More importantly she induced Laszlo to take up his music again. Each evening she would make him play and when he had tried out for her some of the unfinished compositions he had brought over from Kozard, she made him get down to finishing them.
Laszlo had never been so quietly contented as he was in the first six weeks of their liaison.
Chapter Five
WHEN THE NEW COALITION GOVERNMENT Came to power a new idea emerged in Hungarian politics; and it was enshrined in the phrase ‘the Corridor’. There was great excitement ‘in the Corridor’ that day, they said. The Corridor is unmoved by the latest developments; the Corridor has not yet formed its opinion; the Corridor is quite indifferent. Leading articles in the newspapers discussed at length the mood, wishes and opinions of the Corridor, which were known to be desperately uncertain, incalculable and capricious.
The Corridor was spoken about with all the awe once accorded to fabulous oracles.
That the Corridor should achieve such spurious importance was, in the circumstances, inevitable. At the time of the Coalition there was no opposition to speak of, and what there was consisted only of some twenty or so members from the ethnic minorities and a few socialists who had no influence and who were in any case generally thought of as dangerous enemies of the state. The three parties to the Coalition only ruled at all as a result of continual discussion between themselves. Everything that was finally presented to, and passed by, the House, had been the subject of previous and secret meetings between cabinet ministers, by the coordinating central committee, and also at smaller party meetings, so that every resolution had already been accepted by, and was therefore binding upon, each constituent party in the government. Every measure was presented in finished form, cut and dried and accepted by all parties. There was no longer any possibility of change since to suggest modifications at this stage would have been tantamount to rebellion against the party leadership. Whether it was a question of ideology or merely a matter of form, such suggestions were taken as irresponsible and unnecessarily captious.
And so no one bothered to try.
And what is more, there now seemed to be no life left in the parties themselves. Each party leader, chairman, or working party, acted alone and mostly behind closed doors. This was what had been brought about by the fact of coalition.
The Coalition itself was in an uneasy state of nervous tension. On one side there were the Independents and Liberals who looked back to the uprisings of 1848; while on the other were those who supported the 1867 Compromise – and these, of course, included the Conservative and Clerical Parties. Such an alliance of opposites could only endure – like an ill-assorted marriage – by careful avoidance of all subjects which might, indeed certainly would, lead to quarrels and disagreement. Such subjects were legion and included almost every important issue of the day as well as the fraught questions of the demands for independence from Vienna of the banking and customs systems.
These last had once been part of the programme of the Independence Party alone. Now, however, such matters had had to be included in the election platforms of all parties officially subscribing to the Coalition, and this posed a severe problem for the supporters of the Compromise as to how to square such revolutionary ideas with their own conservative consciences. The real but concealed problem of these people was to prevent the realization of ideas foreign to their own without at the same time bringing about the demise of the Coalition itself.
If this was no easy task for the two conservative parties it was even more difficult for the radical 1848 men and especially for Ferenc Kossuth, their leader, for it was still the primary aim of them all to maintain the formula for co-operation which had brought about the much longed for parliamentary peace.
One of the reasons for this was that now that the Coalition had come to power it had become simple for party leaders to explain that the reason why various long-standing aspects of party policy had not been realized was that as all the parties were partners with each other, indeed fighting side by side, no one could now do anything to alienate their former opponents, not if they wished to remain in power. Everything that could be conceded must be conceded – and the public accepted the argument. And, not only that, but should the Coalition break up in confusion and disagreement, the majority Independence Party would inevitably be called upon to form a government and then it would find itself, in turn, obliged to return to all those hotly disputed policies that had for years been the basis of its party manifestos, but which had never had a chance of being realized while the party remained in opposition. To put forward such policies now would inevitably lead to a new election and this would have to be fought on the basis of a party programme in which even its leaders no longer had any belief.
All the same, the difficulties and considerations which prevented the achievement of any major reforms still left plenty of less controversial things to be decided. There were, for example, such parochial matters as trade permits, and the appointments of Prefects and District Commissioners which had somehow both to take into consideration the candidates’ professional qualifications and also be distributed fairly between the various parties of the Coalition. Apart from such less vital matters there was one great issue which could not be avoided; this was the matter of universal suffrage which had been promised by the Crown and which, once made law, would no doubt have an incisive effect on future elections. It was matters such as these which those ministers who were also party leaders had continually to discuss, still behind closed doors, balancing concessions with concessions, so that the needs of all three groups should be satisfied. All this took time and a great deal of trouble and thought, as well as endless precautions lest any details of these consultations should leak out before each matter was finally agreed. And, as every agreement left behind it a trail of hard-won concessions, it was hardly surprising that, as the party leaders were obliged to keep many of their activities a secret from the rank and file, the life of the political parties was in a state of stagnation. And the party leaders had no choice in the matter for if anything had been known of what was about to be conceded – even though it was, of course, merely a matter of party expediency – then such a storm would have broken over their heads that the Coalition would have been endangered.
