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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  Countess Clémence did not answer, but just shrugged her shoulders. Then her son spoke again and this time his tone was more controlled. ‘I went out myself last night, just to be sure. I walked round the garden, and I saw … do you hear me? I saw! All right, you’ll say “the night watchman” … They were everywhere. Lots of them. Behind every tree … everywhere, whispering together. Of course they were hiding, but I saw them and I know!’

  He paced up and down the room several times more, quickly and excitedly, so much so that the soles of his shoes slid perilously on the parquet. While he moved he said nothing but then he came back to the table and started again. ‘I know, I tell you! I know only too well. You sent them to spy on me. Well, just watch out! Just watch out! And I know some more too; they put things in my wine … and in my food. You see, I know. Don’t deny it! I know!’

  The old lady answered drily, ‘How could anyone do that? We all eat and drink the same things.’

  ‘Will you shut up!’ shouted Uzdy, banging his long arm down on the table. ‘Shut up! I tell you. Shut up and listen! I know you, and I say,’ his voice rising, ‘just watch out!’ Then he straightened up his long thin body, waving his arms in the air, his fists clenched. ‘Just you watch out! Watch out! Watch out!’ he cried in a high thin scream like an animal in pain.

  Then he spun round, like a spring just released, and slid over to the main door, wrenched it open and stormed out slamming the door behind him.

  The two women sat for an instant as if turned to stone. Then Countess Clémence rose and, calm and erect, with head held high, her cold glance directed ever straight ahead of her, stalked out of the room. Adrienne was left alone.

  The first thing Adrienne thought about, as soon as the first shock had passed away, was how deeply painful all this must have been for that proud spirit; and for the first time in her life she almost felt sorry for the old lady. She had known her for an enemy since she first announced her engagement to Pal Uzdy and only now, in their common anxiety, common to both perhaps but not shared, did Adrienne begin to feel compassion rise in her. And, as her instinct was always at once transmuted into action, act she did. She jumped up from her chair and thinking only that somehow she must express what she felt, she made her way to Countess Clémence’s room which she had not entered more than twice or three times since she had come to Almasko.

  The room was dark, with a little light filtered through the slats in the shutters and for a moment Adrienne was startled to find that it also appeared to be empty. She looked around. To the right was that picture of Christ with its face turned to the wall. The tiny hanging light before it was not lit, and the prie-dieu was pushed away in a corner. Adrienne recalled that the old lady had decided not to be on speaking terms with God since he had taken her husband away from her, and was just about to withdraw when a voice quite close spoke from somewhere at her left. ‘Well, what do you want?’

  Adrienne could now make out that her mother-in-law was lying stretched out on a sofa covered in black velvet and, as she was always dressed in black herself, she could hardly be seen except as an insubstantial black shadow, especially as her head was turned away towards the window and her tall white coiffure covered by a widow’s cap. She lay on her stomach with her elbows on the sofa and her head held up by tightly clenched fists, and Adrienne suddenly felt that there was something infinitely touching in her position, so like someone lying on a coffin and protecting it with her body.

  ‘I came,’ she started, ‘just to say how dreadful it was. We must do something …’ and then she stopped. She had thought she would reveal what until then she had kept to herself, namely that Dr Kisch’s visit had been no chance accident but that she had asked him to come; and she was now going to propose that they send for him at once. However she was so put off by the old lady’s abrupt manner, and also, though she hardly knew why, embarrassed, that the words would not be spoken.

  Countess Clémence appeared not even to have heard what Adrienne had started to say and interrupted her curtly. ‘This is my business, mine alone! Whatever I decide to do I shall certainly not tell you! Tell you!’ and her tone was one of barely contained hatred.

  To Adrienne it was as if she had been struck in the face. All feeling of compassion for the old lady fled and was instantly replaced by deep resentment and dislike for the old tyrant. However, before she could reply, she was met with a torrent of words. ‘Tell you, who have brought all this upon us!? You, who have brought a curse upon the house and who have poisoned my son against me, who have seduced him with your girlish white skin. Yes, you! I knew it from the first moment. Go away! Get out of this room at once! Get out!’

