They Were Found Wanting (30 page)

‘That is most interesting – a
defensive
war!’ interrupted Slawata. After a moment’s reflection he went on, ‘You are quite right, of course! The incident to be used for declaring war would have to be provoked in Fiume, inside the lands of the Holy Crown …’ and now his voice took on a mocking tone and he emphasized his words with clownish gestures as if to underline the cynical nature of the farce he was proposing.
‘Die
Länder
der
Heiligen
Krone
, of course! That’s it! That’s how it will be done; and then it will at once become a matter of
Hungarian
honour! A defensive war in Hungary’s interest! That’s how Hungarian
opinion
will see it!
Sehr gut!
Sehr gut!
’

Abady’s expression darkened. It hurt him to hear such a low opinion of his countrymen coming from a foreigner. He cut in, making clear his displeasure, ‘These ideals are sacred to me too. Therefore please do not mock them if you wish us to discuss this calmly!’

‘I’m sorry! I beg your pardon!’ the other said hurriedly. ‘Please do not misunderstand me, I did not mean to mock. Far from it, I picked this out only to show how well I understand the political ideology that is so dear to the Hungarian mind!’

Neither spoke for a little while. Then Balint broke the silence between them. ‘A preventive war? Isn’t that a truly terrible idea? Didn’t Bismarck once say that he would never recommend
starting
a war only because the enemy might become stronger if he waited – though, of course he was not a sentimental man!’

Slawata shrugged. ‘If you know that you are being stalked by bandits who are eager to kill you, would you not shoot one first before they could surround you and make sure of killing you? It’s just the same situation!’ He paused for a few moments before
saying
, ‘All Hungary’s problems would be solved by a little war such as I’ve described. Then we would have time really to
prepare
for the inevitable attack from Russia. And if such a war were to be declared then the Hungarian Parliament would surely pass every estimate for bringing our joint armies up to date?’

Balint did not answer. Slawata’s reasoning filled him with
horror
even though he recognized its logic. Once again he was felled by his fatal capacity to see both sides of the question. Even when he disagreed from the depths of his soul, he could understand his opponent’s standpoint and his reasons, no matter how alien they might be to his own way of thinking. He had often suffered from this, especially during all the obstructions and upheavals at the time of the Fejervary government; and now, as then, he felt it all with an almost physical pain.

‘And when is all this planned for?’ Balint just managed to get the words out and still remain civil to his guest.

‘Nothing is settled yet.
Hoheit
– his Highness (he referred to the Heir to the throne) and Conrad both believe this to be the best way. Aehrenthal does not agree. And our revered Lord and Master? Well, of course, he is for peace at all costs. But we’ll
prepare
the ground, you can be sure of that! Mayor Lüger will raise the subject in his speech at the Radetsky dinner, and his tone towards Italy will be nothing if not belligerent!’

After this they exchanged only a few platitudinous phrases and then Slawata got up to go.

‘Well!’ he said. ‘
Vedremo
– we’ll see.
Und
ich
danke für
den
wertvol
len
Tip!
– and I thank you for a most useful hint!’ Then he
disappeared
through the door.

‘Thanks for a most useful hint!’ Balint was particularly annoyed by this remark as the fellow seemed to imply that he, Balint, was offering sympathetic advice to the agent of the
plotters
surrounding the Heir. He was so angry that for a moment he nearly followed Slawata out into the corridor. But he stayed where he was. What would be the point? Slawata was only trying to be polite in his own fashion and the difference between Balint’s bald statement that Hungarian public opinion would only give support to a defensive war and the way that Slawata seemed to interpret this as a useful piece of information and an informed warning, was nothing for him to worry about. And when you studied the matter the difference between them was so slight that even to explain it was almost impossible.

As he stood there in the middle of the room, upset and angry, it seemed to him that everything that had happened that evening somehow formed one cohesive whole. While the other guests had exchanged words in the drawing-room that could be
interpreted
in many different ways, Balint’s whole attention had been riveted on what they were saying. Now, later on, he found himself shocked by Slawata’s cold cynicism. Alone in his room he was horrified by the thought of war, by the dreadful possibility that a war was not far off in the future, a real war, here in Europe, not just some struggle for a remote colony but a war which could toll the death-knell of nations and which, if lost, would certainly bring about the break-up of the Dual Monarchy. And what price would be paid by his own country, by Hungary, and by his beloved Transylvania which had always stood as a proud fortress on the road from Russia to Constantinople?

This last thought so constricted Balint’s throat that for a moment he found himself breathless.

