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Updated: July 26, 2025
"Whither are you going?" said he to the carnival horseman. Simplex held a quill to his mouth, and squeaked through it in a thin, chirpy, birdlike voice: "We are going to bury the dead carnival." But Augustus Zwirina was a knowing man, and he had his suspicions. "Let me see if this carnival is really dead," said he. And with that he tore the cover from the face of the figure lying in the coffin.
Nevertheless, to appease the opposite faction and prevent the citizens from quarreling among themselves, it was arranged that Mr. Zwirina, senior, who had hitherto been curator, should be made burgomaster, while Ignatius his son should become curator in his stead. In this way all parties were satisfied. All three elections took place in the most orderly way.
Ignatius Zwirina was a big lout of a fellow. Placed on the scales he would certainly have weighed much more than Valentine.
He struck the table violently with his book, and stretching forth his hand, exclaimed: "Then thou hast been foully calumniated by thine accuser, Dame Fürmender, the wife of Augustus Zwirina, who, by way of punishment for such a calumny, is excluded from to-morrow's communion."
Thus Kalondai's enemies were completely put to shame, and Dame Sarah experienced the joy of seeing her son's wife, the damsel from Bártfa, sitting in the first place of the front pew of the cathedral; which pew Dame Fürmender Zwirina had refused to occupy any longer, having given notice to the dean that she would henceforth take sittings in the suburb church instead.
Zwirina was by no means enamored of so adventurous a policy, and he so dexterously strung together the evil consequences which would accrue to the town from such obstinacy to wit, bombardments with red-hot bullets, loss of life, famine, plague, conflagrations, bankruptcy of the merchants, ruin of the guilds, storms, capitulations, wholesale blackmailing, nay, even the wresting of the churches from the hands of the Protestants that when it came to voting, the majority of the council decided that the town ought rather to conform to the will of the Prince by submitting to the change, than come to loggerheads with the Kaiser and the Sultan at the same time; and that the Walloons should be allowed to enter, especially as they were, after all, the soldiers of the King of Hungary.
Then Valentine said in a calm voice: "It is so it is true!" Augustus Zwirina immediately turned toward him and said: "Then, Mr. Valentine Kalondai, the time has come for you to lay down the sheriff's staff!" Valentine surrendered his staff, descended from the tribune, and went straight home. He went quite alone. Not a soul accompanied him.
The fellow representing the carnival rose in his bier, distended his broad mouth, and grinned in the superrector's face. He was an honest brushmaker's apprentice. The whole crowd burst into roars of laughter and derisive yells. Everyone instantly guessed that the superrector had sought for Valentine Kalondai in the carnival's coffin. Old Zwirina was very angry and ashamed.
And then he kissed the grave and the flowers which covered it: "Don't you hear how the specters are kissing each other?" whispered one of the musketeers. "No doubt Lucifer is caressing them!" "And whither then have you removed Augustus Zwirina?" "Why, where he ought to be, of course!
It was also considered equally disgraceful when the person so challenged did not appear on the field of battle at the appointed day and hour. Now this was the case with Ignatius Zwirina, who had no very fervent desire to make the acquaintance of Valentine Kalondai's cudgel.
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