his place in the magistrate's muddy chaise,
still wearing his costume covered with decorations: they supplied him
with a rug, it is true, to cover himself with, but the heron-plumed hat
remained on his head for the public wonder.

"I truly sympathised with the poor creatures! Still it seems I have
survived that pain too.--If only it had not happened in the street!
Before the eyes of so many men! If I at least had not seen it! If only I
might give a romantic version of the catastrophe. But such a prosaic
ending! A bridegroom arrested for the forgery of documents at the church
door!--His tragedy is surely over!"

"But according to that, Melanie did not become his wife?" said Lorand.
"Melanie has not been married at all."

Topandy shook his head.

"You are an impatient audience, nephew. Still I shall not hurry the
performance. You must wait till I send a glass of absinthe down my
throat, for my stomach turns at the very thought of what I am about to
relate."

And he was not joking: he looked among the many chemicals for the bottle
bearing the label "absynthium," and drank a small glass of it. Then he
poured one out for Lorand.

"You must drink too."

"I could not drink it, uncle," said Lorand, full of other thoughts.

"But drink this glass, I tell you: until you do I shall not continue.
What I am going to say is strong poison, and this is the antidote."

So Lorand drank, that he might hear what happened.

"Well, my dear boy. You must dispense with the idea that Melanie is not
a wife: Melanie two days ago married--Sarvoelgyi!"

"Oh, that is only a jest!" exclaimed Lorand incredulously.

"Of course it is a jest: only a very mad one. Who could take such
things seriously? Sarvoelgyi was jesting when he said to Madame
Balnokhazy: 'Madame, there is a scandal--your daughter is neither a miss
nor a Mrs. She is burdened both by loss and contempt. You cannot appear
any more before the world after such a scandal. I have a good idea: we
are trying to agree now about a property; let us shake hands, and the
bargain's made, the property and the price of purchase remain in the
same hands.'--Madame Balnokhazy too was jesting when she said to her
daughter: 'My dear Melanie, we have fallen up to our necks in the mire,
we cannot be very particular about the hand that is to drag us out.
Lorand will never come back again, Gyali has deceived us; but only tit
for tat,--for we deceived him with that tale of the regained property in