‘Hallo ... here’s Toni!’ announced Ferencz to the others, and, ‘What an honour for our lowly dwelling!’ exclaimed the regimental doctor, who, as we used to chaff him, suffered from quotation diarrhoea. Six sleepy eyes blinked up and smiled at me. ‘Servus! Servus!’
I was pleased that they were so glad to see me. Really capital chaps, I thought to myself. Haven’t held it against me at all that I’ve made myself scarce all this time without a word of apology or explanation.
‘Black coffee,’ I ordered the sleepy waiter who came shuffling up, and settled into my chair with the inevitable, ‘Well, what’s the latest?’ with which every conversation opened whenever we met.
Ferencz puffed out his cheeks until his round face seemed more moon-like than ever, his twinkling eyes almost disappearing in his rosy apple cheeks; slowly, doughily, his mouth opened.
‘Well, the very latest,’ he said with a comfortable grin, ‘is that your Lordship has deigned once more to grace our humble hovel with his noble presence!’
And the regimental doctor leaned back and began to declaim from Goethe: ‘Mahadöh, the god of earth, for one last time came down below, to take upon himself thy form, and feel with thee both joy and pain.’
All three looked at me with sardonic amusement, and I felt my heart sink into my boots. Better make my escape quickly, I thought, before they begin to ask me why I have stayed away all this time and where I have just come from. But before I could collect my wits Ferencz winked in an odd way and nudged Jozsi.
‘Look there!’ he said, pointing under the table. ‘What d’you think of that? Patent-leather shoes, if you please, in this lousy weather, and full regimentals. He’s a lad, is our Toni, he’s dug himself in nicely. They do themselves proud, I’m told, out there at the old Manichaean’s! Five courses every evening, the apothecary tells me, caviare and spring chicken, real Bols and choice cigars — very different from our hogwash at the old pub. Oh yes, I tell you, we’ve all under-rated our Toni, he knows a thing or two!’
Jozsi at once backed him up. ‘The only thing is, he’s a poor sort of pal! Yes, my dear Toni, instead of saying to your old buffer out there, “See here, old boy, I have a couple of smart friends, frightfully decent, jolly fine fellows, don’t eat with their knives either, I’ll bring ’em along some time” — instead of that, he thinks to himself, Let ’em go on swilling their filthy Pilsner and peppering their throats to a frazzle with their wretched goulasch! Jolly way of behaving, I must say! Everything for himself and damn-all for the others! Oh well, I suppose you’ve at least brought me a nice fat Upmann. In that case, you’re let off for today.’
They all three laughed and smacked their lips. But I blushed crimson from my collar to my ears. For, devil take it, how could that confounded Jozsi have guessed that Kekesfalva had, as usual, slipped one of his best cigars into my pocket as I was leaving? Could it be sticking out between the buttons of my tunic? If only the fellows didn’t notice! In my embarrassment I forced a laugh.
‘Why, of course — an Upmann! The best is good enough for you, my boy! ’Fraid you’ll have to make shift with one of our so-called Egyptians.’ And I offered him my cigarette-case. But even as I did so my hand drew back with a jerk. The day before yesterday had been my twenty-fifth birthday; the girls had somehow managed to find it out, and at dinner, as I had lifted my table-napkin from my plate, I had felt something heavy wrapped up in it: a birthday present of a cigarette-case. But Ferencz had already spotted the new acquisition — in our little set the most trifling incident was magnified into an event.
‘Hallo, what’s this?’ he growled. ‘A new piece of equipment!’ He promptly took the cigarette-case out of my hand (how could I prevent him?), fingered it, examined it, and finally weighed it in the palm of his hand. ‘I say,’ he said across the table to the regimental doctor, ‘this seems to me to be the real thing! Come along, have a good look at it — your governor deals in this kind of thing, I’m told, and you ought to know something about it.’
Goldbaum, who was the son of a Jewish goldsmith in Drohobycz, clamped his pince-nez on to his somewhat fleshy nose, took the cigarette-case, weighed it, examined every facet of it and rapped on it with his knuckles in the manner of an expert.
