CRAZY MARCSA.

There are as yet no institutions in our country for those unhappy beings in whose minds the "image and likeness" to their Divine original has been destroyed. Hence every town and village in Hungary has its lunatic or idiot, familiar to everybody, from the child to the old man, who often remembers him from his childhood—for such unhappy persons generally live a long time.

They are looked upon as public orphans by the people, and are allowed to wander about as their innocent inclinations may suggest; seeking wild-flowers in the lonely woods, singing through the streets, lying abroad in the sun, or roaming by moonlight; and none wish to deprive them of the blessed free air, to check their strange gibberish, or their love for the pathless woods and the mysterious moon. They are sure to find good souls, who feed them when they are hungry, and clothe them when they are in want, or give them shelter at the close of day, to continue their ceaseless pilgrimage next morning. And when the power of darkness comes, and they run through the streets, or shout up at the windows, they are merely greeted with "jo bolond" (good fool), or some such familiar expression; but none try to silence or confine them, for it is known that silence and confinement are torment to a fatuous person.

Some are born thus—perhaps they are happy; but for those whose countenances were once as bright and intelligent as any other, what chords have been rent asunder in the heart, what sudden revolution has overturned the mind, that the soul should no longer know itself! Some retain a few words from the memory of the past, and those who hear the strange sentence only shake their heads, and exclaim, "Poor fool!" little knowing what a world of grief, what a tale of ruined hope and withered life, lies concealed in these few unintelligible words!

A few years ago, I spent some time in the county of Csongrad,28 a very beautiful and populous district, where I had many opportunities of mixing with the peasants and farmers of the country. In this district the farmers, however wealthy, bear the name of peasant, and still retain their simple costume, the linen kontos,29 and the brenda.30

At the house of one of these worthy peasants in particular, I was a frequent visitor; his simple but vigorous mind, and the wit and pertinence of his remarks, often entertained me. I partook of his hospitality at all their family fêtes—the vintage, kukoricza gathering,31 and birthdays; and indeed the good people would have taken it amiss had I remained behind.

On one occasion I happened to enter as they were baking, and was received in the kitchen, where the wife, a rosy-faced, buxom young woman, was standing beside the stove superintending the motions of five or six servants, though she herself was more busy than any, with her own hands kneading the loaves, and tossing them on the baking-shovel. The husband stood there too, under pretence of lighting his pipe, but in reality for no other purpose than to tease his wife, who, during the important affair, scolded everybody who did not move as quickly as she did, which became her very well.

Already ten large bannocks, fried with goose fat, and enriched with preserved plums, lay smoking on the hearth; these the good woman, immediately on my entrance, began arranging in her best dishes, and offered to me with a welcome smile, her husband assuring me that she had baked them herself, and adding something about a certain wine which was particularly good to drink after them.

In the midst of all this work, during which Mistress Kata several times applied the long handle of the baking tongs to the shoulders of such as did not bestir themselves quickly enough to please her, the door was softly pushed open, and the figure of a very old and shrivelled woman appeared on the threshold; at first she only put in her head, and looked around with a ghastly and vacant smile, caressing the dogs, which ran up to her, and speaking to them as if they were the dearest friends she had in the house; she then slowly advanced into the room, pausing every now and then, as if waiting to be invited, and again taking courage to proceed.

Nobody seemed to notice her except myself; they were either too much engaged, or the fearful-looking creature who advanced towards them was too familiar a sight to strike them as she did me, who saw her for the first time.

Her figure was so bent and shrivelled that she did not appear to be more than four feet high; her head was uncovered, and a mass of perfectly white hair hung in a long plait down her back, as young girls used to wear it. The face was furrowed by a thousand wrinkles, and the vacant and half-closed eyes seemed ever gazing on the same spot, while her lips were distended in a continual unearthly smile, while every now and then she made an idiotic motion with her head; her petticoat and apron were composed of bright-coloured rags sewed together; in one hand she carried a large bunch of wild-flowers and weeds, and in the other two billets of wood.

