‘Don’t worry,’ she went on, ‘I don’t expect anything of you. I’m just pleased to see you again, Little Boy!’
They danced in silence, Balint’s arm tightly round the well-remembered slim waist that pressed against him with such careless abandon. They danced for a long time until, at the far end of the room where no one was standing, Dinora suddenly stopped. Looking at Balint with something of the old feeling in her eyes, she said:
‘Look, Balint, you’ll be back at Denestornya in a day or two. Do come over to Maros-Szilvas soon. I’d love to see you. And I’m sure you remember the way,’ she added flirtatiously, ‘but seriously, I want to ask your advice about something important. We are still friends, aren’t we?’
‘Something important? A serious matter? Of course I’ll come.’
‘A very serious matter!’ Dinora smiled sweetly, but she looked worried. Then she seemed to recover and her little white teeth gleamed between the voluptuous lips. Suddenly she passed her hand over Balint’s cheek in the lightest of caresses. She laughed at her own audacity and turned away. ‘Goodbye,’ she murmured over her shoulder as she glided away, to be swept up at once by another dancer; and in a flash she was gone.
Balint pondered what Dodo had told him in the drawing-room, and looked around to find her. Once again she was sitting alone on one of the chairs ranged along the wall, and so he walked over and asked her to dance. As they floated round the floor he thought how well she danced, indeed she followed instinctively everything that her partner wanted to do, and when he reversed and danced anti-clockwise round the hall in a complicated new step that had just been introduced in the capital, she followed perfectly. She was like an ideal pupil who divines every unspoken instruction. He was so pleased that they went on waltzing for a long time.
It was hot in the hall when they finally parted. The windows had been kept shut as the slightest breeze sent a shower of wax from the candles. Balint decided he would like a breath of fresh air, and stepped out onto the terrace.
The unexpected beauty of the moonlight made Balint catch his breath as he might have had he been startled by a sudden cry of fear. Coming from the hothouse atmosphere of the ballroom it was like emerging into a wonderland as unreal and full of magic as a fairy tale. The azure sky merged into the far horizon; distance and nearness did not exist. The terrace was all in dark mysterious shadow, limited only by the faint horizontal line of the balustrade where here and there a carved stone arabesque gleamed faintly.
Glancing round he saw a woman near the right hand corner. It was Adrienne Miloth. She stood motionless against the glow of the night sky and the light behind her was so strong that her face, bare arms and shoulders seemed scarcely lighter in hue than the deep-green silk of her dress.
Adrienne stood quite still, erect and alone, gazing out into the distance. Balint was reminded of the days when she would stand beside the newly lit lamp, her chin up, her arms clasped behind her back, her stillness recalling the half-repressed rebelliousness of her youth. It was perhaps because of this surge of memory within him that Balint, instead of avoiding her, approached softly and leaned on the balustrade beside her.
She moved slightly, tacitly acknowledging Balint’s presence and seeming to approve of his coming, as if she had said aloud that she needed sympathy, kinship and spiritual understanding. Relaxing from the unbending pose she had adopted, Adrienne leaned forward, slowly and quietly resting her hands on the balustrade. Balint thought of the silent movements of a panther, solitary and dark in the blackness of the night. Like Adrienne, panthers moved in slow harmonious symmetry and grace. And, like Adrienne, they gazed into the distance with their golden eyes.
For some time neither of them spoke. The faint sound of the dance music from the castle behind them barely disturbed the silence of the night, indeed its muted tones and faintly heard rhythm deepened the infinite stillness. Occasionally they could hear a dog barking far in the distance.
Balint began to feel with increasing urgency that he must say something common-place that would break the silence between them and release Adrienne from whatever sorrow or disappointment it was that seemed to hold her so firmly. In a low voice, almost a whisper, as if he were afraid to break the magic by a harsh note, he murmured:
‘What a lovely night it is!’
‘Yes. Yes indeed. It’s lovely.’ She too spoke quietly, not daring to raise her voice, ‘… but what a lie it all is!’
‘What do you mean, a lie?’
Adrienne remained motionless, looking away into the distance. Then, very slowly, choosing her words hesitantly and carefully, she started:
‘It’s all untrue. A lie. Everything beautiful is a lie, a deception. Everything one believes in, or wants. Everything one does because one believes it to be helpful, or useful. It’s all a snare, a well-baited trap. That’s what life is,’ and we are stupid enough to be taken in, to be duped. We swallow the bait, and “click!” — the trap is sprung.’ She gave a little half-uttered laugh, but her eyes remained serious, gazing ahead. Then she turned to Balint and said: ‘What are you going to do now that you’ve come home? What are your plans?’
But Balint was thinking only of what she had said previously:
‘I don’t believe that, that in our lives everything beautiful must be a lie. No! No! The opposite is true. Beauty is the only eternal truth there is! Beauty of purpose, of deed, of achievement. That is the only thing worth seeking for, what we must all try to find. Other ethical arguments are false, this is the only real one. Why? Because you can’t define it or classify it, put it down in black and white. We’ve talked about this before. Do you remember, back at Kolozsvar?’
‘Oh yes, I remember, I remember it well. And then I think I believed it.
Balint wanted to ask, why only then, why no longer? But he felt she would say no more if he dared approach whatever secret pain lay behind her words.
For a few moments they spoke no more. Then Adrienne started again.
‘People say nice things, nice words and so on, but …’ She narrowed her eyes in a search for the right words to express what she wanted to say but her instinct told her should remain hidden. She took refuge in parable.
‘Look how beautiful that distant hillside looks, soft, undefined, lovely but uncertain. We don’t know what it’s made of, what it’s really like. Is it mist, or cloud, or is it just a dream? Pure beauty, as you were saying? It looks as if one could dive into it and become a part of it, vanish inside it as into a fog; but only now, and from here in the deceitful moonlight. It’s really just an ordinary hillside, made of hard yellow clay, poor grass and dead thistles. It’s not even a real mountain of clefts and rocks. When dawn breaks we can see it’s land fit only for sheep and goats. Useful, of course, but all we can say then is how many ewes and lambs can graze there. She laughed again and added: ‘You see what a dull dour farmer I’ve become!’
Balint went on, in the same low voice as before but in more fervent tones.
‘Maybe it’s no more than a farmer’s stock-in-trade. Perhaps tomorrow we will see it for what it really is, a common pasture with dumb sheep bleating and aimlessly leading their lambs from place to place. But tonight it isn’t! Now it isn’t! I don’t care about tomorrow. Tonight, tomorrow does not exist! Tonight, everything is beautiful and that beauty which fills our eyes, your eyes, mine, remains ours for ever. Nobody, nothing can take it away from us. We can lock it in the steel tower of our memory where no one can touch it, and there it will remain, like the Sleeping Beauty in her magic castle, until we — and we alone, — can bring it back to life again. You and I. No one else.’