‘Genuine!’ he pronounced at last. ‘Real gold, embossed and damned heavy. Would stop the teeth of the whole regiment! Value — about seven or eight hundred crowns.’
After this verdict, which astonished me myself, for I had supposed it to be gold-plated, he passed the case on to Jozsi, who handled it much more reverently than the two others (what respect we poor devils had for anything expensive!). He gazed at it, admired himself in it, fingered it, finally opened it by the jewelled clasp and gave a melodramatic start.
‘Hallo — an inscription! Listen, just listen to this! “To our dear friend Anton Hofmiller on his birthday. Ilona, Edith.’”
All three of them now stared at me. ‘The devil!’ breathed Ferencz at last. ‘I must say you choose your friends well these days. My compliments! You’d have got a metal matchbox case from me and have considered yourself deuced lucky!’
I felt a constriction at the throat. Tomorrow the whole regiment would know the wretched story of the gold cigarette-case and would have learned the inscription by heart. ‘Let’s have a look at it, that swagger case of yours,’ Ferencz would say in the officers’ mess, just to get a rise out of me, and I should have to display it ‘gehorsamst’ to the Captain, ‘gehorsamst’ to the Major, and perhaps, even, ‘gehorsamst’ to the Colonel. They would all weigh it in their hands, estimate its value, and chuckle ironically at the inscription; then would come the inevitable ragging and cross-questioning, and it would be impossible for me to be offensive in the presence of my superior officers.
In my embarrassment, and in order to bring the conversation to a speedy close, I inquired: ‘Well — any of you chaps feel like another game?’
At this their good-humoured chortles turned to hearty laughter. ‘What d’ye think of that, Ferencz?’ said Jozsi, nudging him in the ribs. ‘That’s rich! At half-past twelve, when the place is shutting, he wants to begin playing tarock!’
And the regimental doctor leaned back, comatose and comfortable: ‘Well, well, a happy man pays no regard to time.’
They laughed and went on savouring the stale joke for a while. But now the head waiter came up with a diffident air. ‘Time, gentlemen!’ he pleaded. We walked together — the rain had abated — to the barracks and there shook hands and said good-night. Ferencz patted me on the back. ‘Nice to have you back with us,’ he said, and I could tell that he meant it quite sincerely. Why, then, was I so furious with them? They were, after all, jolly decent chaps, all of them, without a trace of envy or malice. And even if they did rag me a little, they didn’t mean anything by it.
They really hadn’t meant it unkindly, the good chaps; all the same, their idiotic gaping and whispering had destroyed something in me that could never be restored: my confidence. For until now my strange relationship with the Kekesfalvas had in some wonderful way increased my self-esteem. For the first time in my life I had felt myself to be someone who gave, who helped; and now I had been made to realize how others regarded this relationship, or rather, how it was bound to be regarded from outside by those ignorant of the underlying circumstances. For what could they know of this subtle craving to be stirred by pity to which I had fallen a prey as though — I cannot express it otherwise — to some dark passion? To them it seemed beyond question that I had gained an entrée to this luxurious, hospitable household solely in order to insinuate myself into the good graces of the rich, to save myself the expense of evening meals and to cadge presents. They did not in their hearts hold this against me, they did not grudge me, good fellows that they were, the warm corner, the choice cigars; they obviously did not think — and it was precisely this that riled me — that there was anything in the least dishonourable or shabby in letting oneself be fêted and pampered by these ‘suckers’, for in their view we caval
ry officers were merely conferring an honour on an old moneybags by sitting down at his table. There had been not the faintest element of disapproval, therefore, in Ferencz’s and Jozsi’s admiration of my gold cigarette-case; on the contrary, they had even felt a certain respect for me for knowing how to make my Maecenas shell out. What really vexed me was that I began to doubt my own motives. Wasn’t I, after all, really behaving like a sponger? Ought I, as an officer, as an adult person, to let myself be dined and wined evening after evening? That gold cigarette-case, for example — I ought never to have accepted it, nor the silk scarf that had recently been pressed on me when there had been a storm raging out of doors. A young man of my age should not allow people to slip cigars in his pocket to smoke on the way home, and tomorrow, by God, I must talk Kekesfalva out of that idea of his of getting me a new mount! Only now did it occur to me that the day before yesterday he had murmured something about my brown gelding (which, of course, I was paying for by instalments) not being up to scratch, and there he was right. But to let him lend me a three-year-old from his stables, a famous racehorse, which would do me credit — that wouldn’t do at all. Lend — yes, I knew what he meant by that! He was trying to buy me, to pay cash down for my sympathy, for my entertaining company, just as he had promised Ilona a dowry simply to get her to stay and nurse his poor child. And I, simpleton that I was, had almost fallen into his trap without realizing that I was becoming a downright sponger.
