will give up these estates? The Diet gave them to me with the onerous condition of equipping at my own cost twelve regiments for the defence of the country. That onerous condition I have faithfully fulfilled, and now you fancy that I shall surrender the estates merely because there is to be one fool the more in the land? Preposterous!”
“But if the Prince wishes it!”
“I’ll not give them up whoever wishes it.”
“And that is the answer I’m to take back?”
“You’ll please take back these two words,” said Banfi, emphasizing each syllable—“I won’t!”
“Your most obedient servant,” said Nalaczi, and with an ironical obeisance he turned upon his heel.
“Servus,” replied Banfi contemptuously, as if he were throwing a bone to a dog; and then he looked out into the corridor, and seeing some of his vassals waiting there, hat in hand, roughly asked them what they wanted.
When the good people saw that their liege lord was in a villainous humour, they held back, but the steward pushed them in.
“We ought to have brought the tithes,” began the oldest peasant, with a whining voice and downcast eyes, “but it was impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because we have nothing, my lord. There has been no rain; the crops are a failure; we have not even seed enough to sow our fields. In the village the
