Maurus Jokai - The Nameless Castle

The count promptly responded to this request. He sent the pastor fifty louis d’or. But in the letter which accompanied the gift he stipulated that the boy whose mother was in prison should not be removed from Frau Schmidt’s care to the children’s asylum.

It was quite in the order of things that the baroness should acknowledge the munificent gift by a letter of thanks.

This missive was beautifully written. The orthography was singularly faultless. The expressions were gracefully worded and artless; nothing of flattery or sentimentality—merely courteous gratefulness. The letter concluded thus:

“You will pardon me, I trust, if I add that the stipulation which you append to your generous gift surprises me; for it means either that you disapprove the principle of my undertaking, or you do not wish to transfer to another the burden you have taken upon yourself. If the latter be the reason, I am perfectly willing to agree to the stipulation; if it be the former, then I should like very much to hear your objection, in order that I may justify my action.”

This was a challenge that could not be ignored. The count, of course, would have to convince his fair neighbor that he was in perfect sympathy with the principle of her philanthropic project, and he wrote accordingly; but he added that he disapproved the prison-like system of children’s asylums, the convict-like regulations of such institutions. He thought the little ones would be better cared for, and much happier, were they placed in private homes, to grow up as useful men and women amid scenes and in the sphere of life to which they belonged.

The count’s polemic reply was not without effect. The baroness, who had her own views on the matter, was quite as ready to take the field, with as many theoretic and empiric data and recognized authorities as had been her opponent. The count one day would despatch a letter to the manor, and Baroness Katharina would send her reply the next—each determined not to remain the other’s debtor. The count’s epistles were dictated to Marie; he added only the letter V to the signature.

This battle on paper was not without practical results. The baroness paid daily visits to her “Children’s Home”; and on mild spring days the count very often saw her sitting on the open veranda, with her companion and one or two maid-servants, sewing at children’s garments until late in the evening. The count, on his part, sent every day for his little protégé, and spent several hours patiently teaching the lad, in order that he might compete favorably with the baroness’s charges. The task was by no means an easy one, as the lad possessed a very dull brain. This was, it must be confessed, an excellent thing for the orphans. If the motherly care which the baroness lavished on her charges were to be given to all destitute orphans in children’s asylums, then the “convict system” certainly was a perfect one; while, on the other hand, if a preceptor like Count Vavel took it upon himself to instruct a forsaken lad, then one might certainly expect a genius to evolve from the little dullard growing up in a peasant’s cottage.

Ultimately, however, the victory fell to the lady. It happened as follows:

One day the count was again the recipient of a letter from his neighbor at the manor (they had not yet exchanged verbal communication).

The letter ran thus:

“HERR COUNT: I dare say you know that the father of your little protégé is no other than the notorious robber, Satan Laczi, whom it is impossible to capture. The mother of the lad was arrested on suspicion. She lived in the village under her own honest family name—Satan Laczi being only a thief’s appellation. As nothing could be proved against her, the woman has been set at liberty, and has returned to the village. Here she found every door closed against her—for who would care to shelter the wife of a robber? At last the poor woman came to me, and begged me to give her work. My servants are greatly excited because I have taken her into my employ; but I am convinced that the woman is innocent and honest. Were I to cast her adrift, she might become what she has been accused of being—the accomplice of thieves. I know she will conduct herself properly with me. I tell you all this because, if you approve what I have done, you will permit the lad you have taken under your protection to come to the manor, where he would be with his mother. If, however, you condemn my action, you will refuse to grant my request, and generously continue to care for the lad in your own way. The decision I leave to you.”

Count Vavel was forced to capitulate. The baroness’s action—taking into her household the woman who had been repulsed by all the world—was so praiseworthy, so sublime, that nothing could approach it. That same day he sent the lad with Frau Schmidt to the manor, and herewith the correspondence between himself and the baroness ceased. There was no further subject for argument.

And yet, Count Vavel could not help but think of this woman. Who was she?

He had sought to learn from his foreign correspondents something concerning the Baroness Katharina, but could gain no information save that which we have already heard from the county physician: disappointed love and shame at her rejection had driven the youthful baroness to this secluded neighborhood.

This reason, however, did not altogether satisfy Count Vavel. Women, especially young women, rarely quit the pleasures of the gay world because of one single disappointment.

And for Count Vavel mistrust was a duty; for the reader must, ere this, have suspected that the count and the mysterious man of the Rue Mouffetard were identical, and that Marie was none other than the child he had rescued from her enemies. Here in this land, where order prevailed, but where there were no police, he was guarding the treasure intrusted to his care, and he would continue to guard her until relieved of the duty.

But when would the relief come?

One year after another passed, and the hour he dreamed of seemed still further away. When he had accepted the responsible mission he had said to himself: “In a year we shall gain our object, and I shall be released.”

But hope had deceived him; and as the years passed onward, he began to realize how vast, how enormous, was the task he had undertaken. It was within the possibilities that he, a young man in the flower of his youth, should be able to bury himself in an unknown corner of the world, to give up all his friends, to renounce everything that made life worth living, but that he should bury with himself in his silk-lined tomb a young girl to whom he had become everything, who yet might not even dream of becoming anything to him—that was beyond human might.

More and more he realized that his old friend’s prophetic words were approaching fulfilment: “The child will grow to be a lovely woman. Already she is fond of you; she will love you then. Then what?”

“I shall look upon myself as the inhabitant of a different planet,” he had replied; and he had kept his promise.

But the little maid had not promised anything; and if, perchance, she guessed the weighty secret of her destiny, whence could she have taken the strength of mind to battle against what threatened to drive even the strong man to madness?

Ludwig was thirty-one years old, the fourth year in this house of voluntary madmen. With extreme solicitude he saw the child grow to womanhood, blessed with all the magic charms of her sex. Gladly would he have kept her a child had it been in his power. He treated her as a child—gave her dolls and the toys of a child; but this could not go on forever. Deeply concerned, Ludwig observed that Marie’s countenance became more and more melancholy, and that now it rarely expressed childlike naïveté. A dreamy melancholy had settled upon it. And of what did she dream? Why was she so sad? Why did she start? Why did the blood rush to her cheeks when he came suddenly into her presence?