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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  The usual questions followed, about sleep, capacity for work, and even some more intimate matters. Uzdy answered everything calmly and apparently quite satisfactorily. He spoke slowly, seeming to weigh each word carefully, but Adrienne sensed that he had rehearsed it all and wondered if the doctor, who was now meeting Uzdy for the first time, had noticed it too. Next came the testing of the reflexes – knees, eyes, walking about with closed eyes – followed by listening to the heart and lungs with a stethoscope. Uzdy went through it all patiently, and only Adrienne noticed how fiercely he looked at the doctor’s hands whenever he touched his head or put the stethoscope to his heart.

  The examination was a long one. Finally Dr Palkowitz drew himself up and declared, ‘I congratulate your Lordship. You are in perfect health, a trifle nervous perhaps, but that is quite usual for all intellectual people. I’ll just prescribe a light sedative which you might take for a while. I can’t think of anything else!’

  He took out his fountain-pen and swiftly wrote some words on a paper. There was no time for Adrienne, but as the doctor knew he had been called in only to examine her husband, he did not press the matter.

  ‘The carriage will be ready and waiting,’ said Uzdy. ‘You’d better leave at once so as to catch the train!’ and he led them straight out through the service door, through a store filled with stacks of wood, and into the stables. The carriage was standing ready at the stable doors and the doctor climbed in and sat down. All the time Uzdy kept up a stream of obsequious thanks, saying, ‘I really am most flattered by your visit, honoured indeed! Thank you! Thank you!’

  When the carriage had disappeared through the gates of the stable yard, then Uzdy straightened himself up to his full height.

  Slowly he and Adrienne walked back to the house.

  When they were half-way there Uzdy stopped. His face shone with triumph as he looked down at her and said, ‘I’m most grateful, Addy, I really am. Now you’d better go in … go to your own room.’

  Adrienne turned and went swiftly into the house. She felt far more at ease and had been reassured by the doctor’s opinion. She was glad to be alone now, for that hour and a half in her husband’s room had been an ordeal; and as soon as she had sensed that terrible suppressed excitement rising again in him she had been terrified he might suddenly lose control of himself. It had been a great relief when all had passed off so well. Perhaps there really wasn’t anything seriously wrong after all? But if this were so why, as she was about to enter the house, did he call out after her, ‘Remain in your own room! Don’t move from there, do you understand!’ in almost menacing tones? And why was his face so distorted, with swollen veins, and dark red in colour? Suddenly her composure was shattered by the thought that nothing had changed and that his controlled manner during the doctor’s visit was nothing but a charade. And why should he order her to stay in her room?

  Though she did not understand she still did what she was told, though once there she found no peace. She was haunted by that strange transformation she had seen in her husband in the course of a mere hour and a half. What did it mean, that humbleness towards the doctor, for humbleness was utterly alien to his character? Also the memory of his terror when he came to seek her out in the wood filled her with pity and anguish. No matter how hard she tried to remain calm, her agitation increased and she felt that some unknown horror was creeping up to take her unawares. Without knowing why, she started to listen for some unusual sound. It was instinctive and lasted perhaps a few minutes only, perhaps a bare quarter of an hour. And, as she listened, her heart beat ever louder and louder.

  Then, as if in answer to her waiting, there came a long drawn-out howl from some distant part of the house.

  Adrienne ran swiftly out into the corridor. There was nobody there, nor anywhere else, it seemed. The castle might have been deserted with no one outside in the courtyard and no one in the halls either. The door to the drawing-room was open and she ran quickly in.

  There on the floor, most unexpectedly, she saw her husband lying with old Maier kneeling beside him, trying to loosen his collar. An armchair was overturned and beside it was lying a long bare oak-log. Adrienne at once wondered how it had got there from the woodpile in the storeroom. Standing behind the sofa was old Countess Clémence and her face seemed paler even than the ash-grey colour of the wall against which she was leaning. Adrienne took all this in at once, and also that the old butler was saying to her, ‘Bitte einen Diener rufen, bitte schnell! Der Herr ist ohnmächtig – Please call for a servant, quickly please! The Master has fainted!’

