In that feathered hat of hers, poor thing, she really did look quite grotesque.

The young man–a handsome but gormless sort–who had been reading until now, set his book down on his knees and stared at the quietly sobbing girl. An offer of assistance kept finding itself on the tip of his tongue, but never passed his lips. He simply couldn't imagine what had happened. Perhaps she had fallen ill, or suffered the kind of “blow” they wrote about in the cheap paperback novels he read.

Skylark paid him no attention whatsoever. She stared resolutely, almost malevolently above his head. He was no different from all the other young men who avoided her gaze and registered her approach with the same spiteful, studied coldness. This was her only form of self-defence.

The boy understood this instinctively. He withdrew his inquisitive gaze and buried it in his book. Skylark changed places. She sat down facing the priest, who all this time behaved as if he had noticed nothing. He was reading from a breviary printed in red letters, resting his head against the inner window of the corridor. The protruding cheekbones of his somewhat sickly face betrayed a kind of inner peace.

He wore a threadbare cassock with a button missing and a crumpled celluloid collar. This slight, humble soldier of the cross, who had returned to his village to grow old, engulfed by love and goodness, knew exactly what was going on. But out of tact he said nothing, and out of sympathy showed not the slightest sign of interest. He knew the world was a vale of tears.

Only now did he cast a glance at the girl, his keen, blue eyes intense from regular encounters with the Lord; a steadfast glance that caused Skylark no offence, and almost seemed to cool her burning face. She looked back gratefully, as if to thank him for his kind attention.

She still had tears in her eyes, but no longer shook or sobbed. Before long she had completely calmed down. She gazed at the passing countryside and, from time to time, at the worn and haggard priest, who, past sixty and already nearing the grave, radiated a certain serene simplicity, reassuring and consoling her without words. Throughout the journey they did not speak at all.

Some thirty minutes later the young man got to his feet, slung his double-barrelled shotgun over his shoulder, picked up his hunting hat and left the compartment. Skylark nodded a silent goodbye.

At Tarkő the priest helped her down with her baggage. Uncle Béla stood waiting by his chaise, his friendly, dumpy face, discoloured by the healthy air of the plains, shining as he beckoned. As always, a cigarette burned between his teeth.

Skylark smiled. Her uncle's beard was yellow-red, just like the Persian tobacco he always smoked. His familial kiss reeked of the same tobacco.

And someone else was waiting for her, too. Tiger, the hunting dog. She ran alongside the chaise when they set off, and was still beside them when they reached the farmstead.

III

in which we learn a thing or two about Mother and Father's first day alone

Ákos Vajkay, formerly of Kisvajka and Kőröshegy, retired county archivist, and his wife Antónia Vajkay, née Bozsó, of Kecfalva, gazed after the train as it panted out of the station and dwindled to a smoky black dot on the horizon.

They stared dumbly into space like the speechless victims of some sudden loss, their eyes still hankering after the spot where they had last seen her. They couldn't bring themselves to walk away.

When people go away they vanish, turn to nothing, stop being. They live only in memories, haunting the imagination. We know they go on being somewhere else, but no longer see them, just as we no longer see those who have already passed away. Skylark had never left them like that before.