Debts of Honor | Page 4

were to go to an examination or to
a funeral."
At these words Lorand suddenly pressed me to him, folding me in his
embrace, then knelt down before me and began to weep, and sob so that
his tears bedewed my hair.
"Lorand, what is the matter?" I asked in terror; but he could not speak
for weeping. "Don't weep, Lorand. Did I annoy you? Don't be angry."
Long did he weep, all the time holding me in his arms. Then suddenly
he heaved a deep and terrifying sigh, and in a low voice stammered in
my ear:
"Father--is--dead."
I was one of those children who could not weep; who learn that only
with manhood. At such a time when I should have wept, I only felt as if
some worm were gnawing into my heart, as if some languor had seized
me, which deprived me of all feeling expressed by the five senses--my
brother wept for me. Finally, he kissed me and begged me to recover
myself. But I was not beside myself. I saw and heard everything. I was
like a log of wood, incapable of any movement.

It was unfortunate that I was not gifted with the power of showing how
I suffered.
But my mind could not fathom the depths of that thought. Our father
was dead!
Yesterday evening he was still talking with us; embracing and kissing
us; he had promised to take us to the country, and to-day he was not: he
was dead. Quite incomprehensible! In my childhood I had often racked
my brains with the question, "What is there beyond the world?" Void.
Well, and what surrounds that void? Many times this distracting
thought drove me almost to madness. Now this same maddening
dilemma seized upon me. How could it be that my father was dead?
"Let us go to mother!" was my next thought.
"We shall go soon after her. She has already departed."
"Whither?"
"To the country."
"But, why?"
"Because she is ill."
"Then why did she laugh so in the night?"
"Because she is ill."
This was still more incomprehensible to my poor intellect.
A thought then occurred to me. My face became suddenly brighter.
"Lorand, of course you are joking; you are fooling me. You merely
wished to alarm me. We are all going away to the country to enjoy
ourselves! and you only wished to take the drowsiness from my eyes
when you told me father was dead."

At these words Lorand clasped his hands, and, with motionless,
agonized face, groaned out:
"Desi, don't torture me; don't torture me with your smiling face."
This caused me to be still more alarmed. I began to tremble, seized one
of his arms, and implored him not to be angry. Of course, I believed
what he said.
He could see that I believed, for all my limbs were trembling.
"Let us go to him, Lorand."
My brother merely gazed at me as if he were horrified at what I had
said.
"To father?"
"Yes. What if I speak to him, and he awakes?"
At this suggestion Lorand's two eyes became like fire. It seems as if he
were forcibly holding back the rush of a great flood of tears. Then
between his teeth he murmured:
"He will never awake again."
"Yet I would like to kiss him."
"His hand?"
"His hand and his face."
"You may kiss only his hand," said my brother firmly.
"Why?"
"Because I say so," was his stern reply. The unaccustomed ring of his
voice was quite alarming. I told him I would obey him; only let him
take me to father.

"Well, come along. Give me your hand."
Then taking my hand, he led me through two rooms.[2] In the third,
grandmother met us.
[Footnote 2: In Hungary the houses are built so that one room always
leads into the other; the whole house can often be traversed without the
necessity of going into a corridor or passage.]
I saw no change in her countenance; only her thick white eyebrows
were deeply contracted.
Lorand went to her and softly whispered something to her which I did
not hear; but I saw plainly that he indicated me with his eyes.
Grandmother quietly indicated her consent or refusal with her head;
then she came to me, took my head in her two hands, and looked long
into my face, moving her head gently. Then she murmured softly:
"Just the way he looked as a child."
Then she threw herself face foremost upon the floor, sobbing bitterly.
Lorand seized my hand and drew me with him into the fourth room.
There lay the coffin. It was still open; only the winding-sheet covered
the whole.
Even to-day I have no power to describe the coffin in which I saw my
father. Many