They Were Counted (The Writing on the Wall: the Transylvanian Trilogy)

by Bánffy, Miklós

  ‘Yes, it could happen.’ Dodo said in a subdued voice.

  ‘Really? That Nitwit is good-looking enough. I could quite understand?’

  ‘Not him!’ interrupted Dodo. ‘Not at all! He isn’t after me anymore.’

  ‘Who, then? I thought

  Dodo burst out laughing: ‘You men never notice anything! Why, Judith Miloth, of course!’

  ‘Not possible! I’ve never seen…

  ‘Look at them! Do I have to spell it out for you?’

  Balint turned slowly so that he could watch Judith with Wickwitz. She was talking to him in a low voice, rather hesitantly it seemed, but Balint saw nothing out of the way in her manner, only that her expression was perhaps a little more serious than usual.

  Lieutenant Baron Wickwitz had gone back to his regiment in November. He had paid off those dirty debts – in the army all debts to tradesmen were dirty as opposed to those incurred by gambling which were considered honourable – and so was back in uniform. He had gone to see his colonel and, with a wooden face, had told him that he was now free of ‘embarrassment’. The colonel, who knew well that Wickwitz had no means of his own, had wondered where the money had come from but was sufficiently relieved that he would no longer have to expel the young man from the regiment that he did not enquire further. All the same he wondered how he had managed to raise the ten or twelve thousand crowns that he had estimated Wickwitz had owed.

  A month later Wickwitz had again asked to see his commanding officer, and once again he had asked for leave, this time for two or three months as he intended to get married and he would need this time to get everything organized.

  ‘Die kleine Gyalakuthy – the little Gyalakuthy girl?’ asked the colonel, who had heard something of Wickwitz’s activities in Transylvania. ‘Na, gratuliere – congratulations!’

  Wickwitz did not undeceive him, though he knew that Dodo would not marry him, at least not now. It would take at least two years’ hard wooing on his part and it would always depend on whether someone else took her fancy. If no one else came along, then perhaps … but not now; and Wickwitz could not wait. He did not have enough time.

  The reason he could not wait was that the money he had used to square his debts had been obtained from a dangerous and equivocal source. It was Dinora Abonyi’s money and if it were not repaid – and if the means he used to get it became known – then he could not avoid being cashiered. All this had happened at the end of the autumn just when his six months’ leave was expiring and when he had to go back to his regiment. He knew that if he returned to Brasso without money to pay his debts he would be forced to resign his commission. And then he’d be on the streets.

  Wickwitz had turned to Dinora for help. It was not the first time. On several occasions during the summer and autumn he had touched her for a few hundred, later a few thousand crowns, for ‘petty expenses’, of course. And she had given them gladly. Now the fatal date for his return to duty approached and with no rich marriage to justify his absence and solve his problems, something drastic had to be done. Dinora was rich, good-hearted, extravagant … and she had no idea what words like a ‘bank draft’ implied. When Wickwitz told her that if she signed some bank drafts for him to cash he would be able to pay her back immediately what he had borrowed from her, she trustingly agreed. It all seemed so simple! You put your signature on a paper and your problems were solved. If Nitwit had asked for cash it would have been different, because Dinora was such an easy spender that she never seemed to have any ready money. And what was more this meant that as soon as Wickwitz had repaid what he had borrowed from her she would be able to settle that bill from the dressmaker who was becoming tiresomely insistent.

  So Wickwitz had gone to Weissfeld’s bank in Maros-Vasarhely with three drafts for eight thousand crowns each.

  Soma Weissfeld received him immediately. However, when he saw Countess Abonyi’s signature, he paused for a moment, removed his pince-nez, polished them meticulously and replaced them on his nose with fussy little delaying movements.

  ‘May I ask why … why have these drafts not been signed by Count Abonyi. It is usually he who signs and of course we know his signature well. Please understand, the Baron must excuse me, but this is rather awkward, rather delicate.’ He looked at Wickwitz with narrowed eyes while a somewhat suspicious smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.

