She had longed to speak to him; to stretch out her hand to him; to say at least how her thoughts and her sympathies had been with him throughout the war. But her carriage was already in full onward movement, and in another moment had passed at high speed out of the station into that grand valley of the Szalzach where Hohensalzburg seems to tower as though Friederich Barbarossa did indeed sleep there. With a sigh she sank backward amongst her furs and cushions, and saw the soaring fortress pass, into the clouds.
The night had now closed in; the rain fell heavily. As the little train, oscillating greatly from its lightness, swung over the iron rails, there was a continual sound of splashing water audible above the noise of the wheels and the throb of the engine. She had often travelled at night and had always slept soundly; this evening she could not sleep. She remained wide awake watching the swaying of the lamp, listening to the shrill shriek of the wheels as they rushed through water where some hillside brook had broken bounds and spread out in a shallow lagoon. The skies were overcast in every direction; the rain was everywhere unceasing; the night seemed to her very long.
She pondered perpetually on his presence at Salzburg, and wondered if he were going to the Holy Isle. Three months had gone by since she had sent him the semi-invitation to her country.
The train sped on; the day dawned; she began to get glimpses of the grand blue river, now grey and ochre-coloured and thick with mud, its turbid waves heaving sullenly under the stormy October skies. She had always loved the great Donau; she knew its cradle well in the north land of the Teutons. She had often watched the baby-stream rippling over the stones, and felt the charm, as of some magical transformation, as she thought of the same stream stretching broadly under the monastic walls of Klosterneuberg, rolling in tempest by the Iron Gates, and gathering its mighty volume higher and deeper to burst at last into the sunlight of the eastern sea. Amidst the levelled monotony of modern Europe the Danube keeps something of savage grandeur, something of legendary power, something of oriental charm; it is still often tameless, a half-barbaric thing, still a Tamerlane amidst rivers: and yet yonder at its birthplace it is such a slender thread of rippling water! She and Bela had crossed it with bare feet to get forget-me-nots in Taunus, talking together of Chriemhilde and her pilgrimage to the land of the Huns.
The little train swung on steadily through the water above and below, and after a night of no little danger came safely to Vienna as the dawn broke. She went straight to her yacht, which was in readiness off the Lobau and weighed anchor as the pale and watery morning broadened into day above the shores that had seen Aspern and Wagram. The yacht was a yawl, strongly built and drawing little water, made on purpose for the ascent and descent of the Danube, from Passau up in the north to as far south as the Bosphorus if needed. The voyage had been of the greatest joys of hers and of Bela's childhood; they had read on deck alternately the 'Nibelungen-Lied' and the 'Arabian Nights,' clinging together in delighted awe as they passed through the darkness of the defile of Kasan.
Idrac was situated between Pesth and Peterwardein, lying low on marshy ground that was covered with willows and intersected by small streams flowing from the interior to the Danube.
The little town gave its name and its seigneurie to the owner of its burg; an ancient place built on a steep rock that rose sheer out of the fast-running waves, and dominated the passage of the stream. The Counts of Idrac had been exceeding powerful in the old times, when they had stopped at their will the right of way of the river; and their appanages with their title had come by marriage into the House of Szalras some four centuries before, and although the dominion over the river was gone, the fortress and the little town and all that appertained thereto still formed a considerable possession; it had usually been given with its Countship to the second son of the Szalras.
Making the passage to Pesth in fourteen hours, the yacht dropped anchor before the Franz Josef Quai as the first stars came out above the Blocksburg, for by this time the skies had lightened and the rains had ceased. Here she stayed the night perforce, as an accident had occurred to the machinery of the vessel. She did not leave the yacht, but sent into the inner city for stores of provisions and of the local cordial, the slibowitza, to distribute to the half-drowned people amongst whom she was about to go. It was noonday before the yawl got under weigh and left the twin-towns behind her. A little way further down the stream they passed a great castle, standing amidst beech woods on a rock that rose up from fields covered with the Carlowitz vine. She looked at it with a sigh: it was the fortress of Kohacs, one of the many possessions of Egon Vàsàrhely.
The weather had now cleared, but the skies were overcast, and the plains, which began to spread away monotonously from either shore, were covered with white fog. Soon the fog spread also over the river, and the yacht was compelled to advance cautiously and slowly, so that the voyage was several hours longer than usual. When the light of the next day broke they had come in sight of the flooded districts on their right: the immense flat fields that bore the flax and grain which make the commerce of Baja, of Neusatz, and of other riverain towns, were all changed to shallow estuaries. The Theiss, the Drave, and many minor streams, swollen by the long autumnal rains, had burst their boundaries and laid all the country under water for hundreds of square leagues. The granaries, freshly filled with the late abundant harvest, had at many places been flooded or destroyed: thousands of stacks of grain were floating like shapeless, dismasted vessels. Timber and the thatched roofs of the one-storied houses were in many places drifting too, like the flotsam and the hulls of wrecked ships.
There are few scenes more dreary, more sad, more monotonous than those of a flat country swamped by flood: the sky above them was leaden and heavy, the Danube beneath them was turgid and discoloured; the shrill winds whistled through the brakes of willow, the water-birds, frightened, flew from their osier-beds on the islands, the bells of churches and watch-towers tolled dismally.