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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  Everyone was stunned into silence. Sara’s voice was so full of command, her whole demeanour so severe and her large plum-shaped eyes so full of anger and disdain, that no one dared utter a sound. And when she took Gyeroffy by the hand and led him away people jumped up from their seats and made room for her to pass.

  All Sara said, as they walked towards the door, was, ‘You come with me now!’ and he followed her meekly without saying anything.

  And so it was that they walked out together through the two lines of now silent revellers, out from the courtyard of the inn, the tall stately woman who walked like a queen and, led by the hand like a little child, Laszlo Gyeroffy.

  Once outside she had to push him into the carriage. Then she had the roof raised so that she would not be seen driving away with a young man sodden with drink at her side.

  Laszlo fell asleep almost at once.

  Soon it began to get dark, for it had been a cloudy day and now rain was beginning to fall.

  The horses trotted slowly. Laszlo was still asleep, lying back awkwardly on the cushions. How tormented he looks now that he is sleeping, she thought. In her hand Sara held Laszlo’s hat which had fallen over his face when he went to sleep. She looked at him for a long time, thinking how pale he was and noticing how his eyebrows met in the middle and how there they were slightly raised as if he were still silently and unconsciously complaining of the sad life that was his lot.

  He was like a lost child who no longer even looked for the way home.

  At first Sara did not think far ahead. All she had wanted to do was to rescue him from that terrible place where everyone made fun of him. When they passed through Kozard – where she knew he lived – she thought she would wake him and drop him off. There would surely be someone at his house who would be able to look after him. But the rain fell ever more strongly and they were well past the village before she noticed it. And then she realized that she did not care. It would really have been most awkward to stop and throw this drunken young man out of the carriage, to explain and give orders. She did not even know where the Gyeroffy manor-house was, apart from the fact that it was somewhere near the village; and by now it was getting late. Sara remembered that she had to get home, for today was already Tuesday and on Wednesday she must appear at the County Court; and, what’s more, she still had a long way to get back to Dezmer. Sara found no end of arguments to justify her going straight home, as one always does when instinct takes over from logical thought.

  The strongest argument for Sara was that Gyeroffy would only have begun to sleep off his drunkenness by the time that they got back to Dezmer; but there at least he would be able to get out of the carriage with some semblance of normality. He could then sleep in the ground-floor guest-room; and the following day he could go home by train.

  It was, perhaps, just as well that she had recently sent off her young son to learn German at the college at Szeben. It would not have been easy to explain to him why she had picked up a drunken young aristocrat at the market. Of course she could explain it – and after all there was nothing much to explain. Two years before it had been easier, and of course quite different, when Wickwitz used to visit her. Although he had been her lover, he was also well known to her son who admired the good-looking young soldier-sportsman and thought of him as a friend. That he was far more than a casual visitor the boy had had no idea. Sara was far too careful – though of course now there was no question of anything like that. After all, what she was doing for young Gyeroffy she did out of pure pity. Still it was better, she thought, that that large growing boy who was now almost a man would not be at home. Better! Far better!

  This had all happened on Tuesday. When Laszlo awoke on Thursday morning, the sun was high in the sky and shone in golden lines between the wooden laths of the shutters. The room itself seemed if anything darker than it was because of the brightness of those strips of light. Some tiny autumn flies made a faint buzzing and it was this that Laszlo first noticed.

  He sat up in bed and looked around. He had no idea where he was and when he tried to remember there was only the faintest recollection of being drunk and playing in the inn at the Tuesday Fair at Ujvar, but no memory at all of what had happened and how he had got to wherever he was. He could just remember playing something that was funny, though he could not recall what. There had been many people around him, people who were laughing, people with big, big heads and wide-open mouths that laughed, and laughed and laughed … He had some memory, he thought, of a tall dark-haired woman who had suddenly stepped between him and the laughing heads. Huge coal-black eyes had looked hard at him and then someone – had it been the same woman? – had said something. And afterwards, then what? Nothing. Nothing at all until he had awoken with a jolt and seemed somehow to be in front of a house he did not know. At least he thought he did not know it, but it had been dark and as he was still very drunk he had not been able to see it properly.

  All this seemed to have happened a very long time ago.

  Laszlo slept for the rest of that day. At dusk he woke up again and heard the sound of someone bustling about in the room; it was a little maidservant he did not know, and a room he had never seen before. ‘Your bath is ready, sir,’ she said. ‘I can add some hot water if you wish.’

  It was with an almost erotic pleasure that Laszlo lay in the steaming hot bath. He stayed there a long time, and all around him everything was clean and sweet-smelling, the soap, the towels, the brushes and sponges. When he got back to his room he found that the lamps had been lit and a clean shirt had been laid out on the bed. On a chair nearby were his newly-ironed clothes and on the floor beside them were his newly-shined shoes.

  Laszlo’s first impression was that it was marvellous to feel so clean, and this impression stayed with him for a long time.

  And what happened later was equally surprising.

  He was called down to dinner, and though at first he felt deeply ashamed his hostess soon put him at his ease. ‘I do hope the razor was properly sharpened,’ she said, laughing. ‘It belonged to my late husband and hasn’t been used for years. I tried to strop it myself, but I’m not sure I really know how. The shirt belongs to my enormous son, but he isn’t at home now.’