  Wickwitz managed not to lose his temper. He explained that the Countess did not want to involve her husband in this matter – she had run up a number of debts (this was true) and he might be angry with her. Of course she was a rich woman but she did not want to sell her crops immediately, he added with quick invention, but when she did she would see that the bank was repaid.

  Weissfeld did not believe a word of it, but as he knew that Maros-Szilvas was Dinora’s own property inherited from her Malhuysen ancestors, and that it was extremely valuable, he decided that the matter was none of his affair. Accordingly he cashed the drafts, handing over to Wickwitz something over twenty-three thousand crowns. Egon returned to Maros-Szilvas with this sum, giving to Dinora four thousand, one hundred and sixty-two crowns and sixty cents. Dinora did not want to accept the two crowns and sixty cents but Wickwitz insisted, saying that it was a debt of honour and that he would consider himself disgraced if he owed a single cent to a lady. He told her that he had noted down exactly what he had borrowed so as to keep his accounts in order. As it happened this was true. He knew that his debts in Brasso amounted to exactly fifteen thousand, three hundred and seventy-seven crowns, and he would keep the difference as he would now have to find somebody who would pay back Dinora’s drafts and, until that person was found, he would need money to live. After all, he would never solve his problems if he didn’t go to balls and meet people – and no one could live without a cent in their pockets.

  Dodo was given up at once: there was no time for a long-drawn-out pursuit. Only two possibilities remained. The first was Judith Miloth, and the other was a widow of over thirty whom he had met on a train. There had been an answering sparkle in Mme Bogdan Lazar’s eyes when he had first made her acquaintance by helping with her luggage, and he had soon learnt that she had a handsome property near Apahida. However it seemed that Judith would be the best bet so he would start with her. If that failed there would be plenty of time to go after the widow.

  This was Egon Wickwitz’s plan when he came back at Kolozsvar. Without delay he started his pursuit of Judith and sensing that Judith would not be impressed by the more usual tactics of the confident male wooer, he opened his campaign not with words – speech was not his strongest point – but with half suppressed sighs, long covert looks from sad spaniel’s eyes and mysterious silences. He played the part of the good-hearted rather stupid man, whose noble heart would perish if it found no mercy, and who was the slave of a passion he hardly dared admit, let alone express. Indeed he played it extremely well, for he was not naturally a bad man and had he been born to a fortune would probably never have found himself reduced to such a devious course.

  By the end of the season he began to feel that he was making progress and that, as any trainer of horses might say, the filly was ready for her first race.

  All through the Mardi Gras Ball he waited for the opportunity to present itself, and, finally, as dawn was about to break, he managed to get Judith alone with him in a small room off the drawing-room. For a little while they talked, he hesitantly, pausing as if he did not quite know, or dare to say, what was in his mind. Then suddenly, after he had made quite sure that no one could see them, he took Judith in his arms and kissed her passionately on the mouth.

  Everything went as he had planned. Judith made no resistance. It was as if she had expected just this. Then, as suddenly as he had begun the kiss, Wickwitz released her and stepped back.

  ‘I’m sorry! I’m a swine!’ he muttered.

  ‘But why? I love you too!’ replied the girl, breathless from their kiss.

  ‘But I shouldn’t have. I’m a swine – ein Schw
ein! Ein miserables Schwein! – a miserable swine! I can’t ask you to marry me!’

  ‘Why not, if we love each other?’

  ‘I can’t! It’s impossible. I won’t even ask you, I’m not worth it… I’m a scoundrel to have gone so far. Anyhow it’s the end for me. Tomorrow I’ll go away … for ever. I have to go anyway, and I’ll not come back. I can’t go on. This is the reason why, just once, I allowed myself… I had to tell you I loved you, if only just once!’

  ‘But why, if I love you too?’ cried Judith. Then she shrugged and said, smiling: ‘I always knew you had no money. Neither have I, now, and won’t have until much later. We’ll manage somehow. Papa will let me have the marriage portion and then…’

  Wickwitz allowed himself a sad smile. ‘This is nothing but an impossible dream! It would be wonderful, but you don’t understand. You don’t know. I’m a doomed man … I can’t escape what’s coming to me …’

  ‘But you can tell me, Egon. Just tell me what’s the matter! What is it that threatens you? Why you are in such despair! You know I’d do anything to help. It would be a joy to me!’ And she took his hand and pressed it to her heart.

