Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

That was how she remembered him, and how she had thought of him as she waited for him to join her for dinner the previous evening. And that was why she was taken by surprise to see, not the degraded drunkard she had expected, but rather a well-groomed and handsome, indeed very handsome, young man. Now that his well-cut clothes had been cleaned, repaired and ironed, she could see at once that he came from a good family and she was impressed with the gentlemanly manner with which, though he was clearly embarrassed, he begged her pardon for his previous behaviour. Everything about him now breathed the air of a man of the world accustomed to elegance, and his manners were those of a grand seigneur . He was quite different from anyone she had ever met and it was at this moment that she began to feel an unfamiliar magic creeping over her and overwhelming her judgement and her carefully nurtured prudence. As this handsome, gentle and well-mannered young man began to speak, as he picked up his knife and fork to eat, as he touched the corner of his mouth with his table-napkin, and as he sat down at the piano to play out his gratitude in music rather than words, she found him everything that was modest, well-bred, calm and composed, and indeed almost childishly charming. And as he played the expression of his face changed; it was as if from somewhere deep in his soul there was emerging a radiant Fairy Prince whose joys and triumphs had been in the remote past.

She had never before heard music such as he now played, music that was by turns plaintive and cruel. Though her piano had not been tuned for some years and the songs that he played sounded most unusual, Sara began to feel that all her life she had known this pale young man whose eyebrows met in the middle and who, from time to time, would look over towards her and explain the music that he was now creating just for her and for her alone …

It was of these things that Sara was thinking when she went out so early to her farms. She tried to analyse her emotions, feeling that her fears and reactions the night before had been silly and morbid, if not absurd. Perhaps she had, for some unknown reason, been unusually nervous; but anyway, she reflected, what did it matter if she had only just met him and yet fallen straight into his arms? Was she not her own master? Did she have to account for her actions to anyone or to anything except her own conscience? At last, in full control of herself, and knowing how beautiful and desirable she would appear in that silken wrapper, she brought his breakfast to his room and sat down on the side of the bed. And as she did so she was not unconscious of the fact that the edge of the wrapper had opened more widely around her neck.

‘Do you like it black or white?’ she asked as she started to pour it out for him.

There was no answer … but the coffee grew cold in the cup.

Laszlo’s life now began a new phase. Soon he was spending all his time with her, moving to Dezmer as if it were his home. At first he would spend a little time at his own house at Kozard, but he was so dismayed by the disorder and squalor of it that he soon returned. It was only now that he began to see how bleak he had allowed his own place to become.

The single room in which he lived was now almost bare both of furniture and objects. For the last year he had gradually been selling all his belongings, and not only the most valuable, though these he disposed of in Kolozsvar through the agency of the Jewish shopkeeper, Bischitz. Now all the old Gyeroffy family pieces, objets d’art , rosewood tables and cabinets, and the French bronzes his parents had bought together on their honeymoon in Paris, were to be found in plump little Frau Bruckner’s showroom in the provincial capital. Laszlo had got into the habit of taking the lesser things himself into Szamos-Ujvar, selling them for almost nothing, and then swiftly drinking the proceeds. He had even got rid of one of his English shotguns.

For the last year or so any money that Laszlo had been able to lay his hands on had either been gambled away in some tavern or else spent on drink.

Six months before, when old Crookface Kendy had spoken to him with such kindness and understanding, Laszlo had tried to pull himself together. He had written to Azbej asking for a list of his debts but though he had had a reply Azbej had written that the statement was not complete and that there were still some modifications that he would forward as soon as they came to hand. Put off in this way, Laszlo had soon lost interest and only remembered about the matter if he happened to catch sight of Crookface somewhere in Kolozsvar. On these occasions he would give the old man a most reverential bow, but all the same he kept his distance.

This was all that Kendy’s well-meant intervention had managed to achieve.

Now, after the experience of Sara’s well-run, spotless manor-house, Laszlo felt unequal to facing life at Kozard. He continued to return home from time to time, but for ever shorter visits. Indeed he only went so as not to have to admit to himself that he was now living on the charity of a woman.

Sara, who was no fool, herself made things easier for Laszlo to accept. She arranged matters so as to make it appear as if she needed him to help run her property. Sometimes, though carefully concealing the fact that the proposal was only half serious, she would ask him to oversee the ploughing or the cutting of the clover. She well knew that Laszlo was completely ignorant in such matters, but she wanted him to believe that he was being of use to her.

More importantly she induced Laszlo to take up his music again. Each evening she would make him play and when he had tried out for her some of the unfinished compositions he had brought over from Kozard, she made him get down to finishing them.

Laszlo had never been so quietly contented as he was in the first six weeks of their liaison.

WHEN THE NEW COALITION GOVERNMENT Came to power a new idea emerged in Hungarian politics; and it was enshrined in the phrase ‘the Corridor’. There was great excitement ‘in the Corridor’ that day, they said. The Corridor is unmoved by the latest developments; the Corridor has not yet formed its opinion; the Corridor is quite indifferent. Leading articles in the newspapers discussed at length the mood, wishes and opinions of the Corridor, which were known to be desperately uncertain, incalculable and capricious.

The Corridor was spoken about with all the awe once accorded to fabulous oracles.

That the Corridor should achieve such spurious importance was, in the circumstances, inevitable. At the time of the Coalition there was no opposition to speak of, and what there was consisted only of some twenty or so members from the ethnic minorities and a few socialists who had no influence and who were in any case generally thought of as dangerous enemies of the state. The three parties to the Coalition only ruled at all as a result of continual discussion between themselves. Everything that was finally presented to, and passed by, the House, had been the subject of previous and secret meetings between cabinet ministers, by the coordinating central committee, and also at smaller party meetings, so that every resolution had already been accepted by, and was therefore binding upon, each constituent party in the government. Every measure was presented in finished form, cut and dried and accepted by all parties. There was no longer any possibility of change since to suggest modifications at this stage would have been tantamount to rebellion against the party leadership. Whether it was a question of ideology or merely a matter of form, such suggestions were taken as irresponsible and unnecessarily captious.