Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

As it turned out no great harm was done; and no blood was shed since both men were soon so out of breath that the physicians stopped the fight declaring mutual exhaustion. Though this was nothing if not accurate, it was the source of many ribald jokes throughout Budapest — and none of them were to the government’s advantage.

This was the only sort of news to which the general public paid the slightest attention. The anti-Italian speech in Vienna, made, as Slawata had told Balint, by Mayor Lüger, aroused no interest at all in Budapest. There people were only concerned with the proceedings in Parliament and so it was remarkable that no one seemed to notice or comment upon Andrassy’s cunning ruling that all civil servants must be able to speak the language of the people they served. It had been expected that the extreme chauvinists would have a field-day haggling about the details of this measure, but the storm about the army quotas overwhelmed discussion of all other issues.

Unfortunately the Croatian situation was getting worse daily. The congress of the Starcevicz party passed a resolution declaring their firm intention to break away from their allegiance to the crown of St Stephen. Although the session of the Zagreb Parliament opened on the appointed day it had immediately to be adjourned, so revolutionary was the mood of the people who were making demonstrations daily throughout the city.

Balint was even more upset by the news from Croatia since he had listened to the talk at Jablanka.

He went home to Transylvania for Christmas in a dark and depressed mood. The awful threat posed by the rivalries of the great powers, the sinister plan for a ‘little war’ with Italy, and the upheavals beyond the Drava, all weighed upon his spirits and seemed to him only to emphasize that the political unawareness of all those in Hungary whose self-indulgence, preoccupation only with such internal issues as affected themselves, and whose self-centred conviction that only such trivial matters were of the smallest significance, was leading his country to isolation and ruin.

When Balint reached Kolozsvar he thought it would be nice to surprise his mother with a small gift which just might help to soothe the tenseness that had recently developed between them. It was difficult to know what to choose because Countess Roza had a rule that she never accepted anything personal, but only gifts intended to adorn her beloved Denestornya. Little objects such as ash-trays, antique clocks, or pieces of china would do, but little else. It had to be something which would look as if it had always been there. This gave her pleasure because for her the house was like a living person and to make it more beautiful was her daily preoccupation.

Since he had not thought about this before leaving Budapest Balint went at once to see an antique dealer in Kolozsvar who always had good things.

Old Mrs Bruckner did not keep a shop; she dealt directly from her apartment on the first floor of a building in Belmagyar Street. She was a small woman, rather fat, and entirely trustworthy. She never knowingly sold imitations or fakes, even though she was entirely uneducated with no knowledge of styles or period. If she believed something to be truly old she would say, ‘ Das ist gotisch — this is gothic!’

Mrs Bruckner knew everyone in the town. She led Abady through her rooms, merrily showing him a host of every imaginable sort of object piled one on top of another or hung all over the walls; commodes, chests, tables, clocks and statuettes, ornaments, pictures, lampshades, embroidery or church vestments, everything everywhere in apparent confusion.

‘I’ve just got in a lovely cup!’ said the old woman enthusiastically. ‘It’s new in, so no one has seen it except you!’ and she took her customer to a shelf on which stood three beautiful Alt Wien cups among a host of rubbish. Balint was immediately struck by the one in the centre for he recognized the painted portrait on its side as that of his mother’s great-grandfather, the Abady who had been Governor of Transylvania. It had been fashionable at the end of the eighteenth century to give such cups as souvenirs to friends or relations, especially to relations, rather as at a later date people would give signed photographs. At Denestornya they already had two similar ones, and this would make a third.

‘Where did you get it from?’ asked Balint, marvelling at his luck. But Mrs Bruckner just gave an enigmatic smile and said, ‘From a very good place, I can assure you. I can’t say where, but it’s a very good place indeed!’

The price was sixty crowns and Balint paid it without question. As the old lady accompanied him to the door she said, ‘Come again in a few days, if you like. I may have some things from the same place. Alles prima, alles hochprima — everything of the highest quality, of course, and from the same place.’

Though Balint again asked her she would not say where it came from.

Christmas Eve at the Abadys’, whether at Denestornya or in Kolozsvar, was always a somewhat solemn occasion with nothing cosy or intimate about it. While Balint had been away at school in Vienna he had always had to spend Christmas in his rooms in the college and so for many years Countess Roza had spent the holiday alone with her servants. As the years passed, the ceremonies at home had frozen into an occasion of cold convention. Always, as now, there was a small tree in the centre of the dining table. This, as always too, was bought, for to her it would have been unthinkable sacrilege to uproot and bring anything from Denestornya or from the forestlands in the mountains. On the sideboards were high piles of woollen shawls and waistcoats that the countess and her two housekeepers had spent much of the previous year knitting just for this occasion. At Denestornya they would be distributed to all the children of the village on Christmas morning itself. Now, as they were at the town house in Kolozsvar, the estate manager would collect them on Christmas Eve and travel at dawn to the country so that the children would receive their presents after church the following morning. Around the little tree, which was ablaze with a multitude of candles, was a cluster of presents for the household servants and their families, all useful objects carefully chosen and marked with the names of the recipients.

Each servant was called in turn, with members of their families, and in turn they were handed their gifts by the countess, kissed her hand and made room for the next in line. Countess Abady sat in a large armchair in the middle of the room and, as each man, woman or child came up to her, she extended her chubby little hand to be kissed, exactly as if she were a queen receiving the homage of her people. Balint himself was given two silk ties and a silver cigarette case, the tenth of its kind, since Countess Roza had little imagination when it came to choosing presents and so gave him the same thing each year.

When the ceremony was over Balint produced the governor’s cup. He had been quite right, the choice had been perfect and his mother was overjoyed. Then they went back to the drawing-room to have the tea and stewed fruit which Countess Roza always liked have served in the evening. She carried the cup with her and sat down, still holding and caressing it and examining the inscription.

Balint told his mother all about the visit to Jablanka, and especially about Aunt Elise’s solicitous enquiries about her and about all her former acquaintance in Transylvania. They stayed up for a long time and Balint had the distinct impression that his mother now thought of nothing but the news he brought her. The thunderclouds seemed to have passed, and Countess Abady was all smiles and sweetness the whole evening.