At midday Farkas and Adam Alvinczy arrived. They drove over in their own carriage because Farkas had a house at Magyarokerek which was only ten kilometres from Banffy-Hunyad. Even their presence did nothing to bring life to the cold and formal atmosphere of the Uzdy household and indeed, in some ways it had the opposite effect for both young men had been brought up in the rowdy school of Uncle Ambrus and now found themselves constrained in the presence of the dowager Countess, Adrienne and Pali Uzdy, none of whom would have appreciated their usual coarse speech and bad language. As a result they were awkward and stiffly formal, especially the younger, Adam, whom Adrienne jokingly called Adam Adamovich because he was in love with her and tried to hid the fact by adopting an even stiffer bearing than did his elder brother.
As a result the Alvinczy boys were unusually silent both during luncheon and afterwards, leaving Uzdy to keep the conversation going. This he did, in his habitual inconsequent fashion, while Adam and Farkas sat tongue-tied only occasionally contributing some inane triviality. Uzdy was in his element. As an exceptionally well-read man, cultivated and erudite, he chose his topics today only from the latest scientific researches and discoveries and, when it was obvious that the others did not have the smallest notion of what he was talking about, he would turn to one or other of them and put a question to them only to dismiss the answer with contemptuous mockery barely veiled by a veneer of good manners. In this same way he would wittily mix up details of the latest advances in electrical or astronomical research, until his audience was even more bewildered than before. Balint felt at once that Uzdy was showing off, though it certainly was not for his benefit, nor for that of the Alvinczys. For his wife then? Ah, that was it. It was as if behind every clever phrase rang the words: ‘See! This is me, this is how I am, your husband! Your beaux are nothing but country dullards, blockheads — look at me, only at me!’
Adrienne’s face gave nothing away, her eyes quite expressionless under half-closed lids. Countess Clémence, too, was stonily entrenched behind the wall of her inexorable politeness.
The large figure of the butler, Maier, served them in silence in the shuttered dining-room. Later, when they sat in the gloomy shade of the salon whose shutters also were still closed, he would from time to time glide silently into the room to bring coffee or to empty the ashtrays and then just as silently and unobtrusively leave it again. He appeared to ignore everyone in the room, but Balint noticed that from time to time he would raise his large sad eyes and glance at his master. Uzdy went on talking wittily but nervously well into the afternoon.
All at once he got up and suggested they go out pigeon-shooting.
‘That’s a real sport!’ he said. ‘I have an excellent field for it; just like in Monte Carlo. Does everyone agree? Yes? Well then, let’s go!’
Countess Clémence withdrew to her own rooms, but Addy walked down with them.
‘I assume you breed them yourself?’ said Adam Alvinczy as they started off.
‘Pigeons? Certainly not, not one! We shoot only at clay pigeons. I wouldn’t slaughter a living animal. Why should I? They don’t harm anyone. People, yes. That would be different; but animals, never!’ and, turning back towards the rest of them he seemed to be weighing them up, measuring their capacities and perhaps their characters, with his wide-set, slanting Tartar eyes. Then, tossing back his head and straightening his narrow shoulders, he turned and led the way down the hillside to a small valley. Targets had been set up in front of a patch of bare clay where part of the steep hillside had slipped. Some way away in the meadow, in front of the landslide, throwing machines had been placed in a fan-shaped formation, with wooden planks for the guns to stand on, and, where the path came to an end, there were tables with ammunition boxes, pistol-holders, a selection of rifles, two benches to sit on, and a small telescope on a stand.
‘Here we are! This is it!’ cried the host. ‘It’s splendid, isn’t it? I practise here every afternoon. Well, my friends, choose your guns, please! They’re all here!’
The visitors went over to the tables at the stands and were surprised to see only sporting rifles, no shotguns. ‘It’s more fun with these,’ said Uzdy from behind them. ‘I never shoot with anything else. You’ll see! This is the real sport, I assure you. Now go on, take your pick, choose what you like. If you want to you can try them out at the fifty-and hundred-metre targets.’
Adrienne sat down silently on one of the benches. The guests took a few shots at the targets and they shot well, for in those days in Transylvania target-shooting was a popular sport.
‘Well done! You’ll do! Let’s start!’ shouted Uzdy excitedly as he checked the results through his telescope. A young peasant lad, who had been waiting for a sign from his master, now slipped down into the trench behind the clay-pigeon machines, so that all they could see of him was the top of his head and his hands when he inserted the discs into the throwing machine.
Uzdy himself was the first.
‘Ready!’ he called, and a disc flew up. Uzdy fired and the clay pigeon was shattered before their eyes. The others followed, but with little success. Out of five throws Adam achieved only one hit: the others did not even do as well as this. Only Uzdy never missed. One by one the others gave up, but there was no stopping Adrienne’s husband, who became more and more animated, jumping up and down on the wooden platform and finally discarding his hat and jacket. Moving his body frenetically and waving his long arms in their shirt-sleeves he looked like some giant long-legged spider, over-excited, almost out of control. All Uzdy’s normal restraint disappeared, as if the shooting had liberated something in his soul which was normally hidden only by the man’s delicately balanced self-control. The sun started to set and still he did not stop. He shouted new orders, sometimes having two discs shot up at the same time — and when he did this he invariably managed to hit both. He was an exceptional shot who took aim as if by instinct rather than by conscious skill. His appearance was frightening, with his elongated figure and satanic head etched black against that yellow hillside whose sulphurous hue was now emphasized by the rays of the setting sun.
Adrienne and the three guests watched in silence, only occasionally interjecting a ‘Bravo!’ or ‘Well shot!’ out of mere politeness. They wondered if Uzdy would ever stop and, indeed he did not do so until Maier appeared from somewhere and touched his master on the shoulder, and said quietly: ‘It’s time to dress, my Lord. Dinner will be served in fifteen minutes.’
After dinner Balint saw that the french windows onto the terrace had been opened for the first time since he had arrived at Almasko. The previous evening, of course, had been a windy night, but today all was still and the full moon shone with a clear milky radiance.
Adrienne led Balint and Adam Alvinczy outside to some chairs beside the stone balustrade. They talked quietly and slowly, using few words, and now it was Adam who spoke while Balint, who sat a little farther away from Adrienne, merely listened without taking in much of what the other was saying. Inside the house it was the elder Alvinczy’s turn to exchange platitudes with their host and his mother, while Count Uzdy himself sat hunched up in a large wing armchair and seemed to do nothing but gaze directly at one of the table-lamps. One might have thought that perhaps he was overtired after his exertions that afternoon at the pigeon shoot, but close inspection of his eyes showed that he was possessed by some strange and secret agitation, and that he might have been seeking the solution to his problems in the flame behind its glass shade. Occasionally his facial muscles would give a twitch, sometimes the corners of his mouth were pulled back as if he were about to laugh or take a bite at something; then he would blink and slowly lean his head back against the upholstery of the chair, remaining motionless for a long time. Balint could see him well from where he sat outside the room.