CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURThere was a bleeding cut below his eye, where he had got too close to flailing fists. Involuntarily, he dragged his hand through his hair as if he couldn’t deal with this; and with a sudden return of fear, I realized that he was afraid, afraid of what my grandfather would do to the situation.
The peasants too now saw the old Count for the first time — I could tell from the threatening rumble which rippled round the crowd.
My grandfather was speaking with barely controlled rage. “You think you can fix this with a few speeches? Go on, tell me how you can fix it!”
“Fix it? I can’t. We all have to...”
But my grandfather would not let him speak. Already he was interrupting, his old voice louder now than Lajos’s poor, worn out one. “No, of course you can’t. But you began i
