The shadows in the room were almost at their deepest. We were still sitting face to face, almost without having stirred since that moment when I had quitted his side so suddenly—to divine how much closer I was to be drawn to him henceforth. Life!—Life and Death!—Life—Love—Death! The sense of eternal kinship in their mystery.... somehow it haunted one then! as it is likely to do when not our unhappiness but a kind of over-joy swiftly oppresses us; making us to feel that in some other sphere, and if less grossly "set within this muddy vesture of decay," we might understand all three... might find all three to be one! Life—Love—Death!...
"Oswald, you will never go away from me!"
"Imre, I will never go away from thee. Thy people shall be mine. Thy King shall be mine. Thy country shall be mine,—thy city mine! My feet are fixed! We belong together. We have found what we had despaired of finding... 'the friendship which is love, the love which is friendship'. Those who cannot give it—accept it—let them live without it. It can be 'well, and very well' with them. Go they their ways without it! But for Us, who for our happiness or unhappiness cannot think life worth living if lacking it... for Us, through the world's ages born to seek it in pain or joy... it is the highest, holiest Good in the world. And for one of us to turn his back upon it, were to find he would better never have been born!"......
It was eleven o'clock. Imre and I had supped and taken a stroll in the yellow moonlight, along the quais, overlooking the shimmering Duna; and on through the little Erzsébet-tér where we had met, a few weeks ago—it seemed so long ago! I had heard more of Imre's life and individuality as a boy; full of the fine and unhappy emotions of the uranistic youth. We had laughed over his stock of experiences in the Camp. We had talked of things grave and gay.
Then we had sauntered back. It was chance; but lo! we were on the Lánczhid, once more! The Duna rippled and swirled below. The black barges slumbered against the stone rakpartok. The glittering belts of the city-lights flashed in long perspectives along the wide river's sweeping course and twinkled from square to square, from terrace to terrace. Across from us, at a garden-café, a cigány orchestra was pulsating; crying out, weeping, asking, refusing, wooing, mocking, inebriating, despairing, triumphant! All the warm Magyar night about us was dominated by those melting chromatics, poignant cadences—those harmonies eternally oriental, minor-keyed, insidious, nerve-thrilling. The arabesques of the violins, the vehement rhythms of the clangorous czimbalom!.... Ah, this time on the Lánczhid, neither for Imre nor me was it the sombre Bakony song, "O jaj! az álom nelkül"—but instead the free, impassioned leap and acclaim,—"Huszár legény vagyok!—Huszár legény vagyok!"
We were back in the quiet room, lighted now only by the moon. Far up, on the distant Pálota heights, the clear bell of Szent-Mátyás struck the three-quarters. The slow notes filled the still night like a benediction, keyed to that haunting, divine, prophetic triad, Life—Love—Death! Benediction threefold and supreme to the world!
"Oh, my brother! Oh, my friend!" exclaimed Imre softly, putting his arm about me and holding me to his heart. "Listen to me. Perhaps.. perhaps even yet, canst thou err in one, only one thought. I would have thee sure that when I am with thee here, now, I miss nothing and no one—I seek nothing and no one! My quest, like thine, is over!... I wish no one save thee, dear Oswald, no one else, even as I feel thou wishest none save me, henceforth. I would have thee believe that I am glad just as thou art glad. Alike have we two been sad because of our lonely hearts, our long restlessness of soul and body, our vain dreams, our worship of this or that hope—vision—which has been kept far from us—it may be, overvalued by us! We have suffered so much thou and I!... because of what never could be! We shall be all the happier now for what is real for us... I love thee, as thou lovest me. I have found, as thou hast found, 'the friendship which is love, the love which is friendship.'... Come then, O friend! O brother, to our rest! Thy heart on mine, thy soul with mine! For us two it surely is... Rest!"
"Truth? What is truth? Two human hearts
Wounded by men, by fortune tried.