THE SHAKING HAND
Whoever in an evil hour encountered Fatia Negra had a shaking hand for the rest of his life.
Ever since that meeting at the csárdá Henrietta's hand also trembled to such an extent that it was only with the utmost difficulty that she could sign her own name.
What happened to her after that meeting? Whom did she recognize in Fatia Negra? How did she get home?—all these things remained eternal secrets. The lady was never able to tell it to anybody. Perchance she herself regarded it as a dream.
The poor lady used now to pray all day. For hours at a time she would kneel before the altar of the castle chapel returning thence to her perpetual walking to and fro, to and fro, kneeling down to pray again when she was tired out. And so she went on from morning to evening, nay, till late into the night, sometimes till midnight, sometimes till the dawn of the next day, up and down, up and down, between four walls, and then on her knees again a-praying.
She never appeared in the dining-room; her meals were sent to her room. She scarcely touched them, it was difficult to understand how she kept body and soul together.
She only quitted her chamber to go to chapel. At such times she would frequently meet domestics or strangers in the castle corridors, but she looks at nobody and says not a word. She does not notice that they are there, that they are amazed at her, that they greet her. No one has heard her speak for a long time.
And therefore they think her mad. At first only the domestics whispered this among themselves, then the villagers—and in a month's time it was notorious through Transylvania that the youthful Baroness Hátszegi was out of her mind.
Early one morning, as Henrietta was returning from chapel, there suddenly appeared before her a ragged woman who must have been hidden in some niche as the servants had not seen her or driven her out.
"Stop one moment, my lady," whispered the woman and Henrietta seemed to hear in that whisper the voice of an old acquaintance, though she did not recognize the face. It was half masked in a cloth and the little she could see of it was disfigured by wounds and scars like the face of one who had been badly injured by fire. Henrietta was horrified at the sight of her, she looked so dreadful.