— What do you mean? Valentine's voice was as calm, but he'd spoken too quickly.
— Exactly as you suggest, Mr. Inononu said looking up at him.
— Yes, most likely! And if it were true, you would sit there telling me about it, eh?
— One never knows who will win.
— Who will win! what do you mean, who will win. Basil Valentine stood over him, a black tie strung tight between his hands. — Come, you've started this, now. What is being said?
— So many things, as always, said Mr. Inononu, closing the note- book and putting it in his pocket. — Stories, rumors. . He paused; but when Valentine urged him with no more than the cold blue eyes, went on, — Of yourself? Of course, there have always been so many stories, as you know. Why, I have even once been told that when you first came to us, you could not bear friction of any sort? Soaking the feet in warm water and trimming the nails, and put on heavy socks before going to bed? But there are stories about all of us, of course. .
Basil Valentine had turned away, and speaking with apparent calm, repeated, — What is being said now?
— Quite simply, that though the Roman Church believes you still to be acting to its interests, you came to us from the Jesuits some time ago. And that now, though we believe you to be in co-operation with the present regime, you are in truth working with those who would attempt to restore the monarchy of the Hapsburgs. Mr. Inononu folded the papers together. He had spoken disinterestedly, and did not even look up, as though to save Valentine the trouble of contriving some sign of indifference to this intelligence. — Of course, stories, rumors… he added.
— Oh yes, Valentine said then, wearily, pulling off the dressing gown. — First they expect me to work like, what was his name, the seventeenth-century primate, Pázmány?. . converting the nobles first, sure that the people would follow. Now they say this. He shrugged, drawing the tie round his collar. — Come, there are stories about yourself, he went on agreeably. — One to match my abhorrence of friction "of any kind" as you say. I was once told that the reason for your rather oriental visage was, that a bank fell on you in a Japanese earthquake some years ago? An American bank, of course. And there were none but the local surgeons to operate on your face, who knew only the faces to which their own mirrors had accustomed them. .
Mr. Inononu stood. His trousers, fully pleated at the waist, broke their crease two or three times before the shoetops, and almost touched the floor at his heels. He held forth the papers to Valentine, who motioned him to the fireplace, where he stooped before the grate and tried to prod the fire into life with the rolled papers before thrusting them in. — And I understand you shall go to Rome, yourself very soon? he asked, stooped there.
— I believe so, Valentine said. — How do you know?
— As I say, one hears things. Also I believe there is work contemplated there for me. A priest, though I am told far more important than the simple priest he pretends, perhaps you know of him, the name escapes, it is something Martin? Or Martin. .
— Yes, I know of it, Valentine cut him short, and stood motionless looking at the floor until Mr. Inononu straightened up from the fire to say, — It is a very disagreeable smell, this smell of paint burning.
Basil Valentine glanced up at him and smiled for the first time. — Yes, isn't it, he said, commencing to knot the black tie.
On the mantel, the Vulliamy clock struck softly behind Mr. Inononu, who stepped away from it and picked up a book. -De Omni Sanguine Christi Glorificato, John Huss? You have curious reading habits, he said, and put it down again, his eye catching the newspaper clipping thrust in as a marker, as he did so.
— A personal matter, Valentine said, undoing the knot to pull one end slightly longer.
— And this? Hungary to Sell Famed Paintings, from the local newspaper?
— A tragedy, Valentine said thoughtfully, — an. . absurd tragedy, as Inononu pushed the book away and sauntered billowing toward the windows.
— Of course, to say something like that, he began.
— Yes, put that in your report then! Valentine broke out abruptly, at his back. — Anyone who would say what I've just said, eh? must be working against the. . present regime, eh?
— Do not be upset, Mr. Inononu said, without turning or pausing his slow course toward the windows. — You are a critic of art here, of course you are interested in such affairs. Tell me, is it enjoyable, your pose of the art critic in this culture?
Valentine cleared his throat and raised his chin, folding the knot. — There is always an immense congregation of people unable to create anything themselves, who look for comfort to the critics to disparage, belittle, and explain away those who do. And I might say, he added with slight asperity, — it's not entirely a pose.
— Still, other interests come first.
— Oh yes!. . yes! And they send a… hired assassin to look after me, to make sure they do! Yes, like this Rumanian scholar, eh? A man you've never seen? and you're sent out to find him and kill him. Without asking questions, just find him and kill him. And if I say. . there, does it surprise you? if I talk like this to… a hired assassin?
Mr. Inononu stood motionless before the windows. — And it should surprise you that I am? he brought out after a moment. His fingers twitched behind him, until his hands clasped one another. — Because I am a dead man already, he added quietly, and then, turning, — Like yourself. . with an expression near a smile.
The knot broke in Valentine's hands; and a tremble touched his lip as he lost one end. He caught it up immediately, and at that moment the doorbell rang. Mr. Inononu stepped away from the windows instantly, and his hand went into the full breast of his jacket.
— It's nothing, Valentine said. — Someone downstairs. He was hurriedly gathering together the papers still spread on his desk, which he took, with the plainly bound book, through the door to the bedroom. — I'll just be a moment. . And a moment later he appeared in the door pulling on a dinner jacket. — You're coming tonight then, are you? to keep an eye on me, eh?
— Let us say I come simply as an Egyptologist. I have in my leisure developed quite a monologue on the prophecies contained in the Great Pyramid of Cheops. At such a party, I might even encounter someone familiar with Egyptian culture. A Rumanian, familiar with the early dynasties?… I should think myself to be Turkish, since it is a culture with which I am familiar, and of course since, as you say, I look rather. . oriental? But when he turned, Basil Valentine was not there. Then he heard running water, from the bathroom; and then Valentine's voice, — We'll go separately, you go along, I have an errand first.
The fingers of his clasped hands twitching behind him, Mr. Inononu returned to the window and stood looking out on the city. — You live very nicely here, he said, — it is very civilized. But most of these people live in squalor. I have been in the apartments of very respectable people, and they are squalor. He paused, and then his fingers still moving behind him he said, — Did you see what they did with our Molnár? what happened to Liliom? That was a beautiful thing, a beautiful ragged thing, Liliom, and they made it to music that sounds like all the other music I hear here, everything is smoothed round like everything else, it is sugar-coated suffering of the spirit here.
The doorbell rang again, in a long peal, and his hands stopped and held one another tightly behind him. As it went on, they relaxed.
— I have heard the radio, he said. — But since I can understand it, it is very depressing. It is spiritual squalor. Does it surprise you that I can talk this way? if you thought me no more than. . that, he said and his hands came apart to gesture behind him, and fell together again.
— Do you know the novel of Mikszáth, Szent Peter esernyoje? Of course, if Saint Peter could come out today upon these streets below he would find all he could wish, voices from nowhere, music from unpopulated boxes, men ascending divine distances in gas balloons, and traveling at the speed of sound, apparitions from nowhere appear on the screen; the sick are raised from the dead, life is prolonged so that every detail of pain may be relished, the blind are given eyes and the cripples forced to walk, and there is an item which can blow a city of the beloved enemy into a place where their sins will be brought home to them, with of course as much noise as the trumpets on the walls of Jericho. .