Balint got up, annoyed with himself, irritated that even here he was pursued by an obsession from which he had tried so hard to free himself. ‘I don’t want this!’ he muttered as he got up and entered the thicket, leaving the clearing that had conjured up the memory of Adrienne.
Why was he doing this to himself, Balint wondered, why was he for ever thinking of a woman who, after all, was still only half awakened and so complex? It was madness. He had far better things to do, his work and his mission to aid others. One day he would get married — of course, he would have to — and then he’d found a home and a family and carry on his work tranquilly and in peace. Why stir up a tempest when there was no need, no reason? Why?
Balint had been walking so swiftly along the narrow path that, angry as he was, he had noticed nothing of where he was going and what was all around him. Here it was almost completely dark, for overhead the branches of the trees were so thick that not a ray of sunshine penetrated beneath. The willow-shoots were four or five times the height of a man and were tightly intertwined with the thick-leaved elders and other forest shrubs and, as if that were not enough, the branches were hung with creepers of many different kinds, while valerian and hemlock, angelica and a host of other plants rose from the forest floor to mingle with the lichen-covered branches of the trees. Hidden in all this riot of vegetation were thorns that scratched, burrs that attached themselves to whatever brushed against them, wild hops that festooned shrub and tree alike tying fantastic cat’s cradles of creeping tendrils. Everywhere there were flowers, some tiny and budlike, as yet unopened, others, like the convolvulus, huge but insubstantial, hanging from above like motionless butterflies floating freely in the air. Across the path spread treacherous bramble shoots covered with thorns but carrying also the latent promise of a summer harvest.
In many places the vegetation was so thick that Balint could pass only with difficulty even though he tried to follow the old path. Away from the track it would have been impossible. The main stream of the river was close at hand and a dim light was just visible through the dense foliage.
Soon he came to a boggy patch thickly grown with weeds and canes. At every step the ground squelched under his feet. He still could not see the river which was hidden by the high wall of last year’s growth of rushes. Just when he felt he would never arrive at his goal he found himself on the river bank walking over a strand of pebbles that had washed up on the inner curve of the river while, on the other side, the water’s flow had cut a vertical line in the soft earth. An old tree-trunk lay half-buried in the stones.
Balint stopped beside it. Surely the shallow ford he had so often used in the past must be somewhere hereabouts. It was this way that he had ridden when taking the short-cut to Maros-Szilvas to visit Dinora. He knew the way well, having so often done it on the darkest of moonless nights. Perhaps that would be the answer … to visit little Dinora and start again with her. After all she had invited him! In Budapest he had not been so tormented by memories of Adrienne: There the thought of her had sometimes come to him, but not so insistently, so intrusively, as here in Transylvania. Dinora was so sweet and no one knew better than he how soft her skin was, how tantalizing her scent and with her he would never feel that sense of revulsion which so often came to him when making love to girls in the capital. Little Dinora.
He thought of Nitwit. Well, he didn’t matter; and anyway Dinora had said that it was now over and, even if it that were not true, he still wouldn’t matter, for Dinora had never been exactly exclusive.
Balint turned in the direction of home. It was already past eight o’clock and he would have to hurry if he wanted to be back in time to have breakfast with his mother. He had wandered a long way from the house.
Thinking now more calmly and more prosaically, Balint again went over what he had just decided, and again he thought how sensible it would be to take up once again with Dinora; sensible, and clever. Then that inner critic who never slumbered for long but who was always alert to danger, spoke up saying: And don’t go to Almasko lest you start again with Addy! It was no use. His other self, reckless and contrary, at once found a hypocritical answer: But I promised Pal Uzdy to go. It doesn’t matter about Adrienne, but her husband would find it strangely discourteous if I didn’t! Anyhow there would be no chance to be alone with her, what with the husband and mother-in-law always about.
And so Balint struggled with his conscience, a battle between desire and common sense; but he reached no conclusion for just then he met the stud-groom and two lads coming back from the gallops in the eastern part of the estate. They had been exercising their three mounts and were now headed back towards the avenue of lime-trees and the stables. Balint beckoned them over to him.
‘The old ford in the copse? Is it still passable?’
The stud-groom dismounted. ‘It was washed away by last year’s flooding, your Lordship, but we’ll find another if your Lordship wishes it.’
‘Indeed? Washed away, was it? Well, it isn’t urgent, but you might as well put it in hand when you have time. Yes, do it when you can!’
Balint stroked the glossy neck of the stud-groom’s horse and they walked back together. On their way they passed the road that led to the paddock where the brood mares were kept. Balint longed to see them followed by their new foals, but did not turn that way as he knew how upset his mother would be if he had not waited until she could show them to him herself. Her stud farms were Roza Abady’s greatest joy, and it was with love and pride that she would show off her beautiful horses and explain her breeding strategy. Balint knew that this would be one of the first things his mother would want to do now that he had come home; and so he hurried back through the avenue of tall pyramid-shaped oaks to reach his room and change quickly so as not to arrive in his mother’s presence all wet and muddy from his early walk.
Washing and changing his sodden clothes took longer than he had expected and by the time he had got ready and gone upstairs to his mother’s sitting-room he found her already seated at the breakfast table in the window.
Countess Roza was always served an ample Transylvanian breakfast. On the table were cold meats, smoked bacon, scones, sweet buns and other cakes, butter, honey in jars and honey in combs, whatever fruit was in season and, of course, coffee with buffalo milk. Though she tasted everything she ate only the strawberries and drank copious cups of coffee. Despite this it was a rule of the house that everything should be done in the way that it always had been and so Mrs Baczo saw to it that every day there was enough on the table to feed at least ten people.
After greeting his mother and kissing her hand, Balint sat down to eat. His long walk he was as hungry as a wolf and the sight of her son making a hearty breakfast rejoiced Countess Roza’s heart. From time to time she dipped a strawberry in the sugar on her plate, but it was only much later that she put it in her mouth.
This morning Countess Roza’s slightly protuberant grey eyes held a roguish gleam. Every day of her life, the countess’s first act before breakfast, was to go down to the stables when the horses came back from their early work-out. She would inspect each one carefully, examine its tendons, order treatment if she felt it were necessary and cross-question the stud-groom and the lads on the morning’s exercise. In their turn, to interest and amuse their beloved employer, they would recount what they had seen while out on the gallops, what deer, hares or gamebirds had come their way. This morning they had reported the interesting fact that they had met Count Abady at the Painted Bridge and that his Lordship had enquired if the ford over the Aranyos was still passable.