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Kalimann's "friendly" letter was followed by those of the tender and touching variety, and finally Gutel decided upon sacrificing her half florin and sending one that "would go straight to the heart." To make assurance doubly sure she supplemented her silver piece by a bottle of wine. Her amanuensis poured out a glass, emptied it at a draught, smacked his lips, and began to write.
He at once wrote Gutel a missive so thickly interlarded with quotations from the Song of Solomon, from Goethe, Petofi, Heine, and Chateaubriand, that when Kalimann read the billet-doux to the blushing girl her head was quite turned. The bookbinder himself scratched his head and muttered: "This Saul is a man of letters; his style is vigorous! Who would have thought it?"
Schonberg glanced over it, and smiled. "This Kalimann," he murmured, "is a deuce of a fellow. The world has lost a novelist in him. But let me see how I can arrange matters. Mendel," he continued, turning to the open-mouthed lover, "you shall stay here, and you shall marry your Gutel. I will give you two or three rooms in the factory for your housekeeping, and Mrs.
Barkany gave Gutel the trousseau, and the marriage took place at harvest-time. At one end of the table, in the seat of honor next to the rabbi, sat the bookbinder of Hort. All had been his work, and, truth to tell, this was not the first happy couple he had been the means of bringing together.
Placing twenty kreutzers on the table, the happy swain begged the clerk to write as finely turned a letter to Gutel as the one she had sent him. Saul, who had at a glance recognized Kalimann's calligraphy, said to himself: "It will go hard with me but I will show the bookbinder that they know how to write letters at Gyongos, and can also quote from the classic authors."
At first he shook his head, then took off his glasses and rubbed them as though they were playing him some prank, and finally closed the book with an expression of profound disgust. Mrs. Barkany awaited the return of her "Nana" with unruffled patience; finally she despatched her cook Gutel with an order for the book.
The correspondence between Gutel and Mendel, or rather between Kalimann and Saul, flourished for some time. If Kalimann addressed Mendel as "my cherished friend," "my turtle dove," Saul on his side would intersperse throughout his letters such expressions as "your gazelle-like eyes," "your fairy form," "your crimson lips," "your voice rivalling the music of the celestial spheres."
Suddenly, however, he stopped, and turning to the girl, said: "Do you know, Gutel, that wine of yours was a happy inspiration, but the great poet Hafiz was not alone inspired by the spirit of wine, he placed a great virtue upon the crimson lips of pretty girls." Gutel was not slow to understand.
The opportunity thus vouchsafed his native tendency toward sentiment helped not only to swell the hearts of his clients with gratitude, but also to swell his own slender income. Thus it was that the fire of his poetic genius was enkindled, and thus it was he became the Petrarch of Hort. One day Gutel Wolfner, Mrs.
Gutel now gave the bookbinder a general idea of the letter she wished written, and inquired the price. "That will not depend upon the length of the epistle," he replied, "but upon its quality." Thereupon he read aloud to her his tariff. 1st. A friendly letter ....................10 kreutzers 2d. A kind and well-intentioned letter.15 " 3d. A tender letter ...................... 20 " 4th.
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