Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi [44]
Since then I've been sleeping on the divan, beside Aunt Etelka, but it's much more pleasant this way. I could never really become friendly with these girls. Zelma, the eldest, is such a little secessionist! She smokes cigarettes and doesn't wear a corset. She changes costume three times a day, once for lunch, once for dinner and once again for tennis. She laughs at me because I bring home a large bunch of wild flowers every day.
She finds wild flowers ugly. She likes only camellias and orchids.
Berci would appear to be courting the younger sister. She's still only a little girl, sixteen years old. They hide away together in the house, then steal out in the morning, running off unchaperoned into the forest, returning awfully late.
Yesterday Aunt Etelka asked me to go with them, but I shan't accept that role any more. What children! It would seem that they're actually quite serious. Uncle Béla teases them cruelly at table. Berci goes quite red, but Klári doesn't.
The following day another guest arrived, Feri Olcsvay, who, I fancy, may have taken an interest in Zelma. He at least is an attentive and courteous young man. He spent a long time talking to me. We even worked out that we are very distantly related. I looked at his signet ring and from the lily surmised that we belong to the same original family–the Boksas, isn't it? He maintains, however, that the background on their coat of arms is not scarlet like ours, but gold, whereas the lily isn't gold, but scarlet. In any case, it's not sure whether he descends from the Olcsvays of Kisvárad or Nagyvárad. No one has ever been able to shed any clear light on this. His father believes they descended from the Kisvárad branch, but in the National Museum they told him he probably came from the Nagyvárad Olcsvays. Poor boy, now he really doesn't know where he stands at all. I told him to turn to Father, who'd be able to decide the matter at once. Feri promised to look Father up when he's next in Sárszeg.
Otherwise we're having a splendid time. It is quite enchanting to wake to the sounds of the plain, to the dreamy tinkle of cowbells and the cooing of turtle doves. And those darling yellow chicks who hide away cheeping under the wings of the brooding hens. How sweet life is in the country! How delightful their work must be! They're preparing for the harvest and have already brought the barrels out of the cellar. Uncle Béla is busy fumigating them stave by stave. The crop promises to be good, and they say there'll be an excellent festival.
Now I shall describe how I spend my days here. I rise early, at six, to watch the glorious sunrise, then go for a little walk with Aunt Etelka before helping her with the housework. In the kitchen she calls me her right hand. In the afternoon I go to the apiary with Józsi, the young gardener. I simply can't stop marvelling at the industry of those busy bees. Józsi can't believe how brave I am–for a girl, that is. Of course the Thurzó girls scream if a bee flies anywhere near them.
You know I cannot bear to be idle. I'm still crocheting the yellow tablecloth and should have finished it in a day or two. But it gets dark here rather early.
At about six in the evening, when they light the lamps, I take up Jókai's The Baron's Sons, which I've read before, but whose real beauty I have only now come to appreciate. Ödön Baradlay moves me to tears, while Zebulon Tallérossy makes me laugh out loud. How well our great storyteller knew the secrets of the heart and how ornately he expressed them! Unfortunately I've