They Were Found Wanting (Writing on the Wall: The Transylvania Trilogy)

by Bánffy, Miklós

  The carriage in which Fanny was riding passed Wuelffenstein’s place and arrived next at the place allotted to the elder Szent-Gyorgyi boy, Stefi. Here she told the coachman to stop, for further on there were only Imre Warday and Magda, the daughter of the house, and finally, at the corner stand, there was Balint Abady.

  Also there was another young girl, Lili Illesvary, a young niece of Count Antal who was barely out of the schoolroom. Just turned seventeen, Lili was still chubby with a rounded face and a teenager’s rather plump arms. She was also shy and timid, unsure of herself, as if she knew that she was like a picture that was almost finished but still needed the finishing touches. Her femininity was still a little uncertain. But that she would soon be a beauty no one who saw her could doubt. Her eyes were exceptionally large and azure-blue in colour, and the line of her mouth and profile was as finely etched as in a Greek cameo, though the determined chin inherited from her Szent-Gyorgyi grandmother was still partly hidden by baby fat.

  Lili had wanted to stay with her cousin at Warday’s stand but they had made her go on to Abady who was alone in the corner.

  ‘It’s a bore to be too many!’ Magda had said. ‘Go on to the last gun. The ground will be better there too, the beaters will have trodden down a proper path.’ Lili had done as she was told.

  ‘Can I stay here, with you?’ she asked timidly when she came up to Balint and just smiled shyly when Balint greeted her in a friendly manner, her eyes opening even wider with astonishment at finding herself accepted so naturally in the great grown-up world she was now entering for the first time. Her companion thought: what sweet fresh youthfulness!

  At this moment the horns sounded. First at one end of the line of beaters and then at the other and then in the distance from the invisible ends of the two flanks – came the cry: ‘Vorwä-ä-ärts – forward march! Advance!’

  The shoot began. In front of Balint lines of peasant girls, led by Szent-Gyorgyi huntsmen carrying a gun, stamped their feet in a regular rhythm. Behind him was his loader, a man carrying his cartridge-case, and four men with long poles, whose job it was to collect what Balint had shot. On each side of him were the male beaters who were given a stream of orders from the estate’s mounted foresters. ‘Pomali! Rovno! – Slowly now! Straight ahead!’, while some distance away the country lanes were filled with a rearguard of farm wagons to carry the day’s bag drawn by enormous Pinzgau horses like a baggage train following an army.

  And suddenly there were hares everywhere. Some were small, the colour of lightly baked buns, not at all like the hares of Transylvania which gave such sport to the mounted huntsmen at Zsuk. Only city-dwellers think of hares as all being alike. Quite different from the long-legged mountain hares, those of the plain came in all sizes, great and small, and they behaved differently too, from one district to another. In the great plain they ran powerfully before the line of beaters, invisible to the guns for nearly an hour, so that it was only at the end of the drive that they all swarmed together in a rush to escape. Here in the valley of the Vag, on the other hand, they rushed about in front of the advancing beaters and all the guns sounded off from the first steps of the drive.

  There always seemed to be at least two or three, and often five or six hares running wildly about no more than a hundred metres in front of the guns. And a charming sight it was. On the beautifully tended fields of rape or young green corn the animals seemed to be dancing, kicking up their tails with every leap they made and sometimes sitting down and apparently gazing unconcerned at the fluttering line of the peasant girls’ gaily coloured skirts, before again running forward through the furrows left by the plough. They always kept the same distance, only occasionally dashing further away when Stefi or Fredi shot at them from the centre of the advancing guns. The only times the little animals went at full speed was when they found themselves close to the openings at the end of the line and then they ran for their lives. A few there were that waited until the beaters were almost upon them and then, instead of racing forward they would double back and try their luck by darting swiftly through the line. Most of these were females and the order had been given to let them go, at least for the first half-hour. Even Wuelffenstein did not dare attempt a shot as he was walking next to his host. Some of the hares would run in a wide circle only to be shot as they approached the centre, but mostly they would run for the corners and so Abady, at the end of the line, and Warday next to him, were kept busy. Behind them the game collectors walked proudly two by two carrying long poles on their shoulders from which, like tassels, hung ten or fifteen dead hares.

