They Were Found Wanting (73 page)

Night fell as he drove away from all those places he had loved so much. Now he could not see anything of that country to which he was bidding farewell, and as he drove swiftly through the dark all his attention was on the road illuminated by his
headlights
. The cold air was in his face and he told himself, ironically, that he was like a chicken hypnotized by the glare; and it was also with a certain tart irony that he was now able to look back on what the day had brought: at dawn, the royal stag in all his sovereignty; in the morning the arrival of the irate Winckler; and now it was he who was running as if pursued by the Fates.

Also, he thought, what luck that rascal Simo had! Just when Abady had acquired the power to ruin him and make him pay for his oppression of the mountain people and for his arrogant
swagger,
chance had intervened and saved him.

What luck that man has! he thought. And what a crazy world!

The next few weeks were dull enough for Abady, though the
politica
l scene was lively.

While he had been away in Transylvania the Coalition had been on the verge of collapse, and the atmosphere in Budapest ever more tense.

All over the country the campaign for the establishment of the independent banking system had been stoked up, but at the same time that section of the Independence Party that was led by Justh did all it could to fight against the policies of Ferenc Kossuth, still their nominal leader, proclaiming that in this matter they would accept no compromise. They even went so far as to demand that Wekerle’s government should at once vote the fantastic sum of 500 million crowns for defence.

That the army desperately needed the money at a time when all Europe was arming and Russia seemed to be preparing for a general war was true enough, especially as Austria-Hungary’s military equipment was so antiquated. It was perfectly true that the Dual Monarchy would be useless, whether as enemy or ally, unless its army could swiftly be modernized, but it was still
fruitless
to raise this demand at a time when the government was powerless to act. Again there was raised the spectre of the cold hand of the Heir, who was thought to be plotting to bring to power his own nominee, Laszlo Lukacs.

Once again the government resigned and Wekerle went so far as to announce in Parliament that the Coalition had been
dissolved
. But the Monarch said: ‘
Weiterdienen!
– go back to work!’ and refused to accept the resignations.

This was the situation that Abady found when he returned to Budapest, so he was on the spot for all that followed. The
government
crisis was so drawn-out that it seemed like eternity. It was complicated by a kaleidoscopic change of allegiances. At one moment there was a short-lived cabinet headed by Wlassits; just before that one led by Kossuth, and just after it another with Andrassy; but all were so brief that they passed almost unnoticed, appearing and as swiftly vanishing on that fantasy stage of
politics
, insubstantial as some mad nirvana. Each one had his own unreasonable reasons to excuse his failure: Wlassits had no
majority
; Kossuth would only remain if he could go on carrying simultaneously the banners of the independent banking system and the separation of the Austro-Hungarian Customs; and Andrassy insisted that Vienna should yield on the questions of appointing Hungarians to army commands and using the Hungarian
language
in army orders. He was adamant on these principles and the Crown was equally adamant in refusing, even though Andrassy had proposed a face-saving formula by which the Hungarian army demands were accepted in theory but not put into practice. None of these contradictory moves did anything to alleviate the general malaise nor stop the decay of the Coalition.

It was not long before the general public wearied of all the
artificial
excitement, and the more they were bombarded by leading articles in the Press, each party lambasting the policies of its opponents, the more the man in the street became disillusioned with the lot of them. People no longer believed a word of what they read in the Press, until all the different political elements in the Coalition had lost credit with the general public. The
fundamental
flaw that brought the Coalition down was that when it had first come to power its leaders had pretended that they had now won everything for which they had fought while in
opposition
; while the truth was that they had capitulated on almost all points. All that nationalistic nonsense that had been used to win votes before they achieved power proved to be nothing but a bag of campaign tricks once they were in office. That famous
Pactum
, whose very existence had been so hotly denied until the fiction could no longer be maintained – since it had become clear to everyone that it had been the price paid for getting office – and the fact that after three and a half years nothing had been done to realize the promised universal suffrage, had brought the whole political structure into disrepute with the ordinary citizen.

The leaders of the different parties forming the Coalition fought against each other in a sort of vacuum, though they
themselves
still thought the battles were real and significant. They
proclaimed
the same slogans, for which they had once been worshipped as demigods, but now the effect was not the same. Those ideas which had once raised cheers of enthusiasm and
support
– the old questions of banking, customs, Hungarian
sword-tassel
s for army officers etc. etc. etc. – now raised no more than disillusioned yawns. And the politicians were so wrapped up in their own importance that they never even noticed.

