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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  ‘Of course. I suppose it wouldn’t be more than twenty or twenty-five kilometres that way,’ Balint agreed. But he didn’t mention Maros-Szilvas as his mother had hoped he would.

  Countess Roza tried another tack.

  ‘I’ve had three new horses brought on for you,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, they’ve been well trained so you can go where you like with them. One of them is Fenyes, who you may remember from last year. The other two are Borostyan and Perdits. You won’t know them as they only came into training a few months ago, but they’ve all been well schooled and are ready for you.’

  ‘That’s wonderful! I’ll try them out tomorrow.’

  ‘All three could do with rather more work than the usual morning exercise. A few long rides in the country – they need muscling.’ She started to explain what sort of training she had in mind and what would be the effect of slow work at a walk and a trot and what would be gained by a sustained canter over measured distances, and how these two types of training should be employed alternatively. This was a subject she always liked to discuss, and today it gave her a double pleasure, firstly because she really knew what she was talking about, and secondly because she felt that if she went into such detail her son would not notice what she was in fact urging him to do.

  She was still discussing her ideas about the breeding and schooling of horses when they walked together to the paddocks which were now bathed in warm resplendent sunshine.

  Chapter Two

  A FEW DAYS WENT BY, quiet days during which Balint would go out riding at dawn, breakfast with his mother before accompanying her on her morning walk, take a short nap before lunch, sit with her chatting after the midday meal and, later, either go to look at distant parts of the Denestornya park and estate, or drive to visit the stud farm’s summer pastures or inspect the cattle sheds. Countess Roza wanted to discuss her ideas for improving the gardens: flower beds here, shrubs or red-flowering chestnuts there, perhaps something yellow just there against that dark green and, if the gardeners could have enough of them ready in the spring, there were those new canna lilies. They were all little things they talked about but, small though they were, they were important to her; and so Balint listened, gave his ideas, and gradually became more interested himself. Yet, though these days were quiet and devoted to such simple matters as where to plant next year’s annuals, Balint was not at peace with himself.

  His caution and his desire for Adrienne continued to wage a civil war inside him; and for the moment it was the caution which had the upper hand. No! He would not go to Almasko. Yes! He would go to Maros-Szilvas; he would spend the night there and go on to Lelbanya and, on the way back, he would again stop at Dinora’s place. On the outward journey they would come to an understanding; and on his return they would consummate it! It was all so simple. The matter was settled and that would bring an end to this endless agitation.

  When he told his mother of his plans – though not everything they involved – she was overjoyed and agreed to all his suggestions, especially that he should take her dear horses with him to Lelbanya. The only stipulation she made was that they were not be stalled at some dirty inn, but rather that Balint should put them up at some friend’s stables, or even his cowsheds, which were sure to be clean and free of infection.

  After an ample mid-morning snack he rode off with one of the stable-lads in attendance. He went over the bridge, across the Big Wood, crossed the river by the newly repaired ford, rode slowly across the great meadow on the other side of the Aranyos which was part of the Denestornya estate and which was so often flooded in spring, and along the acacia avenue towards the railway embankment. The going was good, for the ground had dried out, but it was still soft and elastic and had not yet hardened as it would in the course of the summer.

  From the Aranyos they cantered gently across the fields until they reached the railroad. Riding on the sandy verge of the main road, they reached Maros-Szilvas in just over an hour.

  A few hundred yards across cornfields still brightly green with the unripe harvest Balint could see the hedge that marked the limits of the Abonyi gardens. There on the right at the corner of the field was the old lime tree to which Balint had so often tethered his horse when he rode over stealthily in the late evenings. From there he had crept through the garden to find the way to Dinora’s bedroom window, that window which had been unusually high off the ground that he had had to leap up, catch hold of the sill, and pull himself up against the limewashed wall of the building. Only then was it possible to crawl through the window and each time, he remembered with a smile, his clothes had been smeared with white powder. Despite the intensity of his young love, the memory today evoked only a faint smile of self-mockery.

