Even as my fingers closed on the door-knob, his hand was before me, holding the door shut as he slid round in front of me. I held my head down, staring hazily at his boots.
“Please,” I whispered achingly, “let me go...”
But instead, I felt his finger under my chin, insistent, forcing my head up. I thought I would die. I wished to die. Somewhere, I knew surprise at the expression in his eyes — it was helplessness.
Slowly, his hand came up and with one curiously gentle finger he touched the escaped tear which was rolling traitorously down my cheek.
“Oh Katie, don’t,” he murmured. I thought his voice cracked, but I couldn’t think about that then, only about preserving what was left of my self-control.
“Let me go,” I whispered again.
For a second, I thought he wouldn’t; then, with awful deliberation, he moved and opened the door. I didn’t look at him as I all but ran out. I couldn’t.
Part Three: Recovery: April — September 1848
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was more from inertia than anything else that I allowed myself to be driven out to Rákos to see the bonfires being lit in celebration of Hungary’s latest triumph. I sat drearily in the carriage with Elisabeth, Katalin and Teréz Meleki, while Mattias rode dutifully beside us. I knew he would disappear into more congenial company just as soon as he found it, but I didn’t care about that. I didn’t really care about anything.
Impassively, I gazed out on to the darkening streets, changed these days beyond recognition — nearly every house was decorated in Hungary’s new colours — while the people filling them wore cockades of red, white and green, and the radicals added huge red feathers in their hats. More worryingly, all the young men now wore swords — Petöfi’s was so large that his friends had christened it his guillotine, and even Mattias, who had grinned when he told me this, had taken to wearing his sword to lectures, though what he planned to do with it against his revered and ageing professors was beyond me.
We arrived upon a scene of ecstatic jubilation at Rákos. Bonfires were lit all over the field; wine and food were being passed around the happy citizens. Speeches of triumph were being made by enthusiastic young men, and prayers of thanks offered up by the pious. A few noble parties like our own had come out to watch; some even joined in, though it seemed to me this was really the celebration of the townspeople, of the ordinary folk who had discovered with surprise that they had the power to influence kings and governments.
Almost immediately, I saw Jókai and Petöfi laughing with a crowd of students. Anxious to avoid them, and all the other familiar faces surrounding us, I kept close to my family.
It already seemed a lifetime ago, though in fact in was little more than two weeks, since I had left Lajos in the Little Room, and gone straight to my bed-chamber. I remember lying face down on my bed, staring blindly at the counterpane, which was wet although I don’t recall crying then. The awful thoughts churning in my head were like a pain, and they went on and on until there was only the pain.
When someone knocked on the door, I moved and realized I felt sick. The door itself was heaving alarmingly, and almost surprised, I became aware that the dreadful pain in my head was physical. For the first time in my life I welcomed that pain, fiercely, relievedly, because I knew I could not think through it, because only the agony of a migraine stood a chance of drowning the greater pain.
I collapsed again on to the bed, giving myself up completely to the nightmare. I was vaguely aware of Katalin fussing around me, of a maid drawing the curtains, their anxious voices slicing through my aching head like an axe. I welcomed that too. I remember muttering, “It’s only a migraine — I’ve had it before. Just leave me alone until it goes away.”
Of course, they were incapable of doing that, but I was equally oblivious to the doctors and the servants and the potions they made me drink. I knew from experience that there was no cure but time — and I was more than happy to give up a couple of days to it, days which I had no idea how to live through anyway. So I existed in a miserable heat of pain and sickness, my eyes closed against the moving walls and the searing daylight which pierced the curtains from time to time.
I lost two whole days in this way.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I recall waking eventually to darkness and dull, hopeless misery. The pain in my head was gone, leaving only a feeling of extreme delicacy. I felt neither sick nor hungry, though I was a little thirsty. There was a glass of water by my bed, but I ignored it. Now that I was free of the migraine’s agony, I needed other discomforts to distract me from the one important ache. None of them, I knew, would work, but at least they would serve as punishment: for stupidity, for trusting unwisely, for falling in love against my own judgement, for loose behaviour — the list was endless and pointless, but I went on lashing myself with it until I fell asleep again.
