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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  The trees had too many leaves, the thickets too many weeds; there were too many flowers in the grass and, as if nature could not contain its own richness, the air was filled with ethereal wisps of white fluff carrying the seeds from the almost invisible flowers of the poplar trees. High in the branches of the great poplar above Balint’s head a pair of wild doves started to coo and, to the young man below, the sound was the purest expression of love and happiness.

  How wonderful it all is! How lovely! thought Balint as he surrendered himself totally to enjoying the richness and splendour around him. It was a pity no one else was there to see it, no one with whom he could share his own sense of euphoria. At once Adrienne’s face floated before him, saying: ‘What about me? I’m here! I’d understand!’

  Balint got up, annoyed with himself, irritated that even here he was pursued by an obsession from which he had tried so hard to free himself. ‘I don’t want this!’ he muttered as he got up and entered the thicket, leaving the clearing that had conjured up the memory of Adrienne.

  Why was he doing this to himself, Balint wondered, why was he for ever thinking of a woman who, after all, was still only half awakened and so complex? It was madness. He had far better things to do, his work and his mission to aid others. One day he would get married – of course, he would have to – and then he’d found a home and a family and carry on his work tranquilly and in peace. Why stir up a tempest when there was no need, no reason? Why?

  Balint had been walking so swiftly along the narrow path that, angry as he was, he had noticed nothing of where he was going and what was all around him. Here it was almost completely dark, for overhead the branches of the trees were so thick that not a ray of sunshine penetrated beneath. The willow-shoots were four or five times the height of a man and were tightly intertwined with the thick-leaved elders and other forest shrubs and, as if that were not enough, the branches were hung with creepers of many different kinds, while valerian and hemlock, angelica and a host of other plants rose from the forest floor to mingle with the lichen-covered branches of the trees. Hidden in all this riot of vegetation were thorns that scratched, burrs that attached themselves to whatever brushed against them, wild hops that festooned shrub and tree alike tying fantastic cat’s cradles of creeping tendrils. Everywhere there were flowers, some tiny and budlike, as yet unopened, others, like the convolvulus, huge but insubstantial, hanging from above like motionless butterflies floating freely in the air. Across the path spread treacherous bramble shoots covered with thorns but carrying also the latent promise of a summer harvest.

  In many places the vegetation was so thick that Balint could pass only with difficulty even though he tried to follow the old path. Away from the track it would have been impossible. The main stream of the river was close at hand and a dim light was just visible through the dense foliage.

  Soon he came to a boggy patch thickly grown with weeds and canes. At every step the ground squelched under his feet. He still could not see the river which was hidden by the high wall of last year’s growth of rushes. Just when he felt he would never arrive at his goal he found himself on the river bank walking over a strand of pebbles that had washed up on the inner curve of the river while, on the other side, the water’s flow had cut a vertical line in the soft earth. An old tree-trunk lay half-buried in the stones.

  Balint stopped beside it. Surely the shallow ford he had so often used in the past must be somewhere hereabouts. It was this way that he had ridden when taking the short-cut to Maros-Szilvas to visit Dinora. He knew the way well, having so often done it on the darkest of moonless nights. Perhaps that would be the answer … to visit little Dinora and start again with her. After all she had invited him! In Budapest he had not been so tormented by memories of Adrienne: There the thought of her had sometimes come to him, but not so insistently, so intrusively, as here in Transylvania. Dinora was so sweet and no one knew better than he how soft her skin was, how tantalizing her scent and with her he would never feel that sense of revulsion which so often came to him when making love to girls in the capital. Little Dinora.

  He thought of Nitwit. Well, he didn’t matter; and anyway Dinora had said that it was now over and, even if it that were not true, he still wouldn’t matter, for Dinora had never been exactly exclusive.

  Balint turned in the direction of home. It was already past eight o’clock and he would have to hurry if he wanted to be back in time to have breakfast with his mother. He had wandered a long way from the house.

  Thinking now more calmly and more prosaically, Balint again went over what he had just decided, and again he thought how sensible it would be to take up once again with Dinora; sensible, and clever. Then that inner critic who never slumbered for long but who was always alert to danger, spoke up saying: And don’t go to Almasko lest you start again with Addy! It was no use. His other self, reckless and contrary, at once found a hypocritical answer: But I promised Pal Uzdy to go. It doesn’t matter about Adrienne, but her husband would find it strangely discourteous if I didn’t! Anyhow there would be no chance to be alone with her, what with the husband and mother-in-law always about.

  And so Balint struggled with his conscience, a battle between desire and common sense; but he reached no conclusion for just then he met the stud-groom and two lads coming back from the gallops in the eastern part of the estate. They had been exercising their three mounts and were now headed back towards the avenue of lime-trees and the stables. Balint beckoned them over to him.

  ‘The old ford in the copse? Is it still passable?’

  The stud-groom dismounted. ‘It was washed away by last year’s flooding, your Lordship, but we’ll find another if your Lordship wishes it.’

