Apafi would have replied in the negative, but Teleki signified that she might as well come in.
A few moments later the attendant again appeared and requested permission for the ladies of the Princess’s suite to accompany their mistress, as she was too weak to walk alone.
Teleki consented to that also.
The counsellors cast down their eyes when the door opened. But there is a sort of spell which forces a man to look in the very direction in which he would not, in which he fears to look, and lo and behold! when the door opened and the hunted woman entered with her suite, a cry of astonishment resounded from every lip. For of what did the woman’s suite consist? It consisted of the most eminent ladies of Transylvania. The wives and daughters of all the counsellors present accompanied the unfortunate lady, foremost among them being the Princess and Dame Michael Teleki, on whose shoulders she leaned; and last of all came old Dame Bethlen, with dove-white hair. All the most respectable matrons, the loveliest wives, and fairest maidens of the realm were there.
The unfortunate Princess, whose pale face was full of suffering, advanced on the arms of her supporters towards the throne of the Prince. Her knees tottered beneath her, her whole body trembled like a leaf, she opened her lips, but no sound proceeded from them.
“Courage, my child,” whispered Anna Bornemissza, pressing her hand; whereupon the tears suddenly burst from the eyes of the unfortunate woman, and, breaking from her escort, she flung herself at the feet of the Prince, embracing his knees with her convulsive arms, and raising towards him her tear-stained face, exclaimed with a heartrending voice: “Mercy! … Mercy!”
A cold dumbness sat on every lip; it was impossible for a time to hear anything but the woman’s deep sobbing. The Prince sat like a statue on his throne, the steps of which Mariska Sturdza moistened with her tears. The silence was painful to everyone, yet nobody dared to break it.
Teleki smoothed away his forelock from his broad forehead, but he could not smooth away the wrinkles which had settled there. He regretted that he had given occasion to this scene.
“Mercy!” sobbed the poor woman once more, and half unconsciously her hand slipped from Apafi’s knees. Aranka Béldi rushed towards her and rested her declining head on her own pretty childlike bosom.
Then Anna Bornemissza stepped forward, and after throwing a stony glance upon all the counsellors present, who cast down their eyes before her, looked Apafi straight in the face with her own bright, penetrating, soul-searching eyes, till her astonished husband was constrained to return her glance almost without knowing it.
“My petition is a brief one,” said Dame Apafi in a low, deep, though perfectly audible voice. “An unfortunate woman, whom the Lord of Destiny did not deem to be sufficiently chastened by a single blow, has lost in one day her husband, her home, and her property; she implores us now for bare life. You see her lying in the dust asking of you nothing more than leave to rest—a petition which Genghis Khan’s executioners would have granted her. That is all she asks, but we demand more. The destiny of Transylvania is in your hands, but its honour is ours also; ye are summoned to decide whether our children are to be happy or miserable. But speak freely to us and say if you wish them to be honourable men or cowards. And I ask you which of us women would care to bear the name of a Kornis, a Csaky, or an Apafi, if posterity shall say of the bearers of these names that they surrendered an innocent woman to her heathen pursuers and constrained their own sons thereby to renounce the names of their fathers? Look not so darkly upon me, Master Michael Teleki, for my soul is dark enough without that. An unhappy woman is on her knees before you, hoping that she will find you to be men. The women of Transylvania stand before you, hoping to find you patriots. We beg you to have compassion for the sake of the honour of our children.”
Teleki, upon whom the eyes of the Princess had flashed fiercely during the speech, as if accepting the challenge, answered in a cold, stony voice:
“Here, madam, we dispense justice only, not mercy or honour.”
“Justice!” exclaimed Anna. “What! If a husband has offended, is his innocent wife, whose only fault is that she loves the fugitive, is she, I say, to suffer punishment in his stead? Where is the justice of that?”
“Justice is often another name for necessity.”
“Then who are all ye whom I see here? Are ye the chief men of Transylvania or Turkish slaves? This is what I ask, and what we should all of us very much like to know: is this the council chamber of the free and constitutional state of Transylvania, or is it the antechamber of Olaj Beg?”
The gentlemen present preserved a deep silence. This was a question to which they could not give a direct answer.
“I demand an answer to my question,” cried Dame Apafi in a loud voice.
“And what good will the answer do you, my lady?” inquired Teleki, pressing his index-finger to his lips.
“I shall at any rate know whether the place in which we now stand is worthy of us.”
“It is not worthy, my lady. The present is no time for the Magyars to be proud that they dwell in Transylvania; we are ashamed to be the responsible ministers of a downtrodden, deserted, and captive nation. This your Highness ought to know as well as any of us, for it was a Turkish Pasha who placed your husband on the Prince’s seat. And, assuredly, it would be a far less grief to us to lose our heads than to bend them humbly beneath the derisive honour of being the leaders of a people lying among ruins. But, at the
