“Write it in ink, lad; that must stand clear, for das klingt schön.”
And then, though I was very comfortable, I had to get up and find the ink and engross the noble record of my marriage, filling in the date with care, for my uncle, dead or alive, was not one to disobey.
“‘Tis good,” then again said my uncle, “and thou dost well. But remember, without I had done so well, lad, thou hadst not risen thus. And what,” added my uncle, sniggering, “will the Brüderl say when he hears the news—hey, nephew Basil?”
I had thought of that myself: it was another glorious pull over the renegade!
Whereupon my uncle—it was surely the proud fiend himself bent upon my destruction—fell to telling me I must write to my family at once, that the letter might be despatched in the morning.
I protested. I was bound to secrecy, I told him. But he scowled, and would have it that I must remember my duty to my mother, and he further made me a very long sermon upon the curses that will befall a bad child. And thus egged on—and what could I do?—I indited a very flaming document indeed, and under the seal of the strictest confidence made my poor mother acquainted with all the greatness her son was bringing into his family, and bade her rejoice with him.
The night was well worn when I had finished, and the bottle of potent Burgundy was nearly out too. Then, meaning to rise and withdraw, I fell asleep in my chair. It was grey dawn before I awoke, and I was cold as I stretched myself and staggered to my feet. In the weird thin light my uncle’s face now shone out drawn and austere, with something of the look I remembered it to have borne in death.
But it was the dawn of my wedding-day, and I went to my bed—stumbling over old János, who sat, the faithful dog! asleep on the threshold—to dream of my wedding ... a wedding with royal pomp, to the blare of trumpets and the acclamations of a multitude:
“Jennico hoch—hoch dem edlen Jennico!”