On seeing a stranger, she endeavoured, with an odd and embarrassed naïveté, to conceal her face behind her large nosegay; and, shuffling up to Mistress Kata, who had just placed her last loaf on the baking-shovel, she tapped her on the shoulder with the flowers, exclaiming, with a weird laugh, "Hühü! Mistress Aunt, here I am, you see!"

"That's right, Marcsa," said Mistress Kata; "I was just expecting you,—don't you see?"

"Hühü!—I have brought you some beautiful flowers to plant; then I heard you were baking, and I have brought wood," and she placed the billets in Mistress Kate's arms.

"Now, you see, if you had not brought me this, we could not have kept up the fire. Well, will you have a bannock?"

"Hühü! that I will," said the old woman, stretching out her shrivelled arms.

"There, now—eat it," said Mistress Kata, handing her a large cake. "But you must eat it before me."

"Hühü! I will take it to Joska bacsi!"

"Joska bacsi doesn't want it. Joska bacsi has sent to say that you are to eat it yourself."

"Really! did he say that?" asked the old woman; and then, with a deep sigh, she began to swallow the bannock. She did not bite it, not having wherewithal, but pushed the pieces into her mouth and swallowed them, heaving a deep sigh at every mouthful; and, when she thought nobody was observing her, she hastily concealed the remainder in her apron, and looked round in great glee at having succeeded so cleverly.

"What will she do with the piece she has hidden?" I asked Mistress Kata.

"She keeps it, poor fool, for Joska bacsi!"

On hearing Joska bacsi mentioned, the old woman looked eagerly up, and asked, "What does Joska bacsi say?"

"He says you must count how many poppy-seeds32 there are in that plate," said one of the maids, laughing.

The old woman rose without a word, and, approaching the plate, began eagerly counting the seeds grain by grain.

"Why do you trifle with her?" said I, pitying the poor, witless creature; while Mistress Kata came forward and took hold of her arm.

"Leave it alone, good Marcsa; Erzsi is telling a story—that was not what Joska bacsi said."

But the poor idiot would not leave off counting till Kata said, pointing to me, and making a sign that I should acquiesce, "Look here, Marcsa; this gentleman has just come from Joska bacsi, and he has brought a message from him that you should go home and remain quiet, and not wander so much about the Theiss—did he not, sir?"

I of course assented, on which the idiot shuffled joyfully up to me, and, taking my hand, looked long into my face with her fearful, vacant eyes, and then said coaxingly, "Hühü! I do think he is almost as beautiful a lad as my own Joska bacsi!"

This was very flattering, though I would have been better pleased had this hapless creature not gazed upon me thus, with her fixed and witless eyes, and hastily taking a piece of silver out of my pocket, I offered it to her.

Idiots are always fond of money, and as soon as I had put the coin into her hand, she immediately wished everybody good-night, and set off in great haste.

"Well, there's something more for Joska bacsi," said Mistress Kata, laughing.

"How—how?" I eagerly asked, my curiosity being much excited.

"She will throw it into the Theiss where the water is deepest. Whatever she gets that she can give to Joska bacsi, all goes into the Theiss!"

"And who is this Joska bacsi?"

"Nobody at all: dear heart! such a creature never existed on earth. It is only a fancy, such as all idiots have."

"And was she always mad?"

At these words an old peasant, who had been sitting in the chimney-corner, and silently observing us, exclaimed, "No, sir, that she was not."

"Well, I have never seen her otherwise, since I remember anything," said Mistress Kata.

"You are not yet thirty years old, Mistress, and this happened long before your birth."

"Do you know something about her, then?" I asked, turning with interest to the old man.

"He know, indeed!" said Mistress Kata scornfully; "he just likes to tell stories, when he can find a fool who will listen to him. But don't be taken in, young gentleman, take my word for it."

I paid no attention, however, to Mistress Kata's warning, and questioned the old man further: "Perhaps it was love that drove this poor woman mad?"

"Love, indeed!—what nonsense!" cried Mistress Kata; "as if a peasant would go mad for love! Bless your soul! only great folks can do that—peasants have something else to do."

