MY ADVENTURE AT ARAD.
By F. Harris Deans.
Other travellers may have experienced adventures in inns. They may have been awakened—many declare they have—in the early hours of the morning by the creaking of the stairs; have listened, frozen with horror, to the whispered colloquy between the villainous innkeeper and his equally villainous wife outside his door; have heard the stealthy sharpening of a knife. I admit that such adventures may have befallen other wayfarers, but that anyone has lived through a night at an inn as strange as that spent by me I am unable to believe.
MR. F. HARRIS DEANS, WHO HERE RELATES AN AMUSING EXPERIENCE THAT BEFELL HIM IN HUNGARY.
From a Photograph.
The only person—at one time I had regarded him as a friend—to whom I have hitherto nerved myself to recount my experience regarded it as an excuse—nay, more than an excuse, an incentive—for mirth. The thoughtful reader, however, who now becomes acquainted with my story will, I feel confident, place himself in imagination in my position, so that his perusal of this article will, at all events, enable him to refrain from ribald laughter.
I will confess at the outset that my knowledge of Hungarian is limited to some dozen words. The time of day I will pass with you in the most fluent Ungarisch; if you, enraptured at my accent, wish to continue the conversation, and will confine yourself to remarking that the weather is hot or cold (you must not say warm or chilly), I will agree, or disagree, with you—curtly, maybe, but nevertheless I will do so; if you are thirsty I will order you wine, beer, or water; your hunger I will satisfy with bread. Further, I can amuse, instruct, and elevate you by counting up to ten.
The reader who himself possesses some knowledge of Hungarian will share with me my admiration of my linguistic accomplishments. It takes some years of patient efforts for an Hungarian himself to learn his own language. I feel confident, had I been so fortunate (I am writing this in the heart of Hungary, and the inhabitants are an impulsive people) as to have been born an Hungarian, I should have borne dumbness with equanimity.
All this—though, to the broad-minded, it excuses my ignorance of the language—does not alter the fact that I was fully aware beforehand that in certain regions of the country I should not be able to enjoy heart-to-heart talks with the people. Even in England there are whole villages which speak no tongue save their native one. I did not, however, anticipate that my ignorance would land me in the weird adventure here set forth.
In a town, however, such as Arad I did not anticipate that there would exist one miserable, imbecile, uneducated incompetent—who, alas, only knows my opinion of him through a far too polite interpreter—who spoke only his own language, and that this one disreputable outcast and disgrace to an educated nation should cross my path.
I arrived in Arad—a town of about sixty thousand people, lying near the Roumanian border—at about 2 a.m. I had not slept for over thirty-six hours, and I was so tired that I would have shared a bed with a Roumanian peasant. Can I say more?
At the nearest hotel I pulled myself together and demanded, in what was, under the circumstances, very tolerable German, a bedroom. There was no difficulty about this; there was a room vacant. Gladly I filled in particulars of myself on the Police Form as the law demands.
"Are you an Austrian or a German?" inquired the porter.
I glanced at him sharply; I was in no mood for sarcasm. Besides, if it came to that, his German wasn't of much account. But no; his face was gravity itself; courteous curiosity was its only expression. I pointed—I had no mind to risk my reputation as a linguist by further speech—to the form I had just filled in.
"London," he read. "So, ein Englander?"
"Ja," said I.
I got into bed at 2.30 a.m., and immediately fell last asleep.
"ONCE MORE THE IDIOT MET ME WITH AN AMIABLE GRIN."
Some time later I awoke and sat up with a start. Thump, thump, thump—blows rained steadily, monotonously, on my door. I switched on the light; it was 3.30 a.m. Springing out of bed, I threw open my door. The interrupter of my repose, apparently resting against it after his exertions, fell forward into the room and trod on my bare toes. I called him, in German, a clumsy donkey, and demanded to know what all of the noise was about. By way of reply he grinned at me amiably—as if we had a little joke in common—and promptly retreated.
Puzzled by his behaviour, I looked along the corridor. Everything appeared to be all right, so I retired again to bed.
Seven minutes, by my watch, had I been sleeping dreamlessly, when again that tattoo was beaten on my door. I nearly choked with anger, and, throwing off my quilt, I dashed madly to the door.
Once more the idiot met me with an amiable grin.
