"And are you sure Mrs. Müncz lives there?"
"Quite sure. A few years ago they came and fetched her away to be the 'Jewess of Bábaszék.'"
CHAPTER II.
OUR ROSÁLIA.
Yes, they had taken old Mrs. Müncz to Bábaszék to be their "Jew," with forty florins salary, for they had no Jew there, and had to find one at any cost.
This is how it came to pass (and it is difficult for an inhabitant of Budapest to understand it). Bábaszék was one of those small towns which in reality was only a larger village, though it rejoiced in what it called its "mayor," and on one day in the year a few miserable horses, cows, and pigs were driven in from the neighboring farms and villages, and the baker from Zólyom put up a tent, in which he sold gingerbread in the shape of hearts, of soldiers, of cradles, all of which was soon bought up by the young men and fathers of families and taken home to sweethearts or children, as the case might be. In one word, there was a fair at Bábaszék. And for centuries every inhabitant has divided the year and its events into two parts, one before the fair, and one after it. For instance, the death of Francis Deák took place just two days after the fair at Bábaszék. And the reason of all this was, that the old kings of Hungary who lived during the hunting season in the castles of Zólyom and Végles, instead of making grants to the inhabitants, raised the villages to the position of towns.
Well, of course, it was a privilege, for in a town everything seems grander than in a village, and is worth a good deal more, even man himself. The little straw-thatched house in which questions of moment are discussed is called the Town Hall, and the "hajdu" (town-servant) must know how to beat a drum (for the town has a drum of its own), the richer ones even have a small fire-engine. After all, position is position, and one must do all one can to keep it up. Zólyom and Tót-Pelsöc were rivals.
"That's not a town," said the latter of the former; "why, they have not even a chemist there!" (Well, after all, not every village or town can be as big as Besztercebánya or London!)
Pelsöc could not even leave poor little Bábaszék alone.
"That is no town," they said. "There is not even a single Jew there. If no Jew settle in a town, it cannot be considered as such; it has, in fact, no future."