They Were Found Wanting (Writing on the Wall: The Transylvania Trilogy)

by Bánffy, Miklós

  Naturally she had blamed herself for these pangs of jealousy, for was it not she who had sent him away, giving him his freedom and insisting that he resign his place in her life?

  Why, she wondered, had she ever done this?

  Why? Because she had had to do so. It had been impossible to divorce her husband while he, in turn, would never have let her go but would coldly and ruthlessly have killed both her and her lover. She had felt then that she had no choice, for she knew that if they were to meet again she would never have been able to resist him or deny herself to him … and, then, when her husband came to her, it would be a defilement impossible to bear. This was the moral argument that Adrienne had then felt to be ineluctable. Slowly, however, as the months of longing and loneliness went by, as she suffered and jealously waited she knew not for what, this argument had somehow lost its force.

  Adrienne’s once strong will had been eroded. Surely, she had begun to reason with herself, nothing had changed. Wasn’t everything always going to be the same? Could she really go on living like this? Was it not madness to banish from her life the only man she ever had or ever would give her heart to, to throw away the only chance of bliss she had ever known, she who had even seen her own child removed from her?

  It was her mother-in-law who had done that and even here her husband had not taken her side. For Uzdy, she knew, she was merely an object with whom he could satisfy his desires, no more real than a whore. Her whole relation with her husband was a disgrace to human dignity, and so what would it matter if, in her slavery and subjection, she was to take what life might offer her? What difference would it make to her life? Why not? Whyever not? And it was now that she had come to believe that it was only pride and conceit and meaningless love of self that had led her to reject a double life, a rejection for which she was now paying with such anguish – and to what purpose? Surely this suffering was all for nothing?

  These thoughts, so contrary to everything she had formerly held sacred, chased themselves in her brain and, though she tried hard to banish them, returned with ever-growing force, stronger and stronger. Having only herself to argue with she fought with her memories and her desire. And all the while her whole being cried out to be with him once again.

  It was almost dark when they parted, but both of them knew that far from being a dismal farewell, it was the beginning of future happiness.

  Balint stayed by the tree until Adrienne looked back from the edge of the woods across the valley and then disappeared along the forest path.

  Then he too started back to his camp.

  On the way he was thinking of what they had now agreed. Over and over again he went over in his mind the code by which they would arrange their meetings – any four numbers that might be found in their otherwise harmless letters would signify the hour and day they were to be together.

  Balint decided that he would build a little shooting lodge in that meadow where his tent now stood, and from it a path for the forest guards would be cut to where they had just met; Adrienne would be able to use that whenever she could get away from her husband’s house.

  Later that evening, when he gave his orders, he told them to cut several other trails as well, all of them leading to where salt blocks would be provided for the deer. This, he felt, would serve to veil his real intentions.

  That night, for the first time in many months, Balint fell asleep happy and contented.

  Chapter Five

  BALINT WENT BACK to Budapest at the end of May. Parliament was still in session and it was only out of a sense of duty that he attended the debates, although as an independent he was not subject to any party whip. He was still keen to do what he could to make his plans to enlarge the co-operative movement a practical reality, and in this he had the support and help of the president of the Co-operative Centre, who had recruited to their side one Daranyi, a Minister in the government. The other members of the cabinet were not so easily convinced.

  At this time the government had enough troubles without risking anything new or controversial. The debate on the schools proposals and the controversy about the minorities problems had hardly died down in the capital (though echoes of protest still rippled through public meetings in the country towns) when a new and more serious storm threatened.

  Everything that Zsigmond Boros had predicted the previous November now came to pass. The discussions about Apponyi’s increasingly chauvinistic schools proposals had barely come to an end when Ferenc Kossuth dropped a new bombshell with a motion proposing that employees of the State Railways should henceforth be subject to specially stringent conditions of employment as theirs was a service of national importance. The object of the proposed reforms was to prevent any possible repetition of the recent rail strike which, though it had only lasted a few days, had caused general consternation. The trouble lay in the fact that the motion did not only contain disciplinary measures but also laid down new rules about the official language to be used. The State Railway company, M.A.V. – Margyar-Allami-Vasut – was to be instructed to employ only Hungarian-speaking workers.

  Since the national railway network also operated in Croatia, this new law would apply to Croatian employees and, according to them, it would be in direct contravention of the Hungarian-Croatian compact which had permitted the use of national languages. Naturally, for them, the national language was Croatian and even though the proposals specified that anyone in contact with the public on Croatian soil must have a knowledge of the Croatian language, the Serbo-Croatian Coalition which had risen to power with the help of Kossuth, immediately turned against him. Accordingly, when the debate on the motion got under way on June 5th all the Serbo-Croat members exercised their long-neglected right to make their speeches in their own language, thus producing a new method of obstructing the business of the House. As there were now more than forty Croatian members of Parliament the situation became much more serious than in the previous debates on the national minorities. Ironically enough the Hungarians now found being used against them all the tools of obstruction whose use they themselves had formerly brought to such a fine art.

