CHAPTER IV.
YAW DEREVOCSID EHT.
That good-sized book that Father Peter had brought to the Castle with him was no book of magic to exorcise devils, but rather a book that had had some man-tormenting devil for composer: it had moulded already for two centuries in the Madocsany Monastery library before the Jesuit order was founded by Ignatius Loyola; at that time the Carmelite fathers were in the abbey; the contents of this book must have caused them, too, many a headache, for they wrote many pages of Latin commentaries to explain this text of a few leaves which nobody understood yet. This much had the investigators already worked out; that the characters were the same that the Arabs employed in their secret correspondence, and the alphabet was that known among Orientalists as "Lijakah." On the other hand, the words which the letters formed were not to be found in any speech of any known people on the whole globe. One linguist insisted that he recognized the Arabic, another the Coptic, and a third the Mongolian in some one of its forms. The words that most frequently appeared were explained by all kinds of philological cunning. The title of the book was Yaw Derevocsid Eht. One word sounded like Arabic, and another was evidently of Turkish origin; but what the whole meant no human understanding could decide. Whole sheets were written over, with desperate and useless effort. It seemed as if everybody must go mad who attempted its investigation. The Jesuits later adopted the custom, whenever a monk ventured to demur against a task assigned, of putting into his hand this book, Yaw Derevocsid Eht, and telling him that he might spend his time in quiet linguistic studies, that he might acquire the language in which these few pages were written, and when he had accomplished this, he might go as a missionary to the people who wrote and spoke this language. But this secret had never yet been penetrated throughout all the years in which it had vexed and tormented students. And so to Father Peter, this book had been given for a companion; in case he wished to escape from the hard service in the castle, this book would be welcome in gaining his exit through the closed door, and for that reason, Father Peter spent whole nights over the thick book, and studied in succession the writings of those who had gone astray before him.
The little son of the mistress of the castle slept with the monk in one room, but beside the monk, the child must have the Fool too; for he could not go to sleep unless the Fool told him fairy stories, and the Fool well knew how. Often he sat until midnight by the boy's bedside, weaving garlands of the Thousand and One Nights; this gave the monk a chance to study the secrets of the Arabic writing. The young Lord had very bad dreams. He dreamed of the fairies and witches in the fairy tales, and would waken screaming. Often he dreamed with wide open eyes, tried to escape, howled and wept, so that the monk and the Fool had all they could do to quiet him and lull him back to sleep again. And this was continued until early morning, when the boy fell into a deep sleep, and the monk and the Fool could give themselves to rest.
The monk found his Arabic book of sufficient service in these night watches, but for the Fool wine was furnished as a means of keeping awake. And so they sat through the still nights beside each other at a table; in front of the monk lay the open book and the large inkstand of lead, and before the Fool stood a large pitcher and a tin mug.
"What would a man say, Monk," said the Fool once, "if he should see us together this way every night? Which would he call the Fool and which the wise man?"
"He would call you wise, and me a fool."
"If you would like, I could share my wisdom with you, for my pitcher is full; there is wine in it."
"I do not drink wine."