St. Peter's Umbrella: A Novel

by Kálmán Mikszáth

"Don't tell any one I kissed you, or you will be in great danger."

Precaution now became his mania. He took Kupeczky into his house, and the old professor had to be with the boy day and night, and taste every bit of food he was to eat. If Gyuri went outside the gates, he was first stripped of his velvet suit and patent leather shoes, and dressed in a ragged old suit kept on purpose, and allowed to run barefoot. Let people ask in the streets, "Who is that little scarecrow?" And let those who knew answer, "Oh, that is Gregorics's cook's child."

And, in order thoroughly to deceive his relations, he undertook to educate one of his step-sister's boys; took him up to Vienna and put him in the Terezianum, and kept him there in grand style with the sons of counts and barons. To his other nephews and nieces he sent lots of presents, so that the Gregorics family, who had never liked the younger brother, came at last to the conclusion that he was not such a bad fellow after all, only something of a fool.

Little Gyuri himself was sent away to school after a time; to Kolozsvár and then to Szeged, as far away as possible, so as to be out of reach of the family. At these times Kupeczky secretly disappeared from the town too, though he might as well have been accompanied by a drum and fife band, for not a soul would have asked where he was going.

Doubtless there was a lot of exaggeration in all this secrecy and precaution, but exaggeration had a large share in Gregorics's character. If he undertook something very difficult he was more adventurous than the devil himself, and once his fear was overcome, he saw hope in every corner. His love for the child and his fear were both exaggerated, but he could not help it.

While the boy was pursuing his studies with success, the little man with the red umbrella was placing his money in landed estate. He said he had bought a large estate in Bohemia, and in order to pay for it had been obliged to sell his house in Vienna. Not long after he had built a sugar factory on the estate, upon which he began to look out for a purchaser for his Privorec estates. He soon found one in the person of a rich merchant from Kassa. There was something strange and mysterious in the fact of the little man making so many changes in his old age. One day he had his house in Besztercebánya transferred to Anna Wibra's name. And the little man was livelier and more contented than he had ever been in his life before. He began to pay visits again, interested himself in things and events, chattered and made himself agreeable to every one, dined with all his relations in turn, throwing out allusions and hints, such as, "After all, I can't take my money with me into the next world," and so on. He visited all the ladies who had refused him years ago, and very often went off by train, with his red umbrella under his arm, and stayed away for months and weeks at a time. No one troubled about him, every one said:

"I suppose the old fellow has gone to look after his property."

He never spoke much about his Bohemian estates, though his step-brothers were much interested in them. They both offered in turns to go there with him, for they had never been in Bohemia; but Gregorics always had an answer ready, and to tell the truth he did not seem to trouble himself much about the whole affair. Which was not to be wondered at, for he had no more possessions in Bohemia than the dirt and dust he brought home in his clothes from Carlsbad, where he spent a summer doing the cure.

The whole story was only trumped up to put his relations off the scent, whereas the truth was that he had turned all he had into money, and deposited it in a bank in order to be able to give it to the boy. Gyuri's inheritance would be a draft on a bank, a bit of paper which no one would see, which he could keep in his waistcoat pocket, and yet be a very rich man. It was well and carefully thought out. So he did not really go to his estates, but simply to the town where Gyuri was studying with his old professor.

Those were his happiest times, the only rays of light in his lonely life; weeks in which he could pet the boy to his heart's content. Gyuri was a favorite at school, always the first in his class, and a model of good behavior.