Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

‘Das ist man so, wie ich soeben Ihnen sagte, mein lieber Graf; bei uns undauchinOst-Preussenisteswohlnichlanders — that is how it is, as I’ve just explained to you, my dear Count; with us and also in East Prussia, it is never otherwise …’

ADRIENNE’S BEDROOM was in almost total darkness. Only a single candle was burning and this she had placed on the floor beside one of the bedside tables. The light was therefore indirect and cast strange shadows on the walls, transforming the outlines of the table-legs into weird lines that broke disconcertingly at the angle of the ceiling. The outline of the bed threw half the room into shadow as if it were filled with dark clouds. The unusual source of light gave a sense of fantasy to a room whose appearance was normally quite ordinary, indeed almost banal. There were a few upholstered chairs dating from the 1860s, a chest of drawers indistinguishable from countless others, and, in front of one of the windows, a dressing-table. On the walls was a faded wallpaper: nothing more. If it had not been for the bed the room would have been like any of those furnished for occasional guests. Adrienne’s bed was exceptionally large, had no headboard or tester, and was covered with flounces of flowing ivory-covered lace draperies. In the grey, ordinary, otherwise cheaply-furnished room, it was like an exotic foreigner. Indeed this bed was the only thing in the room which was Adrienne’s own; all the other pieces had been put there originally by her mother-in-law. There it was, an alien object, as out of tune with everything else as were, in the adjoining drawing-room, the white woolly carpets strewn with multi-coloured cushions that Adrienne had placed in front of the vast chimney-piece and which contrasted so strangely with the severe lines of the despised Empire furniture which Countess Uzdy had thought fit for her daughter-in-law’s use.

Everything that Adrienne had brought to these rooms had a curiously temporary character, as if they were a nomad’s possessions put down wherever their owner should lay his head. The great divan set haphazardly in the centre of the room, pillows, blankets; they had come with her and should she go away and remove them then the rooms would not change but merely revert to their original appearance. It was as if their owner had merely chosen the rooms to camp in, rather as Bedouins might set up their tents between the columns of some classical temple.

The only definite colour in the room was the triangle of black on the pillows where Adrienne’s hair lay fanned out like an ancient Egyptian wig.

She was awake; and waiting, for she was sure that Balint would come to her that night. They had not discussed it, indeed they had had no opportunity, and besides Uzdy had been in Kolozsvar and no one had known of his imminent departure until he himself had announced it so abruptly and unexpectedly at the end of the bazaar. Adrienne’s and Balint’s eyes had met, just for a brief instant, but it had been enough. Their meeting that night had to be, must be, after so many months of waiting and aching for one another.

It had been a long, long time. Ever since Adrienne had returned to Almasko from her father’s home at Varjas they had not been able to meet. That had been the beginning of November and now it was the end of March. Endless days, endless nights of absence and yearning and waiting. It had been the same for both of them, obliged to live apart and only from time to time getting a brief note one from the other; for a regular correspondence would have been too conspicuous and drawn attention to them. For Adrienne it was as if she were a prisoner in her husband’s and mother-in-law’s house without even the consideration offered to a guest. There had been dreadful weeks of worry over the health of her little daughter, and of struggle, too, with her mother-in-law who ever since the child had been born had taken full charge of the girl and done everything to exclude the mother. When the child was well Adrienne had not seemed to mind so much and, indeed, after the first few confrontations with Countess Clémence, had given up the unequal struggle. That had been eight years before, when Adrienne herself had still been very young. She had had to give in; and slowly she had got used to the fact that they had stolen her child from her, though this had been somewhat if not entirely alleviated by the growing knowledge that little Clemmie herself was so different from her mother, so passive and unresponsive that she might have been someone else’s child.

But Adrienne’s own passive consent had vanished the day that the child had fallen ill. By nature all women are nurses. It is one of the immutable laws of motherhood and it is doubly true when it is the woman’s own offspring who needs care. Adrienne’s first outright revolt came when the old countess, without even telling the child’s mother, had a trained Red Cross nurse sent out from Kolozsvar. There had been an appalling scene between the mother and grandmother made all the more bitter and distressing because it had been conducted with the greatest politeness and in calm, smooth words whose meaning was impregnated by mutual hatred. Her husband had not helped her but had merely sat by and listened in silence to the embittered dispute between the two women. It was almost as if he were amused by the scene. As it turned out the younger woman won, but her victory was far from complete. All that Adrienne gained was the right to do for her daughter what the Red Cross nurse, or the Nanny, would have done, and even this menial role had to be fought for every day. The Dowager Countess Uzdy watched her every move, hoping to catch her out in some negligence and so use Adrienne’s inexperience as an excuse to shut her out again from any contact with her child. The regular taking of the temperature, each medicine or other treatment given, every little change of the symptoms of the girl’s illness, had all to be recorded with exact details of the hour and minute — and woe betide anyone who made the smallest omission or error!

That every minute of the day was occupied by this constant preoccupation and worry was, at least in one way, helpful to Adrienne, indeed beneficial: it kept her occupied. The days and then the weeks went by, and the work made Adrienne put aside the bleakness of her everyday life. One new little joy she had, and it came from the child herself. Little Clemmie had begun to warm towards her mother. During the long convalescence, as Adrienne would sit beside her bed, the little girl would sometimes look up at her mother and smile and often, when the time had come for Adrienne to leave the sickroom and someone had come to relieve her, little Clemmie would try to keep her there, saying, ‘Don’t go yet. Don’t go, please stay with me!’ and at the same time putting her little hand in Adrienne’s. When she did this she would look slyly up at her grandmother, for it seemed that she only did it when her grandmother was also in the room. When Countess Clémence was not there the child did not say such things … or did she? No! Only when the old woman was present. And so it seemed that perhaps she only made up to her mother because she knew it would annoy the old lady, and for no other reason. Adrienne tried hard to put this thought from her for she desperately wanted to believe that her child was genuinely fond of her.

When the little girl was well enough her grandmother took her away, to Meran where they had been so often before. Adrienne came to believe that if little Clemmie had not been whisked away from her so quickly then she might have been able to find her way into the child’s heart. But taken away she was, and so the fight for the girl’s soul would have to start all over again. And this time it was Adrienne who decided that the battle must be joined … and Adrienne who was determined to win.