When I woke this time, it was to the sound of the bedroom door opening. If I had been properly awake, I might have had the forethought to pretend sleep, but as it was I sat up without thinking, and saw Katalin bearing a tray of the doctor’s evil potions.
“Oh, Katie, are you better?” she asked in a hushed voice.
I tried to smile. “Yes; the pain has quite gone.”
“You won’t want this then,” she said dismissively, all but dropping the tray on to the first table she passed. She came and sat on the side of my bed, searching my face with eyes that were comfortingly anxious as well as curious. At least Katalin cares for me, I thought with monstrous self-pity.
“I’ve never seen anyone so prostrated by a headache before,” she observed.
“Not all headaches prostrate me,” I said vaguely. “Only that one.”
“Do you suffer them often?” she asked uneasily.
“Hardly ever now. When I was younger they were more frequent, but actually it’s years since I had one like this... Once or twice, when we were travelling on those awful roads, I was afraid it would happen, but it didn’t...”
“Are you really well, now?” she asked dubiously. “You still sound very — odd.”
“I’m a little weak, that’s all,” I excused myself.
“Of course, you’ve had no food since Friday’s lunch!”
I looked up from my fruitless contemplation of the counterpane. “What day is it?”
“Monday,” she said in surprise. “Monday, the twentieth of March.”
“What has happened to the revolution?” I heard my voice crack, and wondered if I would weep in front of her. If she noticed, she must have put it down to my general weakness.
“It seems Hungary is victorious,” she said brightly. “Kossuth and the delegation from the Diet won the King’s consent to everything, including a separate cabinet. Count Batthyány is Prime Minister; István thinks Count Széchenyi will be minister for public works, and Kossuth minister of finance. Feudal dues have been abolished — with compensation to be paid later, which is just as well since in addition to having to pay labourers now, we shall also have to pay taxes. Yes, the Diet passed that too.”
A shadow of interest slipped through my torpor. “So much so quickly?” I said. “Is it actually law?”
She shrugged. “The King has still to pass the bills, but he promised to agree to all laws the new cabinet suggests.”
I smiled mirthlessly. “He must have been terrified.”
“It’s as if the whole Empire is falling apart.”
“You don’t seem unduly put out by it,” I observed, unconsciously reaching for the glass by my bed and sipping the water.
“Oh well,” she said carelessly. “Even István seems to think it will make Hungary strong, so it can’t be all bad. Do you know, he even spoke a word of admiration for Kossuth? Of course, it helps that there has been no blood shed in the disturbances here.”
Something else from my memory made me frown. “Monday the twentieth?” I repeated. “What happened at the banquet, and the peasant fair at Rákos?”
She ac
tually laughed. “Nothing. The peasants were only interested in buying and selling! And even the radicals had given up the idea of a banquet; after the fifteenth, they didn’t need the peasants.”
He had been right after all. You really didn’t need violence to make a revolution, not if the fear of it was strong enough...
When Katalin had gone, and the maid was pottering about me, I sat lethargically in front of the glass, gazing bleakly at my own reflection. My spectacles seemed suddenly too large for my face, which had grown paler and thinner since I had last looked at it. My eyes appeared huge and tired, and the shadows beneath them were almost black.
“Well,” I murmured at this vision. “Can you really blame him?”
Yes; I could, and I did. I wished to God he had left me alone with my unrequited love — it had been hard, but I had been able to live with it because I had still had my pride. Now, I had given everything, confessed the fullest depths of my feelings in return for a few short hours of passion that had lifted me up to dizzying heights of joy and hope. And then I had been cast down again like a stone when he had revealed the precise nature of his feeling. Oh yes, liking, a little, desire, a little, but it was all shallow; there was no respect, no real love, not for me...
