Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

All this seemed to have happened a very long time ago.

Laszlo slept for the rest of that day. At dusk he woke up again and heard the sound of someone bustling about in the room; it was a little maidservant he did not know, and a room he had never seen before. ‘Your bath is ready, sir,’ she said. ‘I can add some hot water if you wish.’

It was with an almost erotic pleasure that Laszlo lay in the steaming hot bath. He stayed there a long time, and all around him everything was clean and sweet-smelling, the soap, the towels, the brushes and sponges. When he got back to his room he found that the lamps had been lit and a clean shirt had been laid out on the bed. On a chair nearby were his newly-ironed clothes and on the floor beside them were his newly-shined shoes.

Laszlo’s first impression was that it was marvellous to feel so clean, and this impression stayed with him for a long time.

And what happened later was equally surprising.

He was called down to dinner, and though at first he felt deeply ashamed his hostess soon put him at his ease. ‘I do hope the razor was properly sharpened,’ she said, laughing. ‘It belonged to my late husband and hasn’t been used for years. I tried to strop it myself, but I’m not sure I really know how. The shirt belongs to my enormous son, but he isn’t at home now.’

Laszlo at once felt that there was something charmingly simple about this woman, a natural, elemental goodness. And, too, she was beautiful and emanated a marvellous scent which in some way was the scent of naturally healthy creatures.

They had dined alone, and later he played the piano. This also seemed so natural that it was as if they could have spent the evening in no other way. Just as it was with what happened afterwards.

Now he wondered about it.

Laszlo had played for a long time. The room was lit with only one lamp, and suddenly this had started to smoke. They both noticed it at the same moment, jumped up and moved towards it, she because it was natural to her in her own house and he either by pure instinct or because he felt he should help. They had lowered the flame and the room, for a moment, became even darker than before, until they could hardly see each other even though they were standing side by side and very close. Of course he had put his arm around her and pulled her closely to him; and they had kissed. It could not have been otherwise.

For a long time they had stood there in each other’s arms, just kissing. Sarah had not resisted, not at first, but when he had held her even more closely and started to pull her away with his strong arms, there was a moment when she said weakly, ‘No! Don’t! No! No!’ but though she repeatedly said ‘No!’ her voice changed and her statuesque body started to tremble and it was clear she didn’t mean it. Long afterwards, whenever he thought about it, Laszlo could remember the feel of that voluptuous body trembling in his arms.

Later, as he covered her face with kisses, he had found that it was already wet, wet with the tears that rolled slowly down her cheeks.

Now he wondered why she had been crying and why she trembled so. Laszlo never normally pondered on such things but, as he lay once again gazing into the strips of light that were filtered through the louvred shutters, the question just presented itself to his mind. Even so he did not seek an answer. Vaguely he heard the sound of water running and realized that someone must be preparing his bath. He leaned back against the pillows feeling how good everything was, how good and how clean. Even the bed itself was fresh and scented and for a long time — not since life had torn him away from the luxury of the houses where lived his grand Kollonich and Szent-Gyorgyi relations — he had not known the sensuous pleasure of being so clean and well looked after. Stretching out in sheer content he closed his eyes and went to sleep again.

The door opened and Sara came in, a long silk wrapper emphasizing rather than concealing the curves of her statuesque figure. Now her hair was confined in a net and the narrowing effect on her head made her shoulders seem even wider than they were. She brought in Laszlo’s breakfast, a delicious selection of hot scones, cold meats and yeast cakes, with a pot of steaming coffee, all on a huge tray. Pulling up a chair to put the tray on she sat herself down on the edge of the bed.

‘You’re up early!’ said Laszlo, wondering at such energy.

She laughed, her white teeth shining. Just above her red lips there was a faint line of down as dark as her hair, and her long lashes might have been brushed in with charcoal. Her eyebrows too were long and finely etched like those of the ancient Egyptians. Her skin was a clear brown, glowing pink over the cheekbones and shining with the golden colour of richly whipped cream. It vanished into the V-shaped opening of her wrapper only to be seen again where her arms emerged from the silken sleeves. Only now did Gyeroffy fully appreciate what a beauty she was.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I’ve been up for a long time. Every day I walk round the place at dawn. Then I come in, bathe and generally clean up. I always get up before the servants do. Well, then, did you sleep well?’ she asked, with a mischievous smile. Then she said, ‘Shall I pour you some coffee?’

For a while they chatted gaily together. There was no longer any sign of that strange fear that had seemed to come over her when she first gave in to Laszlo’s embrace. Then she had felt that she was being swept away by some sad tragic force she did not understand. Since the death of her elderly husband she had had affairs only with two men, one of them a distant relation who just happened to come unexpectedly into her life, and the other with the Austrian lieutenant of hussars, Egon von Wickwitz. Both of these affairs had been quite different from what was happening now. Both those men had pursued her for some time, and both had only been accepted after she had thought the matter over carefully. And both had been accepted for clinical reasons of health and peace of mind. This was something quite, quite different. This was a storm, a sudden, unexpected, roaring tempest which, like an elemental force, swept everything before it. This was something she had never felt before and it frightened her. Her deep-rooted sense of self-preservation recoiled from the thought that if she did not resist from the first then she might unwittingly find herself the helpless slave of a fate she had never sought. And so she did resist … but it was a vain effort and she had not felt like this since those days so long ago when she was an inexperienced girl. Her attempt to deny him was doomed to fail, for, despite herself, and her fear she was being driven mad by desire.

This morning, from dawn until breakfast-time, while she supervised the milking and watched the animals’ fodder being measured out, and while she thought out and gave directions to her men for the day’s work, she never stopped wondering about what had happened the night before. And she asked herself how it was possible that this had happened to her now.

Sara was a contented, thoughtful and carefully composed sort of woman. She liked everything to be cut and dried, and she liked to be able to look at her own life — and at other people — with the certainty that she was in control.

When she had rescued Gyeroffy so abruptly from that horrible scene in the inn, she had acted out of pure pity. She found it disgusting that he should be made fun of in that way and she had acted swiftly and without reflection to put a stop to it. During the journey back to Dezmer she was conscious only of having been sorry for him, nothing else; for her inner motives and compulsions had remained latent and unrecognized. Indeed, when they had arrived at the portico of her house she had felt only disgust at the sight of the dirty and dishevelled young man who was so far gone in drink that they had practically to carry him up the steps. After that she had not seen him for a while. They told her the next day that he was still sleeping. Though she went to look in on him, and saw to it that he was being looked after, it had only been out of natural goodness, maternally caring for him as she would for anyone else who came to her house. And she did nothing to hasten his being roused for, deep down inside her, she had been reluctant to be faced again with someone whose dirty and unkempt appearance had already so revolted her.