"In Turkey they use rose-water in eating and drinking. There, too, whole groves of roses are planted; there beads are made of roses pressed into the form of balls and strung together: that is why they are called rosaries. In the East there is one lovely kind of rose from which attar is made; it is the balsam rose, and grows on trees of ten feet high, whose branches are bent to the ground by their snow-white burden. Their scent surpasses that of any other kind; if you throw the petals into water and set them in the sun, in a very short time the surface is rainbow-colored with the oil that the petals exude. It is the same with the evergreen rose, which does not shed its leaves in winter. The Ceylon and Rio roses dye the hair and beard light, and so fast that they do not lose their color for years; for this purpose alone there is a considerable trade in them. The leaves of the Moggor rose stupefy; you are intoxicated by their scent as if with beer. The Vilmorin rose has the property that, it if is bitten by a certain insect which is obnoxious to it, it throws out great tubers, which are said to send a crying child to sleep if put under its pillow."
"Have you been everywhere where roses grow?" asked Noémi.
"Well, I have been a good deal about in the world. I have been to Vienna, Paris, and Constantinople."
"If one traveled on foot one would get to Vienna in thirty days from here, and to Constantinople in forty days."
"That takes longer still; for I should have to take in cargo on the way."
"Is Herr Brazovics still your principal?"
"Dead! so he is dead? And his wife and daughter?" interrupted Frau Therese, quickly.
"They have lost everything by his death."
"Ah, just God! Thy avenging hand has reached them!"
"Mother, good mother!" cried Noémi, with gentle entreaty.
"Sir, there is one more thing you ought to know. When that blow fell on us, when I had implored Brazovics on my knees not to drive us to beggary, it struck me that this man had a wife and child. I determined to find out his wife and tell her my misery--she would help me and take pity on us. I took my child in my arms and traveled in the hottest part of the summer to Komorn. I sought her out in her fine large house, and waited at the door, for they would not let me in. At last Frau Brazovics came out with her five-year-old daughter. I fell on my knees, and begged her for God's sake to take compassion on us, and be our mediator with her husband. The woman seized my arm and thrust me down the step; I tried, in falling, to protect my child with both arms, that it might not be hurt, and struck my head against one of the two pillars which support the balcony. Here is the scar still visible. The little girl laughed aloud when she saw me limping away and heard my baby cry. That is why I sing 'Hosanna,' and blessed be the hand which thrust her away from the steps down which she cast us."