Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

For a moment the great Barra stared at Abady in silence, baffled by the intervention of a man he hardly knew and who rarely opened his mouth. He was just about to answer, to slay this troublesome stranger who had dared to interrupt, when Zsigmond Boros, who had been standing on the other side of the group for the last few minutes, got in first.

‘That is a highly intelligent observation,’ he said in his velvety politician’s baritone, ‘but I can assure you that Kossuth didn’t even think of it. It just didn’t occur to him that the decree would cause all this trouble, which just shows how ignorant he is!’ Then, to build up his own reputation and public image, he said, ‘I warned him, when I was still in office and the matter was discussed, but he would not listen to me. That’s why I resigned. I couldn’t say anything about it then, of course, but now it’s different. I mean, now it’s a matter of my country’s well-being and nothing else means anything to me or ever will!’

The great Barra now found himself in a dilemma. He hated Kossuth, but he also hated anyone who drew attention away from himself and stole his thunder. Angrily he went on, ‘I’m not here to defend the Economics Minister, even if he is ignorant, uninformed and often weak too, but I must say that patriotism will always find a way, through no matter what obstacle — nay, through hellfire itself — to defend the nation’s best interests. It is this flame, burning away always in our breasts, which lights the way to the future, and which has guided my way all down the years … and remember this — our country, our nationhood, our constitution, everything that we hold dear, draws its inspiration from that one word alone.’

At this moment an usher came up to Abady and tapped him on the shoulder. He had been sent for by the Minister. He turned and hurried away to the private office and, even as he reached the end of the corridor, he heard the meaningless phrases thundering on: ‘… because, I declare to you all, that I shall never falter nor waver in my view that what this country’s welfare demands is …’

Half an hour later Balint left the Houses of Parliament with the Minister’s appointment in his pocket. The same evening he started for home and, for the first time since he had entered politics, he was returning happy with a sense of achievement. At last he would be able to be of use; at last he would be able to put into effect some of his plans to help the people in the country districts he knew so well.

Before falling asleep he wondered in which district he should start his new organization. The choice was between the rolling prairies near Lelbanya or the mountain villages of the Kalotaszeg. He was still going over in his mind the merits of both when he dozed off. His last thoughts had rather favoured Kalotaszeg because there, at the foot of the mountains, were Hungarian communities where he would be able to recruit the necessary local leaders who could help him forge a link with the Romanian villages high in the forests. Yes, he thought, that was where he should start; and, faintly echoing in the deep recesses of his consciousness — now almost overcome by sleep — was the thought that there, between the valleys of the Koros and the Almas, was the ridge with a little log-cabin waiting in that clearing in the forest where, hidden from the rest of the world, protected and in secret, he would soon be able to relive the joys which had so stirred his blood a year before in Venice.

Roza Abady was overjoyed to welcome her son back at Denestornya. She had been prouder of him than ever before when she heard of his speech in Parliament and this she had read aloud several times to her two housekeepers, Tothy and Baczo, who nodded vehemently and marvelled over it at each reading; and once, too, to Azbej, who bowed his veneration, doing so with added fervour as each sentence came to an end. After that she locked it in her desk. Sometimes, when she was alone, she would take it out secretly and read it again to herself. Now, when Balint was himself there and explained to her in detail what his plans were and how he had been appointed by the government to carry them out, she was deeply touched. ‘It’s as if I can hear your dear father speaking again,’ she said, laying her head against his shoulder. Then she asked where he would begin.

‘I’ve been thinking of two places to start with. One would have Lelbanya as its centre, where the co-operative is already working and only needs to have the neighbouring villages tied in with it. The other should be one of the settlements at the foot of the Kalotaszeg, where later we could bring in some of the people in the mountains.’

‘Which will you do first?’

‘Kalotaszeg, I think. So I’ve written to the Prefect of the Hunyad asking him to call the local notaries to a meeting to discuss it.’

‘So you’ll be leaving me again, as soon as you’ve arrived?’

‘I’m afraid so. The meeting is to be the day after tomorrow. At the same time I’ll take a look at the forests.’

Countess Roza’s face clouded over. She looked hard at her son, showing in her slightly protuberant grey eyes that there was something else she would have liked to ask him. However, all she said was, ‘So you’re going there again? So soon?’ There was something pensive in her tone.

A month before two letters had arrived for Balint with the Nagy-Almas postmark.

Countess Roza, to whom all mail was brought at Denestornya before being distributed to the household, knew well Adrienne’s slanting handwriting. Several years before, when Balint had been abroad in the diplomatic service, Countess Roza had always taken special note when envelopes addressed in a woman’s handwriting arrived for her son. These caused her great pleasure as she was secretly proud that he should have his conquests. But it was different when, two years ago, letters had started coming from Adrienne. These filled Roza with anguish. The previous summer, when these letters had stopped arriving, she had been reassured. But lately two envelopes addressed by Adrienne had come within the short period of three weeks, and the anxious mother realized that the affair had started again and feared that that dangerously wicked woman had managed to re-ensnare her beloved son.

She was thinking this, and inwardly was boiling with rage while Balint, self-consciously talking rather too much, was trying to explain his plans to her. ‘Winckler has made all the measurements … painted posts indicate the parcelling … the nursery for young trees … huts for the foresters, maps, tripods …’ He went on until he sensed that his mother was not even listening but was thinking only of one thing, as he was himself, and that was of when he was going to see Adrienne again.

‘So I’m to be left alone as much as when you were abroad en poste ! I suppose I must accept my fate!’ said Countess Abady when he was about to leave her.

Balint took the old lady in his arms and kissed her face and hands.

But his mother pushed him away coldly, saying, in a cool voice, ‘Well! Go, if you feel you have to! Just go!’

The meeting seemed to go quite successfully. It was held in the office of the Prefect of Banffy-Hunyad and attended by the four notaries-public of the district where Balint intended to begin his co-operative movement. Three of them, while accepting Balint’s orders, expressed the gravest doubts as to whether the plan would work, saying that they would be more than surprised if the people of any mountain village would co-operate with those from another by whom they were treated as strangers. These three thought that the idea would never work and that the people would not even understand it. But, naturally, they said, if that was what the government wanted then they would do their best.