Journey by Moonlight

From then on he lived through everything that happened from the grotesque, melancholy perspective of the last day and night on earth. Remembering how they had crowded through the narrow Trastevere streets, shouting out here and there to their teeming friends as they swarmed along to the little church, their every movement so strangely nimble and busily diminutive, he saw with ever greater clarity: “They’re rats. These people are rats, living here among the ruins. That’s why they’re so nimble and ugly, and why they breed so fast.”

Meanwhile he mechanically performed his function as godfather, with Vannina standing at his side directing him. At the conclusion of the service he gave the mother two hundred lire, and with enormous effort managed to kiss his godson, who now bore the name Michele.

(“Saint Michael Archangel, defend us in our struggles; be our shield against the wickedness of Satan and his snares. As God commands you, so we humbly beseech you; and you who command the Heavenly Armies, with the strength of the Lord deliver unto eternal damnation Satan and all the evil spirits who lead us into danger.”)

The service dragged on for ages. After it they all went back to the little tavern. Dinner had already been laid out in the courtyard. As usual, Mihály was hungry. He knew he had now done his duty sufficiently, and ought to be going home to write those letters. But it was no use. He was seduced by his deep culinary curiosity about the celebratory meal, what it would consist of, what interesting traditional dishes would be served. Would anyone else at such a point in his life, he wondered, feel so hungry and so curious about his pasta?

The meal was good. The unusual green pasta they served, pleasantly aromatic with vegetables, was a real speciality and well repaid his curiosity. The hosts were no less proud of the meat, a rare dish in the Trastevere, but Mihály was not so taken with it, viewing the cheese with much greater favour. It was a type he had never encountered before and a real experience, as is any new cheese. Meanwhile he drank a great deal, all the more because Vannina beside him kept generously topping him up, and since he could follow nothing of what was being said, he hoped by that means at least to participate in the general conviviality.

But the wine did not make him any merrier, merely more uncertain, incalculably less certain. It was now evening, Éva would be arriving soon at his lodgings … He really should get up and go back. There was now nothing to prevent it, only that the Italian girl would not let him. But by this time it was all extremely distant, Éva and his resolution and the desire itself, it was all very far away, drifting, an island drifting down the Tiber by night, and Mihály felt as impersonal and vegetable as the mulberry tree in the courtyard, and he too dandled his branches in this last night, no longer merely his own last night but the last night of all humanity.

It was now quite dark, and Italian stars loitered above the courtyard. He stood up, and felt utterly drunk. He had no idea how it had happened, because he did not remember — or perhaps he had simply not noticed — what a huge amount he was drinking, and he had at no time felt the crescendo of desire which usually overtakes drunkenness. From one minute to the next he was completely intoxicated.

He took a few steps in the courtyard, then staggered and fell. And that was very pleasant. He stroked the ground, and was happy. “Oh how lovely,” he thought, “this is where I’ll stay. Now I can’t fall down.”

He became aware that the Italians were lifting him up, and, with a tremendous chattering, were taking him into the house, while he modestly and apologetically protested he really had no wish to be a burden to anybody: the wonderful celebration that was so full of promise should just carry on, should just carry on …

Then he was lying on a bed, and instantly fell asleep.

When he woke it was pitch-black. His head ached, but otherwise he felt sober enough, only his heart was palpitating violently and he was very restless. Why had he got so drunk? It must surely have had a lot to do with the state of mind he had been in when he had sat down to drink: his resistance was so much reduced. Really, there hadn’t been any resistance in him: the Italian girl had done what she wanted with him. Why would she want him to get so very drunk?