“Why, were you unhappy while you stayed with me?” Ninon asked pointedly, and raised her parasol in a threatening way.
Kálmán looked around for an escape route from the over-wrought lady. He knew of a nearby house with a passageway through it — one of those mute buildings on whose flagstones only those initiated citizens’ footsteps wore a path, who entered through one gate and wandered off through another, toward the distant unknown. This was where he intended to lose Ninon. But this experienced lady was no fool, and she, in turn, endeavored to herd the hesitant young man toward her closed carriage. She spoke passionately and nonstop, as if addressing an invisible confidante with the plaintive tale of her ups and downs with Kálmán.
“I tell you, there’s not a man in Pest who had it better than this heartless youth. He had the prince’s room all to himself in my house; all right, so he was occasionally obliged to go to a coffeehouse when the prince visited Pest for an assignation with one of his girlfriends. Other than that he was lord and master of the house; the concierge was forever running errands for him; he kept the tailors and shoemakers of the district constantly busy; why, the barber’s assistant would wait on him in the hall all evening long, as if the prince himself were inside. Ah yes, the easy life, undisturbed, tranquil and refined; carriage rides out to Zugliget; introductions to all my genteel lady visitors; at night, a sensible and blessed peace and quiet behind the securely locked doors of my house, the pantry always fully stocked, and summer holidays in the country…all his to enjoy. My wine cellars, my livestock, my horses; my serving maids obedient as serfs, my chimneys gently puffing smoke; my overstuffed larders, my attics full of drying walnuts and fragrant apples; honey-sweet grapes by the bunch, and my homemade sausages and head cheeses; my local prestige: all his to enjoy. I presented him to my old, highborn friends who offered their lifelong patronage, and I introduced him to the vineyard master on my estate as the new proprietor whose orders are to be obeyed. Had he intended to repay me for all the wisdom and practical advice I gave him, he would have had to build a paper mill, and print banknotes night and day…Oh, the scoundrel!”
Here Ninon screamed, then swore like a sergeant, for Kálmán suddenly ducked into the passageway, and instantaneously vanished from view.
For a moment she stood there dazed as if hit on the head. Then a resigned smile passed over the face that kings had fought over.
“Let’s go home, Friedl,” she said to the handsome, silver-haired driver. “Looks like we’re getting old.”
The pair of matched Russian horses set off at a trot over the winding Inner City streets.
As for Kálmán Ossuary, he turned his steps in the direction of the Virgin of St. Roch’s, whom he had long ago nominated as Eveline’s local surrogate in providing miraculous help. That he had been strong enough to free himself from Ninon he owed to Eveline’s, or rather Mary’s, intercession. This most beautiful of Budapest ladies stood high up on her pillar, pure and divine grace, hewed out of stone. Her head was bent, but not because of the weight of her starry crown of gold, or because of her curiosity to see all the scoundrels and peasants trooping past on Kerepesi Road. Her hands were opposed in prayer, in a gesture of heavenly rapture, as if she sojourned here amidst eternal orisons for all Josephstadt women. “Ave Maria, Gratia Plena!” the gilded letters announced, and Kálmán approached the statue’s iron grill with a faith bordering on certainty that others had already prayed here on his behalf. Possibly he had been commended to her safekeeping by Eveline, that exquisite creature, the last time she came here for matins at the Chapel of St. Roch, and knelt behind the nuns, among the mendicants, like some princess traveling incognito. Inside the fence lay a wreath of chrysanthemums, perhaps she had left it as a token, foreseeing that Kálmán would pass this way one doleful morning — a morning when she, in her country manor’s window, contemplated the awakening of the land, while Kálmán, lost in the metropolis, had no one to turn to, to pour out his heart…Ah, the most tender thoughts in a man’s brain cannot equal the sentimentality of a benevolent woman… Why, such a woman will tell a lie only (by her silence or her absence) when she wishes to spare a man the greatest torment.
Kálmán pressed his forehead against the cast-iron bars and prayed lightheartedly, wordlessly, like a pilgrim. His eyes saw Eveline up on the pilaster, and it was to her that his heart’s murmurings went out, to her, lady of miracles, healing breath, caressing hand that brings oblivion.
“Eveline,” he sobbed at last, as woefully as if this would earn him a special reprieve from the maiden who saw everything: his cold behavior toward Ninon, his flight, and now saw his ardent prayers as well. And for this reason would have to forgive him, even if icebergs rose up between them.
Far away in a Hungarian village Eveline’s nanny, as usual, laid out the Tarot first thing in the morning.
The ancient crone squatting on the floor suddenly pointed at a figure that had long been absent from the lay of the cards.
“A traveler’s approaching,” she said, and Eveline trembled like a windblown leaf.
4. An Unusual Young Lady and Her Unusual Beaux
Maskerádi — were he asked in the great beyond to speak truthfully about his earthly doings — would confess that he had especially feared those women who remembered his lies the day after; otherwise, he had preferred to pass his days at weddings.
Maszkerádi had lived in Pest back in the days when one could see on Chamois Street in the evening the white-stockinged daughters of the bourgeoisie sitting on benches under fragrant trees in the courtyards of single-storied townhouses, listening to the music of distant accordions, their hearts overflowing with love, like a stone trough whose water drips from a little-used faucet. In winter this part of town gave off the smells of the grab bags of itinerant vendors; in summer the predominant scent was that of freshly starched petticoats. Had he the inclination, Maszkerádi could have seduced and abducted the entire female population of Chamois Street. He was a stray soul, French or German in origin, variously prince in exile or cardsharp, refined gentleman or midnight serenader, fencing master or freeloader, as the occasion demanded. Married middle-class ladies cast down their eyes when he flashed a glance at them, while their husbands loathed the sight of his lithe limbs; in her book of hours every girl had a certain prayer picked out for her by Maszkerádi. Sometimes there were as many as four or five young misses bent piously over the supplication of a fallen soul at Sunday Mass in the Franciscans’ Church. At night the occasional report of a firearm disturbed the tranquility of the quarter: a father or husband taking a shot at Maszkerádi who had been glimpsed lurking around the sleeping household. He sported a black beard and there was animal magnetism in his voice. He must have retained in his possession intimate letters from some extremely prominent Inner City ladies (for a while he had resided in that quarter) — to have avoided incarceration in the darkest prison of Pest.
One day this disreputable adventurer was found dead in mysterious circumstances in his apartment at Number Ten, where irate husbands had so often waited, posted by the front entrance, expecting to see their dear little errant wives. (Although the road to Maszkerádi was fraught with peril, women still ran off to his place on snowy afternoons before a ball, on spring mornings before an outing to the Buda hills, or after a funeral, aroused by the tears shed at the last rites. On rainy nights there were barefoot women lowering themselves on the drainspout — in short, no other man in town could lay claim to such traffic.) The coroner readily agreed to inter this dangerous individual without a thorough inquest; he didn’t even insist on dripping hot candle wax on the fingertips of the deceased. Although the knitting needle stuck in the victim’s heart and the nail protruding from the crown of his head were duly noted, the reprobate was not deemed worthy of much fuss. The sooner the meat wagon transported this carrion out of town, the better.