By the early afternoon on the next day Balint was already to be found sitting at a table in front of the Hotel New York in the King Matyas Square. He had chosen a place on the sidewalk where he had a good view of everything that took place in the square. To give a reason for being there, he had ordered a cup of coffee that remained untasted on the table in front of him. The weather was sunny but even so the spring warmth had hardly begun and there was no one else at the other tables. Balint waited for a long time until he saw Adrienne approaching. He rose hurriedly and went to meet her.
Addy seemed as relaxed and gay as if nothing unusual had happened between them.
‘Do you have to start calling on people at once?’ asked Balint. ‘Couldn’t we take a stroll first? The weather’s so beautiful!’
Adrienne agreed. ‘We could go to the top of the Hazsongard,’ she said. ‘The view from there is marvellous. I often walk there. Shall we?’
The Hazsongard was the old cemetery of the town. The unusual name, which had no meaning of its own, was thought to have come from the German word Hasengarten, — a place where hares were to be found in abundance — and in time what had formerly been a place for hunting was found to be conveniently close to the town and so suitable as a burial place. A steep road, paved with cobblestones, led up a hill just outside the town. On both sides could be seen many tombstones, mostly old and neglected, as well as an occasional elaborate mausoleum erected by a prosperous family to house their dead in suitable dignity.
Adrienne and Balint did not speak as they climbed to the top. Finally they arrived at the far end of the burial ground and found a place to sit on the flat top of an old tomb. Up on the hillside the wind was cold and strong.
Adrienne had not exaggerated when she had said that the view was marvellous. From where they sat they could look down on the roofs of the town below and the lines of the old walls, which could only occasionally be discerned from close to, could easily be traced from here, the battlements and little defence towers clearly defining the medieval town and separating it from the more recent suburbs. The sunlight gave an ethereal glow to the old stones of the church walls and steeples. On the other side of the town the Citadel Hill rose dramatically from the faintly blue mists which shrouded the course of the Szamos river and its little tributary, the Nadas. Above, the peaks of the Gyalu mountains gleamed pale lilac above the yellow streaks of the rivers now swollen by melting snow and, far to the north east, the Tarcsa hills could be discerned rising from the valley.
‘It is beautiful here, isn’t it?’ said Addy.
For a while Balint did not reply. He just sat there beside her, gazing at the panorama spread out before them. When he did finally speak he did not look at her but looked steadily in front of him. He needed all the control he could muster to keep his tone light and gently mocking.
‘You know, Addy,’ he said as if he were joking, ‘I’ve thought a lot about you, and I’ve made an important discovery!’
‘And what is it?’
‘That you are a dangerous impostor!’
‘Well, really! I’ve never had that compliment before!’
‘It’s true! You talk about love as if you know all about it, while the truth is you know nothing at all, less than nothing. You’ve really no idea what it’s all about! There are teachers, you know,’ he went on lightly so as to soften the harshness of what he was saying, ‘who talk about icebergs, or the sea, or the jungle, without ever having been outside the four walls of their study. They’ve learned all they know from books. You are like them,’ he added slowly and deliberately. ‘This is very dangerous for those who must listen to such teachers. It can be misleading. And you, you of all people! Why, everything about you, your lips, smile, hair, walk, it all contributes to the swindle! Yes, swindle! Everything about you tells the world that you are a woman when the reality is that you are nothing but an ignorant little girl who knows nothing at all of what she is talking about. Everything about you is false, nothing is what it seems, nothing. This is surely what the Greeks had in mind when they invented the Sphinx, half woman, half … half monster — un monstre, as the French say so descriptively. And you are something even more strange, a sphinx who doesn’t even know the answer to her own questions. Oh, what a danger you are to us modern wanderers!’
A deep blush spread slowly over Adrienne’s ivory skin. Never before had anyone detected the sexual deficiency which for so long had made her feel set apart from other women. When some of her female friends confided their problems to her the only result was that she was made to feel different from them, poorer, lonelier, ashamed — and for this reason she had never told anyone of her own difficulties and confusions. Indeed she had done all she could to hide her misery from the world. Knowing that she was blushing, and hoping to prevent Balint from realizing it, she put up her hand as if she needed to hold on to her hat against the strength of the wind but in reality to shade her face from him, so that he could not see her expression.
‘A yellow-eyed monster!’ he went on. ‘It sounds dreadful, doesn’t it? But that’s what I’m going to call you from now on; the Yellow-Eyed Monster! In memory of this afternoon.’
Adrienne understood at once that he was not referring to that afternoon but to their meeting the day before. Balint’s tiger pounce made her angry even now when she thought about it, but this feeling lasted only an instant, for she immediately consoled herself by assuming that everything that Balint had just said had been intended to justify himself, not to attack her. That must have been what was in his mind, she said to herself, when he said that she was different from women with experience in matters of love. Yet, inexperienced and innocent as she was, she still had an uneasy feeling that other women in love would not have been offended or repulsed him as she had. Refusing to admit this, even to herself, she raised her head defiantly as if to ward off further attack. Balint, however, changed the subject.
‘Do you see? The willows are already green and the birches are coming into bud? They’re all golden as if covered in a gauze veil, and in a week’s time they’ll be in leaf.’
‘Yes! Yes, it is lovely!’ Adrienne spoke with added eagerness, thankful to be talking of something else.
‘Springtime awakes! It’s like Wedekind’s play. Did you ever read it?’
Adrienne admitted that she had and found it interesting but strange. So with relief on both sides they slipped into an easy discussion about books and plays and writers which lasted until they started to descend the hill once again. The wind grew stronger and, as they battled against it, the lines of Adrienne’s legs were clearly visible through the serge of her skirt. With the material fluttering in the wind behind her Balint was once again reminded of Diana the Huntress in the Louvre, whose stride and bearing were nothing if not victorious.
On the following day they again went for a walk in the afternoon and it was not until three more days had passed that Adrienne allowed Balint to visit her again at her home. And then it was only because Parliament had been recalled and Balint would have to go back to Budapest on the night train. It would be his last evening at Kolozsvar.
‘All right, you can come,’ said Addy, and went on with severe emphasis, ‘but only if you promise: as we were before. You understand?’