Debts of Honor Part 66

"If you are inclined, let us try," said Lorand.

"With pleasure, only you must do it first."

"I shall do so, but you will not follow me."

"If you do it, I shall too. But I think you will not do it before me."

One idea flashed clearly before me and chilled my whole body. I saw all: I understood all now: the mystery of ten years was no longer a secret to me: I saw the refugee, I saw the pursuer, and I had both in my hand, in such an iron grip, as if G.o.d had lent me for the moment the hand of an archangel.

You just talk away.

Lorand's face was a feverish red.

"Well, well, you scamp! Let us bet, if you like."

"What?"

"Twenty bottles of champagne, which we shall drink too."

"I accept the wager."

"Whoever withdraws from the jest loses the bet."

"Here's the money!"

Both took their purses and placed each a hundred florins on the table.

I too produced my purse and took a crumpled paper out of it:--but it was no banknote.

Lorand cried to the waiter.

"Take my pistols out of my trunk."

The waiter placed both before him.

"Are they really loaded?" inquired Gyali.

"Look into the barrels, where the steel head of the bullets are smiling at you."

Gyali found it wiser to believe than to look into the pistol barrels.

"Well, the bet stands; whichever of us cannot drink out his portion pays for the champagne."

Lorand seized his gla.s.s to pour the red wine that was in it into the pistol-barrel.

The whole company was silent: some agonized restraint ruled their intoxicated nerves: every eye was rested on Lorand as if they wished to check the mad jest before its completion. On Topandy's forehead heavy beads of sweat glistened.

I quietly placed my hand on Lorand's, in which he held the weapon and amid profound silence asked:

"Would it not be good to draw lots to see who shall do it first?"

Both looked at me in confusion when I mentioned drawing lots.

Could their secret have been discovered?

"Only if you draw lots about it," I continued quietly, "don't omit to be quite sure about the writing of each other's name, lest there be a repet.i.tion of that farce which took place ten years ago, when you drew lots as to who was to dance with the white elephant."

I saw Gyali turn as white as paper.

"What farce?" he panted, beginning to rise from his chair.

"You always were a jesting boy, Pepi: at that time you made me draw lots for you, and told me to put both the one I had drawn and the other in the grate: but instead of doing so I threw the dance programme in the fire, and put those papers aside and kept them. You, instead of your own, wrote my brother's name on the paper, and so whichever was drawn, Lorand aronffy must have come out of the hat. Look, the two lottery tickets are still in my possession, those same two pieces of paper, a sheet of note paper torn in two, both with the same name on them, and on the other side the writing of Madame Balnokhazy."

Gyali rose from his seat like one who had seen a ghost, and gazed at me with a look of stone.

Yet I had not threatened him. I had merely playfully jested with him. I smilingly spread out the two pieces of lilac-colored papers, which so exactly fitted together.

But Lorand with flas.h.i.+ng eyes glared at him, and as the dignified upright figure stood opposite him, threw the contents of the gla.s.s he held in his hand into the fellow's face, so that the red wine splashed all over his laced white waistcoat.

Gyali with his serviette wiped from his face the traces of insult and with dignified coldness said:

"With men in such a condition no dispute is possible. We cannot answer the taunts of drunken men."

Therewith he began to back towards the door.

Everybody, in amazement at this scene, allowed him to go: for all the world as if everyone had suddenly begun to be sober, and at the first surprise no one knew how to think what should now happen.

But I ... I was not drunk. I had no need to become sober.

I leaped up from my place, with one bound came up to the departing man, and seized him before he could reach the door, just as a furious tiger fastens up a miserable dormouse.

"I am not drunk! I have never drunk wine, you know," I cried losing all self-restraint, and pressing him against the wall so that he s.h.i.+vered like a bat.--"I shall be the one to throw that cursed forgery in your face, miserable wretch!"

And I know well that that single blow would have been the last chapter in his life--which would have been a great pity, not as far as he was concerned, but for my own sake--had not Heaven sent a guardian angel to check me in my wickedness.

Suddenly someone behind seized the hand raised to strike. I looked back, and my arm dropped useless at my side.

It was f.a.n.n.y who had seized my arm.

"Desi," cried my darling in a frightened voice: "This hand is mine: you must not defile it."

I felt she was right. I allowed my uncontrollable anger to be overcome; with my left hand I threw the trembling wretch out of the door--I do not know where he fell--and then I turned round to clasp f.a.n.n.y to my breast.

Already mother and grandmother were in the room.

The poor women had spent the whole evening of agony in the neighboring room, keeping perfectly still, so as not to betray their presence there, with the intention of listening for Lorand's voice: and they had trembled through that last awful scene, of which they could hear every word. When they heard my cry of rage, they could restrain themselves no longer, but rushed in, and threw themselves among the revellers with a cry of "My son, my son."

Everyone rose at their honored presence: this solemn picture, two kneeling women embracing a son s.n.a.t.c.hed from the jaws of death.