A Bride of the Plains

n't buy e

owing them out, so they were just left to smoke and to smoulder, and to help

ry other sensation, every other consciousness. The barn built of huge pine logs, straw-thatched and raftered, is filled to

eptember which comes with such heartrending regularity year after year-the desire to forget that the lads, the flower of the neighbouring villages, are going away to-day . . . for three years?-nay! very likely for ever!-three years! and all pac

ul Bosnia! wherever it may be-lads from Hungarian villages go there soun

s! More li

o'clock of the fourteenth day of September is approaching with sure and giant strides; everyone has a wish to forget; the parents and grandparents, t

Jew. Marosfalva boasts of a railway station and it is from here that at nine o'clock in the morning the lads will be entrained; so all day on the thirteenth there has been a pilgrimage along the cross-roads from the outlying villages and hamlets rou

happy year is acted. After that night spent there in dancing and music and merry-m

uptuous dance that feet of man have ever trod. The girls and lads are indefatigable, the slow and languorous Lassu (slow movement) alternates with the mad, merry csárdás, they twirl and twist, advance, retreat, separate

Faster! Faster! 'Tis not a f

der-as good a leader, mind you, as could be found in the kingdom-had only paused when the dancers were exhausted, or when bite and sup were placed before him. There they were, perched up on a rough platform made up of packing-cases borrowed from the station-master; the czimbalom player i

found in the kingdom. He stands on the very edge of the rough platform, his fiddle under his chin, and

he csárdás be danced, as near the musicians as possible, as close

ese petticoats-the number of them is a sign of prosperity; and now as they dance and swing from the hips these petticoats fl

ain rises the rich, olive-tinted breast and throat; full white sleeves of linen crown the bare, rud

tight plaits; it is drawn rigidly away from the forehead, giving that quaint, hard

aight out of a Velasquez canvas, the bell-shaped skirt, the stiff

d wrought with bright-coloured woollen threads. They get very excited in the mazes of the dance, they shout to the gipsies to play faster and ever

ured partners-they watch and watch, indefatigable like the dancers, untiring like the musicians. And behind this semicirc

now, and through the apertures in the log wall the brilliant l

enkó,[1] an old reprobate, if ever there was one. Such a handsome couple they lo

surname precedes

f her engaging personality, they help to soften the somewhat serious expression of her young face. Her cheeks are g

wirls in Andor's arms the petticoats fly out, till she looks like a huge flower of many hues with superposed corollas, bl

ft make her figure appear peculiarly slim and girlish, and her bare thr

g to his head like wine. Elsa was always pretty, always dainty and gentle, but now she is excited, te

ser round the dancers, but the other couples remain comparati

stars out of his sun-burnt face; his muscular arms encircle Elsa's fine waist with a grip that is almost masterful. The wide sleeves of his linen shi

ouple!" murmur the old

added a kindly old soul, turning to her neighbour-a slatternly, ill-kempt, mid

n, "then 'tis as well that that good-for

2] said one of the men who stood close by, "he has not

e used indiscriminately in Hungary when addressing elder

ings in a future which never comes. Well! at any rate while he is a soldier they will teach him that he is no better th

ed the kindly old soul who had first s

o remember it, my good Ka

ing that Andor has really courted Els

n her bitter-toned, snappish way, "and has no reas

dor will have every fillér of his money wh

oncluded Irma with a sneer. "He may live another thirty

f them as shiftless, thriftless, ill-conditioned a pair as ever stole the daylight from God in order to waste it in

es with, and had never saved enough to earn a rest for themselves in their old age, they had long ago determined that t

would have been practically impossible to find a husband for her. But if she became the beauty of Marosfalva-as indeed she was already-there would be plenty of rich men

up the cudgels in favour of Andor; "we all know that she has very

ever allow their daughter to marry a man with pockets as empty as their own, and it was no use waiting for dead men's shoes. Lakatos Pál, the rich uncle, from whom Andor was bound to inherit some day, was little past the prime of life.

looking, better-matched pair could not

ee years," said a tall, handsome girl to her neighbour;

the pockets of his trousers. At the girl's words, which were accompanied by a provocative glance fro

irl l

ything, you know, my

most things,"

ma néni, for insta

hange the squalor of a mud hut f

dark-coloured cloth, cut by a provincial tailor from Arad. He was short of stature, though broad-shouldered and firmly knit, but his face was singularly ugly, owing to the terrible misfortune which had befallen him when he lost his left ey

and piece of land of his own, as well as the means of adding considerably to his income, since his lordship left him to conclude many a bargain over corn and plums, and horses and pigs. Er?s Béla was rich and influential. He lived in a stone-built house, which had a garden round it, and at least f

The girl near him-she with the dark, Oriental eyes and the thin, hooked nose

," she said, with a sarcastic little laugh; "we don't want

out," muttered the other between his teeth, as

eemed to take an impish delight in teasing the yo

you?" growled

y that we have always been f

urse, and she knew it-knew how to use her eyes, and make the men forget that she was only a Jewess, a thing to be played with

ealous temper which was raging in his brain, was nevertheless sober enough not to

-are we not, Béla?" s

ted, "what has our friendshi

end of mine make a fool of himself over a

othered

know that?

head and ears in love with Andor,

and that when Andor comes back from having marched and drilled and paced the barrack-yard he will find that Kapus Elsa is Kapus no longer, but Er?s, the wife of Er

e," she protested quickly, "

something very uncomplimentary anent the

ade him something of an oracle in Marosfalva, and he held all the peasantry in such contempt that he cared little what everyone t

ould marry whom he pleased, and that he should loudly and openly proclaim his determination to possess himself of the beau

d nothing of the colloquy between him and the Jewess. The wild, loud music of the csárd

ves were spirits living in that realm of bliss; there was no longer any impending separation, no military service, no blank and desolate three years!

gyar tongue had never before sounded so exquisite! To her the words were magic because they wrought a miracle in her. She had been a girl-a child ere those words were spoken. She liked Andor

mething had happened, which caused her cheeks to glow with a fire other than that produced by the heat of the dance and made her o

utiful, Elsa

en Pater Bonifácius had blessed her and assured her that her soul was as white as that of an angel-never since then had she known such perfect, such absolute happiness. She could not spea

s much as the dancers. Round and round in a mad twirl now, the men hold the girls with both hands by the waist, the girls put a

their heels to the rhythm of the dance, the women beat their hands one against the other to that same wild, syncopated measure. Old men grasp middle-aged women round the w

s impossible to keep quite still while

ous movements of the Levant. She watches this bacchanalian whirligig with a sneer upon her thin, red lips. Beside her Er?s Béla too is still,

blush which deepens over Elsa's face. That one eye of his, keener than any pair of eyes, has seen the furtive kiss, quick and glowing, which grazed the

ized until this moment how beautiful Elsa was, and how madly he loved her. For he called the jealous rage within by the sacred name of love, and

garian land-and the woman whom he loves. Those two possessions will satisfy him-beyond these there i

e . . . he certainly calls it so-those two possessions make the Hungarian

wo and three-quarter acres) or so; Elsa was the woman whom he loved, and the only q