They Were Counted (The Writing on the Wall: the Transylvanian Trilogy)

by Bánffy, Miklós

  Balint was deeply distressed and worried, but there was nothing he could do.

  Poor Addy! It was nearly dawn before he fell asleep and at some moment when he must still have been half awake he heard again the sound of a carriage driving swiftly away.

  Despite everything that had happened Balint awoke early, though without feeling rested. Someone could be heard moving about the corridor outside his room and Balint looked to see who it was. It was Maier, the butler, with one of his underlings.

  ‘I’ll bring your Lordship’s breakfast at once,’ he said, and hurried away to the pantry. In a few minutes he was back with a tray.

  ‘Is Count Uzdy up?’ asked Balint, simply for something to say.

  The butler’s big grey eyes seemed even sadder than usual. ‘His Lordship left at dawn, my Lord.’

  ‘Left?’ said Balint, astonished.

  ‘Before dawn, my Lord. He’s gone to his estate at Bihar.’

  Balint hesitated. He wanted to ask after Adrienne but could not find the right words, so that it was not until Maier had almost left the room that he said: ‘The young Countess … tell me …?’

  The butler answered only with a silent gesture. He raised his right hand, shrugged his shoulders to indicate that he knew nothing, and left the room.

  This was terrible, thought Balint. He would be leaving that morning and it was unthinkable that he should go not knowing how she was or what had happened in the night. He had to know. He had to find some way of discovering the truth. For a few moments he thought, and then a plan began to form in his mind. He could hardly ask Countess Clémence; and even if he did she would not tell him anything. He had already tried Maier. It would be beneath his dignity to question the other servants. What, then? Indeed, why? As Balint paused, not knowing quite what to do, he was torn between his conflicting feelings for Adrienne, between the emotions of a faithful friend motivated by old acquaintance and pity, and those of the lover whose motives were far from selfless. For a moment Balint understood himself, but he soon chased away the thought, telling himself that if he had to see Adrienne it was out of pure compassion. He knew that he must see her and he knew, too, how to arrange it. He sat down at the writing table, pulled out a sheet of paper and scribbled a few words. He wrote:

  I shall be leaving at midday. U. has gone away. It would be dreadful to leave without seeing you. Who knows when we shall meet again? I beg you to let me come up to you, even if it’s only for a single minute – what does convention matter? Please! I beseech you most humbly …

  Then he found an envelope, slipped the note into it and sealed it firmly.

  When he had finished dressing Balint packed his bags and stepped out into the corridor. He walked up and down, apparently aimlessly, but he was waiting for Adrienne’s maid, Jolan, whom he had known in Kolozsvar and who was sure, sooner or later, to pass down the corridor on her way to her mistress’s rooms. At last she appeared.

  ‘If you would be so good, please give this to the Countess, if she’s well enough, of course. If her Ladyship has an answer I shall be here, I shan’t move from this spot.’

  The maid disappeared down the corridor. While waiting, Balint went over to one of the windows and looked out. All he could see was Countess Clémence walking in the gardens. That, at least, was a relief. The old woman was out of the way.

  He had almost begun to lose hope of a reply when Jolan suddenly appeared at his side. She brought back the opened envelope on which Adrienne had scribbled in pencil: ‘In half an hour’, no more. He glanced at his watch, and continued doing so every few minutes until the half-hour had passed. Then, trying hard to walk slowly and composedly, he started towards the bend in the corridor. There was a door at the end of the wide passage and in front of this stood the maid, Jolan. When he reached it she opened the door swiftly and silently and Balint entered.

  The shutters of the room had not been opened and the curtains too were drawn. The room was in almost complete darkness, a scented darkness which reminded Balint of the natural smell of almonds or carnations. It was strong but not artificial, not a manufactured perfume but rather the intimate female scent that both maddened and intoxicated, making Balint for a moment as giddy as if he had just swallowed a draught of strong liquor. After a few more moments his eyes became accustomed to the gloom and he could make out the outlines of Adrienne’s bed which was set between the dim vertical rectangles of two long windows.

