CHAPTER XIX
FILTHY LUCRE
In the town of X—— there is a street called Greek Street. It is a circle, or crescent, of pretty houses, which at one time were erected and peopled by Greek merchants. In the middle of the street stands a church with a façade of marble and a splendid gilt tower, whose bells are the most tuneful in the whole town. It is said that when those bells were cast the Greeks threw, with both hands, silver coins into the liquid metal.
Old Francis Csanta was now the last of the race. Once he had been a jovial fellow, a careless, free liver, towards ladies a gallant cavalier, among men a desperate gambler. With years he became silent, moody, miserly, avoided the company of his fellow man or woman, and was a hater of music and all pleasure. The more he indulged in solitude the worse his peculiarities grew. So soon as one of his former friends, or relations, or boon companions died, he bought the house in which they had lived. By degrees the whole street belonged to him; only one house remained, and that next door to his own. This had been occupied by a connection of his who had left one daughter. Strangely enough, she had not followed the general custom of celibacy, but had married, and was the wife of a music-master, who enjoyed the Magyar name of Belenyi. This pair had in due course a son born to them, to whom they gave the name of Arpad.
This vexed old Csanta sorely. Why should the last remaining Greek girl have married—above all, married a music-master? Why should there be a son? Why should that son be baptized Arpad? And why should these annoying circumstances take place under his very nose? The house, too, was an offence; the only house in the street that did not belong to him. The church was his; no one went in except himself; the clergyman said mass for him only. He was the patron, the congregation, the curator, the vestryman, the supporter; he filled every office; he was everything. When he was dead the church would be closed, the grass would grow upon the threshold.
The generation in the next house showed no sign of dying; the boy Arpad was as lively as an eel. At the age of five he threw his ball over the roof, and it fell into the old Greek's garden, who there and then confiscated it. The lad gave him much more annoyance.
About this time evil days came to the country. The Hungarians and the Austrians killed one another. The reason of their so doing is hard to find. Historians of the present day say that it was all child's play, and that the cause lay in the refusal of the Hungarian sepoys—who are Mohammedans—to bite off cartridges which had been prepared with the fat of swine—the German method. Or did this happen in India? Nowadays it is all uncertain; mostly what is known about it comes through the songs of the poets, and who believes them?
What interests us in this old story is that it has to do with Ivan Behrend, and how he came to dwell in the Belenyi's house. It so happened that he was one of the regiment who repulsed an assault on the town, and in consequence he was billeted on the music-master and his wife. He was well liked. He was young then, and had good spirits. One day the poor musician, coming home through the streets, was struck by a shell, and brought into his house dead. Such things happen occasionally in time of war. Little Arpad was an orphan, and then it was that Ivan adopted him as his son. A short time after this Ivan laid down his arms and retired into private life. Why he did so, and where he went, is quite immaterial. Before he went Ivan gave the widow Belenyi all the gold he had with him, so that with this money Arpad's musical education might be paid for. He did not care for the gold, and he could not have employed it better. If he had taken it with him, who knows into what worthless hands it would have fallen?
He hadn't been long gone when a Hungarian government official stood in the market-place of X——, and, to the accompaniment of much drumming, gave out the government order that all German bank-notes should be brought to the great square, and there made into a funeral-pile and set fire to. Any one refusing to obey this order should be dealt with accordingly. Every one knew what this meant, and all who didn't wish to be dealt with hastened to bring their bank-notes, which were then and there burned.
The widow Belenyi had her little savings, a few hundred gulden. What should she do? It went hard with her to see her money thrown into the fire. She went to her rich neighbor and besought him to help her, and to change her money into Hungarian bank-notes. The old Greek at first refused to listen, but by-and-by he relented and did as she wished. He even did more, for after a week had passed he came to her and said: