Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

It was already beginning to get dark when their carriage left the third farm and turned towards home. The evening sky was clear and beautiful but it was a trifle cold and this was perhaps the reason why the couple in the carriage sat so close together.

‘Imre, tell me, are you happy?’ Fanny broke the silence between them.

‘Oh, yes!’ he replied. ‘I can say that, but it isn’t such a great … I mean …’ He paused and then went on, ‘Well, that doesn’t exist anyway. Klara is really very nice, and she’s got some money of her own which comes in handy, and now we’re having a baby. It’s all wonderful, really,’

‘I’m very happy to hear it,’ said Countess Beredy. ‘I knew this was the right thing for you to do, and that’s why I made you do it. Remember?’

‘Oh, yes! You threw me out at the right moment, just the right moment!’ and he laughed good-humouredly.

Fanny turned to look at him. She opened her eyes slightly. They shone green in the evening light.

‘Though it was so good with you I knew you ought to start a family, and … and Klara was just right, a good match. It wasn’t easy for me to give you up, you know, a real sacrifice!’ The lie came easily from her lips: she knew she would have sent him packing anyway as the love between Laszlo Gyeroffy and Klara had just gone inexorably wrong and so if Imre was out of the way she would at last have the chance to get Laszlo for herself.

‘Sacrifice?’ asked Warday, astonished. ‘But, my darling, you told me … I remember the exact words, “you have to stop when you are still hungry”. That’s what you said, isn’t it?’

‘Yes; that’s what I said ‚’ agreed Fanny, but she did not pursue the question of sacrifice, but went on, ‘and wasn’t I right? But we, we still have our appetites, don’t we? And if we wanted to …’

Warday looked up in startled surprise and pleasure. ‘Do you really mean that? Really?’ He looked down, straight into her eyes. Their faces nearly touched.

Fanny now opened her eyes wider than ever, the green flame shining ever brighter, filled with an appeal, a message, a command.

‘I still ache for you as much as ever!’

A long kiss followed, a familiar, breathtaking, overpowering kiss that left them both panting when they drew apart. Neither spoke; only her hand searched for his under the fur rug that covered their knees, her fingers, at once so small and yet so strong, clutching at him. They still did not speak; but when the carriage reached the wide lawn before turning into the castle gates she looked up at him and murmured, ‘When everyone’s asleep. The door after the little stair; it’s my bathroom, the first door!’

On one side of the castle’s great quadrangle, between the chapel and one of corner towers on the south side, two rooms had been thrown into one to make the dining-room; while on the other side was the library which led off Countess Elise’s private sitting-room. Between them the vast old former refectory of the Pauline monks had been turned into the castle’s principal drawing-room.

As was the custom when there were guests, everyone gathered in this drawing-room before dinner. Balint arrived early and, when he first entered the room, he fancied that he was alone. However he had barely crossed the threshold when from an armchair in the middle of the room opposite the fireplace, there got up a short plump elderly priest. Clean-shaven, well-groomed, pink and shining, he had very small piercing eyes set beneath bushy eyebrows. His rather short nose was thin and pointed. With his well-cut ecclesiastical dress he wore a wide red sash. He walked swiftly over to Balint and introduced himself. ‘I am Father Czibulka,’ he said with a slight Slovakian accent and, when in turn Balint had introduced himself, he went on, ‘Ah, indeed! I have heard a great deal about your Lordship, especially about how you have been promoting co-operative ideas in Transylvania. All that is very good, marvellous work!’

Balint was taken by surprise.

‘Oh, I hear about all sorts of things,’ the priest went on with a slight smile. ‘I often come here to stay with your cousins. And when I am home at Nagyszombat I always come over to say mass on Sundays. I’m really part of the furniture, as I was once Count Antal’s tutor. They call me “Pfaffulus” after the comic character. He gave me that name, impudent brat that he was! Didn’t you ever hear of it? All the children here call me that; behind my back, of course, because only Count Antal has the right to say it to my face!’ And he wagged his finger humorously at Balint.

‘I’ve heard it, all right,’ said Balint, laughing. ‘And always with great affection.’

They chatted for a while, walking up and down the huge room in which, although there were any number of red and gold brocade-covered sofas and armchairs — and also a large concert grand piano and a quantity of potted palms — there was still plenty of room to move about. So large was it that despite all these furnishings there was still an air of emptiness in that huge room.

When they had exchanged a few sentences the priest looked about him as if to make sure that no one was there to overhear what he was about to say and then turned to Balint and asked, ‘Please tell me. Do you have any news of your cousin, poor Laszlo Gyeroffy, the Countess’s nephew?’

Abady started to tell the story of Laszlo’s unpaid gambling debts which had led to his resignation from the Casino Club and exile from Budapest society, but Czibulka stopped him. ‘Oh! I know all about that, perhaps a little more than you might guess. I was very worried about him the last time he was here. No! What I want to know — is how is he now? Has he been able to pull himself together? Has he found any consolation for his sorrows?’ and, hardly waiting for Balint to reply, he went on, ‘I feel so sorry for him and think of him often. Look at this,’ and he paused, fished in the pocket of his soutane and brought out a tiny parcel wrapped in silk paper before going on, ‘I brought this for him from Rome. It’s a little medallion, blessed by the Holy Father. Do please give it to him. It may help the poor fellow. And tell him I pray for him. Of course,’ he went on, ‘this must be a secret between us! You understand, don’t you?’ And here he broke off because they could hear the door opening and footsteps approach from the direction of the library which was situated between the drawing-room and the dining-room.

‘Pfaffulus!’ called Antal Szent-Gyorgyi across the dinner table. ‘I’m sure you’ve brought some secret plot with you from Nagyszombat. I can see your nose twitching from here!’

The priest felt his nose in pretended alarm.

‘Oh, dear!’ he said. ‘What a dreadful give-away!’ and he laughed. However he went on at once to relate what he had come to tell them.

It seemed that the neighbouring constituency of Szerencs was vacant and there was to be a by-election soon. Two-thirds of the people in the villages there were of Hungarian origin — and all of them fierce adherents of the radical separatist 1848 party — while the remaining one third were Slovaks and rabid socialists to boot. The former member had been a constitutional-minded adherent of the Conservatives and he had only been elected because formerly all such ‘elections’ merely followed meekly what had been ordered by the ruling party in Budapest. Now the situation was different and it was rumoured that a really independent candidate would stand and that, if he did, since the Conservatives had no backing in the district, he was sure to get in.