"And were you not yourself madly in love with me, eh?" interrupted her husband, putting his arm round her waist.

"Get along!" cried his wife, striking his hand and blushing to the eyes; "I'd like to know for what?"

The old peasant meanwhile pulled my cloak, and whispered, "I don't like speaking here, sir, for they only laugh at me; but if you would like to hear, come this evening. I will be standing in the porch, and there I can tell you. It is a sad story enough, and may interest you to hear it."

Mistress Kata reverted frequently to the subject, exclaiming ever and anon, as the bread baked, and she took each loaf out of the oven and turned up its shining crust, "Well, that is an idea!—go mad for love of you, forsooth, as if you were worth going mad for!"

I did not forget my evening tryst, and found the old man in the porch. I greeted him with "Adjon Isten,"33 and placed myself beside him on the bench.

The old man returned my salutation, and, emptying his pipe, began striking fire with a flint. "Permit me, sir, to light my pipe again; for I cannot now think much unless I see the smoke before me;" then, drawing his cap far over his brow, he began his tale:—

"Nobody remembers anything about it now, for full sixty years have passed since it happened; I was myself a barefooted boy, and it is only a wonder that I have not forgotten it too. That poor idiot whom you saw there, that wrinkled old creature, was then a beautiful young girl, and that Joska bacsi of whom she always speaks was—my own brother! There was not a handsomer pair among all the peasants than those two; I have seen many a rising generation since, but never any like them! Our parents were mutually sponsors. Marcsa's mother held my brother and me at our baptism, and my mother held Marcsa. We played together, we went to school together, and to the Lord's Table on Easter Sunday. Hej! that was a good priest who christened and catechized us; he has been long since preaching in heaven; and the worthy chanter who instructed us too, is up striking time among the angels!

"The lad and the young girl had been so attached from their childhood, that they never dreamed they could live otherwise than together. Our mother always called Marcsa her little daughter-in-law; and when she and my brother were each nineteen years old, their parents decided that if God pleased to preserve us all till the next Carnival, they should be married. My brother often entreated them not to wait till the Carnival, 'for who knows,' he said, 'what may happen before then?' and with reason did his heart misgive him, poor fellow! for at the vintage Marcsa's father and ours went to the cellars to make the wine, and the deadly air34 struck them—we found them both dead!

"The mourning was very great in both houses—the two fathers cut off at one stroke; but in Marcsa's house the distress was still greater than in ours, for the old man, having been sacristan, had been intrusted with certain sums, of which two hundred florins were missing after his death. Where he had put them, or what had become of them, was never known, for death had struck him too suddenly. The reverend gentlemen who examined the accounts had so much consideration for the poor widow, that they did not bring the affair to light, and even promised to wait a whole year, during which time the family must endeavour to make up the sum, as after that period it could no longer be kept secret.

"Our mother was much distressed when she heard of this affair, and there was no more said of the carnival wedding: she was a poor but an honest woman, and how could she allow her son to marry the daughter of a man in whose hands the public money had been lost, and whose goods would probably be sold at the end of a year to repay the scandalous debt? The young lovers cried and lamented loudly, but it was all in vain; my mother said if the sum should be restored within a year she would receive the girl, but never otherwise. She prohibited my brother from holding personal intercourse with Marcsa during that entire period; and in order that he might keep his word the more easily, she bound him apprentice to a Theiss miller, and then—the water parted them.

"Meanwhile, Marcsa's mother very soon died of grief and care, and the girl was left alone. But love wrought wonders in her; and when the poor girl had not a creature in the world to help her, she came over to our mother and said: 'You will not allow your son to marry me unless my father's debt be replaced—good, I have still a whole year, and I will work day and night; I will endure hunger, fatigue—everything, but I will earn the money.'

"And then she began to put her promise into execution.

"Oh, sir! you do not know what a great sum two hundred florins is for a poor peasant, who has to earn it all by hard and honest labour, the work of his hands and the sweat of his brow, and to collect it penny by penny.

