[35] Terms used in Tarok.
Meanwhile I didn't interrupt her, but remained standing and looking at her with my hands resting on the table. This seemed to put her out.
"Why don't you smoke a cigar? Don't mind me."
"I would only remind you that you used always to make fun of me because I didn't smoke."
"True. Smoking becomes a man. A cigar or a pipe makes his face so cosy-looking. Just look at any man who hasn't a pipe stuck into his mouth, and tell me if he doesn't look like a judge pronouncing judgment, or a priest shriving a penitent? Believe me, that one of the reasons why I was faithless to you was that you didn't smoke. Well, at any rate, I have got my reward for it.
"Now, Muki used to suck Havannahs all day. Yes, nothing but Havannahs; but Gyuricza smokes the coarsest tobacco, and even chews pigtail."
I burst out laughing; I couldn't help it. In what ways are a woman's graces gained! No, I wouldn't chew pigtail if the favour of the Goddess Melpomene herself depended on it.
"I will not weary you with our diversions at Paris. There, I perceived, it is the common practice for husband and wife to take their pleasures apart. My husband did no more than what other husbands do. It is not good form to ask a husband who returns home at dawn where he has been. Besides, Muki, with perfect candour, informed me all about these places of public entertainment and the joys of les petits soupers; once he took me with him to these delights—I didn't ask to go again.... I was very glad when the season was over and we returned to our village, and after all the bustling diversions, flirtations, visitings and boredom, I could once more be alone and fill my straw hat with forget-me-nots on the banks of the river, as of old on the island. You remember my visit to your rustic hut, don't you? You remember the golden thrushes who used to speak to you? To you they said, 'Silly boy! silly boy!' to me they cried, 'What's the good! what's the good!' On returning to his estates my husband became quite another man: you would have said that he was a changeling. The dainty dandy became an enthusiastic agriculturist. He was up early, on horseback all day, went from one puszta to another, and brought home ears of barley in his hat. The only things he talked about at home were sheepshearing and the diseases of horned cattle. He had a stud and a neat-herd, and of the latter he appeared to be particularly proud. Sometimes he drove me all over his demesne in a light gig. A fine demesne it was. You might drive about it the whole day and not see the whole of it. He showed me his herds. He told me that herds like them were not to be had in the whole kingdom. I didn't understand it. All that I could see was that the oxen had very large horns. But the form of the herdsman really did surprise me. He was a veritable ancient-hero sort of a man, such as we imagine the primeval Magyars to have been who wandered hither out of Asia. His bronzed face beamed with health, his thick black hair whipped his shoulders with its greasy curls, and add to that his sun-defying glance, his stately bearing, his long mantle embroidered with tulips and cast lightly across his shoulder. His white linen garment fluttered in the breeze, and when he raised his arm to take off his cap, the loose fluttering short sleeves fell right back and revealed an arm like the arm of the figure of an athlete cast in bronze. 'Why, Peter,' said I, 'is it with you that your master is wont to wrestle?' The Hercules, thus addressed, timidly cast down his eyes and said: 'Yes!' 'But how on earth is your master ever able to throw you?' At this question, Peter Gyuricza shifted his mantle from one shoulder to the other, and twisting his moustache, replied: 'As often as his Excellency throws me I get five florins.' So that was the secret of Muki's acrobatic triumphs. After that, the herdsman conducted us to the great summer farm, which was a good distance from the hut where the calves are put to rest at midday. There, a savoury luncheon, prepared by the wife of the herdsman, awaited us. She was a buxom, smart young woman, with roguish eyes and radiating eyebrows, all life and freshness, a true blossom of the puszta.[36] I caught myself looking repeatedly in the mirror, and making comparisons between her face and my own. After luncheon we went all round the farm, and the herdsman's wife guided us from stable to stable. A thorn got into my foot through my slipper. The herdsman's wife bobbed down and drew the thorn out. 'You don't feel the thorn now, do you?' she asked, flashing a look upon me. 'I do not feel it in my foot,' I replied."
[36] i.e., a true heath-flower.
Bessy paused for a moment, and smoothed her brows with both hands as if to refresh her memory.