Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi [48]
And the large painting on the wall. Count István Széchenyi.
He had not grown old.
Left hand on his hip, near his sword belt, pushing open his short, fur-lined coat, he stood as of old, his domed forehead surrounded by tousled, floating curls, his restless eyes burning with character, vigour and intelligence as they looked down upon what had become of his noble ideas, the debating circles and clubs he had founded to promote the refinement of polite society and social intercourse. But in the thick smoke, which one could have cut with a knife, even Count István Széchenyi cannot have seen too well.
Básta, the attendant, stopped in front of Ákos, wearing a blue and white ceremonial uniform and a waxed moustache whose ends narrowed into an almost invisibly thin thread way out beyond his cheeks. He was holding a large wine tray and had a napkin over his arm. Standing to attention, he poured the gentlemen some wine.
Priboczay raised his glass.
“Welcome!'
He downed his wine in one, as was right and proper on such occasions.
“Your health!'
“Your health!'
They shook hands and sat down on a sofa.
A quarter of an hour later Ákos made ready to leave.
“Now I really should be getting along.”
“You'll do nothing of the sort, dear boy.”
Környey, the perfect host, possessed an innate ability to appear at the slightest hint of danger, whenever someone was contemplating escape.
“Out of the question,” he thundered. “You're staying right where you are.” And he clasped the old man in his steely arms.
He led Ákos away to the smokiest corner of the room, where, beneath a hanging lamp, four men sat playing taroc.
“I've brought you a fifth hand,” said Környey to the players.
Taroc was Ákos's great weakness, but also his great strength.
No one played with greater skill, ingenuity and passion. So profound was his knowledge of the game that he was considered something of an authority and had often been asked to adjudicate in controversial situations, as the final court of appeal.
“A la russe?” asked Ákos casually.
“That's right,” came the answer from the table as Galló, the amenable lawyer, himself a renowned master of the game, raised his wise head from the smoke of his own cigar.
He rose to his feet.
“I'm just about to deal.”
Two other players had risen with him, Doba and a squat man in a raw silk suit. This was István Kárász, father of Dani Kárász and owner of a thousand acres, whose shaven head was burnt jet black from the sun. Only the fourth player remained seated: László Ladányi, parliamentary delegate for the Royal Town of Sárszeg during the 1848 revolution. With his grizzled, tight-clipped beard and bushy eyebrows he reminded one of the poet Miklós Zrinyi.
Relations between Ladányi and Ákos had been strained for many years.
The delegate–known to all and sundry as “the old ranter'–was one of those passionate exaggerators of the extreme left who, in confidential conversation, made no secret of their undying commitment to the resolutions of the Debrecen Parliament of 1849, and of their perpetual readiness to contribute to the downfall of the House of Habsburg in payment for the crimes it had committed against the Hungarian nation. In 1849 his grandfather had been hanged from a pear tree by imperial soldiers. He would often mention this when canvassers appeared at his door with flags and torches, and he blasted them with a voice broken for good from swallowing all the nation's bitterness. He knew Ákos well, as a timid fellow who always voted for the government candidate, even though, deep down, he may himself have leaned towards the stalwart forty-eighters. But he lacked the stomach for a fight, and sought instead to remain at peace with himself, his family and friends, and therefore favoured compromise, all forms of compromise, including the Compromise of 1867.
Ladányi had been known, on occasion, to speak harshly of the man.
But now, with Ákos standing directly above him, and the others urging him to join them on their feet, he finally stood up. Hungarians