Miklos Banffy - They Were Divided

For Countess Roza the game was an easy one, for she was kindly by nature and now she had many happy childhood memories to recall and relate. And while she did so she often looked covertly at the young man’s face, as if searching in his dark-featured Tartar looks for a resemblance to her old playmate.

When they had finished their coffee after lunch the hostess suggested that they should all go down to the lower part of the park to look at the horses which, after the hay had been gathered in the meadows in the mountains, were always brought back to graze at Denestornya.

‘We should start at once,’ she said, and asked Balint to order the horses to be put to an open carriage so that they could do the rounds before it got dark.

‘My dear Mama, it’s only five minutes’ walk. They’re all quite close to the house, just the other side of the millstream.’

‘Never mind that, I’d rather drive. Will you come with me?’ she said to Aron. ‘They could drive us round the park so as to give you some idea of the place as it’s your first visit.’

This offer was also intended as an honour for the visitor, an honour which Countess Roza always enjoyed bestowing because she, like her father and grandfather before her, had spent much of her life in planning and beautifying the castle’s surroundings. She loved it all and she was proud that she had been able to carry on the family tradition of planning not only what she herself would enjoy but also for the future, for her successors. She and her forebears had always known and understood that this sort of landscape, whose noblest feature was the plantations of trees, was only achieved through the devotion of several generations. To see the effect that was then planned one had to wait at least half a century, and so Countess Roza’s pride in what had been so unselfishly achieved was only natural.

While his mother and their guest strolled down to the horseshoe court where the carriage was waiting for them Balint took Gazsi straight to the rose gardens which had been laid out on the terrace in front of the north side of the castle. From there they only had to descend a double flight of stone steps to find themselves on a wide path leading through the park which was bordered on each side by plantations of native oak trees whose tall straight trunks and pointed crowns always reminded visitors of cypresses. Here they waited for a minute or two while the carriage was driven in a wide semi-circle to cross the first bridge over the river. A few hundred paces in front of them was the millstream, and in the meadows beyond they could see mares and their offspring through the mostly bare branches of the intervening trees.

For a few moments they walked on slowly without speaking. Finally Balint said: ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about everything you told me yesterday. I’m sure that your trouble is that you’re too much alone at Bukkos. You think too much, and then you start brooding! You ought to get married …’

‘The Devil I should!’ exclaimed Gazsi with an angry wave of his hand.

‘I mean it!’ said Balint. ‘If you got married you’d see everything in quite a different light … and you’d have little Kadacsays you could bring up in whatever way you wanted.’

‘Devil take it,’ repeated Gazsi and paused. Then, a little later, he said, ‘I could never cope with a girl of our class, you know, I’m … well … I’m, I’m too much of a peasant myself. Some little maidservant, perhaps, from time to time, that’s my style, if you like … but some over-r-r-refined young comtesse ; no thank you! Anyhow I’m such a clod that there’s no one of that sort who’d ever want to marry me !’

‘Oh yes, there is; plenty of them. What about Ida Laczok? She’s been pining for you for years. She’d marry you tomorrow if you asked her,’ said Balint and then went on to say what a nice, clever and simple girl she was and, just as an added bait, how everyone knew she had always been in love with him.

‘The Devil she is!’ said Gazsi once more, but with less disbelief than before.

‘It’s true! Ever since the ball at Var-Siklod — don’t you remember? She’d be just right for you. Pretty, healthy, very competent in the house too. You know her mother relies on her, not on the others. She’s the right age and what’s more she’s no one’s fool.’

This time Gazsi made no answer at once but looked unusually thoughtful. Then he said, ‘Perhaps you’re right … but … Bah! Who knows?’

Then they talked of other things.

Countess Roza’s visit to the brood mares lasted for some time because she took the opportunity to tell her guest everything there was to know about each and everyone of the twenty-four mares and their pedigrees and offspring. Her discourse was long and detailed, and, to anyone interested in breeding horses, extremely informative, because she knew what she was talking about and had had many years’ experience.

One of her most interesting theories was about the transmission, not only of build but also of character and temperament, and how to ensure its continuity in a breeding programme. After a while she drove off with Kozma to show him more of the estate while Balint and Gazsi walked up to the pine woods that covered the highest part of the parkland.

By the time they got to the top of the hill the afternoon light was already beginning to fade to a uniform greyness. They had arrived just where one of Balint’s ancestors had had built a little classical pavilion or summer-house which consisted of little more than a domed roof supported by stone columns. It was surrounded by some of the oldest pine-trees in the park and before it stretched a wide clearing bordered by plantations of different specimens of rare trees. At the bottom of the hill there wound the path they had ridden along that morning and beyond it could be seen the castle’s walls with, above them, the conical roofs which capped the corner towers. The old stonework was etched in deep violet against the pale evening sky and the patina on the copper casing on the roofs no longer shone green but seemed black against the saffron-yellow of the sunset.

They sat down, even though it was starting to get cold.

‘What a wonderful place this is,’ said Gazsi. ‘I’ve never been here before.’

They sat in silence for a little while. Then, though without knowing what train of thought led him to the subject, unless it was the contrast between the beauty and richness of Denestornya and the squalor and unhappiness he had recently witnessed, he said suddenly, ‘I saw Laci the other day, poor fellow!’

‘Really? Where? When?’ asked Balint eagerly.

‘Just the other day … when I was coming back from Szilagy.’

For a moment Gazsi said no more. Then he related how he had been passing through Kozard and that, in front of a largish peasant’s house on the right-hand side of the road, he had seen Laszlo Gyeroffy sitting on a broken-down garden chair. It was only just as he was driving past that he had realized who it was and, as it had taken a moment or two to make the coachman understand what he wanted, he had already been driven well past the house before he had been able to stop and get out. Then he had had to walk back, past some empty land, to reach the place where he had seen Laszlo. As he had nearly got close enough to call out a greeting Laszlo had got up, turned away from him and slipped quickly into the house.

‘I didn’t know what to do. Should I go in after him … or just go away again? I’m such an ass in this sort of thing. Well, I just tur-r-rned on my heel and left. What else was there to do? He saw me coming, so I r-r-reckoned that if he went in it must be because he didn’t want to see me.’