On his desk was a registered letter from Vienna. The envelope bore the elegant gold circle emblem of the foreign ministry. It was from Slawata, now head of his department. It was dated August 4th and informed Abady that Slawata had arranged for him to be seconded to the General Staff as liaison officer for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was asked to go at once to Vienna where his duties would be explained to him.
Balint was sure that Slawata had done this out of goodwill for an old friend thinking that he could thereby save him from service in the front line. It also showed that Slawata at least was happy about the way things were going, because he went on to take Balint into his confidence, telling him ‘Berchtold hat die Sache brilliant gemacht – Berchtold has managed everything brilliantly,’ and he went on to explain exactly where this brilliance lay. He had purposely, wrote Slawata, not shown the text of the ultimatum to Austria’s allies; neither to Berlin lest they should pass it on to Rome, nor to Rome since they would have shown it at once to London and Paris! Even if it had got no further than Vienna there would have been cabinet meetings and discussions and the wording would have been changed and toned down. They would have ruled out the demand for compensation which would ensure ‘Die endgültige Abrechnung – the final reckoning…’ In this way Berchtold had so arranged it all that no one could stop him.
Italy, of course, went on Slawata, had already abandoned her former friends, but then Austria had not taken her into account for several years past; but the German foreign minister, Bethman-Hollweg, good fellow that he was, had swallowed it all without a word! ‘Wir haben den Kerl überrumpelt! – we caught the fellow unawares!’
Balint was horrified by the casual tone of everything Slawata wrote. He supposed that it was possible that this was not exactly what he thought but that, as a career diplomat, he was merely applauding the adroitness with which Berchtold had out-manoeuvred his allies.
Later on another sentence struck him. ‘Conrad war auch famos – Conrad, too, was splendid!’ for it was he who had broken down the opposition of the Emperor himself. What had happened was that Conrad, as Chief of the Austrian general staff, had told Franz-Josef that the Serbs had already forced the crossing of the Sava river. It had not been true, but it had been the only way to get the monarch’s signature.
Balint read this letter sitting at his grandfather’s desk in Count Peter’s old manor.
He was overcome with anger and the deepest sorrow. So between them Berchtold and Conrad had forced the country into war! And they had chosen this moment to do so! Balint could not conceive how they could have shouldered such an awful responsibility, even if one admitted that sooner or later war would have been inevitable.
As for Russia, she had been preparing for war for a long time and so, even if hostilities did not start at once, they were inevitable in the next year or so. The great show-down could not be postponed more than three years at most; but to provoke it now, when the Dual Monarchy was at a severe disadvantage, seemed to Balint to be sheer folly. Surely it would have been better to wait, for the situation was so fluid that things might well have improved. It was always possible that Russian and English interests in Asia might conflict; while, in Africa, English, French and Italian aims could well be so opposed that any alliance between those nations would be gravely threatened. There were sinister stirrings in Ireland that might pre-occupy the British. Given time anything could occur to diminish the encircling threat to Germany and Austria.
But they had chosen this moment when everyone was their enemy!
Balint sat for a long time before the window. Then he sat up and shook himself. He had not come there to waste time in gloomy thoughts but to put his affairs in order before he had to leave.
He picked up a telegram-form, addressed it to Slawata, and wrote:
‘DANK. KANN UNMOGLIGH KOMMEN. HABE MICH BEI REGIMENT GEMELDET – THANK YOU. UNABLE TO COME NOW. AM RECALLED TO MY REGIMENT.’
He had joined the Vilos hussars and was expected at regimental headquarters for posting to the front. Of course he could save his skin by accepting some important job on the general staff, but why should he worry about his own life? After all it wasn’t worth anything any more – a bullet would be better …
This thought was uppermost in his mind as he started to work with Ganyi. Together they went over all the files and arranged matters so that the Co-operatives could carry on despite their absence. He decided to burn all his private papers, and sent word up to the castle to light a fire in the tower room for this purpose.
