So what sort of ideas does such a romantic soul entertain when the wild duck begins to quack in the reeds and every night he dreams of Eveline?
One overcast afternoon, when the house became as stuffy with pipe smoke as if every one of his forefathers had clambered down from the framed portraits to light up, and antique medals, Maria Theresa thalers and Roman coins failed to keep him entertained; when pacing back and forth with arms behind his back became as dreary as the endless rainfall, and he found himself sending up a surprisingly prolonged sigh, as if some great sorrow had scurried just then through the door, to hide quickly under the old raincoats only to shamble forth in the night and crouch by the sleeper’s bedside like a silent old man…On such an afternoon Andor Álmos-Dreamer visited his former lover, Madame Risoulette, to confide in her all his troubles and heartaches.
Risoulette, too, lived in the wet lowlands, in a château that had been a Franciscan monastery once upon a time. Tiny white windows gave on the arcaded corridors, and in the circular courtyard the poplars soared high above the roof. It was a clean and cloistered environment, redolent with the scent of innocence and resonant with the chimes of a musical clockwork. Risoulette’s husband, a retired captain, suffered from gout, and surrounded his aching limbs with barometers and weather glasses. For him the two questions in life were: what’s the weather like, and what’s for dinner. He cared not a whit about anything else. Over the years Risoulette had been the sweetheart of every worthy man in the neighborhood. And each believed she would never forget him, for she was able to recall each amorous date, each momentous hour, the very dress she had worn on the day in question, and what’s more, even the words that passed, only to eventually crumble into dust. The lady had a remarkable memory, she never mistook one man for another. And she never embarrassed them by letting on that afterwards she had given herself to another. Each and every man parted from her sure of possessing her heart forever after, certain that from then on Risoulette would be lost in tearful reveries…And each man knew her by a different name. Whether out of superstition or because of the novelty of each fresh love affair, this woman had given herself a different name for each lover. For Andor Álmos-Dreamer she became Risoulette, because she noticed that he was attracted to her combination of a dusky Oriental complexion and lighthearted Gallic elegance. “Risoulette” suggested both the Orient and the Occident. Risoulette was goodness personified, ever the ready plaything of her lovers’ debauched whims, and she never complained. After a breakup, she might pale slightly, and frequent the church for a while; usually she weathered one or two minor illnesses, but she never clung to a cart after the ride was over. She sat down by her Captain’s side to eye the barometer with a lifelong devotion. She smoothed down her unruly curls and cinched a black leather belt around her waist. She took stock of the estate, and burned any compromising letters — after having kissed them. She was not overly fazed by the telltale mementos lurking here and there in the neighborhood: a hair wreath (made of her tresses), or a souvenir slipper, or a memorable shirt. “My husband believes what I tell him!” She never worried that any man would be base enough to betray the precious moments she had bestowed on him.
It was almost ten years ago that Andor Álmos-Dreamer sailed through those happy days when he could call Risoulette his own. At the time, the affair carried every sign of a great and deathless love. The emotional young man had nearly gone out of his mind: without the least thought or hesitation he had placed his fate in Risoulette’s dazzlingly white little hands. Miseries, joys, overindulgences and ever novel, life-giving sensations composed this love affair, and while it lasted, Andor Álmos-Dreamer walked about half-dazed, happy and oblivious. The way he saw it, the world existed only because his love willed it so. Later, he would look back on these years as individual burial mounds in the dark graveyard of his life, tumuli where the oil lamp’s flame still flickered. Back then each day had been as momentous as the Battle of Austerlitz. Even the watch stopped ticking in his vest pocket. Life lay ahead, a long and leisurely meander like the River Tisza in summertime. Each morning began with the invocation of Risoulette’s name. And every dream’s curtain was lowered by Risoulette’s hands in the night. Yet eventually all of this passed, like the clatter of a cart receding beyond the hills. Risoulette had developed considerable expertise in letting the bird of passage fly on without his even noticing the feather or two left behind in the strange nest at the forest’s edge where he had passed the night. By the time Andor Álmos-Dreamer had come to his senses, the woman he had held in his arms only the day before, and the love that had both of them breathing in unison, thinking and feeling as one, now loomed like memories of an ancient church, where he had once chanced to linger awhile admiring a rare icon. Risoulette benevolently guided her men across yawning chasms and dizzying rope bridges. It made her proud that not one man had ever tried suicide on her account, although over the years there were many who would reminisce about her in the evening hours when a crackling fire and mulled wine offer some solace in one’s solitude.
This was why elderly gentlemen referred to Risoulette as “Our Lady’s Fountain”: for she had given drink to multitudes of thirsty men.
But Risoulette always returned to her Captain’s side, and ex-lovers saw her again only in their dreams.
The Captain received their guest with hearty hospitality, and right away inquired about his gout, for by now he socialized solely on this basis.
“Does it still reside in your heel? If I recall correctly, you used to have a touch of gout in your waist as well as your knee…”
“There’s no getting rid of it,” replied Álmos-Dreamer in the resigned tones of times past, when he had regaled the Captain with tales of his own affliction.
“Springtime is the most critical time of year. It’s that inbetween time — neither winter nor summer. A dangerous season. I don’t even dare stick my nose outside, but the rascal has a way of sneaking in through the cracks, every time the silly maid opens the door. I tell you, my limbs feel like they’re made of glass. No wonder the crazy English turn the onset of gout into a family event. Truth is, it does keep you endlessly occupied. But don’t let me detain you — I know you’re a fellow sufferer.”
With that, the Captain took his seat in the easy chair of his own design, nestling amidst shawls and fur coats of a peculiar cut. His mustache twirled to a point, his face coppery red, there he sat, the local weatherman, his voice rasping on:
“Go, talk to my wife, poor thing’s always bored because of my malady. Please, be gentle and chivalrous with her. Not many women have suffered as much as my poor wife. She’s an angel sent from heaven. Alas, her hand is not as delicate as it used to be. All things grow old in this world, Andor. My gout is getting to be twenty years old soon. Say, is it true some German’s found a cure for gout?…But I better let you go. Anyway, what on earth would I do if I were cured? I’d have to start everything all over, whereas I no longer want to change anything. Change is for others, the folks who’ll come after us. That’s why I prefer to read only ten-year-old newspapers: I surround myself with people and events, all dead and gone. I just don’t understand this newfangled world.”
The Captain proudly sat back in his chair, stiff as a statue. By now he had grown fond of his affliction, maybe because it prevented him from rashly setting out on a new life.
“Everyone’s a Socialist nowadays. Only me and my gout are left over from the old dispensation,” he said, and once more he shook Álmos-Dreamer’s hand, as if this handshake were his farewell to everything that was pleasant and desirable in life. His head, topped by an otter hat, sank a little lower. Next he struck up a conversation with his own foot, evidence that he had not renounced social life for good.