  Each huge square field was divided from the next by hedges planted with gleditschia trees – the honey-locust – in which openings had been left for the guns to pass through. As they did so each had to wait until they had been joined by the beaters who then reformed the line as the horns sounded and there came the order: ‘Virovnajte clapci! – Line up, lads!’ Then the horns sounded again and they moved relentlessly on.

  Balint and little Lili Illesvary had just passed through one of the hedges and entered a field of young clover when with a sudden strident whirring a dense cloud of partridges rose up and flew over them at high speed. They turned away to the left as the wind from the north made them fly at a great height towards the centre of the line.

  ‘How beautiful they are!’ exclaimed Lili as she gazed up at them.

  It was an exceptionally large covey, and they flew straight towards Szent-Gyorgyi who always chose this place as it was here that the late winter partridges always came. With the speed of a hurricane they flew towards him. Four shots were heard, and four little specks, two in front of him and two behind, fell from the sky rolling along the ground from the force of their own velocity.

  This happened several times and Abady, who was never more than an average shot himself, was so lost in admiration of his host’s skill that more than one hare found its way safely past him.

  As the long line of guns and beaters passed steadily from field to field through well-tended hedges or avenues of trees – occasionally passing neat little groups of farm buildings all surrounded, after the Austrian custom, by low stone walls – great herds of Electoral-Negretti sheep, which were reputed to produce the finest wool, stared stupidly up at them and then went on contentedly chewing the rich grass.

  Until then the drive had been much like any other at a well-organized shoot. Now the picture began to change. Instead of the simple well-tended fields of a great agricultural complex, there began to appear clumps of fir-trees, standing like islands in the wide paddocks‚ lines of tall Lombardy poplars on the banks of little streams, and thick plantations of oak at the edge of each meadow, all so cunningly planted that the game would run in the most diverse manner possible and the birds fly at even dizzier heights. And so it was: the hares stopped running predictably and darted unexpectedly in every direction, disappearing into thickets of undergrowth and vanishing from sight round the edge of each plantation; and the partridges and pheasants got up as if shot from catapults and rose high in the sky over the lines of the tall poplar-trees only to take refuge once again in the next block of covert. Every shot was different and every hit a triumph.

  A little further on, while at the corners there were still open fields, the six guns in the centre found themselves deep in a long and narrow wood where cock-pheasants rose in confusion, whirring back and forth in every direction, while on the ground hares and little wild rabbits darted about like lightning. The beaters put up a tremendous show, all shouting at once: ‘Zayac! Zayac! Nalevo! Napravo! – Hare! Hare! To the right! To the left!’ and then: ‘Kohut! Kohut! Cock here! Cock there!’ The noise was tremendous as it seemed that all the guns were shooting at once. All this, however, was as nothing compared with the hubbub a few minutes later when, after traversing another field of barley, the line entered a plantation which stretched right across the line of the shoot. Suddenly the cry was heard: ‘Liska! – Fox!’

  It started on the right not far from Balint, fi
rstly by the baritone voices of the male beaters and then taken up with a high shrill cry by the girls, hopeful and triumphant, joyful and at the same time surprised, for the Szent-Gyorgyi estates were so well patrolled and kept by the army of keepers and forest guards and carefully laid traps that to put up a fox seemed like a miracle.

  It was not difficult to keep track of where the quarry ran for, shrewd and swift though he was, each time he was sighted, at the centre, to the left or to the right, everywhere he was followed by the cry of ‘Liska! Liska!’ And the cries never let up until, as the guns were emerging from the densest part of the thick plantation, there came the sound of two shots in quick succession followed by a long-drawn-out shout of triumph of which all that could be distinguished was the long double vowel ‘aa-aa’ of the word ‘spadla – he’s fallen’, as the girls at the edge of the beat passed to the moving line the happy news that the fox, that enemy of every poultry-keeping peasant, was no more. When the line stepped out into the open, there, at the far left-hand corner, was one of Slawata’s game carriers holding high his master’s booty for all the world to see and admire.

