The only amusements left me were the café or the pâtisserie, where, since the stakes at cards were usually too high for me, I was reduced to playing billiards, or chess, which was cheaper still.

And so one afternoon — it must have been somewhere about the middle of May, 1914 — I was sitting in the pâtisserie with our local apothecary and deputy mayor, who from time to time took me on at chess. We had long since finished our customary three games, and were chatting away out of sheer inertia — what was there to do in this boring hole? — but the conversation was already petering out like a smouldering cigarette-end. Then, suddenly, the door opened, and a billowing skirt swept in a gust of fresh air and a pretty girl: brown, almond eyes, dark complexion, superbly dressed, not a bit provincial, and, what was more, a new face in this Godforsaken monotony. But alas! the elegant nymph did not vouchsafe us a glance as we looked up in awed admiration; briskly and spiritedly, with firm athletic tread, she walked past the nine little marble-topped tables straight to the counter, where she proceeded to order cakes, pastries and liqueurs by the dozen. I was immediately struck by the very obsequious way in which the proprietor bowed to her; never had I seen the back-seam of his swallow-tails arched so tautly. Even his wife, the buxom, overblown provincial beauty, who was accustomed to accept the attentions of us officers in the most perfunctory manner (we were often in debt for all kinds of little trifles until pay-day came round), rose from her seat at the cash desk and almost dissolved in treacly politeness. While the worthy proprietor was entering her order in his book, the pretty young lady carelessly nibbled at a few chocolates and made conversation with Frau Grossmaier: but as for us, who were, I fear, craning our necks with unseemly eagerness, we were not accorded so much as the flicker of an eyelid. Naturally the young lady did not burden her pretty hands with a single parcel; everything, Frau Grossmaier humbly assured her, would be sent at once without fail. Nor did it even enter her head to pay at the cash desk like us ordinary mortals. We all realized at once that here was a quite unusually grand, distinguished customer.

As, her order completed, she turned to go, Herr Grossmaier rushed forward to open the door for her. My friend the apothecary also got up to bow most respectfully as she swept past. She acknowledged the courtesy with regal graciousness — devil take it, what velvety deep-brown eyes! — and I could scarcely wait until, overwhelmed with sugary compliments, she had left the shop, to begin pumping my companion about this swan in our duck-pond.

‘You mean to say you don’t know her? She’s the niece of ... (I shall call him Herr von Kekesfalva, although that was not his real name) Kekesfalva. Surely you know the Kekesfalvas?’

Kekesfalva — he threw down the name as though it were a thousand-crown note and looked at me as if expecting me to echo as a matter of course, ‘Kekesfalva! Ah yes, of course!’ But I, a recently transferred subaltern, dropped into this new garrison only a few months since — I in my innocence knew nothing of this most mysterious deity and politely asked for further information, which my companion proceeded to impart with all the complacent pride of a provincial, far more long-windedly and in greater detail, of course, than I shall retail it here.

Kekesfalva, he explained, was the richest man in the whole neighbourhood. Practically everything belonged to him, not only the Kekesfalva estate — ‘you must know the house, you can see it from the parade-ground, the yellow house to the left of the high-road with the flat tower and the huge park’ — but also the big sugar-factory on the road to R., the saw-mill in Brück and the stud-farm in M.; they all belonged to him, and six or seven blocks of houses in Budapest and Vienna as well. ‘Yes, you’d scarcely believe that we can count such colossally rich people among our neighbours. Why, he lives like a grandee! In winter in the little palace in the Jacquingasse in Vienna, and in the summer in various watering-places; he only keeps his house here open for a few months in the spring, but lord, what style he lives in! Quartets from Vienna, champagne and French wines, everything tip-top, the best of everything.’ And incidentally, if I cared, he’d be only too glad to give me an introduction, for — with an expansive and complacent gesture — he was on the best of terms with Herr von Kekesfalva, had had frequent business dealings with him in the past and knew that he was always glad to welcome officers to his house. A word from him and I should receive an invitation.

Well, and why not? One positively suffocated in this stagnant duck-pond of a provincial garrison town. By now one knew all the women on the promenade, knew each one’s summer hat and winter hat, best dress and everyday dress, they were always the same. And one knew their dogs and their maids and their children, one had passed and repassed them time without number. One knew all the culinary arts of the fat Bohemian mess cook, and one’s palate was gradually being dulled by the sight of the everlastingly unvaried menu at the hotel. One knew by heart every name, every sign-board, every notice in every street, every shop in every building and every show-window in every shop. By now one knew almost as precisely as Eugen the head waiter at what time His Worship the magistrate would appear in the café; on the stroke of half-past four he would sit down in the window corner on the left and order a café mélange, whilst the notary in his turn would come in exactly ten minutes later, at four-forty, take a cup of tea with lemon — blessed variation! — because of his poor digestion, and, puffing away at the everlasting cheroot, retail the same old jokes. God, one knew every face, every uniform, every horse, every driver, every beggar in the whole neighbourhood, one knew even oneself to the point of satiety! Why not break away from the treadmill for once? And then, that pretty girl, those deep-brown eyes! And so I told my patron with feigned indifference (no over-eagerness before this conceited vendor of pills!) that it would be a pleasure, to be sure, to make the acquaintance of the Kekesfalva family.

And lo and behold! my valiant apothecary had not been humbugging. Two days later, swelling with pride, he handed me a printed card on which my name had been neatly inscribed; and this invitation-card informed me that Herr Lajos von Kekesfalva requested the pleasure of the company of Herr Leutnant Anton Hofmiller at dinner at eight o’clock on Wednesday of the following week. One wasn’t dragged up in the gutter, thank God, and knew what was proper in such circumstances! So on the following Sunday morning I got myself up in my very best — white gloves and patent-leather shoes, my face relentlessly shaved, a drop of eau-de-Cologne on my moustache — and drove out to pay my courtesy call. The butler — old, discreet, well-cut livery — took my card and murmured apologetically that the family would be extremely sorry to have missed the Herr Leutnant, but they were all at church. So much the better, said I to myself. Paying one’s first call, whether official or private, is always a ghastly business. At any rate, you’ve done the right thing.