Susi was anxiously waiting for her husband's return when the news of his death reached her. It came upon her like lightning: she fell, and lay in a death-like swoon. When she returned to consciousness, she arose and went to the graves of her children, which were for the first time covered with the fresh verdure of spring. She knelt down and took her leave of all that remained of her loved ones; and, having done this, she consented to accompany the Mother Liptaka to Tissaret. She asked, as a favour, that she might be allowed to live in the house which she and her husband formerly inhabited. Akosh Rety had the house repaired, and everything arranged as it was when Viola was an honest and thriving peasant. It was there Susi lived, lonely and solitary, speaking to no one, and never leaving her room except by night. After sunset she would go to the Turk's Hill, where she remained till morning dawned on the far plain.
Some months passed in this manner. Akosh and Vilma (now his loving wife) were walking on a fine evening in June to the Turk's Hill, when they were startled by a female voice, singing the words of the psalm:—
"Oh that to me the wings were given,
Which bear the turtle to her nest!
That I might cleave the vaults of heaven,
And flee away, and be at rest!"
Vilma knew the singer.
Early next morning, when the peasants went to their work in the fields, they found a woman lying on her face, close to the Turk's Hill, on the spot where Viola had breathed his last.
They tried to wake her, but they could not. Susi slept, never to wake again!
My work is done; and nothing now remains but to say adieu to my readers. But before I close this book, let me turn to the boundless plain of my country, and to the scene of the joys and sorrows of my youth, to the banks of the yellow Theiss! There is a beauty in the mountains; there is a charm in the broad waters of the Danube: but to me there is a rapture in the thought of the pride of Hungary,—her green plain! It extends, boundless as the ocean; it has nothing to fetter our view but the deep blue canopy of Heaven. No brown chain of mountains surrounds it; no ice-covered peaks are gilded by the rays of the rising sun!
Plain of Hungary! Thy luxuriant vegetation withers where it stands; thy rivers flow in silence among their reed-covered banks: Nature has denied thee the grandeur of mountain scenery, the soft beauty of the valley, and the majestic shade of the forest, and the wayfaring man who traverses thee will not, in later years, think of one single beauty which reminds him of thee; but he will never forget the awe he felt when he stood admiring thy vastness; when the rising sun poured his golden light on thee; or when, in the sultry hours of noon, the Fata Morgana covered thy shadeless expanse with flowery lakes of fresh swelling waters, like the scorched-up land's dream of the sea which covered it, before the waters of the Danube had forced their way through the rocks of the Iron Gate; or at night, when darkness was spread over the silent heath, when the stars were bright in the sky, and the herdsmen's fires shone over the plain, and when all was so still that the breeze of the evening came to the wanderer's ears, sighing amidst the high grass. And what was the feeling which filled his breast in such moments? It was perhaps less distinct than the sensations which the wonders of Alpine scenery caused in him; but it was grander still, for thou, too, boundless Plain of my country, thou, too, art more grand than the mountains of this earth. A peer art thou of the unmeasured ocean, deep-coloured and boundless like the sea, imparting a freer pulsation to the heart, extending onward, and far as the eye can reach!
Vast Plain, thou art the image of my people. Hopeful, but solitary; thou art made to bless generations by the profuseness of thy wealth. The energies which God gave thee are still slumbering; and the centuries which have passed over thee have departed without seeing the day of thy gladness! But thy genius, though hidden, is mighty within thee! Thy very weeds, in their profusion, proclaim thy fertility; and there is a boding voice in my heart which tells me that the great time is at hand. Plain of my country, mayst thou flourish! and may the people flourish which inhabit thee! Happy he who sees the day of thy glory; and happy those whose present affliction is lightened by the consciousness that they are devoting their energies to prepare the way for that better time which is sure to come!