  Now they passed through a gently sloping and rather damp meadow in the centre of which there was a plantation of plane trees. Beyond this was a hillside covered in shrubs which marked the boundary of the Jablanka parkland. After barely fifty paces, when the party was only half-way towards the trees, the horns sounded to tell everyone that the official drive was now over and that the guns should stay where they were so that the two wings of girl-beaters could join up and drive any game that remained back towards the mile-wide line of guns. The head-keeper now galloped down the line, stopping his horse as he reached each invited guest, lifting his hat and saying politely: ‘Belieben Euer Hochgeboren, hier auch Hennen zu schiessen – If your Excellency pleases, here we will also shoot hens!’

  Though said with the greatest respect, the phrase could perhaps a little later, with the knowledge of hindsight, have been taken as the gentlest of mockery, not because there were no hens to be shot but because all the birds, cocks and hens alike – and there were tremendous quantities of both – now flew so high and so fast that only the most skilful shot could bring them down at all.

  Most of the birds started their flight from the top of the hill ahead. They took an arrow-straight line back to the woods from which the guns had just emerged, and they flew straight over the 100-foot high plane-trees. With dizzying speed, they streaked through the sky, only one or two darting through the highest branches or swerving diagonally with wings spread wide, hundreds of them, brown hens and green and reddish cocks, and with them some strange birds with tails more than a yard long, crosses between the Amherst and silver pheasants, with exotic crests, which Szent-Gyorgyi bred specially to add variety and colour to the game in his forests. In the bright sunshine they glittered in jewelled splendour.

  On the floor of the meadow hares and rabbits were milling in untold numbers, falling over each other as they tried to jump the water-filled ditches which had cunningly been dug on each side of the trees. As they did so coveys of partridges rose and flew through the lower branches as fast as a hail of gunfire. All this had been carefully and masterfully planned so as to ensure that the last minutes of the day’s shooting should be the best and also the most taxing. The wide spacing of the guns and the purpose-dug ditches were placed, as were the trees and shrubs, with knowing care, so that suddenly the sport was more difficult, required infinite skill, and was much, much more exciting.

  Where the guns stood there raged an inferno. Nothing could be heard but the continuous rattle of gunfire and the shouts of the beaters: ‘Kohut! Kohut! – Zayac! Kohut!’ while all the time the loaders frenziedly changed their masters’ guns and the game collectors rushed in every direction to pick up the birds and beasts which died all around them. Sometimes a hit was made only by chance and then, in the sky, a few tail-feathers flew or a bird was winged and fluttered slowly to the earth. The two young Szent-Gyorgyis and Louis Kollonich were excellent shots who rarely missed their aim but now even they did not always hit their mark. And still, all around, could be heard the shouts of ‘Nalevo zayac! – Hare to the left!’ and ‘Napravo! – Look to your right! – Zelanka! – Partridge!’ and then, over and over again, ‘Kohut! Kohut! Kohut!’

  Amongst them all only one man remained absolutely calm; it was Antal Szent-Gyorgyi. His tall figure seemed to move no faster as he took each of his three weapons in turn, fired twice, once in front of him and once behind – always killing cleanly with a shot in the head so that each bird fell dead to the ground with folded wings dropping in a gentle arc and propelled only by the velocity of its own flight – left and right, left and right, left and right! with unfailing precision. Count Antal’s calm and uncanny skill were indeed imperial.

  It was some time before the line of the girls in their multi-coloured skirts emerged from the shrub-covered hillside. At the end of the beat only hares were still running, plenty of them. These were males and had to be shot – just as at the beginning the females that had darted back through the line were spared – because the breed would suffer if too many were left alive.

