Whither had vanished all those joys and all those studies? What availed her now the books of all those learned men? What to her now was moral philosophy, horticulture, or domestic economy? Here there was no morality, no garden, no home! Her life at home had been a monastic life, but it was a veritable heaven compared with this hell.
But when she fell a-thinking how happy she might have been if she had given her hand to him whom her heart had chosen—who was not perhaps very learned, but certainly upright, honest, good-hearted, and over head and ears in love—then indeed evil thoughts began to arise within her.
When the moon shone through the iron bars of her window she could not help thinking what a nice time the witches must have of it; they had only to bestride their broomsticks and scud through the air, even narrow iron bars could not stop them.
What if her forsaken sweetheart were thinking of her now? Would he ever learn into what depths of misery the mistress of his heart had fallen?
While she was thinking of these things, and drying her streaming eyes, she suddenly heard in the court below the tune of one of her favorite songs, which ran thus:
The cloud wherein the crow doth stay,
The dark black cloud will pass away!
Someone was playing this air on a Hungarian field-trumpet.
This instrument is called the farogato, and very few know how to play it. It is certainly a difficult instrument. Let anyone but a connoisseur attempt to blow it, and he will bring forth a sound not at all unlike the howl of a dog on whose tail someone has trodden. But he who really knows the secret of the field-trumpet can play thereon every imaginable air, in tones which will go to one's very heart. You'll find yourself weeping without exactly knowing why. The good old songs, as they come forth from the instrument, recall to you the lullaby which your mother used to sing at your cradle, and the hymn which was sung at your father's burial. It does you good and makes you sad at the same time. But when a real connoisseur takes up the farogato and blows into it with all his might, then indeed he brings forth notes which excite the martial sentiments of every hearer, notes which can be heard for two miles round. It sounds just as if a host were marching forth to battle and to victory.
It was this instrument which, thirty years later, inspired the rebel troops of Rakóczy in the campaigns. After the insurrection was over, therefore, the peace-abiding government collected together all the farogatos in the land and destroyed them, just as if they had been so many double-mortars. Only a single specimen still remains, which is exhibited as a great curiosity in the Royal Museum at Buda-Pest, and only a single man in the whole land knows how to play it.
We have said this much about the farogato in order to give some idea of the great joy which arose in Michal's heart, when she suddenly heard it playing her favorite song.