Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

‘Oh, yes,’ cried Gazsi. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve often noticed that in company …’

‘The company of horses?’ interrupted Adam, who resented having his own pessimistic attitude adopted by anyone else, especially by Gazsi.

This made Kadacsay angry. Adam’s scornful tone seemed to touch some deep wound within him, some sorrow of whose existence even he may have been previously unaware. Always before he had reacted to such mockery with such comic self-deprecation that everyone laughed. Today, however, perhaps because he had had a lot to drink, the mask of comedy had dropped and everyone could see he was offended.

‘I suppose you think that just because a man knows how to ride he must be a complete dolt? Of course I spend a lot of my time with horses — perhaps too much; but I can still think when I’m in the saddle, and that wouldn’t be easy for you even standing still!’

Balint sensed that the conversation was getting dangerously out of hand and decided to intervene, ‘Well, Gazsi, let’s hear what you do think! Tell us!’

‘Yes! Yes! Do go on, Gazsi!’ cried the ladies, ‘and then we’ll tell you what we think.’

Kadacsay leaned his head on one side and his plaintive eyebrows rose even higher than usual. With his long nose he looked like a raven contemplating some strange object. Fixing his eyes on the table-cloth, as if he could read something there, he started to talk, though at first in broken phrases. His manner was dreamlike, but his logic did not falter. Using rather too many words and often repeating himself, he said that no matter what one achieved, no matter what joy came one’s way, it was never enough; there was always some further goal before complete happiness could be won. No one could ever say, ‘Now I wish for nothing more!’ Whatever Fate sent one’s way, somehow it was never enough. It was not a question of wanting more of the same thing, it was just that there was always something else, something one did not yet have but which was or now seemed necessary for complete happiness. It was this constant desire which kept human joy in check, for everyone felt that if only he could achieve just this one little thing more then all would be well. It was the same with unhappiness. No matter what terrible sorrow came one’s way there was always some tiny grain of hope to be one’s consolation and which kept one from despair. It didn’t matter what one called it — duty, a debt to be paid, a moral obligation — there was always something more to be done despite the shattering blow one had just suffered. When someone very dear to one died, there were things to be done and people to be cared for. And in every other sort of sorrow there was some compensation which provided its own joy, something that could not be left undone, some work to be concluded, some person who needed care and help — be it a relation or a friend or servant, or even an animal. It did not matter who or what it was but there was always someone or something for whose sake one must accept the sorrow and bear it with fortitude, for that someone or something had no other person to whom to turn. Even the profoundest mourning had its compensations.

‘It is like a giant scales,’ said Gazsi. ‘One side of the balance holds happiness, the other sorrow. And they are always there in equal measure, no matter if one side seems full and the other almost empty!’

Kadacsay was gesticulating with fingers that were stiff from so much riding. Some of the others tried to laugh, but Gazsi’s eye looked gravely at them with something of the fixity of a fanatic.

‘Well,’ someone said. ‘What happens if one side of the balance is completely empty, if all the weight is on the side of happiness?’

‘Then whoever it was would dance and sing all day and would soon be locked in the madhouse!’

‘And if it were all unhappiness?’

‘He’d shoot himself!’

As Gazsi had been talking old Rattle came back into the room. He listened with growing amazement. Now he said, ‘Do you think I’m not grieving for my beloved wife? Why, I think of nothing else, day and night! Where on earth did you read all this nonsense, my dear boy?’

‘Nowhere!’ said Gazsi. ‘What with the army and the horses I’ve hardly had time to open a book … unfortunately. I’ve lost a lot of time but I’m trying to make up for it now. I just hope it’s not too late.’

‘The Devil take all that reading, dear boy! I had a chum in Italy, such an ass, a real bookworm, never had his head out of some work by goodness knows what idiotic philosopher; he’d even read by the camp fire! I’ll tell you a story about him; it’s really very funny.’

He pulled up a chair facing Gazsi and, despite the united protests of his daughters, started off his tale with gusto.

‘Listen! This happened when we were in camp after the battle of Calatafimi. This chap was there with us and, for some reason, the kindling wouldn’t take. Now there wasn’t much wood to burn — and very little else — so I said why the hell do we need a fire anyway? And then I said …’

Abady looked at Kadacsay as he sat facing the old soldier. Sometimes he inclined his nose to the right and sometimes to the left but all the time, though he seemed to listen, a tiny smile lurked under his moustache, a bitter, slightly mocking smile, and his forehead was lined with a deep furrow which Balint had never seen before. It was now that he recalled that when Gazsi had stayed at Denestornya the year before he had asked for a volume of Schopenhauer from the library and he wondered what deep hunger for learning and self-knowledge possessed this man who everyone believed thought of nothing but horses and playing the fool.

Rattle never finished his tale, though not for want of talking. He went on and on, occasionally bursting into loud peals of laughter, until the guests started to get up and his daughters suggested that it was high time for everyone to be in bed and asleep.

‘All right, my dears, let’s go!’ the kind-hearted old man agreed at once. ‘Tomorrow I’ll tell you the rest. You’ll see, it’s absolutely priceless!’

As they went towards the guest-rooms Balint touched Gazsi on the shoulder saying, ‘What you said was very interesting,’

Gazsi shrugged off the compliment.

‘Oh, it’s nonsense really. Old Rattle was right,’ and he laughed awkwardly as if he were ashamed of having unwittingly revealed something of himself.

AFTER THOSE FEW DAYS spent in the high grasslands, Balint returned to Denestornya. He only remained there a short time for he had to attend the Szekler congress which was due to open at the spa town of Homorod a week later. As he had already told his mother about this more than once his rapid departure did not cause any surprise, but it did not lessen her resentment even though he was not going to be away for long.

Relations between Balint and his mother had recently become increasingly strained. In vain Balint tried to explain what he had already achieved in the Kalotaszeg, both in the management of the Abady forests and in the new co-operative movement; but neither the fact that he had doubled their income from the forests nor the news that the experimental farm and smallholders’ club at Lelbanya were doing well, removed the frozen expression of disapproval from his mother’s face. From time to time she would ask him some question, but it was clear that she took little interest in his replies. No matter what subject Balint tried, all Roza Abady thought about was that wherever her son went it always brought him closer to that accursed Adrienne Miloth.

There was little that Countess Roza did not know about her son’s affairs, for Azbej had organized an efficient spy service to check on all his movements.