The platform was empty: none of the officials had yet arrived.
The two parties took their places on opposite sides of the hall. On the right was the great Samuel Barra, the older Bartokfay, Varju, Isti Kamuthy, Uncle Ambrus and the Alvinczys. All these sat in the front row. On the left, Miklos Absolon sat by himself, as if enthroned, and behind him were ranged all the delegates from the Maros and Gorgeny districts, a nameless and faceless mob who listened only to their beloved leader. Many people were moving about, greeting friends, arguing and joking among themselves. Everybody was in a good mood, happily and merrily looking forward to the morning’s great battle, which they all expected to provide great fun for them all, and talking about the latest news from Budapest. Meanwhile, behind the door leading to the presidential platform, the officials were busy conferring among themselves and with others as to how to have the students removed, since the notary-in-chief refused to open the meeting if they remained in the hall. They also discussed who should be allowed to speak first, Barra or the spokesman for the Decree Party. After much talk they decided that the first speaker should be Barra, for he had guaranteed that the students would keep quiet, at least while he was on his feet. At last, towards eleven o’clock, the door opened and Bartokfay, the president of the chancery court, and the assistant notaries came in and took their places on the platform. Then the notary-in-chief, Beno Peter Balog, entered, sat down in the presidential chair and rang the bell. Everyone sat down, silent and eager with anticipation.
‘I hereby declare open this session of the County General Assembly,’ he said in an official tone. He went on to have the minutes read and announced the names of the absentees. This noncontroversial business being brought to an end, he then started: ‘The Minister of the Interior has sent an order …’ but he was not allowed to go on for at these words bedlam broke out. From all sides there were cries of ‘Shame on you! There is no minister! Villains! Shame!’
One of the officials tried to read out the rules of assembly, but no one could hear what he said.
Then Barra rose to speak, and for a moment the hubbub subsided. Then all at once it started again, for the door behind the president’s chair had opened and a tall thin man with a deathly pale face entered the hall. It was the government nominee. He had his hand on his heart and few people could see, behind his thick-lensed glasses, the scared expression in his eyes. The president rose once again and tried to read something from a paper in his hand.
From all sides there was a confused roar of shouting: ‘Down with him! Absug – away with you! Traitor!’ Then Uncle Ambrus nudged Zoltan Alvinczy who at once raised a hand in the air. From the back of the hall eggs started to fly, well-aimed eggs – for the students had obviously had much practice – which were chiefly directed at the schoolteacher-turned-Prefect. He ducked as well as he could but almost at once was struck on the forehead and yolk ran down all over his face. He dived for shelter under the presidential table while a crowd collected round the platform with raised fists and menacing shouts. As soon as he could the poor man crawled out and fled through the door at the back, swiftly followed by the notary-in-chief who had been howled down as soon as he tried to protest.
The hall was filled with people milling in all directions. Some were still shouting abuse but most of them were now overcome with uncontrollable laughter, among them Uncle Ambrus, whose laugh was louder than anyone’s. In his deep bass-baritone voice, between gusts of mirth, he was calling out: ‘Well done, lads! That was well done indeed! We Hungarians’ll show ’em!’
All around arguments broke out. No one knew if the newly-named Prefect had had time to take the oath or not, or, if he had, whether it was valid. They cursed the notary-in-chief, calling him a traitor, and furiously discussed what should be done with such a monster.
Balint, who had arrived late and so had only been able to find a place near the doors, glanced at his watch. It was barely half-past eleven: the whole meeting had lasted only twenty minutes. If he went at once he would be able to catch the one o’clock train, he thought. So he turned and left the hall.
Although Balint had shouted with the others and even raised his fists in the air, and laughed at the comicality of the scene when the prefect had been pelted with eggs and taken refuge under the table, a great sadness descended on him as he went down the stairs and out into the street. He thought only of the fact that an innocent man had been humiliated, and that it was callous and distasteful that everyone should think the whole affair a tremendous joke and nothing more.
Within the hour Balint was at the station. He was early and no one was on the platform, so he went into the restaurant, which was empty but for one man sitting at a table: it was Aurel Timisan.
Balint went up to him and greeted him. Then he sat down and asked if he too was travelling to Kocsard.
‘Not today,’ said the old Romanian delegate. ‘I’m going up to my constituency. I’m only here to change trains.’ Then, quite softly but with overtones of ironic pleasure, he asked: ‘And is your Lordship pleased with today’s assembly?’
Balint shrugged his shoulders and made a non-committal reply.
‘I don’t imagine that it will end here, as they all seem to think,’ said Timisan. ‘This sort of thing merely strengthens the government in its determination to impose reform. I don’t suppose seine kaiserliche und königliche Majestät will find the present situation any joking matter either. Of course,’ Timisan went on modestly, his large whey-coloured eyes full of suppressed humour as he gazed at Balint, ‘I’m only a simple Romanian countryman, a mere pamphleteer, so I really know nothing about it, but I wonder, just the same …?’
‘You’re thinking of universal suffrage?’
‘Among other things, yes. That would strike a severe blow at all this resistance. Indeed it might upset the whole apple cart!’
