Debts of Honor Part 4

We know what children understand by "temptations."

To-day I saw this door open, and knew that this building was our family vault.

This door, which hitherto I had only seen covered with ivy, was now swung open, and through the open porch glittered the light of a lamp.

The two great Virginia creepers which were planted before the crypt hid the gla.s.s so that it was not visible from the garden. The brightness was only for us.

The four men set the coffin down on the steps; we followed after it.

So this was that house where temptations dwell; and all our prayers were in vain; "lead us not into temptation." Yet to temptation we were forced to come. Down a few steps we descended, under a low, plastered arch, which glittered green from the moisture of the earth. In the wall were built deep niches, four on either side, and six of them were already filled. Before them stood slabs of marble, with inscriptions telling of those who had fallen asleep. The four servants placed the coffin they had brought on their shoulders in the seventh niche; then the aged retainer clasped his hands, and with simple devotion repeated the Lord's Prayer; the other three men softly murmured after him: "Amen. Amen."

Then they left us to ourselves.

Grandmother all this while had without a word, without a movement, stood in the depth of the crypt, holding our hands within her own; but when we were alone, in a frenzy she darted to the coffined niche and flung herself to the ground before it.

Oh! I cannot tell what she said as she raved there. She wept and sobbed, flinging reproaches--at the dead! She scolded, as one reproves a child that has cut itself with a knife. She asked why he did _this_. And again she heaped grave calumny upon him, called him coward, wretch, threatened him with G.o.d, with G.o.d's wrath, and with eternal d.a.m.nation;--then asked pardon of him, babbled out words of conciliation, called him back, called him dear, sweet, and good; related to him what a faithful, dear, loving wife waited at home, with his two sweet children,--how could he forget them? Then with gracious, reverent words begged him to turn Christian, to come to G.o.d, to learn to believe, to hope, to love; to trust to the boundless mercy; to take his rest in the paths of Heaven. And then she uttered a scream, tore the tresses of her dove-white hair, and cursed G.o.d. Methought it was the night of the Last Judgment.

Every fire-breathing monster of the Revelation, the very disgorging of the dead from the rent earth, were as naught to me compared with the terror which that hour heaped upon my head.

'Twas. .h.i.ther we had brought father, who died suddenly, in the prime of life. Hither we had brought him, in stealth, and slinking; here we had concealed him without any Christian ceremony, without psalm or toll of bell; no priest's blessing followed him to his grave, as it follows even the poorest beggar; and now here, in the house of the dead, grandmother had cursed the departed, and anathematized the other world, on whose threshold we stand, and in her mad despair was knocking at the door of the mysterious country as she beat upon the coffin-lid with her fist.

Now, in my mature age, when my head, too, is almost covered with winter's snow, I see that our presence there was essential; drop by drop we were to drain to the dregs this most bitter cup, which I would had never fallen to our lot!

Grandmother fell down before the niche and laid her forehead upon the coffin's edge; her long white hair fell trailing over her.

Long, very long, she lay, and then she rose; her face was no more distorted, her eyes no longer filled with tears. She turned toward us and said we should remain a little longer here.

She herself sat down upon the lowest step of the stone staircase, and placed the lamp in front of her, while we two remained standing before her.

She looked not at us, only peered intensely and continuously with her large black eyes into the light of the lamp, as if she would conjure therefrom something that had long since pa.s.sed away.

All at once she seized our hands, and drew us toward her to the staircase.

"You are the scions of a most unhappy house, every member of which dies by his own hand."

So this was that secret that hung, like a veil of mourning before the face of every adult member of our family! We continuously saw our elders so, as if some mist of melancholy moved between us; and this was that mist.

