The only change in Risoulette was that now she wore a white scarf around her neck. Perhaps she did so on account of the wrinkles that had sneaked up on her through the chimney one fine day. Her eyes, her maddening, silky soft, humbly smiling, gently entreating visage, always beaming such utter surrender at her man that he felt like some superior being — her eyes seemed to hover hesitantly, aimed at some distant point. Could she have glimpsed a cloud that no one else had noticed? Her features assumed an expectant expression, similar to those women who stand around at stations endlessly waiting for the train bringing the long-awaited traveler.
“Is it really you?…” she faltered, getting over her surprise. But she quickly recovered. “I recognized your footfall at once. Your steps have a way of approaching from room to room, so that I find it impossible to sit still. They bring the promise of something extraordinary, something grand — like a feast day on the calendar. Where have you been all this time?”
“I’ve come for your advice regarding Eveline.”
“Your great love?” replied Risoulette without any surprise, just as the best nurses never seem surprised by the patient’s wishes. “All right, I’ll invite her over…Right away…The two of you can meet here undisturbed. No one ever visits us any more.”
Eager to please, as if she had been waiting for years just for this errand, Risoulette (a subdued, compliant smile on her lips, like a grandmother eavesdropping on her frustrated, grown-up daughter’s ecstatic tryst next door), set out her pen and stationery. Using violet ink, and the spiky handwriting taught to upper-crust young ladies in convents, she penned a letter to Eveline, inviting her over for a cup of tea and a little chat. Her delicate fingers, their ruby and emerald rings not as flashy as before, used to write quite another kind of missive in days not so long ago: lengthy, delirious, sophisticated letters, any one of which would have made some man happy to wear it next to his heart all his life. But men are so fickle…Sealing the letter she softly laughed at Andor.
“Not even the most exclusive dame is immune to the eternal feminine wiles. In our old age we take pleasure in bringing men and women together. My husband would readily hear out the case histories of every gout-sufferer in the world. As for me, I could never have my fill of attending to lovers’ petty everyday affairs…It was all so beautiful…Alas, I had no one to give me advice. That’s why things didn’t always go as well as they might have. I’m just a frail, sentimental creature. My heart is filled with all kinds of fantasies, like the ones itinerant musicians play under one’s window…And I get to thinking. The truth is: I’m getting old. But I still love you, just as the groom’s best man loves the first locust blossoms. I have always loved you, for I dream of you, and with you, often. I dream of keys, roosters, beds, bathwater, and you…In the dream you go far away, and then you return. Forgive me for being so superstitious. Fortune-telling is my only amusement. But Eveline will be here soon, and I’ll retire to take care of my old man. My hands know how to soothe his aches, as if I really were a witch, like rumor has it about me.”
Andor Álmos-Dreamer kept turning his hat in his hand, like a troubled client at a faith healer’s. He cast only a cursory glance around the old room where in former times he had sat so often, showered with caresses, or else knelt on the light green rug, his heart as full of bliss as a pilgrim’s. His old friends, the tin soldiers on the antique grandfather clock, were still there, leaning against their mediaeval town gate, in the manner of bored mercenaries. Up on the walls the hawk-nosed, priestly-looking, apoplectic ancestors, and ancestresses about whom the only feminine thing was their costume (for their faces were shaven and their jowls were broad, as if they had always been pressed against their men’s chest) — these portraits could have told many a tale about Mr. Álmos-Dreamer’s doings. These mute, immobile elders had witnessed all those eternal vows, pledges and professions of faithfulness that, although completely unasked for, are still uttered by men in the course of their interminable blubberings, when they reach a point where no other words can be found than those of the vow that binds unto death and keeps the nether world at bay, words that clank like everlasting manacles.
Yes, Andor Álmos-Dreamer had knelt there, in front of this humble-eyed, blushing woman clad in white, her face always transfigured by happiness and pleasure, who raised her white hands as if to fend off her lover’s confessions. “Please… don’t…You know I don’t deserve such a bounty, all this happiness. It’s enough that you put up with me, that you think of me at times, as long as I can see you every now and then…You should save your heart’s ardor, the hot lava of your emotions for worthier women. I’m only a roadside tree in your life, here to fan your face with a cooling breeze while you stop for a snooze in my shade.” Risoulette might have uttered these words…Or maybe she said nothing. Her two hands merely stopped the flood of words gushing from the young man’s mouth, although it meant the fountain of life for her…“Anyway, one day you’ll abandon me like an aimless vagabond does a fille de joie. And you’ll recede into the distance, like a memory of one’s youth. Hush now, don’t explain, for my heart will break yearning for you…” But we have yet to see the man who will hold his peace when about to deliver a declaration of love. Next to ornate toasts, amorous declarations offer the greatest relief for men’s need to talk. The feminine hand raises the floodgates holding the swollen river, and there comes a rush of words, from east and west, from fairy tales and dreams, like a colorful caravan that assembles at the caravansary from the four corners of the world. It’s no use, trying to prevent men from knocking their foreheads against the ground when this gives them the greatest pleasure! Only make sure to send all crusty old men out of the room when the moment of a lover’s confession has arrived. Their know-it-all, unlotioned, leaden, otherworldly complexion does not belong on the stage of gorgeous declarations. At the most, a superstitious ancient nanny might be allowed to huddle in a nook, to note the words and to parrot them later when the rainy days arrive. — Lovers’ confessions! The happy hour, that always gets omitted from funerary orations by the graveside. Whereas that is all we should ask of the departed: hasn’t he forgotten to declare his love during his days on earth?
Whatever Andor Álmos-Dreamer knew of life and love, he had learned from Risoulette. At intimate moments, eating and drinking, during long walks, while the fever of love took a brief respite, Risoulette taught Andor all that was worthwhile and amusing in life. Her store of knowledge included not only what she had learned from her old aunts at Szatmár; she was familiar with the notorious Marquis’s book of recipes, as well. Her exterior was as wildflowery as a wandering Gypsy woman’s, and her eyes flashed at times like a knifeblade honed at night near a nomadic campfire; and although she sometimes cried out like a wild bird before surrendering herself to her mate, still, her lips exuded the fragrance of French perfume, her raven locks were redolent as Carmen’s on the operatic stage, and she groomed all parts of her body as well as a princely bride for her nuptials. She had mastered amorous enchantments of such sophistication that this petty nobleman of The Birches would have gladly split open his breast merely to have Risoulette dip her miraculously petite foot in his heart’s cascading blood. This woman was truly remarkable in every respect: her mobile, expressive nose, her dark eyelashes and noble nape, her sensitivity to cold, her gullibility. In her whimsical moods she was the lady sung by poets, who found her intoxicating. Like a taciturn magician, she had her secrets. Her tears, her laughter could have sent men to the gallows. But she was mild as a dove…And like springtime itself, you could never get enough of her. Her conversation was always worthy of attention, it was like leafing through the pages of a fascinating travelogue. She played with her voice like a child with a ball. She existed in order to put you in a good mood. She was joy personified.