CÍMLAP
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CONTENTS, INTRODUCTION |
Contents
Introduction
I. The Vampire City of Austria
II. The Friend in Need
III. Passion Week in Rome
IV. Diplomacy
V. The Temptress
VI. A Roman Assassination
VII. The Pope's Flight
VIII. What will He do with Her
IX. The Vampire City Again
X. In Transylvania
XI. The Last Revenge
XII. Solferino
XIII. Retribution
XIV. The Return of the Prodigal
Notes
Introduction
In the preface to a translation of Maurus Jokai's novel, "There is no
Devil" [Cassell Publishing Co., New York], the editor says that he
considers that novel better suited to the taste of American readers than
any of Jokai's previous works. Inasmuch as this great master of fiction has
published more than three hundred novels and stories, it can hardly be
expected that all of them should be masterpieces; and the above-named
romance (afterwards republished under another title, "Dr. Dumany's Wife")
represents the country squires of Hungary in a disgusting light, even
the hero, Dr. Dumany, owing his great fortune not to any beneficent
enterprise, but only to some of those lucky speculations on the Stock
Exchange which give him wealth at the cost of other people's loss. The
remark above quoted, therefore, is as though one should say that "The Rape
of Lucrece," by William Shakespeare, is better suited to American readers
than the dramatist's great masterpieces.
I venture herewith to introduce to my readers one of Jokai's masterpieces,
in which not the denial of the Devil's existence, but the assertion of
God's existence, is the keynote.
...