Читать книгу St. Peter's Umbrella - Kálmán Mikszáth - Страница 9

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Father János remained kneeling a long time and did not notice that a storm was coming up. When he came out of the church it was pouring in torrents, and before long the small mountain streams were so swollen that they came rushing down into the village street, and the cattle in their fright ran lowing into their stables.

János's first thought was that he had left the child on the veranda, and it must be wet through. He ran home as fast as he could, but paused with surprise before the house. The basket was where he had left it, the child was in the basket, and the goose was walking about in the yard. The rain was still coming down in torrents, the veranda was drenched, but on the child not a drop had fallen, for an immense red umbrella had been spread over the basket. It was patched and darned to such an extent that hardly any of the original stuff was left, and the border of flowers round it was all but invisible.

"THE CHILD WAS IN THE BASKET"

The young priest raised his eyes in gratitude to Heaven, and taking the child into his arms, carried it, under the red umbrella, into his room. The child's eyes were open now; they were a lovely blue, and gazed wonderingly into the priest's face.

"It is really a blessing," he murmured, "that the child did not get wet through; she might have caught her death of cold, and I could not even have given her dry clothes."

But where had the umbrella come from? It was incomprehensible, for in the whole of Glogova there was not a single umbrella.

In the next yard some peasants were digging holes for the water to run into. His reverence asked them all in turn, had they seen no one with the child? No, they had seen the child, but as far as they knew no one had been near it. Old Widow Adamecz, who had run home from the fields with a shawl over her head, had seen something red and round, which seemed to fall from the clouds right over the child's head. Might she turn to stone that minute if it were not true, and she was sure the Virgin Mary had sent it down from Heaven herself to the poor orphan child.

Widow Adamecz was a regular old gossip; she was fond of a drop of brandy now and then, so it was no wonder she sometimes saw more than she ought to have done. The summer before, on the eve of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, she had seen the skies open, and Heaven was before her; she had heard the angels sing, as they passed in procession before God, sitting on a throne of precious stones. And among them she had seen her grandson, János Plachta, in a pretty red waistcoat which she herself had made him shortly before his death. And she had seen many of the inhabitants of Glogova who had died within the last few years, and they were all dressed in the clothes they had been buried in.

You can imagine that after that, when the news of her vision was spread abroad, she was looked upon as a very holy person indeed. All the villagers came to ask if she had seen their dead relations in the procession; this one's daughter, that one's father, and the other one's "poor husband!" They quite understood that such a miracle was more likely to happen to her than to any one else, for a miracle had been worked on her poor dead father András, even though he had been looked upon in life as something of a thief. For when the high road had had to be made broader eight years before, they were obliged to take a bit of the cemetery in order to do it, and when they had opened András's grave, so as to bury him again, they saw with astonishment that he had a long beard, though five witnesses swore to the fact that at the time of his death he was clean-shaven.

So they were all quite sure that old András was in Heaven, and having been an old cheat all his life he would, of course, manage even up above to leave the door open a bit now and then, so that his dear Agnes could have a peep at what was going on.

But Pál Kvapka, the bell-ringer, had another tale to tell. He said that when he had gone up the belfry to ring the clouds away, and had turned round for a minute, he saw the form of an old Jew crossing the fields beyond the village, and he had in his hands that immense red thing like a plate, which his reverence had found spread over the basket. Kvapka had thought nothing of it at the time, for he was sleepy, and the wind blew the dust in his eyes, but he could take an oath that what he had told them had really taken place. (And Pál Kvapka was a man who always spoke the truth.) Others had also seen the Jew. He was old, tall, gray-haired, his back was bent, and he had a crook in his hand, and when the wind carried his hat away, they saw that he had a large bald place at the back of his head.

"He was just like the picture of St. Peter in the church," said the sacristan, who had seen him without his hat. "He was like it in every respect," he repeated, "except that he had no keys in his hand." From the meadow he had cut across Stropov's clover-field, where the Krátki's cow, which had somehow got loose, made a rush at him; in order to defend himself he struck at it with his stick (and from that time, you can ask the Krátki family if it is not true, the cow gave fourteen pints of milk a day, whereas they used to have the greatest difficulty in coaxing four pints from it).

