Nevertheless the man-servant — white gloves now, tails, stiff shirt and stiff features — reassured me by saying that my batman had delivered my message half an hour ago, and conducted me to the salon — four-windowed, hung with red silk, ablaze with crystal chandeliers, a marvel of elegance, I had never seen anything more magnificent. But alas! to my confusion it turned out to be completely deserted, and from the next room I could distinctly hear the cheerful clatter of dishes. Vexing, vexing, I thought to myself, they’re already at table.
Well, anyhow, I pulled myself together, and the moment the man-servant threw open the folding-doors I stepped forward to the threshold of the dining-room, clicked my heels smartly and bowed. The whole company looked up; ten, twenty pairs of eyes, strange eyes all of them, inspected the late-comer, who, far from self-assured, stood framed in the doorway. An elderly gentleman, doubtless the master of the house, immediately rose, hurriedly laid aside his napkin, came towards me and held out a welcoming hand. Not at all what I had imagined him to be, this Herr von Kekesfalva, not in the least the country squire with twirling Magyar moustaches, round-faced, plump and rubicund from good living. Behind gold-rimmed spectacles a pair of somewhat tired eyes floated above grey pouches, his shoulders seemed slightly hunched, his voice sounded wheezy, as though he were troubled by a cough; one would have taken him, if anything, for a scholar, with his slender, delicate features, which ended in a scanty, white goatee. The old gentleman’s exceptional kindliness was extraordinarily reassuring; no, no, he said, cutting short my excuses, it was for him to apologize. He knew only too well the sort of thing that cropped up in the army, and it had been particularly kind of me to send him a special message; it had only been because they had not been sure when to expect me that they had already started dinner. But now I must take my place without further delay. He would introduce me to all the guests individually later on. But first, he said, leading me to the table, I must meet his daughter. A young girl in her teens, delicate, pale, fragile like himself, looked up from a conversation, a pair of grey eyes glanced shyly at me. But I only caught a fleeting glimpse of slender, restless features, and bowed first to her, then collectively right and left to the other guests, who were obviously glad not to have to lay down their knives and forks in order to go through the tedious ceremony of a formal introduction.
For the first two or three minutes I still felt thoroughly ill-at-ease. There was no one there from the regiment, not a single fellow-officer, not a single acquaintance, not even one of the town big-wigs; nothing but strange, utterly strange faces. The guests seemed for the most part to be landowners or officials of the neighbourhood with their wives and daughters. But mufti, mufti everywhere, not a single uniform but mine! My God! how was I, clumsy, shy fellow that I was, to make conversation with all these strangers? Fortunately I had been given a very good place. By my side sat the brown-eyed, proud beauty, the pretty niece, who had, after all, it appeared, noticed my admiring gaze in the pâtisserie, for she smiled at me kindly as at an old acquaintance. Her eyes were like coffee-beans, and, when she laughed, they really did seem to crackle like roasting beans. She had charming, translucent little ears beneath luxuriant dark hair; like pink cyclamen nestling in moss, I thought. She had bare arms, soft and smooth; they must be like peeled peaches to the touch.
It was good to be sitting beside such a pretty girl, and the fact that she spoke with a soft Hungarian accent made me almost fall in love. It was good to be dining in so dazzlingly bright a room at such an elegantly laid table, a footman behind me, before me the most marvellous food. My left-hand neighbour, too, who for her part spoke with a slight Polish intonation, seemed to me, if somewhat massive, not unattractive. Or was it only the wine that made me think so — the bright gold, blood-dark wine and sparkling champagne which the footmen in white gloves behind poured out positively extravagantly from silver carafes and broad-bellied bottles? Yes, indeed, my honest apothecary had not been boasting idly. The Kekesfalvas lived like princes. Never had I eaten such good food, never let myself dream that one could eat such good, such superb food. Ever more delicious, more costly delicacies came floating along on an inexhaustible succession of dishes: pale-blue fish, crowned with lettuce and surrounded by slices of lobster, swam in golden sauces; capons rode on broad saddles of piledup rice; puddings blazed blue in burning rum; ice-bombs towered up, tier upon tier; sweet and many-hued, fruits that must have travelled half round the world kissed each other in silver baskets. There was no end to it all, no end, and then at last a veritable rainbow of liqueurs, green, red, white, yellow, cigars as thick as asparagus shoots, and delicious coffee.
