Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

Even the quite modest speed of the train was like a dizzying vortex. Laszlo felt as if he were borne on wings, being hastened to a blissful unknown paradise. Before his eyes there was the image of Klara looking at him with her mute, appealing gaze before she had lowered her lids over her ocean-coloured eyes in the ecstasy of their kiss.

He arrived at Budapest after what seemed like a journey of a few seconds only, still in the same disordered fever. By now it was night and the lights of the twin cities that were connected by the bridges over the great river were reflected a thousand-fold by the water beneath, a feast of glittering splendour placed there expressly to celebrate his joy.

When Laszlo arrived back at the house near the Museum, the porter’s assistant collected his bags from the fiacre while Laszlo himself ran ahead carrying only his gun-case. Once back in his little flat Laszlo hurriedly unpacked, putting his coats on their hangers and the other things in drawers, helter-skelter, not noticing what he was doing nor how crumpled everything was. And crumpled everything was, for when he had hurried to his room at Simonvasar he had thrown all his things into the suitcases, boots, jackets, evening clothes, shirts, pushing them down in no order, punching them and even stamping on the cases to close them with as much passion as if Montorio, the dead body of the vanquished Montorio, had been inside.

As soon as the cases had been emptied he went into the living-room, no longer minding the shabbiness of his humble little rented room. Now he gloried in it for it it seemed only right and suitable that it should be from here that he should start his road to fame, to dazzling success, to world-wide triumphs — and, above all, to Klara, that angel he would possess for ever and ever. Everything that he might obtain in life, the conquest of music, of society, the fame would only be an ornament, a wreath of gold and silver treasure to pile at her feet, to enhance her beauty, a diadem to crown her radiant head. Everything would be a tribute to Klara.

He paced up and down the little room, clasping his hands, flinging wide his arms, the fever which had mounted in him ever since the kiss in her room increasing in intensity until he could have climbed the walls to embrace the whole world.

He went over to the window and flung it open, the cold evening air rushing in as he gazed out over the darkness of the garden, past the huge block of the Museum to a dark shape in the distance: the Kollonich Palais. Ah! There he would at last be accepted, not as a childhood playmate, not as an amusing fellow who entertained the family and who, like a gramophone, could make music when people were bored, not as an elegant dancing partner or a useful shot; and, above all, not as a poor relation! No! He would be there by right as Klara’s fiancé, her bridegroom and finally, though he hardly dared formulate the thought, so radiant did it seem, as her husband!

Laszlo stood for a long time before the open window. Outside the lights shone on the boulevard; streetcars, brakes screeching and bells tinkling, approached and faded away; smoke hung over the houses, opalescent, shimmering. The roof-tops stretched away into an infinite distance and he felt himself floating above the city, a Power, a presence that lorded itself over all before him. Gone for ever was the feeling of inferiority that had subdued and depressed him for so many years. Klara’s kiss had absolved him from all previous misery.

And so, oblivious of the menace of the cold night air that swirled around him, Laszlo stood at the open window, arms flung wide in a gesture that embraced the whole universe.

BALINT DID NOT GO BACK to Transylvania until the middle of December. Then he took the night train from Budapest, which was supposed to leave at eleven in the evening and, at six in the morning, arrive at Kolozsvar where he would find his rooms ready for him, with a hot bath, breakfast, and more sleep if he wanted it. However, the winter of 1904–5 was exceptionally severe and Balint’s train, which could not leave until the Vienna express had arrived, was late departing.

Waiting for the train to start Balint thought about the events of the previous days and found it impossible to sleep. While all around him trains shunted and clanked in monotonous repetition of the same noises, he felt like a fugitive, as if he were running away, fleeing from the need to decide which side he should take.

After the momentous debate on 18 November, it was some time before the House met again. From the day that Tisza announced the strengthening of the Rules of Order, rumours, many of them mere malicious gossip, began to circulate freely. Every day there was something new, and the following day it would be contradicted. Today the Speaker had resigned, tomorrow he had hired special bodyguards to eject trouble-makers from the House; the day after he had had a stroke, and the day after that he was taking fencing lessons preparing for the inevitable duels that the next session would bring. There were rumours, too, about the government. Tisza had gone to Vienna to resign. Tisza had come back from Vienna more belligerent than ever.

Never before had the newspapers attacked a Hungarian Minister-President with such open venom and personal insult. The cruelest, most outspoken articles were written by Miklos Bartha with such a masterly control of logic that Balint had almost been convinced by him, despite the violence of his views.

The editorials in the conservative newspapers were more moderate, but their verdicts were just the same: Tisza must go, and when his head had fallen a new cabinet would legalize new Rules of Order which in themselves were, of course, both necessary and useful. This two-faced argument, formulated with one eye on the opposition and the other on the Emperor in Vienna, deceived no one.

The views expressed by the newspapers set the tone for discussions in the National Casino Club which was still the capital’s political storm centre. Here members of all the parties would collect in groups, in the billiard-room and in the Deak Room, everywhere. The loudest talkers were always the youngest and above the uproar made by patriotic members or party candidates was always to be heard, shouting louder than anyone, the voice of the Austrian-born Fredi Wuelffenstein, who declared that his Hungarian blood boiled at such contempt of the Constitution and that he would fight anyone who contradicted him.

Balint had been to the Casino every night during the previous two weeks, but though he had tried to remain impartial he had not been entirely unaffected by the revolutionary atmosphere. Ever since Slawata had spoken to him and given him a glimpse of the secrets of the Heir’s political workshop, he had begun to see these party antics in Budapest in a new light. Now he had become more sympathetic to those who attached such importance to maintaining forms and rules that helped to preserve, in whatever way, the integrity and independence of the country.

Parliament was recalled and 13 December was announced as the date of the next session. On the preceding day a small paragraph appeared in the official gazette:

The Parliamentary Guards have been instructed that in no circumstances, even if bodily assaulted, are they to restrain Members by force.

Needless to say this decree had not been inspired by respect for the members, but rather was the Government’s reply to the rumours of violence that had been put about by the opposition, and which had done so much to alarm the public.

On 13 December Balint had arrived somewhat late and, seeing the quantity of hats and coats in the cloakroom, realized that most of the other members had got there before him. It only occurred to him later how worried all the doorkeepers and porters had seemed.