What a blessing was it to me to get these at such a time! I no longer felt myself alone and isolated in the world. There was, I now knew, a bank of affection at my disposal at which I could draw at will; and what an object for my imitation was that fine courage of hers, that took defeats as mere passing shadows, and was satisfied to fight on to the end, ever hopeful and ever brave.
How I would have liked to return to Madame Cleremont, and read her some passages of these letters, and said, “And this is the woman you seek to dethrone, and whose place you would fill! This is she whose rival you aspire to be. What think you of the contest now? Which of you should prove the winner? Is it with a nature like this you would like to measure yourself?”
How I would have liked to have dared her to such a combat, and boldly declared that I would make my father himself the umpire as to the worthier. As to her hate or her vengeance, she had as much as promised me both, but I defied them; and I believed I even consulted my safety by open defiance. As I thus stimulated myself with passionate counsels, and burned with eagerness for the moment I might avow them, I flung open my window for fresh air, for my excitement had risen to actual fever.
It was very dark without Night had set in about two hours, but no stars had yet shone out, and a thick impenetrable blackness pervaded everywhere. Some peasants were shovelling the snow in the court beneath, making a track from the gate to the house-door, and here and there a dimly burning lantern attached to a pole would show where the work was being carried out. As it was about the time of the evening when travellers were wont to arrive, the labor was pressed briskly forward, and I could hear an overseer's voice urging the men to increased zeal and activity.
“There has been a snow-mountain fallen at Miklos, they say,” cried one, “and none can pass the road for many a day.”
“If they cannot come from Pesth, they can come from Hermanstadt, from Temesvar, from Klausenberg. Guests can come from any quarter,” cried the overseer.
I listened with amusement to the discussion that followed; the various sentiments they uttered as to whether this system of open hospitality raised the character of a country, or was not a heavy mulct out of the rights which the local poor possessed on the properties of their rich neighbors.
“Every flask of Tokayer drunk at the upper table,” cried one, “is an eimer of Mediasch lost to the poor man.”
“That is the true way to look at it,” cried another. “We want neither Counts nor Tokayer.”
“That was a Saxon dog barked there!” called out the overseer. “No Hungarian ever reviled what his land is most famed for.”