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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  The whole time that Balint was with Adrienne half of his brain was searching for a way to making sure that one day soon, perhaps even tomorrow, she would let him again visit her during the night. Then, or later, perhaps Addy would feel desire welling up in her and, even if it were the merest spark on her side, the moment would be ripe.

  He was glad that at Portofino he had already written some sixty pages of the treatise that he had first envisaged when lying in her arms. Now he turned the subject of their conversation to this, saylng that he must read it to her and that their only chance would be if he were able to come to her secretly in the night. He explained at length that it was so important for him to read what he had written out loud, for only in that way could he be sure of the quality of what he had written. Eventually Adrienne said that he could come again on the following evening. Happy with this promise he went no further that night and, even when he kissed her farewell, he did so gently, without any rash sign of passion, so that she should not be alarmed or frightened into telling him not to come again. When he gave her his last kiss, he made it only slightly deeper than before and held her only iust a little more tightly. No more. His inner voice told him that it would have been folly to risk losing the ground he had only just regained.

  Life can be very bizarre, he said to himself as he walked briskly home down the path that followed the river bank in the park. If anyone knew where I had been they’d never believe that I am not that woman’s lover! And God knows if I ever will be!

  Chapter Six

  LASZLO GYEROFFY ARRIVED IN KOLOZSVAR shortly after Balint. He came from Varad and was even more bitter and disillusioned than before. The reason he had been to Varad was to see a money-lender, a certain Blau, who called himself a private banker. This was the same Blau who held Countess Abonyi’s promissory notes which had been countersigned by Wickwitz. Laszlo had been trying desperately to raise the sum of eighty-six thousand crowns so as to be able to redeem Fanny’s pearls. At first he had hoped that a good run of luck at the gaming table would put him in funds but somehow it had not turned out quite as he had expected. Most of what he won was apt to disappear the next evening and if there was anything left this too was soon spent. First Laszlo had tried to touch the money-lenders he knew in Budapest. They all refused, making various excuses but without revealing the real reason, namely that they had all heard tell that Laszlo was not only plunging deeply at the gaming tables but also drinking far too much. An acquaintance from Behar had let drop that he knew this useful fellow in Varad and that had been the ‘business’ for which Laszlo had gone there.

  The visit was hopelessly unsuccessful. Laszlo never wanted to go near the man again; indeed he had run from his office in flight.

  At the start of their discussion the self-styled banker announced that it was not his practice to lend money on a single guarantee and asked Laszlo if it was not possible for him to find, among his large acquaintance, some friend who would add his signature and so vouch for him. Then he began to ask questions as to who Laszlo’s friends were in Transylvanian high society. At first it seemed to Laszlo that the money-lender merely wanted to find out about his family connections, so he replied quite openly and truthfully, especially as this Mr Blau had an educated manner and played to perfection the part of the sympathetic financier. Blau had used this approach as a cover for what he really wanted to find out. Recently he had become increasingly worried by the matter of the Abonyi-Wickwitz loan. Now he regretted having been induced to have anything do with extending Dinora’s notes of hand, for he had had no reply from several letters addressed to the countess, and it had also proved impossible to pin down Baron Egon. He had been wondering whether he should take Dinora to court or whether he should denounce Wickwitz to his superior officer. Both procedures were bound to be difficult and unpleasant, both would bring much publicity; and too much publicity was always undesirable in his business. Action of that drastic sort should only be taken as a last resort, and so, when this Count Gyeroffy came to see him, he thought that fate had provided him with the solution. The noble Count might perhaps be so good as to intervene discreetly and explain to this rich lady that she really must pay; and, as for the officer, tell him what a scandal there would be if the matter became public knowledge.

  So, after quite a series of flattering remarks about what a great gentleman his Lordship obviously was, he took out Dinora’s notes and showed them to him. Laszlo’s reaction was not at all what he had expected. Gyeroffy stared down at Wickwitz’s signatures petrified with horror, his mind suddenly flooded with the awful realization that the matter of Fanny’s pearls put him, Laszlo, on the same plane as Nitwit. He too was nothing less than a scoundrel who allowed himself to be kept by a woman. Now he suddenly saw how far he had sunk and he meant it for himself, every bit as much as for Wickwitz, when he softly and angrily repeated: ‘What a scoundrel! What a vile scoundrel!’