Nonsense, I told myself once more, and remembered how the old man had timidly stroked my sleeve, how his face lit up every time I entered the house. I remembered the affectionate brotherly—sisterly relationship that existed between me and the two girls; they never seemed to notice if I happened to drink a glass too much, or if they did notice it, they were only too glad that I should feel at my ease in their company. Nonsense, crazy nonsense, I kept repeating to myself, nonsense — why, the old man was fonder of me than my own father!
But of what use is any amount of self-persuasion and self-encouragement once one’s inner equilibrium has been shaken? I felt that Jozsi’s and Ferencz’s good-natured ragging had shattered my spontaneity. Do you really go there only out of pity, out of sympathy for these rich people? I kept asking myself. Are you not actuated to a certain extent by vanity, a desire for a good time? In any case, I must get the whole thing straight. No one shall say that I have forced myself on them. And as a preliminary measure I resolved in future to space my visits out and decided that the very next day I would omit my usual visit to the Kekesfalvas.
The next day, therefore, I stayed away. The moment I came off duty I strolled across to the café with Jozsi and Ferencz, where we read the papers and played the inevitable game of tarock. But I played damned badly, for there was a round clock let into the panelled wall right opposite me — twenty past four, half-past four, twenty to five, ten to five — and instead of keeping my mind on the cards, I counted the time. Half-past four, that was the time I usually arrived for tea; it was always laid out ready, and if ever I were a quarter of an hour late, they would greet me with, ‘Has anything happened?’ My punctual arrival had become such a matter of course that they counted on it without fail; no doubt they too would now be glancing up at the clock just as uneasily as I myself, and waiting and waiting. Wouldn’t it, after all, be politer at least to telephone to say I was not coming? Or better, perhaps, send my batman ...
‘I say, Toni, your playing’s a scandal; do pay attention!’ fumed Jozsi, giving me a furious look. My absent-mindedness had cost him the game. I pulled myself together.
‘I say, can I change places with you?’
‘Certainly, but why?’
‘I don’t know,’ I lied; ‘I think it’s the din in this hole that’s getting me down.’
Actually it was the clock, which I was trying not to look at, and the relentless movement of the minute hand. My nerves were on edge, my thoughts were straying, and I kept on worrying as to whether I ought not to go to the telephone and make my excuses. For the first time I began to perceive that true sympathy cannot be switched on and off like an electric current, that anyone who identifies himself with the fate of another is robbed to some extent of his own freedom.
But devil take it, I scolded myself, I am under no obligation to do the half-hour’s trudge out there every day! And in response to the secret law of mental association which makes a man in a temper unconsciously vent his spleen on some completely innocent person, just as a billiard ball transmits the impact of the cue to another ball, my displeasure was now directed, not against Jozsi and Ferencz, but against the Kekesfalvas. Let them wait for me for once. I’d show them that I was not to be bought with presents and attentions, that I was not going to turn up to the minute like a masseur or a gym instructor. One should never create precedents; a habit was liable to become a duty, and I was not going to tie myself down. And so in my pig-headedness I sat on and on in the café for three and a half hours, until half-past seven, merely in order to prove conclusively to myself that I was entirely at liberty to come and go as I pleased, and that good food and choice cigars were a matter of complete indifference to me.