  That old Maier had unconsciously reverted to German meant that he was deeply worried. Adrienne ran out and called the footman. Then she ran to the pantry and fetched a glass of water. When she got back to the drawing-room Maier had lifted Uzdy’s head and shoulders onto his lap and the footman had put his arms under Uzdy’s knees. Together they raised him from the floor and started to carry him out.

  ‘Here’s some water,’ cried Adrienne. ‘Put some on his forehead!’ but Maier merely said, ‘Not now. When we get the Master to his room!’

  As they carried him out Uzdy’s arms and legs hung down like a broken puppet. Adrienne now saw that his temple was covered in blood.

  ‘What’s happened? For God’s sake tell me what’s happened?’ she cried, turning to her mother-in-law.

  The old woman had remained motionless with closed eyes until Adrienne spoke. Then she slowly opened them, wider and wider as if she were seeing some terrible vision. Then she put back her shoulders and walked stiffly out of the room, closing the door behind her with determined quietness.

  It was only later that Maier told her what had happened. He had been cleaning the silver when Count Uzdy came back into the house, on tiptoe, with that oak-log in his hand. Maier had immediately sensed trouble and had tried to intercept his master, but Uzdy had been too quick for him. Countess Clémence had been in the drawing-room waiting for the doctor to make his report to her and sitting at her usual place on the sofa. Her son had rushed at his mother, raising high the oak-log to strike her. Luckily the table had been between them and so Maier had been able to grab his master, catching his wrist in that vice-like grasp taught to male nurses, and tripped him so that he fell to the floor. Maier had learned the technique while working in the lunatic asylum at Graz where he had also been taught that it was almost impossible to subdue a violent patient in the grip of madness and that it was far better not to try to wrestle with them but rather to pin them down when dazed by a fall. All went as he had planned except that Uzdy had hit his head on the heavy wooden back of an armchair, split his temple open and passed out from the resulting concussion. Maier at once thought it best not to attempt to bring him round where he was but to get him quickly back to his own room. If he came to in different surroundings the memory of what had happened would probably fade all the more quickly. Now, as Maier told all this to Adrienne, her husband was lying quietly in his own bed with a cold compress on his temple. He was not likely to want to move for the time being; but later it would be different. Count Uzdy would have to be under constant surveillance.

  That afternoon Absolon arrived at Almasko and Adrienne at once told him the whole story. Then they held a family council and agreed that someone must always be by the sick man’s bedside. Only four people could be relied upon to undertake this vigil, Adrienne, Absolon, Maier and the English nanny. His mother must be kept away from him, for when Maier had told him that Countess Clémence had been enquiring after her son, Uzdy had clenched his fists and such hatred glinted in his look that Maier had had quickly to change the subject. No doubt the sight of his mother would provoke another fit of rage.

  Although Countess Clémence had sat with Adrienne and her brother while they discussed what course to take, the decisions were taken by them alone. The old lady sat there without even opening her mouth. Her face seemed as if turned to stone and they were not sure she even heard what they said. Then they decided to send for Dr Kisch and let him advise
them what to do next.

  Then followed three dreadful days.

  Dr Kisch had arrived but he did not visit the sick man so as not to excite him. He said that he would see him soon enough when the time came to take him away; for, after hearing all the details, Kisch had realized that Uzdy would have to be closely confined. It had been immediately obvious to him that Uzdy was too far gone to be left alone in the freedom of his own home: it was too dangerous for him, and for everyone else.

  On the fourth day Adrienne was on duty. It was the hour of dawn, but it was still dark. A small night-light flickered on the window sill and Uzdy, propped up on several pillows, was apparently asleep. His wife was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed, and not a sound was to be heard, except for the ticking of the clock.