  ‘Indeed? Washed away, was it? Well, it isn’t urgent, but you might as well put it in hand when you have time. Yes, do it when you can!’

  Balint stroked the glossy neck of the stud-groom’s horse and they walked back together. On their way they passed the road that led to the paddock where the brood mares were kept. Balint longed to see them followed by their new foals, but did not turn that way as he knew how upset his mother would be if he had not waited until she could show them to him herself. Her stud farms were Roza Abady’s greatest joy, and it was with love and pride that she would show off her beautiful horses and explain her breeding strategy. Balint knew that this would be one of the first things his mother would want to do now that he had come home; and so he hurried back through the avenue of tall pyramid-shaped oaks to reach his room and change quickly so as not to arrive in his mother’s presence all wet and muddy from his early walk.

  Washing and changing his sodden clothes took longer than he had expected and by the time he had got ready and gone upstairs to his mother’s sitting-room he found her already seated at the breakfast table in the window.

  Countess Roza was always served an ample Transylvanian breakfast. On the table were cold meats, smoked bacon, scones, sweet buns and other cakes, butter, honey in jars and honey in combs, whatever fruit was in season and, of course, coffee with buffalo milk. Though she tasted everything she ate only the strawberries and drank copious cups of coffee. Despite this it was a rule of the house that everything should be done in the way that it always had been and so Mrs Baczo saw to it that every day there was enough on the table to feed at least ten people.

  After greeting his mother and kissing her hand, Balint sat down to eat. His long walk he was as hungry as a wolf and the sight of her son making a hearty breakfast rejoiced Countess Roza’s heart. From time to time she dipped a strawberry in the sugar on her plate, but it was only much later that she put it in her mouth.

  This morning Countess Roza’s slightly protuberant grey eyes held a roguish gleam. Every day of her life, the countess’s first act before breakfast, was to go down to the stables when the horses came back from their early work-out. She would inspect each one carefully, examine its tendons, order treatment if she felt it were necessary and cross-question the stud-groom and the lads on the morning’
s exercise. In their turn, to interest and amuse their beloved employer, they would recount what they had seen while out on the gallops, what deer, hares or gamebirds had come their way. This morning they had reported the interesting fact that they had met Count Abady at the Painted Bridge and that his Lordship had enquired if the ford over the Aranyos was still passable.

  Countess Roza guessed at once what this meant, for she knew that when her son was still at the university he had always used the ford when going to visit Dinora. She knew that he used to go at night, steeling out furtively in the vain hope that these visits were a secret shared only by the two lovers themselves. She had never said a word on the subject to her son, but, privately, she had rejoiced. Since the death of Count Tamas, her own life had been arid and joyless and so it was a special pleasure to her to know that her son had become a man.

  The knowledge did nothing to change Countess Abady’s deep-rooted conviction that women were divided into two classes: there were decent women such as herself who never looked at any man except their husbands; and then there were … others. These she always referred to as ‘Those’; and among ‘Those’ Countess Roza placed all women regardless of class, background, or degree of licentiousness, who were not as chaste as herself. Quite indiscriminately she would include not only ladies who gave way from time to time to a mild flirtatiousness of manner, but also those who loved to tease men without satisfying them, women who fell deeply in love with men to whom they were not married and remained faithful to them; women who were fickle and promiscuous and often changed their lovers; famous courtesans who were kept by a great nobleman, and streetwalkers who plied their trade in the unlit alleys of the slums. To Countess Roza, whose whole life had been spent protected and infinitely remote from reality, all such persons fell equally into the category of ‘Those’. Not that this bleak and uncomprehending judgement affected her manners or behaviour. She never allowed her opinion of such matters to affect in any way her comportment to those ladies whose way of life was anathema to her. She was never critical, cold or impolite. She said nothing to show her disapproval; and if they were in the same rank of society they would be received in her house and they would not be gossiped about behind their backs. For the countess it was a fact of life that some women were made born like that and so couldn’t help being what they were. They were not guilty or criminal, they were just, well, different; and, as such, she accepted their existence uncritically, with good humour, if without understanding. And what she heard she kept to herself, acting always as if she knew nothing of such matters.

  When Balint had first taken up with Dinora, Roza’s attitude underwent a subtle change and, when such things were discussed, to her previous amused but unconcerned smile was added another expression, one of pride. She took joy and a certain consolation in the knowledge of her son’s conquests. It was in some mysterious way a compensation for the loss of her own sex-life, non-existent since the death of her adored husband. It was as if her son were now vicariously taking revenge on life for her; and as if, in him, metamorphosed into the shape of a young man, she had at last been reborn. And since, for Countess Roza, all such women belonged to a quite separate race of beings, she worried no more about her son being involved with such a person than she would have been had he taken up racing or played in international polo matches; in a way it was for her just another form of sport, and so completely harmless.

