Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

The trees in the Museum garden were still bare. Above them the sloping slate roof of the Kollonich Palais could be clearly seen rising high above the corner of Sandor Street, the long elegant lines emphasized by the copper ribbing that had been placed every few metres and now glowed in the light of the street-lamps. The roof was cluttered with many chimneys which could only be seen from high up and far away. Laszlo gazed at that enchanted house, now for ever beyond his reach, and he thought back to the evening when he had returned from Simonvasar delirious with happiness and how on that evening he had stood at the same window and looked for a long time at the same distant roofs. Then the boulevards had been illuminated with a thousand brilliant lights, lights that were set in long straight rows and had seemed like the symbol of his triumph. Funeral torches now! he thought grimly. Down below the brakes of a tram screeched like an animal in pain …

AFTER KOSSUTH’S AND ANDRASSY’S NEGOTIATIONS with the King’s representatives a new coalition government had been formed under the leadership of Dr Wekerle. Then in the first week of May there was a general election. A large majority was won by the candidates of the 1848 Party and, along with other members of the old opposition, the liberal party of Count Tisza was practically wiped out, only a few of his old supporters obtaining seats as independent members. The representatives of the ethnic minorities increased their numbers to twenty-four, but this signified little in a house of four hundred and fify-three seats. Among the successful candidates from Transylvania was Uncle Ambrus, old Bartokfay, Farkas Alvinczy, Bela Varju, Dr Szigmond Boros, who was appointed a junior minister, and young Kamuthy, who just managed to scrape in a few weeks later as a result of a controverted election which had to be re-held.

Parliament reassembled in a cheerful mood. After the Royal Decree announcing that the new Parliament’s first duty was to work out and put into effect a programme of universal suffrage, the Speaker’s opening address, which spoke of the ‘sovereignty of the people’ had no more effect than the distant rumbling of a thunder storm that had passed. Peace had been declared: now it was time to get down to work to catch up and complete all the essential business of government which had been so neglected during the unconstitutional period of Fejervary’s government. There were national commercial agreements to be ratified, defence and other national estimates to be voted and, in the counties and districts, order had to be restored and the confusion resulting from the ‘Guardsman’ government’s appointment of unacceptable officials, cleaned up: for it was essential that these unpopular ‘lackeys’ should be weeded out, like tares among the corn. Joska Kendy, who now became Prefect in Kukullo, set about the task with undisguised delight and vigour, so much so that his zeal rivalled even that of Ordung in Maros-Torda, who was now busy finishing off his old enemy, Beno Peter Balog.

Balint saw something of this unscrupulous settling of old scores when he went to Lelbanya. There someone had slandered the honest notary Daniel Kovacs who had served the little town so long and so unselfishly and who had been so helpful with the starting of Abady’s altruistic schemes for the co-operative and cultural centre. It took him a week of hard work in Kovacs’s defence before the matter was settled and he could return to the capital.

In Budapest Balint attended the sitting of Parliament though he was in a depressed mood and found it difficult, however hard he tried, to work up much interest in the proceedings. He also tried to get on with the book he had started in Portofino, but inspiration was lacking. It was as if the spring that had spurred him on had broken when he had to give up Adrienne. ‘Beauty in Action’ had been his theme and now, though he tried hard to convince himself that there was beauty in his renunciation of her, perhaps even heroism, he could not rid himself of the disconcerting thought that maybe after all he might subconsciously have been acting from caution, from a desire to escape his responsibilities. Surely it could not be that. Adrienne had written those agonized and agonizing words ‘ Don’t kill me … I beseech you … don’t kill me …!’ What could he have done but obey?

When Isti Kamuthy was finally elected, second time round, he came to the capital to take his seat. One of the first people he saw in Budapest was Balint, and he at once told him how he had travelled in the same train as the Miloths, for old Rattle was going to Baden where his wife now was, while Adrienne and her sisters were going to stay at the Lido in Venice in two days’ time.

‘I expect you know that Judith ith a little touched in the head,’ he lisped. ‘They didn’t thay a word on the whole trip, though I did my betht to make agreeable converthathon!’

Balint did not reply, but turned on his heel and walked away. He did not want to hear any more; he did not want to discover, even by chance, where they were staying. He had promised himself that he would not see Adrienne again and if he knew where she was it would not be easy to keep that promise; so he decided that for the next few days he would not eat out except in the Casino club dining-room.

That very evening his resolve was broken.

In the centre of town it was stiflingly hot, unbearably so. Accordingly, Balint had himself driven out to the Wampetics Restaurant near the Zoological Gardens. After looking round he told himself that it was so full of people also trying to escape the heat that there would be no point in staying there. He walked across the road and into the City Park. Here, at the Lake Restaurant, it was just the same: throngs of people and the only table free was so near the band that he would be deafened. He decided it would be better to go to Gerbeaud, for though it was much more expensive it was sure to be less crowded …

He saw them as soon as he came in. There, sitting on the left, was the whole Miloth family group. Luckily Rattle and Judith were sitting with their backs to him and could not see him.

It looked as if Margit had not noticed his arrival either. Even Adrienne, though she was facing him, had not looked in his direction and so was unaware of his presence. She was talking to Isti Kamuthy and Joska Kendy and she looked unnaturally pale. Balint decided to place himself so far away from them that they would be unlikely to see him, and also so that, if by chance they did, there would be so many tables between him and them that he could either wave a greeting from a distance or else pretend that he was so pre-occupied with his own affairs that he had not noticed they were there.

He sat down near the lattice-work screen that divided the restaurant from the garden. In the distance he could just see Adrienne’s wide-brimmed Florentine straw hat under which her hair seemed even more raven-hued than ever. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of her lips as she conversed with her companions, and once or twice he saw her whole face; but when a fat man sitting near Abady leant forward to shovel more food into his mouth, then Adrienne was once again hidden from view. It was enough, however, to know that she was there even though separated from him by table after table of total strangers. He felt a sort of misterious warmth creep over him.

All at once the crowd in the restaurant started to thin out and Balint’s fat neighbour got up and left. Now he could see Addy unimpeded, and now, too, something sang in his heart: Adrienne was looking straight at him, her gaze fixed as if she were trying to say something to him from afar. Her lips moved. After a little while the Miloth party rose and started to move away along the central pathway between the crowded tables. Rattle led the way followed by the two younger girls, Kamuthy and Joska. Adrienne lingered behind the others, apparently engaged in pulling on her gloves. She paused, and as she did so she turned towards Balint, summoning him to come to her.