The manager, however, listening to this revelation, strictly forbade his Moravian drovers to touch the dish.
"Though who knows," said the painter, "whether the old humbug has not invented the whole story to scare us from the feast, and then have a good laugh at us!"
"We'll see," rejoined his comrade, "whether the vet eats it or not, for he must know all about it."
And now came the mirage, that seems like the realisation of a fairy dream.
Along the horizon lay a quivering sea, where high waves chased each other from east to west, the real hills standing out as little islands in their midst, and the stumpy acacias magnified into vast forests. Oxen, grazing in the distance, were transformed into a street of palaces. Boats which appeared to cross the ocean turned out on reaching the shore to be nothing but some far off horses. The fantastic deception is always at its height directly after sunrise, when whole villages are often raised into the air, and brought so close that, with a glass, the carts in their streets can be distinguished, their towers and houses being all mirrored upside down on the billowy fairy sea. During cloudy weather, however, they remain below the horizon.
"Let the Germans copy this," exclaimed Mr. Sajgató to the admiring group, while the painter tore his hair in despair.
"Why am I compelled to see things I can't put on canvas? What is this?"
"Why the mirage," said the overseer.
"And what is the mirage?"
"The mirage is the mirage of the Hortobágy."