Journey by Moonlight

At the door he found, to his immense surprise, Vannina and another Italian girl. They were dressed very festively, with black silk scarves on their heads, and had apparently washed with more than usual thoroughness.

“Oh,” said Mihály, “I am delighted,” and began one of his longer stammerings, since he utterly failed to grasp the situation but had insufficient Italian to cover his embarrassment.

“Well then, are you coming, signore?” Vannina enquired.

“Me? Where to?”

“To the christening, of course.”

“What christening?”

“Why, the christening of my cousin’s baby. Perhaps you didn’t get my letter?”

“I didn’t get it. Did you write to me? How did you know my name and my address?”

“Your friend told me. Here it is, written down.”

She took out a crumpled note. He recognised Szepetneki’s writing. It read: “The Rotund Cabbage,” followed by Mihály’s address.

“Did you write to this name?” he asked.

“Yes. Funny name. You didn’t get my letter?”

“No, absolutely not, I can’t think why. But do come in.”

They went into the room. Vannina looked round, and asked:

“Is the signora not at home?”

“No, there is no signora.”

“Really? It would be so nice to sit here a while … But we still have to christen the bambino. Come along, come quickly. People are already starting to arrive, and we can’t keep the priest waiting.”

“But my dear … and … I never did get your letter. I’m so sorry about that, but really I wasn’t prepared, today … ”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t matter. You aren’t doing anything. Foreigners never have anything to do. Get your hat and come. Avanti.”

“But just at the moment I’ve a lot to do … An awful lot, and very important.”

And he became quite serious. It all came home to him, and he saw the familiar ghastliness of the situation. In the middle of composing his suicide note they were pestering him to go to a christening. They burst in on him with their precious stupid business, the way people always burst in on him with their precious stupid business when life was sublime and terrible. And sublime and terrible things always happened to him when life was stupid and precious. Life was not an art-form, or rather, it was an extremely mixed genre.

Vannina got up, came over to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“What is this important business?”

“Er, well … I have letters to write. Very important letters.”

She gazed into his face, and he turned away in embarrassment.

“It would be better for you if you came now,” she said. “After the christening there’s a big celebration dinner at our place. Have some wine, and after that you can write those letters, if you still want to.”

Mihály looked at her in amazement. He remembered her gift of prophecy. He had the distinct feeling that the girl could see into him and had understood the situation. He suddenly felt ashamed, like a schoolboy caught red-handed. Now he saw nothing sublime in his wish to die. The elevated gave way to the mundane, as always happened. One really couldn’t keep the priest waiting … He put some money in his wallet, took his hat, and they set off.

But as he let the two women go on ahead down the darkened stairwell, and stood there alone, it suddenly struck him what unqualified stupidity it was, going off to a christening with these Italian proles he didn’t know from Adam. That sort of thing could happen only to him. He was on the point of running back and locking the door behind him, but the girl, as if sensing this, locked her arm in his and pulled him into the street. She hauled him along towards the Trastevere like a calf. Mihály felt that wonderful feeling of old, from the adolescent games, when he had been the sacrifice.

The relatives and friends, some fifteen or twenty strong, were already gathered in the tavern. They talked a very great deal, to him as well, but he understood nothing as they spoke in the Trastevere dialect, and besides he was not really paying attention.

Only when the young mother appeared with the bambino in her arms did he feel the full horror. The skinny, sickly ugliness of the mother and the yellowness of the baby terrified him. He had never liked children, whether new-born or in their later stages. He detested and feared them, and had always felt uncomfortable with their mothers. But this mother and this new-born babe were loathsome in a quite special way. In the ugly mother’s tenderness and the ugly babe’s defencelessness he sensed some kind of satanic parody of the Madonna, some malicious uglification of European man’s greatest symbol. It was such an apocalyptic kind of thing … as if the last mother had given birth to the last child, and none of those present had any idea that they were the last people alive, the excremental deposit of history, the dying Time-god’s final and absolute gesture of self-mockery.