Timar's Two Worlds. Mór Jókai

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      Timar remained alone with the dead body, with a person sunk in a death-like stupor, and with a buried secret. The silent night covered them, and the shades whispered to him, "See! if you do not do what has been committed to you—if you throw the corpse into the Danube, and do not wake the slumberer, but let her sleep on quietly into the other world—what would happen then? The spy will have already given evidence in Pancsova against the fugitive Tschorbadschi; but if you anticipate him and the land at Belgrade instead, and lay information there, then, according to Turkish law, a third of the refugee's property would fall to you; otherwise it would belong to no one. The father is dead, the girl, if you do not rouse her, will never wake again; thus you would become at one stroke a rich man. Only rich people are worth anything in this world—poor devils are only fit for clerks."

      Timar answered the spirits of the night—"Well, then, I will always remain a clerk;" and, in order to silence these murmuring shadows, he closed the shutters. A secret anxiety beset him when he saw the red moon outside; it seemed as if all these bad suggestions came from it, as well as an explanation of the last words of the dying man about the Red Crescent.

      He drew back the curtain from Timéa's berth.

      The girl lay like a living statue; her bosom rose and fell with her slow breathing—the lips were half open, the eyes shut; her face wore an expression of unearthly solemnity. One hand was raised to her loosened hair, the other held the folds of her white dress together on her breast.

      Timar approached her as if she were an enchanted fairy whose touch might cause deadly heart-sickness to a poor mortal. He began to rub the temples of the sleeper with the fluid from the bottle. In doing so, he looked continually in her face, and thought to himself, "What, should I let you die, you angelic creature? If the whole ship were filled with real pearls, which would be mine after your death, I could not let you sleep away your life. There is no diamond in the world, however precious, that I should prefer to your eyes when you open them."

      The lovely face remained unchanged, in spite of the friction on brow and temples; the delicate meeting eyebrows did not contract when touched by a strange man's hand. The directions were that also over the heart the antidote must be applied. Timar was obliged to take the girl's hand, in order to draw it away from her breast: the hand made no smallest resistance; it was stiff and cold, as cold as the whole form—beautiful and icy as marble.

      The shadows whispered—"Behold this exquisite form! a lovelier has never been touched by mortal lips; no one would know if you kissed her."

      But Timar answered himself in the darkness, "No—you have never stolen anything of another's in your life. This kiss would be a theft." And then he spread the Persian quilt, which the girl had thrown off in her sleep, over her whole person up to her neck, and rubbed above the heart of the sleeper with wetted fingers, while, in order to resist temptation, he kept his eyes fixed on the maiden's face. It was to him like an altar-picture—so cold, yet so serene.

      At last the lids unclosed, and he met the gaze of her dark but dull eyes. She breathed more easily, and Timar fell her heart beat stronger under his hand; he drew it away. Then he held the bottle with the strong essence for her to smell. Timéa awoke, for she turned her head away from it, and drew her brows together. Timar called her gently by name.

      The girl started up, and with the cry "Father!" sat up on her bed, gazing out with staring eyes. The Persian quilt fell down from her lap, the night-dress slipped from her shoulders. She looked more like a Greek marble than a sentient being.

      "Timéa!" and as he spoke he drew the fine linen over her bare shoulders. She did not answer. "Timéa!" cried Timar, "your father is dead." But neither face nor form moved, nor did she notice that her night-dress had left her bosom uncovered. She seemed totally unconscious.

      Timar rushed into the other cabin, returned with a coffee-pot, and began in feverish haste, and not without burning his fingers, to heat some coffee. When it was ready, he went to Timéa, took her head on his arm and pressed it to him, opened her mouth with his fingers, and poured some coffee in. Hitherto he had only had to contend with passive resistance; but as soon as Timéa had swallowed the hot and bitter decoction of Mocha, she pushed Timar's hand with such strength that the cup fell; then she drew the quilt over her, and her teeth began to chatter.

      "Thank God! she lives; for she is in a high fever," sighed Timar, "And now for a sailor's funeral."

CHAPTER XI.

       A BURIAL AT SEA.

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      On the ocean this is managed very easily: the body is sewed up in a piece of sail-cloth, and a cannon-ball is suspended to the feet, which sinks the corpse in the sea. Corals soon grow over the grave. But on a Danube craft, to throw a dead person into the river is a great responsibility. There are shores, and on the shores villages and towns, with church bells and priests, to give the corpse his funeral-toll and his rest in consecrated ground. It won't do to pitch him into the water, without a "By your leave," just because the dead man wished it.

      But Timar knew well enough that this must be done, and it caused him no anxiety. Before the vessel had weighed anchor, he said to his pilot that there was a corpse on board—Trikaliss was dead.

      "I knew for certain," said Johann Fabula, "that there was bad luck on the way when the sturgeon ran races with the ship—that always betokens a death."

      "We must moor over there by the village," answered Timar, "and seek out the minister to bury him. We can not carry the body on in the vessel—we should be under suspicion as infected with plague."

      Herr Fabula cleared his throat violently, and said, "We can but try."

      The village of Plesscovacz, which was nearest at hand, is a wealthy settlement; it has a dean, and a fine church with two towers. The dean was a tall, handsome man, with a long curling beard, eyebrows as broad as one's finger, and a fine sonorous voice. He happened to know Timar, who had often bought grain from him, as the dean had much produce to sell.

      "Well, my son," cried the dean, as soon as he saw him in the court-yard, "you might have chosen your time better. The church harvest was bad, and I have sold my crops long ago." (And yet there was threshing going on in yard and barn.)

      "But this time it is I who bring a crop to market," Timar answered. "We have a dead man on board, and I have come to beg your reverence to go over there, and bury the corpse with the usual ceremonies."

      "Oh, but my son, that's not so easy. Did this Christian confess? Has he received the last sacraments? Are you certain that he was not a heretic? For if not, I can not consent to bury him."

      "I know nothing about it. We don't carry a father-confessor on board, and the poor soul left the world without any priestly assistance—that is the lot of sailors. But if your reverence can not grant him a consecrated grave, give me at any rate a written certificate that I may have some excuse to his friends why I was not in a position to show him the last honors; then we will bury him ourselves somewhere on the shore."

      The dean gave him a certificate of the refusal of burial; but then the peasant threshers began to make a fuss. "What! bury a corpse within our boundaries which has not been blessed? Why, then, as certain as the Amen to the Pater Noster, the hail would destroy our crops. And you need not try to bestow him on any other village. Wherever he came from, nobody wants him, for he's sure to bring a hail-storm this season before the vintage is over—the farmer's last hope; and then СКАЧАТЬ