At the other end of the village the old man had asked the miller's servant-girl which was the way to Lehota, and Erzsi had told him, upon which he had started on the footpath up the mountains. Erzsi said she was sure, now she came to think of it, that he had a glory round his head.

Why, of course it must have been St. Peter! Why should it not have been? There was a time when he walked about on earth, and there are many stories told still as to all he had done then. And what had happened once could happen again. The wonderful news spread from house to house, that God had sent down from Heaven a sort of red-linen tent, to keep the rain off the priest's little sister, and had chosen St. Peter himself for the mission. Thereupon followed a good time for the child, she became quite the fashion in the village. The old women began to make cakes for her, also milk puddings, and various other delicacies. His reverence had nothing to do but answer the door all day, and receive from his visitors plates, dishes, or basins wrapped up in clean cloths. The poor young priest could not make out what was going on in his new parish.

"Oh, your reverence, please, I heard your little sister had come, so I've brought her a trifle for her dinner; of course it might be better, but it is the best such poor folks as we can give. Our hearts are good, your reverence, but our flour might be better than it is, for that good-for-nothing miller burned it a bit the last time—at least, that part of it which he did not keep for his own use. May I look at the little angel? They say she's a little beauty."

Of course his reverence allowed them all to look at her in turn, to pat her and smooth her hair; some of them even kissed her tiny feet.

The priest was obliged to turn away now and then to hide the tears of gratitude. He reproached himself, too, for his hard thoughts of the good villagers. "How I have misjudged them!" he thought to himself. "There are no better people in the world. And how they love the child!"

At tea-time Widow Adamecz appeared on the scene; until now she had not troubled much about the new priest. She considered herself entitled to a word in the management of the ecclesiastical affairs of the village, and based her rights on the fact of her father having grown a beard in his grave, which, of course, gave him a place among the saints at once.

"Your reverence," she began, "you will want some one to look after the child."

"Yes, of course, I ought to have some one," he replied, "but the parish is poor, and ..."

"Nobody is poor but the devil," burst out Widow Adamecz, "and he's poor because he has no soul. But we have souls. And after all, your reverence won't know how to dress and undress a child, nor how to wash it and plait its hair. And then she will often be hungry, and you can't take her across to the schoolmaster's each time. You must have some one to cook at home, your reverence. The sacristan is all very well for sweeping and tidying up a bit, but what does he know about children?"

"True, true; but where am I to ..."

"Where? And am I not here? The Lord created me for a priest's cook, I'm sure."

"Yes, I daresay. But how am I to pay your wages?"

Widow Adamecz put her hands on her hips, and planted herself in front of Father János.

"Never mind about that, your honor. Leave it to God and to me. He will pay me. I shall enter your service this evening, and shall bring all my saucepans and things with me."

The priest was more and more surprised, but even more astonished was his friend Urszinyi when he came over toward evening and the priest related the events of the day, and told him of Widow Adamecz's offer.

"What!" he exclaimed, "Widow Adamecz? That old witch? And without payment? Why, János, a greater miracle never yet happened. An inhabitant of Glogova working for payment from Heaven! You seem to have bewitched the people."

The priest only smiled, but his heart was full of gratitude. He also felt that a miracle had taken place; it was all so strange, so incomprehensible. But he guessed at the cause of the change. The prayer he had said at the entrance to the church had been heard, and this was the answer. Yes, it really was a miracle! He had not heard all the stories that were spread abroad about the red umbrella, and he only smiled at those that had come to his ears. It is true he did not understand himself how the umbrella came to be where he had found it; he was surprised at first, but had not thought any more about it, and had hung it on a nail in his room, so that if the owner asked for it he could have it at once, though it was not really worth sixpence.

