Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

Adrienne pulled the silk wrap up around her shoulders, perhaps sensing Balint’s eyes upon her bare skin. It was a shy, almost girlish movement and, after wrapping herself still more firmly she turned, leaning back against the parapet, and said: ‘I love to hear you talk, AB. You’re so confident about life. It’s good for me, perhaps even necessary. Please go on. Tell me more.’

So Balint went on, with renewed confidence, in a low dreamlike voice, as if someone else were speaking through him. He spoke long and intensely, and Adrienne listened, only occasionally interposing a word or a question. And when she spoke, ‘Oh, Yes! Yes! It’s possible. Perhaps, but you really believe then …?’ she no longer looked into the night but gazed deeply into his eyes. Her eyes were the colour and depth of yellow onyx.

Balint could have continued for ever, but all at once the door of the ballroom burst open and a stream of dancers flowed out onto the terrace, the rushing melody of a popular galop filling the air with its gaiety and rhythm.

Farkas Alvinczy, who had been leading the dancing all evening, was the first. Bent almost double in his haste and dragging his partner after him, he ran, followed by the others, all holding hands, stumbling, tumbling and whirling round the terrace in giddy speed, the men in their black tail-suits, the girls in silks and satins of every colour, down the paths, round the stone balusters, rushing with careless abandon until they all vanished once more into the house.

The last in the chain was young Kamuthy, his feet scarcely touching the ground as if he were a child’s top at the mercy of a whip. He bumped into the columns and into the stone balusters and stretched out his hand to Adrienne as he swept by. She stepped back, and on he flew, in a tremendous arc of movement, crashing into anything and anybody in his way, twice into the stone balustrade and finally into the door-post. Then he too was swallowed up once more into the vortex of the ballroom.

It only lasted a few moments, and then Balint and Adrienne were suddenly alone again. From inside they could hear the music change from the madness of the galop to a slow waltz and, through the great doors they could see the chain of dancers break up and dissolve and divide once more into pairs, each couple swaying gently to the music, turning and gliding in each other’s arms.

The magic that had made Balint and Adrienne forget time and place, everything but their own existence and thoughts, was broken. Without speaking they moved slowly back to the castle. As she went in someone asked Adrienne to dance; and she turned and disappeared into the crowd with all the others.

Balint did not dance. He stood near the wall for a few moments, needing time to come back to reality after the dream-world created by his talk with Adrienne. He thought of Jopal sitting alone beneath the tower and he decided to go and seek him out and talk. It would be better than returning to the ball for which he was no longer in the mood.

He left the ballroom and went slowly down the great staircase into the entrance hall where the bar had been placed, out through the entrance doors and down the few steps to the moonlit garden, and on towards the corner tower; but there was no longer anyone there. He paused and listened in case he should hear the sound of footsteps. Maybe Andras Jopal would come into sight; but no one moved.

Towards the east a faint strip of light heralded the dawn. Balint walked slowly along the path in front of the castle wing where lamplight steamed out from the library windows.

Inside the long narrow room two card tables had been set, one at each end, and at the smaller of these, Crookface, gruff as ever, was playing tarot with his host, the prefect and Tihamer Abonyi. Their table was lit by four candles and they played in a silence which was only occasionally interrupted by Abonyi who as always liked to show off his superior knowledge, and so remarked from time to time that things were done differently at the National Casino Club in Budapest and in Vienna. As no one paid any attention, he was soon forced to give up and play on in silence.

The other table was much noisier. Uncle Ambrus had got a poker game together. He had gone round the ballroom slapping the young men on the back and crying heartily, ‘Come and have a shifty at the Hungarian Bible, sonny’ or, ‘You can’t hide behind skirts all the evening,’ or even ‘A man needs some good Hungarian games, my boy, not German waltzes,’ adding, for good measure, ‘They serve some damned good wine downstairs!’ He had gathered together quite a number of the brighter, more dashing young sparks, to whom he was still a hero and who looked to him as their leader, even if he always did prefer a poker game to a ball.

Not that they guessed the whole truth, which was that the older man was no longer spry enough for dancing and preferred to rest his feet under the card-table. This was also profitable, as he usually took quite a lot of money from younger players less experienced than himself.

At Uncle Ambrus’ table, next to which trays of tall glasses and delicate Bohemian crystal decanters had been placed on a side-table, sat the two middle young Alvinczys, Adam and Zoltan, together with Pityu Kendy and Gazsi Kadacsay. This was a family party, since Ambrus’s mother had been an Alvinczy, while Pityu was his second cousin and Kadacsay was Uncle Ambrus’s brother-in-law’s son. But Ambrus never let kinship stand in the way of his winning a little money and, sometimes, more than a little. No one was a better player than Ambrus. He was a great gambler and the younger players could never guess what he was up to. Sometimes he would bet high on a single ace or throw in a winning hand. Sometimes he would act coy and complaisant, as if he were holding good cards, and then egg the others on with loud-mouthed hints that he held nothing — but no one ever knew whether he really had a good hand or not. He would complain to the heavens of his bad luck and swear obscenely and then tease them, saying: ‘Don’t go on, son, I’ll have the pants off you!’ And his resounding laugh and avuncular good humour made the young almost glad to lose to him.

As Balint stepped into the library Uncle Ambrus was in full flood.

‘Oh, my God! What shall I do? I’ll bet one of you has a pair of these! Jesus! And the other’ll have these. You Alvinczys’ll skin me, I know it!’ and he leaned back, banged the table, struck his head and turned in mute appeal to Daniel Kendy who was sitting behind him already far gone in drink, and then, as if risking his all in mad despair, he pushed a pile of coins into the centre of the table, and cried: ‘Devil take it! Might as well lose the lot! Here, I’ll stake four hundred more and don’t you dare give it back!’

One of the Alvinczys threw his hand in at once. The others followed suit … and the game was over.

‘Don’t you want your revenge? I would! I’m terrified of you all Well, don’t you want to see what beat you?’ and, dealing out his hand, card by card, he showed a straight flush, better than anything the others could possibly have held. And he still pretend to be astonished that he’d won, though he’d known it ever since the cards had been dealt.

‘What luck! What fucking luck! Lucky at cards, unlucky in love! The girls don’t love me any more, poor old man that I am!’ And he reached out with his great hairy hands and scooped up all the money with a gesture of pure grief.

Balint remained standing near Ambrus’ table. He felt faintly disgusted by this shameless display of feigned disingenuousness and ashamed too of his own generation who drank too much and fawned on the old vulture with servile admiration.