  These tactics were bitterly resented, especially by the Independence Party which, two years previously, had backed the Serbo-Croatian Coalition at the time of the common law debates on the Personal Union issue and on the question of the Fiume Resolution, and who had considered the Serbo-Croats their allies. Now, they cried out angrily, what traitors these allies were proving themselves to be!

  Needless to say, there was hardly anyone among the Hungarian legislators who even attempted to listen to the lengthy speeches in Croatian since only two or three of them understood the language. Instead they filed out into the corridors of the House and stood about in groups – sometimes all day long if their presence was required for a vote – grumbling and quarrelling with each other. This went on for days, and the days lengthened into weeks. Accordingly it was a great relief if some former leader took it into his head to visit Parliament and then a sort of pseudo-debate would be arranged in his honour.

  The day that Samuel Barra put in an appearance he was immediately surrounded by a crowd of admirers. Without delay Bela Varju started off with a provocative remark designed to bring out Barra’s talent for invective. More members joined the group knowing the spectacle would be worthwhile – or, at the very least, would serve to pass the time.

  ‘It’s my view,’ said Varju, ‘that we’re all fools to put up with this nonsense. We’ve sat here for two weeks and those louts are still drivelling on in their absurd language! If I were the government of Hungary I’d soon crush that lot!’

  The great Barra opened his mouth, which was so huge that it seemed to be wider even than his face as if it had been stretched by all the speeches made by its owner during his life in politics, that mouth which seemed to have a life of its own between the sweeping moustaches and the heavy chin.

  ‘What do you mean – “crush”? If you’re suggesting that the government should act against the Rules of t
he House, I’d fight you all the way! I’ve fought for the sanctity of our House Rules all down the years, even against the bum-bailiffs of the Camarilla. Oh, yes! I was the first to see what they were up to, as you must know – and the time may well come again when the freedom and independence of our country will be saved by the citadel of those very Rules. Let me tell you: the Rules of the House are sacred!’

  Old Bartokfay lifted a finger in agreement and then, speaking as always in the strongly accented dialect of the Maros country in Transylvania, said, ‘That we could never allow. Not to Ferenc Kossuth, nor even to Lajos Kossuth himself. Never! Never!’. And he stuck his hand majestically behind the lapel of his old-fashioned Hungarian dress, just as he had done back in the sixties some forty years before, to show that even then he had been a person of importance.

  ‘Indeed, we must never infringe the House Rules, even if they try to use them against us,’ fluttered some young member eager to keep in well with Barra.

  ‘That is not so!’ interrupted the great leader, who dearly loved an argument. ‘Remember that we represent the country’s will, the country’s good faith and liberty; that is why we use all the weapons we can lay our hands on! But think where we’d be if the whole thing goes too far! Just ask yourselves that! Parliamentarianism would be finished, our age-old constitution a dead duck! What we have to do, my dear Sir, is to find some way by which the only obstruction possible remains in the hands of the party, our party, which truly represents our national ideals!’

  ‘But you’ve just said,’ stammered the young member. ‘At least, I understood …’

  ‘You understood wrong; but I said it right! The Rules of the House are sacred. Nevertheless our national and moral aims – and those alone – give us a moral right …’ and he went into a flood of high-sounding phrases to expound a theory which sounded magnificent but which no one understood. More and more people clustered round, and Abady, hearing Barra’s voice booming away from some distance off, joined them too.

  Balint was in high good humour for his plans all seemed to be bearing fruit. While the surging tide of Croatian oratory stopped all business in Parliament and gave an opportunity for the general run of members of the three principal parties to indulge in their own disputes, the government had time for other things. Balint’s appointment as chairman of the co-operative project had already been decided, and all that was now needed was for the Economics Minister to have an opportunity to announce the details in Parliament.

  Abady joined the group round Barra just as one of his listeners had made some obsequious remark about Ferenc Kossuth, saying how wise he was, what a great statesman, etc. Barra did not like this, since he had been on bad terms with the Minister ever since they had been adversaries in debate.

  ‘He a statesman? Of course! Ministers have to be statesmen, do they not? It goes without saying!’ shouted Barra, his mouth wide with ironical laughter. ‘But we should ask ourselves this: was it wise – statesmanlike, if you wish – to bring in this controversial language decree at this moment? Remember this, and what answer do you get? Our poor government has so few friends that it seems a pity to have offended their only allies.’

  Balint intervened. ‘That, surely, must depend on the value of the alliance – and of its sincerity. Personally I’m convinced that the Serb Coalition never supported the Fiume Resolution out of love for us, but only because they were ordered to do so by Belgrade. Very cleverly they’ll give their support to anything that tends to the break-up of the Dual Monarchy. Perhaps Kossuth put in the language conditions expressly so as to find a way of breaking with his Serbian friends!’

