Never mind,” he reassured himself, “I’ll get around to it when we get off this damn wreck. . we can’t part in anger like this!” Mrs. Schmidt’s face was flushed, her eyes sparkling, as she watched the rapidly receding manor, that enormous building covered in weeds and rampant ivy, its four miserable towers extending at the corners, while the metalled road, billowing with ridges behind them, vanished into infinity, and her relief at the return of her “darling” so excited her that she didn’t notice the wind and rain beating her face, though she had no protection against any of it however she pulled the hood over her head, because in the great confusing mêlée she found herself at the end of the rear row. There could be no doubt, nor did she feel any; nothing now could shake her faith in Irimiás. It was not like before because here, on the back of the speeding truck, she understood her future: that she would follow him like a strange dreamlike shadow, now as his lover, now as his maid, in absolute poverty if necessary, and in this way she would be reborn time after time; she would learn his every movement, the secret meaning of each distinct modulation of his voice, would interpret his dreams and should — God forbid! — any harm befall him, hers would be the lap in which he would lay his head. . And she would learn to be patient and wait, to prepare herself for any ordeal, and if fate decreed that Irimiás left her for good one day — for what else could he do? — she would spend her remaining days quietly, knit her shroud and go to her grave with pride knowing that it had once been given her to have “a great man, a real man” as her lover. . Not were there any bounds to the good cheer of Halics, who was squashed up beside her: not rain, not wind, not the bumpy ride, no discomfort of any kind could deflate him: his corn-hardened feet were flat and frozen in his boots, the water on top of the driver’s cabin occasionally slopped down the back of his neck and powerful gusts of wind from the side of the truck brought out tears, but he was cheered, not only by the return of Irimiás, but by the sheer delight of traveling for, as he had said often enough in the past, “he could never resist the intoxicating pleasure of speed’, and here was his big chance to enjoy it, now, while Irimiás, ignoring all the dangerous potholes and ditches along the road, had his foot on the gas right down to the floor, so whenever he was able to open his eyes, even if ever so slightly, he was thrilled to see the landscape rushing by at dizzying speed, and he quickly formed a plan, because it wasn’t too late, in fact it was a very good time, to make one of his long-cherished dreams come true, and already he was seeking the right words to convince Irimiás to help him realize it, when suddenly it occurred to him that the driver was obliged to reject opportunities that he — alas! — “granted his old age” found irresistible. . So he decided simply to enjoy the pleasures of the journey as far as he could so that later, over a friendly glass, he could conjure every detail to his prospective new friends, because simply imagining it as he had so far was “as nothing to the real experience. .” Mrs. Halics was the only one who found nothing to enjoy in “this insane rush” since, unlike her husband, she was firmly set against any kind of new foolishness, and because she was pretty sure that if they carried on this way they would all break their necks, and so she closed her hands, praying fearfully to the Good Lord to protect them all and not to desert them at this hour of danger, but however hard she tried to convince the others to do the same (‘In the name of Our Savior, Jesus Christ please tell this lunatic to slow down just a little!’) they didn’t “give a hoot” either about the wild speed or her terrified mutterings, on the contrary, they “seemed to find pleasure in the danger!.”. The Kráners, and even the headmaster, were childishly exhilarated, proudly braced against the back of the truck squinting like lords at the barren landscape flying past them. It was exactly as they had imagined the journey, as fast as the wind, at mind numbing speed, passing every obstacle — utterly invincible! They were proud to see the landscape vanish in a haze, proud that they could leave it behind, not like miserable beggars but — behold! — with heads held high, full of confidence, on a triumphant note. . Their only regret, as they rumbled past the old estate and reached the road-mender’s house on the long bend, was that in their hurry they didn’t get a glimpse of the Horgos familu, or of blind Kerekes or of the landlord, his face purple with jealousy. . Futaki carefully tapped his swollen nose and considered himself lucky to have “got away” with nothing worse, not having dared to touch it at all until the sharp pain had completely gone, so he couldn’t know whether it was broken or not. He was still not quite in control of his senses, and felt dizzy and faintly nauseous. His mind confused images of Schmidt’s twisted scarlet face and Kráner behind him, ready to leap, with the stern gaze of Irimiás, a gaze that seemed to be burning him up. As the pain in his nose faded he slowly became aware of other injuries: he had lost part of an incisor, the skin on his lower lip was broken. He could hardly hear the consoling words of the headmaster crushed up next to him — “You shouldn’t take it too much to heart. As you see, it has all turned out for the best. .” — because his ears were ringing and the pain made him turn his head this way and that, not knowing where to spit the salty blood still left in his mouth, and he only started feeling a little better when he caught a flash of the deserted mill and the sagging roof of Halics’s house, but however he twisted and turned he still couldn’t see the engine house because by the time he had got into position the truck was passing the bar. He cast a sly look at the squatting figure of Schmidt then confessed to himself that, however strange it sounded, he felt absolutely no anger towards him; he knew the man well and had always known how quick his temper was, and so — before any thought of revenge could occur to him — having full heartedly forgiven him, he