Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

The boys were dismayed. They realized that this meant serious trouble, because Jopal always bolted the door when he was in the room, and when he went out, he locked it and took the key with him.

The boys knew what was in the room. Hanging from the roof-rafters was a huge dragonfly-shaped contraption, whose wings were made of canvas stretched over wooden laths. A big designer’s desk near the window was spread with gigantic drawings which meant nothing to them. But there the answer was, for all to see in large letters on each plan: ‘Blueprint for Jopal’s Flying Machine’. They had discovered it one day when the tutor had gone into the village and they had climbed in through a window that gave on to the ramparts. It had been a dare-devil adventure. Taking care that it did not break under their weight they had had to climb up the centuries-old ivy that grew up from the edge of the moat and, slipping through the battlements, clung to the inside of the walls. Then had come the most difficult part. After edging their way along the side of the wall, hanging on only with their hands, they had had to bridge a two-metre gap between the wall and the open window. This they had managed by stepping, one by one, on the old stone supports of a former wooden defence platform that jutted at intervals from the wall like chipped teeth over the abyss below. They had made it without mishap, being experienced nest-robbers who were used to scaling sixty-foot high poplars to get at the doves’ eggs in the spring.

They had never told anyone what they had found in the room. By anyone, they meant grown-ups. Under great oaths of secrecy they did tell their sisters and with them, and them alone, they laughed at the Mad Professor who was their tutor.

When Count Jeno had heaved his heavy bulk up the rickety wooden steps with considerable difficulty, he leaned, out of breath, against the door of Jopal’s room. It did not yield.

‘Who’s there?’ cried an angry voice from inside.

‘It’s me! Open at once!’ cried Count Jeno, rapping on the door with his stick.

The bolt rattled and the door swung open under the weight of the irate count, sweeping Jopal, who tried to stop him, out of the way.

At first the master of the house stood dumb with surprise at what he saw. Then he started shouting: ‘What the Devil’s going on here? What’s this contraption? Instead of doing your job you waste your time making toys for children?’

The inventor, whose quick temper always landed him in trouble, was cut to the quick. Full of his own self-importance, and conscious that his so-called ‘toy’ could be of world-shattering importance, he stepped in front of the model machine and spread out his arms dramatically.

‘This! This! This! Do you know what this is? It’s the most important invention … the Flying Machine!’ He was sure this staggering answer would confute all criticism, but it had quite the reverse effect. At another time Count Jeno might have found the situation absurd and laughable, but now, angry already, he growled deeply and then shouted:

‘So you’re spending my time on this … this idiotic contraption? That’s not what I pay you for. You ought to be locked up in an asylum!’ and he went on in the same vein, working himself up into a towering rage.

For a while Jopal listened, his face stony, his lips tight over clenched teeth, and only his blazing eyes revealed the extent of his hurt and anger. Suddenly he screamed at the count: ‘Shut up!’

Surprised, Count Jeno fell silent, and now it was Jopal’s turn to pour forth a torrent of words. He went at it with all the fanaticism of someone bent on a single goal. All the bitterness of years of privation and frustration erupted at this moment. Blind to everything but his own unrecognized genius he became defiant, praising his lonely struggle and his importance and reviling the blindness, ignorance and lack of imagination of people like Count Laczok. Finally he spat out: ‘It’s I! I … who would have brought everlasting fame to this stinking, rotten owl’s nest, this God-forsaken rat-hole. My name would have made Siklod go down in history!’

This was too much for the count. Slashing at the machine with his stick until it spun on the cords from which it hung, he cried, ‘What? This idiocy? This crazy rubbish! This is what I think of it!’ and he struck out again, breaking the slender laths and tearing the canvas.

‘I won’t stay here another minute!’ screamed Jopal, from behind the swinging remains of the broken model.

Count Jeno did not answer. He turned on his heel and clumsily, with difficulty, descended the rickety wooden stair. By the time he had reached the bottom his anger had evaporated; and if he had not had the last word at least it was his action that had brought the confrontation to an end. It flashed through his mind, too, that it was all the same if Jopal left now or later. If the tutor broke his contract and left at once he would not have to be paid and, as the boys’ examinations were only two days away, they would not be able to learn much more anyway. This thought put him back in a good humour and he had left the tower and gone for a walk, smiling and quite pleased with himself.

When Balint got back to old Minya’s house, the girl Julis and the wagoner were still unloading the broken parts of the model and carrying them piece by piece into a little room next to the kitchen. The mathematician stood beside the cart collecting his papers. Defiant and self-righteous, he looked at Balint with open hostility. Balint took no notice but walked over and introduced himself.

‘I think we’ve met before,’ he said, ‘at Kolozsvar, at the university. I was in the Law School.’

‘Possibly. I don’t remember. What do you want with me?’

‘Your uncle told me of your work.’ Balint pointed to a fragment of the broken model. He spoke hesitantly, embarrassed by the fact that he was about to do someone a favour. ‘He also told me what’s just happened. In our place, at Denestornya, there’s a big empty room. I know my mother would be happy for you to use it. You could work there in peace, without any interruption. If you needed anything — materials, wood — I’m sure we could find it for you. l believe a Flying Machine is possible.’

Jopal’s eyes sparkled.

‘Possible? It’s already done. I’ve created it. Yes I really have! The Wright Brothers’ experiments were all very well in their way, but their construction was all wrong.’

He started to explain what he meant. Previously every attempt to build a flying machine had been based on the mathematical formulæ worked out by Lilienthal, but these, though sound as far as they went, neglected certain important mechanical and practical factors. It was this aspect of the problem that he had been studying, for until these things were solved the theory could never be put into practice. Everything up until now had been nothing more than elementary children’s stuff, scientists’ toys, he said bitterly, thinking of Count Laczok’s insulting words.

He spoke of natural flight, of birds and their movements and proportions. At first he spoke only in general terms, as one does in popular lectures, but soon he was so carried away by his own enthusiasm that he sat down on the ground beside Balint and began to draw in the sand. With one of the broken laths he drew diagrams of the wing-spans of cranes, falcons and swallows, showing the relationship between size and weight. Alongside, still in the sand, he wrote the apposite algebraic formulæ. Soon the whole space was filled with traced shapes and figures.

Jopal’s eyes were bright with excitement and his bulging forehead was creased with perpendicular furrows. Until now, he said, no one had discovered the right coefficient to settle the problem of air-resistance. The solution was this: the formula must be based on a fifteen degree sinus-angle — and he stood up and scraped a line with the heel of his boot.