A slew of melancholy images came to his mind with cruel alacrity. A narrow Inner City street, the flickering street lamp, in the light of which he examines the rope before looping it around his neck…A miserable, endless day, the sun showing no sign of ever intending to sink behind St. Gellért’s Hill, and all afternoon spent looking the pistol’s barrel in the eye…The penitentiary, full of rats and close-cropped old inmates… Buried alive in the stench…
He felt utterly miserable.
“I’ll make arrangements for your departure by daybreak,” continued Diamant, and gritting his teeth, he swallowed a mouthful of beer after chewing on it as if it were some adversary.
Soon afterward Kálmán Ossuary left The Veteran’s heart-lulling and soul-soothing vaulted chambers. He had experienced a miraculous transformation deep down in his heart. No more loitering around gambling casinos; on the street he would steer clear of his worthless, easygoing chums who casually fraternized with death; he would reconcile with his uncle, a prickly village gentleman out of whom he could no longer squeeze a single farthing; he would take his law exams and establish himself as a lawyer in the Inner City of Pest. Any life deficient in the family pleasures must, of necessity, be aimless and troubled. He would find himself a wife in the Josephstadt, where he had met Eveline. He would have the doors fitted with secure locks, be always on the qui vive, take his wife out only to the National Theater and for daily constitutionals on the Buda esplanade, soon with heads bent they would be leaning over a small cradle, enjoying the quiet life, no thought hidden from each other; they would have their photograph taken together, and on Sunday afternoons visit the Farkasrét Cemetery where the relatives rest in peace. Time to enjoy the pleasures of a fine kitchen, the rich roast, clean table linen, a soft bed and the alarm clock — quiet, happy days, with plenty of time to observe all the beauty of autumn and spring. No loud word would ever scare the silent bird of tranquility from their house. Only the sewing machine will whirr, the mailman will ring the doorbell to deliver a money order, and a retired old neighbor might amble over after dinner to regale them with tales of the Prussian campaign. The family doctor would make house calls, but mostly to discuss politics, and afternoon coffee would be sipped by his wife’s dearest friends: old Josephstadt ladies who are never seen without shopping bags. The clock’s hands would show the midnight hours in vain in a house where everyone sleeps through the night. The garbage collector’s bell, or the dawn revelers’ footfalls, would be heard from a great distance, as if from far-off lands. The oil lamp always lit under the holy icon, until the woman of the house begins to resemble the Virgin Mary herself, her face not yet broken by pain; if overheard talking in her dream, she would always speak of household and domestic matters, serving maid stuff: “Marie, mind the gentleman’s caraway-seed soup…”
And since only sadness has the right to lie, they would never tell each other an untruth as long as they lived, Kálmán and Eveline, or whoever would substitute for Eveline (who would nonetheless be consulted and asked for her blessing).
Until now, each and every dawn had seen a similarly resolved, joyous and purified Kálmán turn in to sleep until nightfall, when all of the upright resolutions were again promptly forgotten. Chaotic dreams sprang at him their desperate madhouse surprises as soon as he shut his eyes in sleep, and helped to neglect those matutinal vows. When he periodically awoke from these horrible images, his heart beat like a syphilitic’s who had stumbled upon the nature of his disease. Had he been a writer, he would have set down his dreams, the mendacious acts committed in his sleep, his conscious self-deceptions, his dreamland swindles — he would have had enough material for a lifetime…No wonder his dazed brain was reluctant to give serious thought to changing his way of life. One after another, his days flew by like migrating cranes across the sky’s vault. At the age of twenty-five he still imagined that Eveline (if she actually refused to marry him) would find a wife for him, forgive him all his trespasses and also provide for his future. He believed Eveline to be a supernatural, goddesslike being whose generosity surpassed even a mother’s.
Now, on this new morning of resolve, he stepped on the sidewalk and set out half awake on the winding Inner City streets toward the small residential hotel where during the last season (ever since Eveline had left Pest) Ninon de Lenclos had more than once settled his debts. She had also replenished his supply of underwear and clothes, until at last Kálmán deigned to return to Ninon’s miniature palazzo, to a bed on the mezzanine that was as capacious as any king or voluptuary’s — without meaning any offense against Eveline’s sacred personage, for the girl’s marvelous face always floated before his eyes, like Jesus Christ’s in front of the penitent on holy pilgrimage, giving strength and endurance on the endless march…
…whereas for Kálmán she took the form of heroines in romantic novels, and faith-healing saintly maidens who were indifferent to earthly suffering…Her face appeared embroidered on medieval ecclesiastic banners that flapped in the wind over the heads of the troop of unfortunates, among whom Kálmán marched, in the shadow of the banner…Only rarely did he see her as a tousled, scatterbrained schoolgirl (one of the students at an Inner City boarding school where Eveline had spent her youth) — and that had been a while back, when Kálmán was still at the height of his energies, and was capable of making decisions on the girl’s behalf as well. However, the slender girlchild with the dreamy, far-off look soon saw through things— she could actually see what Kálmán did when he was alone, she could actually see Kálmán’s thoughts, how he lived, walked the streets and whom he met. She began to see all of Kálmán’s life in stunning detail when she was barely seventeen. That was the time she handed over to him the first thousand-forint banknote (how she had acquired it was unfathomable, since as a minor, she had no access to her considerable wealth as yet), which Kálmán took to the races and lost on a horse at the spring meet. Eveline received the news without a blink or word of regret. “I’ll economize,” she said, although Kálmán, in the old garden on which the windows of the Szerb Street girls’ school opened, swore up and down that he would find no peace until he recovered the lost thousand…Eveline looked off into the distance and quietly implored Kálmán to spend his time more profitably than trying to make money. He needed to shift for himself only until Eveline finished her schooling, when she would take control of her finances…
Naturally from that day on Kálmán did not make the least effort toward obtaining gainful employment. (He had been born lucky. Once upon a time, when he was running after a rabbit in the autumn fields, the hunting rifle went off in his hands, and the bullet whizzed past his ear like death’s express train. Only years later did it occur to him to give thanks to providence for this.)
Before he reached his hotel, an elegantly dressed, dolorous-voiced, black-gloved lady stepped out of a waiting cab and placed her hand on Kálmán’s arm:
“Please don’t go back to The Dove any more, my dear. You know you can always have a quiet, clean and comfortable room at my place. And I don’t have to tell you that what’s mine is yours as well.”
It was Ninon, lurking in the neighborhood of The Dove, determined to keep watch even if she had to wait all morning for her beloved’s arrival.
But this morning proved ill-chosen for the grand lady who otherwise had almost complete power over Kálmán — without, however, possessing his heart.
Kálmán now coldly dismissed her.
“Madam, it’s all over between us. Find some other fool in town to satisfy your whims. I’m leaving Pest, and never want to see you or your neighborhood again.”