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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  The following morning the four seconds met again and now it was the turn of those representing Boros to open the discussion. Boros, it seemed, insisted on all his original demands and would only be satisfied if Count Abady were to declare publicly and in writing that he had not avoided him on purpose, that he held the lawyer in high esteem, and that he deeply regretted it if he had, even involuntarily, given Boros reason to feel offended.

  When Boros’s seconds finally finished what they had to say, old Absolon burst into mocking laughter. The others reacted with shock and one of them asked, in a slightly menacing tone, ‘May I ask you why you find this so amusing?’

  ‘That you will find out soon enough!’ answered the old man with a malicious smile. Then, more seriously, he went on, ‘I must tell you that our instructions are that what we have just proposed is as far as we will concede. Count Abady declares that he did not intend to give offence. Further than that we will not go.’

  ‘And that we will not accept.’

  Absolon’s smile now held no hint of humour or good will. Though his lips were drawn back to show a glint of white teeth, his expression was one of frightening malice. Speaking very slowly, he said, ‘All the same I would advise you to accept. I advise it very strongly. Mr Boros should be thankful to get off so lightly.’

  Boros’s seconds were taken by surprise. Puzzled they asked, ‘What? What do you mean?’

  Absolon leaned back in his chair. He laughed again, and now his voice held even more menace as he said, ‘I mean that we agreed to make you this offer only because of the quixotic and irrational goodwill of Count Abady, who has insisted that we do so. And now, speaking no longer as a second but as Miklos Absolon, I tell you that Mr Boros is no better than a common thief. This is the message I send to him. Kindly deliver it!’

  Boros’s seconds both jumped to their feet and challenged Absolon on the spot.

  ‘That I do accept!’ replied the old man, and lit a fresh cigar.

  Now the quarrel between Abady and Boros was relegated to history. Brief announcements were penned by both sides and duly appeared in the press in obscure little paragraphs that no one read.

  On the other hand the Absolon-Boros affair was the only matter anyone bothered to talk about. Agitated little groups gathered in the great corridor of the Parliament building, for everyone knew that Absolon was the long-standing leader of Tisza’s party in Maros-Torda. As a result this new affair was at once made into a political issue.

  Dr Boros’s popularity had previously suffered a severe setback when he sided with Kossuth against all those clamouring for an independent banking system. Despite this Justh’s supporters had always remained loyal, and to a man had stood to cheer him whenever he entered the House. Now many Members came over to make a point of shaking his hand and soon he became even more a favourite than before. Then newspapers of the Independence Party devoted prominent paragraphs to him, all portraying him as the nation’s great hero who had drawn his sword against the demons of evil and darkness. They wrote nothing about the offence of which Absolon had accused him, only of course because they did not know what it was. All they could say was that the insult was unforgivable. In no time at all there appeared a daily column giving an appreciation of Boros’s great qualities and reporting news about the forthcoming duel.

  The column appeared daily because Absolon’s seconds had demanded a Court of Honour and this meant the appointment of a suitable president, which itself entailed much wrangling and delay. When the court finally assembled old Absolon repeated his message to Boros. He was ordered to provide proof of his allegation. At once Absolon’s seconds, Count Alvinczy and Major Bogacsy – who had been hurriedly summoned to the capital – asked for an adjournment for eight days so as to have time to collect their evidence and bring the necessary documents from Transylvania.

  Balint found himself increasingly perturbed and distressed by the turn of events, all the more so since he had heard from Alvinczy that Absolon had lost his temper at the first hearing of the Court of Honour and declared that he himself did not have any documents. Balint’s dilemma now was that he could not decide whether or not he should ask Frankel for the dossier concerning the Eisler contract which the director of the timber company had said would always be available to him. He had no desire to get involved in this hornets’ nest which the original challenge from Boros had provoked. Besides which he was reluctant to be responsible for Boros’s downfall when he had promised Dinora to do him no harm.

  Would it not be better, he asked himself, to let the affair take its course without any interference by him? After all, he rationalized, Absolon had brought all this upon himself. He, Balint, had wanted none of it and indeed had really nothing to do with it!

  On the other hand, could he really stand aside and keep silent about what he knew to be true? Had he not already said before two witnesses why he would not himself shake hands with the lawyer? Even if he had not mentioned any names, neither Frankel’s nor anyone else’s, was it not true that he entirely agreed with what Absolon had said of Boros? Surely the old man had the right to feel that he could count on Balint not to let him down when he was risking his life because of what Balint had told him? And fight old Absolon would certainly have to do – probably under the most dangerous conditions – unless he could prove the truth of his accusations. And this he obviously would not be able to do without Balint’s help. He was hardly the type to start checking facts and figures. It was unthinkable, thought Balint, that by his silence he should allow the honourable old gentleman to get himself killed when right was on his side.

