Sunflower by Gyula Krudy Read Free Book Online Page A

You’ll always come back here because this is where you find everything worth living for. Your home, your grave, your sky and the land that nurtures you. Eveline, you are a village miss at heart, home-grown rosemary, even if you like to think of yourself as a cosmopolitan lady. Your world is really made of falling snow, autumn leaves in the wind blowing free and springtime greens on the river bank. In the depressing city you are only a hotel guest, rather bored by the hustle and bustle of humanity, and spend your time yawning in the monotony of your room although even its musty air seemed exciting on first arrival. What would you want from those total strangers?”
    â€œI don’t really like them and yet they fascinate me like travel descriptions of distant continents. For me to be alive means coming across ever new acquaintances, new voices, new names, new faces. Even each handshake can be so different. And people’s lies make the most beautiful fairy tales. Everybody tells such lies.” Meanwhile the bachelor made himself at home in her dining room. He opened the cupboard, found the bottle of plum brandy, cut himself a slice of ham, sniffed the aroma of the bread loaf, and proceeded to have himself a leisurely and self-indulgent snack.
    â€œMen aren’t worth a pipeful of tobacco, mark my words. You are twenty-two now. You love travel and travelers, fair-grounds and market women, stylish overcoats and flashy lights. You’ll go back a few more times for a taste of that sorry masked ball. You’ll need life’s disappointments and storms to find the path to happiness. Yes, go on and step out, have a good time and laugh a lot, dazzle and dance on. Sooner or later you’ll have your fill of the masquerade. I’ll be here waiting for you, I won’t go anywhere. But bear in mind that if you decided not to come back one year...I’d be very sad ever after.” So spoke Andor Álmos-Dreamer.
    He said his good-byes and set out. The horseman’s snow-laden figure soon disappeared into the white night.
    Three days later on his island he received a letter from Eveline, requesting Mr. Álmos-Dreamer’s presence at once, for she had important things to tell him. And so the recluse again abandoned his tame otters to find Eveline sitting by her stove, as pale as one afflicted with an ailment of the heart.
    â€œI seem to have become quite a coward. At night I keep hearing footsteps around the house. I wake up and stare at the door as if somebody were here, who won’t let me sleep. I fear the bell-jar silence of the winter night, the noiseless dying of the embers, the shadows of antique furniture, this treacherous provincial house with its lazy hounds and indolent servants. I could be murdered in my sleep, for all they care.”
    Andor Álmos-Dreamer growled in response.
    â€œYou’ll get used to the quiet. Soon you won’t mind the moaning of the wind. Part of you is still in the big city.”
    â€œMademoiselle Montmorency, my paid companion, sleeps as soundly as an aged nun, while my aunt enjoys happy dreams about the gallants of her youth. My maids scribble love letters to Budapest. The bailiff gets drunk every night. I am all alone here, and I am afraid. Someone is lurking around my house. Maybe a vagabond or a highwayman, or else a...”
    Mr. Álmos-Dreamer smiled. “A lover...Just leave it to me, I’ll take care of it. I’ll come back at night and patrol the neighborhood on horseback.”
    That night the moon shone as radiant as a carnival clown. The snow-covered landscape sparkled with built-in stars. The groves stood immobile in their shrouds. It was a blessed winter night, the crowing of the rooster still a long way off. Time to die a hundred deaths until then. A mounted figure resembling a highwayman passed in front of the house and surveyed the moonlit landscape. His horse snorted smoky clouds into the bitter cold air. There came the