Andor

“ Then, as Béla somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly:
"Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" ”

“ You have no feeling about promises, you have no parents who might curse you if you break them. Break your promise to Elsa now, Béla, and you will be doing the finest [Pg 241] action of your life. Break your promise to her, man, and let her come to me."
Béla was still staring at Andor as if indeed he thought the other mad, but now an evil leer gradually spread over his face and his one eye closed until it looked like a mere slit through which he now darted on Andor a look of triumph and of hate. ”

“ But that it was His way for your future happiness, of that I am convinced."
"There could have been no harm this time, Pater, in Andor and I being happy in our way. There could be no wrong in two people caring for one another, and wanting to live their lives together."
"Ah! that we shall never know, my child. The book of the 'might-have-been' is a closed one for us. Only God has the power to turn over its pages."
"Andor and I would have been so happy!" she reiterated, with the obstinacy of a vain regret; "and life would have been an earthly paradise." ”

“ He had always been reputed to be a miser, and those who were in the know now averred that Andor had found several thousand florins tucked away in old bits of sacking and hidden under his uncle's straw paillasse. Pali bácsi was also possessed of considerable property—some land, a farm and the mill; there was no doubt now that Andor would be a very rich man one of these days.
[Pg 283] Mothers with marriageable daughters sighed nevertheless in vain. Andor was not for any of them. Andor had eyes only for Elsa. ”

“ Andor was his only brother's only child, and I suppose Pali bácsi [3] was suddenly struck with the idea that he really had no one to leave his hoardings to. He was always a fool and a lout. If Andor had lived it would have been all right. I think Pali bácsi was quite ready to do something really handsome for him. Now that Andor is dead he has no one; and when he dies his money all goes to the government. It is a pity," he added, with a shrug of the shoulders. "If a peasant of Marosfalva had it it would do good to the commune." ”

“ And in defining Andor the same lexicographer says: "A portable vehicle in India, in those regions where they do not use beasts, as in Malabar and elsewhere. It is a kind of contrivance like an uncovered Andas, which men bear on their shoulders, &c.... Among us Andor is a machine with four arms in which images or reliques of the saints are borne in processions." This last term is not, as we had imagined an old Port. word. It is Indian, in fact Sanskrit, hindola, 'a swing, a swinging cradle or hammock,' whence also Mahr. ”

“ When the little procession was once more ready to return to the village, the bearers of the dais were relieved by four other lads, and Andor found the means, during the slight hubbub which occurred while the procession was being formed, of working his way close to Elsa's side.
It was not an unusual thing for young men and girls who had much to say to one another to fall away from the procession on its way home, and to wander back arm in arm through the maize-fields or over the stubble, even as their shadows lengthened out upon the ground. ”

“ Was any moment in life too late to snatch at fleeing happiness? Why shouldn't she run away to-night—now?—find that unknown country, that unknown spot where Andor was? Surely God would give her strength! God could not be so unjust and so cruel as men and Fate had been!
Pater Bonifácius, turning from the street round the angle of the cottage, found her in this mood, squatting on the low stool, her elbows on her knees, her face buried in her hands. ”

“ Well! at any rate while he is a soldier they will teach him that he is no better than other lads that come from the same village, and not even as good, seeing that he has never any money in his wallet."
"Andor will be rich some day," suggested the kindly old soul who had first spoken, "don't you forget it, Irma néni."
"I have no special wish to remember it, my good Kati," retorted Irma dryly.
"I thought," murmured the other, "seeing that Andor has really courted Elsa this summer that . . . perhaps . . ." ”

“ There goes the horn!
"Elsa, my love, one more kiss," cries Andor, as he presses her closely, ever more closely to his heart. "God bless you, my rose! You will wait for me?"
[Pg 41] The engine gives a shrill whistle. All the men now—realizing the danger—drag their women-folk away from the slowly-revolving wheels. The gipsy musicians strike up the first spirited bars of the Rákóczy March, as with much puffing and ponderous creakings and groanings the heavily-laden train with its human freight steams away from the little station. ”

“ He has changed his mind. He is not going to Fiume. He was watching me all the afternoon like a regular spy. People had told him that at the banquet to-day Erös Béla had been very attentive, so one of his jealous fits was on him."
"Not without cause, I imagine," said Andor, with a sarcastic laugh.
"Of course you would stick up for him," she retorted; "men always band themselves together against an unfortunate girl. But Leo has behaved like a brute. He watched me while my lord was talking to me, and caught snatches of our conversation. ”

“ For Lakatos Pál was a miser and hoarded his money—moreover, he was a confirmed bachelor and woman-hater; he would do nothing for Andor if the young man chose to marry.
Ah, well! it was a pity! for a better-looking, better-matched pair could not be found in the whole county of Arad.
"Lucky for you, Béla, that Andor goes off to-day for three years," said a tall, handsome girl to her neighbour; "you would not have had much chance with Elsa otherwise." ”

“ True! his silence had told her something that was a bitter truth; his passionate rage against Klara had been like a cruel stab right into her heart—but even then she wanted the confirmation which could only come from his own lips—and for this she waited when she asked him, quite simply, altogether trustingly:
"It is not true, is it?"
Nor did it occur to Andor to lie to her about it all; the thought of denial never for one moment entered his head. The fatalism peculiar to this Oriental race made the man scorn to shield himself behind a lie. Béla was now for ever silent ”

“ Elsa and Andor had both remained quite still after Klara left them; yet Elsa—like all simple creatures who feel acutely—was longing to run and let the far horizon, the distant unknown land, wrap and enfold her while she thought things out for herself, for indeed this real world—the world of men and women, of passions and hatred and love—was nothing but a huge and cruel puzzle. ”