Ganyi took his leave, and Balint was about to follow him out when he again started thinking about what the war might bring. Unlike everyone else he was convinced that it would last for a long time and that it was bound to be lost. He had not said this to anyone because he did not want to undermine their warlike enthusiasm, but he had thought this from the very beginning. It was possible that the Russians might well get as far as Denestornya, and, if they did, then everything would be destroyed and he would be far away if he were not already dead.
His eyes now fell on his grandfather’s desk, and he thought that he really should open it and know what was in it before an invading enemy hacked it to pieces. What sacrilege, thought Balint, that this simple old piece of furniture which held so many memories of his childhood might be thoughtlessly destroyed. He felt for the key and fitted it into the lock. Then the unexpected happened. The key turned easily and the lock clicked. This had never happened when he had tried it before, but perhaps now he had unknowingly been more adroit. He pulled the drawer out and looked inside. A strange old scent assailed him, a scent made up of tobacco in an old wooden box, and sealing-wax long turned to resin.
Then he took up the other keys and opened the side drawers. There he found all sorts of little mementos – a golden amber mouthpiece for a pipe, a fine whetstone that Peter Abady must have brought from England, a green leather case with six handsome razors, one for each day of the week; and a little wreath carved from lime-wood which Balint remembered his father showing him and explaining that it was the work of Ferenc Deak himself who had given it to him many years before. Its history was engraved on the base.
There were so many things, now of no possible use.
In the left-hand drawer he found the pair of satin slippers that he also recalled having seen when he was a boy. They were heelless and the soles were paper-thin. Narrow ribbons were attached to them and they were so small that their owner must have had feet as delicate as wafers. Now, as Balint picked them up, he fancied he saw his grandfather turning them over, showing him the wear on the soles, smiling, and saying ‘Look! See how much that little charmer danced!’
Under the shoes was a thick envelope, quite small, only about three inches wide, wrapped in yellowing paper, tied with string and sealed at every flap with black wax. On it was written ‘To be burned after my death,’ Above the words was a cross and the date: 1837. The writing was Count Peter’s.
They must be letters, a woman’s letters, for their edges could be felt through the paper covering. Inside could be felt something else, which seemed to be a little oval frame with a glass front. Balint felt sure it must be the miniature of the letter-writer. Now he recalled what his grandfather’s old school-friend, the actor Minya Gal, had told him. Though it had been ten years before, he remembered it well. In guarded terms the old man had told the story of Peter Abady’s first love, of a tragic passion that had been shattered by an enforced parting, and how after it his grandfather went off on his travels and no one had heard from him for nearly three years.
It had been an ancient romance whose relics were imprisoned in that carefully fastened envelope, and one that had no doubt ended in a death, which was perhaps what the cross had signified.
It was lucky that he had managed at last to open the drawer for now Balint would be able to ensure that the old count’s long-kept secret could be kept from the prying eyes of strangers. He would see to it that his grandfather’s wish was respected. Putting the slippers i
n his pocket he gathered up the packet of letters and the few documents of his own that he wanted to destroy and made his way up to the castle.
He decided to wait until the evening when the fire would be burning well.
The windows were open and outside it was dark. Balint’s lamp was set down far from the draught and where he sat all light seemed to come from the fire.
First Balint threw all his own writings into the flames and, when these were blazing up, he threw on top the slippers and his grandfather’s envelope, which did not seem to want to catch fire but only just smouldered at the edges. Taking up the poker he tried to push a hole in the envelope so that air would get in. The flames caught, ran along the string and the envelope opened of itself. A tiny coloured miniature slipped out and fell into the embers below. The glass shattered, the metal frame curled up in the heat and in the few seconds before it was consumed by fire he could see the face of a charming young woman who seemed to be smiling up at him.
Balint sat by the fireplace for a long time. He waited until everything had been reduced to ashes, until there was no trace left of the throbbing of two young hearts almost a century before nor of their secret love and hidden tragedy. The likeness of his grandfather still hung on the wall of the small sitting-room – an early Barabas in an Empire frame – but that of the other had just been burnt and it had smiled at him before crumbling to ashes.