At half-past seven we all got up to go. Ferencz had suggested a stroll along the promenade. But no sooner had I emerged from the café in the wake of my two friends than I was conscious of a swift glance from a familiar pair of eyes as their owner hurried past. Wasn’t that Ilona? Of course! Even had I not, only the day before yesterday, admired the wine-red dress and the panama trimmed with the broad ribbon, I should have recognized her from behind by the supple swaying of her hips as she walked. But where was she off to in such a hurry? This was not walking, it was racing. In any case, I must follow the pretty bird, however swiftly it might wing its way.
‘Just a moment!’ I said, taking leave of my bewildered friends somewhat brusquely and hurrying after the swinging skirt, that was by now across the road. For I was overjoyed at running into Ilona in my own world.
‘Ilona, Ilona! Stop! Stop!’ I called after her; she was going at a tremendous pace. At length she stopped, without betraying the least sign of astonishment. She had, of course, seen me as she had flashed by.
‘This is capital, Ilona, meeting you in the town like this. I’ve so often wanted to take you for a walk round our august city. Or shall we go to the old pâtisserie, and sit there for a while?’
‘No, no,’ she murmured in some confusion. ‘I’m in a hurry. They’re expecting me at home.’
‘Well, then, they can wait five minutes longer. If the worst comes to the worst I’ll even give you a letter of excuse to take along with you so that they won’t put you in the corner. Come along, and don’t look at me so sternly.’
I wanted to take her arm. For I was honestly delighted at meeting Ilona, Ilona of all people, who was so pretty, so presentable, in my other world. But she was still rather on edge.
‘No, I really must go,’ she said hastily. ‘The car’s waiting for me over there.’ And, indeed, there was the chauffeur saluting us respectfully from the Rathausplatz.
‘But at least you’ll allow me to escort you to the car?’
‘Well, of course,’ she murmured with remarkable testiness. ‘Of course ... and by the way ... why didn’t you come this afternoon?’
‘This afternoon?’ I asked, deliberately dragging out my words as though to jog my memory. ‘This afternoon? Oh yes — it was a silly business, this afternoon. The Colonel wanted to buy a new mount and so we all had to go along with him and have a look at it and try it out.’ (This incident had actually happened a month ago. I’m really an appallingly poor liar.)
She hesitated and was about to make some retort. But why was she tearing at her glove, why was she tapping the ground so restlessly with her foot? Then she burst out: ‘Won’t you at least come back with me to dinner?’
Be firm, I said quickly to myself. Don’t give in. Hold out for one day at least. ‘What a pity!’ I said with a regretful sigh. ‘I should have loved to come. But today’s all booked up,
we’ve got a reunion this evening, and I can’t cut it.’
She gave me a keen look — odd that she had the same impatient lines between her brows as Edith! — and said not a word, I don’t know whether out of intentional rudeness or embarrassment. The chauffeur opened the door for her, and slamming it to, she asked through the window: ‘Are you coming tomorrow?’
‘Oh yes, tomorrow of course.’ And the car drove off.
I wasn’t very pleased with myself, I can tell you. Why had Ilona been in such a hurry, why had she been so embarrassed, as though she were afraid of being seen with me, and why had she driven off so impetuously? And then, too, I ought at least to have sent my regards to her uncle and some little message to Edith; after all, they’d done me no harm. But, on the other hand, I was pleased with my reserved behaviour, I had stood my ground. Now at least they couldn’t say that I tried to thrust myself on them.
Although I had promised Ilona to turn up the following afternoon at the usual time, I thought it advisable to ring up beforehand. Better adhere strictly to the formalities, they were safeguards. I wanted it to be quite clear that I never forced my company on anyone in the house. I wanted from now on to make sure that every time I went I was expected, and expected with pleasure. This time there was certainly no need for me to have any lingering doubts on that score, for Josef awaited me at the door. ‘The gnädiges Fräulein is out on the tower and has left word that the Herr Leutnant should go straight up,’ he informed me in urgent, officious tones. ‘I don’t believe the Herr Leutnant has been up there yet,’ he added. ‘He will be astonished to find how lovely it is.’