But the day's events were not yet done. Toward evening the news spread that the wife of the miller, the village nabob, had been drowned in the Bjela Voda, which was very swollen from the amount of rain that had fallen. The unfortunate woman had crossed the stepping-stones in order to bring back her geese, which had strayed to the other side. She had brought back two of them, one under each arm, but as she was re-crossing to fetch the third, her foot slipped, and she fell into the stream. In the morning there had been so little water there, that a goat could have drank it all in half a minute, and by midday it was swollen to such an extent that the poor woman was drowned in it. They looked for her the whole afternoon in the cellar, in the loft, everywhere they could think of, until in the evening her body was taken out of the water near Lehota. There some people recognized her, and a man was sent over on horseback to tell Mihály Gongoly of the accident. All this caused great excitement in the village, and the people stood about in groups, talking of the event.

"Yes, God takes the rich ones too," they said.

György Klincsok came running in to the priest.

"There will be a grand funeral the day after to-morrow," he exclaimed.

The sacristan appeared at the schoolmaster's in the hope of a glass of brandy to celebrate the event.

"Collect your thoughts," he exclaimed, "there will be a grand funeral, and they will expect some grand verses."

Two days later the funeral took place, and it was a long time since anything so splendid had been seen in Glogova. Mr. Gongoly had sent for the priest from Lehota too, for, as he said, why should not his wife have two priests to read the burial service over her. He sent all the way to Besztercebánya for the coffin, and they took the wooden cross that was to be put at the head of the grave to Kopanyik to have it painted black, with the name and the date of her death in white letters.

There were crowds of people at the funeral in spite of the bad weather, and just as the priest was starting in full canonicals, with all the little choir-boys in their clean surplices, it began to pour again; so Father János turned to Kvapka, the sacristan, and said:

"Run back as fast as you can and fetch the umbrella out of my room."

Kvapka turned and stared; how was he to know what an umbrella was?

"Well," said Father János, "if you like it better, fetch the large, round piece of red linen I found two days ago spread over my little sister."

"Ah, now I understand!"

The priest took shelter in a cottage until the fleet-footed Kvapka returned with the umbrella, which his reverence, to the great admiration of the crowd, with one sweeping movement of his hand spread out in such a fashion that it looked like a series of bats' wings fastened together. Then, taking hold of the handle, he raised it so as to cover his head, and walked on with stately step, without getting wet a bit; for the drops fell angrily on the strange tent spread over him, and, not being able to touch his reverence, fell splashing on to the ground. The umbrella was the great attraction for all the peasants at the funeral, and they exchanged many whispered remarks about the (to them) strange thing.

"That's what St. Peter brought," they said.

Only the beautiful verses the schoolmaster had composed for the occasion distracted their attention for a while, and sobs broke forth as the various relations heard their names mentioned in the lines in which the dead woman was supposed to be taking leave of them:

"Good-by, good-by, my dearest friends; Pál Lajkó my brother, György Klincsok my cousin," etc.

The whole of Pál Lajkó's household began to weep bitterly, and Mrs. Klincsok exclaimed rapturously:

"How on earth does he manage to compose such beautiful lines!"

Which exclamation inspired the schoolmaster with fresh courage, and, raising his voice, he continued haranguing the assembled friends in the dead woman's name, not forgetting a single one, and there was not a dry eye among them.

For some time after they had buried Mrs. Gongoly the grand doings at the funeral were still the talk of the place, and even at the funeral the old women had picked out pretty Anna Tyurek as the successor of Mrs. Gongoly, and felt sure it would not be long before her noted "mentyék" had an owner. (Every well-to-do Slovak peasant buys a long cloak of sheepskin for his wife; it is embroidered outside in bright colors, and inside is the long silky hair of the Hungarian sheep. It is only worn on Sundays and holidays, and is passed on from one generation to another.)

The mourners had hardly recovered from the large quantities of brandy they had imbibed in order to drown their sorrow, when they had to dig a new grave; for János Srankó had followed Mrs. Gongoly. In olden times they had been good friends, before Mrs. Gongoly was engaged; and now it seemed as though they had arranged their departure from this world to take place at the same time.

They found Srankó dead in his bed, the morning after the funeral; he had died of an apoplectic fit. Srankó was a well-to-do man, in fact a "mágná." (The fifteen richest peasants in a Slovak village are called "mágnás" or "magnates.") He had three hundred sheep grazing in his meadows and several acres of ploughed land, so he ought to have a grand funeral too. And Mrs. Srankó was not idle, for she went herself to the schoolmaster, and then to the priest, and said she wished everything to be as it had been at Mrs. Gongoly's funeral. Let it cost what it might, but the Srankós were not less than the Gongolys. She wished two priests to read the funeral service, and four choir-boys to attend in their best black cassocks, the bell was to toll all the time, and so on, and so on. Father János nodded his head.