He went to the window and opened it. The icy air came in with a blast. It was good, it was real, and Balint for a moment felt soothed and soon started to breathe again normally. He leaned out, his elbows on the window sill. There was no moon and he could see nothing outside, only a myriad stars high above in the sky, the unchanging stars that had gazed down on human misery for a million years and more. They were like huge signposts which no one except a few eccentric magicians could ever attempt to interpret, claiming that they foretold the fate of men and of nations.

As if mocking the limitless oceans of space in the sky above, somewhere down below in the valley of the Vag a tiny light appeared, moving slowly northwards, crawling along the bed of the valley. Just behind it was a minute red spot – it was, he realized, the Berlin Express, for now he could even hear the faint chugging of its engine. Balint’s heart missed a beat. If there ever were a war with Russia it was through this pass that the troop trains would make their sad way to the north. This would be the road down which would go so many of the flower of the nation’s youth to the horrors of war, to their death in battle … and against such a vast enemy their sacrifice would surely be in vain … in vain …

Warday had been lodged in the third room away from the chapel. He made careful preparation for the blissful moment when he would steal into Fanny’s room. After much application of lotion and frantic brushing he decided that his hair shone sufficiently brightly. He had carefully anointed his face, neck and shoulders with scented cologne and his silk dressing-gown was just as it should be. He listened to be sure that no one was still about, and then, hearing nothing, he opened the door a crack and peered out. He had almost put a foot outside when suddenly Slawata walked by. Again he waited until everything was once more quiet. Then he stepped out.

Just as he did so the second door along from his was opened and Pfaffulus appeared. Warday drew swiftly back, but he had not been seen for luckily the priest moved swiftly, his breviary under his arm, towards the chapel door. He was wearing only his black soutane and had left off his red sash and crucifix. Then he disappeared and the chapel doors clicked shut behind him.

Again Warday waited for a few more moments, for perhaps the priest would come back. But no, he had his breviary with him and that surely meant he had gone to pray and so would be inside for some time to come. Warday was now so impatient that he quickly let himself out of his room, glided softly along the
carpeted
corridor as if he were skating – not that his heelless slippers would make any noise – until he reached the door to what had to be Fanny’s bathroom, the door next to the stair. It was open, and inside there was darkness.

Now he recalled what Fanny had taught him when two years before she had first taken him as her lover. ‘It is far more sensible to turn up the light for a moment and find out where you are than to bump into something and wake everyone up!’ He smiled at the memory and his hand reached for the light switch. When he did so he realized that he was at the door of her room, and that all he had to do was to turn the knob and go in to her. Quickly he turned out the light again and, his heart beating hard with joy and anticipation, put his hand on the door-knob in front of him.

The door did not yield. It was locked.

He knocked lightly. There was no answer. He knocked again, louder this time, and then waited. He fancied he could hear some soft panting inside. What on earth had happened? Was she
playing
some sort of joke on him? Angrily he knocked again, quite loudly, and called out in an annoyed voice, ‘Fanny! It’s me, why have you locked the door?’

But all he heard was some sort of stifled sob and finally Fanny replied faintly: ‘Go away. I’ve got a headache, I can’t …’

Warday was not a bad man. He felt sorry for the poor girl whose voice had sounded almost stifled as if she could hardly speak.

‘Poor Fanny, what rotten luck! Perhaps in Budapest we might …?’

‘All right! All right! But go away now, please!’ and as the young man moved cautiously back to the corridor he heard again that soft panting that had so disturbed him before.

How the poor girl must be suffering! he said to himself as he hurried back to his own room.

He was right, of course, but not in the way he thought it. Countess Beredy was lying face downwards on her bed, her hair spilled carelessly over the pillows and she was sobbing her heart out in great racking spasms. Her night-gown was torn and every now and again she would arch her back and plunge down again into the soft coverlets as if thereby she could smother herself and find oblivion.

Finally there was peace in all parts of the great castle of Jablanka. Of the hundreds who lay down there at night only four were still awake, two men and two women. Klara, in her old room, lay motionless against the high pile of lace-covered pillows, gazing up at the alabaster hanging lamp; and on the other side of the castle, Fanny was drowning in sorrow and misery, her hair and pillows wet with tears.

Pfaffulus was in the chapel, kneeling in front of the candle that burned there perpetually. He was praying for that foolish and wayward young man, the same for whom one woman wept and another gazed silently at the night-light in her room.

And Balint, too, kept vigil. Still at his open window he might have been staring into the face of destiny, the inexorable destiny that would in time overwhelm his beloved country.

