As for that other one, the proud, faithless, uncompromising one, to whom he had so longed to play Chopin during those long winter evenings, had she ever seen, or glimpsed, the delicate mimosa soul behind the rough armour of his reserve?
For the rest of the world Sandor Kendy was a hard, hard man who might have been hewn from rock.
‘Laszlo Gyeroffy?’ answered Balint at last. ‘The poor fellow is in a bad way. It seems that he’s granted a lease on his properties in return for ten years’ rent in advance, though maybe he still gets some paltry little sum each month. But I’ve heard that many of his old debts have never been settled and so he’s gradually being sold up and now, apparently, what he’s still got is to be auctioned. The trouble is that he’s drinking and doesn’t care a damn what happens to him.’
Crookface said nothing for a moment; he was still looking at the picture. Finally he said, ‘What an idiot! And no one can make him see reason?’
‘He won’t listen to anyone. I’ve tried, several times, in vain. And he’s avoided me ever since. It’s a sort of suicide, what he’s doing to himself. His only hope is to be made a ward of court. That might save him, but there’s no one to do what’s necessary as he doesn’t have any parents or brothers; and no one else has the right to act.’
‘Bloody fool!’ said Crookface, and fell silent again. After a little while he got up and said, ‘Time for bed. It’s late. You’ll have to get up early to catch the morning train. I’ve ordered the car for six. That’ll get you to Hejjasfalva in time to catch the express.’
Old Kendy showed Balint to a guest-room which was near the drawing-room just beyond the corridor. There he said goodbye, turned away and left quickly. There was no question of continuing their conversation.
Balint found it difficult to sleep. On the other side of the wall of his room he could hear heavy footsteps walking to and fro, resounding in the empty space of the great drawing-room: it was old Kendy, cigar in mouth, pacing up and down the room from the glass doors to the windows and back, again and again.
Chapter Four
EIGHT PAIRS of perfectly matched Lipizzaners trotted down the arrow-straight country road.
They were splendid horses, all dapple greys which could have been cast from the same mould, the only difference being that the older ones were slightly lighter in hue and the younger darker with more pronounced shading. They all had the same prancing movement, with their forelegs bending up well in front of them. This, of course, they had been trained to do, not for speed but for beauty and elegance and in fact their progress was comparatively slow. The eight carriages they drew were also identical, painted black with yellow roofs and upper-work. The coachmen wore grey livery and black top hats and they were all of similar build, broad-shouldered and clean-shaven. They too kept perfect rhythm and the fifteen metre distance between each carriage was never varied. Inside each carriage there was one male guest, who was one of the guns invited to the shoot, and in several there were also some ladies. And so, in stately procession, they passed along the acacia-lined country road. When one of the carriages reached its destination — which was marked by a bale of straw whose prominently displayed number corresponded to that accorded to the guest in the carriage, and where that guest’s loader, cartridge carrier and game collector were already waiting — then it pulled aside and stopped and allowed the other carriages to go on their way.
A great hare shoot was about to begin, and it needed over three hundred people to be properly organized.
Where the carriages stopped was the start. Between each gun, well spaced out, were six or seven peasant youths. The main band of beaters were nearly out of sight, divided into two halves, those on the left flank being nearly a mile apart from those on the right. These were mostly made up of girls who were more disciplined than young men and did not jump about so much but who remained well in line, their full skirts spread wide, crouching close to each other so that none of the hares should pass between them. From where the guns were placed for the start their multi-coloured blouses and head-scarves looked like an endless row of field poppies disappearing into the distance.
All the beaters were Slovaks, for the shoot was taking place at Jablanka in Slovakia, a country estate belonging to Antal Szent-Gyorgyi, which was situated just where the valley of the Vag opens out onto the Lesser Alfold, the northern part of the Great Hungarian Plain. The landscape shone in the wintry sun. In the east could be seen the peaks of the smaller Carpathians while to the west the Tapolcsany range closed the great horseshoe-shaped ring of mountains to the north of the plains which stretched away endlessly to the south. In the centre of the horseshoe there was a row of gently undulating hills and there, right in the middle, was the snow-white square of the great castle of Jablanka, its windows, though more than a mile away, shimmering in the sunshine. Far behind, on a jutting outcrop of rock, the ruined fortress of Jablo was silhouetted against the shadowy outlines of the far-off Trencsen mountains.
The shoot had been arranged so that the guns advanced towards the castle, finishing just at the edge of the park, where the two long lines of standing beaters converged. This was carefully thought out because the host was anxious not to over-tire either himself or those who had had the honour of an invitation to shoot with him. Unlike his brother-in-law, Louis Kollonich, whose ambition it always was to set up record bags, Antal Szent-Gyorgyi merely sought elegance and style. For him a shoot should be a pleasure, not a competitive chore. It should not start too early; and it should not last too long. The guests invited to shoot should have room to shoot as they pleased — which is why they were placed so far apart. It was for this reason that he never had more than eight guns and he only invited enough guests to make up this number. As both his sons were at home only five others had been asked this year. It was considered a great honour to be invited to shoot at Jablanka, and all the more so because Antal Szent-Gyorgyi was known to be extremely choosy as to whom he might ask. Apart from his own relations hardly anyone was held worthy of an invitation. Count Antal’s group of acceptable guests was like the very smallest of concentric circles, like the monarch’s own chosen group of shooting friends whose composition was forever frozen in immutable categories of which only the innermost could ever hope for an invitation. As in Dante’s Purgatory the ever-rising floors finally dwindle into the narrowest, uppermost circle and there, right at the top, the peak of the whole envied structure, was Paradise.