  ‘What are you saying? Do you mean the Countess’s signature is a forgery?’ cried Blau, horrified. Laszlo made no reply but seized his hat and ran from the house like a madman.

  Two days went by, two days during which nothing happened. Then Fate, that dramatist without mercy, decided that now was the time to enact the tragedy which would crush poor Judith.

  In the dining-room of the hotel in Kolozsvar the gypsy musicians, led by the great Laji Pongracz, were playing late and everyone was there, drinking heavily. It was well after midnight. Several tables were occupied by people from the town, another by a group of agricultural students from Monostor. The famous Laji was playing, not to them, of course, but to the principal table where Uncle Ambrus sat with his group of young followers: the Alvinczys, Joska and Pityu Kendy, Isti Kamuthy and, as a non-paying member of the band, old Daniel Kendy too. They were listening to the music, quaffing champagne, talking loudly and sometimes singing the words of the tunes Laji played. The men at the other tables did not mind because they knew that Laji always played his best on such occasions, and now they could listen to him for nothing. So they sat there quietly without trying to become involved, for if they did they knew that Uncle Ambrus would take the band into a private room, and if that happened they might as well all go home.

  So the music went on. Song followed song.

  Laszlo was there too; sitting between Adam Alvinczy and the puffy-cheeked Kamuthy. He sat stiffly upright because he had drunk a great deal.

  Then Wickwitz entered the room.

  He had come from Brasso by the late evening express and was in uniform. It had been a long and tiresome journey and he was deeply worried by the precarious position in which he found himself. It was really beyond bearing, he thought! Dinora – silly goose – had written several letters asking him to explain what Blau’s increasingly pressing demands could possibly mean: she couldn’t make head nor tail of it all, she said. Then, too, that monster Blau was himself becoming more and more menacing; and even the colonel – so ein Kerl – what a fellow he was! – had been decidedly sticky about granting him leave just when he most needed it. It was all beyond bearing, intolerable! The need to scribble all these lies to Dinora and Blau – and all the time desperate with fear that everything would come out into the open before he could get his leave and scamper off with Judith. Then, he prayed and hoped, her family would come to the rescue for their daughter’s sake, and settle this odious matter for him once and for all.

  He felt like a stag at bay, surrounded by angry keepers and barking dogs, hemmed in, caught in a trap with no way of escape. Even Wickwitz’s nerves, usually as insensitive as a coil of ship’s rope, were beginning to fray, so he decided, on arriving at the hotel, that an hour or two with the gypsies and a few glasses of champagne would do no harm and would help him to see the world in a better light in the morning. The following day he would send a message to Judith and the day after, at dawn, they would be on their way to Austria. Just a day and a half and he would be safe. Nothing untoward, surely, would happen in such a short time. Wickwitz had already written to Varad saying th
at everything would be settled in two week’s time – and, of course, in two weeks he could truly be master of his fate.

  Seeing Uncle Ambrus seated there he went up, clicked his heels in the classical military fashion and sat down modestly at the end of the table. However he did not stay there for almost at once Laszlo Gyeroffy called out to him loudly: ‘Come over here, my good namesake! Come here, where I can see you!’

  Wickwitz had no idea why Laszlo should call him his namesake, but knowing that there was no point in arguing with a drunk, got up and went over and sat down where Gyeroffy indicated. He put his sword between his knees and ordered a small bottle of champagne.

  ‘Why a small one?’ interrupted Gyeroffy. ‘Why economize? People like us don’t have to economize. Others maybe, but not us! Why should we? A big bottle for my alter ego – my other self, my brother, he that bears the same name as I!’

  Champagne was brought. The music played. Uncle Ambrus burst into song from time to time, his huge bass-baritone filling the room, and at times he shouted, always louder than the others. After several verses the gypsies played a new song and it was time for everyone to drink another toast.

