Dodo said all this humorously, smiling sweetly as if she did not care; and Balint realized that he had hardly ever seen her on the dance floor; she was always sitting apart, by the wall. He looked at her more closely. She was very pretty, with a small rather pert nose. She was intelligent and her kind smiling mouth was full and naturally red. Her round, white neck and smooth full shoulders seemed infinitely desirable, like ripe fruit. She had beautiful hands and small shapely feet, and was in every way a most attractive girl.
‘I’ve thought about it a lot, and there can’t be any other reason why no one asks me. And I certainly don’t dance any worse than the other girls. Hasn’t anyone warned you?’ she asked, in playful reproach. She went on: ‘Nobody even talks to me. You wouldn’t know, of course. The girls don’t because they’re jealous that I’m so rich, and the boys are frightened people will gossip about them. You’re the only one that’s safe. The Heir to Denestornya is above suspicion.’ She laughed with light irony. Then she continued, more seriously: ‘Only that Nitwit talks to me. He doesn’t seem to care, but then he’s Austrian, not Transylvanian!’
‘I saw you had supper with him.’
‘Of course! He’s the only one who dares come near me. Perhaps I’ll decide to marry him, but I don’t like him much. You know something?’ and she leant confidentially towards Balint, as if taking him into a great secret, and went on: ‘I don’t like stupid men! Nitwit’s quite nice, and very good-looking, but he can’t string two words together!’
Balint looked round, searching for Egon Wickwitz. He was standing in the embrasure of a window, talking to a woman half-hidden by the curtains. For a moment Balint thought that it was Adrienne, but only for a moment for, as the woman leaned forward, he saw that it was Dinora Abonyi. The couple in the window seemed to be arguing, Dinora’s face looked unusually serious, her fine eyebrows drawn together almost into a scowl, while her normally smiling mouth was set in anger.
Balint looked away as the musicians were suddenly silent. Laszlo Gyeroffy had crossed over to the band-leader and asked for his violin and, by way of prelude, plucked a few pizzicato notes. Then he raised his bow. Everyone waited, excited and pleased. What would he play? Those who had heard him in Kolozsvar, playing at the late-night gypsy revels, started calling out: ‘It’s Laszlo! How marvellous! Listen everybody!’
So Laszlo started to play, but not the sentimental little ballads that the gypsies had just been playing for the girls. He played tunes that were sharper, full of rhythm, but witty and playful. When he played a song, he would not sing the words but would speak them mockingly, ironically, even scornfully. Sometimes he would imitate the famous Lorant Frater, but in the manner of a French diseuse. His technique was extraordinary. The violin itself seemed to chuckle as if it were being tickled, and then suddenly Laszlo would pluck the G-string sharply, so that the instrument itself seemed to be scandalized with shock; and a pause would follow as if a question had been asked, and it was waiting for an answer. And, after the pause, again a sudden rush of melody which seemed to bubble with merriment.
The guests loved it. They applauded, cheered, and their laughter and appreciation spurred him to give them more. Perhaps because Laszlo was already a little drunk he began to clown, searching for broader and funnier effects. Without for a moment ceasing to play he would run round the room, jumping and whirling and leaping between the chairs before returning to the band-leader’s place beside the cymbalist. Sometimes he would play with the fiddle on his knee or hold it above his head while he crouched on the floor, slithering from side to side, his legs flung out as in a Russian dance, his toes twinkling, until once more he leapt in the air like a goat. Whatever he did the sound remained perfect, flawlessly beautiful, the melodies unbroken by his antics, the rhythm impeccable. The poor band-leader, Pongracz, watched anxiously, worried about his beloved violin. It was as good as any turn in the music hall, and so funny that the guests rocked with laughter.
Balint himself was embarrassed by the clownishness of Laszlo’s performance. It annoyed him to see his friend debase himself. Edging up to him he said, in a low voice:
‘Play us something of your own!’
Gyeroffy stopped, suddenly serious: ‘I have nothing to suit these people …’
‘The Valse Macabre?’ suggested Balint, remembering one of Laszlo’s earlier and milder works.
‘Well, yes. That one, perhaps …’ Laszlo turned to the gypsies and, so as to give them a lead, played a few notes in the key of G-minor. Then he straightened up and stepped forward in front of the little band. Suddenly he was no longer a clown but a figure whose demeanour and presence sent a wave of surprise among the guests. A frown furrowed his wide clear brow which was surrounded by thick wavy brown hair, features that more strongly than ever recalled his Tartar ancestry, and his mouth was set in a hard line, severe and implacable — a straight, calm and elegant figure that would not have been out of place on the stage of a famous concert hall. He paused for a moment and then, drawing his brows together in still more of a frown, he began to play.
First he held a deep long-drawn note for about four beats — the gypsies hesitant, not quite knowing what to expect — and then, almost imperceptibly the rhythm of a slow, unusual waltz began to emerge. The beat was unconventional, strange, not the usual three-four beat, but modified, transformed, modern, harsh, with unexpected passages which seemed sadder than anything anyone had ever heard before. The bewildered gypsies could not follow him; more and more confused they stopped playing, one by one. Pongracz shook his head with disapproval; this was not at all his kind of music. But Laszlo played on, unperturbed by the gypsies’ defection until he was playing quite alone.
There was silence. Then Farkas Alvinczy jumped up, waved to the disconcerted gypsies and led them back into the ballroom. In a few moments the latest popular waltz from Vienna could be heard and soon the hall was filled up dancing couples.
Laszlo Gyeroffy stood alone in the middle of the almost empty drawing-room. Dodo Gyalakuthy came up to him, looking up with admiration in her large doe-eyes.
‘It was beautiful, what you played! I don’t think many people understood it, but I did. I liked it very much. It was lovely, so unusual, so new and interesting.’
Laszlo looked down at her, resignedly.
‘It was silly even to try!’ he said. Then, encouraged that he had at least one listener who sympathized with him and understood his music, he started to explain how difficult it was for a band to follow his unfamiliar harmonies.
As Laszlo and Dodo talked in the middle of the room, the little Countess Abonyi emerged from the window embrasure, followed by Egon Wickwitz. She walked towards the ballroom and, seeing Balint still by the door, called to him, her spirits visibly improved by the sight of her old friend: ‘Dance with me!’ It was an order and, when Balint complied, she nestled into his arms and whispered her old endearment for him: ‘Little Boy — Little Boy!’ in her once-familiar caressing voice as they danced away into the great hall. Balint pressed her hand in recognition of the memory, but his eyes remained cold and unmoved.