Furthermore, it was not as if the individual parties were so very united themselves.
The Independence Party was split into two camps – one right of centre, one left – and these in their turn were divided into innumerable little splinter groups, each of which had its own leader. Three well-known politicians – all favourites of the public – Ferenc Kossuth, Albert Apponyi and Gyula Justh, became leaders at one time or another. Like determined punters on the racecourse who would select and bet on their own favourites, so these men juggled with their professional futures by guessing which political party would come out on top and to which therefore they should nail their colours.
There were so many groups that among them were now to be found some that were permanently in disagreement with the government – universal coalition though it was made out to be – and these were grouped round those demagogues whose loud-mouthed public utterances were most to their taste. In this way such radicals as Ugron, Barra, Hollo and Polonyi all had their day of glory; but in their cases it would last only briefly, for their followers were a fickle lot and by no means as sincerely loyal as were those, for example, of Kossuth or Apponyi. Their numbers varied too, according to the political weather-vane, so that the existence of only a few groups heralded calm weather while, like seagulls waiting on a beach, a plethora of little parties preceded a storm. A catchy slogan, a resounding speech or cunning little manoeuvre would have an immediate effect on the loyalties of many party members – and the mood of the Corridor would undergo a subtle sea-change. And it was these moods that ruled the country.
Parliament now seemed to be composed entirely of shifting political groups … and the Corridor.
The real corridor ran right round the Chamber its
elf. It was wide and grandiose and in it large sofas were placed about every ten paces. At the corners – for it ran straight along each of the four sides of the Chamber – there were plenty of little nooks and corners, especially near the entrance to the Press Gallery and where the great staircase began. In these discreet little corners it was possible to form little groups that sat at the feet of some party chieftain or other listening either to his teaching or maybe just to his doubts, sorrows and feelings of insecurity. On one side there was the drawing-room and this was even better arranged for secret plotting than was the corridor itself. Here, half hidden by the dark pillars, news could be whispered and messages received; and, when there were even darker secrets to be discussed, where better than the deserted Cupola Hall where the sofas all had such high backs that no one could see who was sitting in them? And everywhere the curtains that covered the doors were so thick that every sound was muffled. In such conditions it was no wonder that there were sown the seeds of great tempests, and since no one knew who were the sowers, these were the hardest to subdue.
The corridor had now become the only place where political life was at all active. To those accustomed to the usual cut and thrust of debate in the House itself, this new informal, unofficial, private method of bringing about legislation was both bewildering and disturbing. Now it seemed that all sense of responsibility had vanished to be replaced by the sort of irresponsibility normally only to be expected from the demagogues. Nearly everyone seemed infected by the insidious attraction of backroom intrigue and that spurious sense of power that made people join secret societies. Members of Parliament now only entered the House when some already decided measure had to be voted onto the Statute Book. Everyone met and talked in the corridor, for there one could indulge freely the dubious pleasure of saying whatever one liked about the great and important of the day. Indeed anyone could say anything about anything … or anybody…
And in fact it must be admitted that to stroll down the corridor when Parliament reassembled in September of the year 1908 was a real pleasure, a pleasure rarely to be found by attendance at the official debates. In the House itself business seemed largely to be confined to the reading by notaries of endless legal papers that were best condemned to eternal oblivion, and to the formalities of the opening session. Outside, on the other hand, one was free to choose and discuss whatever subjects one found most exciting.
And there was plenty to discuss: for example, the banking system. A week before Balint arrived Istvan Tisza had made a speech at Bihar roundly condemning the idea of a separate national banking system, reinforcing his argument with a forceful parade of economic fact and theory and a careful exposé of the inevitable effect of such an innovation upon the value of the national currency and the stability of interest rates. It was a good speech and Tisza backed his views with sound professional reasoning.
The public, always watchful where its own pocket was concerned, for once became interested, and took the matter seriously, as did some of the more thoughtful members of the Independence Party who, as a result of Tisza’s remarks, now began to question this aspect of their own party’s official policy. For these people it was perhaps an unexpected blessing that a counterbalance now presented itself in the form of a banker who was, there could be no doubt of it, a far greater expert on banking questions than the ex-Minister-President. This man, of course, was not a politician – he was no less than a real banker. And while Tisza had only been a mere ex-Minister-President – and an enemy of the Coalition to boot – the Corridor’s favourite new oracle was not only a professional banker but without doubt, they said, a far more patriotic Hungarian than Tisza himself.
