In the centre of this vast crowd of boats was the largest of them all, the ‘Serenata’, which rose in the water high above all the others and was hung with delicate paper lanterns. On board all the singers were in theatrical costume and on the deck Balint and Adrienne could just see the faces of Harlequin and Columbine dancing a pantomime, though they could not get close enough to make out what the others were doing.
Behind them many other gondolas were being rowed as swiftly as their gondoliers were able, everyone wanting to be right at the heart of this great concourse of boats. In front of them there were so many craft that Balint and Adrienne could not see the surface of the water and, looking back to the Dogana, they saw that it was now the same behind them as well. It was a world of boats, nothing but boats, stretching across the waters as if the world were made of nothing else.
Then, from behind the gleaming temporary bridge, the fireworks began.
To Balint and Adrienne this was almost more dreamlike and unreal than had been their solitary excursions across the lagoon each evening. In the sky the myriad stars of exploding flame made the night sky seem even darker and more remote and, though the spectators were nearly blinded by the brightness of these lightning flashes of brilliance, to those standing behind, everyone in front of them became mere shadows, dark silhouettes rather than real living people. So it happened that for Balint and Adrienne, though they were surrounded by life and light and noise and the whole pulsating festive crown, it was still as if they alone existed and were real.
It was their last carefree evening together.
The next morning, as on every other of their stay on the Lido, the younger Miloth girls went swimming while Mlle Morin remained in the shade of the beach cabin.
A little later, Margit, who was coming in from a long swim, heard shouting, not as might be expected from the shore but farther out to sea. She put her feet to the ground and stood up. She could not see much as the sea came up to her shoulders. All she could make out was that the noise came from the loud-hailer on the guard-boat. Margit realized at once that someone must be in difficulties as the guard-boat was no longer at anchor and stationary, but was being rowed frenziedly out to sea by the two guards.
Margit looked around, her eyes searching for Judith, who should have been close behind her: she was nowhere to be seen.
Instinctively, she knew the alarm was for her sister, who must have swum too far out to sea, to the undertow and the fatal offshore currents. From where she was standing on tiptoe, the sea coming up to her shoulders, all Margit could see was a tiny speck that from time appeared above the waves. She was certain it was Judith and at once struck out as fast as she could towards that little speck, her strong young arms cutting the water in a powerful crawl. She thought of nothing but how to save Judith and, as her head was half under water, she head nothing more of the commotion on the beach and did not see that a motor-launch was being hurriedly pushed out into the shallow water.
Margit had to work hard to make headway against the waves. Water splashed over her but she battled on, using all her strength so as to get there as quickly as possible. She never heard the launch race past her and it was already returning to shore when she suddenly found herself being hauled on board. It was just in time, for she was now so tired that she too was at breaking point and had to be lifted out of the water by the strong arms of the beach guards.
Judith was lying like a corpse in the middle of the boat. Margit crouched by her, panting. At this moment the ambulance boat arrived alongside and Judith was lifted into it. Artificial respiration was started at once as the hospital launch sped towards the shore.
Judith was still not breathing when she was carried onto the beach. They laid her down and once again tried to pump life into her unconscious body.
At this moment Adrienne arrived on the beach. Seeing the tumult and confusion in front of the hotel beach cabins she asked someone what had happened.
‘Una donna ungherese e morta!’ was the reply.
She thought of Judith immediately and ran towards the crowd, pushing people aside in urgent haste.
There, on the golden sand, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers eager to gaze at the detail of disaster, lay Judith, quite naked, for her swimming costume had been ripped off her, her little girlish breasts bare to the sky, her ribs and pelvis bones pathetically outlined through the naked flesh of her young body. Three burly life-guards were still desperately trying to bring her back to life.
Just as Adrienne got near, Judith opened her eyes; but in them there was no expression, no sign that she knew where she was or what had happened to her. Then she closed them again, but already her breathing was regular and so the guards flung a wrap over her, put her on a stretcher and carried her to the hotel. There Judith fell into a deep sleep.
Young Margit too was still a little confused and had to be helped to her room. Though she protested vigorously, her legs would not carry her and she had unwillingly to agree. Mlle Morin, who, at the sight of Judith’s unconscious form, had cried: ‘Oh, mon dieu! Oh, cette pauvre enfant!’ and collapsed in a faint to the ground, was picked up by the largest of the beach guards, thrown across his hefty shoulders like some broken old doll, and carried upstairs.
Margit was soon herself again. After lunch she started to search among Judith’s things and found hidden in her underclothes a bulky envelope which, she could tell from the postmark, had been forwarded from Mezo-Varjas and must have arrived the previous day. In the envelope was a bundle of letters tied with a ribbon and with it a letter in an unknown hand which read:
Dear Countess Judith,
I have learned that a certain Baron W. has left the country suddenly as a result of some unpleasant scandal. This person at one time used to stay in my house. Once, though whether it was to gain my confidence or out of sheer bravado, he showed me the enclosed letters. Thinking that if he showed them to me he was quite capable of showing them to other people too, I took them from him and kept them in a safe place. When the scandal broke I wondered for a long time what I should do with them. First I thought they should be burnt, but then I thought you might be worried thinking they were still in Baron W.’shands and that he might — forhe would be quite capable of such a thing — use them to blackmail either you or your family. So finally I thought it best to send them back to you so that you would know that there was nosuch danger. Please believe me when I tell youthat noone else knows of their existence and noone, apart from myself,eversawthem while they were in my house.
Sara Bogdan
Margit and Adrienne read this together. So this was the explanation! Poor Judith. What had happened that morning was obviously no accident, no unlucky accident due to recklessness.
Judith had wanted to die, and this well-meaning letter was the last death-thrust to her already wounded and grieving heart. Before she had learned what had happened to her letters she had believed firmly that everything that had taken place was the result of bad luck and the malice of other people. In her eyes her lover, that handsome young officer, had committed only one fault, and that was that he had not told her about his need to run away and that he had left her alone in Kolozsvar instead of taking her with him.