  ‘To your special health, Nitwit, my very dear alter ego,’ said Laszlo once again. ‘And as for you, you should drink only to me, not to the others. The others … they’re different from us, very different … but you and I belong together!’ The words may have sounded friendly but Laszlo’s tone of voice certainly was not, nor was the mocking laughter which followed his words; indeed it was filled with anger and hostility. They touched glasses and drank to each other. This happened several times and each time Gyeroffy said more or less the same words, and each time the sarcasm and the latent desire to pick a quarrel became more and more evident. However Baron Egon was a peaceful man by nature and submitted with all the calm of some great mastiff dog to the incomprehensible hints about himself and Gyeroffy being in some way the same. He only thought that Laszlo was extremely drunk and did not really know what he was saying.

  It was true that Laszlo was drinking heavily.

  ‘Do you know why we are brothers?’ he asked at last, leaning across the table towards Wickwitz. ‘Don’t you really know? Well, I’ll whisper it to you! Come on, lean forward. Let me speak into your ear!’ Wickwitz obeyed meekly. ‘We are brothers,’ murmured Laszlo, ‘because I am just as infamous a villain as you are! That’s why!’

  Wickwitz was surprised, but he merely leaned back in his chair, waved a hand and said: ‘All right! All right! You’ve had an awful lot to drink!’

  ‘No way “All right! All right!” It’s the truth.’ Gyeroffy was now shouting. ‘It’s nothing but the truth! You are a scoundrel! Oh yes, I know all about you, all about you, I say!’

  ‘Steady on,’ said the officer calmly. ‘Careful what you say. I won’t accept this, not here in a public place.’

  ‘And why should I be careful? What can’t you accept this here in a public place? You don’t have to pretend with me! It’s just as I say: you’re a scoundrel too and I know it!’

  It flashed across Wickwitz’s mind that all this was very inconvenient because he would be obliged now to make it an affair of honour and more time would be lost before he would be able to get away. As he hesitated the other went on, shouting more and more loudly:

  ‘Just one word, that’ll be enough! Blau! You understand. Blau! Blau! Blau!’ Then Laszlo stood up and screamed: ‘And me too, me too! Scoundrel! Scoundrel! Scoundrel! Base, vile scoundrel!’ and he beat the table with his fists, was full of rage, as much against himself as against Nitwit, hating everyone, hating himself, desiring only to strike so hard that he too would be annihilated by his own blows. A glass overturned on the table in front of him and a plate clattered to the floor. Laszlo’s neighbours jumped up and grabbed him, pulling him back from the table. Everyone rose and tried to calm him and shut him up. They all talked at once.

  ‘God damn it! Don’t be such an ass!’ bellowed Ambrus Kendy at Laszlo; and to Nitwit, who was already on his feet with his hand on his sword, he roared: ‘You, too, don’t you be idiotic either. Can’t you see he’s dead drunk!’ Uncle Ambrus, who knew what he was doing, tried to stop the quarrel before it got too serious. Anyway, he hated to have his drinking bouts disturbed.

  Baron Egon did not even hear Uncle Ambrus. Laszlo, though reeling and held back by the others across the table, was still shouting: ‘Blau! Scoundrel! Blau! Blau!’ until his legs gave way beneath him and he fell back into the arms of Akos Alvinczy and Isti Kamuthy. All Wickwitz could think of was that Gyeroffy knew everything about him, and that therefore he would have to kill him, right now in this very room, before he was able to say more. But the table was between them and several of the young men had come round and were holding him back too. There was nothing he could do at that moment. If he drew his sword they would all surround him and stop him at once. So he drew himself up as straight as he knew how, clicked his spurs together, bowed to the assembled company in front of him, turned and, making his way slowly through the other tables where everyone was sitting in stunned, frightened silence, left the hall.