A marvellous house, an enchanting house — a thousand blessings on my excellent apothecary! A bright, a happy, a clangorous evening! I did not know whether I felt so released, so free because to right and left and opposite me the others too now had sparkling eyes and were talking in raised voices, because they too had thrown dignity to the winds and were talking away vivaciously on all sides — at any rate, my usual shyness had vanished. I rattled on without the slightest constraint, I paid court to both my fair neighbours at once; I drank, I laughed, I gazed about me with wanton, carefree eye, and although it may only have been by chance that from time to time my hand brushed gently against the lovely bare arms of Ilona (for this was the name of the delicious niece), she seemed by no means to take it amiss; she too relaxed, transported, liberated like the rest of us by this Lucullan feast.
Gradually — wasn’t it, after all, because of the unusually good wine, Tokay and champagne one upon another? — I felt a lightness come over me that bordered on exuberance, almost on boisterousness. I still lacked something to complete my bliss, to lift me completely out of myself, to carry me away; and what it was for which I unconsciously yearned, became gloriously clear to me the very next moment, when from a third room, beyond the salon — the butler had unobtrusively reopened the folding-doors — came soft music, the very music for which my heart was craving: dance music, at once rhythmic and soft, a waltz, lilted by two violins, echoed sadly by a sombre ’cello, rapped out in sharp staccato by a piano. Music, yes, music, that was the one thing that had been lacking! Music; and perhaps one would waltz to it, let oneself soar, fly through the air, become more blissfully aware than ever of one’s lightness! The Villa Kekesfalva must be an enchanted house; you had only to dream and — hey presto! — your wish was fulfilled. As we now got up, pushed back our chairs and went couple by couple — I gave Ilona my arm and once more felt her cool, soft, voluptuous skin — into the salon, we found all the tables cleared away as though by magic and the chairs placed round the walls. The parquet floor was a smooth, brown, shining mirror, a heavenly skating-rink for the waltz, and from the next room the unseen orchestra spurred us on.
I turned to Ilona. She laughed and understood. Her eyes had already said ‘Yes,’ and in a moment we were whirling round, two couples, three couples, five couples, over the smooth parquet, while the more cautious and the more elderly looked on or chatted. I loved dancing, and, what is more, was a good dancer. Our bodies interlocked, we floated along; I felt I had never danced better in my life. I asked my other neighbour for the next waltz; she too danced superbly, and my senses reeled as, bending over her, I breathed the perfume of her hair. Ah, she danced wonderfully, everything was wonderful, I had not been so happy for years. I scarcely knew where I was, I felt like embracing everyone, saying something kind, some word of thanks to each one of them, so light, so rapturous, so blissfully young did I feel. I went whirling from one to the other, I talked, I laughed, I danced, and, carried away on the stream of my own happiness, I lost all sense of time.
Then suddenly — I chanced to look up at the clock. It was half-past ten, and I realized with a start that here had I been dancing and talking and joking away for almost an hour and, idiot that I was, I had not yet asked my host’s daughter to dance. I had only danced with my neighbours and two or three other ladies, those who had taken my fancy, and had forgotten all about the daught
er of the house! What boorishness, indeed, what discourtesy! But quick, we must put that right straight away!
To my horror, however, I could no longer remember exactly what the young girl looked like. I had only bowed to her for a moment as she sat at table; all I could recall was something delicate and frail, and then the curious glance of her grey eyes. Wherever could she be? As the daughter of the house she surely could not have gone away? Uneasily I inspected all the women and girls seated round the walls: not one of them resembled her. At last I went into the third room, where, hidden by a Chinese screen, the musicians were playing, and breathed a sigh of relief. For there she was — why, of course it was she! — delicate, slender, in a pale blue gown, sitting between two old ladies in the corner of the boudoir behind a malachite-green table, on which stood a shallow bowl of flowers. Her slender head was inclined a little as though she were listening with her whole soul to the music, and it was the warm pink of the roses that drew my attention to the transparent pale gleam of her brow beneath the heavy auburn hair. But I did not allow myself time for further observation. Thank God, I said to myself with a sigh of relief, I’ve tracked her down! It’s not too late for me to make up for my omission.