"Very well, all shall be as you wish," he said, and then proceeded to reckon out what it would cost.

"That's all right," said Mrs. Srankó, "but please, your reverence, put the red thing in too, and let us see how much more it will cost."

"What red thing?"

"Why, what you held over your head at Mrs. Gongoly's funeral. Oh, it was lovely!"

The young priest could not help smiling.

"But that is impossible," he said.

Mrs. Srankó jumped up, and planted herself before him, with her arms crossed.

"And why is it impossible I should like to know? My money is as good as the Gongolys', isn't it?"

"But, my dear Mrs. Srankó, it was raining then, and to-morrow we shall in all probability have splendid weather."

But it was no use arguing with the good woman, for she spoke the dialect of the country better than Father János did.

"Raining, was it?" she exclaimed. "Well, all the more reason you should bring it with you to-morrow, your honor; at all events it won't get wet. And, after all, my poor dear husband was worthy of it; he was no worse than Mrs. Gongoly. Every one honored him, and he did a lot for the Church; why, it was he who five years ago sent for those lovely colored candles we have on the altar; they came all the way from Besztercebánya. And the white altar-cloth my husband's sister embroidered. So you see we have a right to the red thing."

"But I can't make myself ridiculous by burying some one with an umbrella held over me when the sun is shining. You must give up the idea, Mrs. Srankó."

Thereupon Mrs. Srankó burst into tears. What had she done to be put to such shame, and to be refused the right to give her husband all the honors due to the dead, and which were a comfort to the living too? What would the villagers say of her? They would say, "Mrs. Srankó did not even give her husband a decent funeral, they only threw him into the grave like a beggar."

"Please do it, your reverence," she begged tearfully, and kept on wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, until one of the corners which had been tied in a knot came unfastened, and out fell a ten-florin note. Mrs. Srankó picked it up, and put it carefully on the table.

"I'll give this over and above the other sum," she said, "only let us have all the pomp possible, your honor."

At this moment Widow Adamecz rushed in from the kitchen, flourishing an immense wooden spoon in the air.

"Yes, your reverence, Srankó was a good, pious man; not all the gossip you hear about him is true. And even if it were, it would touch Mrs. Gongoly as much as him, may God rest her soul. If the holy umbrella was used at her funeral, it can be used at his too. If God is angry at its having been used for her, He will only be a little more angry at its being used for him; and if He was not angry then, He won't be angry now either."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Widow Adamecz, talking such nonsense. Don't bother me any more with your superstitions. The whole thing is simply ridiculous."

But the two women were not to be put off.

"We know what we know," they said, nodding their heads sagely, "your honor can't deceive us."

And they worried him to such an extent that he was obliged at last to give way, and agreed to bring the red umbrella to János Srankó's funeral, but he added as an afterthought, "That is, of course, if the owner does not come for it before then. For it is certain that some one left it here, and if they come for it, I shall be obliged to give it them."

"Well," said Widow Adamecz, "as far as that goes we can sleep in peace, for the one who brought it only walks on our planet once in a thousand years."

Nobody appeared to claim the umbrella, and so the next day, though it was a lovely afternoon, and not a cloud was to be seen on the horizon, the young priest opened his umbrella, and followed the coffin to the grave.

Four strong men carried the bier on which the coffin was placed, and as chance willed it, when they passed the smithy, one of the bearers stumbled and fell, which so startled the one walking behind him, that he lost his presence of mind, the bier lurched to one side, and the coffin fell to the ground.

It cracked, then the fastenings gave way, and it broke to pieces; first the embroidered shirt was visible, and then the supposed dead man himself, who awoke from the trance he had been in, moved slightly, and whispered:

"Where am I?"