  The bed was very low and very wide, like a huge couch. It was covered with lace which fell in festoons to the floor on every side. Against the creamy-white of the bedclothes Adrienne’s loosened hair stood out like two raven-black triangles on each side of her face. Thus framed, Adrienne’s head had an oriental, almost Egyptian appearance. The bedcovers were pulled up to her chin so that her face seemed to float ethereally above the cascading froth of the lace pillows.

  Balint had to muster all his will-power to keep control of himself. He had commanded himself to appear cool and matter-of-fact and he realized at once how necessary this was, for Adrienne’s eyes were wary, filled with a mixture of distrust, alarm, suspicion and fear that was almost menacing. So Balint spoke lightly, joked, kept his tone as natural as if he were in the presence of hundreds of other people at a ball, or chatting in drawing-rooms where wicked old ladies lurked trying to overhear something to gossip about.

  ‘What a scare you’ve given us all! How could you? You must have been a little crazy!’

  A little smile crossed Adrienne’s face and she replied so softly that her words were like a reproachful caress: ‘Would you have preferred the more final solution?’

  They went on talking for a few moments, but Balint was never afterwards able to recall what was said. It took all his strength to prevent Addy from seeing the force of the desire for her that raged within him. Somehow he managed to remain outwardly calm, for if he had for one moment allowed himself to show any real concern, he knew that he could not have contained himself. He saw the outlines of her body beneath the silken sheets and, so as not to shatter the spell, he made himself mask his desire by looking at her only through half-closed eyes. He tried to read her face, understand what that strangely joyous yet troubled expression really meant. She seemed filled with some unconscious joy that he found hard to interpret. Was she perhaps conscious all the same of how beautiful she was lying there – a mixture of happiness and sorrow, infinitely desirable, infinitely unattainable, forming a picture that he would never be able to forget but which would enslave him for ever and ensure that he never again thought of abandoning his pursuit? All this was mirrored in the huge amber-coloured eyes, the pale forehead and generous red lips. It would have been better if she had never let him into the intimacy of her room to see her lying there in bed, for she must have known that nothing would give him more pleasure than to remember her like that. Behind every other conscious feeling lay the unconquerable female instinct to attract and, at the same time, to reject.

  Balint’s superficial calm had the effect of making Adrienne calmer too. Slowly, but without revealing the bare skin of her shoulders, she took one hand out from under the bed-clothes and held it out to him. For a moment he held it.

  This was the time to leave. He bent down, his face still expressionless, to kiss her mouth. For a brief instant he saw the alarm in her eyes but this vanished at once when Balint kissed her carefully, coolly, almost like a brother. Then he went swiftly to the door and turned, speaking for once in English just as she had ended her last letter to him: ‘Sincerely yours,’ he said, but he said it as if the old formal letter-ending phrase symbolized eternal fidelity.

  In the corridor he was dazzled by the brightness of the morning. He felt he would go blind, not, however, from the myriad reflections of the sun through the windows but from the even brighter image that would now never leave him: the image of an Egyptian face framed by unruly black curls and two huge eyes, lovely, frightened and frightening, glowing like topazes in the darkened room.

  Balint got back to hi
s room without being seen by anyone. Then he went to look for the old countess and by the time he found her he had sufficiently recovered his equilibrium to be able to chat insipidly with her until the butler announced that the carriage at the door.

  Then he took his leave, leapt into Uzdy’s bricska and was whisked rapidly away towards Banffy-Hunyad. It was only now, when he was past all danger of discovery and the American carriage horses were racing him up-and downhill, through the valleys and over the mountainous ridges, that the passion raging within him started to abate. He felt that he was flying with wide spread wings high above the world, above woods, forests, meadows, rivers, his lungs full of ozone, his blood racing. He felt that he had just quaffed an enchanted potion whose venom fanned flickering flames in his veins that burned away all sense of caution and forever freed him of that restraint which his inner voice so often told him he must obey. Now he was once again that primeval being who knows only how to follow his instincts, the predator who seeks his mate and for whom no obstacle, law or convention will be allowed to obstruct the natural course of his desire, that animal in whom passion rages unchecked and who, if need be, will kill to achieve his object.