  After many hours of painful brooding Balint finally made up his mind: only if the worst came to the worst would he ask for Frankel’s dossier. This was because he did not want to cause any harm to Kossuth. With any luck that dossier would not be needed; and, maybe, some of all those papers now peacefully at rest in that study drawer at Denestornya would provide what was necessary. They could never have served as evidence in a court of law but there was sure to be enough to satisfy a Court of Honour. He resolved to go home at once and see what he could find.

  Before leaving he went to see Alvinczy, and afterwards Absolon, to tell them what he intended to do.

  The old Tartar was in a merry mood.

  ‘Well, my boy, it’s nice of you to take this matter to heart, though I don’t think there’s really any need for proof. It’s only that old ass Alvinczy who invented all this stupidity. Of course they’ll all believe me. When I say someone is a swine, then he is one! And if they won’t believe me then we’ll fight it out instead: it won’t be the first time I’ve put a shot in someone’s belly!’ Whereupon, with great relish, he embarked on a tale about how, some twenty years before, on the shore of the Tsertsen Lake, he had shot three robbers with a small revolver. ‘All three fell like rabbits, like rabbits, my boy. And these were real tough customers, not like your legal lick-spittle! This is nothing, my boy, nothing at all!’

  Balint left quickly.

  Although he had intended to spend only three days in Transylvania – one in Kolozsvar to see Adrienne, and two at home at Denestornya to collect the evidence he wanted – things turned out differently. Although it was already the end of March when Balint left to catch the night train to Budapest, the snow was falling as heavily as if it were January. In the darkness the carriage-driver hit a road-stone, one of the wheels was broken, and Balint missed the train.

  This was particularly provoking because he had promised Absolon’s seconds to be back on the fourth day. As yet it was not serious for the Court of Honour would not meet until three days later. So as to minimize the chance of any further mishaps on the road he travelled to Kolozsvar by the slow afternoon train the next day, and waited there for the Budapest express. He was now worried because, in the train from Denestornya, he had had time to look through the papers he had come for. None of them, on its own, amounted to much. It was only after reading the lot that a general picture began to emerge, and that picture amounted to
a most serious indictment of the lawyer’s honesty. He decided to show everything he had got to Alvinczy and Bogacsy and if they didn’t think they amounted to proof then, as a last resort, he could always turn to Frankel. His documents really were proof, decisive proof; but Balint decided he would only ask for them as a last resort.

  Then, if the Court of Honour declared against Boros without making public Balint’s and Absolon’s reasons, that would be for the best. Balint consoled himself with this thought, for then there would be no more political consequences.

  Dinora was happy. Boros had told her that he wouldn’t wait any longer for his furniture to arrive from Transylvania but would move immediately into his new flat, high up on the top floor above her; so he would always be close at hand.

  ‘This is wonderful,’ she cried, ‘but what about all your things?’

  ‘I’m fed up with waiting for them. I’m just going to bring over some of the nicer pieces from the Buda flat. I made the appointment with the movers this morning.’

  ‘I can help,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it very well. You’ll see! Oh, it will be fun!’

  Boros’s expression clouded over.

  ‘No, no! Not yet. It’ll all be heavy work now, and anyhow I know exactly how I want it. So I’m going to do it all myself … and I’m going to do it alone.’

  ‘What a perfectionist you are!’ laughed Dinora. ‘I never realized it before.’

  ‘When everything is finished you can come and see for yourself. And then you can give it a few finishing touches.’

  He put his arms round her and kissed her on the neck.

  This conversation took place on the day when the Court of Honour agreed to the eight days’ adjournment. The next morning the lift was continually rumbling up and down. Under the cage for the passengers was a compartment designed to carry goods. Most of what Boros brought came up in this lower compartment: only what would not fit in was brought up by hand.

  Half the workmen stayed down below, the other half worked at the top; and the work took all day. The first pieces to arrive were the largest. Boros devoted the whole day to the move. He had his bed placed exactly where he wanted it, then the wardrobes and chests of drawers. He fussed over his writing table to make sure it was in a good light, then drove everyone mad by shifting the bookcases another inch to the right. The sofa he placed just so, and then he supervised the work of the carpenter who had been summoned to repair any little damage the movers might have caused.

  When something really heavy had to be manhandled up then Boros himself would help the workmen, pulling his weight just like the rest of them.

  On the second day the carpets arrived, also two large gilt mirrors which he had recently bought and which required great care and skill in hanging. Also many smaller objects like lamps and vases and objets d’art. Finally only the chests and trunks were left. There were about ten of them; some filled with linen and clothes and three packed with documents. These needed fewer men, even though the document chests were heavy enough. Once at the top, however, he only needed the porter to help him unpack, so he paid off all the other workmen except two whom he instructed to remain at the bottom and come up only when the last trunk had been sent up, not before.

  It started getting dark and so the lights were switched on at each floor; only the staircase well remained dark. Boros looked down the lift shaft and realized that it was enough to make anyone feel giddy. All one could see were rows of banisters, one after the other, six floors of them seeming to get smaller the further down they were. The ground floor could hardly be seen from where he stood.

