Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

At these last words Balint looked up suddenly and stared at Tisza.

What an interesting man he was, thought Balint. That last sentence! To think that Tisza not only understood so clearly the ambitions of Russia but had also anticipated the plot that Slawata had outlined a year before when he had tried to recruit Abady to the ranks of those whose aim was the aggrandisement of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the creation of a chain of minor thrones for the Habsburg family.

The slow rhythm of the horses’ hoofs was like the beat of a funeral drum as Tisza went on explaining his innermost fears. As he spoke, his voice seemed to take on a deeper more anxious note. Then followed some prophetic phrases.

‘There are many people who hate us, and there are powerful forces in Europe today that may not find this the moment to provoke a general conflagration; but, mark my words, don’t ever forget that some day, when they think the time has come, there will be a war and it will be fatal to the Monarchy. Our enemies will see to that!’

Then followed some phrases that would have amazed Tisza’s enemies, those who saw him only as the arch-enemy of everything they held sacred. He said, ‘Our first military aim must be to create confidence at home and simultaneously to convince both our allies and our opponents of the reality of our power. It is now absolutely vital to find solutions to all the current disputes concerning the army. Both the ruler himself and the political parties must now put aside all partisan slogans and passions and concentrate, now that we are so surrounded by menace, on building up our forces and strengthening our national resolve. We should be ready for any sacrifice!’

Balint was astonished to hear these words from the very man who was publicly vilified as the arch-enemy of a unified Austro-Hungarian army and whose satanic influence was believed to be at the very root of Vienna’s distrust of the Hungarians. Tisza now fell silent and they rode without anyone speaking. Balint, deeply impressed by those last words, stared hard at the grim-faced rider beside him.

It was now almost dark. The road narrowed, so that Balint and Gazsi, riding on Tisza’s right and left, took a path just below the crest of the hill leaving the highest place to the prophetic politician, who was thus silhouetted black against the faint light still in the sky. His horse was dark too and so was his upright figure, rigid and unrelenting, from the dark saddle to the tall black riding hat. But darkest of all was his face.

He rode on alone, standing out against the darkening sky, always alone, always on the highest part of the hill, forever above the others and forever alone.

His horse carried him forward at a slow even rhythm.

And so they rode on into the gathering night.

IN EARLY AUTUMN Balint Abady made a tour of the country co-operatives he had founded. He travelled in a small car that he had recently bought because it would have taken too long to cover the distances involved by train and horse-drawn carriage. His object was to obtain a clear picture of how all the different branches had developed and what they might need so that he could make a full report to the congress that was to be held in the capital at the end of November.

And, of course, Lelbanya was included in the tour.

Here, thanks to the discretion and persistence of the notary Daniel Kovacs, everything that Balint had planned from the time of his first election as Member for Lelbanya had been achieved. The Co-operative Society was flourishing, and the old manor-house of the Abady family, which Balint had offered as the local headquarters, had been asked for by the town itself, just as Kovacs had predicted. The farmers’ circle had been properly organized and this too had been set up in the same building. The experimental farm had been established on the land surrounding the house, though in a modified form from what Balint had originally suggested. Instead of making a market garden whose produce when sent to market would have seemed to the local people as unfair competition to their own wives’ efforts, the greater part of the land had been turned into a nursery for fruit trees where the farmers could obtain grafted apple, walnut and cherry trees. The small part remaining was used for raising vegetables for seed — but the produce was not sent to the local market. The spring that rose beside the house had been cleaned out and channels dug from it to make a proper irrigation system.

Abady was now sitting with Aron Kozma in the large room that ran the whole width of the house. Kozma was with him because he had been persuaded to accept the task of supervising of all the co-operatives between the Maros river and the valley of Sarmasag — all, that is, except those in Saxon villages which were run by the Saxons themselves. Lelbanya was one of those in his charge.

It was an agreeable spacious room, sunny and clean, quite different from the dirty squalid workshop it had been when inhabited by the untidy and ill-kempt carpenter who had been the Abadys’ former tenant. Now the smell of stale sawdust had disappeared and the walls had been freshly white-washed and covered by the reading-club’s bookshelves. In the middle there was a long table and it was here that meetings were held and where visiting agricultural experts were invited to give lectures.

It was eleven o’clock and the two men had just finished checking the cash-books from the treasurer’s little room next door and going through the heavy registers which had been placed on the long table for them. Now the books had been sent back and Balint and Aron stayed on a few minutes to talk things over.

Balint was just about to get up and return to the local inn, which was proudly called the Grand Hotel and where he was sure to find a queue of petitioners waiting to see him, when a youngish woman came swiftly in through the main door. She seemed to be scared of something and glanced nervously behind her before she closed the door. Then she almost ran to them, gabbling, ‘I am Victor Olajos’s widow. Mr Kovacs is my uncle but he mustn’t know I’ve come to see you. He told me not to, but I thought … I thought there’d be so many people at the inn waiting for your Lordship and if I went there someone would tell him.’

She sat down, rather out of breath, and then, somewhat confusedly, told her tale. She was the second wife of Olajos who had had a son from his first wife. The boy had been two years old when they had married three years before. Now the husband had died leaving nothing to her and no provision for the child. It just wasn’t possible that he had had no money at all. There had been something, dollars from America she thought, but now there was no sign of it and it just wasn’t fair. If it hadn’t been for her uncle taking them in both she and the boy would now be on the streets. But Daniel Kovacs couldn’t really afford it. He had always been poor himself and now he had a growing family to feed and clothe and send to school. She was ashamed to live on his charity so she thought, maybe, that the Chancery Court, the one that looked after orphans … or someone…? This was what she had come to say. She needed help … so perhaps, perhaps his Lordship?

‘Help me! Please help me!’ she said.

Balint was going to ask her for more details but Aron gave him a look to tell him he would explain later and the widow Olajos left quickly, nervously looking around as she went in case anyone had seen her.

‘I know about this business,’ he said. ‘It all happened in our neighbourhood and it’s quite hopeless. Victor Olajos was a tricky customer, shrewd and restless, always up to something and probably none too honest. He may once have had some money but you never know with those people what goes on or where the truth really lies. The first wife’s brother lived in America and when his sister died in childbirth this brother sent 10,000 dollars to be held by the Orphans’ Court and invested for the child’s benefit. He must have sensed that Olajos was pretty unreliable and he wanted to be sure of the boy’s future. I remember it well because it was such a huge sum and so caused a great stir. Then we learned that Olajos had bought a big piece of land at Kortekapu. It was not good land and there was nothing on it but a run-down sawmill. I know it well as it’s quite near our own place. We were all surprised when Olajos died and it came to light that he had somehow induced the Court to pay over to him, as his son’s official guardian, the boy’s whole capital, which had been worth about 50,000 crowns, and had then somehow persuaded the officials of the Court that it had all been invested in a piece of land worth no more, at best, than 20,000 crowns.