‘It’s only now,’ he murmured, ‘only now that I realized I was in love with you, and always have been ever since we first met though I didn’t know it until now. There’s never been anyone else. I’ve always loved you and nobody else, never ever!’
And for a long time he kept murmuring those two words ‘never ever’ like rain-drops falling in endless repetition, monotonous rhyming little words to replace the passionate phrases of a moment or two before.
Little Dinora Abonyi came into the room with light steps. She had torn a flounce on her dress and was on her way to have it repaired in the ladies’ room which could only be reached through the library where Balint sat with Adrienne. Balint heard someone coming and pulled his hand back from her’s.
Dinora stopped beside them and, putting her hand on his shoulder, spoke to Adrienne: ‘He’s very sweet, this Balint! I know him … and he talks beautifully! Nobody can talk like him! And he’s kind and good, not like the others. I know! I can recommend him!’
She smiled at Adrienne and moved lightly away. Her words, which could have sounded bitchy coming from anyone else, were not vicious, not from her. From Dinora they came from the heart, a gift for Adrienne who, unlike the others, had gone out of her way to be kind to her all the evening. Dinora’s simple, kind heart had been deeply touched when Adrienne had spoken to her at the buffet, taken her by the arm and asked her to eat at her table whereas the other ladies, after listening to Aunt Lizinka’s malicious gossip, had seemed to take pleasure in cutting her, ostentatiously turning away if she approached. She had nothing else to give Adrienne so she offered her old friend.
Dinora’s coming back had broken the spell that until then had separated Balint and Adrienne from the rest of the world. Adrienne did not take in what Dinora had said, but the fact that someone else had spoken to her brought her back to reality, to the fact that she was in the Assembly Rooms of the Casino, attending the Mardi Gras Ball and that gypsy music was being played in the ballroom next door. Dream-like she came back from a world of dreams.
When the csardas came to an end several couples started to drift back to the supper-room. Isti Kamuthy, after seeing that his partner was seated among friends and noticing that Abady was already sitting there with Countess Uzdy, same over to greet them, eager to hear the latest news from the capital.
‘Tho you’re back from Budapetht? What’th new in Budapetht?’
Balint replied politely but non-committally. Then they got up and moved back to the ballroom, still in a dream of their own …
As they arrived a waltz was just beginning. They stood for a moment in the doorway, Adrienne looking at Balint with her wide eyes, golden in the candle-light like those of a lioness, looking deeply into his. Then, putting her hand on his shoulder she leaned towards him, her eyes closed. Neither spoke; their movements were natural, inevitable and, as Balint put his arm round Adrienne’s waist, they moved out on to the dance floor, gently turning and yielding themselves to the rhythm of the music in mute tenderness, each of them conscious of nothing but the other. Though surrounded by a milling crowd, once again they were alone.
After the waltz they separated and, after agreeing to sup together at the following evening’s ball, they each went their separate ways, even trying to keep apart, Adrienne by instinct and Balint consciously, not wishing that they should give any occasion for gossip by the hawk-eyed old ladies. But their efforts were in vain. Wherever they were, on the dance floor, at the buffet, in the drawing-room, every few minutes they seemed to come together again automatically as if an invisible thread bound them always to each other. And, whenever this happened, they would exchange a few banal phrases — ‘Isn’t it a lovely ball?’ — ‘How sweet little Dodo looks tonight!’ — ‘I love this old tune, don’t you?’ — ‘What a good organizer Alvinczy is!’ or some such trivial remark that could be overheard by anyone without a malicious interpretation being possible. Yet all the time a secret current flowed between them, isolating them from all others, creating for them a world of their own as private as if they had been alone on a desert island. No matter what words came from their lips, for both Adrienne and Balint they could have only one meaning: ‘You! You! You!’ and whenever one caught sight of the other it was with a kind of happy surprise at the discovery of their new-found bliss.
Balint and Adrienne were so wrapped up in this new little world of their own that it was with a shock of surprise that they found it was eight o’clock when the ball came to an end. In the entrance hall a crowd of waiting footmen helped the girls and their chaperones to find their wraps and the young men were busy collecting the cotillion favours and flowers of the girls with whom they had flirted the night away.
Adrienne called for her sisters. Margit came at once but they had to look for Judith, who was found talking to Wickwitz in a dark corner. Their party now left escorted by a whole band of admirers: Wickwitz, the ball’s two organizers, Baron Gazsi and Farkas Alvinczy, as well as Adam Alvinczy and Pityu Kendy. Adrienne was on Balint’s arm. Well wrapped up against the fierce cold of the morning, they waited just inside at the head of the steps until the noise of the carriages and the hurried entrance of a footman announced that their carriage was at the door.
Balint and Adrienne still moved like figures in a dream, for the fact that in a few hours time there would be another ball at which they would naturally meet again and which would give them the opportunity to pass another whole evening in each other’s company, was enough to remove any sting from this morning’s parting.
Everyone said goodbye; the men shook hands with the girls and, as with the other married ladies, they bowed to Adrienne and kissed her hand. Balint was the last. Adrienne had not yet put on her gloves and, when he took her hand, the feel of her bare skin went up his arm with the power of an electric shock. He paused, bending over her, holding her hand in his for a fraction longer than was usual. Suddenly, speaking so low that no one else could hear, he said: ‘Not where the others did!’ and turning her hand quickly over he buried his face in her palm. Adrienne made no resistance, and in a second Balint had straightened up again. No one had noticed.
The ladies climbed into their carriage, the doors slammed and the horses were quickly whipped away in a fast trot.
Most of the young men ran quickly back up the steps to say goodbye to other friends, but Balint stood motionless with closed eyes, suffused with a happiness he had never known before. Then he pulled himself together and returned to the Casino, bounding up the steps two or three at a time.
Quickly finding his fur coat, he returned and hurried down into the open street. Outside it was a bright sunny morning with a few inches of fresh untouched snow covering everything in sight. He walked slowly home, his narrow patent leather dancing shoes leaving sharp tracks in the virgin snow. It was like walking in cold water, cool, refreshing, somehow wonderful. He was entirely alone in the deserted streets. He was happy.
Chapter Six
ADRIENNE LEANED BACK in her corner of the carriage so absorbed in her own thoughts that she did not notice that Judith also remained totally abstracted. The two of them, wrapped almost to the eyes in their furs and shawls, had the same closed expression on their faces, the same taut line round the mouth, and they both shut their eyes as if they had secrets that must be protected from the outside world. Only Margit, sitting opposite them, was her usual merry self, keeping up a stream of chatter and excitement.