I went up to the table — the music rattled on in the next room — and bowed a polite invitation to dance. A startled pair of eyes stared up at me in amazement, the lips remained parted in the very act of speaking. But she made not the slightest movement to follow me. Had she not understood? So I bowed again, my spurs jingling softly as I said: ‘May I have this dance, gnädiges Fräulein?’
What now happened was appalling. The bowed head and shoulders jerked backwards, as though to avoid a blow; the blood came rushing to the pale cheeks; the lips, parted the moment before, were pressed sharply together, and only the eyes stared fixedly at me with an expression of horror such as I had never before encountered in my whole life. The next moment a shudder passed through the whole convulsed body. With both hands she levered, heaved herself up by the table so that the bowl on it rocked and rattled; and as she did so some hard object, either of wood or metal, fell clattering to the ground from her chair. She continued to hold on with both hands to the swaying table, her body, light as a child’s, still shaking all over; yet she did not run away, she clung more desperately than ever to the heavy table-top. And again and again that quivering, that trembling, ran through her frame, from the contorted, clutching hands to the roots of her hair. And suddenly there burst forth a storm of sobbing, wild, elemental, like a stifled scream.
By now the two old ladies had closed in upon the trembling creature; they seized hold of her, caressed, fondled and tried to soothe her, gently unloosing her hands, her clutching hands, from the table. She sank back into her chair. But the weeping went on, grew, if anything, more vehement, breaking forth again and again, like a gush of blood, like a hot agony of vomiting, in spasm after spasm. If the music behind the screen were to stop even for a moment, the sound of the sobs would be bound to reach the ears of the dancers.
I stood there aghast, looking an utter fool. What — what on earth had happened? Helplessly I looked on as the two old ladies endeavoured to calm the sobbing girl, who now, in an access of shame, had buried her head on the table. But ever fresh paroxysms of weeping, wave after wave, shook the slender frame and set the bowl on the table clattering. I stood rooted to the spot, an icy coldness in my limbs, my collar choking me as though it were a burning rope.
‘I beg your pardon,’ I stammered at length in an undertone into the empty air — both the women were comforting the sobbing girl, neither had eyes for me — and retreated, feeling quite dizzy, into the salon. No one there had, apparently, noticed anything, the couples were still whirling tempestuously, and I felt I must hold on to the doorpost, for the room was reeling round me. What had happened? Had I done something awful? My God, I must have drunk too much, drunk too quickly at dinner, and now in my cups had made some frightful blunder.
The music stopped, the couples separated. The prefect of the district released Ilona with a bow, whereupon I rushed up to her and, to her amazement, dragged her almost roughly aside. ‘Please help me! For heaven’s sake help me, do explain to me!’
Obviously Ilona had imagined I had pulled her over to the window in order to whisper some pleasantry to her, for her eyes grew suddenly hard; I must, I suppose, in my agitation, have looked either pitiable or terrifying. My pulses racing, I told her the whole story. And, strange, she flared up at me, the same utter horror in her gaze as in that of the girl in the other room.
‘Are you mad? Don’t you know? Didn’t you see?’
‘No,’ I stammered, crushed by this fresh and equally incomprehensible look of horror. ‘See what? — I don’t know anything. It’s the first time I’ve been here.’
‘Surely you noticed that Edith ... is lame ...?’ Didn’t you see her crippled legs? Why, she can’t move two steps without crutches ... and you ... you ca— ... ’ — she quickly suppressed an abusive epithet — ‘You go and ask the poor child to dance ... oh, it’s horrible, I must go to her at once ...’
‘No!’ In my despair I seized Ilona by the arm. ‘Just a moment, just a moment ... You must make my apologies. I couldn’t possibly know ... I only saw her at dinner, just for a second ... Please do explain to her ...’