"From this day forward, the good girl was scarcely ever seen away from her work. All through the winter, she sat for ever at her wheel, spinning a yarn like silk, which she wove herself; there was no linen like hers in the village, as I have heard the old folks say. She looked after the poultry in the morning, and carried the fowls and eggs herself to market. There was a little bit of a garden behind the house, where she kept flowers and vegetables; and earned more by it than many who had four times as much ground. In summer she joined the reapers, and all that she got for her work she turned into money—fruit, or poultry, or little sucking pigs. Throughout that blessed year, sir, nobody ever saw smoke arise from her chimney: a bit of dry bread was all her daily sustenance; and yet the Lord took such good care of her, that not only her beauty did not diminish, but she looked as healthy and as rosy as if she were living on milk and butter. Love kept the spirit in her, poor girl!

"My brother was not allowed to go to her, but I was the messenger between them. Often, in the fine summer evenings, when I was down at the mill with my brother, he would take his flute and play those beautiful melodies, which none could do better than he; and the girls on the other side, who were filling their pitchers in the stream, or standing with their white feet in the water, washing linen, would hear the air, and join in the chorus. But my brother only heard one voice, and that was the sweetest and the saddest I ever listened to, and brought tears into the eyes of every one who heard it: you could have recognised her voice among a thousand.

"Sometimes his master gave my brother leave of absence for an hour or two, and those were happy days for Joska: he would send me to bid Marcsa come down in the evening toward the Willow Island. This was a little sandbank covered with willow-trees, about three or four fathoms from the shore. Hither would my brother also come in his little boat, while his true-love sat opposite to him upon the shore, and there would they converse till morning across the stream—thus satisfying their own hearts, and obeying my mother's orders. They met, and yet were separated.

"On this footing things remained until the vintage. Marcsa was considered not only the prettiest, but the best girl in the village. The new wine was not yet clear, when one morning the good girl came into my mother's, and counted out two hundred florins on the large oak table—all in good huszasok,35 not one small piece was wanting—and begged my mother to take them with her to the reverend gentlemen, who gave a sealed receipt for the amount. None but ourselves ever knew that it was all our pretty Marcsa's hard earnings.

"On returning, my mother took Marcsa home with her, and plaited her long hair with pretty rainbow-coloured ribbons, put a string of garnets round her neck, and a pair of fine shoes on her little feet; and all gaily dressed, she took her—none of us knew whither.

"I followed them, however, to the Theiss, when my mother bade me go and ask the ferryman to take us across to the mill, where my brother was serving; and we all three sat down in the boat.

"Even now I think I see the beautiful girl: it seems as it were but yesterday that she sat in the boat before me by my mother's side, blushing modestly, her sparkling eyes cast down. Her heart told her whither we were going.

"My brother recognised us from a distance, and seeing that we were rowing towards him, and his beloved sitting by his mother's side and on her right hand, he rushed joyfully down to his boat, and pushing it off, leaped in and rowed to meet us.

"When he came up to us, and he and his bride raised their eyes towards each other, the poor things scarcely knew what they were about for joy—they looked as if they could have flown, to rush the sooner into one another's arms. Joska guided his boat alongside of ours that we might step in, and coming to the bow, he stretched out his arms to Marcsa, who trembled like the delibab36 with joy and emotion.

"At that moment the boat overbalanced, and my brother suddenly fell between the two boats, and disappeared from our sight.

"The unhappy bride, who had stretched out her arms to the bridegroom for whom she had endured so much and worked so hard, uttered a fearful cry, and threw herself after him into the Theiss.

"My poor mother and I wrung our hands, and called for help, which brought out the millers from the other side, who hastened down to their boats, and put off towards us: in a short time they took up Marcsa, whose wide dress floated on the surface; but they could not find my brother, and we never saw anything more of him from that hour, except his wreathed bonnet37 floating on the water.

"Three days afterwards, my mother was struck with apoplexy, and the poor bride lay insensible in a violent fever. For six weeks she continued more dead than alive; and when at last she was able to rise, her beauty was all gone—you could scarcely have recognised her as the same person.

"For some time we only remarked that she was very sad and thoughtful, and would sit all day without speaking a word; but by and bye, to our astonishment, she would go down to the river, and when the miller's boys came over in their boats, would ask, 'What news from Joska bacsi?'

