But it is not my intention now to write about the quarrels of two small towns, I only want to tell you how Mrs. Müncz came to live in Bábaszék.
Well, they sent word to her in Besztercebánya, to come and take possession of the little shop just opposite the market-place near the smithy, the best position in the town. On either side of the door was written in colored letters: "Soap, whips, starch, scrubbing-brushes, nails, salt, grease, saffron, cinnamon, linseed oil;" in fact, the names of all those articles which did not grow in the neighborhood, or were not manufactured there. So that is how Mrs. Müncz came to live in Bábaszék, where she was received with great honors, and made as comfortable as possible. It is a wonder they did not bring her into the town in triumph on their shoulders, which would have been no joke, for she weighed at least two hundredweight.
Some of the townsfolk were very discontented that the mayor had only brought a Jewess into the town, and not a Jew, for it would sound grander if they could say: "Our Jew says this, or our Móricz or Tobias did that," than if they had said: "Our Rosália says this, that, or the other;" it sounds so very mild. They would have liked a Jew with a long beard, and hooked nose, and red hair if possible; that was the correct thing!
But Mr. Konopka, the cleverest senator in the town, who had made the contract with Mrs. Müncz, and who had even gone himself to fetch her and her luggage from Besztercebánya with two large carts, the horses of which had flowers and rosettes on, coldly repudiated these aspersions on their Jewess, with an argument which struck as heavily as the stones in David's sling.
"Don't be so foolish," he said. "If a woman was once king in Hungary, why should not a Jewess fill the place of Jew in Bábaszék?"
(This was a reference to the words of the nation addressed to Maria Theresa: "We will fight for our 'king' and our country.")
Of course they soon saw the truth of this, and ceased grumbling; and they were in time quite reconciled to their Jewess, for every year, on the Feast of Tents, all Mrs. Müncz's sons, seven in number, came to see their mother, and walked about the market-place in their best clothes, laced boots, and top-hats. The townsfolk were glad enough then, their hearts swelled with pride as they gazed at the seven Jews, and they would exclaim:
"Well, if this is not a town, what is?"
"You won't see as many Jews as that in Pelsöc in ten years," answered another proudly.
Old Mrs. Müncz feasted her eyes on her sons when she sat, as she usually did, in the doorway of her shop, her knitting in her hands, her spectacles on her nose (those spectacles lent her an additional charm in the eyes of her admirers). She was a pleasant-looking old woman in her snow-white frilled cap, and seemed to suit her surroundings, the whitewashed walls of the neighboring houses, the important-looking Town Hall, and no one could pass her without raising their hat, just as they did before the statue of St. John Nepomuk. (Those were the only two things worth seeing in Bábaszék.)