  The closer he found himself to their house the less he felt like visiting the Abonyis. It was far too early, he told himself. They had made good time and the horses were still so fresh – why, it was barely past midday! It would be far better to press on. If they stopped now there would be lunch, and then coffee, and then they’d ask him to stay on and chat and it would be dark before he got to Lelbanya, too late to accomplish anything of what he was going there for! Then he would have to find stabling for the horses and make sure of good fodder and clean bedding, and all this would take time. Far better do the journey in one go and, later, on the way home perhaps, well, then he could stay as long as he liked.

  Spurring his horse to a trot he reached the village in a few moments. On the left were the peasants’ houses and on the right the long high wall that surrounded the Abonyi manor-house. On the top, just where the wall took such a bend there was a vine-covered summer-house. How many times he had sat there with Dinora, covering her face with his kisses!

  He was not sure, but looking up it seemed as if maybe there was the white gleam of a woman’s dress to be seen through the arbour’s thick veil of foliage. Perhaps Dinora was sitting there now? Quickening the pace of his horse Balint trotted swiftly through the village, looking neither to right nor left and hoping that he had not been spotted. He slowed down only when the village had been left far behind.

  After passing through Maros-Ludas they had to climb a long steep ridge, from the summit of which several small paths led down to the little mining town. When travelling on the high plateau one always went along the tops of the ridges, whether on foot or on horseback, for the winding valley roads took much longer. Half way up Balint and the groom dismounted and led their horses by hand.

  As they moved slowly up the hill a man came towards them from one of the paths from the ridge. He was on foot and his short spare figure could be seen from afar silhouetted against the sky. He was dressed in town clothes and he too walked slowly, but as if tired from having come a long way.

  When Balint arrived at the top of the ridge he paused for a moment to admire the view, which to him was poignantly beautiful. Down below could be seen the meandering course of the Maros river. From where Balint stood it was as clear as if drawn on a map. Across the valley the rolling hillsides were covered with forest trees while on this side of the river the bare cliffs of yellow clay were cleft by innumerable steep ravines washed out by rain and wind.

  The foot-traveller reached the main road just as Balint was about to remount his horse. ‘Hey! Hey! Stop!’ he called to Abady, who already had one foot in the stirrup. Balint turned round in surprise.

  ‘Don’t you recognize me?’ cried the stranger. ‘Andras Jopal! But perhaps you don’t want to know me anymore?’

  It was not easy to recognize the former tutor to the Laczok boys in this travel-worn stranger. Jopal, formerly so spruce and dapper, was unshaven, with several days’ growth of beard on his face. His clothes were torn and filthy, the soles of his boots were flapping against the uppers and his bare toes could be seen through the slits on both sides. But his face was so unusual, with its wide cheekbones, square jaw and the staring eyes of a fanatic, that Balint would have recognized him without any introduction. His first impulse was to shake hands with the man, bu
t then he remembered the insults which had been shouted after him when he had left old Minya’s house the previous September, which had been all the thanks he had received for his well-intentioned offer to aid Jopal to develop his ideas for a flying machine.

  Rather coldly he said: ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I was on my way to find you at Denestornya. I’m in luck to run across you here.’

  ‘To find me?’ asked Balint, astonished.

  ‘Yes, indeed. I owe you something, and I wished to repay my debts, as I have all the others, all of them!’

  ‘What debt? You don’t owe me anything.’

  ‘Indeed I do! I offended your Lordship, stupidly. I only realized it afterwards and I wouldn’t like you to remember me only by that. What I owe you is an apology. So now I must ask your Lordship’s forgiveness.’

  ‘With all my heart, please say nothing more about it!’ said Balint and offered Jopal his hand. To prove that he bore the man no grudge he called to his groom to bring him food from the saddle-bags.

  ‘Take something too,’ he said to the lad, and to Jopal: ‘Let’s go and sit down over there.’ They sat down together on the grassy slope that bordered the road.

