But Clementina was only too delighted to have something to chatter about. "And do you know, your ladyship," she continued, "the baron and the count have been rivals for a long time, and each has always been trying his hardest to ruin the other—in a friendly way, of course. The chambermaid told Margari, and Margari told me. 'I will not be content, comrade,' my lord baron used to say to my lord count, 'till one of us is reduced to his last jacket, and as soon as one of us is absolutely beggared, the other will hold himself bound to maintain him, in a way befitting a gentleman till the day of his death.' Strange men these, madame, eh!"
Perceiving, however, from Henrietta's looks that there was something depressing to her young mistress in her narration, she tried to soften the effect of her words by intimating that the count had another property besides, although not such a nice castle, and also that it was open to him to buy back the former estate in thirty years' time if he could find the money.
"That will do, Clementina, my head aches badly!" said Henrietta. She wished to rid herself of this uncalled-for gabble, in order that she might devote herself to her own thoughts.
And what thoughts! She had had no idea that such things could be. How was it possible that two men who called themselves friends, could ruin one another thus in cold blood? How was it possible that a man could enter the house of an affectionate host as a welcome guest in the evening, and by next morning leave him not an inch of land on which to put his foot, or a roof to cover his head! "And one has to get accustomed to such things!" thought she.
All the day long their journey lay through that brain-wearying plain whose endless flatness oppressed soul and body with its monotony and soon drove her back to her own thoughts. Towards evening there were signs of rain. Clouds were rising and then, at least, there would be something new to point at in the eternal monotony of the sky. Unfortunately clouds have the bad habit of bringing tempests along with them, and tempests are evil travelling companions on the steppes of the Alföld.[9] The towers of the town they were trying to reach were still only dimly visible on the horizon. In ordinary weather it would not have mattered if they had arrived late, for they had reckoned upon the moonlight; but there could be no moon to-night, instead of her a storm full of angry lightnings was approaching. Already from afar they could hear it rumbling as it drove dust-clouds before it, could hear that peculiar, continuous, roar as of some giant hand playing uninterruptedly on the keys of some terrible organ. Whoever has been caught on the Alföld in a storm knows the meaning of that wind; it means that the tempest is bringing hail with it.
[9] The great Hungarian plain.
One thing was now certain: they must turn aside somewhere. All that Henrietta observed, however, was that her carriage stood still for a moment, and then Hátszegi's carriage went on in front, the baron himself seizing the horses' reins and shouting to the coachman behind him: "After me as hard as you can tear!" With that they left the road and plunged right across country through ditches and swamps and low, marshy ground till the water came up to the very axles of the wheels and Clementina shrieked that they were perishing. But there was no need to be afraid. Hátszegi was a skilful coachman, who could ever find his way even where there was no way at all. About a four hours' journey off, a pump now became visible, and beyond it a little hut loomed white and high, there they must seek a refuge from the tempest as it passed over them. And indeed they had only just reached the small courtyard when the first lumps of ice as big as nuts, began bombarding the windows of the carriages.
"Quick, quick, into the house!" cried Hátszegi. The baron himself helped his wife and Clementina to descend and hurried them in beneath the verandah, which was made of crooked branches and hung over the kitchen door like a shade over the forehead of a weak-sighted man.
On their approach the woman of the house emerged from the kitchen with her head tied up in a red handkerchief. She was no longer young, but ruddy, robust, bright-eyed, and bustling, and as full of sparkle as if she had just sprung out of the fire.
On perceiving her guests she clapped her hands together.