With that he raised her up from the floor, held her firmly with his strong hands by the shoulder, and so compelled her to remain seated and look him in the eye.
"Finally, rest assured that I will accomplish what I was sent here for; your son will I guard, protect, and train to good. Let no one venture to do him any harm. The Fool I shall drive from his side, and shall no longer suffer him to poison the child's dreams with his frightful tales. You have cast him off. I will adopt him; and from this time he shall be my son, and shall never again come near you. I am prepared to have you deal with his spiritual father as you did with his father in the flesh."
With these words, he let go his grasp and withdrew. Idalia stood for some time like a living statue in her white gown, while her flowing hair enveloped her bare arms. Then she shuddered and dragged herself to the wall, like a wild beast fatally shot; there she found a support on which she laid her head—it was cold marble, the base of the statue of her dead husband. The cold stone cooled her, perhaps,—the fever that throbbed in her temples.
Father Peter went back to his lonely quarters, and found the child still resting quietly as he had left him. The child was sleeping sweetly and smiling in his dreams.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BISHOP'S WEDDING.
In those days, it happened in Hungary that a Bishop married: it was such an extraordinary thing since the introduction of celibacy, that we look in vain in all chronicles for its parallel. Emerich Thurzo, Bishop of Neutra, was the one to whom this marvel happened. The story is perpetuated on parchment, in marble, and in the memory of man. In the Hungarian highlands, throughout the length of the Waag valley, the story is still told. Emerich Thurzo was the last scion of a famous old race who had given the country many generals and palatines. The family estates were equal to a small kingdom. With the Bishop, the mighty family might have died out, but this was regarded such a calamity that the Pope came to the rescue and issued a bull in due form; not a simple brief under the fisherman's ring, the customary seal for a brief, but a document with the seal hanging which shows the crest of the papacy, for this was an act of indulgence; this seal, moreover, was attached by a red and gold silken cord. By virtue of this bull, Bishop Thurzo was freed from the duty of celibacy; he was permitted to marry and to become Lutheran in his relations to his wife, while he held all his Catholic offices and benefices. Chronicle and tradition record that the Bishop made royal use of this dispensation; through a whole year continued the festivities of his marriage with the beautiful Christina Nyary. One can still see the great hall at Bittse which the Bishop had built for the celebration of his marriage. The castle is still uninjured; the main entrance adorned with armorial bearings in bas-relief, and the colonnades running round the building, decorated with representations of all the known heroes, in giant proportions. The hall for the wedding ceremony, in its length and breadth, hardly fell short of the proportions of a modern ball-room: midway on one side is still to be seen the entrance which led to the sleeping apartments, a stately portal, with four slender Corinthian columns; on these columns was a profusion of Eastern ornament, fruits, green foliage, grapes, richly gilded, and resplendent in many-colored enamel. The front of the portal shows the family escutcheons in gold letters, and between the two is a Latin proverb for the encouragement of lovers, "Amandum juxta regulans." Through the heavy brocade hangings of the brilliant entrance, the guests saw the fortunate Bishop vanish with his fortunate bride, while they remained to drink to the health of the two with noisy revelry. So it went on, until one fine day, the fortunate father brought his new-born son in his arms to show him to the guests about the table. He had kept his guests with him from the marriage day to the day of baptism. There was a lord for you! That was a prelate! Through a whole year the festivities lasted. How did it happen that the people did not weary of them? Why, the groups of guests changed constantly. No well-ordered prosperous man can leave his house and home for a whole year, so there was a series of guests following each other in unbroken succession. In those days, when one went to a wedding, he took his entire household; for how could he leave his children behind? Lackeys and haiduks, equerries, coachmen and footmen, Court fool, nurse, and governess, priest and scribe, all came with their master, and before all went a heavy wagon with the baggage of the women. And there were as many kinds of musicians as there were guests. The Polish lords brought their famous trumpeters; those from Transylvania brought their gypsies; the Moravians their fiddlers; and the Nyians their bagpipers.
One band relieved another at banquet and dance; meantime the young people who became weary of the pleasures of the table first, withdrew to one end of the long hall for the "torch-dance," or the "cushion-dance," while still the servants at the other end continued to carry in the succession of dishes to the feast; if you wish to count the courses there is still the portly kitchen record. Here rang out the joyous conversation, interspersed with the Latin epithalamium of some impromptu poet, or the fescennine verses of a German minnesinger. At one side, the married women had their pleasure; young mothers whose children became restless withdrew here to quiet them; another table in an alcove at the side was opened for the young girls who feasted here in the presence of their holy director, and through the noise and tumult of the men, their joyous girlish voices rang out in Vivas to the noble lord and lady who sat at the head of the main table. In the shadow of a vaulted recess, the monks and lay brothers were assembled, who had crowded from all foreign parts at the report that a bishop in Hungary was celebrating his marriage. Every kind of priest was here; Capuchins, Jesuits, Paulists, Carmelites, White Canons, and the tonsured Franciscans, with wooden sandals on their bare feet. All sat together and drank "in honorem domini et dominæ." They were the most steadfast guests in respect to the hours and days. The only change in their company was that it constantly increased. Besides these, there was one other guest who remained from the very beginning of this long marriage feast, together with his whole family, and this was Grazian, Lord of Mitosin Castle. He had brought his beautiful daughter with him. The ladies whispered at one side that Lord Grazian stayed so long in the hope of forming an alliance between the beautiful Magdalene and some young lord. "Oh, no indeed!" said others, "there is no care for her. She has already a valiant bridegroom, the Pole, Lord Berezowski." At this there was a great outburst of laughter. "If the dear Lord had not made Adam better looking than he is, Mother Eve would never have picked that much-talked-of apple from the tree."
The old fool showed no hesitancy about thrusting himself into the circle of young dancers, and shunning the table of drinkers; and yet he longed for a drink; but his mouth watered still more for a kiss from the beautiful Magdalene, and this he might so easily have, if it would only occur to her to invite him to the cushion-dance. But for this he might wait until the day of judgment.