"You confounded fool!" I roared, shaking my fist in his beaming face; "what do you think you're doing? Even if this is an Hungarian game, do you think this is the time to start teaching it to a stranger? Your intentions may be good; I admit I am lonely; perhaps in the afternoon I may be glad to play some simple little game with you. But not now. Do you understand? Not at three in the morning. Get!"
My vivacity appeared to cause him much satisfaction, and he again took his departure.
I returned to bed.
This time I didn't even succeed in getting to sleep; he must have been waiting round the corner. Once more he beat upon my door.
I made no attempt to speak to him; I could not have expressed my feelings even in English; I seized him by the shoulders (luckily he was a good-tempered man) and shook him. Apparently, judging from the sound, I had shaken him to pieces. I looked on the ground and saw that he had dropped—my boots! This restored my speech. "Boots!" I shrieked, as he picked them up and politely offered them to me. "I want peace, not boots. Have I as much as mentioned boots to you? Does any sane man want his boots at three o'clock? Do you think I sleep in them? Do you imagine that's what's keeping me awake, not having them?"
I think it was the man's perfect placidity that made me so mad. Had he lost his temper, had he only sworn in Hungarian—a language admirably suited for the art, by the way—I should have felt better. But no; he maintained a perfect silence; he appeared to regard me as a lunatic on whom speech would be wasted. Realizing at last, however, that I was not yearning at that moment for my boots, he put them on one side—to be introduced again at a more suitable moment. Next he pointed to my pyjamas.
"What about them?" I demanded, furiously. "What's wrong with them? Is it the colour, or what?" As a matter of fact they looked rather neat—a sort of chocolate with blue stripes. In any case, I didn't want to be awakened in the middle of the night to have a boots tell me he didn't admire my pyjamas. They weren't meant to be admired; they were intended to be slept in. I wished he would realize that.
"Perhaps you would rather I wore a night-shirt," I continued, as he remained speechless. "Well, I'm not going to. I'm an Englishman, Englander, Angol—do you understand?—and I'll wear what I like. Now I'm going to bed again. If I so much as hear you breathe near my door before nine o'clock I'll shoot you." With that I retired and slammed the door.
I was half-way towards the bed when the door opened and boots inserted his head. Then a hand followed, and he scratched his head in a puzzled manner. Words, I felt, were wasted on him. In as dignified a manner as possible I climbed into bed and switched off the light hanging over it. Immediately boots turned on the light near the door. I sat up, indignant.
"Look here," I said, "I've had enough of it." I raised a cautioning forefinger. "I will not play games with you. Understand that, once for all. Go and wake somebody else up—somebody who knows these national customs of yours. I'm speaking seriously now. When I engaged this room I engaged it to sleep in. Sleep! Do you understand? It's an English custom. You're wasting your time trying to talk to me. I don't understand your language, and I'm not going to learn—not immediately, anyhow. Now, go! Go, you——!" As I rushed at him he turned and fled, and, locking the door, for the fifth time that night I got into bed.
I was by this time in such a mood that I was awakened with a start at four o'clock by the sound of whispering outside my door. Without stopping to consider how I should dispose of the corpse of my intended victim, I again vacated my bed. This time boots was accompanied by another person, who turned out to be the manager.
"I hev' come to apologize," he remarked, blandly.
I struggled to regain my composure.
"This is too good of you," I said, warmly. "Come in and take a seat."
He misunderstood my sarcasm and promptly entered, accompanied by the boots.
"Zere have been a leetle mistake," he continued, with an amused smile I made no effort to share.
"It's more than kind of you," I said, gratefully, "to come and wake me up at four in the morning to explain it."
He bowed modestly. Personal convenience, he assured me earnestly, was as nothing to an act of courtesy.
Then he explained. It appeared that the previous occupier of my room had been a German, who had intended to take his departure at three o'clock that morning. At the last moment, however, he had changed his mind, and had left at 11 p.m. Unfortunately, the porter, whom he had desired to instruct the boots to awaken him, had forgotten to cancel the order.
"Und he had sayed he vos a ver' heafy sleeper!" he wound up. "So you see, it vos a mutual misunderstanding. Nicht was?"
"This," I said, "makes everything satisfactory. Now, if you don't mind, I should like to go to sleep. I have to catch a train at ten. Perhaps you will see that I am not awakened before nine?"
When he had impressed this on the penitent boots, we parted, with mutual expressions of regard.
The boots—no doubt in a well-meant desire to make up for his earlier mistake—this time forbore to awaken me at all. I accordingly awoke at midday, in plenty of time for my next train, which left twenty-two hours later.