‘Not all memories can be wished back. There are others too, unwanted ones, but no Sleeping Beauties!’
‘How we feel ourselves is all that matters. Nothing outside can touch us. Hurt and joy come from inside. Conscience is our only judge. That is our secret, and we can neither change nor control it.’
‘Maybe …’ Adrienne spoke so low he could hardly hear her. Resting her head in her hands, she still looked away from him, away from the world. It seemed that she could not find the words to define what it was she found so hard to express. Balint waited. She must speak first or he would never know what was in her mind. He hardly dared look at her lest she should be disturbed, so he kept his eyes fixed on the garden.
The walls of the courtyard and the wings of the great house were in deep shadow, a shadow whose outline was a sharp as if drawn by a ruler. Outside this shadow the parterre shone with a blue light, and the paved circle in the centre gleamed with a myriad little points of light, each pebble seeming to sparkle like hoar-frost or snow and at its heart the grass lawn too seemed to shine, each blade distinct and separate. Only the lilies remained dark and velvety, the deep red flowers black in the moonlight and the russet leaves like ink-stains spreading on the ground.
Balint looked up at the right-hand wing of the house. Lamps burned behind the long french windows, etching long strips of yellow light between the grey vertical lines of the columns. Looking further round, past the seemingly ethereal little tower at the corner of the walls, Balint’s gaze came to rest on the steps under the ramparts, where he could just make out a sitting figure. In spite of the darkness he recognized him at once. It was Andras Jopal, the tutor. He had changed his evening coat for a pale linen jacket.
The young mathematician was seated, almost crouched, on one of the bottom steps, his legs pulled up under him. He seemed to be gazing fixedly at the moon oblivious of the beauty of the night, lonelier now and even more solitary than he had seemed at dinner when, of all those present, he had been the least affected by the general high spirits. Balint decided to seek him out later. Now he turned back to Adrienne wondering when she would decide to speak again.
She was still leaning on the balustrade. The silk wrapper that had been round her shoulders had slipped down, showing that she had become even thinner, almost gaunt, with hollows under her collar-bones. Her long neck was as firm as ever, but her early leanness was more pronounced with her chin joined to her neck in the stylized angle of an old Greek statue. She was still the girl he had known before, but marriage had not given her the soft roundness that often comes with motherhood. The bud was still a bud, unopened; the flower was still a promise, and Balint was surprised for he knew that her little daughter was already two. The unresolved conflict between her girlish appearance and the experience of motherhood was perhaps the reason for the faintly bitter note he thought he detected when she spoke.
Adrienne pulled the silk wrap up around her shoulders, perhaps sensing Balint’s eyes upon her bare skin. It was a shy, almost girlish movement and, after wrapping herself still more firmly she turned, leaning back against the parapet, and said: ‘I love to hear you talk, AB. You’re so confident about life. It’s good for me, perhaps even necessary. Please go on. Tell me more.’
So Balint went on, with renewed confidence, in a low dreamlike voice, as if someone else were speaking through him. He spoke long and intensely, and Adrienne listened, only occasionally interposing a word or a question. And when she spoke, ‘Oh, Yes! Yes! It’s possible. Perhaps, but you really believe then …?’ she no longer looked into the night but gazed deeply into his eyes. Her eyes were the colour and depth of yellow onyx.
Balint could have continued for ever, but all at once the door of the ballroom burst open and a stream of dancers flowed out onto the terrace, the rushing melody of a popular galop filling the air with its gaiety and rhythm.
Farkas Alvinczy, who had been leading the dancing all evening, was the first. Bent almost double in his haste and dragging his partner after him, he ran, followed by the others, all holding hands, stumbling, tumbling and whirling round the terrace in giddy speed, the men in their black tail-suits, the girls in silks and satins of every colour, down the paths, round the stone balusters, rushing with careless abandon until they all vanished once more into the house.
The last in the chain was young Kamuthy, his feet scarcely touching the ground as if he were a child’s top at the mercy of a whip. He bumped into the columns and into the stone balusters and stretched out his hand to Adrienne as he swept by. She stepped back, and on he flew, in a tremendous arc of movement, crashing into anything and anybody in his way, twice into the stone balustrade and finally into the door-post. Then he too was swallowed up once more into the vortex of the ballroom.
It only lasted a few moments, and then Balint and Adrienne were suddenly alone again. From inside they could hear the music change from the madness of the galop to a slow waltz and, through the great doors they could see the chain of dancers break up and dissolve and divide once more into pairs, each couple swaying gently to the music, turning and gliding in each other’s arms.
The magic that had made Balint and Adrienne forget time and place, everything but their own existence and thoughts, was broken. Without speaking they moved slowly back to the castle. As she went in someone asked Adrienne to dance; and she turned and disappeared into the crowd with all the others.
Balint did not dance. He stood near the wall for a few moments, needing time to come back to reality after the dream-world created by his talk with Adrienne. He thought of Jopal sitting alone beneath the tower and he decided to go and seek him out and talk. It would be better than returning to the ball for which he was no longer in the mood.
He left the ballroom and went slowly down the great staircase into the entrance hall where the bar had been placed, out through the entrance doors and down the few steps to the moonlit garden, and on towards the corner tower; but there was no longer anyone there. He paused and listened in case he should hear the sound of footsteps. Maybe Andras Jopal would come into sight; but no one moved.
Towards the east a faint strip of light heralded the dawn. Balint walked slowly along the path in front of the castle wing where lamplight steamed out from the library windows.
Inside the long narrow room two card tables had been set, one at each end, and at the smaller of these, Crookface, gruff as ever, was playing tarot with his host, the prefect and Tihamer Abonyi. Their table was lit by four candles and they played in a silence which was only occasionally interrupted by Abonyi who as always liked to show off his superior knowledge, and so remarked from time to time that things were done differently at the National Casino Club in Budapest and in Vienna. As no one paid any attention, he was soon forced to give up and play on in silence.
The other table was much noisier. Uncle Ambrus had got a poker game together. He had gone round the ballroom slapping the young men on the back and crying heartily, ‘Come and have a shifty at the Hungarian Bible, sonny’ or, ‘You can’t hide behind skirts all the evening,’ or even ‘A man needs some good Hungarian games, my boy, not German waltzes,’ adding, for good measure, ‘They serve some damned good wine downstairs!’ He had gathered together quite a number of the brighter, more dashing young sparks, to whom he was still a hero and who looked to him as their leader, even if he always did prefer a poker game to a ball.