They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [191]
Then he took up the other keys and opened the side drawers. There he found all sorts of little mementos – a golden amber mouthpiece for a pipe, a fine whetstone that Peter Abady must have brought from England, a green leather case with six handsome razors, one for each day of the week; and a little wreath carved from lime-wood which Balint remembered his father showing him and explaining that it was the work of Ferenc Deak himself who had given it to him many years before. Its history was engraved on the base.
There were so many things, now of no possible use.
In the left-hand drawer he found the pair of satin slippers that he also recalled having seen when he was a boy. They were heelless and the soles were paper-thin. Narrow ribbons were attached to them and they were so small that their owner must have had feet as delicate as wafers. Now, as Balint picked them up, he fancied he saw his grandfather turning them over, showing him the wear on the soles, smiling, and saying ‘Look! See how much that little charmer danced!’
Under the shoes was a thick envelope, quite small, only about three inches wide, wrapped in yellowing paper, tied with string and sealed at every flap with black wax. On it was written ‘To be burned after my death,’ Above the words was a cross and the date: 1837. The writing was Count Peter’s.
They must be letters, a woman’s letters, for their edges could be felt through the paper covering. Inside could be felt something else, which seemed to be a little oval frame with a glass front. Balint felt sure it must be the miniature of the letter-writer. Now he recalled what his grandfather’s old school-friend, the actor Minya Gal, had told him. Though it had been ten years before, he remembered it well. In guarded terms the old man had told the story of Peter Abady’s first love, of a tragic passion that had been shattered by an enforced parting, and how after it his grandfather went off on his travels and no one had heard from him for nearly three years.
It had been an ancient romance whose relics were imprisoned in that carefully fastened envelope, and one that had no doubt ended in a death, which was perhaps what the cross had signified.
It was lucky that he had managed at last to open the drawer for now Balint would be able to ensure that the old count’s long-kept secret could be kept from the prying eyes of strangers. He would see to it that his grandfather’s wish was respected. Putting the slippers in his pocket he gathered up the packet of letters and the few documents of his own that he wanted to destroy and made his way up to the castle.
He decided to wait until the evening when the fire would be burning well.
The windows were open and outside it was dark. Balint’s lamp was set down far from the draught and where he sat all light seemed to come from the fire.
First Balint threw all his own writings into the flames and, when these were blazing up, he threw on top the slippers and his grandfather’s envelope, which did not seem to want to catch fire but only just smouldered at the edges. Taking up the poker he tried to push a hole in the envelope so that air would get in. The flames caught, ran along the string and the envelope opened of itself. A tiny coloured miniature slipped out and fell into the embers below. The glass shattered, the metal frame curled up in the heat and in the few seconds before it was consumed by fire he could see the face of a charming young woman who seemed to be smiling up at him.
Balint sat by the fireplace for a long time. He waited until everything had been reduced to ashes, until there was no trace left of the throbbing of two young hearts almost a century before nor of their secret love and hidden tragedy. The likeness of his grandfather still hung on the wall of the small sitting-room – an early Barabas in an Empire frame – but that of the other had just been burnt and it had smiled at him before crumbling to ashes.
The next morning he woke early; it was the last morning he would