Sunflower by Gyula Krudy Page B

shout rang out loud and clear:
    â€œWhy should I pay for your old boyfriend?”
    Diamant, by his lonesome self, flicked his wrist in a resigned gesture but did not budge, assured that Mr. Zöld would soon emerge, yellow with bile, and wearily drop a few banknotes in the dawn intruder’s palm.
    Diamant liked to converse with younger men who presumably respected his illustrious past. Therefore he joined Kálmán in the salon where the old manservant, a billiard marker back in Guszti’s younger days, now served ample libations of complimentary champagne.
    â€œSee, my young friend, your two basic types in Hungary are the count and the Jew. The rest don’t count. They’re a bunch of big zeros. And so is our landlord.” So opined the prematurely old, fat man, who had consumed the greatest number of oysters in Budapest. “Now the historical nobility behaved like simpletons. Always paid up before the loans were due, as if they needed to shore up their credit. Back in ’48, or whenever, they gave up their last holdings, the nobility’s privileges. They voluntarily degraded themselves into commoners, although if there’d been a single Jew in the company, he would have surely spoken up: ‘I’d rather die than let myself be persecuted...’ The Hungarian nobility settled the debts of the past without litigation, dispute or insisting on the highest bid—and what can a tribe expect, when it has voluntarily divested its privileges?”
    In the neighboring room the ivory ball was already spinning in the wheel.
    For the time being Mr. Zöld manned the roulette wheel, with the expertise of a veteran Monte Carlo croupier. (Should the wheel perform poorly, the Madame was ready to spell him; her ring-studded plump hands turned up numbers that made the players curse.)
    Neither Diamant nor Kálmán had the wherewithal for a stake—not even a five-crown piece—to try their luck. Therefore they had a leisurely, heartfelt chat in the salon, while the players’ chaotic hubbub and the jingle of gold and silver filtered toward them like sounds from a distant, exotic province.
    â€œI’d love to be a tenant leaseholder on some village estate...” continued Diamant, signaling the footman for another bottle of complimentary bubbly. “I’d keep young maidservants who’d give me a hand adulterating the wine. Ah, my wife would have money to stuff her straw mattresses with. As for the outlaws, I’d either be pals with them, or else take potshots at them from behind barred windows. I’d have my horses, cattle, children and freedom. Wear a blue housecoat and marry a young girl when I’m a hundred. Yes, I’d grow a beard like my father’s and be lord and master of my house like an Oriental potentate. Now I am just a bum in the big city. A village cur lost in the metropolis, because he ate the folks out of house and home. And who do you think you are, my young friend, Kálmán Ossuary?”
    Kálmán calmly waved his hand.
    â€œI won’t challenge you to a duel, Mr. Diamant, no matter what you toss in my face.”
    â€œI know: you’ll give that satisfaction only to gentlemen! But do you know who are the ones lording it in Hungary these days?”
    Before Diamant could continue, a dreadful howl of rage rang out in the gaming room. A man roared as if he had caught his wife in flagrante. A drowning, raucous howl of murderous intent.
    Kálmán jumped to his feet.
    His stout friend tranquilly restrained his arm.
    â€œLet’em be. Only scoundrels and idiots get into fights.”
    In the roulette room Kálmán witnessed the following edifying scene:
    A gentleman in tails, his eyes reduced to red circles by alcohol and rage, clutched an empty champagne bottle, and threatened at the top of his voice to crack the croupier’s bald skull. The dramatic intermezzo caused only a brief interruption in the progress of