Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

Abady himself could think only about the news from abroad.

Almost every day the international situation shifted and changed as dramatically as a kaleidoscope. For the first ten days of January it seemed that war was inevitable. In Vienna the Ballplatz demanded an explanation and an apology for the harsh words uttered by the foreign minister of Serbia. No sooner had this storm subsided than the Montenegrins leapt to their feet proclaiming that they would go to war all on their own, if need be, should the great powers not at once settle their legitimate aspirations. Three days after that everything changed again when the results of the talks between Austria-Hungary and Turkey were made public and as the agreement included the acceptance by the Turks of the annexation of their former province, in return, of course, for an indemnity of some 54 millions, the Serbs found themselves obliged to stop their own protest. For a moment there was a lull … until, all of a sudden, the news came that the Bulgarian army had been massed on the Turkish frontier and that there was general mobilization in Serbia.

All this was treated by the Press, as much abroad as in Budapest, in somewhat subdued tones; but Balint had learned to read between the lines during his years as a diplomat and it became more and more evident to him what a double role was being played by Russia. It was cleverly done but it seemed to him quite clear that while her foreign minister Izvolsky was presenting himself to the great powers at an international peacemaker, he was simultaneously inciting the Serbs to defy Vienna and doing all he could to subvert Bulgaria, who had been much more friendly before the crisis.

There was a further development when Russia agreed to pay an indemnity as a quid pro quo for Turkey’s dropping her claims to Bulgaria. This was easy enough, for Turkey had owed this sum — and much more — to Russia for more than forty years and, by writing it off in this way, a debt that would never have been paid was settled by the stroke of a pen, while Prince Ferdinand could henceforth be greeted as King of Bulgaria by the Tsar at St Petersburg. Nevertheless things were not quite what they seemed, for when Izvolsky told the Russian Duma of the Berlin agreement, which gave Austria-Hungary a free hand in her dealings with Serbia, he also declared Russian support for the southern Slavs, thus heralding the subsequent formation of the Balkan Federation which, three years later, was to attack Turkey and make a mockery of Vienna’s cherished Eastern policies.

As always. these things were hardly noticed by the Hungarians, and life went on as usual in Budapest. Among the party political leaders only Andrassy saw clearly where these events were leading; but he was powerless to act for it was now the great banking issue which occupied everyone’s minds. The alliance between Kossuth and Justh was beginning to wear extremely thin, with one of them supporting the idea of an independent national bank and the other carrying the banner of the traditional links with Vienna. The leaders of the Independence Party could not make up their minds and cheered on alternatively one side or the other. Still it was becoming clear that while Kossuth’s position was progressively weakened so Justh became more and more the choice of the majority.

All this time Abady felt like a sleepwalker. He moved about automatically and had never before felt himself to be a stranger in his own country. His thoughts were only for the sinister developments abroad and for all those otherwise insignificant pointers to what was now going on in those circles close to the monarch and his heir. At Jablanka, where he went for three days’ shooting, they spoke of little else. It was most elegantly done, as was natural in that house, and few words were wasted, for Antal Szent-Gyorgyi did not relish vulgar enthusiasm or indeed any form of exaggeration. But for those with ears to hear the message was clear enough. This time Slawata was not there … but the faithful Pfaffulus, as always, was exceptionally well informed.

The foreign minister Aehrenthal, it seemed, was anxious to settle everything peacefully. As a career diplomat he naturally favoured making agreements without resorting to force, for if the guns were once fired then any subsequent arrangement would be due to the military and not to the diplomatists. For him the true art of foreign politics lay in sitting around a baize-covered table until war was definitely avoided. Opposing this view the war minister, Conrad, strongly urged a sudden attack to eliminate the Serbian opposition, draw Bulgaria back into the Austrian fold and restore the Monarchy’s dwindling prestige in the Balkans. In this he may have been right. It was certainly the last moment when such a move would have been possible, for most of the other great powers had let Austria know that she had a free hand in the matter while Russia was not yet ready to intervene. However the Emperor wanted peace and so, for once, did Franz-Ferdinand, for though he detested Aehrenthal because of his support for Hungarian national aspirations, he hated Conrad even more. In Vienna, therefore, there was a triangular battle behind the scenes in which personal animosity carried more weight than political acumen.

During these winter months it was only possible for Balint and Adrienne to see each other sporadically. Adrienne was busy arranging to spend more and more time away from her husband so as to accustom him to her absence. Had she come to Kolozsvar they could have often been together now that Margit had flown the nest and so, knowing that she would not have been able to resist the temptation, she went to her father’s house for weeks on end on the pretext that old Count Akos was not well and that Judith’s condition had taken a turn for the worse. In this way she could prepare the ground for her divorce, for as yet she did not dare either raise the subject or do anything to bring it about. Her little daughter was still at Meran with her husband’s mother and she was convinced that Countess Clémence would never let the child go back to her mother if she caught the slightest whiff of Adrienne’s plans for divorce. And under no circumstances did she wish to risk the little girl being left with the half-mad Pali Uzdy. So she had to be careful.

It would only, she told herself and Balint, be for a few more months, but until then they had both to be very circumspect and meet only occasionally and for brief encounters, lest anything should happen to destroy their chances.

Now their aim was not only to be always together, possessing each other and wanting nothing more as in the first days of their love. Their longing for a child had become their deepest desire and the phantom boy who held their minds in thrall became more and more real to them as each day passed. In their letters they wrote of little else.

In Adrienne it was symptomatic of the deepest of all female instincts, the urge to give birth and be a mother. It was the strongest expression of a woman’s love that she could give what to them both would be the most precious gift, the richest in shared joy and rejoicing. And the greatest gift any woman can give a man is the child of their love, borne in joyfully accepted pain and in danger of her life.

This is what Adrienne felt during those months and it was with growing joy that she read in Balint’s letters how he shared her yearning. It was a double joy for she knew that the desire to be a father was not natural to all men but rather an acquired social instinct, unknown to primitive peoples and only fostered by the growth of civilization. Even so the urge was strong in some men and Adrienne was all the more grateful that it was so strong in Balint.