They Were Divided

by Miklos Banffy

  Facing the guest of honour were the other Sandor Kendy (known as ‘Wiggles’), the elder Adam Alvinczy and Major Bogacsy, now retired from the army and acting as chairman of the orphans’ Court of Chancery. These were the official hosts.

  Now that Bogacsy was no longer a serving officer he was dressed in civilian evening dress and the only thing left to remind one of his belligerent past was an enormous pair of moustaches which resembled nothing so much as a large black pudding suspended over his mouth. He wore the insignia of the Order of Maria-Theresia, which had been awarded him for some deed of bravery in the Bosnian war though what that had been no one knew, for he never alluded to it himself. When Bogacsy did talk about his past he only referred to his prowess at innumerable duels where he had always been much in demand as a second.

  Bogacsy was very angry. No one had told him why Transylvania was being honoured by the visit of this foreign prince and until he had arrived in the hall all he knew was the name of the guest in whose honour the town was giving a banquet. As a director of the Casino he had naturally taken his place at the head of the stairs to welcome the distinguished visitor and then, as they were waiting for the dinner to be announced, stood for a while chatting with him in the smoking-room. The Comte d’Eu was at his most affable as he talked to the three official hosts and then, in tolerably good German, he started talking about the League for which he was seeking support:

  ‘Es ist eine verachtenswürdige Sache, dass man in unserem aufgeklärtem Jahrhundert noch immer duelliert. Das Duell ist pure Barbarei – nicht wahr? Und ausserdem auch ein schrecklicher Blödsinn! Das ist wohl auch ihre Meinung? – it is a disgraceful thing that in this enlightened age men still go in for duelling. The duel is pure barbarism, is it not? Apart from being frightfully stupid! I’m sure you agree, don’t you?’

  This was said directly to Bogacsy, and the prince then went on to explain how utterly idiotic duelling was: the winner was naturally the man who was a better shot or who knew best how to wield a sword, and what had this to do with who was in the right? It was stupid and unworthy of sensible men and a shameful legacy of the past!

  Bogacsy was outraged and almost apoplectic with rage. It was not for him to start contradicting such an eminent guest and yet he knew that everyone within earshot was watching his reactions and with their true Transylvanian sense of the absurd were inwardly laughing at his predicament. Despite the restraint that was imposed by good manners Bogacsy was so angry at the thought of all that silent mockery that surrounded him that he would have exploded in protest if dinner had not then been announced. A difficult moment was somehow avoided; but the duelling major was still so upset that he could hardly touch any of the delicious dishes put before him, even though he had had to fork out twenty-five crowns for his dinner, which even then was by no means cheap.

  At the end of one of the wings of the great U-shaped table was seated old Daniel Kendy. Remembering that he spoke French fluently as a result of having once been an attaché in the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in Paris in the last years of the Third Empire, the organizers had decided that he ought to be invited so that when dinner was over they could introduce him to the prince who would therefore be able to talk to someone who knew Paris well. As the old man had no money his nephew Crookface Kendy paid for his ticket, but as a broken-down old fellow of no importance he was seated some away from the guest of honour. It was important to see that old Uncle Dani did not, as he usually did, drink too much. On this occasion the old man swore that he would not, and indeed was full of good intentions, so happy was he at the thought of coming again into his own and being made much of as the old social lion who had once been a favourite at the court of the Empress Eugénie and well known as a man-about-town in Paris in the years that followed. He decided that this night he must do all in his power to be at his best.

  He had shaved and dressed with great care, and indeed the effect was impressive. Count Daniel Kendy for the first time in years looked truly distinguished and many eyes were upon him. His slightly thinning silver-white hair was parted in the middle and set off his jet-black eyebrows and aristocratically aquiline nose. His moustaches had been curled for the occasion and beneath his lower lip was an elegant little goatee. The whiskers on each side of his face were long but neatly trimmed, and with the low folded collar, wide lapels and broad starched white shirt and old-fashioned evening suit, he seemed the perfect evocation of the dandified boulevardier of a half a century before. His appearance was so striking that the prince immediately asked who he was; and when told his name and history by Crookface, at once declared that he remembered him well from the days when the French royal family had first returned from exile abroad. ‘of course!’he cried. ‘Le Comte Candi!’ (which is what all the susceptible ladies in those Parisian drawing-rooms had called him). The name still seemed to have a dreamy, erotic ring to it.

  Uncle Daniel also recognized the prince, but he could not remember if he had seen him at the Rochechouarts’ or at the Princesse de la Moskowa’s. At that time Daniel Kendy was a young man with great expectations for whom everybody predicted a brilliant future. If he had not wasted his fortune on drink he too would have been addressed as ‘Your Excellency’ today. He would have been seated at the right hand of the royal guest, covered in orders and ribbons and distinctions, and not where he now found himself, in an insignificant place amid a noisy rabble of ill-behaved young men. Looking up at the notabilities in the place of honour, all resplendent in their decorations with the noble Gobelins tapestry behind them, Uncle Dani’s heart was filled with sorrow and remorse.