  And Balint’s mind was suddenly filled with disturbing erotic fantasies.

  PART SIX

  Chapter One

  IN THE AUTUMN OF 1905, as in other years, the social scene came slowly back to life. A few theatres opened their doors, a few concerts were announced. Among the first to return to their town houses was Countess Beredy, who had little liking for the country and even less for her husband’s country house. She would never stay there a day longer than was necessary. On arrival in the capital Fanny immediately resumed her Wednesday dinners; for her court, Szelepcsenyi, d’Orly and the others, knew what was required of them and were already back in Budapest when she arrived.

  Fanny now had one guest fewer, for she did not trouble to replace Warday. The ritual was the same, except that now it was Laszlo who would take his departure before the other guests, murmuring some excuse and leaving the room about half an hour before the others. He would put his coat on at the top of the staircase and then slip through a little door covered by a curtain just opposite the head of the stairs. Behind was an anteroom with doors to left and right: the left led to a servants’ staircase, the right to Fanny’s apartment. Laszlo would step quickly through Fanny’s door and, once inside, bolt it carefully, for Fanny had given instructions that had to be obeyed most faithfully. The reason was that under no circumstance must he be seen by anyone, and if the bedroom door had not been bolted it was always possible that Fanny’s maid might have wished to come in for some reason. If she did she would find him there and know for certain that Fanny had a lover.

  This was unthinkable and could be very dangerous for Fanny, for though her husband had made it very plain that she was free to do as she liked and that he was not interested, this was strictly on condition that no one, not he himself, nor the servants, nor anyone else, should know of it, and if ever the smallest indication of her infidelities were to reach his ears, then he would take immediate action against her. He had made this perfectly plain several years before when they had stopped living as man and wife, and, though the subject had only been mentioned once, Fanny knew her husband well enough to realize that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to throw her out if ever she gave him the opportunity. Even now, after eight years of going their own ways, she would shudder when occasionally he looked at her with his cold reptilian eyes, his thin-lipped mouth closed tightly giving him an expression even more merciless than usual.

  Accordingly, she arranged her life with great discretion. Her lovers would visit her only on the evenings when there were dinner parties at the Beredy Palais. Most of the servants went to bed as soon as their work was finished and only the door-keeper remained on duty in his little cabin near the main entrance. When someone rang the bell he would pull a cord to open the glazed outer doors of the mansion, and so the departing guests would find their own way out. The doorman himself never saw who was leaving, nor did he know whether the guests left in a group or alone. If, when the last time the bell rang, it was only just after midnight there was nothing to suggest that anything unusual had occurred, nothing, that is, that flouted the social conventions of the day. Fanny’s guests would mostly take their leave soon after eleven o’clock and her lover soon after twelve; so for an hour, just one hour, Fanny was free to make love in her wide luxurious bed with whoever was her choice of the moment. It was a wild happy hour, an hour in which she would drape herself in her most provocative negligé, for she knew well that like this she appeared infinitely more seductive than when crudely stripped naked.

  Fanny took particular delight in these stolen moments, not only because of the purely sensuous pleasure of being embraced by an handsome young lover in surroundings designed just for that purpose – the huge bed, soft carpets, cunningly placed mirrors and sugar-pink lighting – but also because of the secret satisfaction of feeling that by doing this in her husband’s house she was wreaking her private vengeance upon him. When, after sixty minutes of rapture, the little alarm clock sounded it’s warning and her lover would dress and leave her, she would stretch herself out in triumph and go to sleep on that storm-tossed bed which had witnessed so many other illicit embraces.

