Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Author:Elizabeth Kostova
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Men's Adventure, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780316011778
Publisher: Sphere
Published: 1988-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

THE HISTORIAN

bed was a wooden chest, painted with flowers. The kitchen area, where we sat, consisted of a simple cookstove and a table and chairs. There was no electricity, nor was there a bathroom (I learned about the outhouse in the back garden only later in the visit). On one wall hung a calendar with a photograph of workers in a factory, and on another wall hung a piece of embroidery in red and white. There were flowers in a jar and white curtains at the windows. A tiny woodstove stood near the kitchen table, with sticks of wood piled next to it. ―Helen‘s mother smiled at me, still a little shyly, and then I saw for the first time her resemblance to Aunt Éva, and perhaps also some of what might have attracted Rossi. She had a smile of exceptional warmth, which began slowly and then dawned on its recipient with complete openness, almost radiance. It faded only slowly, too, as she sat down to cut more vegetables. She glanced up at me again and said something in Hungarian to Helen. ―‗She wants me to give you your coffee.‘ Helen busied herself at the stove and served up a cup, stirring in sugar from a tin. Helen‘s mother put down her knife to push the plate of rolls toward me. I took one politely and thanked her in my awkward two words of Hungarian. That radiant, slow smile began to flicker again, and she looked from me to Helen, again telling her something I could not understand. Helen reddened and turned back to the coffee. ―‗What is it?‘ ―‗Nothing. Just my mother‘s village ideas, that is all.‘ She came to seat herself at the table, setting coffee before her mother and pouring some for herself. ‗Now, Paul, if you will excuse us, I‘ll ask her for news of herself and what is happening in the village.‘ ―While they talked, Helen in her quick alto and her mother in murmured responses, I let my gaze wander over the room again. This woman lived not only in remarkable simplicity—perhaps her neighbors here did, too—but also in great solitude. There were only two or three books in sight, no animals, not even a potted plant. It was like the cell of a nun. ―Glancing back at her, I saw how young she was, far younger than my own mother. Her hair held a few gray threads where it was parted on top, and her face was lined with years, but there was something remarkably sound and healthy about her, an attractiveness completely apart from fashion or age. She could have married many times over, I reflected, and yet she chose to live in this conventual silence. She was smiling at me again and I smiled back; her face was so warm that I had to resist an urge to stretch out my hand and hold one of hers where it gently whittled a potato. ―‗My mother would like to know all about

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