  She said all this without moving, hissing the words from her thin lips while her eyes glistened like those of a madwoman.

  There was nothing more that Adrienne could say: the mother seemed as mad as her son. Her anger evaporating, Adrienne went out into the clean daylight of the corridor and from there straight into the great entrance court and stood, with her back to the house, gazing into the distance.

  The tree-covered mountainside beyond the lawns was dark, so much so that the forest seemed almost to be moving towards the castle and blanketing out the sky. Adrienne felt that the trees were blocking out the whole world and that she would be kept for ever in that dreadful prison.

  That same evening everything was back to normal. Until dinner-time Adrienne had seen no one, then she went into the big drawing-room, where the family always assembled, and was sitting there in silence with her implacable mother-in-law when the door opened and Uzdy came in, apparently in high good humour.

  ‘Well,’ he said to his mother, laughing merrily, ‘I gave you a good scare, what? And didn’t I do it well? You thought I’d gone mad, eh? What a joke! I could have been a wonderful actor, as good as Talma… Yes, Talma, the real thing,’ and, gently caressing her arm, he led his mother into the dining-room where he continued to chat merrily and lightly, like a child, just as he used to before he had become so gloomy.

  For some days he remained the same, as if he were making a special effort so that the others would forgive that appalling scene. No matter how hard Adrienne studied him she could see no signs of anything unusual. Every alarming symptom had disappeared, and only very seldom did she catch a momentary glimpse of a dangerous flash from his eyes. She wondered if that sudden loss of control had now spent itself and whether, perhaps, his outburst of temper had dissipated whatever crisis had threatened him. Had not Dr Kisch said something about ‘agitated phases alternating with periods of calm’?

  And because she wanted to believe it, she did.

  All the while she was tormented by Balint’s letters. With that leaden burden of anxiety weighing on her mind, she read and reread them with hopeless pain in her heart. Even so they were her only hope of eventual freedom. The letters kept arriving, long, long letters full of desire and love; and each of them seemed to burn her fingers as she held it. And they were doubly tormenting because even if he did not spell it out, every word flamed with reproach, with the accusation that she had done nothing while he had sacrificed everything for her.

  That was when Adrienne finally made up her mind. It was not easy, and, even as she did so she still wondered if her departure might not set off another terrible attack. She was terrified that her actions might provoke an irreversible relapse and that, of course, would render all her efforts in vain and chain her to Uzdy for as long as he lived. She wondered if she should not call in Dr Kisch once more and let him decide. At least then she would be sure.

  And yet she did not dare. Balint was waiting for her and their future together, and the son that was to be born to them. She had to go, to be with everything that she held dear.

  All the same she had to act sensibly, and that was when she thought of Absolon. The old explorer had always come once or twice a year to visit his sister and so there would be nothing unusual if he should suddenly arrive now. He was well-disposed to Adrienne and if anyone was esteemed by her husband
it was he. He was the only person who could help her if the bombshell should explode; and so she wrote to him on the same day that she sent her long letter to Balint. She told him all the details of what she was going to do and what she wanted him to do for her. Five days later his answer came: he agreed to do just as she asked but told her he could not come immediately as his crippled leg was giving him much pain and he had to go first to Szasz-Regen where Dr Kisch would give him some treatment. This would only take a few days: then he would come at once. He would send a telegram to his sister to announce his arrival. It was the best she could hope for.