The next morning he woke early; it was the last morning he would spend in his ancestral home for a long time, perhaps for ever.
He went to say goodbye to his favourite animals, firstly to the horses out at grass in the hillside pastures, then to the young stallions and then to the mares in their separate paddocks in the park. To each he gave some sugar as a token of his farewell and became very moved by the affection of his old hunters, and especially when Honeydew, Gazsi Kadacsay’s thoroughbred, came up and rubbed his face with her soft velvety muzzle.
He made the round of the gardens and then walked up to the summerhouse on the hill above the castle. From there he toured the kitchen gardens and the orchards.
Finally he returned to the house and went into almost every room in that vast building, including his mother’s apartments, which had been left unchanged since her death. Everywhere he went, he stopped in front of all of the treasures of art and ancient pieces of furniture, and, above all, stared hard at the many family portraits. In the billiard-room were hung great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers in their wigs and powdered hair, great-grandmothers holding tiny bunches of flowers or a little mirror in their delicate tapering fingers. There were also many of more distant relations, young and old, and some of children, boys little more than toddlers, clad in silken skirts but already sporting Hungarian fur hats.
He went the round of the mirror-fronted bookcases in the library and locked up two of them that had been left open so that the magic circle of looking-glass in that round tower room should remain unbroken.
From the billiard-room he passed into the great first-floor dining hall. Through five of the tall windows the sun shone blindingly bright on the polished wooden floor and glinted on the gilded surface of the showcases and the ormolu feet of the Chinese lacquer cabinets that stood by the walls. The contrasting shadows in the ceiling threw the baroque carved plaster into high relief. Balint stopped in front of one of the pair of copper samovars that stood on the wide serving tables and caressed it lovingly. Then he gently stroked the little white porcelain figure of one of his great-great-uncles in Hungarian gala dress. He looked into the showcases with their heterogeneous collection of many little objects, greeted the china pug and the dancing girl, and then went on through the blue salon to the yellow drawing-room; and everywhere he went he murmured a soft farewell, to the four famille verte K’ang Hsi plates that had been set in gilded bronze in the seventeenth century, to the clusters of glass grapes in the early Murano chandeliers, to the sets of Delft vases and above all to the full-size portrait of Denes Abady, painted by Mytens in the green and gold uniform of the King’s Master of Horse; and then to those of his immediate forebears, his father and mother and grandmother, that gazed at him from every wall.
And all the time he said goodbye to many childhood memories. It was on the sharp corner of this table that he had banged his head when only five years old and he had stood just there when his mother had swiftly pressed a silver coin to his forehead. It was on the corner of that carpet that he had tripped, upset the lamp and nearly caused a fire. Here, in this armchair, his grandfather had always sat, with crossed legs, when he came to lunch at the castle every Wednesday. Balint had sat on the floor at his feet and played with his tin soldiers, and from there he had first noticed that Count Peter wore soft half-boots under his trousers and how amazed he had been by the sight, not then knowing that it had been the fashion until the first half of the nineteenth century.
He opened a door at the far end of the room. It led to a small staircase and, beyond this, to the wing that he had started to modernize in the spring. The work had been well under way until he had had it stopped by telegram from Salzburg. He stopped there, feeling he could not bear ever again to see those rooms where he would have lived with Adrienne, to gaze upon anything associated with those dreams of happiness, the spacious bedroom, the day and night nurseries for those heirs of his body that would now never be born.
Resolutely, but with a sombre air, he turned and walked quickly away, back through the drawing-rooms and the dining-hall. Then he descended the wide stone stairs, with their rococo stucco ceiling and ancient faded Gobelins tapestries. It was a stairway fit for kings.
He went down very slowly, keeping very carefully to the very centre of the carpet; step after step, solemnly and slowly until he arrived in the dark gloom of the entrance hall, stone-faced, like a man entering his own tomb.