‘But Parliament won’t pass anything this government puts forward, no matter what it is!’
‘Naturally! That goes without saying!’ Timisan nodded his agreement and again something of an enigmatic smile lurked under his thick white moustaches. ‘What do you suppose will happen if the ruler imposes a secret ballot? Could the government be selected by such a system? What will our fine resistance leaders do then? I don’t understand these things, you know, I’m just wondering …’
Balint recalled that something of this sort had been hinted at in Slawata’s letter and it was suddenly clear to him that the old Romanian deputy must know something he did not. He tried to find out what it was; but Timisan was not giving anything away and remained as politely inscrutable as before.
Chapter Six
IN AUGUST Laszlo Gyeroffy returned to Transylvania. He did not go willingly, but he finally gave in to Fanny Beredy’s entreaties that he go and put his affairs in order. It was she who had finally convinced him that the time had come when he must do something to settle his debts which, though he had occasionally been able to repay a small part of his borrowings from his winnings at cards, had been mounting steadily, not the least because the high interest charged by the money-lending sharks was designed to ensure that no one, if possible, ever escaped their clutches. As soon as he arrived Laszlo went to see his former guardian, his cousin Stanislo. Laszlo owned a one-third share of the Gyeroffy forest holdings which amounted in all to something over eight thousand Hungarian acres,† and he wanted to get Stanislo to release his share so that he could sell the land and the standing timber. His guardian would not hear of it, explaining that the license for exploiting the forest was for the total acreage which could not and should not be split up. That was his opinion and therefore his answer was No! A definite, irrevocable No! Laszlo did not know what to do, for he had no other way of raising money to pay his debts. As a result, he was in an extremely bad mood, more bitter and resentful than he had habitually become since Klara’s marriage. Only late at night when he had had a lot to drink was he able partially to escape from his sorrow and self-reproaches.
For some days he stayed in a h
otel, drinking in the evening and going out to carouse the night away with the local gypsy girls. He seldom got up before the afternoon. One day Balint met him by chance in the street in Kolozsvar.
‘Why are you destroying yourself, keeping away from us all and drinking alone?’ asked Balint. ‘Come back with me now, to Denestornya!’ And though Gyeroffy, who nowadays seemed all too ready to take offence or pick a quarrel, merely grunted ungraciously and said: ‘Leave me alone, I can take care of myself!’ In fact he did as Balint had suggested.
Countess Roza was delighted to see her nephew once again. She loved to show people round Denestornya, to take them to see her horses and her gardens; and now, as Balint had told her of Laszlo’s sad and disappointed love for Klara, she made herself especially kind and indulgent to the nephew she had not seen for some time, going out of her way to be sure that he had everything he needed. She even ordered wine for dinner, which was by no means her custom.
Early one morning, when Laszlo had been there for some days, Gazsi Kadacsay (‘Crazy’), whose home was not far away, arrived at the castle. He was on his way to Brasso to rejoin his regiment and was travelling alone with three horses, one of which he rode while leading the other two. ‘Just like the wild Cossacks, my frrriends!’ he said, rolling his r’s proudly, ‘Like the Tarrrtarrrs!’ Although Gazsi’s two pack animals could have carried far heavier loads he travelled only with an old army sack containing a couple of ragged shirts, a crumpled civilian suit, a razor and a toothbrush, not only because he was totally unpretentious but also because he loved to shock people by dressing unconventionally. He arrived at Denestornya clad only in an officer’s tunic which lacked several buttons, stained khaki riding breeches, boots with tassels of gold braid and a red hussar’s cap.
After dinner was over Countess Roza stayed in the yellow drawing-room, which she always used as an office, to interview the lawyer Azbej; and the three young men retired to the library. This was a circular room in the tower above Balint’s own suite. All round the walls and even between the windows were fitted bookcases made of teak and fitted with doors of mirror-glass. These were full of all the volumes collected by generations of Abadys and, as they could not hold all the books, more cases had been built above them, also fitted with looking-glass doors. Above these, even more books were piled up, almost hiding the stone busts of the Seven Wise Men which had been placed there to look down on the baize-covered round table in the centre of the room.
While Baron Gazsi was looking into the bookcases, Laszlo and Balint sat at the centre table under the green-shaded hanging lamp. Their talk soon deteriorated into an argument, which began when Laszlo once again started grumbling about his treatment by his cousin Stanislo. His bitterness and resentment so overcame him that soon he was saying that there was nothing left for him but to sell up, move right away from Transylvania and leave all this misery behind him. What, he asked rhetorically, was there for him in that forgotten little province? He’d do better to go elsewhere, anywhere, where he could live his own life free of responsibilities anywhere, even abroad, where he could get right away from this trivial life.
Balint’s hackles rose. All that Laszlo said was directly contrary to everything that he had been brought up to believe was important. Balint lived by that creed of duty that had first been instilled in him by his boyhood talks with his grandfather and by his grandfather’s example, and later by his mother’s entreaties and the letters from her which had finally induced him to give up being a diplomat and return home to look after the Abady inheritance.
‘Go abroad! Never! That is something you really shouldn’t do. To desert your own country is unthinkable!’