  The following days passed slowly for Adrienne who was in an agony of anxiety fearing that Uzdy would take another sudden turn for the worse. But nothing happened. It seemed that his recovery was complete and that he had completely regained his equanimity. Adrienne noted with relief that her husband was once again taking an interest in estate matters, which had been totally neglected since he had started working on that strange theory of numbers. He even ordered that the daily postbag should be brought to him every day before being sent off to the post office in Nagy-Almas so that he could send off at once his replies to the reports from the agents resident on his extensive properties far from Almasko. That was what he had always been accustomed to do in the past. Every detail of the management of his estates had invariably been controlled by Uzdy himself through a voluminous daily correspondence, and the fact that he had taken all this up again seemed to Adrienne to be an encouraging sign. Adrienne therefore saw nothing odd in the fact that Uzdy often now not only held back the mail, sometimes for an hour or more behind the locked doors of his study, but also, as he always rose late, that he had the bag brought to him last. This seemed quite sensible as his room was on the ground floor which had to be passed by the courier on his way out.

  It was lucky, thought Adrienne, that Uzdy had only adopted this system after her correspondence with Balint had stopped.

  Only one alarming symptom remained. From time to time Adrienne thought se detected a covert glance of hatred directed at his mother; but it was so slight she managed to convince herself that this was merely a faint echo of something from the past.

  November came to an end in a blaze of gorgeous weather, as it so often did in Transylvania around St Catherine’s Day. They called it the Old Wives’ Summer – and it always came to a sudden end with the first snows.

  One day Adrienne went out early for her usual walk. From a path high above the castle she saw one of the Almasko carriages being driven swiftly along the road to Nagy-Almas. It was empty and a young groom sat beside the coachman. This meant that it was going to the railway station and the groom’s presence also meant that a guest was expected and that he would be needed to help with the luggage.

  Her heart throbbed at the thought that it must be Absolon and that very soon now she would be free. At once she thought of everything that had happened in the past few weeks, and all seemed set fair. Nothing had occurred to make her fear a further delay and so it was now, at last, that her long hoped-for flight would become a reality. For a long time Uzdy had seemed calm, and as normal as he ever had been. Now at last all her efforts to arrange a divorce would be crowned with success, she must succeed … she would succeed!.

  The carriage must have gone to meet the 9.30 train, and Uzdy’s American trotters were so fast that Absolon could be at the house within the hour. Adrienne did not want to be there when he came in case anyone should guess that she knew he was coming, so she decided to come in herself a little later.

  She went for a long walk in the woods and when she next looked at her watch it was already after eleven. The guest must have arrived about three-quarters of an hour before, so it was now safe to return.

  Adrienne had hardly started down the winding path from the woods when she was startled by something utterly unexpected. Uzdy jumped out from behind a tree, not with his usual stilted gait but hurriedly, almost running towards her. It was as if he had been hiding from something and had been waiting only for her.

  And so it was.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you, dear Adrienne,’ he said, ‘and I’m thankful I’ve found you!’ He sighed deeply, and then, somewhat awkwardly, tried to laugh. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it? But it doesn’t matter; strange things happen in life, very strange,’ and he hesitated for a moment before going on. Then, very seriously, as if begging for her help, he said, ‘I want you to stay near me today, all the time. Please stay with me! Don’t leave me today! Will you do it? Will you?’

  ‘Of course. Gladly. But what’s happened?’

  Uzdy bent his tall figure until he could speak directly into Adrienne’s ear. She saw fear in his eyes.

  ‘My mother,’ he said. ‘My mother has had a doctor sent out from Kolozsvar. It’s a plot … against me! She says he’s coming to see our daughter, but I know she’s lying. That’s why I came out to find you, so that they wouldn’t find me alone – not alone, not for a minute alone!’

  He put his hands on her shoulders and they were shaking with terror. Then, barely audibly, he whispered, ‘The old witch wants to put me in the madhouse, just like my father! You mustn’t let that happen! Please don’t let it happen! If you are with me they won’t dare!’

  ‘Surely not?’ said Adrienne. ‘You must be imagining it. Why on earth should she?’