  ‘Won’t you join me!’ said Abady, unwrapping the parcel of bacon, bread and salami.

  ‘With pleasure. Thank you!’ said Jopal, and for a few moments they ate in silence.

  ‘How is your great-uncle, old Gal?’

  ‘Poor man, he died three weeks ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry. If I’d known I’d have come to the funeral. That’ll be a great loss for you, surely?’ said Balint, looking sadly at Jopal’s torn clothes and ruined shoes.

  ‘That’s of no account. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m finished anyway!’ Abady looked at him enquiringly, trying to fathom what the man meant. With a sudden burst of anger, Jopal went on: ‘Didn’t you hear? It’s all so meaningless! This April, Santos-Dumont flew in Paris, from the lawns of the Château de Bagatelle. And he did it with my machine, with my machine, I tell you; with my machine exactly. It was the same, or almost the same. So my work’s finished. It’s the end of everything I’ve ever worked for. I built my life on it. And could have done it, if I’d had the money for the proper equipment. I was ready in the autumn; I could have flown then, before everyone else, but I didn’t have the money! If I had, then all the glory and fame and wealth would have been mine, mine! Everything for which Santos and the Wright Brothers are now suing each other! Mine!’

  Balint suddenly remembered having seen a copy of the French review L’Illustration with photographs of Santos-Dumont when he succeeded in taking up his machine for two or three hundred yards a few feet from the ground. So the problem of flying had at last been solved. He was sorry now that he had forgotten the Transylvanian inventor and the theories he had expounded in the yard of old Minya Gal’s house. He felt deeply sorry for the man beside him.

  ‘If only I hadn’t been so pig-headed and stupid! If I’d accepted your offer…’ Jopal’s face was contorted with misery. His lips curved back from his prominent teeth and his eyes narrowed with pain. For a moment he seemed close to tears, but then he straightened up and said: ‘If my uncle had died a few months ago and I’d had his little legacy in the autumn, perhaps I could have done it!’ He tightened his hand into a fist and banged it down on his knee: ‘But what for, I ask you, what for?’ Then he laughed bitterly and went on: ‘So what did I do? I paid my debts, all of them, every penny that I’d begged and borrowed for my invention. I paid them all back. Only your Lordship remained and now I’ve done that too and so I can be on my way!’

  He laughed again, folded his knife and replaced it in his pocket, and got up.

  Balint remained where he was.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘With your abilities you shouldn’t despair. I’m sure there are other problems to be solved with which you could prove yourself. There’s so much to be done.’

  Jopal struck the air with his closed fist. ‘I don’t want anything to do with it!’ he said. ‘Goodbye!’ and, turning swiftly on his heel, he went off down the hill. When he had gone about twenty paces he turned back and called: ‘The violin! My uncle left it to your Lordship. You can collect it from the house. It’s there with the girl Julis. She’ll give it to you!’

  Then he hurried away and soon left the road and took a little goat-path which seemed to lead down towards the river Maros. In a few moments he had disappeared below the cliffs.

  Balint and his groom were soon mounted and on their way. After a while they found themselves on a soft grassy lane which led them, still on a high ridge, deeper into the rolling grassland country where it was rare for any small hills to rise above the general level of the prairie. All around them was a sea of rolling grassland whose faint ridges were like the swell of a petrified ocean on the crest of which they were no more than tiny Lilliputian figures. The air was dry and clean. In the far distance to the north could be seen, like a distant shore across the ocean, cloud-grey in colour, the peaks of the snow-covered Besztercey mountains. There, slightly to the left were the Cibles, three peaks shining white and sparkling from the fresh snow with which they had been covered since the last rains.

  At last Lelbanya could be seen a little way off, and now they had to leave the track and make their way down from the grassland prairie to where, in a cleft in the hills, stood the little town on its salt-flaked bank of clay and, beside it, the dark lake, now almost covered by the reeds and canes from which the townsfolk earned their living. Though invisible from where Balint was riding, the surface of the lake was dotted with wild duck and moorhens whose broods were brought up in safety in the cover of the reeds.