‘Why not? What do I owe to this rotten society here?’
Balint jumped up angrily, the veins swelling on his forehead. ‘What would you be anywhere else? Nobody! Your name would mean nothing: you’d just be a number on a passport. How dare you waste your inheritance, dissipate everything that is yours by birth! You never made your own fortune. It’s not yours to throw away. You have a duty here, a duty to the community that raised you and gave you all these advantages!’
‘What should I do?’ said Laszlo scornfully. ‘Go into politics like you?’
‘All life is politics; and I don’t mean just party politics. It is politics when I keep order on the estates and run the family properties. It’s all politics. When we help the well-being of the people in the villages and in the mountains, when we try to promote culture, it’s still politics, I say, and you can’t run away from it!’
Baron Gazsi joined them at the table: ‘That’s interesting, what you’re saying, very interesting,’ said Gazsi, poking forward his woodpecker nose.
‘It is as I say. The only thing that gives us any moral right to the fortunes that we inherit is a sense of duty. Our parentage binds us to it and it’s an obligation that none of us can escape!’
Laszlo laughed offensively. ‘Well I don’t have the same Ahnenstolz – pride of race, as you, my friend!’
‘Why speak so scornfully of Ahnenstolz? What do you mean by the word? If you just take it as meaning that you can name your ancestors because they are recorded in the archives, and that those archives have been preserved, then you’re a fool. But when capacity is proved through several generations, is tested, refined and polished by experience, then don’t you think we have a right and a duty to use our capacities for the ends for which they have been developed? Fox-hounds are better at chasing a fox than pinchers and they’ve got better noses than a bulldogs! The Hungarian nobility has ruled their country, and served it, for centuries. They know their job, whether it’s in service to the community, to the provincial administration, to the church, or in government. And they serve freely – in honoris causa!’
‘What an unselfish lot!’ said Laszlo ironically.
‘Not at all. Nobody is unselfish. Nobody ever was. But they’ve learnt to recognize what is for the public good and to fit it to their own advantage, too. This insight has been bred into us; just as military discipline has been bred into the Prussian Junker, and commercial trading into the Jews and Armenians. It’s not by chance that until now almost every great national leader has sprung form this rank of society, for leaders must know how to lead. ‘Leadership is our responsibility and we should not lightly avoid it until such time as all our people develop some sense of social responsibility themselves, as our Saxons seem to have done.’
It was at this point that Balint noticed that his mother was in the room, standing near the door. She must have been there for some little time, for he could see from her smile that she had heard and approved everything he had just been saying.
Countess Roza came further into the room and went over to where Laszlo was sitting. She caressed his hair lightly with her chubby little hand.
‘I’d like to show you something, boys,’ she said, and she went with her little tripping walk back into the drawing-room to her writing desk. From it she took an old, frayed, yellow exercise book, which had obviously been much used. Bringing it back with her she sat down, placed it on the table under the light and started to read:
I know that I am placing a great burden on you when I command you to deal with everything personally. You must realize that our agents, and our tenants, see only what is to their own advantage or what is to yours. I expect more than this from you. The patriarchal relationship that has existed for centuries between the landowner and the people of this village did not end when the serfs were liberated. You must still take the lead, help people, take care of them, especially all those who are not as privileged as you in matters of fortune and education. Think of them as your children, the village people and the people who serve you in the house. You must be severe, but above all you must be just and understanding. This is your duty in life …
Countess Roza looked at Balint, her eyes shining with emotion and pride. Then she read on:
… this is the tradition of our family. Your father abided by it and was faithful to it, as was my fat
her. My wish is that you should be too and so should my son.
All three young men were deeply moved listening to Countess Abady as she read them the last instructions of her long dead husband. Laszlo bent down and kissed the old lady’s hand. Then she got up and said: ‘I think tea will be ready now, and the stewed fruit!’
They all returned to the drawing-room.
‘I’m sorry I got so cross,’ said Balint to Laszlo when he said goodnight at the door of his room.
‘And I am sorry I was so churlish!’ said Laszlo. ‘I am afraid that I offended you.’ Then, as he slipped into his room, he added softly: ‘But you see I am really very unhappy.’
A few moments later, as he was undressing, Laszlo heard someone tap at his door. He called out for whoever it was to come in. The door was opened by the hairy little lawyer, Azbej. Bowing very low and excusing him himself, Azbej immediately started off in his usual obsequious manner. ‘It’s just that I heard that your Lordship … that Count Stanislo Gyeroffy … that your Lordship was unable to convince the noble Count Stanislo … well, if your Lordship would honour me with his confidence, perhaps I could do something to make his Lordship see reason. If I were to explain what is involved …’ and he quoted from the law books and from judgments in similar cases, going on, ‘then naturally his Lordship would have to withdraw his objections. I must explain to your Lordship that though I am a lawyer I do not practise generally. I merely look after the interests of the noble Countess. I do not work for anyone else. My life is dedicated to her Ladyship’s interests. But I thought that as your Lordship is a relation of her Ladyship … perhaps I could be of assistance … as a favour naturally … nothing else.’
They Were Counted (The Writing on the Wall: the Transylvanian Trilogy) Page 61