"At first we thought this was still only the effect of fever,—for during her illness she had raved incessantly of Joska; but as time wore on, and she was always doing stranger things, our eyes began to open to the melancholy truth. One day she went home, and telling us she was going to arrange her house, that it might be in order when Joska bacsi came, she began turning up all the chairs and tables, whitewashed the house, killed her little poultry one after the other, and then began cooking and baking to prepare for the wedding. All at once, however, she became quite distracted: knew no person by name, would speak aloud in the church, and pray and sing along the roads; she would do no work, and was indeed quite incapable—entangled all her yarn, saying she would get more money for it if in that condition, and set out empty egg-shells for market. At last, the wandering mania came upon her. One evening she disappeared from her house; and after searching everywhere for five days, we found her among high reeds by the river's side—her face disfigured, and her clothes all torn. Since that time, the poor creature has remained insane. Her beauty had passed away like the wind, and in four years she was the broken-down old woman you now see her, and that was full sixty years ago.

"Every one has now forgotten the event, for few are living who witnessed it; and the oldest man remembers her since his childhood as Crazy Marcsa, who minds neither cold nor hunger, fasts for days together and eats whatever is placed before her, collects every gaudy rag and sews it on her dress, calls old and young nene (elder sister), and asks but one question—'What news from Joska bacsi?'

"The folks laugh at her, but none know that her bridegroom lies below the Tisza water; and the merry girls in the spinning-rooms have little thought, when they make fun of Marcsa, that the wrinkled and fearful old creature was once as gay and smiling—ay, and prettier far than any of themselves. Such is life, good sir!"

The old man emptied his pipe: it was getting late. I thanked him for the tale, and pressing his hand, returned slowly and thoughtfully home.

"Strange, that a peasant should go mad for love! Only great folks can do that!"

I heard another case, in Bekes, of an idiot who was to all appearance a very quiet and industrious man. One could scarcely perceive any symptoms of insanity about him; but if the name Gyuri (George) were uttered in his hearing, he would start up—whether he was eating or working, or from whatever his employment might be—dash down his spoon or his saw, and run without stopping till he fell down from utter exhaustion.

Mischievous boys would sometimes make him run thus for their senseless amusement; at other times, the name, unguardedly dropped, would send him rushing to and fro: but otherwise, he was the quietest, gentlest creature in the world, and one might converse with him as with any other person.

His story was as follows:—

It happened once, that on a bright December day he and another shepherd boy had gone out to the plains with their flocks. It was a remarkably fine winter; there had been no frost as yet, and the whole plain was as green, and the sun as warm, as on a day in spring.

The two boys had driven their sheep to a great distance, when all at once, towards evening, a sharp and biting wind arose from the north. In an hour the weather had changed, and the horizon was overcast with heavy dark-blue clouds, which seemed angrily contending with the north wind. The ravens, those avant-couriers of the snowstorm, assembled in vast flocks, mingling their cries with the howling of the wind.

The shepherd boys hastily assembled their sheep, and began to drive them home. Scarcely had they proceeded a few hundred yards, however, when the horizon had completely darkened, the snow fell thickly, driven about by the wind, and in a few moments the path which guided them was covered. Meanwhile, the cold had sensibly increased, the ground was soon frozen quite hard, and the boys had lost all traces of their homeward way—they ran hither and thither, listening, and looking around them. No glimmering light was to be seen, nor the barking of a dog to be heard. Night had come on, and they had strayed into the puszta!

What was to be done? It was impossible to drive the sheep farther, for they crowded all in a heap, with their heads together.

"We will do like the sheep," said the herd-boys; and spreading their Izurok38 upon the ground, they lay down close to one another, endeavouring by the heat of their bodies to keep out the frost: and thus, with their arms clasped tightly round each other, they awaited the long stormy night, during which the snow never ceased an instant, and soon covered them both.

