Prince Zilah -- Volume 1

mitted the massacre of the vanquished. It was many years before he could accustom himself to the idea that he had no lo

hussar, the ruined gentleman, now professor of Latin and mathematics at Paris, and living near the Princ

in, Yanski; Hungary is immo

mbed, it is because she has committed faults. All defeats have their geneses. Before the enemy we were not

rit, in the person of Andrassy, recovered the possession of power. But neither Andras nor Varhely returned to their country. The Prince had become, as he himself said with a

ecome bewitched with Paris," he w

lants peculiar to the country; and the broad horizons with the enormous arms of the windmills outlined against the golden sunset. But Paris, with its ever-varying seductions, its activity in art and science, its perpetual movement, had ended by becoming a real need to him, like a new existence as precious and as loved as the first. The soldier had become a man of letters, jotting down for himself, not for the public, all that struck him

certain that they are soon to return home. They wait, and some day, catching a g

books, and he sometimes received there his few real friends, his companions in troublous times, like Varhely. He was generally considered a little of a recluse, although he loved society and showed himself, during the winter, at all entertainments where, by virtue of his fame and rank, he would naturally be expected to be present. But he carried with him a certain

xpecting a renewal of the struggle with Austria; and he thought at that time that the future would bring to him his f

long gone by. We shall both end old bachelors, my good Varhely, and

e; but the Zilahs should not end with you. I want some sturdy little hussar w

fear that one can not love two things at once; the heart is not elastic

nce can not take away from them that purity and childlike trust which seem to be an integral part of themselves, and which, although they may be betrayed, deceived and treated harshly by life, they never wholly lose; very manly and heroic in time of need and danger, they are by nature peculiarly

of real passion which was at the bottom of his heart. But he had not sought this love; for he adored his Hungary as he would have

ly that a "hussar pupil" was an absolute necessity to him. People can not be forced, against their wi

ngs who never asked to come here." And yet breaking off in his pessimism, and with a vision before his eyes of

friend. The house of the Baroness was a very curious place; the reporter Jacquemin, who was there at all times, testing the wines and correcting the menus, would have called it "bizarre." The Baroness received people in all circles of society; oddities liked her, and she did not dislike oddities. Very h

l. He pardoned her childishness and her little absurdities for the sake of her great good qualities. "M

re would not be any great

y not,

hly suspicious people, and no one has ever suspected you yourself. You are a little salamander, the prettiest salamand

ink that my

hom I esteem, and who do not amuse me-often; an

ot come any more to t

I shall-t

reat personages from Constantinople, escaped from the Sultan's silken bowstring, and displaying proudly their red fez in Paris, where the opera permitted them to continue their habits of polygamy; Americans, whose gold-mines or petroleum-wells made them billionaires for a winter, only to go to pieces and make them paupers the following summer; politicians out of a place; unknown authors; misunderstood poets; painters of the future-in short, the

as very anxious that the Prince sho

for you," she said. "I am

kado? The Sha

e whole history of your battles of 1849. She has read Georgei, Klapka, and all the rest of them; and

Tzi

d of recollections. 'Hussad czigany'! The rallying cry of the wandering musicians of the pu

prise. I need not ask if your Tzigana is pretty; all the Tzigani of m

zlo, dressed in one of the black toilettes which she affected, and whose clear, dark complexion, great Arabian eyes, and heavy, wavy hair seem

lity he found in Marsa. A moment before, he had noticed how silent, almost rigid she was, as she leaned back in her armchair; but now thi

ce; he saw only the girl at his side; and the candles and polished mirrors w

whose very accents were like a caress, "do you know that, among all th

entioned more il

"those are not the nam

tell yo

nty years before, for the liberty of Hungary. She told the whole story in the most vivid manner; had her age per

s of Jellachich the first standard captured by the Hungarians from the ranks of Au

that Parisian dining-room, surrounded by all that crowd, where yesterday's 'bon mot', the latest scandal, the new operetta, were subjects of paramount i

so well?" he asked, fi

. "Was your father

ded Marsa, abruptly, her voice su

ussi

of dull anger. "My mother alone was a Tzigana, and my mother's be

he sorrows of her life; and yet, he guessed there was some sad story in the life of the young girl, and

shadow overspreading her face. "I have no right to know you

your life is history; mine is drama, mel

my presu

myself can interest you; but not here in the noise of this dinner. It would be absur

Andras perfectly insignificant; but she did not succeed in driving away the cloud of sadness which overshadowed her exquisite

n! My father w