Mrs. Ershebet and Vandory did all in their power to take off the first sharp edge of his sorrow; but what they said was unheeded by him.
"Right? It's all right," said Tengelyi; "the papers only are lost, are they? Oh! I know it. You found the money all safe—it lay here close to the door—did it not? But do you know, woman, that we are no longer noble! We and our children are not noble! We are peasants!—things to be despised, to be kicked, to be trodden under foot, things that have no property, and that can have no merits, things like those which inhabit the hovels around us. They are not aliens, because they were born here; but still they have no rights, no property, and no country!" And, turning to Vandory, the notary told him all that had happened at Dustbury; adding, "Now you know it all. They ask for proofs of my noble descent. I came from another county; my father, in his position as a curate, had little cause to care for his nobility; nobody ever doubted my rights, and I thought it was quite superfluous to have my title proclaimed in this county; and now my papers and patents are lost! Alas! my poor son!"
"Jonas," said Vandory, "you know that I too have had a loss. You know the extent of that loss, and how likely it is to affect those things which I care most about in this world. You understand me! But let us place our trust in God."
"You have no children! Is there any son of yours the worse off for what you have lost?"
"I understand you, and believe me I feel for you. My sympathy would certainly be greater, if you were indeed deprived of your rights as a nobleman. But is there no hope? Those papers are of no use to him who stole them. He will send and ask a certain price for them. But suppose he did not, cannot you prove that your papers were stolen, and that you and your father enjoyed all the privileges of nobility? Besides, you can make an appeal to the king's grace."
"The king's grace for me, a poor village notary?"
"Why not? If we do not find your papers, I myself will go to Vienna. I will kneel before the king's majesty, and state the case to him. The county is sure to send a petition, and I'll tell the king that you have a family, and that you are wretched for their sake. God has made the king so rich and so powerful—he has surely given him a feeling heart, and a sense of pity and compassion for those that suffer."
"Friend," said Tengelyi, impatiently, "you are as mad as any optimist I ever met with. The county, you say, is sure to petition in my favour? Don't you see that there is a purpose in this robbery?—that it is part of a plot to ruin me? and of a plot, too, which those very gentlemen have made who, you fondly believe, are sure to petition in my favour? Or do you think it's chance that my noble descent, which no one ever doubted, is publicly denied at the very time that my papers are stolen? Or was the composition of the commission accidental? Or was it an accident that no one told me I should be called upon to prove my nobility? Is all this mere chance and accident? Oh! you would not say so, if you had seen that fellow Catspaw as he stood by the table sneering at me! I am a victim to their diabolical plots! Viola is but their tool. I'm down, never to rise again!"
"For God's sake, Jonas!" cried Mrs. Ershebet, seizing her husband's hand; "my heart is ready to break when I see you thus desponding. Think of the past!—think of all our sorrows and troubles!—did we not often all but despair, when——"
Tengelyi's face bore the impress of the deepest agony. He pressed his wife's hand, and asked with a low and tremulous voice,—"What is it that has happened to Vilma?"