  Laszlo at once felt that there was something charmingly simple about this woman, a natural, elemental goodness. And, too, she was beautiful and emanated a marvellous scent which in some way was the scent of naturally healthy creatures.

  They had dined alone, and later he played the piano. This also seemed so natural that it was as if they could have spent the evening in no other way. Just as it was with what happened afterwards.

  Now he wondered about it.

  Laszlo had played for a long time. The room was lit with only one lamp, and suddenly this had started to smoke. They both noticed it at the same moment, jumped up and moved towards it, she because it was natural to her in her own house and he either by pure instinct or because he felt he should help. They had lowered the flame and the room, for a moment, became even darker than before, until they could hardly see each other even though they were standing side by side and very close. Of course he had put his arm around her and pulled her closely to him; and they had kissed. It could not have been otherwise.

  For a long time they had stood there in each other’s arms, just kissing. Sarah had not resisted, not at first, but when he had held her even more closely and started to pull her away with his strong arms, there was a moment when she said weakly, ‘No! Don’t! No! No!’ but though she repeatedly said ‘No!’ her voice changed and her statuesque body started to tremble and it was clear she didn’t mean it. Long afterwards, whenever he thought about it, Laszlo could remember the feel of that voluptuous body trembling in his arms.

  Later, as he covered her face with kisses, he had found that it was already wet, wet with the tears that rolled slowly down her cheeks.

  Now he wondered why she had been crying and why she trembled so. Laszlo never normally pondered on such things but, as he lay
once again gazing into the strips of light that were filtered through the louvred shutters, the question just presented itself to his mind. Even so he did not seek an answer. Vaguely he heard the sound of water running and realized that someone must be preparing his bath. He leaned back against the pillows feeling how good everything was, how good and how clean. Even the bed itself was fresh and scented and for a long time – not since life had torn him away from the luxury of the houses where lived his grand Kollonich and Szent-Gyorgyi relations – he had not known the sensuous pleasure of being so clean and well looked after. Stretching out in sheer content he closed his eyes and went to sleep again.

  The door opened and Sara came in, a long silk wrapper emphasizing rather than concealing the curves of her statuesque figure. Now her hair was confined in a net and the narrowing effect on her head made her shoulders seem even wider than they were. She brought in Laszlo’s breakfast, a delicious selection of hot scones, cold meats and yeast cakes, with a pot of steaming coffee, all on a huge tray. Pulling up a chair to put the tray on she sat herself down on the edge of the bed.

  ‘You’re up early!’ said Laszlo, wondering at such energy.

  She laughed, her white teeth shining. Just above her red lips there was a faint line of down as dark as her hair, and her long lashes might have been brushed in with charcoal. Her eyebrows too were long and finely etched like those of the ancient Egyptians. Her skin was a clear brown, glowing pink over the cheekbones and shining with the golden colour of richly whipped cream. It vanished into the V-shaped opening of her wrapper only to be seen again where her arms emerged from the silken sleeves. Only now did Gyeroffy fully appreciate what a beauty she was.

  ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I’ve been up for a long time. Every day I walk round the place at dawn. Then I come in, bathe and generally clean up. I always get up before the servants do. Well, then, did you sleep well?’ she asked, with a mischievous smile. Then she said, ‘Shall I pour you some coffee?’

  For a while they chatted gaily together. There was no longer any sign of that strange fear that had seemed to come over her when she first gave in to Laszlo’s embrace. Then she had felt that she was being swept away by some sad tragic force she did not understand. Since the death of her elderly husband she had had affairs only with two men, one of them a distant relation who just happened to come unexpectedly into her life, and the other with the Austrian lieutenant of hussars, Egon von Wickwitz. Both of these affairs had been quite different from what was happening now. Both those men had pursued her for some time, and both had only been accepted after she had thought the matter over carefully. And both had been accepted for clinical reasons of health and peace of mind. This was something quite, quite different. This was a storm, a sudden, unexpected, roaring tempest which, like an elemental force, swept everything before it. This was something she had never felt before and it frightened her. Her deep-rooted sense of self-preservation recoiled from the thought that if she did not resist from the first then she might unwittingly find herself the helpless slave of a fate she had never sought. And so she did resist … but it was a vain effort and she had not felt like this since those days so long ago when she was an inexperienced girl. Her attempt to deny him was doomed to fail, for, despite herself, and her fear she was being driven mad by desire.

  This morning, from dawn until breakfast-time, while she supervised the milking and watched the animals’ fodder being measured out, and while she thought out and gave directions to her men for the day’s work, she never stopped wondering about what had happened the night before. And she asked herself how it was possible that this had happened to her now.

  Sara was a contented, thoughtful and carefully composed sort of woman. She liked everything to be cut and dried, and she liked to be able to look at her own life – and at other people – with the certainty that she was in control.