  As the dinner progressed he became sadder and sadder and sadder.

  And what does one do when one’s heart is filled with sorrow? One drinks: there is nothing else. And so the old man drank and, once started, he did not stop and the inevitable happened. When the time came for that meeting to which he had so much looked forward and they called to him to come up and be presented, the old man was already so drunk that he could hardly put one foot in front of the other. Then, once again, the sad thought of what he had once been and what, through no one’s fault but his own, he had thrown away, once more pierced his poor fuddled brain and all that he was able to do was to stagger towards the prince, weaving from right to left and bending double at every step in a humble parody of a bow, waving his arms, and stammer out sorrowfully in Hungarian,‘K-K-Kendy! … n-n-nothing more … K-K-Kendy … n-n-nothing more …’

  He was incapable of uttering another word. As the Comte d’Eu turned away, two young men grabbed Uncle Dani by the arms and carried him out; for everyone knew what was likely to happen when he started bowing so obsequiously.

  At one of the side wings of the table sat Balint with Gazsi Kadacsay. Because he was a Member of Parliament and also an imperial Court Chamberlain the organizers had wanted to place him with the other important guests, but he had refused, preferring to remain with his own close friends to being put on parade at the boredom of the top table. Furthermore when they had met that evening Gazsi had said that he wanted to have a talk with him.

  They had not seen each other for some time. At the beginning of the Carnival season Gazsi had been in Kolozsvar for a week or two, and then he had disappeared and been seen no more. At that time everyone had decided that he would shortly announce his engagement to Ida Laczok, for he had dined there three times, danced with her often, and called daily at the Laczok house at the hour when they drank coffee topped with whipped cream. He had even serenaded the girl twice in a week, and so everyone had said that the engagement was imminent. Then he had suddenly returned to the country and was seen no more.

  At the beginning of the dinner the conversation where Balint and Gazsi were sitting was all about the royal prince’s tour to promote his famous Anti-Duelling League. As they were all young and high-spirited, as well as being from Transylvania, their talk was full of mockery. Among them only Isti Kamuthy and Fredi Wuelffenstein, who were sitting just opposite Balint, took the matter at all seriously; Fredi
, not only because he was the league’s general-secretary in Hungary but also because he always liked to know better than anyone else; and Isti, because he had recently become even more anglophile than ever. ‘There are no duelth in England,’ lisped Isti, and for him this settled the question and therefore there could be no further argument about it. Fredi was in perfect agreement, but he was out of temper because he had also thought of the same argument but had not been able to get it out first.

  The general conversation was not able to continue for long, for almost at once Laci Pongracz and his musicians entered the hall and started to play and from then on it was only possible to talk to one’s neighbour.

  It was Kadacsay who started.

  ‘I think I owe you something of an explanation,’ he said to Balint.‘I only came this evening because I knew you’d be here.’

  ‘Why?’ said Balint, surprised. ‘What about?’

  ‘About Ida. I know there’s been a lot of talk, and that it’s not been all that flattering as far as I’m concerned. I don’t mind what other people think, but I’d hate you to think badly of me too.’

  Balint protested that he had no reason to think badly about Gazsi, but the latter went on, saying that when he had returned home from his visit to Denestornya he had thought a lot about Abady’s suggestion that he should get married and that this would be a solution to many of his problems and perplexities. Finally he decided to try out the idea. He had already decided that young Ida was the only girl who might suit him and who, as a woman, he felt he could bring himself to love. Accordingly he had come to Kolozsvar in the middle of January and at first everything had gone swimmingly. The old Laczoks seemed pleased at the idea of having Gazsi as their son-in-law, so much so that Gazsi admitted to have been quite taken by surprise. ‘To think that of an ass like me …’ he had said to Balint in a self-deprecating manner. But though everything went exceptionally well, they never seemed to get further than just dancing together and exchanging jokes. The girl was pretty enough, but somehow this had not seemed quite enough to Gazsi. Surely, he had thought, there must be something more if one was to spend a lifetime together. One would have to know what she thought about things, what interested her, and what her opinions were.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That was really the problem. The poor girl is very, very stupid!’

  He had tried her on all sorts of subjects, some of them quite serious; but when he had started like this, all the silly thing could do was either to stare at him stupidly or start to giggle. She had seemed to think that he was trying to make fun of her and so replied ‘What an odd question!’ and changed the subject to cooking, or poultry, or even horses as if she knew that that was all the poor boy really understood. When he had asked what she was then reading, she would answer ‘Nothing! Nothing at all! After all what’s the use? A good housekeeper doesn’t have time for that sort of thing!’

  ‘It was terrible,’ said Gazsi, and went on to tell Balint how he had finally revolted and dropped his pursuit of the girl. ‘Could I take someone like that into my home? Could I really live my life with such a goose … and go on breeding brats even more useless than me …?’