Now the Berlin Express reached that curve where the valley of the Vag narrows into a mountain pass. The engine shrilled a loud warning, its whistle, screaming in the dark, echoed through the cloisters of the former monastery.

B
ALINT RETURNED
to Budapest. There he found a stormy atmosphere in parliamentary circles.

The most noise was being made by the Independence Party. Kossuth had had to work hard to keep its members sufficiently in order to get the new commercial agreements with Austria
ratified
. Obstructions were being made by all those who had left the party in protest over the increases in the Hungarian contribution to the joint Austro-Hungarian army and so, with these problems in mind, the government put forward a proposal that consisted only of a single paragraph which laid down that, once accepted, all budget proposals would remain in force for ten years from the following January 1st.

Never before had any government dared to ask Parliament for such a mandate; and it was all the more surprising that this measure should come from those in the Coalition who formerly, when they were in opposition, had bent over backwards and split every hair to maintain the supremacy of Parliament in the
passing
of laws, and the freedom of speech of all members. However the government’s hands were now bound for they had sworn to follow a certain programme and this was the only way this
promise
could be redeemed.

It was in these circumstances that the party rebels took especial pleasure in attacking their former leaders in the Independence Party who, they claimed, had gone back on all their former
promises
! It was in vain that Apponyi, with his honeyed speech and well-known eloquence, should rise and defend the party’s actions. And so the discussions and arguments became more and more personal and venomous. Things reached such a pitch that the Minister-President found himself obliged to fight a duel with Geza Polonyi. Even though both were elderly men and none too agile, their seconds still insisted that they fought with sabres.

As it turned out no great harm was done; and no blood was shed since both men were soon so out of breath that the physicians stopped the fight declaring mutual exhaustion. Though this was nothing if not accurate, it was the source of many ribald jokes throughout Budapest – and none of them were to the
government’s
advantage.

This was the only sort of news to which the general public paid the slightest attention. The anti-Italian speech in Vienna, made, as Slawata had told Balint, by Mayor Lüger, aroused no interest at all in Budapest. There people were only concerned with the proceedings in Parliament and so it was remarkable that no one seemed to notice or comment upon Andrassy’s cunning ruling that all civil servants must be able to speak the language of the people they served. It had been expected that the extreme chauvinists would have a field-day haggling about the details of this measure, but the storm about the army quotas overwhelmed discussion of all other issues.

Unfortunately the Croatian situation was getting worse daily. The congress of the Starcevicz party passed a resolution declaring their firm intention to break away from their
allegiance
to the crown of St Stephen. Although the session of the Zagreb Parliament opened on the appointed day it had
immediately
to be adjourned, so revolutionary was the mood of the people who were making demonstrations daily throughout the city.

Balint was even more upset by the news from Croatia since he had listened to the talk at Jablanka.

He went home to Transylvania for Christmas in a dark and depressed mood. The awful threat posed by the rivalries of the great powers, the sinister plan for a ‘little war’ with Italy, and the upheavals beyond the Drava, all weighed upon his spirits and seemed to him only to emphasize that the political unawareness of all those in Hungary whose self-indulgence, preoccupation only with such internal issues as affected themselves, and whose self-centred conviction that only such trivial matters were of the smallest significance, was leading his country to isolation and ruin.

When Balint reached Kolozsvar he thought it would be nice to surprise his mother with a small gift which just might help to soothe the tenseness that had recently developed between them. It was difficult to know what to choose because Countess Roza had a rule that she never accepted anything personal, but only gifts intended to adorn her beloved Denestornya. Little objects such as ash-trays, antique clocks, or pieces of china would do, but little else. It had to be something which would look as if it had always been there. This gave her pleasure because for her the house was like a living person and to make it more beautiful was her daily preoccupation.

Since he had not thought about this before leaving Budapest Balint went at once to see an antique dealer in Kolozsvar who always had good things.

Old Mrs Bruckner did not keep a shop; she dealt directly from her apartment on the first floor of a building in Belmagyar Street. She was a small woman, rather fat, and entirely
trustworthy
. She never knowingly sold imitations or fakes, even though she was entirely uneducated with no knowledge of styles or period. If she believed something to be truly old she would say, ‘
Das
ist gotisch
–
this is gothic!’

Mrs Bruckner knew everyone in the town. She led Abady through her rooms, merrily showing him a host of every
imaginable
sort of object piled one on top of another or hung all over the walls; commodes, chests, tables, clocks and statuettes, ornaments, pictures, lampshades, embroidery or church vestments,
everything
everywhere in apparent confusion.

