Skylark

by Dezso Kosztolányi

  In one such moment he managed to pull himself together. He stood up to get undressed. He pulled off his jacket and trousers, and tore off his necktie, whose clasp got caught on a button of his shirt. Drunk as he was, he still folded his clothes together neatly, with all the fussiness of old age, when the mind is increasingly preoccupied by ever more trivial details. He placed his watch, signet ring and keys in his wallet so that he'd be able to find them again in the morning and slip them back into his pockets, as he had done throughout the thirty-six years of his marriage.

  His wife came in with the teapot, a mug and some rum.

  “Drink this,” she said to her husband, who was already sitting on the bed undressed. “You'll feel better in no time.”

  Ákos filled the mug with rum, then splashed a drop of tea on top and stirred it in. The woman climbed into bed, shivering with cold from the kitchen.

  The old man could only manage a few sips.

  “Now come to bed,” said the woman.

  And he would have done so, too, had he not been struck by the thought that always occurred to him before going to bed: that he should search the whole house for the hidden burglar he never found. In his shirt and underpants he tottered about in the dining room.

  The chandeliers still burned. For a moment he didn't know where he was. It was so light everywhere, out in the hall and in his daughter's bedroom too. He stubbornly staggered on to the drawing room.

  Here he was greeted by still brighter light. At either end of the piano the two lamps, which mother had left on, still glowed, illuminating the keyboard, the open lid and the open scores strewn over the music rest.

  Ákos burst out laughing, so heartily that his laughter echoed through the hollow house and all the way to the bedroom, where his wife, with knitted brows, tried to follow what was going on. Her husband soon returned.

  “What happened here, then?” he asked in the same coarse tone he had used when he first came home. Once again he stood in the middle of the bedroom. “What kind of nonsense have you been up to? Been having a ball, have we?” and he laughed so loud that he coughed, choking on his words.

  “What are you laughing at?'

  “You've been having a ball, haven't you?” Ákos repeated. “A ball in this house? Have you been raising the roof, Mother?'

  “I was waiting for you,” said the woman plainly. “And I played the piano.”

  “I bet you did,” said Ákos accusingly. “You've been having a ball.” Then, accusingly, “A ball.”

  But he had hardly finished uttering these words when a sudden spasm seized his throat and he collapsed into the armchair, sobbing.

  His dry sobs shook his whole body as he howled, without tears. He slumped forward across the table.

  “Poor thing,” he moaned, “poor thing. It's her I pity.”

  He could see Skylark standing before him, just as in his dream. From behind a fence she stared at him like one possessed, begging him to help her. She was almost braying with grief.

  “God, how I pity her, oh, God!'

  “Why do you pity her?” asked the woman.

  His wife wanted no part in this performance, even though she had the easier role to play. Though dazed by the unaccustomed lateness of the hour, she still had all her wits about her. She had neither witnessed her husband's dream nor read her daughter's letter, which had left such a deep impression on Ákos.

  “You must never pity her,” said the woman, trying to placate her husband with cool, calm words. “You've no reason to. She's been away. And she'll come back. She has to enjoy herself too, you know. Don't be so selfish.”

  “How lonely she is,” Ákos whispered, gazing into space. “How absolutely alone!'

  “She'll be home tomorrow,” said Mother, affecting indifference. “She'll be here tomorrow evening. And then she won't be alone, will she? Now come to bed.”

  “Don't you understand?” the old man retorted heatedly. “That's not what I'm talking about.”

  “Then what are you talking about?'

  “About what hurts right here,” and he beat his fist against his heart. “About what's in here. Inside. About everything.”

  “Come and get some sleep.”

  “No,” Ákos replied bullishly, “I refuse to sleep. I want to talk at last.”

  “Then talk.”

  “We don't love her.”

  “Who doesn't?'

  “We don't.”

  “How can you say such a thing?'

