“Look now,” cried Banfi, “another visitation of God, and yet we must needs have a war to boot! Steward, open at once the demesne granaries, and distribute seed to the vassals, that they may sow their fields. See too that the poor people have enough corn to feed them through the winter.”
The poor peasants would have kissed Banfi’s hands, but he would not suffer it. A tear stood in his eye.
“For what am I your lord if not to lighten your burdens when you are in need? My stewards will carry out my orders. If my own storehouses fall short, you shall have corn for ready money from Moldavia.”
And with that he retired into the adjoining chamber.
Banfi’s wife with a beating heart heard his familiar footsteps drawing nearer.
There she sits behind the fragrant jasmines and the quivering mimosas, herself as pale as the jasmine flowers and as tremulous as the mimosas.
Around her is nothing but pomp and splendour. On the walls hang cut Venetian mirrors in gold frames, portraits of kings and princes, the handsomest among which is John Kemeny’s, painted while he still held with the Turk and wore close-cropped hair and a long beard in the Turkish fashion, so much affected by the magnates of those days.
On one side of the room is a wardrobe with countless drawers, a masterpiece of art, inlaid with tortoiseshell, lapis lazuli, and mother-of-pearl. In the centre of the room stands a variegated table surmounted by silver candelabra of exquisite workmanship. Within glass almeries the family treasures are piled up in gorgeous heaps: pocals encrusted with gems; gold-enamelled stags, whose heads can be screwed off and on; large silver filigree flower-baskets, each scarcely heavier than a crown-piece, filled with posies of precious stones of every hue, artistically disposed in dazzling groups, with here and there a butterfly poising above them with delicate wings of transparent gold.
Heavy red silk curtains fall down from the lofty windows to the floor, and the windowsills are covered with the most gorgeous of the flowers then in vogue, among which the shining, velvety, amaranthine cock’s-comb, the liriodendron with its dependent, tulip-like calices, and the mesembryanthemum, with its leaves like dewy pearls, are the most conspicuous.
Of all these flowers only the trembling mimosa and the pale jasmine harmonized with the lady of the house, whose face contrasted so sadly with the gorgeous abode. The tiny, delicate figure seemed almost lost in the lofty arched room. She could not even have moved one of the massive morocco armchairs, nor have raised one of the huge heavy candlesticks, nor have pulled aside one of the heavy atlas curtains. Everything around her seemed to remind her of her feebleness. Every sound made her nervous, and when the well-known footsteps reached her threshold, all the blood rushed to her face. She was about to leap up when the door opened, and immediately she was as pale again as ever, and incapable of rising from her seat.
Banfi hastened, with expansive joy, towards his trembling wife, who could not for the moment find words to welcome him, seized both her delicate hands, and looked kindly into her dreamy eyes.
“So pretty and yet so sad!”
The lady tried to smile.
“And how sad that smile is too,” remarked Banfi, gently embracing the sylphlike lady.
Lady Banfi laid her head on her husband’s bosom, threw her arms round his neck, drew down his face to hers, and kissed it.
“That kiss too, how sad it is!”
She turned away to conceal her tears.
“What is it?” asked Banfi, stroking his wife’s forehead. “What is the matter? Why are you so pale? What do you want?”
“What do I want?” returned Lady Banfi, turning her streaming eyes up to her husband and sighing deeply. Then she dried her eyes, placed her arm in his, and as if to give another turn to the conversation, led him to her flowers.
“Look at that passionflower, how withered it is, and yet it is planted in a porcelain vase, and I water it every day with distilled water. But once I forgot to draw up the blinds, and now look how the poor thing has faded. It wants nothing—but sunshine.”
“It seems,” said Banfi, in a low voice, “as if we were to address each other in the language of flowers.”
“What do I want?” repeated Lady Banfi, and leaning on her husband’s neck, she burst forth sobbing. “I want my sunshine—your love.”
Banfi at that moment looked very uncomfortable. He sat down on his wife’s chair, took her gently upon his knee, and asked her in a kind tone, but not without a touch of temper too—
“Am I less able to show you my love now than heretofore?”
“Oh, no!—not less! But I see you so seldom. You have been away these six weeks, and you would not let me come to you.”
“What, my lady! Have you suddenly become ambitious? Would you shine at the court of the Prince? Believe me, your court is much more splendid than his, and not nearly so dangerous.”
“Oh, you know right well that I neither seek splendour nor fear danger. When our only shelter was a rude simple hut, nay, sometimes only a tent, half buried in the snow, then you made me lay my head upon your breast, covered me with your mantle, and I was so happy, oh, so happy. Oftentimes the din of battle, the thunder of the cannon, scared sleep from our eyes, and yet I was so happy. You mounted your horse, I sank down in prayer; and when you came back blood- and dust-stained, but unhurt, how happy I was then!”
“Heaven grant that you may always be so. But there is a happiness which stands higher than domestic happiness; there are matters where the mere sight of you would be to me a hindrance and an obstacle.”
“Oh, I know what they are—sweet adventures, lovely women, eh?” returned Lady Banfi,
