When Paul Rediki received this invitation he seated himself at the table and penned a dignified refusal. He explained that he had just taken an oath never to go to Vienna, and he hoped that His Majesty would be gracious and pardon him, that he was very sorry that he could not possibly come. How very different was he from men of today.
However, it happened after many, many years that old Vienna bestirred herself and moved nearer. The wing-swift railroad had been built. Our great blue mountains were pierced through and through, and the velvet-soft, green meadows were covered with iron ribbons, upon which wheels were to roll.
Paul Rediki was in favor of the railroad, and worked lustily for it. “It will bring money and prosperity to our community,” he declared, “and it will make our harvests of value.”
Too bad that he was not at home when the first flower-decked coaches rolled in; but he lay ill in an hospital where he had been sent by order of the doctor.
Upon the important day the entire country-side assembled. “We shall see now,” argued the peasants “whether it is true or not.” “It’s all just foolish talk,” declared Martin Saki, the cobbler of Tiszle. “Nothing will come of it. I’ll bet you, brothers—it can’t move ten paces.”
“How could it go without horses?” questioned Mathias Kozka, laughing. Gabor Kovacz, who took care of the church, said he was willing to lie right down on the track in front of the engine, but the village watchman would not let him.
“Well, if it doesn’t do any good, it won’t do any harm!” he consoled himself by saying.
The railway officials were the butt of jests and scorn.
“Take a halter along any way, because you bet you’ll have to pull that Polish village.” The long coaches with their rows of little windows, fastened together in a long line, looked to them like a village of small and diminutive houses.
In the meantime the invited gentry had assembled. They climbed on to the coaches and the huge, foolish machine began to puff and snort and blow like a wild horse, while the smoke poured forth and spread out across the pleasant fields. A whistle, and the long line of little Polish houses moved with a noise like thunder, and the more they moved, the faster, until it was just like an arrow shot from the bow.