Timar's Two Worlds. Mór Jókai

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      "When I touched this piece of ground, a wonderful feeling took possession of me: it was as if I had forgotten what had happened to me out in the world. I was surrounded by a pleasant silence and rest, which softened my heart.

      "After I had explored pasture, grove, and meadow, I knew what I should do here. In the field bees were humming, in the woods hazel-nuts were hanging, and on the surface of the river floated water-chestnuts. Crabs basked on the shore, edible snails crept up the trees, and in the marshy thickets manna was ripening. Kind Providence, Thou hast spread a table before me! The grove was full of wild fruit—seedlings; the blackbirds had brought seeds from the neighboring island, and already the wild apples grew rosy on the trees, and the raspberry bushes bore a few belated berries.

      "Yes, I knew what I would do on the island. I alone would make of it a Garden of Eden. The work to be done here could be managed by a single person, one woman, and then we should live here like the first man in Paradise.

      "I had found the rock with its natural grottoes, in the largest of which a layer of hay was spread, which must have served as a bed to my poor husband. I had a widow's right to it; it was my legacy. I hushed my child to sleep there, made it a couch in the hay, and covered it with my large shawl. Then I told Almira to stay there and watch over Noémi till I came back, and rowed across to the large island again. On the veranda of my old summer-house there was an awning spread out, which I took down; it would serve as a tent or roof, and perhaps later on be used for winter clothing. I packed in it what food and vegetables I could see, and made a bundle as large as I could carry on my back. I had come to the house in a four-horse wagon richly laden; with a bundle on my back I left it; and yet I had been neither wicked nor a spendthrift. But what if even that bundle were stolen goods? It is true that the contents were my own; but that I should carry them off, was it not theft? I hardly knew: notions of right and wrong, the legal or the illegal, were confused in my head. I fled with the bundle like a thief out of my own home. On my way through the garden I took a cutting of each of my beautiful fruit-trees, and shoots from the figs and bushes, picked up some seeds from the ground and put them in my apron; then I kissed the drooping branches of the weeping willow under which I had so often dozed and dreamed. Those happy dreams were gone forever. I never went back there. The boat took me safely along the Danube.

      "While I rowed back two things fretted me. One was that there were noxious inhabitants on the island—snakes; probably some in that grotto: the thought filled me with horror and alarm for Noémi. The other anxiety was this. I can live for years on wild honey, water-nuts, and manna fruit; my child lives on her mother's breast; but how shall I feed Almira? The faithful creature can not live on what nourishes me; and yet I must keep her, for without Almira as a protector I should die of fright in this solitude. When I had dragged my bundle to the grotto, I saw before me the still quivering tail of a large snake, and not far off lay its head, bitten off; Almira had eaten what lay between the head and tail. The clever beast lay before the child, wagging her tail and licking her lips, as if to say, I have made a good meal. Thenceforward she made war on snakes; they were her daily food. In the winter she scratched them out of their holes. My friend—for so I grew to call the dog—had found her own livelihood, and freed me from the objects of my dread.

      "Oh, sir, it was an indescribable feeling, our first night alone here—no one near but my God, my child, and my dog. I can not call it painful—it was almost bliss. I spread the linen awning over us all three, and we were only awoke by the twitter of the birds. Now began my work—savages' work, for before sunrise I must collect manna, called by Hungarians 'Dew-millet.' Poor women go out into the swamp, where this bush with its sweet seeds luxuriates; they hold up their dress in both hands, shake the bush, and the ripe seeds fall into their lap. That is the bread from heaven for those whom no one feeds. Sir, I lived two whole years on that bread, and thanked daily on my knees Him who cares for the birds of the air. Wild fruit, honey, nuts, crabs, wild fowls' eggs, water-chestnuts preserved for winter use, land snails, dried mushrooms, formed my food. Praised be the Lord who so richly provides the table of His poor! And during the whole time I labored for the object I had set before me. I grafted the wild stocks with the cuttings I had brought, and planted in the cultivated soil fruit-trees, vines, and walnut-seeds. On the south side I sowed cotton-plant and silky swallow-wort, whose products I wove on a loom made of willow-wood, and made clothes for us. From rushes and reeds I made hives, in which I housed swarms of wild bees, and even in the first year I could begin a trade in wax and honey. Millers and smugglers often came here; they helped me with the hard labor, and never did me any harm. They paid me for provisions by their work; they knew already that I never took money. When the fruit-trees began to bear, then I lived in luxury, for in this alluvial soil all trees flourish, to that it is a pleasure to see them. I have pears which ripen their fruit twice in a year; all the young ones make fresh shoots at St. John's day, and the others bear every year. I have learned their secrets, and know that in the hands of a good gardener there should be no failure nor over-crop. Animals understand the language of man, and I believe that trees too have ears and eyes for those who tend them kindly and listen to their private wishes; and they are proud to give them pleasure in return. Oh, trees are very sensible! a soul dwells in them. I consider that man a murderer who cuts down a noble tree.

      "These are my friends. I love them, and live in and by them. What they yield me year by year is fetched away by the people of the villages and mills round, who give me in exchange what I need for my housekeeping. I have no use for money, I have a horror of it—the accursed money, which drove me out of the world and my husband out of life: I don't want ever to see it again.

      "But I am not so foolish as to be unprepared for some years of failure, which make vain the work of man. There might be late frosts or hail-storms, which would destroy the blessings of the season; but I am prepared for such bad times. In the cellar of my rock and in its airy crevices I store away whatever durable wares I possess—wine in casks, honey in pots, wool and cotton in bales, in sufficient quantity to keep us from want for two years. You see I have some savings, though not in money; I may call myself rich, and yet for twelve years not a single coin has passed through my hands. For I have lived on this island twelve years, sir, with the other two, for I count Almira as a person. Noémi declares we are four; she counts Narcissa, too—silly child!

      "Many people know of our existence, but treachery is unknown here. The artificial barrier which exists between the frontiers of the two countries has made the people about here very reserved. No one meddles in a stranger's affairs, and every one instinctively keeps secret what he knows. No intelligence from here ever reaches Vienna, Ofen, or Stamboul. And why should they inform against me? I am in nobody's way, and do no harm; I grow fruit on my bit of desert land, which has no master. God the Lord and the royal Danube gave it to me, and I thank them for it daily. I thank Thee, my God! I thank Thee, my King!

      "I hardly know if I have any religion; it is twelve years since I saw a priest or a church. Noémi knows nothing about it. I have taught her to read and write: I tell her of God, and Jesus, and Moses, as I knew them. Of the good, all-merciful, omnipresent God—of Jesus, sublime in His sufferings, and divine in His humanity—and of Moses, that leader of a people to liberty, who preferred to wander hungry and thirsty in the wilderness rather than exchange freedom for the flesh-pots of slavery—Moses who preached goodness and brotherly love—of these as I picture them to myself. But of the relentless God of vengeance, the God of the chosen people—a God calling for sacrifices, and dwelling in temples—of that privileged Christ asking for blind faith, laying heavy burdens on our shoulders, followed by a crowd of worshipers—and of the avaricious, revengeful, selfish Moses of whom books and preachers tell—of these she knows nothing.

      "Now you know who we are, and what we are doing here, you shall learn with what we are threatened by this man.

      "He is the son of the man for whom my husband stood surety, who drove him to suicide, on whose account we have fled from human society into the desert. He was a boy of thirteen when we lost our all, and the blow fell on him also, for his father СКАЧАТЬ