"This was the doom of G.o.d, a curse of man upon us!" continued grandmother, now no longer with terrifying voice. Besides, she spoke as calmly as if she were merely reciting to us the history of some strange family. "Your great-grandfather. Job aronffy, he who lies in the first niche, bequeathed this terrible inheritance to his heirs; and it was a brother's hand that hurled this curse at his head. Oh, this is an unhappy earth on which we dwell! In other happy lands there are murderous quarrels between man and man; brothers part in wrath from one another; the 'mine and thine,'[3] jealousy, pride, envy, sow tares among them. But this accursed earth of ours ever creates bloodshed; this d.a.m.ned soil, which we are wont to call our 'dear homeland,' whose pure harvest we call love of home, whose tares we call treason, while every one thinks his own harvest the pure one, his brother's the tares, and, for that, brother slays brother! Oh! you cannot understand it yet.

[Footnote 3: That is, the disputes as to the superiority of each other's possessions, or as to each other's right to possession.]

"Your great-grandfather lived in those days when great men thought that what is falling in decay must be built afresh. Great contention arose therefrom, much knavery, much disillusion; finally the whole had to be wiped out.

"Job's parents educated him at academies in Germany; there his soul became filled with foreign freedom of thought; he became an enthusiastic partisan of common human liberty. When he returned, this selfsame idea was in strife with an equally great one, national feeling. He joined his fortunes with the former idea, as he considered it the just one. In what patriots called relics of antiquity he saw only the vices of the departed. His elder brother stood face to face with him; they met on the common field of strife, and then began between them the unending feud.

They had been such good brothers, never had they deserted each other in time of trouble; and on this thorn-covered field they must swear eternal enmity. Your great-grandfather belonged to the victorious, his brother to the conquered army. But the victory was not sweet.

"Job gained a powerful, high position, he basked in the suns.h.i.+ne of power, but he lost that which was--nothing; merely the smiles of his old acquaintances. He was a seigneur, from afar they greeted him, but did not hurry to take his hand; and those who of yore at times of meeting would kiss his face from right and left, now after his change of dignity would stand before him, and bow their greetings askance with cold obeisance. Then there was one man who did not even bow, but sought a meeting only that he might provoke him with his obstinate sullenness, and gaze upon him with his piercing eyes--his own brother. Yet they were both honorable, good men, true Christians, benefactors of the poor, the darlings of their family, and once so fond of each other! Oh, this sorrowful earth here below us!

"Then this new order of things that had been built up for ten years, fell into ruins, and Joseph II. on his death-bed drew a red line through his whole life-work; what had happened till then faded into mere remembrance.

"The earth re-echoed with the shouts of rejoicing--this earth, this bitter earth. Job for his part wended his way to the Turkish bath in Buda, and, that he might meet with his brother no more, opened his arteries and bled to death.

"Yet they were both good Christians; true men in life, faithful to honor, no evil-doers, no G.o.dless men; in heart and deed they wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d; but still the one brother took his own life, that he might meet no more with the other; and the other said of him: 'He deserved his fate.'

"Oh, this earth that is drenched with the flow of our tears!"

Here grandmother paused, as if she would collect in her mind the memories of a greater and heavier affliction.

Not a sound reached us down there--even the crypt door was closed; the moaning of the wind did not reach so far; no sound, only the beating of the hearts of three living beings.

Grandmother sought with her eyes the date written upon the arch, which the moisture that had sweated out from the lime had rendered illegible.

"In this year they built this house of sorrow. Job was the first inhabitant thereof. Just as now, without priest, without toll of bell, hidden in a wooden chest of other form, they brought him here; and with him began that melancholy line of victims, whose legacy was that one should draw the other after him. The shedding of blood by one's own hand is a terrible legacy. That blood besprinkles children and brothers. That malicious tempter who directed the father's hand to strike the sharp knife home into his own heart stands there in ambush forever behind his successors' backs; he is ever whispering to them; 'Thy father was a suicide, thy brother himself sought out death; over thy head, too, stands the sentence; wherever thou runnest from before it, thou canst not save thyself; thou carriest with thyself thy own murderer in thine own right hand.' He tempts and lures the undecided ones with blades whetted to brilliancy, with guns at full c.o.c.k, with poison-drinks of awful hue, with deep-flowing streams. Oh, it is indeed horrible!

