"Yes, these six concluded to improve the grade of human animals! They resolved to marry among the peasantry—because thus they could select finer specimens of womankind, younger, stronger, more fit to bring children into the world. Is not that the truth, my father?"
"It wass the way we thought," he whispered. "It wass the way we thought wass wise."
"And perhaps it was wise. It was selection. So now they selected. Two of them married German working girls, and those two are dead, but there is no child of them alive. Two married in Austria, and of these one died, and the other is in a mad house. One married a young Galician girl, and so fond of her did he become that she took him down from his station to hers, and he was lost. The other—"
"Yes; it was my father," she said, at length. "There he sits, my father. Yes, I love him. I would forfeit my life for him now—I would lay it down gladly for him. Better had I done so. But in my time I have hated him.
"He, the last one, searched long for this fitting animal to lead to the altar. He was tall and young and handsome and rich, do you see? He could have chosen among his own people any woman he liked. Instead, he searched among the Galicians, the lower Austrians, the Prussians. He examined Bavaria and Saxony. Many he found, but still none to suit his scientific ideas. He bethought him then of searching among the Hungarians, where, it is said, the most beautiful women of the world are found. So at last he found her, that peasant, my mother!"
The silence in the room was broken at last by her low, even, hopeless voice as she went on.
"Now the Hungarians are slaves to Austria. They do as they are bid, those who live on the great estates. They have no hope. If they rebel, they are cut down. They are not a people. They belong to no one, not even to themselves."
"My God!" said I, a sigh breaking from me in spite of myself. I raised my hand as though to beseech her not to go on. But she persisted.
"Yes, we, too, called upon our gods! So, now, my father came among that people and found there a young girl, one much younger than himself. She was the most beautiful, so they say, of all those people, many of whom are very beautiful."
"Yes—proof of that!" said I. She knew I meant no idle flattery.