Akos Alvinczy was telling a new story. This time it concerned a landowner, one Todor Racz, whose property was situated in a remote country district. He was a passionate but singularly unskilful gambler and, of course, he usually lost. The new Prefect, Joska, was one of his regular poker school. One night, after the usual disastrous session, Racz told everyone that this would have to be the last time he played because in two days’ time the bailiffs would come to take possession of all he owned. For years, Racz explained, he had managed not to pay any taxes, not a penny, but now they had caught up with him and everything he owned would have to go to auction. What, asked Akos, did Joska do? Why, he sent for the village headman and ordered him to declare an outbreak of cholera in the district and to mark every other house with a red cross, thereby in effect putting the whole district in quarantine. When the bailiffs arrived on the following day they were chased away by armed guards from the village itself.
‘And so Todor Racz’s absence didn’t spoil their game after all. He went on playing and to this day the bailiffs haven’t dared set foot in the place!’
At this Gazsi could no longer contain his anger. ‘I don’t think that’s at all funny. No humour in that little stor-r-ry!’ he growled, rolling his ‘r’s as usual. ‘A Prefect isn’t appointed to ensur-r-re that a fellow ar-r-ristocr-r-rat can welsh on his taxes!’
Whatever, they all wondered, had come over Baron Gazsi? He had always been such a joker, a fellow never known to take anything seriously. Abady, however, remembered the little speech that Gazsi had made that evening at Mezo-Varjas when, though less tipsy than tonight, he had talked about the non-existence of true happiness. Something is troubling this man, he thought, as everyone else looked at Gazsi astonished.
Joska Kendy merely took his friend’s words as the introduction to some joke or other and so, from where he sat near to Mrs Korosi — having until now behaved as if he had heard nothing at all of these flattering stories about himself — he called out, pipe in mouth, ‘When four-legged animals form a government you too can be a Prefect!’ in the sort of bantering tone they had always used with each other.
‘Not even then!’ retorted Gazsi in an angry tone. ‘I’d never accept a job I didn’t know how to do. I’m a fool, a donkey, and I know it!’
‘Fancy admitting it! That’s most interesting,’ said Joska in a tone of unconcerned mockery.
‘And even if I were made Pr-r-refect for four-legged animals — as you so cleverly put it, meaning donkeys I presume — I’d still feel I had some obligations and not tr-r-reat it all as some kind of joke!’ Turning to Balint, Gazsi went on, ‘Aren’t I right? You talked to me once about this. Do you remember?’ And then, not waiting for an answer, he shouted over to Joska, ‘At least I admit I’m a donkey.’
‘And what does that mean?’ asked Joska drily, pipe in mouth, but with a serious expression which showed them all that the argument was about to get serious. Gazsi hesitated for a moment, obviously searching in his mind for the appropriate insult.
At this point a tall lean figure stepped up between the place on the platform where Joska was sitting and the stand, a yard or two away, where Gazsi had sat down. It was Pali Uzdy, tall as a tower, who was dressed in a long travelling overcoat. Totally disregarding everyone else he stopped in front of his wife, put one booted foot on the steps leading up to the platform and said, ‘I’m leaving for Almasko! Do you have any messages, dear Adrienne? Is there anything you need from there?’
‘You’re going now? At this time of night?’ asked his wife, somewhat taken by surprise.
Uzdy’s slanting eyebrows were raised even higher than usual as he asked, ‘Surely, my dear, you are not still surprised by my comings and goings?’ And his tone was as ironic as ever. ‘My carriage is at the door. So there is nothing you want? Good! Well, I just asked. Well, well! Goodbye then! Until we meet again!’ and he swept his beaver hat in a wide gesture of general farewell. ‘Goodbye to you all!’
He turned and stalked out with the same silent measured tread as when he had walked up a few moments before.
When the doors had closed behind him Adrienne’s and Balint’s eyes met for a brief second.
Young Kamuthy now decided to take advantage of the sudden silence to return to his favourite theme. ‘In Angland,’ he said with even more self-importance than before, ‘no one expecths national figureth to be experths in their jobthe. On the contrary, they feel that too much expertithe destroythe all objectivity.’
‘Well, nothing’ll destroy yours!’ shouted Joska, who was all too glad of the diversion because he would have hated to have been obliged to have it out with Gazsi as this would have meant making their dispute an ‘affair of honour’ with the inevitable duel to follow. Everyone, in fact, was happy that the laughter and the joking had started again and they all joined in with gales of mirth when Pityu Kendy went for Kamuthy and said, ‘You’d do better to go and wash those stamps off your face, young man! Someone might try to shove you in the post-box!’ At which the stage-Englishman touched his forehead and, horrified, screamed out in English, ‘Oh, my God! Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!’ and ran shamefacedly away.
Kamuthy’s going prompted others to leave too.
‘Goodness, how late it is! Time to go home!’ said someone; and at these words, as if by magic, everyone started getting their things together.
‘Only now, when the party’s over, does one notice how tired one is,’ said Adrienne as she walked towards the door.
Balint stayed on for a few moments, barely seeming to notice Adrienne’s departure. He appeared to be absorbed in something that the Prussian baron was explaining — though it might have been that he was merely fascinated by Ugo’s Pomeranian accent.
‘Das ist man so, wie ich soeben Ihnen sagte, mein lieber Graf; bei uns undauchinOst-Preussenisteswohlnichlanders — that is how it is, as I’ve just explained to you, my dear Count; with us and also in East Prussia, it is never otherwise …’
Chapter Three
ADRIENNE’S BEDROOM was in almost total darkness. Only a single candle was burning and this she had placed on the floor beside one of the bedside tables. The light was therefore indirect and cast strange shadows on the walls, transforming the outlines of the table-legs into weird lines that broke disconcertingly at the angle of the ceiling. The outline of the bed threw half the room into shadow as if it were filled with dark clouds. The unusual source of light gave a sense of fantasy to a room whose appearance was normally quite ordinary, indeed almost banal. There were a few upholstered chairs dating from the 1860s, a chest of drawers indistinguishable from countless others, and, in front of one of the windows, a dressing-table. On the walls was a faded wallpaper: nothing more. If it had not been for the bed the room would have been like any of those furnished for occasional guests. Adrienne’s bed was exceptionally large, had no headboard or tester, and was covered with flounces of flowing ivory-covered lace draperies. In the grey, ordinary, otherwise cheaply-furnished room, it was like an exotic foreigner. Indeed this bed was the only thing in the room which was Adrienne’s own; all the other pieces had been put there originally by her mother-in-law. There it was, an alien object, as out of tune with everything else as were, in the adjoining drawing-room, the white woolly carpets strewn with multi-coloured cushions that Adrienne had placed in front of the vast chimney-piece and which contrasted so strangely with the severe lines of the despised Empire furniture which Countess Uzdy had thought fit for her daughter-in-law’s use.