"Of whom do you speak?--whom do you want to kill?"
"That villain Margari."
"Then it was he who persuaded you to take this step?"
"I will tell you all about it, sir, and you shall judge me. When I left
my grandfather's house, that Satan sought me out, affected sympathy for
me and asked me what I meant to do. I told him I intended to go on the
stage and he said I did well not to remain there. I had only a florin
which I borrowed from one of the lacqueys, and I told this devil that I
should require 20 florins at the very least. He promised to get them for
me from a usurer but told me I should have to give a bill for forty. Do
you think I cared what I signed then? Not long afterwards he came back
again and said the usurer would give nothing on the strength of my
signature, because I was a minor, but that if my sister's name stood
upon the bill he would advance upon that because she was a married
woman. Margari persuaded me to sign the bill in her name. What was forty
florins to Henrietta? he said, a mere trifle. If I were to ask her, she
would give me twice as much. Surely she would not proclaim me, whom she
loved so much, a forger for the sake of a paltry 40 florins? But 40,000
florins, 40,000!--that is a frightful, a horrible villainy. I only made
it forty."
And with that he began to dash his head against the wall like a madman.
"My dear Coloman, do pull yourself together," said Szilard, "what you
have just told me is of the very greatest importance.
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