  The hours crept slowly by, terribly slowly, because she was haunted by the thought that at eight o’clock that morning Dr Kisch would come to Uzdy’s room to take him away. The Red Cross ambulance wagon had been there since the previous day, hidden in the stable court. Two nurses had come with it, and they were going to take the patient to the clinic for nervous diseases in Kolozsvar – which was always referred to as ‘The House with the Green Roof’ – and there he would be kept in close confinement.

  For Adrienne it was the end of everything for which she had yearned, waited, and struggled for so many years. It was the end of her dream of freedom, just when it had seemed so very close. It was the end of any chance of happiness, of anything which for her would make life worth living. It was the end of that dream for which Balint had given up his home and it tolled the death-knell of any chance of a free honest life, of having another child, and especially of that longed-for, oh, so-often-imagined boy who had never been born and who never now would be born! She felt as if, when in half an hour they would take her husband away as hopelessly mad, her love for Balint would die or at least be subtly transformed into unending frustrated pain. Now she would have to remain in that hateful house for ever, chained to an absent husband she had always loathed, living in hell with an estranged daughter and a half-crazed mother-in-law.

  She had thought of nothing else during the past few days, but it had never assailed her with such force as it did that morning just as she was waiting for the final stroke of fate which would throw her life into havoc. Right up until this last minute she had felt that there might be some hope, that something, anything, would happen … some miracle that would cure him. She had been like a drowning man clutching at imaginary straws.

  So she sat there, her head hanging low and her face covered by her hands. She could feel the pulse throbbing in her throat, and she looked back dismally at the seemingly endless sorrows of her life. She had been really happy only once, during those four short weeks she had spent with Balint in Venice; and even then, though dazed by the happiness of passing her nights in his arms, she had been menaced by the thought of that self-destruction she had thought to be a price worth paying for the fulfilment of their love. Now she thought she should have killed herself then. At least she would have been saved this present suffering.

  Tears rose in her eyes and suddenly she was racked with sobs. No matter how hard she tried she could not control them. Leaning forward as if mourning the dead she cried … and cried … and cried … her tears falling through her fingers onto her blouse and into her lap.

  Then a voice said, ‘Are you crying, Adrienne?’

  Uzdy was looking up at her from his pillows. She had no idea how long he had been awake. Now he was staring at her with surprise in those strange slanting eyes. She looked back at him, unable to reply. His expression was amazingly peaceful. She had never seen him look like that before.

  Uzdy did not move his head, and his long hair lay on the pillow like a dark wedge reaching up on each side of his face in strange peaks, his eyebrows and sharply pointed beard making him more than ever like everyone’s idea of Mephistopheles. Only now there was nothing satanic about him and on his lips was a slight, apologetic smile.

  ‘Why do you cry?’ he asked gently. ‘Surely not for me? Why should you cry for me?’ He spoke slowly as if he were really only talking to himself. ‘I know you were never happy with me,’ he went on, ‘so why should you cry for me now?’

  He paused, and then went on, ‘Perhaps I oughtn’t to have … I know I should have behaved differently, quite differently … but I didn’t know how. It was a mistake, a terrible mistake. My own mistake, of course, but then I didn’t know …’

  Adrienne was again racked by sobs, so much so that she pressed her fists into her temples and put her head between her knees. Now she was crying silently, her blouse quivering as her back shook with her sobs. When she was at last able to look up she saw that he was looking intently at her, probably waiting to say something more. When he did speak it was very quietly, like a voice from another world, ‘No matter what happened, no matter why, or how … I must tell you I loved you very much!’ he said, and closed his eyes as if infinitely weary.

  He did not open them again, not even when daylight flooded the room and the clock chimed the hour of eight, nor when the door opened and Maier came in. His eyes were still closed and he seemed to be asleep when Adrienne rose and brushed her husband’s locks with her long, cool fingers.

  In the corridor outside, behind the Saxon doctor, two dark figures moved forward carrying an iron stretcher.