  Dinora had been the first but, naturally, during his years as a diplomat, there had been others. When Balint came home on leave to Denestornya, letters had come, written in women’s flowing hands, firstly from Vienna and later from abroad. Countess Roza always knew when such letters were delivered, for the morning’s mail was first brought to her, and great was her pleasure when, just occasionally, she managed to catch a glimpse of the addresses on Balint’s outgoing letters. Alas, it did not happen often!

  Countess Roza did not admit even to herself that she yearned for this information or that when, apparently quite casually, she would say to the footman: ‘If Count Balint has some letters for the post, I’ll have some too,’ it was only a ruse to find out to whom he was writing. Usually, however, the man came to ask for her letters first or else the whole manoeuvre would be for nothing, for on that day Balint had written only business letters or to some male friend. On the few occasions when she managed to find out a name, however, she would do all she could to turn the conversation so that that name should appear to come up naturally, and then she could ask in the ordinary course of conversation for details of the lady’s age, looks, situation in life – all very discreetly, of course.

  When she felt that she had enough to go on she would try to fit it all together, just as if she were making a mosaic or tackling a jigsaw puzzle, until, in her own mind, all the pieces were in their right places. Then she would store away the information with secret glee as if she were making a catalogue of Balint’s successes. She was innocently convinced that no one, especially not Balint, had noticed her preoccupation and her stratagems. As far as Balint was concerned she was right. It had never occurred to him that such information was important to her, or indeed that it was any of her business. The housekeepers Baczo and Tothy, on the other hand, were by no means deceived, for in front of them Countess Roza never minced her words or tried to hide her thoughts. Though the countess had never asked a direct question on such matters, they knew how much she loved all information of that sort. They sat with her daily, watched her closely, and knew better than anyone what sort of news their mistress craved.

  Since the beginning of the Carnival season they had become aware that Balint had taken to visiting Adrienne, that he went there every afternoon and often stayed a long time, even well into the evening, that the lamps were not lit in Adrienne’s sitting-room until late (that is when Balint was there), and that they often sat alone in the dark. All this information they gleaned in various ways through the upper-servant network. Since Adrienne’s maid was faithful to her and did not gossip about her mistress, they had managed to insinuate themselves into the confidence of Count Uzdy’s cook by means of offering recipes for preserves or sharing secrets about the ingredients of the famous Denestornya pies.

  What they heard in this way they would let drop, piecemeal, as they sat drinking coffee with Countess Roza after dinner. Having once or twice mentioned Count Balint’s visits to Countess Uzdy they never again spoke his name but concentrated only on telling tales about Adrienne. Dissembling their malice they would tell only of the ‘shocking’ things they had heard about Countess Uzdy: how she would go skating in the evening but never at midday as respectable ladies did; how she would never dance a respectable csardas, liked to go for walks in the cemetery and, when she was at home – oh, horror! – she would sit on the floor like a gypsy, yes, really, like a gypsy, a nomad gypsy. Oh dear, whatever next? It was of such things that they would talk, lamenting with gusto these depraved habits. And they took care never to involve Countess Roza in their discussions but merely gossiped in front of her, shaking their heads at each other in sad disapproval and, when they really wanted to underline a point that seemed especially depraved, they would take their knitting needles and stab their skeins of wool for all the world as if they were doing a wicked woman to death.

  The picture of Adrienne that Countess Roza received in this way was most disquieting. She seemed to be amongst the most vicious and dissolute of ‘Those’ in Kolozsvar, indeed in the whole province; and for this reason Balint’s attachment to her became a constant source of worry and distress. The instinct of a mother had already told her that of all Balint’s affairs this was likely to become the most serious, which is why she had been so pleased to hear that Balint wanted the ford leading to Maros-Szilvas to be repaired. This could only mean that he was once again thinking of Dinora and, if that were so, she would no longer have to worry about Adrienne.

  Balint ate his breakfast with zest. He was obviously in a good humour, and his mother sat in pleased silence looking at him fondly. Then she
said: ‘I’m glad you’ve such a hearty appetite. It’s good to see you make a good breakfast!’

  ‘Uhmmm…’ Balint could not reply properly because he had just taken a large mouthful of bread and butter and honey. So it was not until he had managed to get it down that he was able to say: ‘I’ve been for a long walk!’ And he took another bite.

  ‘Really?’ said his mother, still pretending to know nothing. ‘Already? Where did you go so early? When did you start?’

  ‘At dawn. I went as far as the Aranyos. I had only thought of going to the avenue but everything was so beautiful that I just went on until I reached the river.’

  ‘Where? At Fox Meadow, or where we find the mushrooms?’

  ‘Neither. First I went to visit the old poplar in the clearing, and from there I went on to the old ford.’

  ‘They tell me it’s been washed away in the spring floods. Such a pity, it used to be rather convenient if I had to send Azbej or somebody to Lelbanya,’ said Countess Roza. ‘You know, it’s much shorter than going all the way by the Hadrev bridge. For you, too, if you want to visit your constituency in summer – not by carriage, of course, but on horseback.’ she added shrewdly.