occo, and what the arm of the husband
failed to procure was given to the charms of the wife. I can place
myself in the position of this woman, who, alone and deserted in the
Mangave wood, sat through the livelong night with the head of the
wounded traveller on her lap and a loaded pistol beside her. To heal
his wounds she ventured into the woods and found herbs; for his food
she contrived to cook in the desert. She did this for the only man she
loved, whose only love she is and has ever been. Her name is known and
revered in every place where Europeans have penetrated."

Again they had to join the circle of dancers, and when they returned
to their place Angela resumed the conversation:

"What I said just now was sheer nonsense; the whole thing was the
outcome of despicable vanity. A miserable idea to travel through
countries where a woman is hardly to be distinguished from a beast,
and that because she walks upright; where the ideal of beauty is to
have the upper lip bored into a big hole, so that when laughing the
nose is visible--ridiculous! And then to be proud because she was the
most beautiful woman, and her husband perforce was faithful to her. A
great thing, indeed, to be the queen of beauty amid monsters of
ugliness! No, no; I know of something better, far bolder. A woman,
Fraulein Christian, has accomplished a journey alone on horseback all
across the steppes of Asia. What if a man and a woman had the courage
to penetrate through the Polenia Canal to the warm seas discovered by
Kane? or if a man and a woman had the courage to cast anchor in the
regions of the north pole, and to the inhabitants of that magnetic
kingdom boldly say, 'Compare yourselves with us; we are handsomer,
stronger, more faithful, happier than you are'? That would be a
triumph; and such a journey I would willingly undertake."

As she said these words, Angela's eyes gleamed upon Ivan with the
splendor of the aurora borealis. Ivan decided within himself upon a
sudden experiment.

"Countess, if you have the passion or desire to visit strange worlds,
and to excite the benighted inhabitants to a proper emulation for
something better, truer, more intellectual than that they have
hitherto known, if this is really your laudable wish, I can recommend
to your notice a country equally in need of such enlightenment, and
infinitely nearer to you."

"What is it?"

"It is Hungary."

"But are we not in Hungary already?"

"Countess, you are in it,