Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

Slowly the soft persuasive manner he had tried to adopt hardened into something much more natural to him.

‘After all,’ he said, ‘it is not as if I were still a child. I am of age and I have every right …’

‘So that’s how it is, is it? So it has come to that?’ interrupted his mother, drawing herself up to her full height, tiny though it was, and looking coldly at her son. ‘So now you dare to tell me the things you have a right to. All right. So be it! Do whatever you please. But I tell you this: never, never, as long as I live, shall that woman enter this house. Do you understand me? Never! And now go. I have nothing more to say to you!’

Once again Balint tried a more conciliatory approach. ‘My dearest Mama, don’t say things like that!’

‘No? Now leave me, enough has been said. Go now. At once!’

Balint realized that he had no alternative but to do as he was told. He tried respectfully to kiss her hand but she would have none of it, merely waving him to the door with an angry little gesture.

Countess Roza remained in exactly the same position, with her arm stretched out in command, until the door-latch clicked into place behind her son. Then, as if all the strength in her body had suddenly left her, she collapsed and sat sobbing at her desk. She sat there for a long time, racked with tears, her head shrouded by the sleeves of her dress as if she never wanted to see or hear anything ever again. It had not been like this since, so many years ago, she had wept for her young husband dying of an incurable disease in the next room.

The old lady cried so hard that she never noticed that one of the housekeepers looked in but retired swiftly, not daring to trespass on such grief. After a long time, during which Countess Roza was so absorbed by this devastating sorrow that she did not notice anything that happened near her, she suddenly sat up and pulled herself together. She wiped her eyes and smoothed back her ruffled hair. Then, getting up, she stepped briskly out of the small sitting-room, crossed the great hall on the first floor of the house and, carefully speaking as if nothing had upset her, told one of the waiting footmen to turn down the lamps.

No one who had not witnessed the scene between mother and son, and who now saw her walk calmly towards the door of her apartments, could possibly have guessed the turmoil she had just endured.

The next day mother and son did not meet until lunch-time. Balint greeted his mother as he always did by kissing her hand in the old formal manner; but he waited until they were alone before again referring to his marriage plans. He had spent half the night preparing what he was going to say, but it was all in vain for he had hardly begun before his mother interrupted him, saying in a calm but merciless manner, ‘I don’t wish to hear anything more about it. Nothing will change what I have already said. I will only add this: the day that you marry the person you have mentioned we will become strangers to one another. In the meantime, until that dreadful day comes, everything will go on just as it has before, until the very last minute. What is mine is also yours, but our life together will become impossible if ever you speak of this again. I say this so that you are forewarned.’

And then, so quickly that he could have no time even to think of a reply, she added lightly, ‘I’m going to walk down to see the mares. Hollo’s foal has been stung by a wasp, it seems. On the nose, poor little thing. There must be a nest somewhere about. If we could only find it we could have it removed.’

And so everything appeared to remain just as it always had been. Balint and his mother walked together around the property, planning flower-beds and ornamental shrubs, discussing a wooden bridge that was rotting away and must be repaired, and deciding which horses should be got ready for the autumn hunting season. They talked about fallow-deer, about hares and about pheasants. But it was all for appearances’ sake only, a sort of formal game that was played to disguise the fact that there was only one subject in both their minds: Balint’s plan to marry Adrienne.

Their words were carefully chosen, but as artificial as a drawing-room comedy; and their air of being without a care in the world was only a pretence.

Four days went by, heavy, painful days for them both. It was agony for Balint to see how his mother was suffering, and so he decided it would be better to absent himself for a while. It would be better for both of them if he were not there; and perhaps in time they could forget that dreadful scene in the little sitting-room, which was the first time in both their lives that they had had a real clash.

When Balint told his mother that he would soon be leaving again she did not ask, as she always had before, either where he was going or when he would be leaving. Instead she merely nodded her agreement and said, ‘All right!’ — nothing more. It was obvious that she imagined that her son was going to the side of the woman she hated; and she clung to this conviction even though Balint declared that he was going straight to Budapest for the next session of Parliament as there were to be important debates on electoral reform, the Turkish Question and on Balint’s own project — the foundation of the country co-operatives — all of which urgently called for his presence in the capital. Whenever the subject was broached she always avoided discussing the matter, repeating the words ‘All right! All right!’ as if she wanted somehow to make it unnecessary for Balint to go on lying to her.

However, everything that Balint had said was true; and for the moment he had no plans to see Adrienne again. But nothing would persuade Countess Roza to believe him; and so, for the moment, all confidence between them was shattered and it looked as if no words could heal the breach.

Balint went away sadly. When his carriage turned to pass under the great gateway of the horseshoe court, he looked back, as he always did, to wave to his mother who never failed at that point to come out onto the balcony above the front door of the castle. Today there was no one there to wave him goodbye. Perhaps, thought Balint, she had returned once again to the little sitting-room. Perhaps she was there hiding her tears from the world … and perhaps that was the reason she did not come out to watch him go.

Balint’s heart constricted with pain …

THE BIG COUNTY FAIR of Szamos-Ujvar was always held on a Tuesday in September. Of all the Ujvar Fairs this was the biggest and most important, both because of the pig-fattening and because it was the time when the distilleries did their buying. Herds of cattle were sent to this market by the farmers, and all the tradesmen and wholesalers were there. It was now that pig prices were at their highest, indeed it was the best moment to sell off any unwanted stock, even horses now that they were in good condition after being at grass most of the summer. It was at this time, too, that anyone with foresight bought their winter clothes — boots, woollen underwear and overcoats and warm blankets — as well as ploughs for the autumn sowing, harness for the beasts of burden, and a myriad other necessities for the farmer. And many people came, too, just for the fun of it, for a big county fair was as good as a carnival. Men and women streamed into the little town from all around: from Mezoseg, from Erdohat and the valley of the Szamos, even from as far away as the district of Kovar. Even if they had no need for serious buying and selling they came to enjoy themselves, for at the fair you could hear the latest news and drink brandy sweetened with honey. People came for all sorts of reasons, just to be there; and they would come in from twenty kilometres away merely for a swig of brandy, a new stem to their pipe, or for a single box of matches.