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By Root 473 0

for a large baize-covered table that had been placed directly under the crystal chandelier. It was surrounded by eight cane chairs for the players, but her husband Adam was not among them. She saw Akos, his youngest brother, but it was only later that she remembered how deathly pale he had looked. She was about to leave the room when she caught sight of her husband. He was lying in a gilt armchair just behind where she was standing. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and he was fast asleep. He was sleeping so soundly that his mouth was slightly open like a young child’s and on his face was an expression of happiness and content. He was asleep out of sheer exhaustion, for although since his marriage he had never once gone out carousing with his friends, he had spent all the previous night carrying his newborn baby about who was suffering from colic and who started crying again every time Adam put him down. He adored his son and fussed over him like any nanny.

Margit moved silently over to her husband and ever so gently started to caress his forehead. Still half asleep Adam reached for her hand and brushing it across his face started to kiss her arm just as he might have if they were in bed at night. He did not try to open his eyes, imagining that that was just where they were.

It must have been a familiar movement for Margit broke out in soft giggles. Still, she had to see that Adam was properly awake.

‘Anna Laczok, Countess Harinay, doesn’t have a dinner partner. I told her you’d sent me to ask her for you. But it would be nice if you’d go and ask her yourself, just to be polite, you know. The dinner will be served in half an hour and it wouldn’t look right to wait until the last minute.’

Adam jumped up. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’ll go at once.’

As they moved away little Margit looked up at the great height of her husband and said, ‘I hope you’re pleased I got you such a pretty partner. You can’t accuse me of being a jealous wife!’

‘Why ever should you be?’ he answered good-naturedly and they walked hand in hand out of the card-room, their steps matching each other exactly as the steps do of those who have a total understanding of each other. And although there was no one to see them in the deserted corridor the two of them, linked by their intertwined hands, made a picture of perfect happiness.

Tamas Laczok, having had his fun with Aunt Lizinka, went to look for his brother and Weissfeld. After all, he said to himself, he had gone to a lot of trouble and expense – ten crowns, no less! – to get to the ball so now he might as well see that he got his money’s worth, and that meant teasing the others as well. He went in search of the smoking-room.

There they both were, sitting with about twenty other men in a wide circle discussing politics, as Hungarian men always do when a group of them gather together. They were mostly the patrons of the ball, or the husbands of the Lady Patronesses, who were now condemned to wait until they had to escort their wives to the supper room.

Jeno Laczok, with his vast bulk, sat stiff and motionless, a prisoner of his own fat. He was like a statue carved from stone. Beside him sat the banker from Vasarhely who never left his friend’s side in Kolozsvar, partly because he always felt the need of his support when among strangers but also because no one here knew what an important person he was in his home town.

The Rector of the University, Dr Korosi (whose wife felt so neglected), was pompously explaining some abstruse point, when Tamas’s rumbustious entrance interrupted what he was saying and so spoiled his carefully constructed argument.

‘Servus Sandor! Servus Adam! Servus Stanislo! Servus everyone! Greetings to you all. What a long time since I saw you!’ and he shook hands all round, introducing himself to some of those he did not know, but not all as they did not interest him much, and Tamas had never been a stickler for convention. When he had almost come full circle he came face to face with his brother. With glee he slapped Jeno’s protruding stomach and, seizing