  He said he had decided he could not bear the thought of someone who just could not understand what he would want for his children. She would destroy everything for which he had struggled; and this was what he had felt he must explain to Balint, lest his friend should think he had behaved badly in making people think he had pursued the girl and then abandoned her.

  ‘I shouldn’t think badly of you,’ said Balint. ‘Who am I to judge other people? Nobody has that right, nobody! And I least of all!’

  As he said this Balint’s own face clouded over for he was reminded of the time when he had made that sweet little Lili Illesvary think that he was about to propose to her and had then let the opportunity go by without saying what had been expected of him. Suddenly he remembered how she looked in the library at Jablanka and how she had gazed expectantly at him with her forget-me-not blue eyes …

  After that Gazsi and Balint did not speak for some time, so engrossed were they in their own private thoughts.

  All at once Gazsi made a gesture with his hand as if he were brushing away some depressing thought. Then he drained his champagne glass, cleared his throat and turned back to Balint with the cryptic phrase, ‘I’ve had Honeydew serviced!’

  ‘Good God, why? She’s your best hunter, isn’t she?’ Balint was taken by surprise at this statement until he reflected that this was not the first time that Gazsi recently had no longer seemed so keen on what everyone had thought to be his only interest. Perhaps this was just one further example of his new-found disillusionment with horses and sport? Whatever it signified it seemed to Balint that somehow Gazsi’s pronouncement was connected with that unexpectedly deep strain of bitterness he had shown each time the two friends had met during the last year.

  ‘Yes, last week. I sent her to “Gallifar” who is standing at stud at Kolozs. He’s got a good line – by Gunnersbury out of Gaillarde – quite worthy of my good Honeydew.’

  Then he went on, speaking in a low voice as if confiding deadly secrets, to give his reasons in a most unnecessarily complicated way, with much repetition and circumlocution. He said that Honeydew was already seven years old which meant it was high time she foaled, and the right age to produce something good and healthy. She was anyhow no use as a saddle-horse for anyone except himself as she would tolerate no one else on her back. It had recently, he said, become an intolerable slavery for him as he had always to be there to exercise her, for he couldn’t entrust her to anyone else and it was no life for a horse just to be lunged for a couple of hours a day. This was much the best solution, for she’d calm down as soon as she was in foal. Then her temperament was sure to change and she’d no longer be so dependent on him.

  ‘What on earth would become of her if I wasn’t there … I mean, if … if I were to go off on some tr-r-rip. As a r-r-riding horse she’d just die … At least in this way she’ll be of some use.’

  Balint found these words disquieting, for he seemed to see in them some connection with their talk at Denestornya when Kadacsay had talked about making his will and about his attitude to death. So as to lighten the mood he answered as if he had taken literally what Gazsi had said about going off on some trip.

  ‘If you’re thinking of being away some time, which I think would be a thoroughly good idea, then I’d suggest Italy. It’s already spring there, especially down in the South, at Naples and in Sicily. You could have Honeydew sent over to Denestornya while you’re away and we’ll give her a paddock all of her own so that she could run free all day long. We often do this with new mares who don’t know the other horses.’

  ‘Could I really? Do you mean it?’ cried Gazsi joyfully. ‘Are you really sure? Do you know I was just working up to asking you if it might be possible … not now, of course … not yet. But, but, later … if the situation arises … well, it would be wonderful.’ And then, seeing the concern in his friend’s expression, he started to talk about all sorts of technical matters concerned with the treatment of mares in foal. He told Balint that he really didn’t have anyone at his own home who was properly qualified and experienced, not like the stud groom at Denestornya, and all the others who had worked for Countess Roza for so many years. A first foaling was always a bit tricky, of course, and quite a delicate matter, especially with such a highly-strung animal as Honeydew. Then he started to praise all his mare’s good points and went out of his way to say that problems only arose when one put a saddle on her or tried to ride her; then she would grow wild, but at all other times she was as tame and docile as anyone could wish. If she didn’t have a saddle on her back then she would never kick out, not at man or beast, never!

  He talked on for some time having apparently entirely recovered his good humour. Then he reached for his glass, filled it to the brim and lifted it to Balint, saying: ‘Servus – greetings! My appreciation and thanks … in Honeydew’s name.�
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  While Balint and Gazsi had been talking about the problem mare, on the other side of the table Isti and Fredi had been ever more heatedly discussing their favourite topic – England. They both worshipped England and all things English, the country itself, English gentlemen, English horses, English sports, English clothes and footwear, English girls, English bandages for horses’ tendons, English guns and cartridges, English razors, English gardens and English dances. All these things they praised, sometimes in unison and sometimes antiphonally, and for a long time all went smoothly. Gradually, however, this harmony somehow produced discord and by the time coffee was served a real quarrel had started. It all began because Fredi, though he spoke English well and knew many English people, had never set foot in the country and so had had to adore his beloved one from afar, and content himself with what he heard second-hand. Isti Kamuthy, on the other hand, spoke English deplorably and had not only been in London the previous year but had also managed to be made a temporary visiting member of that eminent gentlemen’s club, the St James’s.