Journey by Moonlight

“There is something else I must warn you about, but it’s rather painful because you might perhaps misunderstand my reason for saying it. Would you still think I’m speaking out of jealousy?”

“Jealousy? I’m not so conceited. I know I’ve thrown away every legal claim on your jealousy.”

Deep down, he was well aware that Erzsi was not disinterested. Otherwise she would not have come to Rome. But he felt, and chivalry dictated, that he ought to ignore the fact (which his male ego would normally have insisted on) that she might still be attracted to him.

“Perhaps we should leave this — this question of my feelings,” Erzsi said with some exasperation. “They really have nothing to do with it. So … as I say … look, Mihály, I know perfectly well on whose account you’re in Rome. János told me. The person concerned wrote to him that you’d seen each other.”

Mihály lowered his head. He sensed how very much it hurt Erzsi that he loved Éva. But what could he say to alter what was true and unchangeable?

“Yes, Erzsi. If you know about it, good. You know the background to all this. In Ravenna I told you everything there was to know about me. Everything is as it had to be. Only it shouldn’t have to be so hard on you … ”

“Please, drop it. I haven’t said a thing about it being hard on me. That really isn’t the point. But tell me … do you know what this woman is? What sort of life she leads nowadays?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never enquired about it.”

“Mihály, I’ve always marvelled at your coolness, but you begin to surpass yourself. I never heard of such a thing, someone in love with a woman who has no interest in who or what sort of … ”

“Because all that interests me is what she was then, in the Ulpius house.”

“Perhaps you aren’t aware that she won’t be here much longer? She’s managed to hook a young Englishman who’s taking her with him to India. They leave in the next few days.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, but it is. Take a look at this.”

She drew another letter from her reticule. The handwriting was Éva’s. It was addressed to János. It gave a brief account of her impending trip to India, and the fact that she did not propose returning to Europe.

“You didn’t know?” asked Erzsi.

“You win,” said Mihály. He got up, paid, and went out, leaving his hat behind.

Outside he staggered for a while in a blind daze, his hand pressed against his heart. Only after some time did he notice that Erzsi was walking beside him, and had brought him his hat.

Erzsi was now quite changed: meek, timid, her eyes all tears. It was almost moving, the tall dignified woman in this posture of a small girl, as she walked beside him, in silence, with his hat in her hand. Mihály smiled, and took his hat.

“Thank you,” he said, and kissed Erzsi’s hand. Timidly, she stroked his face.

“Well, if you’ve no more letters in your reticule, then perhaps we can go and dine,” he said with a sigh.

During the meal they exchanged few words, but those were full of intimacy and tender feeling. Erzsi was filled with a loving desire to console, Mihály with his own suffering, and the great quantity of wine he got through in his unhappiness made him gentle. He saw how much Erzsi still loved him, even now. What happiness, if he in turn could love her, and thus free himself of the past and the dead. But he knew it was impossible.

“Erzsi, in the depths of my heart I wasn’t to blame for what happened between us,” he said. “True, that is easily said. But you see, for so many years I had done everything to make myself conform, and I only married you, as a kind of reward, when I really thought that at last everything was all right, that I had at last made my peace with the world. And then all the demons turned on me — my entire youth and all that nostalgia and rebellion. There’s no cure for nostalgia. Perhaps I should never have come to Italy. This country was created out of nostalgia, by kings and poets. Italy is the earthly paradise, but only as Dante saw it: the earthly paradise on the peak of Mount Purgatory, a mere stopping place on a journey, a supernatural aerodrome where spirits take off for the distant circles of heaven, when Beatrice lifts her veil, and the soul ‘feels the great power of the old yearning … ’”

“Oh, Mihály, the world won’t tolerate a man giving himself up to nostalgia.”

“It doesn’t tolerate it. It doesn’t tolerate any deviation from the norm. Any desertion or defiance, and sooner or later it turns the Zoltáns on you.”

“And what do you want to do?”

“That I don’t know. What are your plans, Erzsi?”

“I’ll go back to Paris. We’ve talked about everything now — I think it’s time I went to my room. I’m leaving early tomorrow morning.”

Mihály paid, and escorted her back.

“I would love to know that you will be all right,” he said as they walked. “Say something to reassure me.”