Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

Another, more painful memory came to his mind. They were having a boxing lesson and it was an unwritten law that even when they boxed in play, heads shouid not be touched. Laszlo was sparring with his cousin Louis who, though a year and a half younger than he, was a large and strapping youth, headstrong and self-willed. From the start Louis had ignored the rule about blows to the head and Laszlo had begun to lose his temper. By chance he had hit Laszlo on the mouth, loosening one of his teeth and splitting a lip from which blood spurted copiously. The fuss had been appalling: not that Louis minded at all but the princess, told at once by one of the girls’ governesses, had been cold and angry and had made Louis apologize publicly to his cousin — even though the bruises on his own face were clear evidence that it was not he who had started their rough play.

Even now he could recall the menace behind his aunt’s icy forgiveness. The meaning was clear enough: any repetition of such behaviour would entail automatic banishment. That had been eight or ten years before.

With the passing years he became more and more aware of the gulf that divided him from his cousins, of the financial and social differences that set him apart. And though this awareness never provoked his envy, nevertheless it gnawed upon his consciousness and made him increasingly ill at ease in his cousins’ presence. It was, perhaps, the unjustness that had most upset him. Why should he be the one to be exposed to the cruelty of being treated with undisguised contempt by visitors who spent half a day at Simonvasar without noticing his presence, to the disdain of the servants who, with an arrogance they would never dare show to their masters, would, rinding themselves along with Laszlo, relax from their obligatory immobility, lounge about and even chat together, something they would never permit themselves if they could be seen by even the smallest Kollonich or Szent-Gyorgyi child?

The second gong, announcing that dinner would be served in five minutes, broke into Laszlo’s reverie and sent him in haste to scramble into his evening clothes.

LASZLO REACHED THE LIBRARY just as the guests were starting to move towards the dining-room.

At the head of the formal procession the princess was escorted with old-fashioned courtesy by the field marshal, resplendent in dress uniform. Behind him in order of precedence followed other couples, the ladies’ hands resting lightly on the arms of the gentlemen who accompanied them. Laszlo joined in at the rear with his cousins for whom no more ladies remained to be escorted. Slowly they progressed through the long music-room to the formal dining hall beyond it. This was an exact duplicate of the marble salon on the other side of the house. It was one and a half stories high and its walls were covered in stucco decorations painted in a butter yellow colour. As the room had been completed at the end of the 1830s, after the great days of the classical revival, the marbleized panels were edged with multi-coloured garlands of roses in high relief, the corners softened and curved. In the centre of the panels were escutcheons of flowers and great wreathes of roses which seemed full of movement and warmth, and gave an air of lightness and festivity to the huge high formal apartment.

In the middle of the hall stood a vast wide table covered with a white starched linen table-cloth which was in turn almost concealed by the profusion of silver objects covering its surface. Down the centre of the table stood eight giant candelabra decorated with sculptured goats’ heads and standing on tripods imitating the legs of roe-deer. Between them were ranged several tall oval urn-shaped vases with lids representing swirling acanthus leaves and, placed between the larger objects, a multitude of other high and low covered dishes crowned with pine-cones and pineapples in massive silver. Though the intention had been to reproduce what was thought to be the Greek style, here there was none of the severity of the Empire period. All these objects were elaborately decorated with curves, domes, lattices, bunches of grapes, entwined branches of vine leaves and pearls, so highly polished, so rich and complicated, that the general impression would have been irretrievably restless had not the brilliance of the light from the electric chandelier above dissolved the detail of over-rich craftsmanship into a unity of glitter. It was the famous Sina service, a treasure in itself which had been made for the imperial banker by silversmiths from Vienna.

The host and hostess took their places opposite each other at the centre of the table, and the other guests ranged on each side of them in diminishing order of precedence.

The dinner started in the usual silence that marks a fashionable gathering. It was as if a devout atmosphere was obligatory, with the guests playing the part of the congregation and the frozen-faced hieratic butler and lesser servants that of the officiating clergy. These last moved round the table in ceremonial silence and intimidating efficiency. Not a plate clattered, not a glass tinkled: the solemn hush was broken only as the butler or head footman poured wines with a soft murmur of mysterious words ‘ Château Margot ’82? … Liebfraumilch ’56? ’

Slowly, under the influence of fine wines and excellent food, most of which appeared in unrecognizable magic disguises, conversation began and a general hum of talk could be heard as the guests bent towards each other, nodding, smiling and beginning to relax and enjoy themselves.

Magda Szent-Gyorgyi turned towards Laszlo. ‘Nice things we hear about you!’ she said roguishly, looking away from him as she spoke with a quick bird-like twist of the head.

Laszlo had no idea what she meant.

‘Oh, don’t deny it!’ Her tiny rose-red mouth pouted and she went on in a whisper, ‘We all know why you’ve been hiding in Budapest all these months!’ Her little pointed tongue darted in a swift movement over her lips as if she were tasting something sweet and she glanced at her left-hand neighbour, Lubianszky. Seeing that he was busy talking to Countess Kanizsay she turned back to Laszlo and with more assurance said boldly: ‘Tell me, is she very beautiful?’ and then with wide-open eyes, ‘… your little cocotte?’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ asked Laszlo, sincerely puzzled.

‘Oh, you, you poodle-faker!’ Her low voice gurgled with pleasure as she used the slang word a young girl should not have known. ‘They had to ring three times before you opened the door and you didn’t turn on the light for fear they’d see something of hers, right?’

Then it dawned on him. She was talking about the evening when Peter and Niki had come to his little flat in the evening. He turned angrily to Niki who sat next to him around the corner of the table.

‘Did you invent this nonsense?’

But Niki only hung his head in mock shame and, grinning wickedly back, did not answer. He was sitting too far away for Laszlo to go on without attracting attention so, ignoring Niki, he turned back to Magda and was about to speak when the thought flooded through him that if Niki had told this pack of lies to Magda he had surely related them to Klara. Angry as never before that the sweet Klara, so pure and innocent, should have been exposed to the frivolous Niki’s thoughtless slanders, the blood rushed to his face.

‘You’re blushing! See how you’re blushing!’ Magda whispered triumphantly. ‘What a bad fibber you are!’

Before Laszlo could reply a long serving dish floated between them. Like a silver ship carrying on its deck a pile of little grass-green and white striped hearts, a wonderful and famous dish, the fifth course that evening, was called Chaud-froid de bécasses panaché à la Norvégienne. When this battleship sailed away its place was at once taken by two destroyers in the shape of oval silver sauce-boats. The conversation which had been interrupted by the arrival of the woodcock, was finally killed when an arm stretched out towards Laszlo’s glass and an unctuous voice murmured in his ear, softly and mysteriously, ‘ Merleblanc ’ 91? ’