Pista—so one of them was called—could not close his eyes all night: he heard the cries of the ravens incessantly above his head, and the roaring of the storm, which seemed hushed at intervals only to burst out more furiously, like the wrath of some huge monster, while the chill blast seemed to pierce him through, and turn his blood to ice. But his comrade Gyuri slept soundly, although he continually called in his ear in order to awake him; for he feared to listen to his heavy snoring, and to be alone awake. At length the sleeper ceased to snore, and breathed quietly for a time, till by degrees the breathing too became fainter and fainter.

When at last the fearful night had passed, and the clouds of snow had cleared away, and day began to break upon the hoary world, Pista tried to rise and wake his companion, who was still sound asleep, and kept his arms clasped tightly round his neck; but all his exertions could not wake him.

"Gyuri, awake!" he cried, shaking the sleeper; but Gyuri did not wake.

"Gyuri, awake!" he repeated in terror; but Gyuri's sleep was an eternal one—the boy was frozen.

When Pista saw that his comrade was dead, he tried in vain to release himself from his grasp; but the stiff dead arms were clasped so tightly round his neck, it was impossible to extricate them.

The terrified boy, finding himself face to face with the dead, who held him with such irresistible power in his fearful embrace, while the glazed and motionless eyes looked straight into his own, struggled fearfully through the snow, and dashed into the rushes, where the villagers who had come out to search for them most providentially found him, still crying out—"Gyuri, awake! Gyuri, let me go!"

They freed him with great difficulty from his companion's arms, but terror had deprived him of reason from that hour.

He never does any harm, or quarrels with anybody; and he speaks sensibly and quietly, unless his comrade's name is mentioned, when he will take to his heels and run as long as he has breath in his body.

Mental derangement does not always assume a melancholy form: here and there we meet with most grotesque examples, whose peculiar slyness and original ideas are most amusing. Outwardly they are always gay: who may know what passes within?

We had an instance of the latter species of madness in Transylvania. Boho Boris (silly Barbara) was known through the whole district.

She was never seen for one week in the same place, but wandered continually about; her whole travelling apparatus consisting of a guitar, which she slung around her neck, and went singing away to the next neighbour or the nearest town.

She found her table always covered; for she was quite at home in every gentleman's house, never waiting to be invited, and ordered all the servants about whether they would or not. Her apparel seemed to grow like the flowers of the meadow, without the assistance of tailors or marchandes de modes,—not that petticoats and ruffles actually sprang out of the earth on her account, but whenever she was tired of any article of apparel, or did not fancy wearing it longer, she would doff it at the first gentleman's house she came to, and put on a dress belonging to the lady of the mansion, declaring with the utmost gravity that it suited her very well; and the Transylvanian ladies were too generous not to leave her in her confidence, and in undisturbed possession of the new dress.

Once a great lady, Countess N——, pitying poor Boris's uncertain mode of life, invited her to her castle, promising to keep her as long as she lived.

Now this good lady had one or two little peculiarities. In the first place, she was very sentimental, and always dreaming of some hero of romance; secondly, she was extremely sensitive, and if any person unmercifully wounded her tender heart, she was always sure to swoon away; and thirdly, having swooned away, she always waited till the whole household had assembled round her, and could not be brought to herself as long as one member of it failed.

Boho Biri being constantly with the Countess, had the full benefit of her eccentricities. This, however, did not seem to annoy her in the least: when the lady spoke of her love affairs, Boris spoke of her own; when the Countess sighed deeply, Boho Biri sighed still deeper; if the Countess described her injuries or her bitter fate in prose, Biri illustrated hers in verse; and when the Countess, overcome by her emotions, fainted away on a sofa, Boho Biri fainted on another, and always remained full half an hour longer in her swoon than the lady herself. If it were necessary to take cramp, when the Countess had only commenced, Boho Biri was already roaring so as to bring the whole household to the rescue.

Finally, however, it became too much for Boris. One day, taking up her guitar, and putting a roll in her pocket, she announced her intention to depart.

The good lady in astonishment asked why.

Boho Biri struck an accord on her guitar, and raising herself on the tips of her toes, she answered, with dignified composure: "Two fools are one too many in one house!"