The poor thing fancied she would better her position thereby:
it was not from pure love of Henrietta that she had been so importunate.
In the second carriage sat the baron and Margari. Margari was just the
sort of man the baron wanted. He was a scholar who could be converted
into a domestic buffoon whenever one was required. Now-a-days it is
difficult to catch such specimens, all our servants have become so
stuck-up. Henrietta did not dare to ask how far they were going, or
where they were to pass the night, she felt so strange amidst her new
surroundings. Her husband was very obliging and polite towards her,--in
fact he gave her no trouble at all.
Towards the evening they stopped at a village to water the horses and
there Hatszegi got out of his carriage and, approaching his wife's,
spoke to her through the window: "We shall rest in an hour," said he.
"We shall put up for the night at the castle of an old friend of mine,
Gerzson Satrakovich. He has been duly apprised of our coming and expects
us."
But the promised hour turned out to be nearly two hours. The roads were
very bad here and it was as much as the carriage wheels could do to
force their way through the marshy sand. The monotonous _Bucskak_[4]
which extended desolately, like a billowy sandy ocean, to the very
horizon, were overgrown with dwarf firs that looked more like shrubs
than trees.
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