Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

The light of the full moon shed such a milky radiance over the mountainside and farm buildings below it that the shadows cast by the barns and stables seemed as dark as soot. The night air was cool and invigorating, and it was either that, or the fact that all the young people had had more than enough wine at dinner, that led to the mischief.

‘Let’s all do something crazy!’ suggested Adrienne, who, back home here at Varjas, felt just as she had years before when it was she who led all their childhood pranks. Here she became a girl again, forgetting her deranged sister, her own unhappy marriage, Uzdy and Almasko; here she was carefree and filled with the joy of being alive and young.

‘Come on!’ she cried. ‘Back to the village. If we look around perhaps we’ll think of something.’

Young Zoltan, who spent most of his time with the estate workers during his holidays at harvest-time, at once had an idea. ‘Everyone says that the night-watchman doesn’t make his rounds any more but sits up at the shop because the Jew pays him more. Let’s go and see if it’s true!’

This would do to go on with, so they all trooped off down the deserted village street where the high pointed roofs of the houses cast cone-shaped shadows on the unmade road.

It was not long before they arrived at the shop, which was dark and silent and firmly closed by iron-bound shutters. They looked around but there was no one to be seen, neither on the steps, nor in the ditch which surrounded the building. So what they had said about him was not true. Then someone suggested that maybe the man went home to sleep and cheated both the village and the shopkeeper.

‘If only we knew where he lived!’ said one of the others. Zoltan knew that too. The night-watchman’s house was at the far end of the village close to the gypsies.

The little band turned and went in search. At the foot of the hill, where a rough track led up to behind the manor-house, they found a little house just across the road from the first of the gypsies’ huts. This too was in darkness but the watchman’s house was brilliantly lit by the moonlight. Under a towering thatched roof there was a veranda with wooden pillars, in the middle of which was the door. Against the door-post was leaning a giant stick as thick as a man’s arm with one end thickened into a club. There it was, sure sign that the village watchman watched no more but had simply gone home to sleep.

Everyone was delighted by this bizarre discovery; it was more than they had hoped for. Someone said, ‘Let’s teach him a lesson!’

‘What shall we do? Steal his stick?’

‘That’d give him a surprise in the morning!’

‘It’s not good enough. We must think of something else,’

The little band stood in the road huddled together, talking in whispers and giggling, all of them trying to think up some prank that was worth playing.

‘If he’s got a cow we could steal it. That would be a lark!’ This bright idea came, most unexpectedly, from Balint, the serious legislator, Member of Parliament for Lelbanya and hardworking apostle of the co-operative movement, who was as much carried away by the infectious merriment of the others as any of them.

The cowshed was close to the house. There appeared to be no one keeping watch; and if there was a dark shadow in front of the gypsy hut on the other side of the road, it did not move and so no one noticed it.

The two Alvinczys opened the door as quietly as possible and Balint and Gazsi tiptoed inside. It was very dark and they could see nothing but, groping their way, they found the cow. Kadacsay quickly untied the halter while Abady grabbed the horns and pulled the animal out of the shed. On the road they were greeted by the others with half-stifled laughter and then they all joined in to drive the beast up the road and away from the watchman’s house.

It was a bizarre procession, the women in silk dresses and high-heeled shoes and the men in thin patent-leather evening pumps and evening clothes and, in their midst, the skinny little cow, sickly and dirty and with her backside crusty with dried dung, being urged on as quickly as possible so that she would not start to make a noise too close to home and thus wake her rightful owner. All went well and the little band was already half-way up the hill and well out of earshot when the cow recovered from her surprise and started mooing pathetically.

Everyone broke out laughing, pleased with their adventure. They were wondering what to do next, discussing where they should hide their prize and what they should agree to say in the morning, when the little cow started to run away, not, as might have been expected, in the direction of home but off the road and straight towards a field of clover that she must have smelt was nearby. Still laughing they all watched her as she fled, lurching awkwardly with tail twisted up and udders swinging right and left and flapping against her hind legs.

The laughter quickly died on their lips as they realized what a catastrophe could follow if the cow was allowed to remain free and started to eat her fill of the dew-soaked clover. If that happened then, like as not, she’d overeat and get all bloated and die of a colic; and that would be a sorry end to the prank! At once they realized she had better be caught again before she did herself any damage.

At first it was just the men and young Zoltan who set off. The first to reach her was the long-legged Adam Alvinczy and his brother Akos, but no sooner had they caught her up than she was off again changing direction and running downhill. After some twenty metres she found herself face to face with Zoltan, Gazsi and Abady but before any of them could catch the rope which trailed from her halter she was off again, racing down towards the reed-covered lake only stopping every now and then to gulp down a mouthful of rich grass.

The race was now on in earnest for the pursuers quickly realized that once she reached the reeds in the lake they would never be able to get near her and prevent her eating her fill of such dangerous food. This had to be prevented at all costs and so the men, running hard, formed a half circle to drive the now terrified animal back up the hill. Lowing dreadfully, she seemed quite wild as she searched for a means of escape.

Now it was the turn of the women to join in the chase for if they did not close the circle at the top of the field the animal would certainly get away again.

Adrienne, Margit and Ida Laczok quickly formed a battle-line at the top edge of the clover field and as soon as the little cow came towards them they danced about, jumping up and down and waving their evening wraps like great furry bat’s wings so as to scare her back. The animal stopped and stared at them. Quickly Gazsi saw his advantage and, creeping up silently behind her, seized the trailing cord. Taken by surprise the little cow, finding herself caught, jumped crazily sideways and rushed down the hillside dragging Gazsi, who had fallen on his stomach, across the wet clover. Gazsi, who had the presence of mind not to let go, soon slowed down the animal until she ran out of breath and stopped. It was this heroic deed which ended the battle. Everyone now crowded round, petting the little cow and letting her have a few munches of clover as a reward, for a little could do no harm.

Then they stopped and looked at each other, laughing because of the state they were all in, muddy to the knees, great smears of earth on the women’s silk dresses, silk stockings soaked and torn and fine leather shoes unrecognizable under the dirt. The men stood there sweating, hair on end and collars awry. The oddest looking, and the funniest, was Gazsi, whose stiff white shirt and waistcoat were so smeared with green from the clover that even the patches that were still white also seemed to glow green in the moonlight.