The Pendragon Legend by Antal Szerb Read Free Book Online

Osborne in the lurch, and I can’t let you wander round this crazy country peering out of your specs. You might even get lost and end up in Scotland, and God preserve you from that!”
    “So, we’re off tomorrow on the one-fifteen.”
    “No, no—that’s what I wanted to tell you. A very kind friend of mine, Mrs St Claire, has offered to drive us to Chester. From there we take the train to Corwen, where Osborne will be waiting for us in his car. Is that alright?”
    By now my attack of distrust had passed, and in fact I had something of a guilty conscience as regards Maloney, so I was happy to accept the offer.
    “I’m very grateful to Mrs St Claire for her kindness. But what sort of person is she? Won’t she mind travelling with a complete stranger?”
    “On the contrary. I told her you’re Hungarian and, would you believe it, she said Hungarians really do exist, and she’s extremely fond of them, because their history is so much like ours, we being the Irish. You never mentioned that. She said she absolutely insisted on meeting you, so you could talk about Hungary. She’s going there in August.”
    The story seemed plausible enough. Maloney’s lies generally involved a greater element of fantasy. We arranged to meet the following day at the Grosvenor House Hotel, where the lady was staying.
    When I arrived, Maloney was waiting for me in the foyer.
    “I wired Osborne yesterday to tell him we were coming, and to be there waiting for us. I’ve just had his reply to say that’s fine. The lady will be down in a jiffy.”
    And indeed, a few minutes later a tall, elegant woman in a motoring jacket approached us with a dazzling smile. Once she was close enough for my myopic vision to take in the striking beauty of her face and form, she seemed strangely familiar, and by the time we had shaken hands and exchanged greetings I had recognised her, and remembered what a remarkable person she was. My heart was beating wildly.
    Three years earlier I had spent the summer at Fontainebleau with my friend Cristofoli, an archaeologist and poet. My poor aunt Anna had recently died and I was flush with money. We were lodging, in great style, at the Hôtel de l’Angleterre et de la France, beside the Park.
    One day Cristofoli, who by the way was the most sensitive creature on earth, became much more animated than usual, and announced that he was in love.
    The object of his favour soon arrived. I had actually seen her in the dining room the previous day. She was always alone. And she really was beautiful, not merely by the uniform standards of the age of film but in her own, highly individual way. She was absolutely distinctive.
    Cristofoli was himself a fine-looking young man and extremely enterprising by nature. He had ascertained that her name was Eileen St Claire, a British subject who had arrived from Paris by car. Nothing more was known about her. She appeared only at meal times, after spending the entire day driving her Hispano through the forest, alone.
    Cristofoli passed the day reciting Petrarch’s sonnets while he waited for evening to arrive. He hoped to introduce himself to her during the ballroom dancing session, but she failed to appear there. That night he slept not a wink, nor did he allow me to, and I began to feel a certain antipathy towards the lady.
    The days that followed were more exciting than a hunt. Cristofoli was resourceful and difficult to shake off. As a poet he felt himself above the usual social conventions. Whenever hercar arrived at the hotel he would open the door and help her out. Eileen St Claire would give him a friendly nod and move on without so much as a word. This was done so coolly and so quickly he was unable even to begin reciting the prose poem he had spent so many days devising.
    His last hope was the 14th of July, the national holiday whose cheerful anarchy always brings people together. The entire town was out on the street, dancing, drinking and exchanging familiarities . I was