Of course every one was as surprised as they could be, and there was plenty of running backward and forward to the smithy for blankets, shawls, and pillows, of which they made a bed in a cart that was outside waiting to be repaired. Into this they put the man on whom such a miracle had been worked, and the funeral procession returned as a triumphant one to Srankó's house. He had so far recovered on the way home as to ask for something to eat immediately on his arrival.

They brought him a jug of milk, at which he shook his head. Lajkó offered him a flask of brandy he had taken with him to cheer his drooping spirits. He smiled and accepted it.

This ridiculous incident was the beginning of the umbrella legend, which spread and spread beyond the village, beyond the mountains, increasing in detail as it went. If a mark or impression were found on a rock it was said to be the print of St. Peter's foot. If a flower of particularly lovely color were found growing on the meadow, St. Peter's stick had touched the spot. Everything went to prove that St. Peter had been in Glogova lately. After all it was no common case.

The only real mystery in the whole affair was how the umbrella had come to be spread over little Veronica's basket; but that was enough to make the umbrella noted. And its fame spread far and wide, as far as the Bjela Voda flows; the Slovak peasants told the tale sitting round the fire, with various additions, according to the liveliness of their imagination. They imagined St. Peter opening the gates of Heaven, and coming out with the umbrella in his hand, in order to bring it down to the priest's little sister. The only question they could not settle was how St. Peter had got down to the earth. But they thought he must have stood on a cloud which let him gently down, and set him on the top of one of the neighboring hills.

Then they discussed the power the umbrella possessed of raising the dead to life, and so the legend was spread abroad. And whenever a rich peasant died, even in the villages miles off, Father János was sent for, with the red umbrella, to read the burial services. He was also sent for to sick persons who wished the umbrella spread over them while they confessed their sins. It must have a good effect, and either the sick person would recover, or if he did not do that he was at least sanctified.

If a newly married couple wished to do things very grandly (and they generally do), they were not only married at home by their own priest, but they made a pilgrimage to Glogova in order to join hands once more under the sacred umbrella. And that, to them, was the real ceremony. The bell-ringer held it over their heads, and in return many a piece of silver found its way into his pocket. And as for the priest, money and presents simply poured in upon him. At first he fought against all this superstition, but after a while even he began to believe that the red umbrella, which day by day got more faded and shabby, was something out of the common. Had it not appeared on the scene as though in answer to his prayer, and was it not the source of all his good fortune?

"Oh, Lord!" he had prayed, "unless Thou workest a miracle, how am I to bring up the child?"

And lo and behold, the miracle had been worked! Money, food, all the necessaries of life flowed from that ragged old umbrella. Its fame spread to higher circles too. The Bishop of Besztercebánya heard of it and sent for Father János and the umbrella; and after having examined it and heard the whole story, he crossed his hands on his breast and exclaimed: "Deus est omnipotens." Which was equivalent to saying he believed in it.

A few weeks later he went still further, and sent orders for the umbrella to be kept in the church, instead of in the priest's room. Upon which Father János answered that in reality the umbrella belonged to his little sister, who was still a minor, so that he had no right to it, nor to give it away. But he was sure, as soon as Veronica was of age, she would make a present of it to the church. But the umbrella not only brought good fortune to the priest, who soon started a small farm, and in a few years built himself a new house, and kept a horse and trap, but it made a great difference in Glogova too. Every summer numbers of ladies came from the small watering-places round about, very often countesses too (mostly old countesses), in order to say a prayer under the umbrella, and for these an inn was built opposite the priest's house, called the "Miraculous Umbrella." In fact, Glogova increased in size and importance from day to day.

In time the villagers began to feel ashamed of the simple wooden belfry, and had a tower built to the church, and hung two bells in it from Besztercebánya. János Srankó had a splendid statue of the Holy Family erected in front of the church, to commemorate his resurrection from the dead. The governess (for a time Father János had a governess for little Veronica) filled the priest's garden with dahlias, fuchsias, and other flowers which the inhabitants of Glogova had never yet seen.

Everything improved and was beautified (except Widow Adamecz, who got uglier day by day), and the villagers even went so far as to discuss on Sunday afternoons the advisability of building a chapel upon the mountain St. Peter had been seen on, in order to make it a place of pilgrimage and attract even more visitors.