  ‘How good you are, much too good for me,’ said Wickwitz sadly. ‘I’m so ashamed. It’s so difficult to tell you because you’ll despise me.’

  At this point Judith had to go as they were calling for her. Seeing that Margit was coming for her Judith had quickly whispered: ‘Tomorrow! We’ll have supper together and you must tell me everything! Everything, you understand, everything!’

  This is what had happened on the previous evening. Now at supper, with the music playing loudly, they did not have to whisper as no one could hear what they were saying. So as to approach the subject slowly, Egon spoke first of his mother, of how poor they were. Then he told Judith of his debts and of the scene with his colonel and how his whole career would be at stake if he couldn’t raise some money to clear himself of this burden. Some aspects of the tale he embellished, others he suppressed, but he admitted at once that his first plan had been to try and marry Dodo and that if he had been able to force himself to go through with it he would already be her husband with all his problems solved. This would have changed everything and he would not have found himself placed in the horrible situation he was now in. But he couldn’t do it … Instead he had fallen in love with Judith. That had been his doom, and looked like being his ruin. For him this was the end of the road. Wickwitz spoke slowly, with many pauses, hesitating as if he searched for the right words with which to explain himself, his face expressionless, his large brown eyes full of sad hopelessness. From time to time he broke off a crust of bread and ate a morsel, or sipped at his glass before going on with his tale. Anyone who could not hear his words, would have thought he was speaking of nothing more personal than the last race he had run or the problems of training horses. It was more difficult for Judith.

  While taking in every word he said she somehow managed not to show any signs of emotion. She too ate little, and though she often glanced round the room so as to give the impression that she was merely chatting idly while being more interested in what else might be going on around her, her heart was beating ever faster as she became more and more involved in what Wickwitz was telling her.

  Finally, explained Egon, in despair lest he lose his commission and with it any chance of seeing Judith again, he had done a most shameful, dishonourable thing: he had persuaded Dinora to guarantee his bank drafts. He had only done it so that, by getting hold of some ready money, he would be able to stay in the army and not dishonour his name. ‘Now you despise me, don’t you?’ he said, looking deeply into her eyes.

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘No. I understand.’

  Wickwitz breathed again; she had passed the first test. When Judith did not seem to react at the mention of Dinora he knew that all was well. It was like the first fence in the competition ring; once over that he was confident he would have no difficulty at the wall or the water-jump. He begged Judith not to tell anyone, not ever to admit that she knew the truth. He was done for, of course. There was no way he could escape the inevitable dishonour that would come to him if his actions became known, as become known they must. And when they did he would kill himself rather than live without honour, a scoundrel rejected by everyone.

  ‘So you see why you can’t take such an outcast as a husband!’ he said, still with the same wooden expression even though inwardly he was smiling confidently, for he now knew that everything was going to plan.

  When dinner was over they all started back to the ballroom. Just as Abady and Dodo were passing through the doorway they heard the church clock strike ten, the same chimes that Adrienne could hear in the silence of her room.

  As they reached the foot of the staircase where early that morning Balint had kissed Adrienne’s palm and where, for a moment, he had become dazed with happiness, Balint felt a stab at his heart. What a bitch she is, he thought, sitting in her room now, laughing at him, triumphing, rejoicing that she had made him suffer! But he wouldn’t give her that satisfaction, he would enjoy himself as never before! He would dance and dance and drink plenty of champagne … and someone was sure to tell her so she would know her little plan had not worked! Accordingly he took Dodo straight out on to the dance floor and there executed a csardas with such abandon and skill that even old Ambrus, who prided himself on his dash and expertise, applauded him as a worthy successor.