decided to reassure him at the earliest opportunity because he could guess his state of mind. He watched the trees rushing past him on either side of the road with a certain sadness, feeling that whatever had happened in the “manor” simply had had to happen. The noise, the whistling wind and the rain that from time to time hit them from the side eventually drew his attention away from Schmidt and from Irimiás too for a while. With great difficulty he dragged out a cigarette and, by leaning forward and covering the match with his palm, eventually succeeded in lighting it. They had left the estate and bar a long way behind now and he judged that they could be only a few hundred yards from the electric generator, and therefore only some half hour from town. He noted how proudly and enthusiastically the headmaster and Kráner, who was sitting immediately next to him, were turning their heads this way and that as if nothing had happened, as if all that had happened at the manor was hardly worth remembering and could rapidly be forgotten. He, on the other hand, was by no means sure that the arrival of Irimiás had solved all their problems. And while the sight of him standing in the doorway had changed everything for them while they were in despair, the whole mad scramble after it, and now this strange dash along a deserted highway, was not for Futaki any kind of proof that the rush was to some specific place; it seemed to him more like a kind of stampede, a “blind and uncertain rush into the unknown” that was somehow pointless: they had not the least idea what was waiting for them, that’s if they ever stopped. There was something ominous about having no clue what Irimiás was planning: he could not guess why they were in such a panic to leave the manor. For a brief moment he recalled a terrifying image he hadn’t been able to forget, not in all these years: once again he saw himself in his old tattered coat, leaning on his stick, hungry and infinitely disappointed, trudging down the metalled road, the estate fading into the dusk behind him, the horizon in front of him still far from clear. . And now, numbed by the rattling truck, his premonition seemed to be coming true: penniless, hungry, and broken in body, here he was, sitting in the back of a truck that had turned up out of the blue, on a road that led God knows where, heading into the unknown, and should they come to a fork in that road, he couldn’t begin to decide which road to take because he was helpless, resigned to the fact that his fate was being decided elsewhere, by a noisy, rattling, ancient wreck of a truck over which he had absolutely no control. “It seems there’s no escape,” he reflected in apathy. “This way or that, I’m lost either way. Tomorrow I’ll wake in an unfamiliar room where I won’t know what’s waiting for me, and it will be as if I had set out on my own. . I’ll put my minimal possessions out on the table by the bed, if there is one, and there I am, staring out of the window at dusk watching the light fade all over again. .” It shocked him to realize that his faith in Irimiás had been shaken the moment he saw him at the “manor” entrance. . “Maybe, if he hadn’t come back, there might still have been some hope. . But now?” Right back at the manor he had sensed the well-concealed disappointment behind the words, and saw, even as Irimiás was standing by the truck watching them loading up, how he was hanging his head, and that something was lost, lost forever!. . Now suddenly everything was clear. Irimiás lacked the strength and energy he once had; he had finally lost “his old fire’; he too was just filling in time, driven along by habit; and, realizing this, Futaki now understood that the speech at the bar with its clumsy rhetorical tricks was simply a way of concealing from those who still believed in Irimiás the truth that he was as helpless as they were, that he no longer hoped to lend meaning to the power that was strangling him as much as it was them, that even he, Irimiás, could not free himself from it. His nose was pulsing with pain, his nausea refused to pass and even a cigarette did not help, so he threw it away without finishing it. They crossed the bridge over “the Stinker’, a water stagnant with weed and frogspawn, lying perfectly still, the roadside ever denser with acacia, and there were even one or two abandoned farm buildings in the distance, surrounded by trees. The rain had stopped but the wind was buffeting them ever more violently and they were worried in case baggage was blown off the top of the pile. For the time being there was neither sight nor sound of humanity and to their astonishment they met no one at all, not even when turning off at the Elek fork on the road leading into town. “What’s with this place?” yelled Kráner. “They got rabies?” It reassured them to see two figures in raincoats swaying with their arms around each other by the entrance of The Scales, then they turned down the road leading to the main square, their eyes thirstily drinking in the low level houses, the drawn blinds, the fancy drains and the carved wooden entrances: it was like leaving prison. By now, of course, time was simply rushing by and before they could take it all in the truck braked right in the middle of the wide square in front of the station. “OK, folks!” Petrina stuck his head out of the cabin window and shouted. “End of the sightseeing tour!” “Wait!” Irimiás stopped them as they were preparing to get off, and left the driver’s seat. “Just the Schmidts. Then the Kráners and the Halicses. Get your things together! You, Futaki, and you, Mr Headmaster, wait here!” He led them with firm decisive steps, the herd after him struggling with their baggage. They entered the waiting room, piled the baggage in a corner and stood round Irimiás. “There’s time enough to talk things over calmly. Are you very frozen?” “We’ll be snoring tonight like nobody’s business,” sniggered Mrs. Kráner. “Is there a pub round here? I could do with a drink!” “Sure there is,” Irimiás answered and looked at his watch. “Come with me.” The waiting room was practically empty except for a railwayman leaning on a rickety counter. “Schmidt!” Irimiás spoke up once they’d downed a glass of