My image grew hazy and I realized I was weeping. For that one mistake, his and mine, I now had nothing. No friend, no love, no pride. He shouldn’t have done it, I thought, not when it meant so little, not when he knew...
* * * *
But that had been two weeks ago. I was stronger now: I could despise the weakness of those early days, for I had learned to concentrate on Lajos’s iniquities rather than on his kindness or his humour or his all-embracing compassion. I had told myself that he only cared for people in the abstract; that far from being out of my reach, he was not worthy of me. Deliberately, I had sown the seeds of hatred; and slowly, painfully, I had rebuilt my mask until I flattered myself that no one could see behind it the hurt, frightened woman who had fallen from grace and lost all her self-respect.
Of course, it helped that Lajos was out of the way in Kolozsvár, even sending back articles to the new radical newspaper — March the Fifteenth, naturally — describing how he had marched there, arm in arm with Hungarians, Romanians and Germans, all united in their support of the Hungarian revolution and their desire to share in its new liberties.
As usual, it was vivid, powerful writing. But I was not moved. I hadn’t been moved by anything that had happened in the last two weeks, even when the King had broken his promise and refused to grant separate ministries, or to accept the Diet’s reforms. Everyone else was outraged by this betrayal, of course, even István, home on one of his brief visits from Pressburg.
“You’ll never leave it at that?” Mattias had demanded.
“Of course not,” István said impatiently. “The King will be — persuaded.”
“How? By more threats?” Elisabeth enquired.
István smiled reluctantly. “Well, already Kossuth is making fiery speeches warning of further revolution if the laws are not passed. I believe he has even urged the Committee of Public Safety to ‘risk everything for the Fatherland!’ Which, it seems to me, is a direct invitation to riot.”
I regarded him curiously. “You don’t seem very upset by the prospect,” I observed.
“I’m not,” he admitted. “I think Kossuth can control the hotheads in Pest, and through the threat of them, control the King too.”
And it seemed he was right, for after this new and even more turbulent upsurge of revolution, the King had given in to all the Hungarian demands — which was why the people had come out here to Rákos to celebrate.
I was already wondering how soon we would leave when my attention was caught by an outburst of shouting and laughter from the National Guardsmen who were policing the scene. Turning idly in their direction, I saw they were boisterously welcoming someone. Someone I was not ready to meet.
Even as my stomach gave a sickening lurch, I saw the revellers begin to acknowledge him with delighted greetings and back-slappings. Vaguely, I was aware of Teréz saying, almost involuntarily, “So he’s back.” And then Petöfi’s voice yelled with joy, “Lajos, you deserter! About time too!”
Abruptly, I cringed back behind Elisabeth, but even so, he almost brushed against me as he made his swift way towards his friends. I only had an impression of his strong, distinctive face, of his travel-stained clothes, which implied he had only just arrived in the city. My heart was thundering so that I could scarcely breathe. There was a roaring in my ears, a sudden weakening in my legs. It was the unexpectedness of seeing him, I told myself. No one had expected him back so soon. I didn’t love him any more — how could I after what he had done? It was simple hatred now that made me react so...
Yet I couldn’t look away. Petöfi had leapt forward to greet his friend. I saw their embrace, and his warm handshake with the nearby Vasvári. I saw his arm raised to acknowledge Jókai and the others behind who were grinning at him, and all the while he listened intently to Petöfi who was no doubt bringing him up to date with events in the capital.
And then I saw him bend to examine Petöfi’s huge sword, holding it between finger and thumb as he looked quizzically up at its wearer. And Petöfi laughed. I felt my hatred burn brighter. Everything was just the same for him...
I swallowed the nameless emotions that were threatening to choke me, turning abruptly away from the unbearable scene, only to find Teréz’s eyes upon me, speculative, enigmatic.
