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His features were noble, his manner gentle, his position secure enough to enable him to keep a wife. Many a time did she walk with Lorand under the shade of the beautiful sycamores, while Czipra sat alone beside her "czimbalom" and thrashed out the old souvenirs of the plain, alone.
Gyáli quite misunderstood the favorable impression his name and appearance made on Czipra: he was ready to attribute it to his irresistible charms. After briefly making the acquaintance of the old man, he very rapidly took over the part of courtier, which every cavalier according to the rules of the world is bound to do; besides, she was a gypsy girl, and Lorand was not jealous.
"Lock your door well, my dear Czipra, if you are afraid." "How can I lock my door," said Czipra smiling light-heartedly, "when those cursed servants have so ruined the lock of every door at this side of the house that they would fly open at one push." "Very well, I shall take care of you." Therewith Lorand wished them good night, took his candle and went out. Czipra hurried Melanie too to depart.
For answer Topándy blew a long mouthful playfully into the girl's face. She must accustom herself to it: and then he hinted to Lorand that they should leave that room and go where unlimited freedom ruled. But Czipra began to put the strings of the czimbalom out of tune with her tuning-key. "Why did you do that?" inquired Melanie. "Because I shall never play on this instrument again." "Why not?"
By doing so I should have swindled them." Czipra recollected herself. "True; you are right." Czipra helped Melanie to put her things in the cupboards. With a woman's critical eye, she examined everything. She found the linen not fine enough, though the work on it pleased her well. That was Melanie's own handiwork. As regards books, there was only one in the trunk, a prayer-book.
Czipra opened it and looked into it. There were steel plates in it. The portrait of a beautiful woman, seven stars round her head, raising her tear-stained eyes to Heaven: and the picture of a kneeling youth, round the fair bowed head of whom the light of Heaven was pouring. Long did she gaze at the pictures. Who could those figures be? There were no jewels at all among the new-comer's treasures.
Perhaps she would never take them out again.... With that instinct, which nature has given to women only, Czipra felt that the new-comer would be her antagonist, her rival in everything, that the outcome would be a struggle for life and death between them. The whole day long she worried herself with ideas about the new adversary's appearance.
Czipra was forced to see that everybody sported with her, while they behaved seriously with that other. And that completely poisoned her soul.
Then, as if she had gained her master's consent, she turned again to Lorand: "So call me simply 'Czipra." "All right, Czipra, my sister," said Lorand, holding out his hand. "Well now, that is nice of you to add that;" upon which she pressed Lorand's hand, and left the men to themselves. Topándy turned the conversation, and spoke no more to Lorand of Czipra.
"But he cannot take her, for we have not money enough to pay the priest." Czipra picked out the largest of the silver coins and gave it to the gypsy woman. The latter blessed her for it. "May God reward you with a handsome bridegroom, true in love till death!" Then she shuffled on her way from the house. Czipra reflectingly hummed to herself the refrain: "A gypsy woman was my mother."
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