  When the sound of gunshot finally died away the guests’ carriages were already lined up to take them back to the castle.

  The beautiful dapple-grey horses moved slowly and rhythmically between the double rows of beaters who were lined up on each side of the road. All the young men now had long pheasant feathers stuck in their caps and, as Slawata’s carriage passed by, they waved these hats in the air and cheered loudly, for was he not the Great Lord who had slain that wild beast the fox? It was possible that some there were who cheered him for other reasons; for while Louis Kollonich had been busy shooting hares for him in his remote place at the end of the line, Slawata too had been busy, busy talking politics with the beaters who accompanied him, if not in Slovak, their own tongue, at least in Czech. The anti-Hungarian movement, called Sokolist in Moravia where it was spreading fast, was beginning to take hold in North Nyitra, where Jablanka was situated, and here its partisans were clamouring to be heard.

  Sitting back in his carriage, his eyes glittering behind the thick lenses of his spectacles, Slawata responded to the men’s greetings with genuine satisfaction; and it was for more reasons than the killing of the fox. He was pleased at the thought of a day well spent. Often, as the drive had halted while it was being reformed, or if there had been some obstacle to be overcome before everyone lined up again before once more moving forward, or if someone had lagged behind, Slawata had found time to talk politics with some of the local men and, while not concealing his subversive ideas, what he had mostly discussed were the effects of the Rozsahegy case.

  This had been a particularly disagreeable affair which had upset many people. Since the last elections to the Parliament in Budapest, during which for the first time there had been many candidates of Czecho-Slovak blood for this predominantly Czecho-Slovak province, there had been growing political unrest, resulting in that year alone in 33 prosecutions for sedition. Most of these had been, juridically speaking, justified. Politically, however, they had been disastrous, for their principal effect had been to create martyrs for the cause of the ethnic majority. The government’s policy was far from clever for, though each condemned man spent a few months in a not uncomfortable state prison, everyone felt he had earned a martyr’s crown on his release. The government, having once embarked on this campaign of repression, found itself hoist on its own petard, helpless in the face of an ever-growing political movement of opposition, fostered and encouraged from where no one knew.

  It was when this impassioned situation was at its height that there occurred the uprising at Chernova.

  A priest named Hlinka had been suspended by his bishop from the care of the parish of Rozsahegy and a local tribunal had found him guilty of making treasonable statements in public. Hlinka’s birthplace was the neighbouring village of Chernova where he had built a church out of his own money. This he wanted to con
secrate himself, but he now found himself forbidden by the bishop to do so, while other priests were sent to Rozsahegy to do this office for him. The people of Chernova were at once up in arms, hid the sacred vessels of their church and sent furious threatening letters to the bishop, whose chosen priests took fright and asked for an escort of gendarmes, even though the local sheriff had told them that this was not wise. What happened was that, when the priests arrived to consecrate the church, they and their escort were met with a hail of stones. The gendarmes, to defend themselves as well as the priests, opened fire. Nine men fell dead and many others were wounded, of which several died later. It was a sad, unnecessary and bloody affair.

  Sad it certainly was, and nothing to smile about; but Slawata saw it in a different light. He knew only too well the secret links between this sort of commotion and the planning office of the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, the so-called ‘Werkstatt – Workshop’, as the followers of the Heir called it. This sort of thing was just what they wanted, the more trouble there was the better! And when the new ruler ascended the throne and this must be soon now – he would spread joy everywhere by putting all such matters to rights, after his own fashion, of course. It was just as well that the Hungarian government had not intervened between the bishop and his parishioners, for this was just one more problem they must work out for themselves. So, as Slawata reclined comfortably against the cushions of his well-sprung carriage, which swung gently from side to side as it progressed in stately fashion along the winding road, he thought of the words of Goethe: ‘Blut ist ein ganz besonder Saft – Blood is a very strange liquid!’, for Slawata was nothing if not well-read.