ments must consist chiefly in the noble art of pampuska[63]
cookery, with which, namely, the pampuskas, our worthy host's most
sublime ideas of mortal happiness were connected. Hitherto he had
succeeded to the utmost of his wishes, and three wives adorned with
all the requisite virtues had rendered the pampuska morsel sweet to
his lips. Moreover, he had lived in uninterrupted peace and
tranquillity, without having ever had the slightest cause for
uneasiness; on the contrary, the first impulse of every one who looked
at either of the three worthy dames had been to turn and run as long
as there was a road before him.

[Footnote 62: This family is said to have had once such abundant crops
that, in order to get rid of it, they were obliged to let all who
would carry it off.]

[Footnote 63: A sort of fritter--a Bohemian dish.]

But let no man call himself happy before his death--he may do so
afterwards if he has a mind; as the wise Racien said a fortnight after
the inundation. Vendel Hornyicsek having for the fourth time resolved
to put on the orban cap, so outwitted his good sense in his advanced
age, as to take to himself a mate who was both young and pretty, and
whose name was Vicza.

The first had been Nani, the second Lotti, the third Zsuzsi, all good,
quiet, pious names. Hey! Vendel, Vendel, why should you have stumbled
upon a Vicza! and such a Vicza too, whose eyes might have allured the
sun from the skies, and each one of whose saucy motions might have
charmed the very curd[64] into life; a Vicza who, instead of pampuska
cakes, baked such witch pogacsok,[65] that he must have been a very
Saturn who ventured to partake of them; and it must be observed, that
although every muscle of this fair Vicza was replete with vivacity and
motion, yet the most flexible part of her whole person was that small
member designated by anatomists the tongue; indeed, it required no
whalebone palate like that of the monster of the deep to emit such
effusions as would clear the whole atmosphere.

[Footnote 64: In Hungarian, the expression is more _naive_--_sleeping
milk_ being the literal translation.]

[Footnote 65: Bannocks.]

Scarcely had Mistress Vicza placed her foot in her husband's house
when it became an overturned world. Her appearance had much the same
effect as pouring vitriol into water, or putting a leech among the
foals. Every servant was obliged to be on his feet at cockcrowing, and
wo to that cheek on whose sleep th