Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

When all these discussions came to an end the Minister’s proposals were unanimously accepted. Everyone was delighted even those who had argued the most fiercely — for it was recognized that if Daranyi had initiated the programme then he would see it through; and also because it was well-known that the congress had been convened only for one purpose, which was that the public should know what was being done for the Szeklers. And, of course, there would always be those ready to declare that it was their personal participation at the congress that had had a decisive effect on what would have been done anyhow.

At the end of the morning session the meeting was adjourned for lunch. Abady waited until Jopal should come forward with his companions. Then he went up to him and said how glad he was to meet him again, though it was a surprise to see him with the charcoal-burners.

Jopal stopped. A faint smile lit up his smoke-grimed face. ‘But I am one of them,’ he said. ‘I’ve lived with them now for two years. I work with them. They are very nice people.’

‘Don’t you think it is a waste for a man like you, with your knowledge and skill, to bury yourself like this? Even if the basic problem of flying has been solved and others have got the credit, it’s still very primitive and there are many more problems to be solved. And flying isn’t the only field for a mathematician like yourself.’

‘It’s all foolishness,’ replied Jopal. ‘Vanity and foolishness. And to what purpose? There’s more satisfaction in hard physical work among good and simple people. Only that is really worthwhile. To live out of doors, in the forest, chop wood, cut trees, build the ovens … to learn how long the charcoal must smoulder inside, and when more air must be let in and when the fire extinguished. To watch over it, guard it, care for it … it needs a lot of care, and knowledge and strength. And it’s beautiful, too, to live naturally, to be free …’

How different Jopal had become, thought Balint, from the time they had last met on the crest of the Ludas hills a month or so after Santos-Dumont had flown for the first time. Then he had been so bitter, while today he radiated peace and serenity.

‘Come and have some food with me,’ suggested Balint. ‘I don’t at all mind missing the official feast.’

The inventor-turned-charcoal-burner shook his head. ‘Thank you, but I can’t leave my friends. I belong with them now.’ And he said goodbye and went off with the others who had been waiting for him a few yards away.

As Abady walked over to the restaurant he was thinking over what had happened to Jopal. How strange it was, the destiny of Hungarians! How many there were like Jopal, as full of talent as their greatest rivals in the world but who, once they had reached their goal, would give it all up as easily as it had been obtained. Such people would never fight for the recognition they deserved; it was as if they would soon lose all interest if everything didn’t go their way from the beginning, and that they had striven so far only to prove to themselves that they could do it if they wanted to, and not for worldly success. Several names at once occurred to him. There was Janos Bolyai, one of the outstanding men of his generation, who gave up everything at the age of twenty-one; Samu Teleki, who had explored so many hitherto unknown parts of Africa and discovered Lake Rudolf, but who never bothered himself to write about his travels; Miklos Absolon, who had been to Lhasa but who never spoke of his travels except obliquely and as humorous anecdotes. Then there was Pal Szinyei-Merse, the forerunner of the Impressionists, who gave up painting and did not touch his brushes for more than fifteen years; and, of course, Tamas Laczok, who earned fame in Algeria where he could have made history but who abandoned it all to return to Hungary and work on the railways as a simple engineer.

There seemed to be a sort of oriental yearning for Nirvana, a passivity as regards worldly success which led his compatriots to throw away their chances of achievement, abandon everything for which they had striven for years, sometimes justifying themselves with some transparent excuse of offence offered or treachery on the part of so-called friends, but more often offering no explanation at all. Perhaps it was the other side of the coin of national pride which led them to throw everything away as soon as they had proved to themselves that they could do it if they wished, as if the ability alone sufficed and the achievement counted for nothing. It was like an inherited weakness transmitted from generation to generation and, of course, it had been epitomized in Janos Aranyi’s epic poem about Miklos Toldi, who under appalling difficulties conquered all his country’s enemies in a few months and then retired to till his fields and was never seen again until extreme old age.

The government’s plan for bringing back the emigrants and repopulating the deserted areas was announced at the afternoon session. Only the general idea was put forward because there were so many legal and economic aspects of the plan still to be worked out that no detailed discussion would have been possible at a public meeting.

All the same the announcement gave Abady the opportunity to put forward his suggestion for modifying the inheritance laws.

He started by saying that if the re-colonization of the land was to be successful it would have to be carried out on a massive scale. There were too many Szeklers for the land available to them and traditionally theirs. He quoted statistics, birth-rates, emigration figures, and laid special emphasis on the ever-diminishing size of the Szekler small-holdings, showing how it was impossible for most of these holdings to support a family. The only legal solution was to establish a system of entail by which properties could be handed on intact from generation to generation. He cited the example of similar situations in foreign countries — Canada and the United States, among others — where a single heir could inherit everything. He followed this with more statistics and explanations, quoting from books such as those of Lorenz von Stein; and added that such a system as he suggested was by no means unknown in Hungarian law which for centuries had established a minimum size for serfs’ holdings which could not further be divided. The Szeklers, he said, should be enabled to preserve their existing land by entail to the oldest son, the other children’s future being secured by the state providing them with recolonized land.

Such was Balint’s intervention; and though it might have had some effect at a legal conference it fell extremely flat at the Szekler congress, few of whose delegates were sure where Canada was and even fewer of whom had ever heard of Lorenz von Stein. As he was speaking Balint knew that he was boring his audience — and this knowledge robbed most of what he had to say of any conviction. The audience stopped listening.

Only one man paid attention. This was Samuel Barra who jumped up almost before Abady had finished. His powerful voice booming across the hall, he cried, ‘It is absolutely scandalous that anyone should dare to put forward such an idea, especially here in the very temple of the people’s liberties! Suggesting that the Szeklers should love and favour one of their children over the others, to keep one and throw away the rest. It’s a monstrous idea!’ And he waxed emotional over the sacredness of a father’s love for his children, over solidarity between brothers, and over the fate of widows and orphans. Grabbing hold of Abady’s reference to division of serfs’ properties, he shouted that the noble member for Lelbanya apparently wanted to push the Szeklers back to serfdom and that it was obvious to him at least that Abady’s real purpose was to abandon the liberal achievements of the twentieth century, and return to the Middle Ages, to forced labour and public floggings! ‘Never!’ he cried. ‘And anyhow the Szeklers were free men even in medieval days. Why, even all the armies of Hell could not defeat them, neither the Bashi-Bazouk Turks nor the satanic Caraffa.’