  For a moment the great Barra stared at Abady in silence, baffled by the intervention of a man he hardly knew and who rarely opened his mouth. He was just about to answer, to slay this troublesome stranger who had dared to interrupt, when Zsigmond Boros, who had been standing on the other side of the group for the last few minutes, got in first.

  ‘That is a highly intelligent observation,’ he said in his velvety politician’s baritone, ‘but I can assure you that Kossuth didn’t even think of it. It just didn’t occur to him that the decree would cause all this trouble, which just shows how ignorant he is!’ Then, to build up his own reputation and public image, he said, ‘I warned him, when I was still in office and the matter was discussed, but he would not listen to me. That’s why I resigned. I couldn’t say anything about it then, of course, but now it’s different. I mean, now it’s a matter of my country’s well-being and nothing else means anything to me or ever will!’

  The great Barra now found himself in a dilemma. He hated Kossuth, but he also hated anyone who drew attention away from himself and stole his thunder. Angrily he went on, ‘I’m not here to defend the Economics Minister, even if he is ignorant, uninformed and often weak too, but I must say that patriotism will always find a way, through no matter what obstacle – nay, through hellfire itself – to defend the nation’s best interests. It is this flame, burning away always in our breasts, which lights the way to the future, and which has guided my way all down the years … and remember this – our country, our nationhood, our constitution, everything that we hold dear, draws its inspiration from that one word alone.’

  At this moment an usher came up to Abady and tapped him on the shoulder. He had been sent for by the Minister. He turned and hurried away to the private office and, even as he reached the end of the corridor, he heard the meaningless phrases thundering on: ‘… because, I declare to you all, that I shall never falter nor waver in my view that what this country’s welfare demands is …’

  Half an hour later Balint left the Houses of Parliament with the Minister’s appointment in his pocket. The same evening he started for home and, for the first time since he had entered politics, he was returning happy with a sense of achievement. At last he would be able to be of use; at last he would be able to put into effect some of his plans to help the people in the country districts he knew so well.

  Before falling asleep he wondered in which district he should start his new organization. The choice was between the rolling prairies near Lelbanya or the mountain villages of the Kalotaszeg. He was still going over in his mind the merits of both when he dozed off. His last thoughts had rather favoured Kalotaszeg because there, at the foot of the mountains, were Hungarian communities where he would be able to recruit the necessary local leaders who could help him forge a link with the Romanian villages high in the forests. Yes, he thought, that was where he should start; and, faintly echoing in the deep recesses of his consciousness – now almost overcome by sleep – was the thought that there, between the valleys of the Koros and the Almas, was the ridge with a little log-cabin waiting in that clearing in the forest where, hidden from the rest of the world, protected and in secret, he would soon be able to relive the joys which had so stirred his blood a year before in Venice.

  Roza Abady was overjoyed to welcome her son back at Denestornya. She had been prouder of him than ever before when she heard of his speech in Parliament and this she had read aloud several times to her two housekeepers, Tothy and Baczo, who nodded vehemently and marvelled over it at each reading; and once, too, to Azbej, who bowed his veneration, doing so with added fervour as each sentence came to an end. After that she locked it in her desk. Sometimes, when she was alone, she would take it out secretly and read it again to herself. Now, when Balint was himself there and explained to her in detail what his plans were and how he had been appointed by the government to carry them out, she was deeply touched. ‘It’s as if I can hear your dear father speaking again,’ she said, laying her head against his shoulder. Then she asked where he would begin.

  ‘I’ve been thinking of two places to start with. One would have Lelbanya as its centre, where the co-operative is already working and only needs to have the neighbouring villages tied in with it. The other should be one of the settlements at the foot of the Kalotaszeg, where later we could bring in some of the people in the mountains.’

  ‘Which
will you do first?’

  ‘Kalotaszeg, I think. So I’ve written to the Prefect of the Hunyad asking him to call the local notaries to a meeting to discuss it.’

  ‘So you’ll be leaving me again, as soon as you’ve arrived?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. The meeting is to be the day after tomorrow. At the same time I’ll take a look at the forests.’

  Countess Roza’s face clouded over. She looked hard at her son, showing in her slightly protuberant grey eyes that there was something else she would have liked to ask him. However, all she said was, ‘So you’re going there again? So soon?’ There was something pensive in her tone.

  A month before two letters had arrived for Balint with the Nagy-Almas postmark.

  Countess Roza, to whom all mail was brought at Denestornya before being distributed to the household, knew well Adrienne’s slanting handwriting. Several years before, when Balint had been abroad in the diplomatic service, Countess Roza had always taken special note when envelopes addressed in a woman’s handwriting arrived for her son. These caused her great pleasure as she was secretly proud that he should have his conquests. But it was different when, two years ago, letters had started coming from Adrienne. These filled Roza with anguish. The previous summer, when these letters had stopped arriving, she had been reassured. But lately two envelopes addressed by Adrienne had come within the short period of three weeks, and the anxious mother realized that the affair had started again and feared that that dangerously wicked woman had managed to re-ensnare her beloved son.