  ‘But she does, I tell you. She does.’ Uzdy was now howling like a frightened animal. ‘I’ve suspected it for a long time, and now I know. I opened her letters and read them … That’s why she’s got him here; I know. But let’s go now! Come on!’ and he grabbed his wife’s hand and walked off so fast with his long legs that Adrienne could hardly keep up with him.

  In the centre of that round lawn that was bordered by the carriage drive he slowed down, put his hands in his pockets and strolled casually towards the house as if nothing was the matter. The change was so abrupt that Adrienne would almost have believed that she had dreamed what had just occurred between them had he not turned briefly towards her and hissed, ‘Stay with me. Stay always with me.’

  In front of the house Countess Clémence was talking to a man Adrienne had never seen before. When her son and daughter-in-law came up she introduced the man as Dr Palkowitz, a professor from Kolozsvar, and said she had called him in to see her grandchild, explaining rather breathlessly and at length that the little girl had become very nervous, was not sleeping well, suffered from nightmares and often woke up frightened in the night; and therefore she had thought it best, just to be sure, to consult a specialist, though it was nothing, of course, just a precaution. It was always better with children, wasn’t it, to have them looked at from time to time.

  She said far more than was necessary, and far more than her usual taciturn manner allowed her. She spoke, too, in an affected way, as people who are not used to deception are often apt to do. Finally she added, ‘I might as well have him look at me too, while he is about it!’ and laughed self-consciously as if it were all rather trivial.

  The doctor, a small, chubby, merry-looking man, carried on the fiction himself, saying, ‘Of course, why not? When a doctor visits a country village he expects to have to look at everybody. I’m quite used to that. It often happens.’

  Then Uzdy spoke up, with a submissiveness Adrienne had never seen before. Stooping slightly, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked first at the doctor and then at his mother. He was like some huge, skinny wolfhound who senses trouble and tries to avoid the inevitable beating by cringing subdued at his master’s feet. When he spoke his manner was strangely sweet and obsequious. ‘Perhaps the doctor ought to have a look at me too? All right, why not? Let’s do it now, right away. That would be best, wouldn’t it, Mama?’ Then he turned directly to Dr Palkowitz and said, ‘Come along then, down to my room if that suits you. And Adrienne too, of course, if she’ll come. Yes, she too, of course,’

  With somewhat exaggerated waving of his arms he gestured them towards the front door and into the house, ma
king the doctor go in first. In the corridor he kept Adrienne beside him, holding her hand as tightly as if in a vice. The smile never left his face.

  Old Maier was waiting for them. To him Uzdy said, ‘Tell them to harness up the other pair of horses in half an hour.’ Then he turned to the doctor and explained, ‘That way you’ll be home by early afternoon. That’d be best, wouldn’t it? We don’t want to take up too much of your valuable time, do we?’

  At the angle of the corridor they turned right towards the stair that led to the ground floor. Adrienne would have preferred to turn back there for she hated those stairs which her husband had used every time he came to his wife’s room. The treads creaked and it was a sound to which she never became accustomed however often she heard it. And every time she heard it, she shuddered. She herself never used that stairway. But now, as she had given her promise to Uzdy, and as the doctor was with them, she could hardly turn back. Uzdy led them to his room where all the windows were heavily barred, like all the others in that wing of the house because it was there that Uzdy’s mad father had lived out the last years of his life. It was small and unpretentious, furnished only with the bare necessities. A narrow iron bed was set against one wall. Uzdy made the doctor sit down on a chair while he himself sat on the bed, drawing his wife to sit beside him. He was all politeness and humility, and made little bows as he spoke.

  ‘Here we are! Please sit down! Now, ask your questions – in your own time, of course.’

  The doctor gave a embarrassed little cough, and then began nervously, ‘Er-er-well, in her ladyship’s presence. Well, it’s a little unusual.’

  He was unable to say more because Uzdy at once interrupted him, at the same time clinging tightly onto his wife’s arm, saying, ‘We have no secrets from each other, do we, Addy? We are absolutely one, one! Isn’t that so, Addy? Please start your examination, doctor.’