  The csardas was followed by a long waltz and that by a quadrille and another waltz. All the time Adrienne’s father, Count Akos, was having the time of his life despite his protestations that he had come against his will. The mothers, who usually spent the evening dozing in their chairs or languidly exchanging gossip, listened avidly to his tales of the Garibaldi campaign and the old count, happy to have found a new and eager audience, waxed so eloquent and was so amusing that he had all the older ladies in fits of laughter. They all agreed that he was far better value than Daniel Kendy, who usually entertained them until he got too tipsy to go on.

  Rattle’s triumph reached its peak when, towards dawn, they struck up an écossaise which, with the Lancers, had been the most popular dance when he was young and had organized the Carnival balls. Becoming very excited, he herded everyone in the drawing-room onto the dance floor and then burst into the card-room where Uncle Ambrus was busily engaged in emptying the younger men’s pockets.

  ‘Ecossaise!’ he roared. ‘Come on, my boys, all of you on your feet! This is no time for stupid cards!’

  ‘Still rutting, are you, you old lecher?’ said Ambrus, concealing with a roar of laughter his anger at having such a profitable game interrupted. Turning back to the table, he said: ‘Well? Who’s in the game? All right, I’ll raise it a hundred and sixty crowns! What? Nobody wants to see me? What a lousy lot of cowards you are!’ And he scooped up all the chips on the table. But, though he immediately dealt another hand, the zest had gone out of the game. The young men had had enough of being bullied into losing money and even Uncle Ambrus was unable to outshout old Rattle, who soon got them all on their feet and back into the ballroom.

  Akos Alvinczy, who lost more than most, lingered behind the others. ‘Do you mind waiting?’ he said to Ambrus. ‘I’m a bit short at the moment …’

  ‘Of course, of course!’ said Uncle Ambrus, patting the tall young man on the shoulder. ‘Take a couple of weeks! I’ll wait that long, but no longer, mind! Then you must pay up, young fellow. I don’t lay golden eggs, you know!’ And, laughing in high good humour, he gave Akos a friendly punch on the arm and stumped off.

  Akos stayed where he was for a moment, his handsome face clouded with worry.

  Back in the ballroom the dancers had formed up for the écossaise and the dance was just starting when Rattle burst into the line, shouting: ‘Not like that! That’s not how you do it! You, young man! Let me show you!’, and seizing little Ida Laczok from Baron Gazsi’s arms he whirled her round the floor. ‘Right … Left … Right … Left …!’ and, with sur
prising agility for a man of his age, bounded about like a balloon with his niece on his arm. Then, leaving Ida at the end of a row of girls, he ran back to the two couples at the head of the set, showed them what they ought to be doing, made them do it again, sent them on their way, repeated the manoeuvre with the next two pairs, correcting errors, pulling, pushing and prancing about until everything was to his satisfaction. Then he made sure that the next figures were done right, now shouting: ‘La Coquette! Do the Coquette! Do La Souris!’ now clapping and bowing and waving encouragement. It was years since the humorous old dance had been given such life and, when it ended, he embraced his little niece with a huge bear-hug, the sweat from his black moustache dripping on to her cheeks. If little Ida was none too pleased, the same could not be said for old Akos Miloth who was happier than he had been for years. Panting heavily he collapsed into a chair beside Countess Kamuthy and, as soon as he had got his breath back, started again: ‘Do you remember, dear Aniko, how in our day…’

  Dinora was standing at the buffet eating compote of oranges from a small glass dish. She stood alone because when she had arrived at the table the other ladies already grouped there all found various reasons why they should be somewhere else, anywhere, provided it was not beside Dinora Abonyi. One lady suddenly felt like sampling a galantine of chicken that sat temptingly on the other side of the table, another a fish salad she had caught sight of some way away, another a particularly luscious cake that was just out of each. So Dinora had eaten her supper by herself and now stood alone, her only companions being her dish of dessert and her glass of wine. Balint saw her and came over.

  ‘You see how people avoid me?’ said Dinora, with a smile of mock offence on her generous lips. ‘It started yesterday towards dawn, with snide little glances and whispered impertinences. Today they avoid me openly!’