Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi [54]
An old peasant stood swaying on the edge of the pavement. He attempted a few feeble steps, then fell flat on his face like a soldier struck by a bullet from behind. Toppled by the power of alcohol. And there, spread out on the battlefield, he remained.
Ákos was still sober enough to know that he was drunk. He ambled on stiffly, without swaying.
A few gas lamps glowed weakly through the gloomy night. The dry heat had finally broken. A vaporous humidity covered everything, heralding the approaching rainstorm. Shadows flitted across Széchenyi Square in the eerie light which fanned out from the arc lamp of the Baross Café, lending an uncertain, fantastical aspect to the Sárszeg night. Above, the illuminated yellow clock of the Town Hall glowed like a ripe melon.
On the terrace of the Baross Café young people were still eating ice cream. Ákos made his way towards them. He suddenly stopped in his tracks.
There on the terrace, beside a lavender bush, he spotted a young man in a fashionable new panama hat and a white summer suit leaning over a glass. Géza Cifra, on finishing his evening shift, had dropped in to listen to the Gypsy band.
He looked drearier than ever. His cold had now broken out in full force. Not only his left nostril was blocked, but the right one too, for his nose was even more sensitive than a tree frog to changes in the weather, and at times like these he could hardly draw any air at all. He breathed noisily through his mouth. Before him stood a glass of raspberry cordial and a straw.
Ákos observed him for some time. The youth appeared perfectly happy, with a look of self-satisfaction spread across his face that seemed to suggest complete disdain for the world. To Ákos even the innocent raspberry cordial, which he began to suck up through his straw, seemed like a pool of venomously strong, red schnapps.
So his little lordship is having fun, Ákos grumbled to himself with inexpressible hatred. If only he could knock that foppish panama from his head, with its fancy, dangling ribbon.
He turned red with rage, tensing the muscles in his puny arms.
He drew closer. Yes, he had the strength to do it now, to floor the boy with a single blow, to trample him underfoot, to strike him wherever he could, to tear his hair, gouge out his eyes, to kill him, kill him.
But what should he kill him with? He had only his pocket knife. He could make a scene at the very least. He walked over to Géza Cifra's table.
Ákos planted himself before the youth provocatively and offered no greeting.
Géza Cifra greeted him.
He removed his panama hat and sprang to his feet.
Ákos did not move. Then he plunged both hands into his trouser pockets to avoid shaking hands, and stretched his fingers out against the cloth. After a while he nodded meaningfully, then once again, a still deeper, more pronounced nod of the head.
“Do take a seat.”
Ákos took one more step forward. They were now so close their faces almost touched. Géza Cifra, who never drank at all, could smell the pungent schnapps on Ákos's breath.
“I won't take anything,” said Ákos sardonically. “And I don't want anything either. I just wanted to see you.” And he lunged his whole torso derisively towards the youth.
“I'm most honoured. But please sit down.”
“I won't sit down,” said Ákos stubbornly. “You just go on amusing yourself,” he added, meaning something altogether different. “Good night.”
“Well, good night then...” Géza Cifra stammered, relieved that the conversation had come to an end and he no longer had to think of what to say and how to get away. “A very good night to you, and my kindest regards to your dear wife, good night.”
Ákos turned away without so much as a tip of his hat. But on the pavement he stalled again and took one more long, hard look at Géza Cifra, nodding as before. The young man felt this, but didn't understand what it meant. No longer daring to look back, he turned his head, picked up the copy of the newspaper Agreement, which lay in a wicker frame on the chair beside him, and buried his whole body inside it.
Beside the spire of St Stephen's,