Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sándor Márai was born in Kassa, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1900, and died in San Diego in 1989. He rose to fame as one of the leading literary novelists in Hungary in the 1930s. Profoundly antifascist, he survived World War II, but persecution by the Communists drove him from the country in 1948, first to Italy, then to the United States. He is the author of a body of work now being rediscovered and which Knopf is translating into English.

A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Carol Brown Janeway's translations include Binjamin Wilkomirski's Fragments, Marie de Hennezel's Intimate Death, Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, Jan Philipp Reemtsma's In the Cellar, Hans-Ulrich Treichel's Lost, Zvi Kolitz's Yosl Rakover Talks to God, and Benjamin Lebert's Crazy.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Embers

Random House Large Print Publishing

Chapter One

In the morning, the old general spent a considerable time in the wine cellarswith his winegrower inspecting two casks of wine that had begun to ferment. Hehad gone there at first light, and it was past eleven o'clock before he hadfinished drawing off the wine and returned home. Between the columns of theveranda, which exuded a musty smell from its damp flagstones, his gamekeeper wasstanding waiting for him, holding a letter.

"What do you want?"the General demanded brusquely, pushing back hisbroad-brimmed straw hat to reveal a flushed face. For years now, he had neitheropened nor read a single letter. The mail went to the estate manager's office,to be sorted and dealt with by one of the stewards.

"It was brought by a messenger,"said the gamekeeper, standing stifflyat attention.

The General recognized the handwriting. Taking the letter and putting it in hispocket, he stepped into the cool of the entrance hall and, without uttering aword, handed the gamekeeper both his stick and his hat. He removed a pair ofspectacles from his cigar case, went over to the window where light insinuateditself through the slats of the blinds, and began to read.

"Wait,"he said over his shoulder to the gamekeeper, who was about toleave the room to dispose of cane and hat.

He crumpled the letter into his pocket. "Tell Kalman to harness up at sixo'clock. The Landau, because there's rain in the air. And he is to wearfull-dress livery. You too,"he said with unexpected force, as if suddenlyangered. "Everything must shine. The carriage and harness are to be cleanedimmediately. Then put on your livery, and seat yourself next to Kalman on thecoachbox. Understood?"

"Yes, Excellence,"said the gamekeeper, looking his master directly inthe eye. "At six o'clock.""At half past six you willleave,"said the General, and then appeared to be making some calculation,for his lips moved silently. "You will go to the White Eagle. All you areto say is that I have sent you, and the carriage for the Captain is waiting.Repeat."

The gamekeeper repeated the words. Then the General raised his hand, as if hehad just thought of something else, and he looked up at the ceiling but didn'tsay anything and went upstairs to the second floor. The gamekeeper, still frozento attention, watched him, unblinking, and waited until the thickset,broad-shouldered figure disappeared around the turn of the stone balustrade.

The General went into his room, washed his hands, and stepped over to his high,narrow standing desk; arranged on its surface of unstained green felt were pens,ink, and a perfectly aligned stack of those notebooks covered inblack-and-white-checked oilcloth commonly used by schoolchildren for their home-work. In the middle of the desk stood a green-shaded lamp, which the Generalswitched on, as the room was dark. On the other side of the closed blinds, inthe scorched, withered garden, summer ignited a last blaze like an arsonistsetting the fields on fire in senseless fury before making his escape. TheGeneral took out the letter, carefully smoothed the paper, set his glasses onhis nose and placed the sheet under the bright light to read the straight shortlines of angular handwriting, his arms folded behind his back.

There was a calendar hanging on the wall. Its fist-sized numbers showed August14. The General looked up at the ceiling and counted: August 14. July 2. He wascalculating how much time had elapsed between that long-ago day and today."Forty-one years,"he said finally, half aloud. Recently he had beentalking to himself even when he was alone in the room. "Fortyyears,"he then said, confused, and blushed like a school- boy who'sstumbled in the middle of a lesson, tilted his head back and closed his wateringeyes. His neck reddened and bulged over the maize-yellow collar of his jacket."July 2, 1899, was the day of the hunt,"he murmured, then fell silent.Propping his elbows on the desk like a student at his studies, he went back tostaring anxiously at the letter with its brief handwritten message."Forty-one,"he said again, hoarsely. "And forty-three days. Yes,exactly."

He seemed calmer now, and began to walk up and down. The room had a vaultedceiling, supported by a central column. It had once been two rooms, a bedroom,and a dressing room.

Many years ago—he thought only in decades, anything more exact upset him, as ifhe might be reminded of things he would rather forget—he had had the wallbetween the two rooms torn down. Only the column holding up the central vaultremained. The castle had been built two hundred years earlier by an armysupplier who sold oats to the Austrian cavalry and in course of time waspromoted to the nobility. The General had been born here in this room.

In those days the room farthest back, the dark one that looked onto the gardenand estate offices, had been his mother's bedroom, while the lighter, airierroom had been the dressing room.

For decades now, since he had moved into this wing of the building, and torndown the dividing wall, this large, shadowy chamber had replaced the two rooms.Seventeen paces from the door to the bed. Eighteen paces from the wall on thegarden side to the balcony. Both distances counted off exactly.

He lived here as an invalid lives within the space he has learned to inhabit. Asif the room had been tailored to his body. Years passed without him setting footin the other wing of the castle, in which salon after salon opened one into thenext, first green, then blue, then red, all hung with gold chandeliers.

The windows in the south wing gave onto the park with its chestnut trees thatstood in a semicircle in front of protruding balustrades held up by fat stoneangels, and bowed down over the balconies in spring in all their dark-greenmagnificence, lit with pink flowering candles. When he went out, it was to thecellars or into the forest or—every morning, rain or shine, even in winter—tothe trout pond. And when he came back, he went through the entrance hall and upto his bedroom, and it was here that he ate all his meals.

"So he's come back,"he said aloud, standing in the middle of the room."Forty-one years and forty-three days later."

These words seemed suddenly to exhaust him, as if he had only just understoodthe enormousness of forty-one years and forty-three days. He swayed, then satdown in the leather armchair with its worn back. On the little table withinreach of his hand was a little silver bell, which he rang.

"Tell Nini to come up here,"he said to the servant. And then,politely, "If she'd be so kind."

Continues...

Excerpted from Embersby Sandor Marai Copyright © 2003 by Sandor Marai. Excerpted by permission.
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