  When Laszlo came into her life this brief weekly meeting did not seem enough, and so they decided to find somewhere else. Laszlo’s little apartment in Museum Street was not only in a large block in a district where many of their friends and acquaintances lived – which meant that Fanny might be recognized in the street or even on the stairs of the apartment house itself – but was also inconveniently distant from the Beredy Palais. It was obvious to both of them that she could not visit him there and that their secret love-nest would have to be somewhere in the old quarter, close to the royal palace and close, therefore, also to Fanny’s own home. Then she would be able to slip in unnoticed when everyone thought she was out for a short walk. Laszlo soon found the ideal place in a small house in one of the streets of old Buda. It had two entrances, one leading directly to the apartment and the other, on a lower level, which led to a room where a little dressmaker lived. This was perfect, for if Fanny should need an alibi no one would wonder about her visiting a local seamstress. The apartment was dingy and in need of redecoration but Fanny swiftly solved this by covering the walls with material so that it resembled a tent. The walls, curtains and covers were all hung with the same iron-grey material; and the thick carpet was of the same colour because she knew well that it set off her rosy flesh and blonde hair. It was very pretty and was in total contrast to the shabby furnished rooms where Laszlo still lived, even though he was always promising himself he would find something better.

  The rent was expensive – more than four thousand crowns – but Laszlo did not care. One won at cards, or one lost. It was good if one won, but it did not really matter any more than it mattered if one lost. At this time Laszlo had plenty of money. That excellent fellow, Countess Abady’s useful lawyer Azbej, had so menaced old Stanislo with legal demands to ‘terminate community interest’ that his ex-guardian had agreed to buy out Laszlo’s interest in the Gyeroffy forest lands. This had brought in such a handsome sum that Laszlo had been able not only to pay off his debts but was also left with a tidy sum in hand. Indeed this Azbej was wonderful, even though some people said that Laszlo had sold very cheaply. This, thought Laszlo, was very possible; but still he had the money in his hands and that was the most important thing. Anyway the money lenders’ interest charge would soon have swallowed up the difference. All in all, therefore, everybody was happy; Laszlo, Stanislo and also, no doubt, Azbej himself.

  On Fanny’s insistence Laszlo again enrolled himself at the Academy of Music, but though he attended the lectures and followed the set courses he did so without any of his former dedication. Somehow it seemed that without the stimulus of his love for Klara, for now that she was irrevocably lost to him, his passi
on for music had evaporated. His head no longer surged with melody as it had when every experience had at once been transformed into music, and; though his days were spent in a world of music it was always for the music of others that he lived, not for that compulsion to rise early and work, to devote all his days to study and creation. Laszlo’s way of life sapped his creative energies. He would wake up late, still sleepy and half asleep. Without zest he would play his piano for an hour or two. If he had no rendezvous with Fanny that day he would go to the Casino or to the Park Club hoping to find someone who would make up a poker game, for it was too early in the season for the chemin de fer games in the baccarat-room to have restarted. He would stop playing only for dinner, and each evening he would drink more and more, hoping vainly that the alcohol would drive away his increasing remorse and obliterate all memory of what might have been. The drink was like an opiate, and so were the cards.

  Passions ran high that year in the world of politics. One day everyone was full of hope, the next day brought despair. On a Monday the ‘Bodyguard’ (‘Lackey’) government would appoint new ministers, and on the Tuesday they would resign. The new party programme would be published and within three days its authors would find themselves once more in the wilderness. There was general rejoicing when the King summoned some of the leading parliamentarians to Vienna, but dismay and anger when His Majesty merely read out to them some severe and comminatory paragraphs condemning their actions. It gradually became clear to everyone that a stalemate had been reached, from which there was no escape without one side or the other being publicly humiliated. In the middle of September the announcement of the imminent imposition by Vienna of general suffrage in Hungary inspired a huge and unprecedented demonstration of some forty thousand workers, who gathered before the Parliament building in Budapest, menacing the established order like a thundercloud.