By his chair stood his page—young Cserei—whilst huddled up in a corner on one side was a scarce visible figure which clung close to the wall with as miserable, shamefaced an expression as if it would have liked to crawl right into it and be hidden. What with the darkness and its own miserableness, we should scarce recognise this shape if Teleki did not chance to give it a name, railing at it, from time to time, as if it were a lifeless log, without even looking at it, for, in truth, his back was turned upon it.
“I tell you, Master Szénasi, you are an infinitely useless blockhead—”
“I humbly beg—”
“Don’t beg anything. Here have I, worse luck, been entrusting you with a small commission, in order that you might impart some wholesome information to the people, and instead of that you go and fool them with all sorts of old wives’ stories.”
“Begging your Excellency’s pardon, I thought—”
“Thought? What business had you to think? You thought, perhaps, you were doing me a service with your nonsense, eh?”
“Mr. Nalaczi said as much, your Excellency.”
Mr. Nalaczi seemed to be sitting on thorns all this while.
“Now just see what a big fool you are,” interrupted Teleki. “Mr. Nalaczi may have told you, for what I know, that it might be well for you to use your influence with the common people by mentioning before them the wonders which have recently taken place, and thereby encouraging them to be loyal and friendly to each other, but I am sure he did not tell you to manufacture wonders on your own account, and terrify the people by spreading abroad rumours of coming war.”
“I thought—” Here he stopped short, the worthy man was quite incapable at that moment of completing his sentence.
“Thought! You thought, I suppose, that just as I was collecting armies, you would do me a great service by preaching war? So far as I am concerned, I should like to see every sword buried in the earth.”
“Begging your Excellency’s pardon—”
“Get out of my sight. Never let me see you again. In three days you must leave Transylvania, or else I’ll send you out, and you won’t thank me for that.”
“May I humbly ask what I am to do if your Excellency withdraws your favour from me?” whined the fellow.
“You may do as you like. Go to Szathmár and become the lackey of Baron Kopp, or the scribe of Master Kászonyi. I’m just going to write to them. I’ll mention your name in my letter, and you can take it.”
“And if they won’t accept me?”
“Then you must tack on to someone else, anyhow you shan’t starve. Only get out of my sight as quickly as possible.”
The “magister” withdrew in fear and trembling, wiping his eyes with his pocket-handkerchief.
“Sir,” said Nalaczi, when they were alone together, “this violence does harm.”
“The only way with such fellows is to bully them whatever they do, for they are deceivers and traitors at heart, and would otherwise do you mischief. Kick and beat them, chivy them from pillar to post, and make them feel how wretched their lot is, if you don’t want them to play off their tricks upon you.”
“I don’t see it in that light. This irritability will do you no good.”
“On the contrary it keeps me up. If I had not always given vent to my feelings I should have been lying on a sickbed long ago. Take these few thalers, go after that good-for-nothing, and tell him that I am very angry with him, and therefore he must try in future to deserve my confidence better, in which case I shall not forget him. Tell him to wait in the gate for the letter I am about to write, and when once he has it in his hand let him get out of Transylvania as speedily as he can. Remind him that I don’t yet know about what happened in the square at Klausenberg, and if I did know I would have him flogged out of the realm; so let him look sharp about it.”
Nalaczi laughed and went out.
Teleki sank back exhausted on his pillows, and made his page rub the back of his neck violently with a piece of flannel.
At that instant the Prince entered. His face was wrath, and all because of his sympathy. He began scolding Teleki on the very threshold.
“Why don’t you lie down when I command you? Does it beseem a grown-up man like you to be as disobedient as a capricious child? Why don’t you send for the doctor; why don’t you be blooded?”
“There is nothing the matter with me, your Highness. It is only a little haemorrhoidalis alteratio. I am used to it. It always plagues me at the approach of the equinoxes.”
“Ai, ai, Michael Teleki, you don’t get over me. You are very ill, I tell you. Your mental anxiety has brought about this physical trouble. Does it become a Christian man, I ask, to take on so because my little friend Flora cannot have one particular man out of fifteen wooers, and a fellow like Emeric, too—a mere dry stick of a man.”
“I don’t give it any particular importance.”
“You are a bad Christian, I tell you, if you say that. You love neither God nor man; neither your family, nor me—”
“Sir!” said Teleki, in a supplicating voice.
“For if you did love us, you would spare yourself and lie down, and not get up again till you were quite well again.”
“But if I lie down—”
“Yes, I know—other things will have a rest too. The bottom of the world isn’t going to fall out, I suppose, because you keep your bed for a day or two. Come! look sharp! I will not
