Really, what nonsense, he mumbled, just to say something, using the darkly warm overtones of his voice to calm the other man, and with his meaty hand he ruffled the chestnut-brown tuft of hair that had fallen on Ágost’s forehead, and in his next move grabbed him by the hair and started doing all sorts of things to him. He enjoyed this jostling, squeezing, and ruffling perhaps more than Ágost did. He shook him gently; for a moment, with an arm around his neck, he drew him to himself and shoved him under the armpit.
As he sat up, it could be seen what a robust well-built man he was, though Ágost wasn’t small either. He shoved Ágost away but kept muttering and grunting, come on, come on, my dear, my little pigeon, why go on like this.
Prince Andrei, our own Andryosha, is indeed a wild blockhead, but you’re talking impossible drivel.
There was so much mutual affection between these two men, looking for a legal outlet, that no matter how they kept measuring it out, slowly and leisurely, alternately withholding it and letting it out in small doses, they each feared it might burst and drown the other one. Ágost did not reciprocate, never gave anything in return, but at least he did not resist; he endured the onslaught of the other man’s affections and the rudeness that stemmed from them. André, however, was beset by shame the moment his cabin door closed; he was ashamed of his urge to escape. And he had to be on guard against his ambition for control; he could not risk his friends’ turning against him again.
Without them he could easily remain alone and become the loneliest being on earth. A kicked-in door, no more, was enough for him to feel the weight of such a possibility, a careless move of his foot.
André did not bear solitude easily, though of the three he was the least aware of this or, rather, his awareness of it was always in direct proportion to the increase in his daily consumption of whiskey, which was both expensive and hard to obtain. He had to go to sleep somehow. At this rate, though, he would become an alcoholic before his next assignment.
He tried to keep down the daily dose.
I really am a wild blockhead, he thought, and allowed himself only as much time for reflection as it took to slap his wet towel down on the bench in his cabin and slip into his bathrobe.
He felt a little cold.
Despite the unexpected turn to the dark side, the scene in the corridor had had its humorous touches. For one thing, the new cabin attendant’s mouth had been wide open with wonder for a long time. He had understood nothing. A silent witness, he sat only a few steps away from the three men and honestly did not know what to make of their nonsense. Back in the Gellért he would have known, of course, he would have taken the thick red hose and let them have it with an ice-cold jet of water, gentlemen, please move along, sorry but he must now hose down this bench. And he would let go a spurt at their feet or asses.
Here he couldn’t do it.
He jumped up from his table and, without knowing why or where to, ran out of his booth. Even if he had known that these men not only could get away with pawing one another in public and talking as they did, but in Budapest’s best circles were considered enviable, dreaded lady-killers, he still could not have understood what was waiting for him in adult life.
The three men were thought of as merry, happy-go-lucky, amusing fellows whom people should not take too seriously and who did their best to live up to their reputations.
Their games were very entertaining.
It was to their advantage that around this time the dominant tones of the city were given not by strong personalities but rather by friendly societies, clans, tribes, associations, and secret professional alliances, all of them blessed with leaders of dubious character and, for that reason, bent on cultivating and strengthening their common reputations. As if there was not a single significant and independent personality left in the city, as if everyone had lost the last vestige of former prestige and had no more use for self-esteem. People lost their reputations because of petty betrayals, or they were bought very cheaply and used as servants. Still, life went on because what people lost in personal authority or dignity they cleverly cobbled together in a smaller circle or society they assumed to be private and safe, and which they joined to fit their interests and where, according to the momentary requirements of self-esteem, they could flatter one another a little. The inner tension of each group was great and that helped give it strength, at times sufficient not only for defense but also for offense or even for a bloody showdown with other groups.
The three men’s enviable and despised light-mindedness, their foreignness and outsider position, was their trademark. They were lounge lizards. This sobriquet gave them status, while their strength and rigor provided protection. Ágost’s own mother did not know or understand him well enough to explain his nerve-racking indifference to her. She disparaged him and constantly disapproved of him; weekly she tried to cast him out of her heart, hoping to make it less painful to acknowledge what had become of her son. Even though she really didn’t know what he had become. A ne’er-do-well, a nobody, a parasite. At the same time, she secretly consoled her anxious maternal heart that, on the principle of birds of a feather, at least those other similarly overgrown good-for-nothings took her son seriously. When they showed up in her apartment with their awful women, it was as if a benevolent wind were sweeping through the large rooms; when they disappeared again, Mrs. Lehr, née Erna Demén, against her better judgment, saw all her well-tended furniture as dead, her life as a desert, her miserable ambitions as meaningless.
What am I talking about, why am I grumbling so much against him, I haven’t been able to succeed in anything either, she kept telling herself. At best, I keep up the illusion of a meaningful life, but not its meaning, and I know the price I’m paying.
Why should my son live a life like this.
Except for the men themselves, nobody knew the richer, more refined, or more tragic and noble sides of their conspicuous traits.
At the next moment, when the irritated cabin attendant looked back from the far end of the corridor, the graying man was grabbing and hugging his apathetic friend huddling on the bench, and the other man was crouching in front of him, his bathrobe barely held closed in the front. They made no movements that didn’t upset the cabin boy. He really must scatter them somehow. Now with both hands André grabbed Ágost’s spread knees as if they were two strange objects and in desperate anger slammed them together, and when the two kneecaps clapped together hard, probably causing pain, he kept shouting in a choked, threatening voice.
Now what’s wrong? Would you mind telling me at last, what’s happening again? Answer me, damn it. What’s happened to you again?
And he held Ágost’s knees in with his hands, as if he had really decided to smash them, pulverize them, if he didn’t get an answer.
What’s happening, nothing. What might have happened, nothing, answered Ágost slowly, listlessly. I simply don’t understand what you’re going on about. I don’t understand your premise, your pitting modernization against progress.
That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not the one who pits one against the other. I’m not the one you have to beat. You must stick it out, and you will, I swear to you. Otherwise I’ll drown you in this pool with my own hands. You’ve endured six years, now you’ll put up with another few months.
If only you didn’t jumble up the principles. You mix up what you read in Pravda with what you read in The Guardian.