Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

However, all Uzdy did was to seat himself in a chair in the centre of the room and at once start to explain something. It was a most unexpected subject.

‘Do you know why we use a decimal system, basing everything on multiples of ten? Tell me! Why is it that we count up to ten, and then ten times ten, followed by ten times a hundred and a thousand times a thousand to a million? Do you realize that this is just a legacy of barbaric times when man could only count on his fingers? And mankind has gone along with this, despite the fact that all science is based on units of twelve, and has been forced to carry on this nonsense? The year has twelve months, a day has twenty-four hours, the circle has three hundred and sixty degrees … and yet we still go on with a decimal system, counting everything in tens, just because the world is full of fools too cowardly to touch what has been for so long established! They’re afraid, that’s what it is, afraid! Do you grasp what I’m saying? Well, I’m not afraid. Oh no! Not me!’

He slapped the drawing-board sharply with his long hand, his eyes glinting. For a moment it seemed he was about to jump up in his excitement, but then he controlled himself and went on in a more dispassionate voice, ‘The decimal system has other serious drawbacks. Ten is divisible by only two other numbers, the two and the five; all others produce a fraction. But twelve can be divided by three numbers, by two, three and four. For any mathematical problem this is an incalculable advantage! Yet we’ve thrown this away, ignored the possibilities until now. It’s incomprehensible. You understand that, don’t you? You understand that this is of world-shaking importance?’. And he leaned forward, his lips drawn back showing his teeth tightly clenched, his normally grim tartar face alive with eager expectation.

‘Everything you say is most interesting, but I don’t see any solution.’

‘But I have the solution!’ cried Uzdy, leaping up, his long narrow-shouldered figure almost majestic as he flung his arms wide apart, the very picture of one of the prophets of old. ‘I’ve solved it! Yes, I! And I’ll tell you — but only you, mind you, because you’re the only man I know who could grasp how universally important this discovery is!’

Suddenly he burst out laughing.

‘The solution is utterly simple, as all great natural things are. Look! Sit down here and I’ll explain it to you.’

Balint came forwards and sat down at the table close to Uzdy.

‘I call the twelve ten. From one to nine the numbers remain as they are, but ten and eleven need new names and signs to fit the new numerical order. It may be childish vanity but I’ve named the old ten and eleven Uz and Di, after the two syllables of my name. I had to think of something and of course these two syllables can be pronounced in any language. It follows naturally that the new numbers are written as U and D. Now the secret is this: according to my system, in the old value of one hundred there are one hundred and forty-four units, in a thousand three thousand and thirty-six units. It’s so simple, ten times ten is still a hundred, and ten times a hundred still a thousand — so we keep all the advantages of the decimal system as well as the Arabic figures! On the other hand the year has ten months, the day twenty hours, and the circle three hundred degrees.’

Balint felt his head reeling. He said, ‘Then according to this all historical and astronomical data will have to be altered.’

‘Exactly! That’s just what I’m saying!’ replied Uzdy enthusiastically. ‘And that’s what has scared off anyone who’s thought this out since men discovered how to write. Oh, I admit this is going to be the biggest hurdle when I finally reveal my system to the world. That’s why I’ve worked it all out alone, by myself. I know I’ll still have to work on it for years, but it’ll be well worthwhile. Look how far I’ve got already!’

They went together to study all the data clipped to the boards on the walls. There were five or six long sheets, all covered with figures, attached to each board. Uzdy went on, the words pouring out of him as he set out to explain, ‘Here we have the historical lists! All the most important dates of antiquity — well, not all, for the Babylonian ones haven’t yet been done here — are the Greek … and here the Egyptian …’ The paper rustled as he turned up the sheets with his thin fingers, showing Balint all he had done. ‘Now, here are the mathematical tables, every number up to billions. Maybe that number of figures will satisfy those idiots …’ and words poured from him as he talked of eclipses, comets, quoting figures and numbers sometimes according to the old system sometimes to the new. He seemed to have it all by heart or be able to find what he wanted as soon as he needed it, waving his arms, pointing, stabbing at the sheets with his bony tapering fingers. He did not wait for an answer, for any questions that his hearer might want to put, but talked on and on, his sentences crowded with facts and dates and theories until his hair seemed to stand on end and the veins on his forehead bulged and his mouth widened in joyful fanatic enthusiasm.

This lasted for a long, long time. Abady listened, marvelling at all that Uzdy had learned and studied in the pursuit of his strange mania. As he did so he became deeply saddened.

Dusk had already fallen but Uzdy did not stop. Now this obsessed monologue became ever more confused and rambling as Uzdy paced the room, his long arms flailing as he hurled curses at Archimedes or Newton, abusing their memory and praising himself.

All at once he stopped and sank into a chair, silent. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and then remained there for a moment, immobile and spent. Then he turned to Abady and, with an unusually sweet smile, said, ‘I hope I haven’t bored you. I’ve talked far too much, but you see I am so full of it and it was wonderful at last to be able to tell somebody!’

And when, finally, they went back out onto the lawn Balint saw that his host’s face wore an expression of calm fulfilment.

At dinner that night the conversation was as cold and meaningless as it had been at lunch, perhaps even more random and impersonal. Uzdy, worn out after the excitement of his afternoon with Balint, sat silent and withdrawn and Adrienne hardly spoke. Those two hours that she had spent at her window, suffering endless tortures of anxiety and terror, had filled her with renewed hatred for this house and its inmates. It had been, of course, a relief when she had finally seen her husband and Balint pass below her window calmly talking together, but the release had come too late to make her calm too, too late to wash away the effect of those terrible hours of waiting.

Adrienne found herself filled with a mad desire for vengeance, for the chance to pay back what she herself had been made to suffer, and this longing for retribution strengthened her will. She already knew how she would do it for after dinner she had once or twice seen on Uzdy’s face the tell-tale signs, the constricted mouth, the facial spasms like an animal about to bite, the strange glittering light in his eyes that meant that that night he would come to her room.

It was quite late when everyone rose and said goodnight. For once Uzdy accompanied his wife along the corridor to her room and as he did so he put his arm round her shoulders as if he would press her to him, but Adrienne coldly shook herself free.