‘I’ve just got in a lovely cup!’ said the old woman
enthusiastically
. ‘It’s new in, so no one has seen it except you!’ and she took her customer to a shelf on which stood three beautiful
Alt
Wien
cups among a host of rubbish. Balint was immediately struck by the one in the centre for he recognized the painted
portrait
on its side as that of his mother’s great-grandfather, the Abady who had been Governor of Transylvania. It had been fashionable at the end of the eighteenth century to give such cups as souvenirs to friends or relations, especially to relations, rather as at a later date people would give signed photographs. At Denestornya they already had two similar ones, and this would make a third.

‘Where did you get it from?’ asked Balint, marvelling at his luck. But Mrs Bruckner just gave an enigmatic smile and said, ‘From a very good place, I can assure you. I can’t say where, but it’s a very good place indeed!’

The price was sixty crowns and Balint paid it without question. As the old lady accompanied him to the door she said, ‘Come again in a few days, if you like. I may have some things from the same place.
Alles
prima,
alles
hochprima
– everything of the highest quality, of course, and from the same place.’

Though Balint again asked her she would not say where it came from.

Christmas Eve at the Abadys’, whether at Denestornya or in Kolozsvar, was always a somewhat solemn occasion with nothing cosy or intimate about it. While Balint had been away at school in Vienna he had always had to spend Christmas in his rooms in the college and so for many years Countess Roza had spent the holiday alone with her servants. As the years passed, the
ceremonies
at home had frozen into an occasion of cold convention. Always, as now, there was a small tree in the centre of the dining table. This, as always too, was bought, for to her it would have been unthinkable sacrilege to uproot and bring anything from Denestornya or from the forestlands in the mountains. On the sideboards were high piles of woollen shawls and waistcoats that the countess and her two housekeepers had spent much of the
previous
year knitting just for this occasion. At Denestornya they would be distributed to all the children of the village on Christmas morning itself. Now, as they were at the town house in Kolozsvar, the estate manager would collect them on Christmas Eve and travel at dawn to the country so that the children would receive their presents after church the following morning. Around the little tree, which was ablaze with a multitude of
candles
, was a cluster of presents for the household servants and their families, all useful objects carefully chosen and marked with the names of the recipients.

Each servant was called in turn, with members of their families, and in turn they were handed their gifts by the countess, kissed her hand and made room for the next in line. Countess Abady sat in a large armchair in the middle of the room and, as each man, woman or child came up to her, she extended her chubby little hand to be kissed, exactly as if she were a queen receiving the homage of her people. Balint himself was given two silk ties and a silver cigarette case, the tenth of its kind, since Countess Roza had little imagination when it came to choosing presents and so gave him the same thing each year.

When the ceremony was over Balint produced the governor’s cup. He had been quite right, the choice had been perfect and his mother was overjoyed. Then they went back to the
drawing-room
to have the tea and stewed fruit which Countess Roza always liked have served in the evening. She carried the cup with her and sat down, still holding and caressing it and examining the inscription.

Balint told his mother all about the visit to Jablanka, and especially about Aunt Elise’s solicitous enquiries about her and about all her former acquaintance in Transylvania. They stayed up for a long time and Balint had the distinct impression that his mother now thought of nothing but the news he brought her. The thunderclouds seemed to have passed, and Countess Abady was all smiles and sweetness the whole evening.

Balint was thinking about this when he finally found himself alone in his room. It was possible that the old lady had come to believe that he had found a new distraction at Jablanka, at the Szent-Gyorgyis’, for when he mentioned little Lili Illesvary, his mother had even smiled, with no sign of disapproval or that sharp nodding of the head which always signified anger or disbelief. Of course it was more than two months since he had seen Adrienne and no doubt his mother knew this and rejoiced because she believed that his infatuation was over. In fact the link
between
him and Adrienne had grown ever stronger, even though they had recently met so little. Until recently, since they had renewed their love, hardly a week or ten days had passed without their somehow contriving to meet either in public or in private, or even in some secret place where they would not have risked
discovery
. Since his last visit to Almasko Balint had decided that he did not dare visit his little lodge built where the Abady forests marched with those of Adrienne’s husband, for it would have seemed strange to go to the cabin in winter-time, when the Uzdy mansion was so close, and therefore he would be forced to stay in that hated house knowing what happened there between Adrienne and her unhinged husband. Adrienne too, though she never told Balint that her husband had followed her through the forest with a hunting rifle on his arm, had written saying that he should not come to Almasko. It was only because of this that they had not seen each other for the past two months.