"It may be so; the souls of the gentlemen enumerated are, no doubt, in Heaven, and it is possible that countless other souls will follow them thither."
"And will the soul that shed their blood ascend thither too?"
"Will your Highness deign to speak quite plainly—I suppose you mean me? Of course, I am the cause of all the evils of Transylvania. Till I came upon the scene, none but lamb-like men inhabited this state, in whose veins flowed milk and honey instead of blood! King Sigismund, Bethlen, Bocskai, George Rákóczy, for instance! Under them only some fifty or sixty thousand men lost their lives in their party feuds and ambitious struggles! Fine fellows, every one of them of course, everyone calls them great patriots. But I, whose sword has never aimed at a self-sought crown, I, who am animated by a great and mighty thought, a sublime idea, I am a murderer, and responsible not only for those who have fallen in battle, but also for those who have died quietly in their beds, if they were not my good friends."
"There was a time, sir, when you used every effort to prevent Transylvania from going to war."
"That was the very time when your Highness pleaded before the Prince for war in the name of your exiled Hungarian kinsfolk. Other times, other men."
"I knew not then that such a desire would lead to the ruin of so many great and honourable men."
"You feared war, and yet you fanned it. He who resists a snow-storm is swept away. Not the fate of men alone, but the fate of kingdoms also is here in question. Apafi may console himself with the reflection that God regards us both as far too petty instruments to lay upon our souls what He Himself has decreed in the fullness of time, and what will and must happen in spite of us, for the weeping and mourning which we listen to here is also heard in Heaven. The mottoes of our escutcheons go very well together. Apafi's is 'Fata viam inveniunt,' mine is 'Gutta cavat lapidem.' Let us trust ourselves to our mottoes."
The Princess, with folded arms, gazed out of the window and remained in a brown study for some time. And now, as though her thoughts were wandering far away, she suddenly sighed: "Ah! this Béldi family so unhappily ruined, and how many more must be ruined likewise!"
"Your Highness!" rejoined the Minister, without moving a muscle of his face, "when, in time of drought, we pray for rain the whole day, does anybody inquire what will become of the poor travellers who may be caught in the downpour? Yet it may well happen that some of them may take a chill and die in consequence."
"I don't grasp the metaphor."