Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

Even Abady, who had formerly followed all such developments with growing concern, kept himself aloof, wrapped up as he was by his personal sadness and his worry over Adrienne. He only attended the sessions in Parliament once, and that was because he had been summoned by the Speaker who had sent a message that more members were needed to make a quorum so that the business of the House could continue. When he got there he discovered that the unfinished business was simply that the House could not legally rise until the date of the next session had been fixed and that there were not enough members present for any decision to be legal. In the past no one had minded or bothered to count: now it was different.

It had started when a Slovak member had been absent and one of his friends had tried to vote for him. A count was taken and there were too few members in the Chamber. Justh adjourned the session while everyone telephoned everyone else to come quickly. At the next count there were still only fifty-nine when there should have been at least a hundred.

Pandemonium! Old hands grumbled, but the House Rules were the House Rules and had to be obeyed. Bells rang throughout the House, footmen were sent searching every corner for stray members … and all was in vain, for now only fifty-seven could be rounded up.

Despite every effort by five o’clock only sixty-seven supporters had been gathered in. Only sixty-seven: no one else could be found.

This is when they thought of Abady, who hurried in a little after eight. As he passed along the corridor he found he had to pass a laughing group of People’s Party members who were merrily puffing at their cigars and gloating over the impotent rage of Justh and the more vociferous anger of Hollo. And the more they discussed it all, the more it was obvious that for them it was all the most enormous joke.

‘Don’t hurry!’ one of them called to Abady. ‘There never was such a lark! Come with us to the bar and drink some champagne. Nothing’s going to be settled until noon tomorrow at least. And why rush to the aid of those separate-bank cranks?’

In the Chamber they were counting heads, but even with Abady there were still only ninety-eight. Meanwhile the clerks kept rushing in with more news of absent members and whether they would come in or not. Then, all at once, the number jumped to one hundred and four, and the Speaker dashed out calling: ‘Stay where you are, everybody! Please stay just a moment!’ Jubilation! Then the Speaker returned with Justh and the session was legally brought to an end with no surrender on either side.

Balint walked slowly home. He was filled with sadness, for what had rejoiced the fractious People’s Party and deeply angered the Independents had merely induced in him a sense of gloom and depression. So this is what they had come to, all those politicians who not so long ago had taken office with such enthusiasm and such patriotic fervour! To think that Parliament itself, for so long the pride, indeed the glory, of the Hungarian people, could be desecrated by such a miserable, pathetic performance!

There were those who thought of it as nothing but a huge joke, and there were those who saw nothing but a clever manipulation of those tiresome Rules. There was also, and this was perhaps the most depressing thought of all, that large majority who didn’t even bother to attend the House as the debates had become little more than word-chopping and argument. The Upper House no longer even met and all law-making had long since ceased. Indeed, thought Balint, there was no longer a government, no one party had a majority and the whole machinery of governing the country had ground to a halt. It was all meaningless, empty, like the dried carcass of a dead insect from which all life had long since departed. There were plenty of good men there, honest fellows from the country, and there were honest and experienced leaders too, men like Andrassy and Wekerle, full of goodwill and selfless devotion; but they were powerless in the morass of the present malaise. It was as if a curse had fallen on Hungary.

After this brief interlude came more days and weeks of empty monotony. The public and political indifference weighed on Balint’s spirits like a leaden cloak. He felt alive only when he sat down to write to Adrienne.

At first he wrote only occasionally, but as time went by his letters became ever more frequent until by the end of October he was writing every two or three days. He no longer cared if anyone noticed at Almasko. He did not even care if his letters stirred up trouble, indeed he would have welcomed trouble which would at least have rescued him from that hell of ashes in which he was living. So he poured out his soul into more and more letters, pleading, demanding, hotly exacting a decision; and since he wrote with passion and thought, weighing every word and every argument, the letters were good ones. He searched his mind for words of reproach which he knew would strike home, for he wanted her to be so hurt that she might be forced into action. He wrote about the spiritual misery of his life of exile, how he spent night after night alone in his dark little hotel room, how he dreamed every night of Denestornya, of that beloved home he had thrown aside for her sake. And then there would be letters in which he wrote only that he could not write because he had nothing in the world to write about.

Sometimes he would include something more trivial. One day, for example, he had run across little Lili Illesvary. It had been a chance meeting just as she was passing through Budapest with the Szent-Gyorgyis, and he had dined with them that night. During the evening he had again been invited to Jablanka and Lili had smiled at him saying, ‘I will be there too!’ Afterwards it had occurred to Balint that he might be able to use this to make Adrienne jealous and so in his next letter he had told her of that occasion in the summer when they had played ‘Up Jenkins’ at the Park Club and he had found himself physically excited by her. He had gone on to praise the girl, saying how sweet and pretty and desirable she was and quoting her words which had seemed then like a caress. It was cruel of him, he knew, but perhaps it would bring some reaction.

Mostly, however, he wrote about that son for whom he longed so much, until his letters spoke of almost nothing but that. Over and over again he wrote how vital it was to him that this boy, his and hers, should be born to them, and how he could think of nothing else but his need for an heir who would be the ultimate bond between them. In his later letters even his desire for Adrienne became merged with his yearning for their boy until the image of this unborn child melted into that of Adrienne herself. It was her body, her beautiful, desirable body, that now became the instrument forged only to bring forth the ultimate object of their love.

Adrienne’s replies, on the other hand, gradually became shorter and shorter. At first she tried to convince him by argument, and, though by no means sure of herself, to explain herself, to convince him that at present it was impossible to come to a decision, to make a definite break. She wrote that she had a great responsibility but that … well, one day … And though her letters became ever more brief and incoherent, through her faltering words there throbbed a passion as affecting as a heartbeat. Finally all she could say was ‘ I think of you all the time…Don’t tortureme … You can’t possibly know‚ youcan’t know …’ and nothing more. For some time she had not mentioned her daughter, and Balint instinctively felt he had chosen the right course and went on writing those cruel letters, though his heart bled for her each time he did it.