Outside it started to rain, a few drops spattering the window sill.
Dodo jumped down and went over to the Bösendorfer.
‘Are you still working at the piano?’ and when Laszlo shook his head, she went on, ‘No? What a pity!’ For a while they turned over the musical scores that were lying in untidy heaps on the piano top and then Laszlo started to look for some of his own manuscript works and showed them to her and Dodo leant against him, so interested was she, it was like some comradely game of love where words and actions have no real meaning but serve only to tie the two of them together, close to each other, their shoulders and hips touching, and their young blood racing beneath the skin.
Outside the rain was now falling hard, drumming on the window sill like a prelude of Chopin and forming a curtain of close-knit threads separating them from the world outside. Once again it was Dodo who broke away. Still not quite sure of herself she went first towards the sofa, but it was covered with books and clothes carelessly thrown down and that, perhaps, was why she moved over to the bed, pulled straight the eiderdown and sat down on the edge. Laszlo followed her almost unconscious of his movements and sat beside her.
Dodo leaned towards him, slipped her arms round his shoulders and without a word offered him her mouth. At once they were welded together in a long kiss until the sound of the raindrops seemed to echo the throbbing of their desire for each other.
After a while Laszlo pushed her gently away, shook himself, got up and went to sit down on a chair a little way away. It was as if he were fleeing from the passion within him. Then, very softly, he said‚ ‘We shouldn’t … we shouldn’t!’
Dodo looked at him, smiling. ‘Why not? You know I love you. I’ve loved you for ages, for ever. I’ve always loved you. I’m yours if you’ll have me. Why don’t you marry me? I’d be happy to be your wife! You’ll see how happy we’d both be!’
‘But that’s impossible!’ said Gyeroffy‚ though there was no conviction in his voice, only slight protest against the unexpected.
‘Why impossible? There’s nothing to stop us. We’re both free. We can do as we please. Isn’t it enough that I ask you?’ and she repeated softly‚ sweetly‚ ‘Well, isn’t it?’
As Dodo said this she presented a charming picture sitting on the edge of the bed leaning forwards towards him her light raw-silk dress emphasizing the contours of her body, her round breasts, her smooth round neck. Her lips were reddened from their kiss and her eyes were beseeching. Laszlo’s first impulse was to jump up and take her in his arms; but the impulse lasted only a fraction of a second before something stopped him, though not before he had started to move towards her.
In the last few weeks more and more writs had been served on him, writs for the payment of long-standing debts. The bailiffs had been twice to the house and maybe they had even now fixed a date for selling all his belongings. Laszlo never understood these things. Azbej arranged everything for him, postponements, arrangements for amortizations — how and with what Laszlo had no idea. All he knew was that he was submerged in debt and that any day might find him thrown out onto the street.
It was the sudden memory of this, the consciousness of his bankruptcy‚ which had stopped him. He looked at Dodo from where he sat and in his distress answered her‚ ‘I, I have nothing, only debts. Even now this place may not be mine. I’m a beggar.’
If at this moment Dodo had taken him in his arms, pressed her young body to his and had said she didn’t care, or that it didn’t matter, or even if she had said nothing but just pressed her mouth to his without another word, then perhaps all would have been well and their fate would have taken a different turn. It was one of those moments in life when destiny is determined by a single word and what happens thereafter can never be reversed. But Dodo, alas, did not choose either of the ways that would have ensured her happiness. Quite unconsciously it was she herself who undid everything that up until now she had planned with such care and success. She said‚ ‘What does that matter? I know all that already. Everything can be arranged. I’m quite rich enough to take care of all that!’
From where she sat, facing the window, Dodo could not see how Laszlo’s face crumbled as she spoke.
At those few short words all Laszlo’s recent past surged back into his mind. At that moment he was faced with everything that had happened to him. It was all there in front of him. There stood his former mistress, the lovely Fanny Beredy, who had loved him and without his knowledge pawned her famous rope of pearls to settle his gambling debts. He could think of nothing but his shame when he had found this out, a shame that had been with him for months until he had freed himself by redeeming the pearls, leaving his new debts unpaid, an action which he had known would lead to his being thrown out of the Casino Club. There too stood the phantom of Lieutenant Wickwitz, his handsome face contorted with mocking laughter, whom Laszlo when drunk had insulted by accusing him of living off rich women, when all the time he had known that he himself was guilty of the same sin. The Austrian officer had been disgraced and had fled abroad but he, Laszlo, he had sat in judgement over this scoundrel and over himself, over all men who lived off women. Never! Never! Never again would anyone be able to accuse him of that! Never! Never! Never!
Laszlo jumped up and backed behind his chair using it as a barricade between them. He flung out an arm, pointing to the door, ‘Go away! Never! Never that!’ and his voice was filled with menace as he shouted; ‘Go! Go! Go!’
Pale as death Dodo got up. Then the blood rushed to her face. Picking up the motoring cap that had fallen to the floor, she ran out of the room.
Once outside she flung herself into her car. ‘Drive!’ she muttered to her driver. ‘Drive!’ and when they reached the main road and he asked where she could only just whisper, ‘Home … home … home …’
Dodo pulled the thick motoring cap tightly down over her hair and put on the heavy thick driving goggles. The rain ran down her face and clouded the lenses — but it was not only this that misted her vision. Inside the goggles tears poured from her eyes until they too seeped down onto her cheeks.
It was as if her eyes and nature both competed to weep over her sorrow.
Chapter Two
AT THE BEGINNING of October there was a large family gathering at the manor-house of Mezo-Varjas. Since Countess Miloth had only died six months before‚ in February, this was somewhat unconventional; but it was what Count Akos (known to all as ‘Rattle’) wanted. He had told his youngest daughter, Margit, to summon Adrienne and their cousins, the Laczok girls; and his son Zoltan, who was now at college, to round up some young men because his god-daughter, the child of the Miloth estate overseer, was getting married and it was only right, however he might mourn his wife, that Count Miloth should see that the marriage was properly celebrated by the family.
‘I know the man’s a fool’, shouted old Rattle to his children, ‘and probably a thief as well, but since he’s served us for so long, and the girl is goose enough to take that good-for-nothing son of the Lelbanya chemist, I don’t see what else we can do!’
Margit said nothing. Her brother was not so sensible.
‘Who do you want me to write to, Papa? Who do you want?’ he said.
‘How do I know, you dolt?’ shouted Count Akos. ‘It’s all the same to me. Do you think I care, after losing your mother? Anyone you like! Now get out of here or I’ll hand you one you won’t forget!’ and he aimed a kick at the boy who jumped nimbly out of the way, quite unperturbed by his father’s apparent anger. At the door he turned, smiling, and said, ‘I’ll talk it over with Margit!’