Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

I should here mention that in a work filled with unfamiliar names we have thought it better not to further confuse the reader with the many accents which abound in written Hungarian. Similarly, in the course of revising the text it became clear that there were many references, both to actual events and to once well-known public figures, which would mean nothing to an English-language readership, however potently evocative these may have been to Hungarians fifty years and more ago. Rather than inflict footnotes on the reader we decided, where necessary, slightly to amend the text to make the meaning clear.

After much heart-searching we also decided to give our translation of the trilogy the English title of The Writing on the Wall rather than A Transylvanian Tale . We wanted to get away from the overtones of Dracula now inevitably associated for western readers with any mention of Miklós Bánffy’s homeland; and feel that the biblical reference is justified by the author’s own choice of titles for his three books — They Were Counted, They Were Found Wanting and They Were Divided — and also because he himself placed those quotations from the Book of Daniel before the title pages of each volume.

In a book that includes descriptions of historic events and real characters it is inevitable that some may wonder how much of the work has an identifiable key. The answer is very little. There are descriptions of places which can be identified — for example the library at ‘Simonvásár’, the fictional Kollonich palace near Lake Balaton, is clearly based on that at the vast Károlyi manor-house at Foth, east of Budapest; while the Kollonich palace in Budapest is equally clearly the Károlyi house just behind the State Museum in Budapest. Similarly there are elements of the Teleki house at Gernyeszeg in the fictional castle of ‘Vár-Siklód’. There are many others likenesses of this sort both to people and places but, while incidents in the life of the author have their echoes in what happens to the two heroes of the work, Bálint Abády and his cousin László Gyerőffy, the only autobiographical element is that Balint’s political views seem to reflect those the author later expressed in his memoirs. There is one notable exception: Abády’s family home, the castle of ‘Denestornya’, is a lovingly described picture of Bánffy’s beloved Bonczhida; but even that is situated in a different part of the country. Likenesses abound, but that is the only true portrait, while the family names Bánffy chose for his characters mostly come from those of families who had long ago died out. Even though what has had to be a brief study of the source materials has proved endlessly fascinating, such recondite knowledge is not needed to enjoy the story Bánffy has to tell.

I must now offer grateful thanks to Patrick Leigh Fermor who started by offering me the most helpful advice when we embarked on this project, went on with invaluable textual suggestions, and who has now written such a graceful foreword. Rudi Fischer, of Budapest, was also very helpful and I received much encouragement from Professor István Nemeskurty and also from Professor Mihály Szegedy-Maszák, of Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, who in 1996 printed extracts from our translation in Hungarian Studies , the journal of the International Association of Hungarian Studies (Nemzetkösi Magyar Filológiai Társaság). My thanks are also due to Dr Richard Mullen for publishing my articles on Bánffy and his works in the Contemporary Review (which, incidentally, is mentioned in the text of They Were Counted ).

My deepest thanks are reserved for my co-translator, Kathy Bánffy-Jelen, who has patiently suffered endless questioning from a collaborator largely ignorant of her native language and even accepted with a good grace those textual losses from her beloved father’s great work that proved unavoidable if our labours were ever to appear in print.

Tangier, 1998

Patrick Thursfield was born in 1923, educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford, and served in the RNVR (combined operations) 1942–6. He joined the staff of The Times in 1949 and later wrote scripts for television and articles on literary and other subjects. From 1971 he made his home in Tangier, where he died in 2003.

‘And it came to pass that the King commanded a great feast in the Palace and there was feasting and dancing and much drinking of wine. And each man praised his own gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and of clay, mocking and quarrelling with one another because of them.

‘In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man’s hand and wrote in letters of fire upon the plaster of the wall of the King’s palace, slowly, until there shone brightly the word: MENE — The Lord hath counted thy kingdom …

‘But no one could see the writing because they were drunken with wine and wrath with one another, each man praising his own gods made of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and of clay.’

THE RADIANT AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT of early September was so brilliant that it still seemed like summer. Two larks were soaring high into the air, pausing a few seconds and then diving to skim the surface of the fields before rising ever higher into the blue sky.

On the ground everything seemed green. Even in the stubble-covered fields the gold was veined with moss, shining like green enamel, with, here and there, a few late poppies glowing crimson. On the soft rolling hills of the Maros valley the fruit trees were still covered with leaves, as were the woods crowning each summit. Between the water-meadows, which bordered the river and the orchards, ran the road to Vasarhely, white with the dust which also coated the late-flowering yellow pimpernels, the wild spinach and the spreading leaves of the burdock which grew so profusely on the sloping verges of the road.

Many carriages and peasant carts had travelled that way in the morning, all hastening to the Sunday races at Vasarhely, raising clouds of dust in their wake. Now in the early afternoon all was still. The dust had settled and the road was empty.

A single vehicle approached slowly from the direction of the town. It was an open hired fiacre drawn by three horses. Sitting back in the passenger seat was a young man, Balint Abady, slim and of medium height, his long silk dustcoat fastened up to his chin. When he took off the wide-brimmed felt hat that had become the fashion throughout Europe after the Boer War, the sunlight caught reddish glints in his wavy hair and made his blue eyes seem even lighter in colour. His features had a faintly oriental cast, with a high forehead, wide cheekbones and unexpectedly slanting eyes. Balint had not been at the races. He had come direct from the station and was heading for Var-Siklod, the country place of Count Laczok who was giving a recepton after the races, which in turn would be followed in the evening by a dinner and dance.

He had come by train direct from Denestornya even though his mother had offered one of her teams of carriage horses. He had refused the offer, warmly as it had been made, because he sensed she had hoped he would. He knew how much she loved the horses she raised and how she worried over possible hardship for them. In strange stables they would catch cold or be snagged by other horses. So, with a smile, he had told her that it would be too much for them to drive the fifty kilometres from Denestornya to St George’s Meadow beyond Vasarhely, back to the town again and then out to the Laczoks’. They would have to be put to, unharnessed again, fed at an inn … no, he would rather go by train. In that way he would arrive early and maybe have an opportunity to discuss local affairs with the politicians who were sure to be there.