Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

Laszlo recognized her as the same girl he had seen struggling in Szabo’s grasp the night before, and thought how sad she looked. Peter whipped up the horses so quickly that Klara’s ‘Thank you!’ was lost as they sped down the drive.

They were in such excellent spirits that everything was fun. In the clear pale sunlight the hoar frost glistened silver on the fields and trees, and the boys, even in their father’s presence, made a game of every thing, shooting in front of each other, poaching the other’s birds and behaving in a manner they would never have dared during one of the grand shoots.

Laszlo laughed and joked with the others, but his eyes betrayed him and remained clouded and serious no matter how hard he tried to keep up with the general high spirits. Always he was hoping to have a moment alone with Klara so that he could ask what had happened the night before.

But no chance came. Every time he attempted to get her on her own he seemed to detect a spark of mockery in her eyes. She eluded him, and he became increasingly hurt.

And so it went on the whole morning with Laszlo becoming ever more tortured. At last he just followed Klara in silence, and the dry leaves crackling under his feet were the only accompaniment to the gloom of his thoughts. All his attention was riveted on Klara, so much so that he barely heard when someone spoke to him. Even so he just managed to keep enough self-control to disguise his feelings. Though in agonies of doubt and jealousy, nothing showed in his face when he spoke to Klara or to Magda, and he would reply to their questions as lightly as if he had nothing on his mind.

Even when they got back to the castle and sat down to tea, he could still not get near enough to her to get an answer to that question that never ceased to scream inside his head.

When it was time for Niki and his father to leave they said goodbye to the princess and the Kanizsays in the marble salon and, accompanied by Klara, Peter, and Magda — with Laszlo just behind them — moved through the great hall to the entrance where their large Mercedes was waiting. Passing through the library Laszlo slowed down; what was he doing, going to the door to see his host depart? What business was it of his? He was only another guest and a quite unimportant one at that, only invited to help with the shooting. Why, his cousin Peter had made it quite clear, even if unintentionally, that it was his skill with a gun that was wanted, not he himself, not Laszlo Gyeroffy! Why should he then go to the door as if he were of any importance?

He stopped by one of the long windows of the library. It was growing dark and, as the lights had not yet been switched on, long strips of the dying light of day came through the french windows and covered the polished parquet floor with a glow like that on ice. Outside everything had taken on a bluish grey colour, the lawns, the box hedges, the bare trunks of the trees were all grey, as were the lilacs and other ornamental shrubs which had been planted in avenues to lead the eye in three directions; to the artificial lake, to the miniature Greek temple with its Corinthian columns, and to a vista of the great plain that lay between the castle and Lake Balaton.

Looking at this late autumn landscape, where nature seemed already to have sunk into the sleep of winter, Laszlo felt welling up inside him a great sadness.

The park had been laid out after the best English landscape models. It gave the impression of being a great deal larger than it was in reality, even though here the trees did not grow tall in the sandy soil which itself was burned brown each year by mid-August. But now, in the twilight, the bare trunks and the ground lightly shrouded by the mists of evening looked mysteriously sad, and spoke to Laszlo only of his own sorrow and loneliness.

He said to himself that if Klara were to marry Montorio he would never come to Simonvasar again, never! So he stood there, feeling that he was saying goodbye for the last time and must therefore try to etch the scene on his memory so that, later, recalling the hell he was now going through, he would be able to recapture every detail and, in his unhappiness, recall the scenes where once, so many years before, he had been happy and free of care.

When they were still children they had run about those lawns, played croquet behind the rose gardens — and always he had sided with Klara and hidden among the lilacs with her when they had played hide-and-seek. In every corner of that garden there were a myriad childhood memories.

The sound of chatter behind him brought him back to earth. Quick, running footsteps and laughter told him that Peter and Magda were on their way back to the red drawing-room. Then his heart contracted as he heard light steps behind him: it was Klara.

‘I love this view, especially at dusk!’ As she reached up to put her hand on the handle of the shutters her arm brushed Laszlo’s shoulder. ‘I look at it often … when I am alone.’

This was the moment to ask. Now or never he must know if Montorio …? But he did not know what to say. His voice was hoarse with emotion. ‘Klara! Tell me?’ It was too late; she had already started to speak.

‘Don’t you remember? There! You rescued me from that poplar! What a coward I was! I didn’t dare jump.’

‘Of course I remember.’ He hesitated. Should he ask his question now? Again it was too late. Before he could open his mouth Klara turned towards him, very slowly, and when they were face to face she looked him straight in the eye. Though she did not speak he knew that she too was asking him something.

Her red lips were slightly parted. She was waiting for something, and somehow her whole face seemed different. This was a Klara he had never seen before. Of course she was the same but something about her was new and mysterious. As she looked at him, Laszlo forgot his misery, his doubts, his loneliness and despair. Everything was wiped away as he knew that he had only one thought, one desire; to take her in his arms and kiss her. But still he hesitated. Would she be annoyed, take offence, if her childhood friend and playmate suddenly abused her confidence, took advantage of her weakness and her vulnerability and forced a kiss on her? How could she know how desperately, how deeply, how fatally and forever, he loved her?

For a moment they stood, neither of them moving; gazing into each other’s eyes. Then Klara turned and with gliding steps made her way back to the drawing-room. Laszlo followed despairingly, knowing that he had let another chance escape him. What a fool he was! Why hadn’t he kissed her? What an utter, utter fool he was not even to ask!

Laszlo had to find another opportunity to be alone with her, so after dinner he asked if she would like to hear his latest composition. When they went towards the music-room they were joined by Peter and Magda, who were enjoying a light-hearted cousinly flirtation and who accepted Laszlo’s suggestion with joy knowing that they could talk in private if Laszlo were at the piano.

While they sat down at the far end of the room Klara joined Laszlo, but instead of sitting beside him as she had the night before, she stood in the curve of the piano facing him. Laszlo played a few chords and then looked up. ‘Go on,’ she said and closed her eyes.

‘I based this piece on an old Szekler melody,’ said Laszlo as he began to play.

It was a strange tune, strange and slow, like a musical sentence endlessly repeated in different keys with unexpected dissonances and harmonies, moody and sad. When the repetition seemed almost unbearably poignant, it broke off with a cry of yearning, a dream-like sob of frustrated desire, and then returned to the little tune with which the piece had begun. At the end an unresolved chord left a question hanging in the air.