Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

This last thought so constricted Balint’s throat that for a moment he found himself breathless.

He went to the window and opened it. The icy air came in with a blast. It was good, it was real, and Balint for a moment felt soothed and soon started to breathe again normally. He leaned out, his elbows on the window sill. There was no moon and he could see nothing outside, only a myriad stars high above in the sky, the unchanging stars that had gazed down on human misery for a million years and more. They were like huge signposts which no one except a few eccentric magicians could ever attempt to interpret, claiming that they foretold the fate of men and of nations.

As if mocking the limitless oceans of space in the sky above, somewhere down below in the valley of the Vag a tiny light appeared, moving slowly northwards, crawling along the bed of the valley. Just behind it was a minute red spot — it was, he realized, the Berlin Express, for now he could even hear the faint chugging of its engine. Balint’s heart missed a beat. If there ever were a war with Russia it was through this pass that the troop trains would make their sad way to the north. This would be the road down which would go so many of the flower of the nation’s youth to the horrors of war, to their death in battle … and against such a vast enemy their sacrifice would surely be in vain … in vain …

Warday had been lodged in the third room away from the chapel. He made careful preparation for the blissful moment when he would steal into Fanny’s room. After much application of lotion and frantic brushing he decided that his hair shone sufficiently brightly. He had carefully anointed his face, neck and shoulders with scented cologne and his silk dressing-gown was just as it should be. He listened to be sure that no one was still about, and then, hearing nothing, he opened the door a crack and peered out. He had almost put a foot outside when suddenly Slawata walked by. Again he waited until everything was once more quiet. Then he stepped out.

Just as he did so the second door along from his was opened and Pfaffulus appeared. Warday drew swiftly back, but he had not been seen for luckily the priest moved swiftly, his breviary under his arm, towards the chapel door. He was wearing only his black soutane and had left off his red sash and crucifix. Then he disappeared and the chapel doors clicked shut behind him.

Again Warday waited for a few more moments, for perhaps the priest would come back. But no, he had his breviary with him and that surely meant he had gone to pray and so would be inside for some time to come. Warday was now so impatient that he quickly let himself out of his room, glided softly along the carpeted corridor as if he were skating — not that his heelless slippers would make any noise — until he reached the door to what had to be Fanny’s bathroom, the door next to the stair. It was open, and inside there was darkness.

Now he recalled what Fanny had taught him when two years before she had first taken him as her lover. ‘It is far more sensible to turn up the light for a moment and find out where you are than to bump into something and wake everyone up!’ He smiled at the memory and his hand reached for the light switch. When he did so he realized that he was at the door of her room, and that all he had to do was to turn the knob and go in to her. Quickly he turned out the light again and, his heart beating hard with joy and anticipation, put his hand on the door-knob in front of him.

The door did not yield. It was locked.

He knocked lightly. There was no answer. He knocked again, louder this time, and then waited. He fancied he could hear some soft panting inside. What on earth had happened? Was she playing some sort of joke on him? Angrily he knocked again, quite loudly, and called out in an annoyed voice, ‘Fanny! It’s me, why have you locked the door?’

But all he heard was some sort of stifled sob and finally Fanny replied faintly: ‘Go away. I’ve got a headache, I can’t …’

Warday was not a bad man. He felt sorry for the poor girl whose voice had sounded almost stifled as if she could hardly speak.

‘Poor Fanny, what rotten luck! Perhaps in Budapest we might …?’

‘All right! All right! But go away now, please!’ and as the young man moved cautiously back to the corridor he heard again that soft panting that had so disturbed him before.

How the poor girl must be suffering! he said to himself as he hurried back to his own room.

He was right, of course, but not in the way he thought it. Countess Beredy was lying face downwards on her bed, her hair spilled carelessly over the pillows and she was sobbing her heart out in great racking spasms. Her night-gown was torn and every now and again she would arch her back and plunge down again into the soft coverlets as if thereby she could smother herself and find oblivion.

Finally there was peace in all parts of the great castle of Jablanka. Of the hundreds who lay down there at night only four were still awake, two men and two women. Klara, in her old room, lay motionless against the high pile of lace-covered pillows, gazing up at the alabaster hanging lamp; and on the other side of the castle, Fanny was drowning in sorrow and misery, her hair and pillows wet with tears.

Pfaffulus was in the chapel, kneeling in front of the candle that burned there perpetually. He was praying for that foolish and wayward young man, the same for whom one woman wept and another gazed silently at the night-light in her room.

And Balint, too, kept vigil. Still at his open window he might have been staring into the face of destiny, the inexorable destiny that would in time overwhelm his beloved country.

Now the Berlin Express reached that curve where the valley of the Vag narrows into a mountain pass. The engine shrilled a loud warning, its whistle, screaming in the dark, echoed through the cloisters of the former monastery.

BALINT RETURNED to Budapest. There he found a stormy atmosphere in parliamentary circles.

The most noise was being made by the Independence Party. Kossuth had had to work hard to keep its members sufficiently in order to get the new commercial agreements with Austria ratified. Obstructions were being made by all those who had left the party in protest over the increases in the Hungarian contribution to the joint Austro-Hungarian army and so, with these problems in mind, the government put forward a proposal that consisted only of a single paragraph which laid down that, once accepted, all budget proposals would remain in force for ten years from the following January 1st.

Never before had any government dared to ask Parliament for such a mandate; and it was all the more surprising that this measure should come from those in the Coalition who formerly, when they were in opposition, had bent over backwards and split every hair to maintain the supremacy of Parliament in the passing of laws, and the freedom of speech of all members. However the government’s hands were now bound for they had sworn to follow a certain programme and this was the only way this promise could be redeemed.

It was in these circumstances that the party rebels took especial pleasure in attacking their former leaders in the Independence Party who, they claimed, had gone back on all their former promises! It was in vain that Apponyi, with his honeyed speech and well-known eloquence, should rise and defend the party’s actions. And so the discussions and arguments became more and more personal and venomous. Things reached such a pitch that the Minister-President found himself obliged to fight a duel with Geza Polonyi. Even though both were elderly men and none too agile, their seconds still insisted that they fought with sabres.