"Return to the world! I who left it five-and-twenty years ago! I should be the laughing-stock of every one were I to seek, at my age, pleasures which I long ago renounced."
"Countess, you have voluntarily thrown away that portion of your life to which the world offers its best gifts; but there still remains to you that other half, wherein you can acquire the esteem of the world—that is, if you avail yourself of the means necessary for success."
"My father, remember that in that circle which you wish me to enter I shall meet nothing but contempt and humiliations. The present generation don't know my name, my contemporaries despise me."
"But there is a magic circle in which every one is recognized and no one is despised. Would you wish to enter this circle?"
"Place me in this circle, father. Where is it to be found?"
"I will tell you, countess. Your nation is passing through a crisis; it may be called the battle for intellectual freedom. All are striving to place themselves on a footing with the intellectuality of other nations—philosophers, poets, industrials; men, women, boys, gray-beards, magnates, and peasants. If they all knew how to strive together they might attain their purpose, but all are divided; each works for himself and by himself. Individual effort is doomed to failure, but united, certain of success."
The countess listened in breathless astonishment. She did not understand where the abbé was leading her.
"What is wanting in this tremendous struggle is a centre. The country has no centre. Debreczyn is thoroughly Hungarian, but its religious exclusiveness has narrowed its sphere of influence. Szegedin is well suited, but it is far too democratic. Klausenburg is indeed a Hungarian town. The aristocracy are to be found there, and a certain amount of culture, but it lies beyond the Kiralyhago, and the days of the Bethlens and the Bocskais are over. Pesth would be the proper centre; it has every qualification. I have been through the five quarters of the globe, and nowhere have I found such a place. In Pesth no man troubles himself about his neighbor, and each man believes that the world is made for him alone. The first look of the city takes one by surprise; the fine embankment along the broad Danube River, the beautiful squares and streets, with the six-story tin houses, each in a different style of architecture. Side by side are palaces built in the Roman, Moorish, Spanish, or Renaissance style, with, perhaps, the occasional introduction of a quaint Dutch mansion or Gothic structure. Opposite to the great edifice of the chain bridge rises a large stone bandbox with four towers; this is called the Basilica, but it looks more like a giant scaffold than anything else. On all sides rage monster factory chimneys, which vomit forth volumes of poisonous smoke upon the town. Factories, docks, academical palaces, redoubts, tin card-houses, art conservatories, are crowded one over the other. The academy interferes with the business of the docks, and the noise of the shipping-trade disturbs the academicians. The smoke of the steam-engines suffocates every one; while the town-hall, with all its ornamented peaks and minarets, says to the stranger, 'Come nearer, friend; this is Constantinople.'"
The countess could not help smiling over this graphic description.
"The inner town," continued the abbé, "is a labyrinth of narrow, irregular streets, which were built when the site of the present town-hall was only a marsh for the pigs to wallow in. In spite of the narrow proportions, these streets contain some of the finest shops in Europe. The contrasts are something wonderful; the finest equipages jammed against the overladen wagons conveying merchandise; the most elegantly dressed women jostling against beggars in rags. The prettiest women are to be seen in this quarter, and this in face of a wind that drives all the dust into the eyes. In the suburbs houses are rising on all sides with marvellous rapidity, little and big, in every style and variety, giving more dust for the wind to play tricks with. The whole place is a stony wilderness, with here and there a small green oasis not bigger than a private garden. Round about the city lies a Sahara, the earth of which is constantly dug up, so that the sirocco is never in want of dust. This is the exterior appearance of Pesth, which in itself presents the different features of a manufacturing town, an emporium for trade, and a city of arts and science, as well as those of the capital of an empire and of an American colony, where men of all classes assemble to make their pile of gold, but when this is secured hurry away to spend their winnings in other places.