Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

‘It’s beautiful! Please play some more!’ said Klara, not moving from where she stood.

Laszlo played two more pieces. One was the half-finished fantasia he had started in Budapest and in which he tried to portray all the sounds of the city. Called Dawn in Budapest , it was wild, chaotic music with a profusion of rhythms and contrasting harmony. The other was a low and sensually beautiful Nocturne which in a legato melody gently rising expressed all the agony of desire. And, when it seemed as if the heart must break, it died away in a hopeless pianissimo. It was new music, cruel and full of sorrow, far from the sugar-sweet melodies of the drawing-room.

As each piece came to an end Laszlo would look at Klara, enquiry in his eyes. But she just said: ‘Please go on! Please play some more!’ standing motionless where she was, leaning against the piano with her bare arms, bare shoulders, and the curve of her breasts swelling the soft material in which she was clad. She stood there with half-closed eyes, her lashes casting a bluish glow on her cheeks. She seemed to be listening to the music in a trance from which she only awoke to say: ‘Please go on! Please play some more!’

Now Laszlo started a little Transylvanian peasant song.

If I could catch a little devil

I’d put him in a cage

And shake him up and down until

He jumped about in rage!

And as he played he’d speak the words, change the rhythm, play it fast and then slow, now in one key now in another, giving the little tune sometimes in a high treble clef sometimes deep in the bass, a helter-skelter medley of bubbling, teasing good humour, interspersing the melody with sudden shrill notes or thundering chromatic scales, imitating the sounds of cymbals, flutes, brass and drums, conjuring up the sound of a whole orchestra out of one piano. It was something Laszlo loved to do and he knew he did it well, and the music released and revealed all the latent violence within him that he could never show in speech or gesture.

While from Laszlo’s darting fingers the music still laughed and danced, Klara suddenly straightened up. Deeply sensitive, she had become aware of a slight movement in the salon beyond her: it was the Kanizsays getting ready to leave to catch the night train. Slowly she moved to the centre of the room from where she could see what was going on in the drawing-room and where she too could be seen.

The old Kanizsays were now saying goodbye. The princess went with them to the entrance hall and all the others followed to pay their respects, kiss hands, and say farewell to the guests of honour. After they had gone the princess turned to Laszlo.

‘How beautifully you play, Laci!’ she said. ‘Quite beautifully! I wish I had been able to hear and enjoy it more. You really do play well!’ and she touched her nephew’s cheek affectionately. ‘What a pity it’s so late! God knows I’m tired today.’ And, giving her hand to be kissed she started upstairs followed by the girls.

As they reached the first landing Klara looked back at Laszlo, lips parted again as they had been at the library window, as if she wanted to tell him something. She stood there just for a moment, and then she too was gone.

The next morning Laszlo slept late and it was already after ten when he awoke. Those few minutes with Klara in the library, and the release he had found in playing his music to her, had given a new turn to the doubts that had tortured him the day before. He was still not entirely happy about Montorio, but his doubts were now alloyed with new thoughts, new ideas, new hopes.

What had been Klara’s intention in standing so close to him at the library window? How slowly she had turned towards him! What was the question behind the deep look she had given him? Would she really have been angry if he had kissed her then? And later, at the piano, why had she remained standing, never looking at him, rather than sitting beside him as she had the previous evening? It was impossible that he could have in some way offended her for at the window …? And yet she had never once looked at him as he played! Again, when she gazed down from the stairs, had he imagined that her lips framed an unspoken question?

These thoughts had chased through his mind until he fell asleep, and were still with him when he awoke. Yet the world seemed better after a good night’s sleep and, as he lay in bed and stretched, he decided that he would stay on until Sunday evening for by then he would have found time to say so many things.

He dressed quickly, remembering that the girls usually came downstairs about eleven. When he was dressed he went to the library. There it would be the most natural thing in the world to glance through the great albums that lay open on the library tables, and from there, too, one could look out into the garden and hear steps on the stairs and in the entrance hall.

In the library all was silence and peace. On the upper shelves the books glowed mysteriously in the light from the long windows and the parquet floor that had seemed like ice in the twilight shone golden in the winter sun. The gilded titles on the leather-bound books glinted in the light. One side of the great room, that opposite the windows, was brilliantly lit, while the rest of the room which was not directly reached by the sunlight seemed dim in comparison; the doors to the entrance hall and the little spiral stair which led to the upper gallery were deep in shadow. The loveliness of the morning seemed a good omen to Laszlo as he stood there and waited to see what the day would bring.

After about a quarter of an hour Szabo the butler came in and in his ceremonial tones said: ‘Her Grace has asked if the noble Count would be so good as to visit Her Grace in her sitting-room upstairs!’ He then bowed with all the dignity of a court official and left the room.

‘What on earth is all this about?’ thought Laszlo. ‘What can I have done for Aunt Agnes to issue one of her summonses?’ He recalled the many occasions in his youth when regal commands would come from his aunt whenever any of the children were to be scolded into obedience.

Full of apprehension, Laszlo hurried upstairs by way of the little circular stair to the gallery and down the corridor that led to the small sitting-room out of which opened the princess’ bedroom. He was relieved to find his aunt, not on the fatal sofa but sitting in an armchair by the window.

‘My dear, dear Laci, come in! You’ve been here for five days and we’ve had no chance to talk.’ She stroked his hair as he bent to kiss her hand and then kissed him lightly on the forehead. She smiled fondly at him.

Nothing in her manner showed how worried she really was. It had only been the previous evening when her suspicions had been aroused. During the whole shooting party the princess had been disturbed and mystified by Klara’s indifference to Montorio’s wooing. A word or a glance from her and the prince would have offered marriage at any time during the last three days, but though Klara had entertained him obediently it was clear that she had only done what she had been told to do and that she had skilfully side-stepped any opportunity for the prince to declare himself. Why had she done this? What was the explanation for this behaviour, when everything depended on her, and only on her. It could not be mere caprice, for the princess knew her stepdaughter well enough to know that she was never capricious. Only one other reason was possible — the girl must have a ‘crush’ on someone else! That was it! Elle a un béguin! … but who?

Then the princess remembered how she had been told that on the first day of the shoot, before she had had her little talk with Klara, her stepdaughter had been twice with Laci during the afternoon instead of beside Montorio. And after Peter and Magda had rejoined her after saying goodbye to Prince Louis, it had been some time before Klara and Laszlo had come in together. Then there had been that long session at the piano after dinner the previous evening after which she had noticed a peculiar expression on the girl’s face, as if she were wrapped in remote dreams. Emotion was not good for young girls; neither was too much music. Young people should not remain alone together for long periods unless there were swarms of guests to occupy them! It was only the faintest of suspicions, barely formulated; nevertheless the princess decided that she must act at once. If it were true, no good would come of it. For this reason that she had sent for her nephew, and she would talk to him very sweetly.