Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

Only two people had not taken part in this discussion. One was Warday, who smoked his cigar in silence and smiled quietly to himself, thinking of the sweet experience that awaited him later that night. The other was Abady. Everything that he had just heard was new to him. Of course he had read the newspapers, and, as he had formerly been a diplomat himself, he had not been able to avoid such thoughts as everyone had so openly been discussing that evening. But he had been so wrapped up in domestic Hungarian politics, in his co-operative projects — and above all in his love for Adrienne — that he had paid little heed to what was going on in the world.

How different life was here, he thought, from that in Transylvania, where everything was on such a tiny scale. All that mattered there were only little quarrels, minor disagreements. There it was important to know what would happen to Beno Balogh-Peter, the former chief notary of Monostor who had collaborated with the Bodyguard government and tried to install the nominated prefect. This was the sort of issue for which his native Transylvanian brothers started blood-feuds and hates that endured for generations, while all the time, in the real world outside, the threads were being spun of some giant tragedy to be enacted in the unpredictable future. On the other hand, here at Jablanka, in North Nyitra, these people were living in the centre of world happenings, aware of what was going on around them, so familiar with it all that they need discuss only the consequences, not the facts that led to them. And all this lightly, even politely.

While thinking about this Balint was watching Antal Szent-Gyorgyi, who stood, upright and slender, in front of the stuccoed fireplace. Far above him, set in the plaster-work, was a life-sized portrait of his great-grandfather, he who had been palatine to Queen Maria-Theresia. He had been painted with the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece hanging from a heavy gold chain and was wearing a heavily embroidered cloak of purple velvet and on his head was a powdered wig. And suddenly Balint saw that it was the same man who stood there today, in front of the marble and stucco fireplace, dressed in a velvet smoking-jacket, just like any of the other men in the room, but, unlike the others, with the tiny emblem of the Golden Fleece on his watch-chain and that worn not out of pride or vanity but because it was the rule of the Order that it was always to be worn no matter what the dress or occasion. There, below the painted portrait, was the same narrow face, the same proud self-sufficient glance. Even the living man’s greying hair made the similarity the more pronounced. Antal Szent-Gyorgyi was the very archetype of those men of family who had lived for generations close to the throne, who in Hungary had controlled the country’s destiny since the end of the Turkish wars, who had looked empirically at their country’s needs with all the knowledge of what else was happening in Europe, and who yet still remained essentially Hungarian, like Ferenc Szechenyi, Gyorgy Festetics or the Eszterhazys.

In the meantime Slawata had begun to sound more cheerful.

‘Izvolsky‚ of course, came on to Vienna when he left Marienbad, and so we were able to settle the Macedonian question. That little nest of thorns won’t give us any trouble for years to come, I’m glad to say.’

He was still explaining this reassuring news, while from time to time bowing from his seat towards his host as if he was laying all this confidential information as homage to Count Antal’s patent-leather pumps, when the butler came in, went over to Abady and spoke softly to him.

‘Her Ladyship would like to see you in the small drawing-room, my Lord.’

Countess Elise sat in her usual place between the windows, protected by two silk-covered screens. She lay in an armchair, her feet on a footstool, for there it was a great deal warmer than close to the little onyx-inlaid fireplace. The secret was that close to her chair were two little latticed openings from which a stove outside the room blew gusts of hot air.

On her left sat Fanny, and near the fireplace was Klara. Balint was shown to a place near his aunt, a strange little low upholstered chair which seemed almost to embrace him as he sank into its cushioned softness. He was facing Klara.

‘That’s right, just beside me, my dear Balint! Now tell me about Transylvania and all the dear people there,’ said Countess Elise, taking the young man’s hand and keeping it imprisoned affectionately in her own. A series of questions followed.

‘First of all how is your mother? I haven’t seen her for more than a year and a half, since she last passed through Budapest. I suppose she’s now at your beautiful Denestornya? I often went there to visit my uncle Peter, your grandfather. And how is Aunt Lizinka? Is she still rushing about all the time? And dear Countess Gyalakuthy‚ that good-natured Adelma? They tell me her daughter has turned out to be very pretty. And how is Countess Jeno Laczok and her husband? And Ambrus Kendy‚ who used to dance with me? And Sandor Kendy?’

It was incredible, thought Balint. She knows everybody and still remembers exactly what relation they all are to each other. When Balint recounted the latest news, she would turn to Fanny and Klara and tell little anecdotes of them all, girlhood memories and funny little half-forgotten things so that they too might know something of this — to them — unknown world, of which she was obviously still very fond. And, of course, she often spoke of Szamos-Kozard, the former home of the Gyeroffy girls.

While he was answering her questions, or listening to her reminiscences, Balint’s eyes would wander to Klara Kollonich. As she sat there near the fireplace in a richly frilled house-gown covered in lace which showed her shoulders like a ball-gown with a deep décolleté, ruffles and ribbons tumbling all around her, her advanced state of pregnancy could hardly be seen. With her beautiful bare white shoulders that sloped ever so slightly, those eyes the colour of the sea, and her fair wavy hair, she was still as enchanting as she had been as an unmarried girl. Only a faint weariness, which one felt rather than saw, gave an indication of her condition. There might, he thought, be just the hint of a tiny wrinkle at the corner of her full lips which spoke of tiredness, or, perhaps, disappointment. And this, thought Balint, is the girl for whom Laszlo threw away everything he had! For whom he gave up music and his studies at the Academy even though his masters had predicted a great future for him; for whom he had plunged into the great social whirl of the capital, which in turn had lured him to the gaming tables and then coldly thrown him out of the world he had wanted to conquer for her sake and left him ruined both morally and materially. As Balint gazed at Klara now his mind went back to the day, three years before at Simonsvasar, the Kollonichs’ great country place, when he had discovered Laszlo’s fatal love and realized, oh so clearly, that his cousin was rushing inevitably to his own destruction. Like a vision he saw Laszlo’s face before him, that face so passionate and impetuous …

Perhaps it was because of the road down which his reflections had led him that Balint now began to answer his aunt’s questions in a somewhat distracted manner. Whatever the reason, the conversation died and there was a sudden silence as if everybody’s thoughts had suddenly turned to a subject which must not be discussed and a name which could not be mentioned.