Poor John Bogdán's breath stopped short.
But he pulled himself together with all his might, looked her firmly in the face with his one eye and said, with a painful effort to steady his voice:
"How do you do?"
"How do you do?" the woman rejoined. He encountered her eyes, saw them widen into a stare, saw them grope over his mangled face, and then quickly turn in another direction, as if she could not bear the sight. He wanted to stop, but he noticed her lips quiver and heard a murmured "Jesus, son of Mary," as if he were the devil incarnate. And he tottered on, deeply wounded.
"She did not recognize me!" the blood hammered in his ears. "She did not recognize me—did not recognize me!" He dragged himself to the bench opposite the station, threw his luggage to the ground and sank down on the seat.
She did not recognize him! The wife of Kovacs, the station-guard, did not recognize John Bogdán. The house of her parents stood next to the house of his parents. She and he had gone to school together, they had been confirmed together. He had held her in his arms and kissed and kissed her, heaven knows how many times, before Kovacs came to the village to woo her. And she had not recognized him! Not even by his voice, so great was the change.
He glanced over at her again involuntarily, and saw her talking eagerly with the station-master. From her gestures, he guessed she was telling of the horrible sight she had just seen, the stranger soldier so hideously disfigured. He uttered a short croaking sound, an abortive curse, and then his head fell on his chest, and he sobbed like a deserted woman.
What was he to do? Go up to the castle, open the door to the servants' quarters, and call out a saucy "Hello, Marcsa" to the astonished girl?
That was the way he had always thought of it. The devil knows how often he had painted the picture to the dot—the maids' screaming, Marcsa's cry of delight, her flinging her arms about his neck, and the thousand questions that would come pouring down on him, while he would sit there with Marcsa on his knees, and now and then throw out a casual reply to his awed, attentive listeners.
But now—how about it now? Go to Marcsa? He? With that face, the face that had made Julia, the station-guard's wife, cross herself in fright? Wasn't Marcsa famed throughout the county for her sharp tongue and haughty ways? She had snubbed the men by the score, laughed at them, made fools of them all, until she finally fell in love with him.