“We are following at home,” announced the German Emperor, “with sympathetic interest the story of the knightly Hungarians, whose patriotism has become proverbial, and who in a glorious past did not hesitate to sacrifice their blood—for the holy cross,” he added with pious haste. “Names like Zrinyi inspire the hearts of German youths to the present day. We witnessed with sympathetic admiration the festival of the thousandth birthday, which the Hungarians, surrounding their beloved King, celebrated with such astounding pomp. The proud architectural works of your great city give evidence of her artistic spirit, and the bursting of the bonds of the Iron Gates has opened a new way for commerce, and has ranged Hungary as an equal among the great and the most highly civilized nations of the Earth.”
By this time the Hungarians were heaving like the sea. They had left their seats and were pressing towards the Emperor, silently, that they might not lose a word of his utterance; and it was evident that only etiquette restrained their emotions. Never before, not in modern times at least, had a monarch so flattered them. Not for centuries had they been saluted as a practically independent state, unhyphenated, for once permitted to stand alone under the crown of St. Stephen, the hated double-headed bird brushed lightly aside. The air seemed shaking with deep political import; more than one man was trembling violently within his barbaric splendors. The Emperor pulled himself up abruptly, and turned once more to his host, whose face, indignant and aghast, composed itself suddenly to courteous attention. William’s tones had been rich with sympathy for a race passionately admired. They now softened with filial affection. “But what has made the deepest impression upon me, particularly during my reception in Budapest, is the enthusiastic devotion of Hungary to your Majesty. And not only here, but in all Europe, above all among my own people, does the same enthusiasm for your Majesty glow—an enthusiasm which I venture myself to cherish, in looking up, after the manner of a son, to your Majesty as my Fatherly Friend.
“Thanks to your Majesty’s wisdom, our union stands firm and unquenchable, a blessing to our people; for it has meant the peace of Europe for many years, and it will continue to do so for many more.
“Enthusiastic devotion to your Majesty—of this I am sure—dwells as firmly now in the hearts of the sons of Árpád as when they cried to your Majesty’s great ancestor, ‘Moriamur pro rege nostro!’”
He paused a moment before crying the hurrah for the King, which all present expected as a matter of course would be given in German. But William, under that apparently tactless exterior, capable of the profoundest diplomacy, had a still surer bolt in store. Raising his goblet on high, his eagle glance flashing from end to end of the pale company, his passionate tones thrilling the most antagonistic heart present, he cried:
“Giving expression now to these sentiments, we will put all we are capable of feeling, thinking, and praying for your Majesty into those words which every Hungarian utters with his latest breath—Élyen a Király!”
As the words rang out in the Magyar language, so jealously beloved and preserved, from the lips of a monarch whom duty had never commanded to cope with its difficulties, the tongue the King, his host, ignored, there was an instant of almost stupefied silence. Then some one gave an Élyen! as wild and abrupt as a battle-cry, the spell broke, the hot blood of the Hungarians leaped to their heads, they forgot etiquette and crowded about the Emperor, shouting until the marble walls rumbled the echo. Their wild glances never wandered to the convulsed face of their King, nor from the triumphant eyes of the German. Several of the younger men and equally excited women stood upon chairs that they might see him better. Then for the first time in that old palace there rang out the word most hated in Hungary, “Élyen a császar! Élyen a császar!” (Hurrah for the Emperor!) Then again that most musical and thrilling of vocatives, “Élyen! Élyen! Élyen!”
Alexandra took her Count firmly by the arm and pushed him into a chair. “You don’t look very strong,” she said, “and you will faint if you are not careful.” Her own knees were trembling as she took the chair beside him, but she proceeded coolly, “What an infant you are to be taken in by the cleverest man in Europe—”
“He is the greatest man living,” stammered Zrinyi. “This is a great moment in the history of Hungary, mademoiselle. It should be painted and hung beside Munkacsy’s Árpád, or the Sally of Zrinyi from Szigetvár. He is the man for us!—the man for us!”
“I don’t doubt every mustache in Budapest will stand on end to-morrow. What a pity you have none.”