  “It's true,” Ákos cried, striking the table with his palms as before. “We hate her. We detest her.”

  “Have you gone mad?” the woman shouted, still lying in bed.

  As if to provoke his wife still further, Ákos raised his voice, which already rasped and faltered.

  “We'd much rather she wasn't here. Like now. And right now we wouldn't even mind if she, poor thing, were...”

  He could not pronounce the terrible word. But this way it was yet more terrible than if he had.

  The woman sprang out of bed and stood before him to put a stop to this enormity. She turned a deathly white. She wanted to make some reply, but the words stuck in her throat. For in spite of her frenzied indignation, she couldn't help wondering if her husband's outrageous suggestion might be true. She gaped at him, utterly astounded.

  Ákos did not speak.

  By now his wife was waiting to hear more. She almost longed for him to speak, to come out with everything at last. She sensed that the hour of reckoning had finally arrived. It was something she had often imagined, but never believed would really happen, least of all to her and at a time like this. She sat down in the armchair opposite, every part of her trembling. Yet she was still resolute, even a little curious. She did not interrupt when her husband began to speak again.

  Ákos took up where he had left off.

  “And wouldn't it be better? For her too, poor thing. And for us. Do you know how much she's suffered? Only I know that, with this father's heart of mine. What with one thing and another. The continual whispering behind her back, the laughter, the scorn, the humiliation. And we too, Mother, how much have we suffered? We waited one year, two years, hoping, as time passed by. We believed it was all a matter of chance. We told ourselves things would get better. But they only got worse. Always worse and worse.”

  “Why?'

  “Why?” echoed Ákos. Then, in the quietest of voices, he replied, “Because she's ugly.”

  The word had been uttered. Spoken for the first time. Then silence. A hollow silence resounded between them.

  The woman leaped to her feet. No, this was not what she had imagined after all. Whenever they talked about her daughter, carefully avoiding this one issue, she always thought that one day they'd nevertheless return to it, to discuss it in greater detail, point by point, over several days perhaps, she and her husband, and maybe the odd relative. Béla, Etelka, a kind of committee almost, but not like this, not so openly, with such vulgar, prosaic simplicity. Her husband's words had put a sudden end to the possibility of any further argument or discussion. It hurt her, disgusted her, this merciless sincerity. Her husband had insulted a woman, had insulted her own flesh and blood. And, as if confronted by nothing more or less than this one insult, she cried out angrily, resentfully:

  “No. No!'

  “But yes. Yes! She's ugly. Frightfully ugly,” Ákos shouted, revelling in every word. “Ugly and old, poor creature. Like this,” and he pulled the most hideous of faces. “As ugly as I am.”

  He struggled out of the armchair to reveal himself in his true light, and stood beside his wife.

  Thus Skylark's aging parents stood face to face, barefoot, almost naked, with no more than a shirt between them. Two shrivelled bodies from whose embrace a daughter had once been born. They both trembled with emotion.

  “You're drunk,” said the woman contemptuously.

  “I'm not drunk.”

  “It's blasphemy.”

  “Even if she were lame,” Ákos roared, “or a hunchb
ack, or blind, she couldn't be uglier,” and now he was really crying; thick, hot tears washed his ash-smudged face, his tormented soul.

  The woman, however, drew herself up to her full height.

  “Enough,” she said suddenly, with an entirely unfamiliar severity of tone, and with such purpose in her eyes that she seemed a complete stranger. “Enough!” and here she raised her voice. “I absolutely forbid you to say such things about my daughter. She is my daughter. Our daughter, and I have to defend her against you. Shame on you!'

  “What?” Ákos stammered, recoiling.

  “I won't have it,” said the woman, beating her fist on the table. “I simply won't stand for it. You spoke of nonsense earlier on. Well, here's your nonsense.”

  Ákos awoke from his drunken stupor, as if the day were beginning to dawn within him.

  “All right then,” he conceded, “let's be reasonable. I'm a reasonable man, after all.”

