CHAPTER XI.
THE FIRST STEP.
Three days after the betrothal a county assembly was held under the presidency of Administrator Rideghváry.
At an early hour the white feathers and the black—the badges of the Progressive and the Conservative parties respectively—began to appear. But not only were white and black feathers conspicuous; loaded canes, also, and stout cudgels were seen peeping out from overhanging mantles, to be brought forth in case some convincing and irrefutable argument should be needed in the heat of debate.
Punctually at nine o'clock Rideghváry called the meeting to order. The Progressives had planned an energetic protest against an alleged unconstitutionality in the administration, and their best speakers were primed for the occasion, hoping to bring the matter to a vote. The Conservatives, on their part, had summoned to their aid all the most tiresome and long-winded speakers to be found in the neighbouring counties, to kill the motion.
Nevertheless, the white feathers held their ground, being determined to sit the meeting out if it lasted all night, and well knowing that, the moment the chairman should note any preponderance of blacks in the hall, he would put the question to vote and it would be lost. Therefore they kept their places patiently until it came the turn of their chief orator, Tormándy, to speak.
When he rose to address the assembly, the black feathers seemed to unite in an effort to silence him, disputing his every statement and making constant interruptions. But Tormándy was not to be disconcerted. If a hundred voices shouted in opposition, his stentorian tones still made themselves heard above the uproar. In the heat of debate it could not but occur that an occasional word escaped the speaker's lips that would have been called unparliamentary in any other deliberative body, and a repetition of the offence would have necessitated the speaker's taking his seat. Not so here, however. As soon as Tormándy's ardour had betrayed him into the utterance of an unusually insulting expression, Tallérossy and his comrades immediately set upon him, like a pack of hounds after the game, and called out in concert: "Actio, Actio!" Thereupon the assembly, stante sessione, passed judgment on the case and imposed a fine.
Tormándy, however, was not so easily put down. Coolly drawing out his pocketbook, he threw down two hundred florins,—the usual fine,—and continued his philippic. Upon a second interruption of the same kind, he merely threw down another two hundred, without pausing in his speech. And so he continued his oration, interspersed with occasional invectives, until he had emptied his pocketbook and surrendered his seal ring and his insignia of nobility in pledge of payments still lacking. His speech, however, was finished; he had succeeded in saying what he had to say, to the very last word. But his concluding sentences were drowned in an uproar. Deafening huzzas on one side, and shouts of "Down with him!" on the other, turned the meeting into a veritable pandemonium, each party trying in vain to drown its opponents' cries.
Meanwhile the presiding administrator sat unmoved, listening to the uproar as an orchestra conductor might listen to the performance of his musicians.
The customary tactics of the Conservatives had failed. In the first place, there were more white feathers than black in the hall. Secondly, the former were not to be routed from their position either by the high temperature of the room,—it would have almost hatched ostrich eggs,—or by the pangs of hunger, or by the long-winded harangues of their opponents. Thirdly, they refused to be silenced by any fines; they paid and spoke on. Fourthly, both parties seemed disinclined to begin a fight,—a diversion which hitherto had commonly resulted in the white feathers abandoning the field and taking flight through doors and windows. A fifth expedient still remained,—the adjournment of the meeting.
Rideghváry rang his bell, and was beginning to explain, in a low tone, that the excessive noise and confusion made further debate impossible, when suddenly he found himself speaking amid a hush so profound that one could have heard a pin drop.