They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [58]
It was Kadacsay who started.
‘I think I owe you something of an explanation,’ he said to Balint.‘I only came this evening because I knew you’d be here.’
‘Why?’ said Balint, surprised. ‘What about?’
‘About Ida. I know there’s been a lot of talk, and that it’s not been all that flattering as far as I’m concerned. I don’t mind what other people think, but I’d hate you to think badly of me too.’
Balint protested that he had no reason to think badly about Gazsi, but the latter went on, saying that when he had returned home from his visit to Denestornya he had thought a lot about Abady’s suggestion that he should get married and that this would be a solution to many of his problems and perplexities. Finally he decided to try out the idea. He had already decided that young Ida was the only girl who might suit him and who, as a woman, he felt he could bring himself to love. Accordingly he had come to Kolozsvar in the middle of January and at first everything had gone swimmingly. The old Laczoks seemed pleased at the idea of having Gazsi as their son-in-law, so much so that Gazsi admitted to have been quite taken by surprise. ‘To think that of an ass like me …’ he had said to Balint in a self-deprecating manner. But though everything went exceptionally well, they never seemed to get further than just dancing together and exchanging jokes. The girl was pretty enough, but somehow this had not seemed quite enough to Gazsi. Surely, he had thought, there must be something more if one was to spend a lifetime together. One would have to know what she thought about things, what interested her, and what her opinions were.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘That was really the problem. The poor girl is very, very stupid!’
He had tried her on all sorts of subjects, some of them quite serious; but when he had started like this, all the silly thing could do was either to stare at him stupidly or start to giggle. She had seemed to think that he was trying to make fun of her and so replied ‘What an odd question!’ and changed the subject to cooking, or poultry, or even horses as if she knew that that was all the poor boy really understood. When he had asked what she was then reading, she would answer ‘Nothing! Nothing at all! After all what’s the use? A good housekeeper doesn’t have time for that sort of thing!’
‘It was terrible,’ said Gazsi, and went on to tell Balint how he had finally revolted and dropped his pursuit of the girl. ‘Could I take someone like that into my home? Could I really live my life with such a goose … and go on breeding brats even more useless than me …?’
He said he had decided he could not bear the thought of someone who just could not understand what he would want for his children. She would destroy everything for which he had struggled; and this was what he had felt he must explain to Balint, lest his friend should think he had behaved badly in making people think he had pursued the girl and then abandoned her.
‘I shouldn’t think badly of you,’ said Balint. ‘Who am I to judge other people? Nobody has that right, nobody! And I least of all!’
As he said this Balint’s own face clouded over for he was reminded of the time when he had made that sweet little Lili Illesvary think that he was about to propose to her and had then let the opportunity go by without saying what had been expected of him. Suddenly he remembered how she looked in the library at Jablanka and how she had gazed expectantly at him with her forget-me-not blue eyes …
After that Gazsi and Balint did not speak for some time, so engrossed were they in their own private thoughts.
All at once Gazsi made a gesture with his hand as if he were brushing away some depressing thought. Then he drained his champagne glass, cleared his throat and turned back to Balint with the cryptic phrase, ‘I’ve had Honeydew serviced!’
‘Good God, why? She’s your best hunter, isn’t she?’ Balint was taken by surprise at this statement until he reflected that this