But Ilona, fury in her gaze, had snatched her arm away and was hurrying into the next room. My throat constricted, my mouth dry with nausea, I stood on the threshold of the salon, which whirled and buzzed and hummed with its (to me suddenly intolerable) laughing, gaily chattering couples, and thought: Another five minutes and they’ll all know of my gaffe. Five minutes, and scornful, censorious, ironic looks from all directions will paw me over from head to foot; tomorrow my boorish behaviour will be gossip for the whole town, a savoury morsel for hundreds of tongues, delivered with the early morning milk at the front door, bandied about in the servants’ quarters and passed on to the cafés, the offices. Tomorrow the whole regiment will know of it.
At this moment I glimpsed as through a mist the girl’s father. Looking somewhat dejected — did he know already? — he was coming across the room. Could he be coming towards me? No — anything rather than meet him now! I was suddenly seized by a panic fear of him and of them all. And without knowing exactly what I was doing, I stumbled to the door that led out into the hall and out of this hellish house.
‘Is the Herr Leutnant leaving us already?’ asked the astonished man-servant, with a gesture of respectful incredulity.
‘Yes,’ I answered, aghast the moment the word was out of my mouth. Did I really wish to leave? And the very next moment, while he was taking my coat off the peg, I realized clearly that I was committing a fresh and perhaps even more inexcusable act of stupidity by decamping in this cowardly fashion. But it was too late now. I could not give him back the coat, I could not possibly, now that he was opening the front door with a perfunctory bow, go back to the salon. And so I suddenly found myself standing outside the strange, accursed house, the wind blowing cold in my face, my heart hot with shame, my breath coming in gasps as though I were suffocating.
This was the ill-fated blunder which started the whole thing.
Now, when in cold blood and at a distance of many years I look back on the simple incident which gave rise to the whole catastrophic chain of events, I must, in justice to myself, affirm that I blundered entirely innocently into the unfortunate error; even the cleverest and most sophisticated of mortals might have committed the gaffe of asking a crippled girl to dance with him. But in the first rush of horror I thought of myself not merely as an arrant bungler, but as a cad, a criminal. I felt as though I had struck an innocent child with a whip. The whole thing could, after all, have been put right with a little presence of mind; it was only by rushing away then and there like a criminal, without making any attempt to apologize — no sooner had I felt the first breath of cold air on my face outside the front door than this was immediately obvious to me — that I had irrevocably made a
mess of the whole thing.
I cannot describe my state of mind as I stood outside the house. Behind the lighted windows the music died away; no doubt the musicians were merely breaking off for an interval, but in my guilty and overwrought state I feverishly imagined that it was because of me that the dancing had stopped. Everyone would now be crowding into the little boudoir to comfort the sobbing girl; all the guests, the women, the men, would, one and all, be inveighing against the reprobate who had invited a crippled child to dance and then, having played his dastardly trick, beat a cowardly retreat. And tomorrow — I could feel the cold sweat breaking out under my cap — my shameful behaviour would be gossiped about and decried all over the town. I could just imagine how my fellow-officers, Ferencz, Mislywitz and above all Jozsi, that confounded wag, would come up to me, smacking their lips. ‘Well, Toni, this is a fine way to behave! Once you’re let off the lead you go and disgrace the whole regiment!’ For months this ragging and sneering would go on in the officers’ mess; at our mess table every piece of idiocy on the part of any one of us was chewed over for the next ten or twenty years, every asininity immortalized, every joke fossilized. Today, after the lapse of sixteen years, they still tell the hoary old story of how Captain Wolinski came back from Vienna and boasted of having made the acquaintance in the Ringstrasse of Countess T. and having spent the very same night with her in her flat; of how two days later the newspapers reported the scandalous story of a maid who, having been dismissed by the Countess, had swindled a number of shops and indulged in all sorts of amorous adventures by passing herself off as her former mistress; and how the wretched Casanova had been obliged, moreover, to put himself in the hands of the regimental doctor for three weeks. Anyone who once made himself a laughing-stock in the eyes of the regiment remained so forever; there was no forgetting, no forgiving, there. And the more I figured the whole thing out, the more frenzied and absurd did my ideas become. At that moment of folly it seemed to me a hundred times easier to give one quick pull on the trigger of my revolver than to live through the hellish torments of the next few days, the impotent waiting to discover whether my comrades already knew of my disgrace and whether the secret whispering and sniggering were not already going on behind my back. Oh, I knew myself only too well! I knew that I should never have the strength to hold out once the mocking and sneering and gossiping got under way.