  At Lelbanya, following his mother’s instructions, Balint stabled his horses in the innkeeper’s own cowshed.

  When he had done this he visited the Co-operative Society, which was still housed in the town-hall, inspected the books, conferred with the bookkeeper who was a retired employee of the railways and an excellent man, Tobias Batta by name, and walked with him and the notary up to the Abady house. This had been repaired by Azbej, who was doing his utmost to keep in with Count Balint and who, by tact and persuasion, had obtained possession of two rooms which were to house the Co-operative.

  In the evening Balint dined alone in the inn and afterwards received the leading citizens of the town who, hearing of his arrival had called to pay their respects and to take a glass of wine with him.

  There was quite a gathering: the mayor, the notary, the physician, the chemist, the two priests and everyone else of any importance. Even the old knight, Balazs Borcsey, condescended to put in an appearance. This was remarkable, indeed almost unheard-of since Borcsey was so proud of being a Borcsey of Lesser-and Greater-Borcse, that he felt it beneath him to mingle with such lowly-born persons as made up the society of Lelbanya. When one bore such a name, he had been heard to say, one could not make friends with just anyone, even if they were your neighbours. The old man was as poor as the proverbial church mouse and this fact alone made him all the more arrogant and careful of his dignity. His decaying manor house stood on the crest of a little hillock near the town. It was a small, dilapidated, ancient dwelling with three or four plum trees and a crab apple in front. It was surrounded by some twenty acres of barren goat pasture, and here the old man lived without even one servant to wait upon him. He rarely saw anybody and he had never married, presumably because he had never found any woman worthy of bearing his great name.

  Old Borcsey owed money to every one in the town, to the grocery store, to the innkeeper, butcher, miller, tailor, shoemaker and even to the mayor and the chemist, who had from time to time advanced him small sums that had never been repaid. No one minded, however. They even gave the old man their respect. On important feast days he would be sent presents, a sack or two of corn-flour, a lamb or sucking pig, fruit and vegetables in summer, and in winter, cabbages or a pint or two of plum brandy. All this out of respect.

  The recipient of these charitable
acts took it all as no more than his due, since he firmly believed he was the social superior of all those who sent him presents and that therefore it was no more than his due. His conviction was so strong that it communicated itself to all around him until they had all come to believe that the old man really was some kind of superior being to whom homage must be paid. There was a rumour that he had been one of those revolutionaries who had taken up arms against the Habsburgs in 1848, though he had never allowed anyone to mention this in his presence. Anyhow, why talk about it? He was a Borcsey of Lesser-and Greater-Borcse, and that should be enough for anyone.

  So when the old revolutionary descended from his eyrie and came into the inn parlour a great commotion started, with everyone jumping up and offering him their seats. A place was found for him, as was his due, in the seat of honour directly in front of Count Abady.

  Balint had heard of him before when he had first come to Lelbanya at the time of his election as Member of Parliament. He had sent a message to the old man asking if he could call upon him but the reply had been that he never received anyone who supported the 1867 Compromise (and who was therefore presumed to collaborate with the hated Austrian tyranny). Today, however, he had put in an appearance; and even Balint felt that he had been honoured.

  The old knight strutted in clutching in one hand a long oak walking-stick. He was a slight old man seemingly made only of skin and bones, and though he must have been well over seventy his hair and moustache were still black. He wore grey trousers which were covered with stains and from which it appeared that all colour had been drained by the application of some acid. His boots were worn and old and none too clean. He went straight over to Abady, shook hands with him, but with no one else, and sat down. Then he nodded his head graciously to the others as if indicating that they too could now be seated. When everyone was in their place and had resumed a respectful silence, old Borcsey lifted a forefinger and said: ‘Well? And what is the news from Budapest?’