Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

Balint looked down at her for a long time, and she was still not sure whether there had not been just the shadow of a smile upon his face.

‘May I come tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow, yes! But now you must go!’

It was of this that Adrienne was now thinking.

For a long time she pondered, wondering if she should write to tell him not to come any more. Should she write that she did not want to yield to him and become his lover, his mistress? That this was something that she couldn’t, wouldn’t do? Should she tell him all the thoughts that had obsessed her the whole morning, that she had pondered over a hundred times? She did not know how to write such things, and yet she could hardly put him off without giving some reason. Her courageous nature was such that she had always been prepared to face anything, and now what she would have liked most in the world was to open her heart and tell him face to face, when he came to her that evening, everything that was in her mind. But for once she was afraid, afraid of herself, afraid that she would not have the strength to resist him and afraid that his searching, caressing hands, his mouth, his eyes, his very presence beside her, would overcome her will and soothe her anxieties as they so often had before until she became bewitched into acquiescence. She was afraid that at this meeting, which she planned to be their last, her sorrow at parting would so shake her determination that now, just when they should part, she would no longer be able to resist him and they would at long last be joined for ever together.

And so she would have to write.

After a long time she took up her pen and started, and when she had started she wrote hurriedly, finding the right words with great difficulty and often scratching them out and starting again. Luncheon was announced long before she had finished, but still she did not move. Margit came into fetch her, but still she did not get up. ‘You go in,’ she said. ‘Sit down, start without me. I’ll join you later, perhaps, but don’t disturb me now!’ And she went on writing, the words pouring from her helter-skelter, just as they came from her heart, muddled, haphazard, desperate.

When she had finished she felt dizzy. Nevertheless she folded the sheets and put them in an envelope and rang for her maid. When the woman came she found Adrienne standing erect, apparently quite calm.

‘Please take this at once and be sure that you give it only to him. To nobody else, you understand?’

The elderly, grey-haired Jolan curtsied and left the room and then, and only then did Adrienne dissolve in tears.

My dearest,

I have changed my mind Don’t come to me tonight! Or any other night. Never again! Never! This is a dreadful word I know, but the whole thing is impossible. I didn’t realize it until last night. I didn’t know. It was so good, so beautiful. Do understand. I know that you love me and I, too, love you, every day more and more and more, if that is possible, and I now know what it is to love, I know that … one day, sooner or later … the thing will happen and we will become true lovers. But now that is impossible, so impossible that if it ever happened I would have to kill myself. Please don’t be angry with me! Just think of what would follow. Think how impossible everything would be! I am that man’s wife, his possession, What could happen then? That I … with you … and him. Even now it is terrible with him. You know it. You’ve felt it and you have understood even better than if I had ever spoken about it … But if I became yours, then afterwards … if with you and then afterwards …? No! Never! Never that, I would rather die! There would be no other way for me. You would say that I should divorce. If I could have I’d have done it long before you came into my life. But I can’t! He clings to me, pinions me, holds me down — he will never let me go, never release me and if I breathed a word of all this to him he would kill me. Me, and you too, or anyone else. You know what he’s like. I don’t have to explain. He would kill in cold blood, and enjoy it, laughing as he did so. I can’t let all this happen, start all this off, bring about this, this nothing! Just think where it would lead us. Only to death, and what use would that be?

We must part. We must, there is no other way, no other way at all. You must go abroad. Please, I beg you! Don’t even try to see me again, not after this. Perhaps later, when we are both calmer — but, until then, no! I could never refuse you if I saw you again. I know it now and freely admit it. If you came I would yield at once … and it would be the end of me. I would die … I would have to…. after that I could only face death. Please have pity on me! I never meant to do you any harm I know now what I’ve done to you, so have pity on me, I beg you. If you could forget me, it would be the best for you. If this is to be our final goodbye it would be best for both of us. Try it, please try it! Perhaps it will be easier for you than for me, perhaps? I only had you, nothing else. It will be so difficult for me, still I do beseech you to go away and wherever you go remember me and keep me in your heart knowing that I shall love you always and knowing that you didn’t kill me because I came to love you …

I know that you’ll be strong enough to do this and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the sacrifice that you will make for my sake, a sacrifice I believe is just as great as mine. Know that I am filled with gratitude for having known your love and that I kiss your mouth as you have taught me and that I shall for ever be lying in your arms and listening to the beautiful things that you tell me and that you write for me and that I kiss you and that I am always … and forever … yours … and yours alone … But don’t kill me, I beg you … don’t kill me …

Two days later Balint was back in Portofino. He went there straight from Budapest without stopping except to change trains, hardly noticing the changing landscapes, the continuous rumbling of the carriages, the discomfort of two sleepless nights and two endless days. Everything was unreal to him compared with the throbbing of the pain he was feeling and the feverish visions conjured up by his imagination. He knew then that Adrienne had glimpsed something she had never before imagined or experienced and that from it she had recoiled in terror.

It was this last troubled look in Adrienne’s eyes that Balint saw most often in his mind as he fled away, back to the Riviera. He read and re-read Adrienne’s letter a hundred times and always he came to the same conclusion, that what he was doing was right and that there was no alternative but to do what she asked of him.

He had to obey her, give her up, go far away from where she was, disappear from her life. Poor, poor Addy! She had been right; there was no other way open to them.

At last, after driving along roads bordered by orange groves and gardens filled with spring flowers, azaleas and camellias, he arrived at the little hotel beside the bay. The colour of the sea was as blue as a picture postcard, and all around him nature seemed to mock his anguish by displays of healthy, luxuriant growth, as if telling him that the world was indifferent to his pain and, no matter who fell by the wayside, life still renewed itself annually and eternally.