They didn't light the nightlight. But even without it the room wasn't dark. Light filtered in through the chinks in the lowered shutters, casting bright, shimmering wavelets on the walls. From the street the rattle of peasant carts on their way to market could already be heard.
Dawn was breaking.
XI
in which there is mention of getting up late, of rain, and in which the Panthers reappear
Those rakish metropolitans, who live by night and sleep by day in carefree capitals, are used to waking in the dark and meeting once again the selfsame night from which they parted company the day before.
This is their black dawn. It doesn't frighten them or take them by surprise. They greet it with a stretch and a yawn, lighting the lamp with sleepy hands, hurrying into the bathroom to wash and shave, then dressing quickly in front of the wardrobe, before stepping out refreshed into the dimly lit street. The people who pass before them here are weary from their daily round. Many long hours are already behind them, endless discussions and disputes, a hastily snatched breakfast and a guzzled lunch. Now only dinner stands between them and their beds. They move more slowly, speak more softly, visibly disillusioned with the day now drawing to a close. A hackney carriage jolts past, pulled by an exhausted horse, which had still been able to gallop that morning. A baleful lethargy hovers in the air. But this does not dishearten the new arrivals, fresh from sleep. It makes them all the more conscious of their own high spirits and hopes. They pass among their fellow men with a spring in their step, leaving them way behind in unfair competition. They laugh at the electric light, remembering the bright sunshine on which they had turned their backs, they swagger with vitality, and effortlessly, blithely, almost maliciously turn into the marble-laden foyer of some garishly lit bar where, summoned either by passion or profession, they take up where they left off the day before.
But for those who have never lived like this, and have always risen early, somewhere in the country, such late awakenings bring nothing but anxiety, sadness and remorse.
As they look up at the still dark window, they think it is not yet dawn and want to go on sleeping into this second night, as if it were still the first.
Their bodies are not fully rested from their daytime sleep. Then suddenly they remember everything. All the extraordinary events of the night before: the spinning of cards, glasses, words, the new direction their lives had suddenly seemed to be taking, before they felt compelled to flee, without fully understanding what had happened, driven by the spectre of time ill spent and a sense of obligation to make amends for their transgressions, to return to their duties and settle back into the old routine. They rise giddily, unable at first to recognise their rooms, their most intimate possessions, the street in which they live. It is as if everything were coated with a thin layer of soot. They haven't seen the sun, which has, in the meantime, burned to a cinder. They haven't greeted the day, which, without their knowing, has completely blackened, leaving only the odd flying ashes and clinkers behind as a disquieting surprise. They don't know whether they are hungry or full, hot or cold. Thus they flounder until they find their proper place in space and time, and only then do they notice that their heads are spinning and sore.
The woman, who first opened her eyes late in the afternoon, towards five, was tortured by such feelings. She was the first to wake. Her husband went on sleeping.
She slipped carefully out of bed, put on her thick flannel dress and wrapped her head in a scarf. She got on with the cleaning like some elderly servant. Dustpan and brush in her hands, she shuffled from room to room.
The lamps still burned by the piano, having kept their vigil night and day. The woman reproached herself for the senseless waste of electricity.
She had much to do. During the week they had often moved the furniture from one room to another. Now she had to sort it all out again and put each piece back where it had stood for decades. She spent a long time searching for Skylark's needlework, the tablecloth under which she had left the pantry key. When it finally turned up she spread it over the marble plinth of the mirror and pressed it flat with the two bronze-clasped photograph albums. She looked around for any more incriminating evidence. Now she only had to tidy up the piano, clear away the music and lock the lid. She took the key into the bedroom and gave it to her husband, who had just woken up.
Here she went down on her knees and scrubbed the dirty, spittle-flecked parquet, sweeping away the cigar ash and gathering up the coins and banknotes which lay strewn all over the floor. She rattled and clattered as she cleaned. The noise drove Ákos out of bed. He dressed briskly. He spoke of indifferent matters.
“What time is it?'
“Half past six.”
Looking in the mirror he saw the traces of bicarbonate of soda still clinging to his chin. He looked away. This morning's scene struck him as childish and tasteless. He didn't mention it at all. Nor did his wife.
“Dark, isn't it?'
“Yes, it's already late. The train will soon be in.”
“It's cold.”
“Yes, it's raining outside.”
The woman opened the shutters and aired the room. A cold, unfriendly stream of air swept the stuffy room, fluttering the curtains.
It was raining.
They could hear the whistle of the wind and the creaking of signboards. The rain spluttered through the glass bulbs of the gas lamps. Damp, round umbrellas swelled. People squelched through puddles in mud-spattered trousers, grimacing as they locked their umbrellas in battle with the storm. The tin mouths of the drains spewed foamy water which gushed in streams into the overgrown ditches of Petőfi Street. A paraffin lamp already smouldered in Mihály Veres's dark, unhealthy workshop.
They both observed this scene for some moments.
“It's autumn,” said Ákos.
“Yes,” said the woman. “It really is autumn.”
They shut the windows.
“You'll have to take your autumn coat,” she said then. “Otherwise you'll catch your death. And an umbrella too.”
“Do hurry up,” Ákos urged.
“I am hurrying.”
It was no small task to make everything as it should be, the five rooms, the hall, after a week of disorder.
They stumbled to and fro and the harder they worked the longer it seemed to take them.
It was nearly half past seven. Ákos picked up the umbrella and opened it out in the room to make sure the framework hadn't rusted. He pulled on his old, nut-brown overcoat which dangled loosely front and back and made him look rather thin.
They were just about to leave when he suddenly crouched to the floor. By the back leg of the wardrobe he had caught sight of a gold coin. He picked it up and gave it to his wife.
“Put this away.”
Then, when they reached the street, it was the woman's turn to stop short.
“Wait,” she said. “I'll take this back inside,” and she pointed to her new crocodile handbag. “I don't really want it now. Not with this.”
Ákos nodded.
The wind howled. It crashed into the old man, spun him round and tried to wrench the umbrella from his hand. It blew impertinently into his face and completely took his breath away. It lifted the woman too, as she came hurrying after her husband. They climbed into a carriage.
The station stood deserted. There was not a soul in sight.
The rain quickened, streaming down the sides of the dirty carriages which were thick with summer dust. In the distance a few green flames flickered above the empty track. Coal smoke drifted everywhere and the satanic smell of sulphur filled the air.