Free The Rebels by Sándor Márai Page B

would be found padding down the narrower streets like a wary military detachment, wholly preoccupied. Ernõ and Ábel took care that their exploits should be interesting and should remain within the bounds of the feasible. They fastidiously rejected certain ideas the group threw up as a whole. After a few weeks Béla too learned the ropes. Tibor, with his refined instincts, had no problems adapting to group existence. If the games and exploits they undertook had any rules, they remained unacknowledged, the only criterion being that they should have no practical use. Ernõ described their activities as self-justifying. Béla stole and bought useless things with the stolen money, clothes he would never wear and items of technical apparatus whose application was beyond his understanding.
    They even came up with the idea of having some kind of gang uniform made, something they could wear at home, but they rejected it. Another time they enthusiastically agreed that they should find a tailor out of town and order garments they could never wear because they were too big, or because the trousers or the jacket were hilariously tight, all to be made from the most expensive material that could be found.
    One day Ernõ brought them the address of such a tailor.
    Each of them looked him up individually. Tibor ordered a tailcoat made of white sail canvas with yellow silk lining. Ernõ chose an enormous checkered suit that would have accommodated several of him, the trouser legs being attached at the ankle by means of elastic bands. Ábel ordered a cutaway coat that reached down to his heels. The one-armed one chose a suit that had no sleeves at all, the jacket smoothly stitched at the shoulders, tight and armless.
    Béla decided on a simple riding costume, a scarlet hunting coat, long black trousers. He also procured spurs and a top hat. They spent hours at the tailor anxiously getting themselves measured up, measuring the tails of Ábel’s heel-length jacket to check that it should not be, even a centimeter or two, longer than it needed to be. The tailor thought they were preparing for a carnival.
    He delivered the various articles of clothing in one single lot. The day they first tried them on was March 3, 1918, the day of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.
     
     
     
    T HE NICE THING ABOUT FRIENDSHIP IS THAT IT is unselfish. From time to time they took an inventory of their possessions and divided them up among themselves.
    Béla offered the double-barreled shotgun and a pair of spurs to Ernõ with a cordial smile. By way of return Ernõ presented him with three raw leather soles from his father’s shop along with a little china Virgin and Child.
    Once the habit of exchanging gifts was established it was impossible for the others to refuse. Ábel started by stealing books from home: the second volume of Sons of a Stony-Hearted Man and The Lives of the Saints. The books were dutifully acknowledged. When Tibor stole the colonel’s horn-handled knife, Ábel, in a rush of enthusiasm, offered his aunt’s fortune to the gang. They discussed the offer with a certain reluctance. The word “fortune” awed them: for them it suggested wads of paper money, books full of savings, and any number of precious stones. Eventually they agreed that Ábel should bring them the fortune one afternoon. They put on their specially made costumes for the occasion, and carefully went through the tin box Ábel had delivered precisely on time, rendering an account of all the out-of-date lottery tickets, pawnbrokers’ bills, and worthless old banknotes in a pocket book, before Ábel surreptitiously returned the box to its usual place.
    Everyone contributed to the common store according to his talent. The guiding principle was that the worth of any contribution depended on the peril involved in the object’s removal rather than on its fiscal value. It was reckoned a piece of derring-do to extract an officially stamped book from the school library and to sell the volume