"'Nelly Dumany! Dumany Nelly!' he said," cried my drummers—"Nelly" being an abbreviation of Kornel, my Christian name—and since the "Du meine" really sounded like "Dumany" and not at all like "Belacsek," the candidate of the other party, and since the dead man could not be made to repeat his vote, whereas my drummers were ready to take their oath of the correctness of their assertion, the vote was credited to me, and I was declared elected by a majority of one vote, my suffrages being 1,501 in number, whereas my adversary had received only 1,500.
The case was afterward contested, and some witnesses endeavoured to prove that the dying man had not said, "Dumány Nelly," but "Du mein liebe"; yet there was the sworn statement of my drummers to the contrary, as well as the evidence of his wife and children that the man had been a devout and religious Jew, incapable of offending Jehovah by uttering German words with his last breath. He had simply pronounced my name in Jewish fashion, and eased his patriotic heart by voting for me. Itzig Maikäfer's vote was as sound as a nut and could not be rejected.
Not quite so sound, however, was the other dead man's vote—that of Tóth János, the potter. We had sent his substitute, the poultry-dealer, with a cartload of odds and ends to Galicia, just to have him out of the way. We managed to make it difficult to prove which of the two men named Tóth János had been buried two days before election-day by providing for the dead man's family, and sending them off to a remote place; and as the poultry-dealer (who was a widower without any family) did not return from Galicia for many weeks to come, everything seemed secure. But we had reckoned without our host, and did not take into consideration a possible treachery. The barber, a miserable wretch, whom we thought to be a true red-feather man, and who had been more than liberally paid for extracting the poultry-dealer's front teeth, and trimming his hair and beard into the semblance of those of the dead potter, went and blabbed of his work. A strict examination followed, the body of the potter was exhumed, and his identity proved to a certainty. Of course, no one dared to accuse me of foul play, but a new election was found necessary, and the day after I had first taken my seat as a member of the Hungarian Parliament, I was politely but firmly given to understand that I had no legal right to its possession, and had better go. This is the story of how I became to be called "the dead man's representative," and how I was a colleague of yours for a single day.
Yet this story I have told you cannot give anyone a fair or true estimate of me, or my character, or ability. Anybody who heard or read this story would suppose me to have been a vain, good-for-nothing sort of fellow, who had missed his degree at college and lacked the ability to fill any decent position, and therefore plunged into politics to make his living, or perhaps to squander the inheritance he had received from his ancestors. But, in reality, I had already, at the age of six-and-twenty, occupied the position of a well-qualified assistant physician, and at two-and-thirty the newspapers spoke of me as a famous specialist and a great light of the profession. As I was established in Vienna, where the competition is great, and Hungarians are pushed into the rear if possible, my reputation could not have been without some foundation at least. I was respectable and respected, very much in love with my profession, and did not care a straw for politics. So, in order to make you understand the change—nay, the entire revolution—which my outward and inward man, my entire existence, had experienced, I must acquaint you with a portion of my family troubles and domestic relations, and I shall have to speak of my Uncle Diogenes.
VIII.
MY UNCLE DIOGENES.
First of all, I must inform you that my father was a very zealous patriot, and mingled largely in state and political affairs. Of course, in the great insurrection of the year 1848 he took an active share, and after the catastrophe of Világos he was seized and imprisoned at Olmütz. At that time I was a lean, overgrown youngster of sixteen. I was compelled to take charge of the household, and behave as head of the family, for which dignity I had no inclination and but little talent. Study was the great object of my life. After my father's release from prison I was just of an age to decide as to my future career; but that, at the time, was rather a difficult thing for a Hungarian youth, all offices and positions being filled by Germans and Bohemians. I did not wish to follow in my father's footsteps, for I saw that what with his neglect of business matters, what with his liberality in furnishing all patriotic enterprises out of his own pocket with the necessary means, and in extending a wide hospitality to all political refugees, our own circumstances were getting worse and worse, and we were deeply in debt.
So one day I took courage to speak to my father upon the subject, and told him that I thought it was time for me to select a profession.
"Oh! you are going to hunt for some paltry office in the district courts?" he said, with a snarl.