  Now the first load started to come up. It was the document chests, as Boros had ordered. The lift stopped with the passenger cage practically at the ceiling and the freight compartment on a level with the floor. Boros and the porter started to unload the chests, first the smallest, then the next and finally the largest, which was so heavy that they could hardly get it out of the lift. In the end they succeeded but only so far that the lift itself could descend but the shaft gates could not be closed. The porter wanted to pull it further away but Boros told him to leave it for the moment. He himself, he said, would try and in the meantime the porter could take the smallest chest into the back room of the flat. ‘Can you manage it on your own?’ he asked. ‘It must be about fifty kilos, I imagine!’

  ‘Of course I can. Leave it to me,’ said the man eagerly, grabbing the handles and, leaning backwards to keep his balance he staggered into the flat.

  Boros rang the bell and the lift started slowly to descend, making clicking noises as it passed each floor.

  The lawyer straightened up, his pale handsome face apparently as imperturbable as ever, the silvery electric light reflected on his smooth bald head.

  He took a small flask from his pocket, swallowed its contents and threw it away. Then he bent down, down towards the lift shaft, and, grabbing the trunk with all his force he pushed it over the yawning chasm before him and fell with it.

  Brave and manly, he had planned the ‘accident’ down to the last detail; and so died Dr Zsigmond Boros, lawyer and Member of Parliament.

  Balint only learned about Boros’s death on his return to the capital, and read the account of the funeral. First of all the Speaker announced the death in solemn and moving words. Then came the funeral itself. There was an enormous crowd in the procession to the cemetery. Everyone of any importance in the Coalition government was present – everyone, that is, except those ministers who were in Vienna bravely discussing the army concessions and the banking problems; and Kossuth, who was ill in bed.

  There was no lack of speeches made by members of the Independence Party, representatives of Boros’s constituency and even the Minister of Finance himself because Boros had once, very briefly, been an under-secretary there. Then the procession started which was to end at a special Tomb of Honour donated by the city fathers. Behind the coffin walked the widow and his two sons, the elder of whom had just started his legal studies.

  After the family came his political colleagues, including those who had opposed him on the banking question, for it was an unwritten law on such occasions that, particularly in view of the tragic manner of his death, everyone had to bend over backwards to bear witness to the solidarity of the party and to acknowledge its authority and power even in the wake of the funeral catafalque. These sentiments had been the principal theme of the pre-funeral speeches; and they were repeated again by the graveside to such effect that here was born the legend of Zsigmond Boros, heroic defender of the people’s liberties. Now he was compared to the ancient Hungarian champions of civil rights and even to the martyrs of Arad. That this noble man should so suddenly have been taken from them was accounted a catastrophe for the nation, and the tale that he met his death by an accidental fall down a lift shaft was believed by everyone who had no reason to think otherwise.

  Even so there were those who tried to make out that the impending duel was somehow symbolic of a wicked intrigue against this noble man – as if some evil plot had taken him unawares and somehow contrived his death before he could rise and smite those who traduced him. What a fate … and how unfair it was!

  All the speeches were so moving that there was hardly a dry eye among those present; and when the gypsy band started to play his favourite tune – ‘Once I too would drive the coaches of lovely women …’ there were loud sobs from the crowd, despite the fact that some of those women who knew all about his womanizing thought this reference verged on the indelicate. Few people noticed, but at this moment his widow seemed somehow to draw her skirts back from the graveside.

  The Coalition papers all printed fulsome accounts of the obsequies and obituary notices resounding with such words as ‘dauntless warrior in the cause of right’, ‘hero’, ‘champion’, and many other fine-sounding phrases.

  In the face of such competition an important speech made by the German chancellor von Bülow, which told the world of Germany’s solidarity with Austria over the Bosnian question, was pra
ctically ignored by the Hungarian papers. Nevertheless these days saw the death-throes of the annexation crisis, for the Serbian Prince George, who had headed the war-with-Austria party, gave up his right of succession to the crown of Serbia and, as a result, the government in Belgrade promised to be good boys and stay faithful friends of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy; and so Aehrenthal’s policy proved to have been right all the time.

  Abady was happy enough when he read the news from abroad; but he was still concerned about some of the more exaggerated aspects of Boros’s funeral and all the eulogies that had been spoken and written about him. It made him wonder if he should not still protest and yet, on more careful analysis, it seemed nothing had been said of any real importance – it was all pompous froth. All the same he decided to consult Alvinczy and be guided by what he thought Balint should do.

  From outside the door of Alvinczy’s room he could hear the noise of a heated argument. Inside he found four men – Alvinczy himself, Bogacsy, Absolon … and Tamas Laczok.

  Laczok had come to persuade Absolon and his seconds to make public a set of documents which he had just brought with him from Transylvania and which, having only now realized there would be no Court of Honour, he felt the others should see. He was furious because of all the rubbish he had read about Boros in the newspapers.

  ‘C’était un infâme coquin, tout comme mon cher frère – he was an infamous rascal, just like my dear brother,’ he shouted. ‘Why should we put up with all this ridiculous praise? We ought to show them all what nonsense it is.’