Uncle Ambrus’s presence was one of the reasons why they had brought along the chairs, for they knew that he did not much care for standing about, and if one chair why not several others and a table and some champagne to set upon it? Of course they had done all this before, but tonight they all felt it was a special occasion.
The sixth man to join them had been Laszlo Gyeroffy and his presence was by chance. He had just been loafing around in the street‚ as always something of an outsider. In the darkness he seemed very elegant, for in the dimly lit street no one could see how threadbare and worn was his well-cut coat nor how shabby and damaged his once expensive hat that had come from St James’s Street in London. He still looked as handsome and as proud in his English clothes as he had been a year earlier when he was still the elotancos — the leading dancer and organizer of all the smart parties in Budapest — before he had been ruined by gambling too heavily and had been made to resign from his clubs in the capital. Laszlo’s good looks had not changed but there was something in his manner that had not been there before, an awkwardness, an infinitesimal air of servility that was only apparent when, for example, he would go to the end of the table and sit down only when expressly invited, and how gratified he seemed if anyone deigned to speak to him. When he had had too much to drink this new-found timidity would desert him and then he changed completely‚ wrapping himself in a strange exaggerated pride and carrying himself with dignity. Then he would stand exceptionally straight, tilt his tall hat on the back of his head and, with an air of disdain and infinite distance, speak scornfully as if all the world were beneath him. On this evening he had not yet reached this state as, even at that late hour, he had not yet put enough alcohol beneath his belt. Modestly‚ therefore‚ he hung back and quietly followed the others on their way.
The first stop was on the Torda road where the widowed Countess Kamuthy lived with her grandchildren in an old house which had been built against the ancient walls of the town. Here the procession entered the courtyard, because the windows of the family’s rooms all opened onto it, and at once Akos Alvinczy ordered the musicians to play the tune that the youngest Kamuthy girl had chosen as her own, then his song followed by a couple of waltzes. As there was no answering sign from the windows Akos told the musicians just to play some mood music. All at once there appeared behind one of the windows a lighted candle. This symbolized the fact that the serenade had been accepted and so the band broke into a swift and merry csardas. As soon as this was brought to an end the party left the house and headed for the Monostor road. Here they stopped in front of Jeno Laczok’s house, lifted the table from the wagon, set it up on the sidewalk and placed the champagne, glasses and ice bucket upon it. Around the table sat Uncle Ambrus and all the rest of them, except Baron Gazsi, drinking heavily and toasting each other. Gazsi remained standing by the gypsies because here it was he who had ordered the music. Although it never entered his head when he was sober, a little drink always convinced him he was madly in love with Ida Laczok. One sad lovelorn song followed another as Gazsi gazed up mournfully at the almost instantly lit window, his woodpecker nose tilted on one side in the very attitude of the despairing lover.
Nearby the cook from the house next door was saying goodbye at the wrought-iron gate to her soldier lover. Hearing the sweet music they remained discreetly in the shadow, hiding behind the stone gatepost. The policemen were just about to ask them to move on, but seeing that they were merely standing quietly in the dark and were not making any trouble they let them be.
At the end of Gazsi’s serenade the little band continued on its way down the Monostor road. They had between three and four hundred metres to go before they reached the Uzdy villa. At Kolozsvar this was considered a great distance but there is no sacrifice a loving heart will not make to tell his beloved of his devotion, and in this party there were three of them who felt that way about the beautiful Countess Adrienne, wife of Pal Uzdy. Adam and Pityu had been her devoted slaves for a long time, and everyone knew it, but now they had a new recruit in Uncle Ambrus, though he himself had kept very quiet about it.
Until recently Ambrus had concentrated on more facile conquests. With his hawk-shaped nose and bristling dark brown moustaches he had the sort of good looks that made servant-girls catch their breath when they met him on a dark staircase. He was usually in luck even though his conquests rarely lasted more than half an hour and were the result of a casual and laughing request for a ‘quick rough and tumble’ for which nothing more was needed than the opportunity and an available sofa. Since he had been a boy Ambrus’s heart had never beat the more swiftly for any woman, and he was convinced that they were all there for the taking whenever he was in the mood.
It was also true that he never made a move towards any girl who had not already shown him that she was ready for it.
He had never previously taken much note of Adrienne’s existence. Of course they had moved in the same social group for several years. He had danced with her countless times, often dined at the same table and met in the same houses, but Adrienne, with her girlish appearance, thin neck and undeveloped body, and with the air of icy disapproval with which she kept at bay any conversation that seemed to be heading towards risqué subjects or lewd innuendo, had held no interest for Ambrus. Subconsciously he had felt that she was not yet really a woman in spite of having a husband and a child. In some way she was different from the women he was used to. When Adam Alvinczy and Pityu Kendy had openly avowed their love for her he had laughed at them and told them they were a pair of donkeys. But everything had changed‚ quite suddenly‚ when he saw her again this carnival season in Kolozsvar.
It was difficult to explain what it was in Adrienne that made her seem different. She was cool and flirtatious, but she had been both before, and she had always loved to tease the men who were in love with her‚ even tormenting them a little. The truth was she played with them as if they were amusing automatons‚ dolls without hearts. This play was totally instinctive, like that of the fairy tale giant princess who tossed the dwarfs in her pinafore, never for a moment reflecting that they might have human feelings. Adrienne kept her playthings in strict order. No words with double meanings were ever allowed; and no reference, however veiled, to sexual desire or contact, to kisses or even innocent compliments to her beauty‚ complexion or colouring were allowed to pass their lips. All this remained unchanged … yet there was a difference, subtle but definite. Now she played her game with compassion and with a softer, wiser understanding than before. Though, as before, all references to sex were forbidden, now it seemed as if her veto sprang not from a lack of knowledge or from unawakened ignorance, but rather because she held the subject so holy that she felt it would be too easily profaned.
The men who continued to pursue her were still her playthings, but she no longer treated them as unfeeling objects, rather, perhaps, as lesser beings who knew nothing of what they wanted to discuss and who, if they suffered at all, suffered only lightly with no risk of serious wounds. If they desired something it could only be trivial, minor yearnings with which she could sympathize and feel sorry for, listen to gently and even try to ameliorate by a kind word … but as for taking them seriously? What did they know of love‚ of what she had experienced, of what she had lived through?
What she had lived through … It had been the previous summer. For one short month she had escorted her sisters to Venice and, during those four weeks, every dawn had brought her one step nearer to self-destruction, to a death towards which she went with head raised, happy as she had never been before, as if she carried her red beating heart in her two hands in joyous sacrifice, glorying in the magic of her own fulfilled womanhood. That she did not kill herself before returning home, as she had planned, but came back to the husband she loathed and dreaded and must continue to live with, was for her the real sacrifice. This was the price she had had to pay if she was to save her lover from taking his life too. She would willingly have accepted her own death, but she could not bear to be responsible for that of her lover. He would have killed himself if she had‚ and that was the reason why she had come back. With this memory deep within her, with the knowledge that she had already lived through all the pain and bliss of life, experienced every pleasure and faced the reality of death, with this secret in her heart, everything else in her eyes seemed grey and drab, cheap and poor. It was because of this that she listened with sympathy and understanding, and with a tiny pitying smile upon her lips, to Adam Alvinczy or Pityu Kendy when they poured out their woes to her and tried to tell her what sorrow she caused them. She treated them like children who had to be comforted when they had fallen and bruised their knees.