Gyula Krudy - Sunflower

Pistoli’s face flamed as he counted the minutes spent under his roof and shelter by this lascivious lady — in the company of that detestable youth.

“How could I so debase my lifelong pride, my manhood?” The reproach welled up inside him like a poorly swallowed dumpling. At the Ungvár theater he had seen the itinerant troupe perform a melodrama in which a woman was murdered. “Jacqueline, see you in hell!” the actor had declaimed. Pistoli never forgot these words. Drinking his wine, during lovemaking, or in his despair he had often uttered this exclamation until his heart nearly broke, for ultimately he came to feel sorry for each and every woman because of the frailty nature had given her…

At long last Maszkerádi emerged from the garden cottage. (Pistoli was most amazed at not seeing a dozen female hands clutch the departing lady’s tresses — the fingers and nails of women who had in that cottage sworn him eternal faith and love unto the grave.)

Brightly and merrily swaying, like an April shower, came the young lady.

Perhaps if she had been sad and conscience-stricken, like certain dames of old who left the site of their illicit love as woebegone as the passing moment that never returns; if the lady had approached in full cognizance of her frailty, ready to forego a man’s respectful handkisses of greeting, and trembling in shame at the tryst exposed in broad daylight, like Risoulette, sixty-six times, whenever having misbehaved, she hastened back home teary-eyed to her Captain; or if a lifelong memory’s untearable veil had floated over her fine features, like the otherworldy wimple of a nun…Then Pistoli would have stood aside, closed his eyes, swallowed the bitter pill, and come next winter, might have scrawled on the wall something about women’s unpredictability. Then he would have glimpsed ghostly, skeletal pelvic bones reflected in his wine goblet, and strands of female hair, once wrapped around the executioner’s wrist, hanging from his rafters; and would have heard wails and cackles emanating from the cellar’s musty wine casks, but eventually Pistoli would have forgiven this fading memory, simply because women are related to the sea and the moon, and that is why at times they know not what they do.

Ah, but Maszkerádi’s confident stride made the footpath seem like it was made of rubber. Her face mirrored a calm satisfaction, as after a successful revenge. Only the best of friends can cheat on each other without qualms, unspeakably glad of the secret not even the best friend can be told now. Curiosity, the impulse to imitate close friends, the oftentimes identical fashions shared in hats and clothes: these will guarantee certain rogues unhoped-for successes at both the dance academy and near the sheltered family hearth. Women fond of each other drink from the same cup with a will, wear each other’s shirts and clandestinely kiss the same man’s lips. Later perhaps they’ll fall at each other’s throat if the secret is out before the flames of amorous passion, like shepherds’ campfires, gutter away in the ever-receding distance.

“I kiss your hand, Mademoiselle,” chimed Pistoli in the birch-strewn grove, catching Maszkerádi in the act of untethering her mare. “The weather’s turning hot-blooded on us. Any day now we’ll have to have ice brought in from town.”

Maszkerádi was not surprised at running into the Peeping Tom. She smiled like a queen.

“How good of you to watch my mare, Pistoli. Please hold my stirrup,” she replied, light and easy, like a waltz. Never had he heard her voice so fluting. And she was all furtive and happy smiles, like a honeymoon diary kept by a young wife.

“You may help me, Pistoli,” said she with infinite condescension, like an angel from heaven meeting a mendicant on the road. For alms, she cast an absentminded glance at Mr. Pistoli. Quite possibly she thought the perfume emanating from her clothes would suffice to gratify this stout gentleman.

Pistoli began in a bleating tone, as if he had trouble finding his voice.

“Don’t, please don’t for a moment think, dear lady, that I would dare delve into your comings and goings. Although the attic floor in the cottage does have a hole I once used for spying on women, to see what they did when left to their own devices…I remember seeing many a terrified or pensive face on solitary womenfolk. They would put their room in order, spread the towel out to dry, smooth down the pillow’s creases, scrutinize themselves in a hand mirror as if they feared that kisses marked them like the yellow patch on a mediaeval Jew’s robe…But my memory retains nothing of you, my dear lady, for I consider your action so low, so ordinary that it’s not worth burdening my brains with.”

“So what do you think of me?” hissed Maszkerádi, raising her head, serpentlike.

Pistoli advanced two steps, as on a fencing strip.

His voice no longer shook, though it still sounded as alien as if it belonged to a train conductor:

“I think, my little flower bud, that you are the lowest of the low in all of Hungary.”

Maszkerádi raised her riding crop and struck Mr. Pistoli twice — two full blows. The chastisement had its effect: Pistoli turned tail and fled. In his room he took to his bed and reminisced about a Count Stadion, a lieutenant whom Mrs. Rózsakerti had once slapped in Nyíregyháza. That quondam lieutenant blew his brains out the next morning.

“Ah, to be kicked by a mare’s no shame,” said Pistoli that evening to Kakuk, when the latter squatted down by the bedside.

The tramp waved a disdainful hand:

“She’ll be back to make up with your honor,” he opined, waiting for Pistoli to fall asleep, so he could guzzle the leftover wine.

That night, with its besotted, harried ghosts and bulgy-eyed goblins, dragged on interminably, like a midnight train wreck, the morning after which the survivor takes stock of his remaining limbs.

The whiplash’s sting sent Mr. Pistoli to seek refuge in one of his favorite activities: composing his will, perhaps for the twentieth time. He apportioned his extant and nonexistent belongings among women he had known or would have liked to know. The Stony Dinka of former days, “whose hair was like Sultan Flor shag-cut tobacco,” was assigned entire herds of goats, whereas there was only one lonesome billy goat to dispose of, by the name of Pista, who exercised his horns in the vicinity of the manor. To Rosa Máli he bequeathed his best bed, which had the distinction of once serving the “Hatted King” Joseph II for a night’s rest on his Hungarian travels. Risoulette inherited the awe-inspiring roosters that would come down from the dunghill when summoned by a whistle, to put on a cockfight that Pistoli found more entertaining than watching circus wrestlers. To the sanctimonious Mrs. X he left the nude photographs of which the lonely bachelor had quite a collection. For Mme Y, who was well versed in the insignia of officers from all branches of military service, he set aside a book of hours dating from the days of Prince Rákóczi. To Mrs. Weis he willed his fur coat, Mrs. Fehér his boots, Mrs. Pussenkatz his hunting rifle. Only the wines and sausages in the larder were left out of the will. For Pistoli did not intend to pass away as long as a single glass of wine remained to be drunk in the house.

His pipe collection had long ago been promised to Eveline — so that her future husband would have something to smoke.

And now Miss Maszkerádi, too, was inducted into his list. The letters produced by his goose quill grew fatter. Curlicued appendages embellished his capitals, and his sentences ended with braided flourishes suggesting baroque imprecations.

“My lady Maszkerádi must not be omitted, even though she is responsible for the most infamous day of my life. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost I declare that I am no longer angry at her, for I now realize that it was entirely my fault that that young lady grabbed the handle of a whip instead of something else equally suitable for her delicate little hand.