Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

Balint climbed the rough ladder and sat down on the floor of the hide. Taking out his binoculars he carefully inspected the landscape in front of him, pausing at every clump of trees or shrubs for the tell-tale signs of the presence of deer, usually only just the tops of their heads for that was all that there was to be seen when they were resting in the tall grass. They were always hard to see, however carefully one looked. Balint could see no sign at present and realized that he had arrived in time.

In the crystal-clear air a solitary eagle floated high above his head, describing wide circles with outspread wings seemingly motionless. Nothing else moved. It was a moment of Nature’s infinite calm. Alone in his eyrie Balint felt happy and for once at ease with the world.

The last few months had been quiet and devoid of incident. When Margit had announced her engagement Adrienne had decided that she must wait until after her sister’s marriage in the autumn before mentioning the subject of divorce to her husband. She felt that for the moment she must do all she could to replace their dead mother, supervising the preparation of Margit’s trousseau and her bridal chest of linen and doing all the work that normally fell to the bride’s mother. She felt, too, that she would never be able to do this properly if she was harassed by thoughts of the confusion in her own life, and indeed confusion amounting to havoc was sure to be the result of the awful disputes that would inevitably follow her telling Pal Uzdy that she wanted a divorce. As it was these summer months passed tranquilly enough. Adrienne and Margit went together to Budapest to go shopping and order everything that was necessary — and there it was easy for Balint and Adrienne to meet, and to make love, just as it was at Kolozsvar and when Balint went to stay at Mezo-Varjas. During those months life for them seemed perfect. They could meet often and be together with no fear of disturbance and, while they went about their daily lives, each occupied with their own duties and responsibilities, they would both weave dreams of their future life together when their union would be perfect and indissoluble. And during this time they managed somehow to put on one side all thoughts of the problems and resistance they would be bound to meet later.

Political life in the capital was also going through an unusually calm period. The agricultural minister, almost unnoticed, put through some essential reforms concerning the husbandry of livestock; Parliament passed the budget, held long debates on modernizing the House Rules; and the government, though not aided by a revolt of their own party members, succeeded in raising army officers’ pay. There was still unrest in Croatia where insurgents had insulted the Ban — the appointed Governor — but everywhere it was common knowledge that talks had begun between the Croatians and the Hungarian government which seemed likely to end in agreement.

The ‘little war’ that Slawata had hinted at the previous autumn never materialized and relations with Italy remained as amicable as ever. All the same, King Edward of England went ahead with his plans to visit the Tsar at Reval and did so in such a flamboyant manner that no one could have mistaken the visit for anything but a public flaunting of the Anglo-Russian alliance. The only real cloud on the political horizon had been the revolutionary movements in Turkey, which had begun with army revolts in Monastir and Salonika and ended with the Sultan Abdul Hamid granting a constitution, lifting the censorship and declaring a general amnesty. It was obvious to everyone that he had not done this of his own free will and so people began to speak of a new historical movement in Istanbul that could well come to preoccupy both Russian and England, whose interests in the Bosphorus were diametrically opposed. All sorts of modifications might be made here and there to the map of Europe without much disturbing the balance of power, but he who could wield the most influence over the dying Ottoman Empire held a trump card in the councils of the great powers of the West. Maybe, thought Balint, it will all be to our advantage. Perhaps, as it was in England’s prime interest to keep the Russian fleet bottled up in the Black Sea, King Edward might look with a more kindly eye upon Austria-Hungary?

It was thoughts of this kind which preoccupied Balint as he sat in his hide half-way up the great tree and scanned the scene in front of him for any signs of life. Now the late afternoon shade softened all the outlines so that changes of scale or vegetation were marked only by their colours, the bright shining green of the young beech shoots, the blue of the pines, the angry green of the grass on the edge of the little streams and its fading yellow by the clay banks. Two fallen tree-trunks gleamed white against the soft grass, cutting a hard line as if etched with a sharp knife, and everywhere there was slight movement as a soft almost imperceptible breeze kept the grass in shimmering motion which concealed the solid earth beneath.

From somewhere near the river could be heard the cry of a kingfisher. No other sound was to be heard until suddenly there was a very soft crackling, so soft that it would never have been noticed if everywhere around there had not been such total silence. It came from the edge of the forest to the right, and Balint swiftly looked in that direction.

A doe raced out of the undergrowth, ran in a wide curve to the bottom of the valley and then turned and ran back to a little hillock where she stood waiting. In an instant she was followed by a buck. The chase must already have lasted some time since the buck showed flecks of foam round his mouth. The buck stopped almost as soon as he saw the doe some fifty feet away on her little hillock. As if totally unconcerned she made as if to graze for a moment. Then she raised her head, looked straight at the buck and gave the mating call, a low whistle. At once he ran towards her. She, ever coquettish, waited motionless until he was less than two paces away and then made a great jump and ran off.

The two deer ran almost together towards the foot of the cliff below Balint’s hide. Here the buck nearly caught up with his quarry but she found a new way to tease him, racing round and round a little grove of hazel bushes with him in hot pursuit until the buck abruptly stopped, so out of breath that Balint could hear him panting. For a few instants they remained still and if Balint had dropped something it would have fallen between them. Suddenly the doe whistled again and was off, the buck close behind her, zigzagging across the valley, leaping over the fallen trees and bushes, stopping and starting as the doe seemed to order, and then finally disappearing over the ridge and out of sight. Balint wondered how many more clearings they would find for the chase before the female finally decided to end the game. He had been enthralled by this glimpse of love-making in the wild.

Now dusk began to fall and the golden light faded from the peaks of the Munchel. Lilac shadows spread over the valley and the scent of wildflowers and fallen leaves became overpoweringly strong.

Abady was just getting ready to go back to his camp when another movement at the base of the clearing caught his eye. Something brown was moving at the edge of the fir tree plantation.

A giant mother bear, followed by two cubs, ambled slowly out into the clearing with that strange swaying walk, the head apparently wobbling from side to side almost as if the animal were shaking its head in puzzled consideration of a new idea. After a moment the mother bear paused to allow her two cubs, tiny beside the huge bulk of their mother, to join her. Then all three moved slowly and deliberately towards that part of the meadow which was the most boggy and where the wild clover grew and all the fresh buds were at their most succulent. Seen through the binoculars it seemed to Balint as if the trio were as close as if they were at his feet. He could even see the sparkle in the cubs’ eyes as they nibbled at the feast to which they had been brought. The mother, on the other hand, grabbed at whole clumps of grass, gnawing them to the root and leaving round bare patches where she had eaten. When one of the cubs strayed too far the mother would bark out a gruff command and the cub, for all the world like any well-brought-up youngster, would return at once to his place to be greeted with a light cuff over the ear, for family discipline was not the prerogative of humans.