  The next day at noon an infantry captain and a senior lieutenant waited on Gyeroffy. Wickwitz, who knew his Army Regulations, was aware that as an officer on active service he was obliged, if publicly insulted, to ask only other officers to act as his seconds. This was just as well, for soldiers don’t ask questions, don’t intervene in such affairs and certainly require no explanation. For them the Tatbestand – the cause of offense, was enough. Wickwitz had reported what had happened to divisional level, which in turn sent back an order that the commanding office of the infantry regiment stationed at Kolozsvar should select seconds in this affair. The colonel, as it happened was on leave, but the second-in-command, one Lieutenant-Colonel Zdratutschek, was in charge during the colonel’s absence. Wickwitz went to see him and explained the insult offered to him, and which was serious chiefly because he had been in uniform at the time and that therefore it was the ‘Kaiser’s Rock’ – the official dress of the emperor’s service, which had suffered the insult. This was a good argument with Zdratutschek who became red with rage, named two officers at once and told them, off the record, that they must insist on the most severe conditions. ‘Dieser magyarischer Rebellen-bagage – these rubbishy Hungarian rebels,’ he shouted, ‘must be taught a lesson! We’ll show them!’ For Wickwitz this support was not an unmixed blessing for the irate lieutenant-colonel ordered him to shut himself up and see no civilians until the duel had been fought, which meant that he couldn’t see Judith. This was annoying, but Wickwitz hoped that he would be able to deal with Gyeroffy that afternoon and so be free to contact Judith in the evening.

  However, things did not go anything like as smoothly as everyone expected. Gyeroffy’s seconds, Major Bogacsy, the assessor at the county court, and Joska Kendy, found that Wickwitz’s conditions were far too harsh to be acceptable. Three shots, the first from twenty-five paces, the second from twenty paces, and the third from fifteen paces, and, should there still be no definite result, a fight with heavy cavalry sabres until one or the other was disabled – and this without bandages. Despite the fact that Gyeroffy had no objections, his seconds refused to accept these proposals for, as the arch-expert Bogacsy stated, the duelling code prescribed that such murderous conditions were to be allowed only when the offence had included actual bodily harm. This is what the Code Duverger said, and the Code being his bible, the major was not going to budge an inch. ‘Gyeroffy has no say in the matter,’ he declared and that was an end of it. Instead, Major Bogacsy demanded that a Court of Honour be convened to decide how the duel should be conducted. This time it was the turn of the soldiers to object. They said that they would submit to no authority that was not military. More discussion followed, for this last demand was not acceptable to the civilians. Major Bogacsy resigned his place, as he was a soldier on retired pay, and was replaced by Uncle Ambrus, who declared that there was only one kind of honour, that everyone kne
w what it was and that he, Ambrus Kendy would not yield, even to Almighty God himself.

  Three days passed, three long days for all concerned.

  The whole town was buzzing with the news of the affair of the impending duel. Everyone talked of it, discussed it and had their own views on the rights and wrongs of the affair. In the coffee-houses and on the streets people talked of nothing else. Even the students at the university took up the cause.

  The subject was no longer what sort of satisfaction Wickwitz was entitled to demand from Gyeroffy, but rather how monstrous it was of the military to browbeat respectable civilian gentlemen and refuse to accept their age-old code of honour. Daily Uncle Ambrus could be heard in the Casino castigating the soldatesca – the soldiery, to everyone within earshot. The club was packed and the big drawing-room was full from noon until late at night. The older men sat round the fireplace, among them Sandor Kendy, Daniel, Stanislo Gyeroffy, Laszlo’s former guardian, Count Adam Alvinczy, father of the young Alvinczy quartet, old Rattle Miloth and, of course, Uncle Ambrus. All these were of one mind, and they were supported by Tihamer Abonyi and Major Bogacsy who, since he had to retire as a second, became even more passionately involved in the case never stopping for a moment to expound the issues involved and taking the opportunity to give everyone a good lecture on how these things had to be done. Chubby-faced Kamuthy was another who seemed to think of nothing else and he, and the others who were present on the fatal evening, explained it all to each other over and over again. Only Joska Kendy kept his mouth shut, nodding occasionally as he drew on his pipe.