“ But already Andor was upon him, had seized him by collar and wrist. He was as livid as the other man was crimson, but his eyes glowed with a fury at least as passionate.
"And I tell you," he said, speaking almost in a whisper, very slowly and very calmly, but with such compelling power of determination that Béla, taken unawares, half-choked with the grip on his throat, and in agonized pain with the rough turn on his wrist, was forced to cower before him, "I tell you that if you dare touch her . . . ”

“ And Andor, who had paused for that brief moment in his voluble talk, went rambling on.
[Pg 279] "You know," he said, "that it's perfectly wonderful . . . this room, I mean . . . when I look round me I can hardly credit my eyes. . . . Just a week ago . . . you remember? . . . I sat just there . . . at the opposite corner of the table, and you had your low chair against the wall just here . . . and . . . and you told me that you were tokened to Erös Béla and that your wedding would be on the morrow . . . well! That was little more than a week ago . . . before your farewell feast . . . ”

“ Béla, whose blood was hot in him, what with the wine which he had drunk and the jealous temper which was raging in his brain, was nevertheless sober enough not to meet the languorous glances which the handsome Jewess bestowed so freely upon him.
"We are still friends—are we not, Béla?" she reiterated slowly.
"Of course—why not?" he grunted, "what has our friendship to do with Andor and Elsa?"
"Only this: that I don't like to see a friend of mine make a fool of himself over a girl who does not care one hairpin for him." ”

“ You are the one woman in the world for me, and I will thank the good God on my knees every day of my life for the priceless blessing of your love."
After that they walked back hand in hand. They had wandered far, and in a quarter of an hour the train would be starting. It meant a week in prison in Arad for any recruit to miss the train, and Andor did mean to be brave and straight, and to avoid prison during the three years. ”

“ Even now he was looking on at the dancing with a heavy scowl upon his face. The girl near him—she with the dark, Oriental eyes and the thin, hooked nose, Klara Goldstein the Jewess—gave him a nudge with her brown, pointed elbow.
"I wouldn't let Andor see the temper you are in, my friend," she said, with a sarcastic little laugh; "we don't [Pg 26] want any broken bones before the train goes off this morning."
"There will be broken bones if he does not look out," muttered the other between his teeth, as he drew a tightly clenched fist from his pocket. ”

“ The person in the andor may either sit or lie as he pleases; and certain servants carry umbrellas, which they call bueys , to shelter the person in the andor from the sun and rain. There are other andors which have a curved cane over them like a bow, and are so light that they can be carried by two men.
The general being mounted in one andor and the kutwal in another, they set out for a town called Capocate [59] , all the rest being on foot ”

“ Andor ́ra, or Andorre ́, a small nominally independent State in the Pyrenees, south of the French department of Ariége, with an area of about 191 sq. miles. It has been a separate State for six hundred years, is governed by its own civil and criminal codes, and has its own courts of justice, the laws being administered by two judges, one of whom is chosen by France, the other by the Bishop of Urgel, in Spain. The little State pays an annual due of 960 francs to France, and 460 pesetas to the Bishop of Urgel. The chief industry is the rearing of sheep and cattle. ”

“ And these two were alone with the sunset and with the stubble—alone in this vastness which is so like the sea—alone—two tiny, moving black specks with a background of radiance and a golden haze to envelop them. In this immensity it seemed so much more easy to speak of love—for love could fill the plain and find room for its own immensity in this vastness which knows no trammels. To Andor and Elsa it seemed as if at last the plain had revealed its secret to them, had lifted for them that veil of mystery which wraps her up all round where earth and sky meet in the golden distance beyond. ”

“ In this land where tempers run high, and blood courses hotly through the veins, a quarrel swiftly begun like this more often than not ends in tragedy. On Andor's face, in his menacing eyes, was writ the determination to kill if need be; in that of Béla there was the vicious snarl of an infuriated dog. Klara Goldstein was far too shrewd and prudent to allow her name to be mixed up in this kind of quarrel. Her reputation in the village was not an altogether unblemished one ”

“ It's no use going on having rows by post with the War Office about the proofs of a man's death who has been food for worms these past two years."
"Well! you know, Béla, people here are not satisfied about those proofs. I, for one, never held with those who would not believe in Andor's death; there are plenty of folk in the village—and Pater Bonifácius is one of them—who swear that he will come home one of these days—perhaps when Pali bácsi is dead. And then he would find himself the richest man in the Commune," she added, not without a point of malice, "richer even than you, my good Béla." ”

“ Such skin-clad ski were, and are still, employed by the Lapps, as well as by others in Scandinavia, Finland, and throughout Siberia; but several other types have, nevertheless, been used in Lapland for centuries. In Scandinavia and the North, these skin-covered appliances go by the name of “aandre,” “ondurr,” “andor,” to distinguish them from the plain ski. As, however, the advantages of the skin are not now generally considered sufficient to counterbalance the disadvantages, they are gradually disappearing. ”

“ Andras’s father, Prince Sandor, educated by a French tutor who had been driven from Paris by the Revolution, was the first of all his family to form any perception of a civilization based upon justice and law, and not upon the almighty power of the sabre. ”

“ Andras knew what a powerful superstition is attached by the people of Hungary to these deep lakes of Tatra, the “eyes of the sea,” where, say the old legends, the most beautiful carbuncle in the world lies hidden, a carbuncle which would sparkle like the sun, if it could be discovered, and which is guarded by frogs with diamond eyes and with lumps of pure gold for feet. He felt more touched than astonished at the superstition of the Tzigana, and at the offer which, the evening before, Prince Sandor had refused with a smile. ”