Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

The first day was devoted to the livestock sales and the second to all other merchandise. For this reason the livestock to be offered for sale started pouring into the market site long before dawn, for it was important to secure a good stand and also to have time to put out some feelers about this year’s prices … for bargaining was no affair of a minute!

The handsome Mrs Sara Bogdan Lazar had left her property at Dezmer while it was still dark. In front of her carriage were driven some thirty oxen of various types — animals she had bought in the spring, fattened up on her rich prairie-lands, and would sell at a substantial profit in the autumn — and also some newly-weaned calves. The cattle were driven in front of her so that from her half-closed carriage, which was driven slowly so as not to exceed the pace of her stock, she could keep a careful eye on her cattle-hands, make sure they didn’t dawdle on the way joking with the girls from the farms they passed, and above all that they didn’t harry the beasts and make them go lame before they were offered for sale.

It may have looked odd that this elegant carriage driven by a coachman in livery should have four large bales of hay strapped onto the box, but Sara Lazar was never one to trouble herself about such things, for she was far too interested in the management of her farms to be bothered about the trivia of appearances. She was her own manager, and there was hardly a man in her district who understood the business half as well as she did.

So there she was, on the ground as early as anyone; and she always stayed until the very end. Although there was much interest in her stock from the moment that the market opened, she never lowered her prices so as to make sure of a sale. A man she knew — a buyer for the important Papp Brothers’ enterprise — had given her a tip that prices would be higher than usual this year. He had given her the slightest of winks from a distance, but this was enough for Sara. The Papp brothers always knew what to expect for they were the biggest cattle-dealers in the district, shipped their goods to Vienna and other places abroad, and kept their ears firmly to the ground. So Mrs Bogdan Lazar remained cool and held out for high prices herself. She ate her lunch from a hamper, right next to the animals she had brought for sale, and she was proved right. At the very end of the day she sold all she had brought at the very highest prices, for as the demand was greater than the supply, the prices went up as soon as there were fewer beasts left on offer.

When everything had been settled Sara sent her men home and then had herself driven to the centre of the town as she wanted to find the friendly fellow who had tipped her the wink about the day’s prices. He had well earned the few hundred crowns she would give him, and such gestures were much appreciated and ensured he would go on helping her in the future. She knew just where to find him: in the garden of the Green Tree Inn which, if not very elegant, was roomy and hospitable and had been chosen by the cattle-dealers as their favourite hostelry.

It was not easy to get through the town for by now it was evening and the roads were full of drunken men and herds of animals being driven away by their new owners. The most difficult to pass were the pigs, for even three strong men found it difficult to make them move, especially as they were kept captive by a string tied to one of their hind legs. Nothing daunted, Sara managed to find a way through the crowd of people, animals, stalls and tents, and finally reached the Green Tree. Boldly she walked straight in. The courtyard and garden were both crowded and the gypsies were playing their hardest so as to be heard over the din of good-humoured talk. Everyone was in a good mood for it had been a profitable day; and so the music played and the drink flowed. The waiters were kept busy carrying trays of food, tankards of beer and huge carafes of wine.

Mrs Lazar looked around her and soon found the man she sought. He was sitting with a lot of other men, leaning on his elbows at a large table near to where the gypsies were playing. She hesitated for a moment wondering if it might not be better to send him her tip by post. However she soon decided that it was better to do it straight away and so she started to brave the crowd of drunks so as to get closer to him. It did not take long, for drunk though most of them were, nearly everyone at the inn knew and respected and had done business with this handsome sensible woman, and so they made way for her with courtesy and a good grace.

The Papp Brothers’ representative soon saw her too, leapt up and went over to meet her. They exchanged a few words, standing there face to face, and then the envelope with his commission somehow found its way from her handbag into the inside pocket of his coat. In spite of the noise they managed to talk for a moment.

‘Why were the prices so good today?’ asked Sara. ‘Surely this was something of a surprise?’

‘They say,’ said her friend, ‘that the army is buying. This would explain why the Remount officer was here and why he bought so many horses. I don’t know much about it, but they say it’s because of the troubles in Turkey.’

‘The revolution in Istanbul? Is it possible?’

‘That’s what they say.’

A roar of laughter interrupted them. It came from the direction of the band. Sara looked over in that direction.

Where the band-leader normally stood there was a slim young man of medium height, and he was playing the violin. His clothes were shabby, both frayed and wrinkled, but they had once been of excellent cut. On his head he wore a copper saucepan that someone had placed there instead of a hat. He was very drunk, but still he played with wonderful skill even though now he was acting the clown and making such fun of everything that the crowd was in fits of laughter. He was full of tricks, crouching, dancing, rolling about like a clown in the circus, walking on tiptoe and reeling from side to side. But, drunk though he was, he still played faultlessly. Now he started the thumping rhythms of the old comic song ‘ Mistress Csicso had three daughters …’ and while he played he shouted out the words, not, however, those which most people knew, but an obscene version full of rude words and vulgar innuendo. And to underline the ribaldry he made the violin itself seem to cry out, hiccup and burp its way through the verses.

It was Laszlo Gyeroffy.

This was a popular music-hall song he had often played in the old days, now rendered obscene. Once he had played it at evening parties in fashionable and elegant drawing-rooms, and had sung gently its original comic text, not the appallingly vulgar words he now spat out with such zest. But here in the garden of the Green Tree, surrounded by drunken country folk, this was what was required by those for whom he played and who would also pay for his drink.

When Laszlo was drunk enough the crowd could do anything they liked with him. Today he had not noticed that someone had put a copper pan on his head and another fixed a napkin to his coat so that it fluttered behind him like a monkey’s tail.

It was by no means the first time that he had made such an exhibition of himself. During the summer he had come several times either to the Green Tree Inn or to one of the other hostelries in the town, and after he had spent the little money he had brought with him he would play wherever there was someone ready with the price of a drink. If he was not quite drunk enough, and if the jokes they played on him were too coarse and humiliating, he would rebel; and then, though still unsteady on his feet, he would suddenly become haughty and rude. However, as the need for the drink grew on him, so he became accustomed to the fact that they were laughing at him. He accepted it and even went out of his way to seek it, finding a bitter twisted joy in the fact that he had fallen so low. Long ago, when he had got drunk with people of his own kind, he had sometimes drawn himself up with unexpected pride and stalked off wrapped in his own ridiculous vanity.