Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi [42]
He took this lesson with him. His steps were firmer, surer, as he strode back down Petőfi Street. The poem he had been carrying inside his head had been a bad poem and he gave it no further thought. He'd write about other things, perhaps about these people and all they had told him. About the veranda and that long, long table where they once had sat, and sat no more.
At Széchenyi Square he broke into a run. He hurried down Gombkötő Street, for here, next to the bakery, lived Kladek, the senior editor and publisher of the Sárszeg Gazette.
This bearded, slow-witted, but cultivated and conscientious old man no longer even visited the editorial office, and only demanded of his assistant editor that he call on him once a day. He sat beside a paraffin lamp in his ravaged room where books lay strewn about the floor and the windows were all but barricaded by discarded newspapers piled six feet high. He had lost his grip on this cursed modern age and no longer cared what the next generation made of it, no longer cared, however much young Ijas praised the Secession in his paper.
He rummaged in his pocket for a leader Feri Füzes had written about the effect of hoarfrost on grapes. He gave this to Ijas and told him to take it to the printers, to give the peasants of Sárszeg something to read about.
All that remained for Ijas now was to take a call from Pest about the Dreyfus trial and the latest political events. He had to hurry, because the telephone usually rang at nine.
VIII
in which is contained the full text of Skylark's letter
ÁKOS WAS just about to set out from home the following afternoon when he met the postman at the gate. A registered letter had arrived.
Skylark. He immediately recognised the pointed, spidery lettering which reminded him of gothic script and also of his mother's hand.
He opened the letter there in the street. At any other time he'd have used his penknife for this purpose, for he believed in order in all matters, however small. But now he ripped the envelope open with his fingers, and with such excitement that he tore the letter too, both in the middle and on one side. He had to piece the fragments back together.
Oblivious to the passers-by, who bumped into him and stared after him as he went, he eagerly read the letter syllable by syllable. The words marched across the page in exemplary, solid lines. The writing was clear, but on this occasion Skylark had used a pencil, a particularly hard pencil that scored the paper with faint, unshaded lines like scratches made by a needle. By the time Ákos had fully deciphered the text, he had reached the park.
Here he put the letter into his pocket and walked on with his hands behind his back. Afternoon strollers lingered in the bare and withered park, where only a handful of hawthorn and rosebushes still managed to survive. The lawn was parched yellow from the heat, strewn with rubbish and scattered sheets of newspaper. Ákos sat down on a bench and spread the letter over his knees.
Skylark's spelling was impeccable and she wrote in the clear, orderly Hungarian she had been taught at the Ladies’ College. Her style, however, was a little wooden. As soon as she took a pen in her hand, her mode of expression changed and she fell under the spell of textbook composition. At such times she could always see her former teacher, the strict Mrs Janecz, standing before her in a starched white collar and black tie. She became so terrified of making mistakes that she chose words she'd never dream of using in everyday conversation.
Her writing lost any appearance of naturalness and took on a tone more elevated and enthusiastic than she intended.