  “Well, you're not a bit reasonable right now. You come home at all hours, turn the place upside down, throw money all over the floor, try to set my house on fire and then talk all kinds of nonsense. What you need is a good night's sleep.” With that she made straight for the bed.

  “Mother,” said Ákos, calling her back. “Stay a while longer,” he begged.

  The woman stopped still.

  “What do you want?” she demanded. “With all this crying, all this shouting? I really can't understand you.”

  Her voice was cold and stern.

  She paused. Then, a little more gently:

  “All right, so she won't marry. So what? Plenty of girls remain single. She's thirty-five years old, someone may still come along. You never know. Just when we least expect it. Do you want me to approach people in the street? Or put an advertisement in the paper? For a Vajkay girl? Come on, for heaven's sake.”

  Mother stopped talking. Ákos waited for her to go on. Her words did him good. The crueller the better. He wanted more, only harder, sharper.

  After a while the woman continued:

  “Or say she does get married. Just for the sake of argument. Suppose she does. To whoever proposes. Because there's always someone. Do you really think that marriage is such a heaven these days? Janke Hernád got married. Mrs Záhoczky told us all about it. How she came to the last Ladies’ Society ball, her eyes red from weeping. Married some card-playing nobody who gambled the whole dowry away in half a year. And now where are they? Magda Proszner's husband beats her. Beats her, I tell you, and drinks. As for Biri Szilkuthy, you know her story. She was here today, pouring her heart out. Shame you didn't hear her. Is that what you want so badly? No, let her stay here with us. She'll never be as happy anywhere else. If that's God's will. After all, she's so used to us now.”

  Out in the street, directly beneath their window, drunkards were whooping and bawling. Perhaps a group of Panthers, making their way through the night. They waited for the commotion to die down.

  Mrs Vajkay pondered, always returning to the same point of departure.

  “Ridiculous, the things you said. Hasn't she got everything she could possibly desire? She has nine dresses, two of which I've just had made for her. And five pairs of shoes. When she asked for that lovely blue feather boa last autumn, I bought it for her at once, even though it was frightfully expensive, fourteen forints. We've always given her all we could, haven't we, according to our means. It's true we had to economise here and there, but life is hard. And everything I've ever brought into this house is hers, her dowry, no one else so much as lays a finger on it. I set aside my every penny, and go on working in my old age, depriving myself of all good things so that she should have all she desires, the very best in life. And we brought her up well, didn't we? She finished school, I taught her the piano. I know she didn't take it very far, but everyone can see that she's an educated child. And look at her needlework. Most parents would be only too proud. Look at all these lovely tablecloths and doilies. All her own work. It was sinful what you said. Sinful and stupid.”

  Now she seemed to rummage for something in her memory. There was a long pause before she continued:

  “When she was five she fell down the attic steps and bumped her head. They thought she had concussion and a fractured skull. Remember, we even called the specialist from Pest. For two whole months I pressed that ice-cold chamois to her poor little head. I was utterly exhausted, nearly fell to pieces. And you accuse me? Even now I take her everywhere. She's my only friend. What would my life be like without her? All I know is that I love her, and couldn't love anyone more.”

  Then she launched a new assault, turning to face her husband.

  “And you love her too, Father. You love her very much. You can say what you like, you silly old thing. When she fell that time, you yourself telegraphed for the doctor, running off at midnight like a madman. And you jumped for joy when the doctor said he'd no longer be needed. And think of all you did last year when she had that upset stomach. It was always you who took her to school, even when she was a big girl. And if she wasn't back by exactly half past twelve you were always scared she'd been run over. You bought her all those thick, warm clothes, so she shouldn't catch cold, and it was you who made her wear those awful thick stockings, poor thing. You were frightfully funny, you know. Your daughter and I had a right old laugh at you. Ah, the giggles we had together. Isn't that so?'

