They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [123]
They walked without speaking, instinctively feeling that it would have been a sacrilege to break the primeval silence which remained with them until they reached the tent. And even there, in the peace of their refuge, they barely said a word.
They ate a simple meal in the open space in front of the tent, sitting on the edge of the little meadow that lay between the trees and the edge of the cliffs from which the view seemed so immense.
It was like being high above the open sea; for the horizon, now itself only a vague outline in the haze of the afternoon’s heat, seemed unattainably far away. Then for a long time they lay there in each other’s arms, gazing at the sky above.
Huge tumbling clouds sailed lazily above them, sometimes seeming hardly to move at all.
Around them nothing moved, not even the air.
At the same time Margit and Pityu were also having their midday meal some miles away. The child had been fed earlier and was asleep in his pram not far from where they sat under the lodge’s wooden portico.
Pityu was nervous and worried because Margit had been even cooler than usual towards him all morning. At first he had thought that she had been angry only because he had offered to accompany her sister, forgetting everything that he was supposed to do about the house. Accordingly he tried to make amends by taking his axe, going to the woods and felling three young beech-trees, carrying them back to the house and cutting them up into firewood. It had been heavy work that had made him sweat and blistered his hands; and he had hoped that, seeing this, Margit would have uttered some consolatory words of appreciation. She had done nothing of the sort. Instead she had looked icily at what he was doing and then, announcing that she had some letters to write, disappeared into the house and only emerged at midday. It had been a bad omen and Pityu knew instinctively that there was going to be trouble.
He was not mistaken. Trouble indeed there was. When he had been chopping the wood with such zeal Margit had gone into the barn and found the hidden brandy-flask. She said nothing until they had finished their meal. Then she spoke her mind.
‘You have broken your word to me. You promised you would not drink anything here; it was the only condition I made when you asked if you could come. This was vile of you and particularly base to me. Not only did you break your promise, but you also sneaked the brandy up here yourself. I would have been angry enough if you’d gone down to the village and got drunk there. Maybe I’d have forgiven you if you’d done it openly … but, oh no! You tried to trick me in my own house. It was vile of you, and so you can pack up and be off … this instant!’
Pityu tried his best to interrupt her, to no avail; and when she had finished he still tried to justify himself, to excuse himself and to make promises never to do it again. Young Margit remained unmoved and inflexible, and after Pityu had tried to stammer out his regret she interrupted him and called to Gligor the forester:
‘This gentleman is going down to Albak. Saddle one of the ponies and put his bags on it!’ And without another word she turned and went back into the house.
And so Pityu had to leave: he could do nothing else. At least she had not humiliated him by entrusting her letters to Gligor, and it was some consolation, indeed the only consolation, that when he was about to go she handed them to him, explaining which was to her father, which to her husband and which to the estate manager at Varjas, saying as she did so that she could rely on him to put them safely in the post at Torda and that they would thus arrive all the sooner. It wasn’t much, but it was something!
So down the mountain road he plodded with a heavy heart, that rocky, steep path that only eight days before he had mounted in such happiness. Now he stumbled and tripped and was miserable, for clambering about in the mountains was not something he enjoyed at the best of times, and on this day it was worse than ever. Somehow