The banker’s articles had a great effect on the Corridor and, as they were firmly in favour of an independent banking system, were warmly received by all who wanted to be seen as true patriots. Everywhere people praised the skill of his arguments and there were some who even announced with the air of those with inner knowledge that he was intimate with the Rothschilds and that, if one read between the lines, it was clear that he himself would be able to achieve what he wrote was so desirable and that he was offering his services to do just that for his country. What a wonderful fellow, said the Corridor, while whispering that, miracle of miracles, he also knew how to find the money to pay for such an innovation. Of course he had said that an independent national bank would have to raise interest rates but that would be no obstacle, oh, no! There were even some, Hollo’s unimportant little group principally, who went so far as to declare that if interest rates rose then the level of national borrowing would be reduced and soon vanish altogether. Naturally, for if interest rose then money would be cheaper! Why? Because all the middlemen would be destroyed. It was as simple as that!
This was a marvellous theory, which might not perhaps have held up if anyone had paused to ask who were the middlemen in the Austrian banking world, or even in that of Budapest. No one was prepared to hear a word against these comforting predictions, nor was the Corridor prepared to consider for a moment the suggestion put forward by the Andrassy Party and the People’s Party – who had always been opponents of an independent banking system – that it was the Rothschilds who were behind these articles because they realized that it was to their great financial empire that Hungary would have to turn to finance the establishment of a national bank, and so they would be able to grab for themselves the immense business such a development would entail. The Corridor’s view was that one should never listen to such unlikely rumours and anyhow what was wrong with making the Devil your partner if the country benefited?
The other great subject of discussion was the proposal for introducing general suffrage and everywhere it was rumoured that Andrassy was pushing the idea of a plural vote which meant that university graduates and other learned men would have two, or even three, votes each.
Rumour also had it that Andrassy, who was now considered by many people to be the Nigger in the Woodpile, was now busy redrawing the constituency boundaries so as to ensure that in districts where the ethnic minorities were in the majority, their vote would predominate just as the Hungarian vote would carry the day where Hungarians were in the majority. Who ever heard of such a thing, cried the chauvinists? Give a say to Romanians, Serbs and Slovaks in a Hungarian province? Make sure that in districts largely inhabited by such people a non-ethnic Hungarian would be able to win a seat? Merely to think such rubbish was unpatriotic! Of course there was always a simple way out – to reduce the numbers of members that represented the areas of mixed race and double those to be elected in such purely Hungarian districts as the Alfold – the Great Hungarian Plain – and the Dunantul. This was an especially attractive idea to the rank and file of the Independence Party since it was precisely where the Independence Party had its most loyal support. Such an arrangement, they whispered, would also ensure that whatever else happened their own party majority would be ensured for ever and ever.
Such an arrangement would also have the virtue, they cried, of rendering quite unnecessary the idea of the plural vote if Andrassy had planned this in the nation’s best interests; while if he had really intended it only as a privilege for university graduates then the idea should be thrown out at once as being a sinister attack on the Equality of Man!
This was what the Corridor, though in hushed tones, was saying about the proposals for reform of the voting laws and the introduction of universal suffrage; and the only significance of it was that people felt free to discuss the matter with such freedom
However, it happened there was at this time another issue of such importance that even the reform of voting rights took second place; this was the proposal to fuse the largest political parties – the Independence and Constitution Parties – with, perhaps, the inclusion also of the People’s Party. If this came about then only one effective party would exist and all political struggle would be for the benefit of that single party. And then it would be that single party which would enjoy the popularity of bringing in the reform
of the voting rights. In this case, of course, plurality might not be such a bad idea after all, and neither would be the redrawing of the constituencies. Great Heavens! they were saying, better not close the door on such ideas; perhaps after all it would be better to keep their options open?
Then an awful doubt would strike – supposing, just supposing, that universal suffrage was brought in by a different party? Then it would be that party which earned the public’s acclaim. If it were not the Independence Party but some other that was responsible for introducing universal suffrage? Then it would be that party which would pocket all the popularity and not they but Andrassy, perhaps, who would benefit. Oh, no! they cried, we’re not going to be that sort of fool!
And so the talk went on, rumour tempering rumour, and all that was certain was that somewhere, secretly, discussions about a marriage of the great parties were taking place. Even the views of the party leaders were not known for sure. Some said that Kossuth was in favour while Justh was not. No one was quite sure what Ugron’s view was; but nearly everyone was in agreement that Polonyi was hedging his bets by talking to all sides at once … even though this might bring him into disrepute with the government. Still, politics were politics …
These subjects were, after all, purely internal problems for the members of the Coalition. There were others, however – external problems that united rather than divided the Coalitionists. The most important of these was the sinister import of Count Tisza’s political activities. The former Minister-President was suspected of every wickedness; it was he, they said, who was behind every obstacle that might hinder the achievement of the Coalition’s programme. Tisza was the only man who was feared by everyone, and hatred of him formed such a bond between the diverse members of the Coalition that it at least had the effect of keeping the alliance in being. If once we are divided, they said, then the dreaded Tisza would get in again – and that would be worse than anything! This fear had kept them together from the start.
They Were Found Wanting (Writing on the Wall: The Transylvania Trilogy) Page 37