Sadly enough, this disdain for internal politics was reflected by an equal disregard for the signs of more sinister developments abroad. It should have been a warning to Hungary that when all the defendants in the Zagreb treason trial were given heavy sentences of imprisonment, the French Press hailed it as a
welcome
sign of Balkan disintegration. What, it should then have been asked, was the true significance of the meeting at Racconigi between the Tsar of Russia and the King of Italy? No one knew, no one cared, and no one bothered to ask. True, there were
cheerful
gossipy items in the Press about the meeting of the two rulers, one of them the ally of the Anglo-French
Entente
Cordiale
and the other of Austria and Germany, but it was complacently assumed that nothing would shake Italy’s loyalty to the central European powers. The newspapers wrote, ‘There is no question of Italy quitting the Triple Alliance’. No one thought to look further, and nothing was said to reassure those who might have been surprised that the Tsar‚ who had never been a peripatetic monarch like King Edward of England, should have gone to Italy at all. And yet, as was learned much later, it had been during this visit that plans were laid that led later to Italy’s change of heart during the Great War.

Even Abady, who had formerly followed all such developments with growing concern, kept himself aloof, wrapped up as he was by his personal sadness and his worry over Adrienne. He only attended the sessions in Parliament once, and that was because he had been summoned by the Speaker who had sent a message that more members were needed to make a quorum so that the business of the House could continue. When he got there he
discovered
that the unfinished business was simply that the House could not legally rise until the date of the next session had been fixed and that there were not enough members present for any decision to be legal. In the past no one had minded or bothered to count: now it was different.

It had started when a Slovak member had been absent and one of his friends had tried to vote for him. A count was taken and there were too few members in the Chamber. Justh adjourned the session while everyone telephoned everyone else to come quickly. At the next count there were still only fifty-nine when there should have been at least a hundred.

Pandemonium! Old hands grumbled, but the House Rules were the House Rules and had to be obeyed. Bells rang
throughout
the House, footmen were sent searching every corner for stray members … and all was in vain, for now only fifty-seven could be rounded up.

Despite every effort by five o’clock only sixty-seven supporters had been gathered in. Only sixty-seven: no one else could be found.

This is when they thought of Abady, who hurried in a little after eight. As he passed along the corridor he found he had to pass a laughing group of People’s Party members who were
merrily
puffing at their cigars and gloating over the impotent rage of Justh and the more vociferous anger of Hollo. And the more they discussed it all, the more it was obvious that for them it was all the most enormous joke.

‘Don’t hurry!’ one of them called to Abady. ‘There never was such a lark! Come with us to the bar and drink some champagne. Nothing’s going to be settled until noon tomorrow at least. And why rush to the aid of those separate-bank cranks?’

In the Chamber they were counting heads, but even with Abady there were still only ninety-eight. Meanwhile the clerks kept rushing in with more news of absent members and whether they would come in or not. Then, all at once, the number jumped to one hundred and four, and the Speaker dashed out calling: ‘Stay where you are, everybody! Please stay just a moment!’ Jubilation! Then the Speaker returned with Justh and the session was legally brought to an end with no surrender on either side.

Balint walked slowly home. He was filled with sadness, for what had rejoiced the fractious People’s Party and deeply angered the Independents had merely induced in him a sense of gloom and depression. So this is what they had come to, all those politicians who not so long ago had taken office with such
enthusiasm
and such patriotic fervour! To think that Parliament itself, for so long the pride, indeed the glory, of the Hungarian people, could be desecrated by such a miserable, pathetic performance!

There were those who thought of it as nothing but a huge joke, and there were those who saw nothing but a clever
manipulation
of those tiresome Rules. There was also, and this was
perhaps
the most depressing thought of all, that large majority who didn’t even bother to attend the House as the debates had become little more than word-chopping and argument. The Upper House no longer even met and all law-making had long since ceased. Indeed, thought Balint, there was no longer a government, no one party had a majority and the whole machinery of governing the country had ground to a halt. It was all meaningless, empty, like the dried carcass of a dead insect from which all life had long since departed. There were plenty of good men there, honest
fellows
from the country, and there were honest and experienced leaders too, men like Andrassy and Wekerle, full of goodwill and selfless devotion; but they were powerless in the morass of the
present
malaise. It was as if a curse had fallen on Hungary.

After this brief interlude came more days and weeks of empty monotony. The public and political indifference weighed on Balint’s spirits like a leaden cloak. He felt alive only when he sat down to write to Adrienne.

At first he wrote only occasionally, but as time went by his
letters
became ever more frequent until by the end of October he was writing every two or three days. He no longer cared if anyone noticed at Almasko. He did not even care if his letters stirred up trouble, indeed he would have welcomed trouble which would at least have rescued him from that hell of ashes in which he was
living
. So he poured out his soul into more and more letters,
pleading
, demanding, hotly exacting a decision; and since he wrote with passion and thought, weighing every word and every
argument
, the letters were good ones. He searched his mind for words of reproach which he knew would strike home, for he wanted her to be so hurt that she might be forced into action. He wrote about the spiritual misery of his life of exile, how he spent night after night alone in his dark little hotel room, how he dreamed every night of Denestornya, of that beloved home he had thrown aside for her sake. And then there would be letters in which he wrote only that he could not write because he had nothing in the world to write about.