Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

And so the circle was closed. The Coalition had been brought into being by using those very same obstructive tactics that had destroyed one government after another. It had come in on a wave of patriotic fervour, brandishing a multitude of popular slogans and promising every chauvinistic project imaginable. That is how the Coalition came to power, dishonestly keeping quiet about the capitulations that had had to be made on the way. And then it had to face the eternal reality of office, that the state’s interests could not be ignored. And here the Coalition had come unstuck: it could not even bring in the universal suffrage law that had been its principal battle-cry.

During its entire term of office the Coalition had achieved nothing. From the very first all those separate parties, though still claiming that they were allies, indeed friends, had done nothing but fight each other. The public good was forgotten, submerged in a sea of party rivalry, and so the only result was to damage the dignity and prestige of that historic Parliament they had all once sworn to preserve.

All this was in Balint’s mind as the train carried him to Jablanka. The first paper told him of the efforts of Aladar Zichy, Andrassy, and even Wekerle, and predicted that one of them would find a solution despite the obstructions offered by the bankers. Another reported that Khuen-Hedervary had been received in audience by the Monarch and appointed to be the next Minister-President with instructions to dissolve Parliament and hold new elections, presumably thereby giving the country the opportunity of voting back the very politicians they had turned against four years before!

And so ended an era in which nothing whatever had been achieved. The balance sheet consisted only of omissions, the worst of which had been the defence of the nation. Four years had been lost; and Hungary was now less prepared even than Italy or insignificant little Serbia.

The express had long since left the Danube. Evening came and Balint found himself still staring through the darkening light onto a sad, sooty, seemingly endless plain. The first snows had melted and it had then frozen again. The train rushed northwards across ice-covered fields. The smoke from the engine swirled overhead and from time to time, whenever the stoker opened the furnace door, bright red glowing sparks were reflected on the frozen earth outside.

In half an hour he would arrive, get out, seat himself in the carriage which had been sent for him; and in another half-hour he would be at the Szent-Gyorgyis’ country place where he would do what he had promised in the telegram he had that morning sent to Adrienne;

It had been his only reply to her letter, and read:

‘AT NOON TODAY I AM LEAVING FOR JABLANKA AS YOU HAVE ORDERED ME TO DO’

† Translators’ note : This last phrase seems to be a Freudian slip on the author’s part for though it hardly makes sense in relation to Balint and Adrienne, it may possibly be an unconscious echo of an important moment in Miklós Bánffy’s own life when he found himself obliged to renounce his love for the well-known actress, Aranka Varady. Some years later, after his father’s death, they married and Katalin Bánffy-Jelen is their daughter.