Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi [26]
Mrs Vajkay sat at the head of the table beside Priboczay, the lilac-haired pharmacist from whom she bought digestive tonics and face powder for Skylark. Her other neighbour was a tall, elegant gentleman in a top hat. She had noticed him the day before, but didn't know who he was. Even now she hadn't caught his name.
The gentleman ceremoniously kissed her hand, as was customary with a lady of repute, and thoroughly overwhelmed her with his refined and unobtrusive attentiveness. He recommended one dish and advised against another; as one who dined there every day, he knew the kitchen intimately.
His face was candid and reassuring. He must have just been shaved, for traces of rice powder could still be seen on his chin and the not unpleasant fragrance of the barber's shop still wafted from his skin.
Suddenly the head waiter came over to him, whispered something in his ear, then drew him aside to one corner of the restaurant. Here the waiter handed him a letter, to which a courier was awaiting a reply. The letter was from Olga Orosz, the prima donna with whom he had been living over the summer. She had to see him now, just one more time, before they parted for ever. Would he be so kind as to hurry to her at once? Her formality of expression was a mark of their estrangement. Imre Zányi crumpled the letter into his pocket and signalled that there was no reply. He was used to farces of this kind.
Mrs Vajkay took advantage of his absence to ask the pharmacist the young man's name. Hearing that it was Imre Zányi, the leading man, she was thunderstruck. She had–as she explained to Priboczay–initially imagined him to be some youthful priest, but his fashionable morning coat and unaffected, wordly manner had immediately led her to suspect otherwise. So it was he! She had never seen him on stage, but had heard a great deal about him.
The actor returned to his place at the table. He continued to devote his every attention to the woman, asking her questions and listening to her replies with his handsome narrow lips pressed tightly together. Then he began to recite a torrent of extracts memorised from French conversation pieces, raising his hand somewhat preciously to his brow, a gesture he employed with special predilection on the stage. The woman was enraptured. Not since her girlhood had she encountered such an agreeable and gracious young man. How refreshing, how polished, how bohemian, and yet how courteous! She made a point of expressing her delight at having finally made his acquaintance. At this the actor sprang to his feet, gave a low, almost over-theatrical bow, and replied that, on the contrary, it was he who'd had the good fortune to meet such a genteel and distinguished lady.
At the opposite end of the table the men talked politics. They spoke of state delegations, constitutional crises and of Prime Minister Kálmán Széll.
“Ah, yes,” Környey sighed. “A visionary statesman and a first-rate brain.”
Priboczay, who was an old forty-eighter, became visibly heated.
“No doubt because he went to Vienna for the unveiling of the Albrecht statue. He, prime minister of Hungary. For shame!'
“Tactics,” Környey replied.
“Tactics,” Priboczay nodded bitterly. “And when they ordered our boys out to the Hentzi statue in Pest? That was tactics too, I suppose? Bánffy would never have done such a thing. Never. Your man's a common toady.”
“Raison d'état,” Feri Füzes commented.
Now Priboczay was really fuming.
“Right, Law and Justice? Isn't that the party slogan?” he hollered to provoke the young government supporter. “Schwarzgelb mercenary, Viennese lackey!'
Feri Füzes could not allow the Hungarian prime minister's name to be slandered in this fashion. Enough was enough. As a man with an almost superstitious deference towards all figures of authority, he ventured to reply:
“And what of your famous Ferenc Kossuth? I suppose he's going to hand us a free-trade zone on a platter? Together with Hungarian supremacy?'
“You leave him out of this. He's the son of our great