"Now, day before yesterday, I begged her so prettily to take me up in her lap, because my head hurt me very badly, and if she would just kiss it once the pain would go right away, she scolded me for it. She said my head pained me because I ate so many unripe peaches and honeycakes, and she took away the honeycake that you brought me,—would not let me taste it even, but threw it to the little dog Joli,—how could I help crying? That made her very angry, and she made a face at me like those she makes at her maid when she pulls her hair, or at the haiduk when he pours the sauce over her gown; and when I knelt before her, begging her not to be angry, she took a large buckle out of her cap and threatened me with it, and then she hissed at me through her teeth, 'You bastard! Oh, if you were not in the world!' I was afraid she would murder me. I begged her to put that cruel thing back into her hair. 'You'd better pray God, or you'll go the way of the Cseiteburg children. Go, get the Fool to tell you why the dead weep nights in the Cseiteburg.' So to-night, when I went to bed, while you were singing psalms in the next room, I begged the Fool to tell me the story of the Cseiteburg children, until he finally consented, and told me."
The child still trembled under the impression of the story, and his teeth chattered.
"Now come close to me, so that nobody can hear. I don't dare say it out loud. Now then! Once upon a time, there lived in the Cseiteburg a beautiful lady, a widow who had two little children just my age, twins that came into the world together, and always played together. The beautiful lady fell in love with a handsome knight who came often to the castle, and whom she wished to marry. Once the knight said to her, he would like to marry her if there were not 'four eyes in the way.' The beautiful woman thought he must mean the four eyes of her two children, and that he would not marry her because there were these two children of her first marriage. So she called Mistress Dorko, the old nurse of the children, and said to her 'Take these two pins,' and with that she drew two long gold pins out of her cap, 'and go lead the children out to play in the forest; when they have played enough, and grow weary, put them to sleep in your lap and thrust these long pins through their temples. The handsome knight shall not say that there are "four eyes in the way" of our love.' The bad old Dorko did as her lady commanded. She took the two little boys out into the wood to play, waited until they had grown tired, then took them in her lap and told them about the fairy Helen until they fell asleep: then she drew out both the big pins and stuck one of them through the head of one of the boys. The other boy woke at his cry, and when he saw what old Dorko had done to his brother, he began to cry and beg her not to stick the pin through him. He promised her a cloak with buckles, horses, carriage, and a piece of land, if she would spare him. He promised her the whole of Cseiteburg, as soon as he inherited it. But the wicked nurse could not be moved by his tears and prayers, she pierced the second one through with the big gold pin, and then she left them in the depths of the forest, covered with dry leaves; the cuckoos sounded their funeral knell, and the nightingale sang their death dirge. The same day came the handsome knight to the beautiful lady in the castle. And the beautiful lady said to him, full of joy, '"The four eyes" are no longer in our way, the two children lie out there covered with leaves, the cuckoo has tolled them to the grave, the nightingales have sung for them. Now you can make me your wife.' The handsome knight was beside himself at these words. 'Alas, beautiful lady, beautiful widow! I did not mean "the four eyes" of the children, but our own four eyes were in the way of our love.' And thereupon he fled out of the castle, and never came back again. Since then, the ghosts weep all night long at Cseiteburg. This is true, isn't it, Father Peter?"
"A foolish story, sprung from a Fool's brain. Don't believe it, my little one."
"But I do believe it, for I've seen the beautiful lady myself. Her eyes rolled so wildly, she drew her lips together, she gnashed her teeth, and her hair streamed down her back, and as her cap fell back, she seized the pin in her hand—and I almost felt its point in my temples!"
"Don't think of it any more. Don't give way to your fancies."
The child seized the monk's hand in both of his:
"You won't leave me, will you? You won't let anything happen?"
"Don't be afraid, my son; I will stay with you always, no one shall do you any harm. I will take care of you, and protect you."
"But why do you not love her, then? My two eyes are not in your way. How often have we fled from this house together on horseback, my mother and I with a knight; she never would let me go from her side. And then when we came back in a carriage, she fairly wore me out with her kisses, called me her sweet child, and when we came back to my father, she would hold me out, and I must beg him in his anger not to draw his sword against her. I caressed his cheeks, that he might be cajoled into forgiving. I never failed her, and why is she angry with me? Why? Because you do not love her. Do love her. Throw off your monk's cowl. Marry my mother. Be my real father. Do as she demands. Love her! Love her! Then will she be as sweet as honey, and as beautiful as a fairy. But when she does not love, she is as bitter as gall and as hateful as a witch."