Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

Both of them felt that they were surrounded by a void, an empty space that had nothing above and nothing below, no sound, no colour, no past and no future, and that they glided disembodied over a nothingness that had no beginning and no end.

That night they returned very late having hardly exchanged a word the whole time they were together.

The next afternoon Adrienne arrived at their meeting exactly at the hour they had arranged. Without a word she handed Balint a telegram which read: ‘ARRIVING TOMORROW AT MIDDAY — UZDY’. That was all. He gave it back looking at her enquiringly. Without a trace of emotion Adrienne, in a cold voice, said: ‘You must leave here tomorrow!’

They sat in the gondola slightly apart from each other, but as soon as they emerged from the narrow dark canal and were well away from the city they fell hungrily into each other’s arms.

When they parted later at the quay she turned to him and said: ‘Come to me later … just once more … to say goodbye.’ And she hastened away in the dark.

In Adrienne’s dimly-lit room they made love as they never had before.

In the last weeks, since they had first come together and all Adrienne’s latent femininity had been awakened, an ever-increasing frenzy of passion had seized her every time she lay in Balint’s arms. That wild joy of life that Balint had so often sensed in her but never before aroused, now so overwhelmed her that Adrienne had given herself without reserve and, in realizing to the full the satisfaction of her own nature so she had been able to make it the same for her lover. When, exhausted and spent, they had fallen asleep, it had been as if they were but one person. And if, from time to time in the course of those delirious nights, the Angel of Death was beating his wings above them, they had turned away consciously refusing to think of the future …

On this last night they did not sleep. Without uttering a word, they clung to each other desperately, kissing, biting each other’s flesh, tearing at each other trying to suffocate in their overwhelming search for oblivion. It seemed that all that was left to them was to seek death from exhaustion, as if now the only fulfilment was to be found in killing the other with the urgency of their love.

When dawn broke Balint lifted himself up onto his elbow. Now, for the first time he spoke:

‘What is going to happen, when …?’

They looked into each other’s eyes for a long time, seriously, not very close, almost at arm’s length apart. He did not have to say more, for Adrienne knew at once what he had meant. The look in his eyes was enough. It said, as clearly as if he had pronounced the words out loud: If you decide to die, I shall too. I must know and I demand an answer, straight, clear, unequivocal …

As she looked up at him, into those wide, questioning eyes, she thought for a moment of all those plans she had made when they had not been together. Her original plan was now unthinkable. As soon as Balint had left she had decided to swim out to sea, carefully keeping out of the sight of the lifeguard in his boat, until she was wafted away for ever by those currents whose force no one could ever overcome. It would seem like bad luck and unlucky chance. But that was now impossible, for Judith had thought of the same thing, got there first as it were, and so spoiled her carefully thought-out plan. No one could do that now, for they had posted a double guard; besides which the memory of Judith lying there naked on the sand being looked at pruriently by all those people filled her with horror. No! That way was no longer open to her. Of course, she reflected, she still had the little Browning; but she could not use that either, not here in Venice. Everyone would know at once that she had killed herself on purpose and Uzdy would soon find out how she had acquired the weapon and then as sure as anything on this earth he would search out Balint and kill him.

Abady’s eyes were still on her, demanding an answer.

Adrienne looked back at him, and then, very slowly, she sald: ‘I will try to go on living. Maybe I’ll succeed, even if we never see each other again …’

Now it was nearly daylight.

Adrienne sat on the side of the bed, still in her torn, thin nightdress. She did not move, but leant back on her elbows, her head thrown back and her eyes tightly closed.

Balint was already dressed. He was standing face to the wall. Then he turned back towards her and fell at her feet, burying his face in her lap and sobbing as if his heart would break. His whole body was so racked with sobs that his back heaved and shook as he pressed his face ever deeper into her lap, into the smooth curves of her half-naked thighs. Deep groans broke from him and he cried ever harder as if he would never stop. He was like a child in the grip of an unknown horror, a nightmare that could never be told in words, clinging to his mother’s knees and clasping her as strongly as if he would never let go. His hands clutched at her body, at her bare flesh, not in desire but as a drowning man clutches at anything that comes his way. Through these racking sobs which so tore his throat that she could hardly distinguish what he was trying to say, through the waves of pain that both were feeling, came only one word, repeated over and over again: ‘Addy … Addy … Addy …’

Adrienne gently stroked his head, not caring that her nightdress was torn, not noticing the ever-brightening light of the morning sun, regardless of her bare breasts, feeling no shame at the revelation of her torn and bruised and naked flesh. She felt nothing but sorrow, a dreadful, suffocating sorrow and pity.

Somehow she managed to find the strength to try and calm him, hushing him as one would a frightened child, vainly trying to lift his head, caressing his tousled hair as if he were her son, and all the while her hands, gentle and motherly, softly stroked his head as she tried to utter some words of comfort:

‘My darling … my own darling. You mustn’t … no, you mustn’t … My very own … my darling … no, you mustn’t …’

As Balint reeled out of Adrienne’s room the hotel was coming to life. He staggered out, not looking back, banging into the doorpost as he went, like a man mortally wounded and unconscious of his surroundings.

Adrienne rose from the bed and walked slowly to the window. From far, far away she thought she could hear music, but it sounded like a funeral march or the sad songs that accompany the dead to their last resting place. Perhaps it was only the echo of some distant siren. Her heart throbbed, beating unevenly as if it were about to stop for ever.

Adrienne just stood there by the window, looking fixedly into a distance that for her did not exist. She never touched the curtains but just stood there, alone, staring into nothing, her nightdress in shreds and in front, where Balint had buried his head, it clung to her thighs wet with his tears, and cold to the touch, for from outside the open window the early morning breeze had just begun.

The voluminous folds of the fine white netting floated around her, veiling her face, her dishevelled, unruly hair, her naked shoulders, until she was entirely covered.

She might have been wrapped in a shroud …

Count Miklós Bánffy(1873–1950) was variously a diplomat, MP and foreign minister in 1921–22 when he signed the peace treaty with the United States and obtained Hungary’s admission to the League of Nations. He was responsible for organising the last Habsburg coronation, that of King Karl in 1916. His famous Transylvanian Trilogy, They Were Counted, They Were Found Wanting, They Were Divided was first published in Budapest in the 1930s.