All these thoughts passed swiftly through her head as she saw him on the path in front of her. Everything fell into place. It was obvious! And how lucky it was that AB had left the day before and was nowhere near. Quickly she walked up to Uzdy and stood before him, ‘Whatever are you doing here?’ she asked belligerently with her head held high.
Uzdy laughed somewhat awkwardly. For a moment he looked like a young boy caught out in some minor misdeed. ‘Why, I wanted to see for myself how nice a morning walk could be. Don’t you approve, dear Addy?’
She shrugged her shoulders. His words seemed hardly to warrant any reply, so she merely said, ‘And the rifle? Are you going shooting?’
‘Shooting? No! But I thought maybe I’d find some convenient target here in the woods, a tree, or a stone … something like that!’ He laughed again, somewhat maliciously, Adrienne thought; and for an instant his eyes flashed dangerously. ‘I thought it might be interesting to try some target without measuring the distance beforehand. If I could hit it accurately … That’s the important thing, accuracy … accuracy. The whole beauty is in accuracy, to hit accurately, just that. Accuracy,’ and he repeated the word several times.
They had walked home together without speaking; and afterwards the incident was never again mentioned between them.
Adrienne was thinking of this incident when she again said, ‘No! We can’t do it yet, not yet. We can’t bring it up now.’
After dinner at the Miloths everyone remained in the dining-room, the ladies leaning their elbows on the wrinkled table-cloth and the men drinking their wine and dropping cigar ash on the table just as if they had been in a tavern. The footman and the maid leant against the wall scarcely troubling to conceal their yawns. This would never have happened while Countess Miloth was still alive but since her death what little order she had contrived had vanished. Everybody did as they pleased and young Margit, who was trying to run the household as best she could, followed her own instincts and pursued her own goals which were, simply, that the young men who came to the house should feel themselves at home and be able to talk as they pleased and drink what they wanted. Even if anyone had questioned her she would probably just have replied that it was best that way.
The first person to get up from table was old Mademoiselle Morin, who retired to the drawing-room as soon as the meal was ended, offended and sighing deeply, to continue knitting the eternal woollen stocking on which she seemed to have been engaged for the last twenty years. Later on old Rattle dragged the youngest Alvinczy there too so as to have a captive audience for his tales of the Garibaldi campaigns. The others had stayed in the dining-room for, with peals of laughter, they rebelled at the idea of hearing all that again. What they wanted to talk about was the previous night’s adventure and what it had led to. Nemesis, it seemed, had caught up with the night watchman, for the village council had met and dismissed him; and so the drama of the cow, as in a Greek tragedy, had had its inexorable effect.
Although everyone was laughing and joking the evening was not entirely carefree; a shadow lurked behind the mirth for no one could quite forget that poor Judith, their former companion and playmate, was living there, at the end of the house, her mind clouded. A few of them, like Abady, had caught a glimpse of her, and the others had been told by Ida Laczok. The knowledge that she was there afflicted them all and gradually the jokes and laughter died away. One or two of them occasionally glanced at the glazed door that led to the veranda and even fancied that they glimpsed there the face of a young girl with death in her eyes.
As their mirth faded so they began to talk about more serious subjects, about people who were lucky and those that were not, about the disappearance of Laszlo Gyeroffy, about Dinora Malhuysen who had signed bank drafts for Wickwitz and who had everywhere been ostracized when the scandal became known; and about Fate who distributed good and bad luck with total indifference and how some people were destroyed without apparent reason while others, who might not deserve it, had joy and success thrust upon them.
‘You can’t measure happiness equally; everybody is not the same!’ said Adam Alvinczy sadly, as he looked at Adrienne. Then Gazsi thumped the table loudly.
‘That’s just not true,’ he shouted. ‘Everybody is the same, neither happy nor unhappy. It’s the same rotten deal for us all!’
Everyone looked up at him in astonishment for Gazsi had never been known to think about anything but practical jokes and horses.
‘Oh, yes,’ cried Gazsi. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve often noticed that in company …’
‘The company of horses?’ interrupted Adam, who resented having his own pessimistic attitude adopted by anyone else, especially by Gazsi.
This made Kadacsay angry. Adam’s scornful tone seemed to touch some deep wound within him, some sorrow of whose existence even he may have been previously unaware. Always before he had reacted to such mockery with such comic self-deprecation that everyone laughed. Today, however, perhaps because he had had a lot to drink, the mask of comedy had dropped and everyone could see he was offended.
‘I suppose you think that just because a man knows how to ride he must be a complete dolt? Of course I spend a lot of my time with horses — perhaps too much; but I can still think when I’m in the saddle, and that wouldn’t be easy for you even standing still!’
Balint sensed that the conversation was getting dangerously out of hand and decided to intervene, ‘Well, Gazsi, let’s hear what you do think! Tell us!’
‘Yes! Yes! Do go on, Gazsi!’ cried the ladies, ‘and then we’ll tell you what we think.’
Kadacsay leaned his head on one side and his plaintive eyebrows rose even higher than usual. With his long nose he looked like a raven contemplating some strange object. Fixing his eyes on the table-cloth, as if he could read something there, he started to talk, though at first in broken phrases. His manner was dreamlike, but his logic did not falter. Using rather too many words and often repeating himself, he said that no matter what one achieved, no matter what joy came one’s way, it was never enough; there was always some further goal before complete happiness could be won. No one could ever say, ‘Now I wish for nothing more!’ Whatever Fate sent one’s way, somehow it was never enough. It was not a question of wanting more of the same thing, it was just that there was always something else, something one did not yet have but which was or now seemed necessary for complete happiness. It was this constant desire which kept human joy in check, for everyone felt that if only he could achieve just this one little thing more then all would be well. It was the same with unhappiness. No matter what terrible sorrow came one’s way there was always some tiny grain of hope to be one’s consolation and which kept one from despair. It didn’t matter what one called it — duty, a debt to be paid, a moral obligation — there was always something more to be done despite the shattering blow one had just suffered. When someone very dear to one died, there were things to be done and people to be cared for. And in every other sort of sorrow there was some compensation which provided its own joy, something that could not be left undone, some work to be concluded, some person who needed care and help — be it a relation or a friend or servant, or even an animal. It did not matter who or what it was but there was always someone or something for whose sake one must accept the sorrow and bear it with fortitude, for that someone or something had no other person to whom to turn. Even the profoundest mourning had its compensations.