“Satisfy my curiosity,” she drawled in a low voice that the others were unable to hear. “Did you heed my words concerning him at Szelényi Castle?”
And because I was angry at my own emotion, at feeling anything at all, I said gently, “Come, Madame. Do you really imagine I valued my post as highly as all that?”
And thus ended the doubtful truce between us.
Yet only moments later, my eyes strayed again to where Petöfi and Lajos were watching the cheering only yards from us.
Without warning, Lajos turned his head. He saw Katalin first, standing a little apart from me, but even before I could move further away, his eyes found me too, and I was paralysed. For a second that seemed an eternity, the rest of the world receded. Stricken, I met his steady, unsmiling gaze. Neither of us stirred. And then Petöfi took his arm, drawing him on with a sardonic word I could not hear, and the spell was broken; my eyes were free.
I drew in a shuddering breath. I had done it. The next time would be easier. It would have to be.
* * * *
Though the Diet was rushing to get through the last of its work before the King was due to close it on the tenth of April, the most stunning event of the month was undoubtedly the publication of Petöfi’s new poem, To the Kings. Even Mattias was shocked by its disrespect for the Monarchy, its openly republican sentiment; while Elisabeth, when she had read aloud its refrain, “No matter what impudent flatterers say, there is no beloved King any more,” simply dropped it on the floor saying, “I won’t have that in the house, and if you don’t care for my views, I advise you to be rid of it before your brother comes home.”
For once subdued, Mattias stuffed the poem in his pocket. I seemed to be the only one not shocked by it: in fact I rather admired Petöfi’s impudence! It was like him, though I suspected it would in the end win him more enemies than friends. Despite the revolution, Hungary had a very royalist tradition.
I did not see Lajos again until the Cabinet arrived to take up its residence in Buda-Pest. Like most of the city, the Szelényis and I went en masse to the quay to greet them. But it was Vasvári, looking at once absurdly youthful and gravely dignified, who spoke the official words of welcome on behalf of the Committee of Public Safety, which he said would now dissolve, leaving the capital and the power of the revolution in the government’s safe hands.
Almost wonderingly, I heard him say, “We have prepared the way. Our revolutionary movement lasted exactly one month; and tomorrow the people will return to
private life...”
I could not believe it was really over, though Vasvári himself was saying so. There was so much that had not been achieved, so much that I knew Lajos at least still wanted. Involuntarily, my eyes sought him out among the Committee of Public Safety. He wasn’t smiling; I couldn’t read the expression on his face, but somehow I knew just from his stance that for him the revolution was far from over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The hardest part of my recovery was going back to the Pilvax. It would have been an easy punishment to avoid, yet when Mattias unexpectedly suggested it — purely as an excuse to avoid his lectures — I didn’t even try. Instead, lashing myself, I accepted.
I never really doubted that he would be there, and of course he was, at the same long table with a familiar group of revolutionaries, including Vasvári and Jókai. Somehow, I had known too that he would look up immediately and see me. Prepared this time, I inclined my head distantly. Gravely, but with just a hint of irony, he returned the gesture, and then I looked beyond him to Vasvári, who had glanced up too and smiled. I even smiled back, moving forward with Mattias to our own table.
It was a little nearer to Lajos than I would have liked, but I could hardly have made a fuss without incurring the sort of attention I dreaded, so I sank into my chair, relieved and quite proud of the dignity with which I had handled myself.
While Mattias and I talked in a desultory way about various things, and the waiter brought us coffee and cakes, I found myself thinking that Lajos was looking more tired than ever. In the brief glimpse I had allowed myself, the lines around his eyes and mouth had seemed far more deeply etched than I remembered; and there had been a permanent-looking frown on his brow that I had never noticed before. I wondered if it was weariness, or disappointment at the revolution’s tame — if peaceful — outcome which had changed him. Then, abruptly, I put a stop to that line of thought, which was dangerously close to the sympathy I had no intention of feeling.
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