Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

At this moment the Steward came round to see if anyone needed more chips or wanted to cash in their winnings.

‘Here! Bring me a float!’ said Laszlo as he passed, and sat down in the empty place between Zeno and Pray. It was considered lucky to sit on the right of a big loser. When the taille came in front of him Laszlo uttered those decisive words: ‘ Passe la main! ’ Some time went by before the cards came his way again. They remained for a long time on the other side of the table. In the meantime Laszlo ordered his bottle of absinthe to be brought up to him and, feeling a chill of fear run down his spine, took several large swigs to chase away the unwelcome feeling. The pack came round to him at last. Zeno, on his left, won a single coup. Laszlo put two thousand crowns on the table. He won. He won four more times and when the fifth time came he lost but, even though he had not halved, some twenty thousand remained on the table in front of him, for his last bank had not been matched.

Now Laszlo was flooded with a strange sense of liberation, his conscious mind hardly registering what was going on around him. He felt as if he were floating in a great sea, on the crest of waves that themselves were merely the surface of profound unknown depths. He was like a man who, after days thirsting in a waterless desert, could at last plunge his body in a cool mountain stream. In this instant he was almost happy, freed of the nagging thoughts and self-reproaches that had recently so haunted his imagination. Now he thought of nothing but the game, the esprit detaille — the way the cards were running. This was the only thing of importance in the world: for this one had to know if one really wanted to win.

Laszlo no longer played with the elegant disdain which has so won Neszti Szent-Gyorgyi’s admiration when he had started playing eighteen months before. At that time everything had seemed unreal, the chips signifying only numbers, not money; for then all that mattered was that he should be accepted as an equal among them, accepted and respected. But later, firstly when he had lost Klara by breaking his word to her and even more so since the day when Fanny had paid his debts by pawning her pearls, Laszlo had played with a fierce intensity, intent only upon winning. Win! Win! At all costs he must, must win … and, as a result, he played with intense determination, his nerves stretched ever tauter by the knowledge of his mounting losses and rapidly approaching ruin.

The time had come when any heavy loss would mean disaster.

The game continued for a long time as fast and furious as when Laszlo had first come in to watch. Now that he was playing the pile of chips in front of him sometimes grew and sometimes dwindled almost to nothing. At nearly half-past four the run of the cards changed. Arzenovics suddenly began to hold better cards, winning outright several times running. Gyeroffy, still on his right, started to swim with the bank, though by no means betting high. In a few moments he was losing heavily. A chill ran down his spine. Now he was really in deep water, for he was playing with money that was not his. He knew that he must not do this, must not run after his money, but if he did not, what was he to do? Somehow he had to win back what he had lost. Twice more he tried to come to the surface, like a man drowning; and twice more he sank to the depths, losing all he had staked. The Black Cockatoo still held the bank, but Laszlo sat back in his chair, the world darkening around him.

He closed his eyes, but fiery circles danced before him and he came to his senses only when the Steward announced that five o’clock had struck and everyone else started to get up and leave.

‘How much do I owe, please?’ said Laszlo as he got up from his chair beside Zeno.

‘Wait a moment, I’ll just add up! Seventy-two, yes, that’s it.’

‘Thank you, I just wanted to know.’ said Laszlo, and walked slowly to the door and down the stairs. He fingered the thick wad of notes in his pocket to pay. He had eighty-six thousand. It was there, still there …

It was daylight when Laszlo walked home. Market carts were rumbling through the streets and the refuse collectors’ bells tinkled as they stopped in front of one house after another.

Laszlo slept until the late afternoon. Then, lying in the darkened room, he took stock of his position and passed judgement on himself. He sentenced himself to social death. From this, he realized, there was no escape. The choice was simple — public disgrace or secret shame. Either he would be thrown out of the Casino for not paying his debts, and out of society, too, of course, or else he could pay his debts and forget about redeeming Fanny’s pearls, thereby living a lie, living without honour, no better than that Wickwitz whom he had publicly insulted for doing precisely the same! He had to choose one of these alternatives; there was nothing else open to him. It would be terrible to live on, shunned by everyone and branded as a fool and a defaulter, but it would be even more terrible to have to live with his secret shame if he did not honour his debt to Fanny. The first would be more bearable, for all his worldly ambitions had crumbled to dust anyhow during the last year. He said to himself that everything had to come to an end sooner or later, and that if social ruin was to be his fate it was better that it should come of his own free will and by his own decision.

He sat for a long time at the desk he had placed in the window and where once he had worked so hard upon his music and with such a will. Now it was covered in dust, unused for many months, and on it was the packet of banknotes, worth more than he had lost the previous night, which was to be the ransom for Fanny’s pearls, wrapped in brown paper and tied with thread, untouched. And so it should remain. This was her money, not his, and if he were to use a cent of it he would be a thief as well. That he would not do.

Now that his mind was at last made up he felt a calm indifference spread over him, as if he were making plans not for himself but for someone long since forgotten.

For the next two days Laszlo was extremely busy. First of all he went to the jeweller’s in the Dorottya Street where he was told that Mr Bacherach had gone away for a few days but was expected back soon: at two o’clock on the day after next he would, no doubt of it, be back in the shop. Then he went up to the old quarter near the royal palace, to the house in Donath Street, gave his notice, paid for the last quarter’s rent and sold his furniture, naturally for far less than it was worth. Then he packed up all Fanny’s things — her silken wraps, kimonos, cosmetics, slippers, everything he could find that belonged to her — and had it all posted to the Beredy Palais. Then he arranged for his piano to be sent to Kozard.

It took Laszlo two days to get all this done. On the second day he gave up the Museum Street flat. He removed all his clothes from the cupboards and carefully packed them in his trunk and suitcases. As he did so he became aware of the new grey morning coat which he had worn only on the day of the King’s Cup race and never again since. It was lying on his bed, the striped trousers beside it and on the floor the black and beige shoes with their wooden lasts in place. It was as though the corpse of his former life lay there on the bed, empty, inert, disembowelled. He folded everything carefully and as he picked up the waistcoat, a little betting slip fell to the floor from the breast pocket; the number nine looked reproachfully up at him from the threadbare carpet. He picked it up. It had been the tote ticket for that ill-omened bet, the bet he had lost. His superstitious words came back to him; suddenly ringing in his head he could hear his reply when Fanny had asked him how much he had risked: ‘Not much! Only my life!’ How true that had been! He thought about it for a few moments, then slipped the little paper back into the pocket from which it had fallen and packed the whole suit as if it had never meant anything to him. He felt no excitement or emotion of any sort: he might have been packing away the life and memories of someone he did not know.