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PETER GYURICZA'S CONSORT

After the March days, I quitted the Petöfis and went into another lodging. I had got on so well that I could maintain a bachelor's establishment, consisting of two rooms, which I furnished myself. Properly speaking, it only became a bachelor's establishment when I entered, for before I took it it was occupied by a little old woman who kept a registry office for providing respectable families with servants. Every one knew "Mámi," as she was called.... I was very well satisfied with my lodging, which quite answered all my requirements. It had this one drawback, however, that a whole mob of cooks, parlour-maids, and nursery-maids were constantly opening my door under the persuasion that I could provide them with places, and they disturbed my work terribly. Besides, this constant flow of petticoats towards my door was sufficient of itself to bring a young man into disrepute. From the apartments at the opposite end of the corridor it was possible to catch a glimpse of my door, and it was just in these very apartments that Rosa Laborfalvy lived. I was afraid that some one might think ill of me.

It was no longer the Weltschmerz, but a Privatschmerz,32 that afflicted me.

[32] Privát fájdalmas—private anxiety.

Again I had applied myself to portrait-painting. A tall, slender girl in a white atlas dress, with large black eyes, and coal-black ringlets à l'Anglaise rolling down to her shoulders, was standing on my easel; I was just giving it the finishing-touch, I had no need for the original to be my model. I have the portrait to this day.

All at once there came a knocking at my door "Come in!" The door opened, and in came a stylish young peasant girl. I thought as much; here we have another nursery-maid in search of a place.

"No, no; go away! The registry-office lady does not live here!" said I viciously, for I was busy with my portrait; and perceiving that the intruder did not retire even now, I bawled out, not over gently: "In Heaven's name, be off, my dear!"

At this the peasant girl began to laugh. Had I not heard that laughing voice somewhere before? I turned round and looked at her, and the more I looked, the more astonished I felt. It was Bessy!

She wore a bright red gown trimmed with yellowish-green flowers, over that a dark blue, double-bordered damask apron, and a black silk bodice with puff sleeves. Above the bodice was a bib with beautifully embroidered palm flowers; on her head sat a cockscomb like Haube, frilled with starched thread-lace; on her arm she carried a covered basket by the handle.

Her face was ruddy and bronzed from exposure to the sun, and a sort of waggish little imp was nestling provocatively in her smiling features. I couldn't believe my own eyes.

"What! don't you know me?" she cried, with a merry laugh. "I'm Bessy!"

I saw that, but for the life of me I could not conceive what her object was in coming masquerading like this through the streets of Buda in broad daylight. And to hit upon my lodgings of all places in the world!

"Madame de Bagotay?" I stammered in my confusion.

"Oh, I am no longer Madame Bagotay, but Madame Peter Gyuricza!"

"What on earth do you mean? Mrs. Gyuricza! The wife of a herdsman?"

My amazement was so genuine that Bessy clapped her hands together with glee.

"Then you actually don't know about it? They haven't written to you from home?"

"It is a long time since I received a letter from home."

"But this was a scandal which set seven counties in an uproar; there has been nothing like it since the French Revolution—and you call yourself the editor of a newspaper!"

"My paper does not meddle with purely family matters."

Bessy's face was flushed, and she began smoothing it with the palms of both hands; she thought, perhaps, that she would brush the tell-tale blush away.

"I have heated myself a little on that steep staircase of yours," she said.

She blamed the staircase for that flaming face of hers.

It then occurred to me that it would only be polite to ask my fair visitor to take a seat. I offered her the sofa.

"Oh, dear, no! That's only for ladies! This will do quite well enough for me." And with that she sat down on my trunk, and put down her basket beside it. "I really am quite tired. I have travelled by the corn-boat as far as Vácz,33 and thence I have walked all the way to Pest."