Debts of Honor Part 27

"There is your brother, Desi."

"Desi?"--Lorand felt a twitching pain at his heart:--"that one's own brother should draw one's death warrant!"

"As yet his hand is innocent. Nor shall he know for what he is drawing.

I will tell him some tale. And so both of us may be tranquil during the drawing of lots."

Just at that moment Desiderius opened the door.

He related that the governess was not going, but the stout aunt was to accompany "auntie" to the ball. And the "fraulein" had sent Lorand a written dance-programme, which Desiderius had torn up on the way.

He tore it up because he was angry that other people were in so frivolous a mood at a time when he felt so exalted. For that reason he had no intention of handing over the programme.

Hearing of the stout aunt, Pepi laughed and then began to feign horror.

"Great heavens, Lorand: the seven fat kine of the Old Testament will be there in one: and one of us must dance with this monster. One of us will have to move from its place that mountain, which even Mahomet could not induce to stir, and waltz with it. Please undertake it for my sake."

Lorand was annoyed by the ill-timed jest which he did not understand.

"Well, to be sure I cannot make the sacrifice: it must be either you or I. I don't mind, let's draw lots for it, and see who must dance this evening with the tower of St. Stephen's."

"Very well,"--Lorand now understood what the other wanted.

"Desi will draw lots for us."

"Of course. Just step outside a moment, Desi, that you may not see on which paper which of our names was written." Desiderius stepped outside.

"He must not see that the tickets are already prepared," murmured Lorand:----

"You may come in now."

"In this hat are both our names," said Gyali, holding the hat before Desiderius: "draw one of them out: open it, read it, and then put both names into the fire. The one whose name you draw will do the honors to the Cochin-China Emperor's white elephant."

The two foes turned round toward the window. Lorand gazed out, while Gyali played with his watch-chain.

The child unsuspectingly stepped up to the hat that served as the "urna sortis," and drew out one of the pieces of paper.

He opened it and read the name,

"Lorand aronffy."

"Put them in the fire," said Gyali.

Desiderius threw two pieces of lilac paper into the fire.

They were cold May days; outside the face of nature had been distorted, and it was freezing; in Lorand's fire-place a fire was blazing. The two pieces of paper were at once burnt up.

Only they were not those on which the two young men had written their names. Desiderius, without being noticed, had changed them for the dance programme, which he had cast into the fire. He kept the two fatal signatures to himself.

He had a very good reason for doing so, and a still better reason for saying nothing about it.

Lorand said:

"Thank you, Desi."

He thanked him for drawing that lot.

Pepi Gyali took up his hat and said to Lorand in playful jesting:

"The white elephant is yours. Good night." And he went away unharmed.

"And now, my dear Desi, you must go home," said Lorand, gently grasping his brother's hand.

"Why I have only just come."

"I have much to do, and it must be done to-day."

"Do it: I will sit down in a corner, and not say a word; I came to see you. I will be silent and watch you."

Lorand took his brother in his arms and kissed him.

"I have to pay a visit somewhere where you could not come with me."

Desiderius listlessly felt for his cap.

"Yet I did so want to be with you this evening."

"To-morrow will do as well."

Lorand was afraid that the officers of justice might come any moment for him. For his part he did not mind: but he did not wish his brother to be present.

Desiderius sorrowfully returned home.

Lorand remained by himself.

By himself? Oh no. There around him were the others--seven in number: those headless dead.

Well, fate is inevitable.

Family misfortune is inherited. One is destroyed by the family disease, another by the hereditary curse.

And again the cause is the "sorrowful soil beneath them."

From that there is no escape.

A terrible inheritance is the self-shed blood, which besprinkles the heads of sons and grandsons!

And his inheritance was--the pistol, with which his father had killed himself.

It were vain for the whole Heaven to be here on earth. He must leave it, must go, where the others had gone.