  Ákos smiled wearily.

  “But that's not the problem,” the woman continued. “The real problem is that you avoid people. Recently you've grown quite unsociable, a proper little hermit. But one can't just shut oneself away like we do. She'd like to go out more, too, only she never says so. It's because of you that she hides at home. She always thinks you'd be annoyed, that's why she doesn't suggest going anywhere. And she wouldn't want to go without you. But you can see how people like her and respect her–Környey, Priboczay, Feri Füzes and even...” Here she paused for thought. “Well, everyone. Let's make up our minds to go out at least once a week. And to take her with us. If you never show yourself, they just forget you. All we need is a bit of variety. Then everything will be different. All right?'

  Ákos was glad to be overpowered by the force of argument. And now that his wife had plunged to the very depths of cheerful absurdity, he threw his hand in and happily surrendered.

  “Why don't you say anything?” urged his wife.

  The old man was no longer in need of consolation. He had finally sobered up. He felt sleepy, and the soles of his feet were freezing on the cold floor.

  At last emerging from the storm which had whipped up his blood, he slowly made his way to the bed and lay down, thoroughly exhausted.

  It was good to lie down, if only because he no longer had to face his wife. He was ashamed of his earlier outburst, his sentimental, pusillanimous verbosity, which would make any man in his right mind blush. With the quilt pulled high over his chin, he really seemed to be hiding in bed. He waited to see what would happen next.

  His wife, however, had run out of things to say. She just sat there, motionless, in her armchair.

  Now she would have liked her husband to speak, to confirm or deny what she had said. She waited for fresh words, new points of view, which would either support her own or refute them for good. For however forcibly she had spoken, inside she wasn't at all convinced of what she had said. In the structure, the architecture, of her agile speech for the defence, with all its cunningly contrived sighs, inflections and crescendos, she nevertheless felt she had left a gap somewhere, a crack that still needed filling. But Ákos did not echo the well-meaning torrent of words to which he had yielded.

  Thus the woman remained alone, tormented by still more painful thoughts than the man she had consoled. She stood up, as if somehow looking for help, for herself, for him, for all of them. All kinds of things occurred to her, all kinds of people; even, for one short moment, Miklós Ijas, who had seemed so sympathetic the other day.

  But she immediately swept the thought from her mind. He was no mor
e than a boy, hardly twenty-four years old.

  Ákos lay in silence.

  It was left to the woman to speak again. As if she were talking to herself, summing up all that had gone before.

  “We love her very much,” she insisted. “Both of us. And even if we loved her a thousand times more, we still...”

  “Still what?” Ákos prompted, lifting the quilt from his mouth in genuine curiosity. “What could we still do?'

  “We still–” Mother sighed. “Could we still do more?” she asked.

  “That's just it,” replied Ákos dully, in a voice devoid of hope. “What more could we do? Nothing. We've done all we can.”

  All we can, the woman thought. Everything humanly possible. We've endured everything.

  And she looked about her. But Ákos was silent again.

  Now she could see that she stood alone–alone in the room, alone in the world, alone with her pain. And her heart was wrung with such despair that she almost collapsed.

  But then her gaze involuntarily wandered towards the ebony crucifix that hung on the wall above their conjugal bed.

  From the black wooden base hung the dear, tortured body, modelled from cheap plaster. The bony ribcage, the chest which tumbled forward ravaged with pain, and the hair, thickly matted with deathly perspiration, all glittered in their coating of thin gold leaf.

  On the boundary between life and death, this swooning Son of God had watched over them for decades. He, who heard their every word and observed their every gesture, who saw into the darkest corners of their hearts, must have surely seen that they weren't lying now.

  He flung open His arms upon the cross, exalting human suffering in a single, heroic gesture that belonged to Him alone since the beginning of time. But His head dropped, anticipating the numb indifference into which it was about to fall, His face already petrified with pain. Even He could not extend the woman a helping hand.