"And nothing keeps them back! they never think of the love, the everlasting sorrow of those whom they leave behind here to sorrow over their melancholy death. They never think of Him whom they will meet there beyond the grave, and who will ask them: 'Why did you come before I summoned you?'

"In vain was written upon the front of this house of sorrow, 'Lead us not into temptation.' You can see. Seven have already taken up their abode here. All the seven have cast at the feet of Providence that treasure, an account of which will be asked for in Heaven.

"Job left three children: akos, Gero, and Kalman. akos was the eldest, and he married earliest. He was a good man, but thoughtless and pa.s.sionate. One summer he lost his whole fortune at cards and was ruined. But even poverty did not drive him to despair. He said to his wife and children: 'Till now we were our own masters; now we shall be the servants of others. Labor is not a disgrace. I shall go and act as steward to some landowner.' The other two brothers, when they heard of their elder's misfortune, conferred together, went to him, and said: 'Brother, still two-thirds of our father's wealth is left; come, let us divide it anew.'

"And each of them gave him a third of his property, that they might be on equal terms again.

"That night akos shot himself in the head.

"The stroke of misfortune he could bear, but the kindness of his brothers set him so against himself that when he was freed from the cares of life he did not wish to know further the enjoyments thereof.

"akos left behind two children, a girl and a boy.

"The girl had lived some sixteen summers--very beautiful, very good.

Look! there is her tomb: 'Struck down in her sixteenth year!' She loved; became unhappy; and died.

"You cannot understand it yet!

"So already three lay in the solitary vault.

"Gero was your grandfather--my good, never-to-be-forgotten husband. No tear wells in my eyes as I think of him; every thought that leads me back to him is sweet to me; and I know that he was a man of high principles; that every deed of his--his last deed, too--was proper and right, it is as it should be. It happened before my very eyes; and I did not seize his hand to stay his action."

How my old grandmother's eyes flashed in this moment! A glowing warmth, hitherto unknown to me, seemed to pervade my whole being; some glimmering ray of enthusiasm--I knew not what! How the dead can inspire one with enthusiasm!

"Your grandfather was the very opposite of his own father; as it is likely to happen in hundreds, nay, in thousands of cases that the sons restore to the East the fame and glory that their fathers gathered in the West.

"But you don't understand that, either!

"Gero was in union with those who, under the leaders.h.i.+p of a priest of high rank, wished at the end of the last century, to prepare the country for another century. No success crowned their efforts; they fell with him--and fell without a head. One afternoon your grandfather was sitting in the family circle--it was toward the end of dinner--when a strange officer entered in the midst of us, and, with a face utterly incapable of an expression of remorse, informed Gero that he had orders to put him under guard. Gero displayed a calm face, merely begged the stranger to allow him to drink his black coffee. His request was granted without demur. My husband calmly stirred his coffee, and entered into conversation with the stranger, who did not seem to be of an angry disposition. Indeed, he a.s.sured my husband that no harm would come of this incident. My husband peacefully sipped his coffee.

"Then having finished it, he put down his cup, wiped his beautiful long beard, turned to me, drew me to his breast, and kissed me on both cheeks, not touching my mouth. 'Educate our boy well,' he stammered.

Then, turning to the stranger: 'Sir, pray do not trouble yourself further on my account. I am a dead man; you will be welcome at my funeral.'

"Two minutes later he breathed his last. And I had clearly seen, for I sat beside him, how with his thumb he opened the seal of the ring he wore on his little finger, how he shook a white powder therefrom into the cup standing before him, how he stirred it slowly till it dissolved, and then sipped it up little by little; but I could not stay his hand, could not call to him, 'Don't do it! Cling to life!'"