  When she had rescued Gyeroffy so abruptly from that horrible scene in the inn, she had acted out of pure pity. She found it disgusting that he should be made fun of in that way and she had acted swiftly and without reflection to put a stop to it. During the journey back to Dezmer she was conscious only of having been sorry for him, nothing else; for her inner motives and compulsions had remained latent and unrecognized. Indeed, when they had arrived at the portico of her house she had felt only disgust at the sight of the dirty and dishevelled young man who was so far gone in drink that they had practically to carry him up the steps. After that she had not seen him for a while. They told her the next day that he was still sleeping. Though she went to look in on him, and saw to it that he was being looked after, it had only been out of natural goodness, maternally caring for him as she would for anyone else who came to her house. And she did nothing to hasten his being roused for, deep down inside her, she had been reluctant to be faced again with someone whose dirty and unkempt appearance had already so revolted her.

  That was how she remembered him, and how she had thought of him as she waited for him to join her for dinner the previous evening. And that was why she was taken by surprise to see, not the degraded drunkard she had expected, but rather a well-groomed and handsome, indeed very handsome, young man. Now that his well-cut clothes had been cleaned, repaired and ironed, she could see at once that he came from a good family and she was impressed with the gentlemanly manner with which, though he was clearly embarrassed, he begged her pardon for his previous behaviour. Everything about him now breathed the air of a man of the world accustomed to elegance, and his manners were those of a grand seigneur. He was quite different from anyone she had ever met and it was at this moment that she began to feel an unfamiliar magic creeping over her and overwhelming her judgement and her carefully nurtured prudence. As this handsome, gentle and well-mannered young man began to speak, as he picked up his knife and fork to eat, as he touched the corner of his mouth with his table-napkin, and as he sat down at the piano to play out his gratitude in music rather than words, she found him everything that was modest, well-bred, calm and composed, and indeed almost childishly charming. And as he played the expression of his face changed; it was as if from somewhere deep in his soul there was emerging a radiant Fairy Prince whose joys and triumphs had been in the remote past.

  She had never before heard music such as he now played, music that was by turns plaintive and cruel. Though her piano had not been tuned for some years and the songs that he played sounded most unusual, Sara began to feel that all her life she had known this pale young man whose eyebrows met in the middle and who, from time to time, would look over towards her and explain the music that he was now creating just for her and for her alone …

  It was of these things that Sara was thinking when she went out so early to her farms. She tried to analyse her emotions, feeling that her fears and reactions the night before had been silly and morbid, if not absurd. Perhaps she had, for some unknown reason, been unusually nervous; but anyway, she reflected, what did it matter if she had only just met him and yet fallen straight into his arms? Was she not her own master? Did she have to account for her actions to anyone or to anything except her own conscience? At last, in full control of herself, and knowing how beautiful and desirable she would appear in that silken wrapper, she brought his breakfast to his room and sat down on the side of the bed. And as she did so she was not unconscious of the fact that the edge of the wrapper had opened more widely around her neck.

  ‘Do you like it black or white?’ she asked as she started to pour it out for him.

  There was no answer … but the coffee grew cold in the cup.

  Laszlo’s life now began a new phase. Soon he was spending all his time with her, moving to Dezmer as if it were his home. At first he would spend a little time at his own house at Kozard, but he was so dismayed by the disorder and squalor of it that he soon returned. It was only now that he began to see how bleak he had allowed his own place to become.

  The single room in which he lived was now almost bare both of furniture and objects. For the last year he had gradually b
een selling all his belongings, and not only the most valuable, though these he disposed of in Kolozsvar through the agency of the Jewish shopkeeper, Bischitz. Now all the old Gyeroffy family pieces, objets d’art, rosewood tables and cabinets, and the French bronzes his parents had bought together on their honeymoon in Paris, were to be found in plump little Frau Bruckner’s showroom in the provincial capital. Laszlo had got into the habit of taking the lesser things himself into Szamos-Ujvar, selling them for almost nothing, and then swiftly drinking the proceeds. He had even got rid of one of his English shotguns.

  For the last year or so any money that Laszlo had been able to lay his hands on had either been gambled away in some tavern or else spent on drink.

  Six months before, when old Crookface Kendy had spoken to him with such kindness and understanding, Laszlo had tried to pull himself together. He had written to Azbej asking for a list of his debts but though he had had a reply Azbej had written that the statement was not complete and that there were still some modifications that he would forward as soon as they came to hand. Put off in this way, Laszlo had soon lost interest and only remembered about the matter if he happened to catch sight of Crookface somewhere in Kolozsvar. On these occasions he would give the old man a most reverential bow, but all the same he kept his distance.

  This was all that Kendy’s well-meant intervention had managed to achieve.

  Now, after the experience of Sara’s well-run, spotless manor-house, Laszlo felt unequal to facing life at Kozard. He continued to return home from time to time, but for ever shorter visits. Indeed he only went so as not to have to admit to himself that he was now living on the charity of a woman.

  Sara, who was no fool, herself made things easier for Laszlo to accept. She arranged matters so as to make it appear as if she needed him to help run her property. Sometimes, though carefully concealing the fact that the proposal was only half serious, she would ask him to oversee the ploughing or the cutting of the clover. She well knew that Laszlo was completely ignorant in such matters, but she wanted him to believe that he was being of use to her.