Debts of Honor. Mór Jókai. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Mór Jókai
Издательство: Bookwire
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Жанр произведения: Языкознание
Год издания: 0
isbn: 4064066193447
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not be able to touch it."

      "A very wise idea."

      "One morning following a very stormy night, to the astonishment of all, the Latin inscription had disappeared from the picture, and in its place there stood: 'Soon thou wilt pass from before me, thou old hypocrite!'"

      "I can't help it, if the person in question changed his views."

      "Why, certainly you can help it. The painter who prepared that picture, upon being cross-questioned, confessed and publicly affirmed that, in consideration of a certain sum of money paid by you, he had painted the latter inscription in oils, and over it, in water-colours, the former: so that the first shower washed off the upper surface from the picture, making the honest, zealous fellow an object of ridicule and contempt in his own house. Do you believe, sir, that such practical jokes are not punished by the hand of justice?"

      "I am not in the habit of believing much."

      "Among other things, however, you are bound to believe that justice will condemn you, first to pay a fine for blackmail; secondly, to pay for the repairs your tricks have made necessary."

      "I don't see an atom of plaintiff's counsel here."

      "Because plaintiff left the amount due him to the pleasure of the Court, to be devoted to charitable purposes."

      "Good: then please break into the granaries."

      "That we shall not do," interrupted the lawyer: "later on we shall take it out of the 'regalia.'"

      Topándy laughed.

      "My dear, good magistrate. Do you believe all that is in the Bible?"

      "I am a true Christian."

      "Then I appeal to your faith. In one place it stands that some invisible hand wrote, in the room of some pagan king—Belshazzar, if the story be true—the following words,'Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.' If that hand could write then, why could it not now have written that second saying? And if it was the rain that washed away the righteous fellow's words, you must accuse the rain, for the fault lies there."

      "These are indeed very weighty counter-charges: and you might have declared them all before the Court, to which you were summoned: you might have appealed even to the septemvirate, but as you did not appear then, you must bear the consequences of your obstinacy."

      "Good; I shall pay the price," said Topándy laughing:—"But it was a good joke on my part after all, wasn't it?"

      The magistrate showed an angry countenance.

      "There will be other good jokes, too. Kindly wait until the end."

      "Is the list of crimes still longer?"

      "A severe enquiry into the sources would never find an end. The gravest charge against you is the profanation of holy places."

      "I profane some holy place? Why, for twenty years I have not been in the precincts even of a church steeple."

      "You desecrated a place used long ago for holy ceremonies by riotous revels."

      "Examples cannot help you. If the Swabian peasant keeps 'the blessing of God' in that place, from which they had once prayed for it, that is not profanity: the 'aerarium' too is pursuing an office of righteousness, in nursing bodily sufferings in the place where once mental sufferings gained comfort; but you have had disgusting pictures painted all over the walls that have come into your possession."

      "I beg your pardon, the subjects are all chosen from classical literature: illustrations to the poems of Beranger and Lafontaine—'Mon Curé,' 'Les Clefs Du Paradis,' 'Les Capulier,' 'Les Cordeliers Du Catalogue,' etc. Every subject a pious one."

      "I know: I am acquainted with the originals of them. You may cover the walls of your own rooms with them, if you please: but I have brought four stone-workers with me, who, according to the judgment of the Court, are to erase all those pictures."

      "Genuine iconoclasm!" guffawed Topándy, who found great amusement in arousing a whole county against him by his caprices. "Iconoclasts! Picture-destroyers!"

      "There is something else we are going to destroy!" continued the magistrate. "In that place there was a crypt. What has become of it?"

      "It is a crypt still."

      "What is in it?"

      "What is usually in a crypt: dead men of hallowed memory, who are lying in wooden coffins and waiting for the great awakening."

      The magistrate made a face of doubt. He did not know whether to believe or not.

      "And when you and your revelling companions hold your Bacchanalia there?"

      "I object to the word 'Bacchanalia.'"

      "The authorities must indeed be greatly embittered against me, if they see anything scandalous in the fact that a body of good-humored men undress to the skin, when they are warm. As far as the so-called low songs are concerned, they have such innocent words, they might be printed in a book, while the melodies are very pious."

      "You know we go there for a little mumony feast."

      "Yes, for a little 'Mumon,'" interrupted the lawyer.

      "That's just what I meant," said the atheist, laughing.

      "What?"