They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [85]
‘Perhaps it is my own fault. If I had brought them up better perhaps they wouldn’t have turned out like this. I’ve got four sons, you know, and all of them … well, three of them … have proved worthless. They are as bad as each other!’
What on earth, he wondered hopelessly, would become of them? The only one he did not worry about was Adam, for he had married a sensible wife and seemed to work hard. He alone was saved.
‘But, my God! What will happen to the others? Let me not live to see it! Let me be spared standing by while they destroy themselves!’
This was the only time old Alvinczy had bared his heart to anyone. Now he talked for a long time, but he had never before uttered a word of what was plaguing his heart. And it was strange that when he did so it should be to a man who was almost a stranger, someone he had seen perhaps three times in his life. His sorrow was something he had always kept to himself, holding his head high, alone in his dignity and despair. He had never spoken before because he had felt that to do so might harm his sons; but the iron discipline on which he had prided himself was, just this once, broken down by the pain and fear brought on by the heart attack. Even now, as soon as he had finished, he suddenly regained his confidence, straightened up, turned again to this stocky man he hardly knew, and with every sign of shame, said, ‘I beg you, Sir, to forget all I’ve just been saying. I was exaggerating … I just blurted it all out.’
Tamas interrupted him. ‘The important thing is that you’re better now. Come along, I’ll go home with you,’ and he stood up, helped the old man to his feet, and led him to the door. They walked slowly down the corridor: Count Alvinczy, tall, elegant and distinguished-looking and Count Laczok, stocky and somewhat absurd in his old-fashioned evening coat.
When they reached the foot of the stairs Tamas asked for Alvinczy’s cloakroom ticket and went to fetch his coat while the other rested on a sofa by the wall.
‘You don’t have to come with me,’ protested the old man. ‘I can quite well get home by myself.’ But he seemed quite relieved when Tamas would not hear of it and said, ‘Don’t talk nonsense!’
When he had paid off the cab, woken Alvinczy’s valet and seen that his companion was safely in bed, Tamas set off on foot for his home at Bretfu. After an hour or two in that smoke-filled room in the hotel it felt good to be walking through the cold air of a March night.
He walked in high good humour, pleased with the success of his outing, for had he not been able to torment his old enemies? He imagined that this joyous feeling sprang only from his having been able to annoy and embarrass his aunt, his brother and that rascally banker. As he chuckled to himself he thought how astonished they would all have been if they had seen him in the role of the Good Samaritan, he whom they had only known, especially his brother, in the role of the heartless old reprobate. Looking only at the ironic side of what had happened that evening it had never occurred to him that his feeling of well-being had sprung from the basic goodness which had prompted his care of the man whose life he had saved.
Walking swiftly along the empty streets he went through the Hidelve district and past the railway station, his fur hat pushed back and his short jacket swinging as he went. His thick country boots made a clatter as he stumped along happier than he had been for some time.
And as he went, he sang. It was an old Parisian music-hall song that had been popular in the days of his youth:
‘Moi j’m’en fou
J’reste tranquillement dans mon trou!
Pourquoi courir ailleurs
Pour nepas trouver meilleur …
Moi j’m’en