  Adrienne slipped quietly to the stairs, thinking she would flee to her own room so as not to see anything of the terrible scene that would be enacted below when those fateful figures bore down upon poor Uzdy. Try as she would she could not go more than a few steps. Her legs seemed as if made of lead and she found herself forced to remain, leaning against the wooden walls of the stairway. From downstairs she could hear the sound of a door opening and footsteps. Then her husband’s voice, full of surprise, called out, ‘No! No! No!’ quite strongly. And then nothing. Nothing!

  The silence frightened her. Then there were more steps, and this time they had something of a military ring. The glazed door leading to the garden opened and she could just hear some sort of command. They must have gone out, thought Adrienne, and rushed down the stairs. In the bright sunlight before her she saw a little group of men carrying a stretcher and on it lay Pal Uzdy, his body covered by a white sheet like a shroud. She supposed they must have given him some quick-acting injection. His face looked as pale as if sculpted in wax.

  Adrienne’s knees buckled and she tried to support herself on the bars of the window by which she stood. And once again she wept, but this time it was not for herself. They were the tears of pity.

  Chapter Six

  ADRIENNE WROTE TO BALINT, not from Almasko but from Kolozsvar where she had gone the day after they took Uzdy away. There were so many things that had to be done.

  On the first three pages she related the bare facts, as drily as possible, recounting what had happened day by day, like a historical chronicle. She wrote in short sentences, each like the hammer-blows of Fate, and the last one read: ‘… and the day before yesterday they brought the poor man to Kolozsvar.’ After that her writing became more confused, with broken sentences and words scratched out and replaced by others.

  With this everything is over! I can never get a divorce and so you can’t marry me, never, do you understand? Never! Not while he’s alive … and he may live for years. He could even outlive me. We can’t count on Uzdy’s dying, even though that would give us our freedom. We can’t! And even less on his getting better. So you see everything we’ve planned is impossible.

  All sorts of other things must be over between us too. The life we used to lead is impossible now. Don’t deny it, you’ve said it yourself many times. I’ve all your letters here in front of me. Remember when you wrote ‘What sort of a life do we lead, always pretending, lying, hiding like thieves – and that of course is what we are because we steal our meagre ration of happiness, sometimes for a few hours, rarely for a whole night together, always taking precautions, watching to see we are not
discovered, like convicts on the run’? Every word you wrote is true, utterly, absolutely true. In another letter you said ‘… so don’t you see how degrading, how humiliating our life is now? We are forced to treat as a shameful secret what we should blazon to the whole wide world.’ You then went on to say ‘This can’t go on!’

  I never answered those words before, or I would have said you were right. Perhaps I thought it wasn’t necessary, but I’ve always known it – I sensed it in Venice, remember? That’s why I wanted everything to end, to die rather than come back to this slavery. It’s just as true for me as for you. We can’t go on … I couldn’t stand it again!

  There’s a lot more too, things you didn’t write about, but which I felt all the more, perhaps. Our child? To be afraid of having a child when it’s what I long for above everything. Always to be afraid, knowing the disaster it would be if we weren’t ready, when it should be our greatest joy. That has always been with us, but think what it would be like now! Is this what we’ve got to look forward to, for ever and ever? Even if I wanted to I couldn’t do it, not now. Supposing it happened? Could we destroy it before it was born or bring it into the world and then hide it … our son? Even if I could accept that, for his sake how could we burden him with the shame? Once again I have to quote your own words, words you have written to me in your letters: ‘I want a successor who bears my name. Not a day passes when I don’t long for it more than ever. I am now 32 years old and I suppose this yearning is true for all men at that age. It is at the root of all religions, in ancient days as much as in our own. It has been true for Christians, Jews and Chinese, all these have wanted descendants who will remember and revere their forebears. The curse of Jehovah lay on those who had no sons: and I am the last of my line. Without an heir my family dies with me. I am now the last link in the chain … and if that chain is broken?’ All this you wrote to me yourself. You also said ‘I want to pass on to him our traditions so that, with faith and decency, he will accept the responsibilities so gladly shouldered by my father and grandfather’. And then you went on ‘It is the only hope of immortality in this world, and I cannot renounce it!’