Early in the afternoon Balint’s car drove the full circle of the horseshoe-shaped entrance court with its enclosing walls topped by baroque stone statues, and rumbled swiftly through the arched gateway.
He was driven so fast that in ten minutes they had reached the main road, but there they had to slow down, for the highway was crowded with people from Torda and wagons loaded with bales of hay. They too were on their way to the railway station at Aranyos-Gyeres.
From time to time the throng was so thick that the car had to be stopped. Everyone on the road was a reservist who had been called to the colours. They were mostly in groups of between fifty and sixty men, but sometimes they were much larger, perhaps of more than a hundred. They marched in military fashion, four to a row, and on each side of the road stood women and girls crying as they waited to see their menfolk, husbands, sons and lovers, on their way to the station. Among them were some old men looking for the last time at their grandsons. Some of the young men carried bundles or trunks, others had piled their luggage on little one-horse carts.
At the head of each group there marched gypsy bands and men carrying banners. Some of the newly mobilized soldiers carried flasks of country brandy, others danced gaily in front of the bands singing as they went. But no one had drunk too much, and indeed most of the men had a dignified, serious mien, soberly doing with good-natured calm what they knew to be expected of them.
Balint had put on his uniform, and every time he passed one of these groups they would break out into enthusiastic cheering.
‘Hurrah for the war!’ they cried. ‘Hurrah for the war!’
Some of them recognized him, and then they called out: ‘Hurrah for Abady!’ and again ‘Hurrah for the war!’ They all felt full of courage, and were gay and confident: only the women sobbed quietly and dabbed at their eyes.
Balint saluted every band, his heart constricting with pain each time he did so; but he could only acknowledge their greetings and be touched by their simple confidence. He could not echo their cheers, but sat upright with his hand to his cap as he drove past group after group.
It was difficult to get through Torda, for there was an immense crowd in the marke
t-place selecting mountain ponies – pretty little animals, mostly dapple-greys with tiny hard hooves, hardy and willing, crossed with Arab blood. They were needed to draw the machine guns and man the mountain batteries on the Bosnian front. What marvellous animals, thought Balint, and not one will return. They’ll all perish, every one.
When he finally got through the town the sun was already low in the sky.
The car raced up to the Dobodo Pass. Here they had to stop again for at the junction with the main road there came all the people from Torda-Turia and Szentmarton, with banners and music like the others. Now there were many more women as well as old people and children, who Balint thought had probably come because they knew they could have a rest at Torda before finally saying goodbye to their men.
Balint got out and sat at the edge of the road looking down the valley of the Aranyos river. It was bathed in sunshine and when he took up his binoculars he found he could even see the bend of the Maros far away. There he could just glimpse a small stand of pine trees, dark indigo-blue in the pale-blue distance.
It was the garden at Maros-Szilvas, which had once been the property of Dinora Malhuysen. As a very young man he had often ridden over to visit her, usually at night. What a long time ago it had been – almost twenty years! He wondered what had become of her, what Fate had held in store for poor little Dinora?
To his right, beyond the shining ribbon of the Aranyos, on the edge of the Keresztes-Mezo lowlands, lay Denestornya.
The hill on which the castle stood was covered with trees and shrubs. Here and there could be seen parts of the long walls and something seemed to be glistening in the reflected sunshine. Balint wondered if it was part of the western facade, perhaps the glazing on the upper veranda, but he could not be sure and even thought that it might be only his imagination. The green patina of the conical copper roofs of the corner towers was plain to see, and these, no matter from what distance they could be glimpsed, gave a clear impression of the size of the vast building. It was like a great stone peninsula jutting out from the wave-crests of the surrounding trees. The long walls spread out in beauty, and the thin white strip to the right formed by the enclosure of the horseshoe court, and the little rectangle of the church half hidden among the confused roofs of the village seemed strangely small between the massive proportions of the castle and of his grandfather’s manor house nearby.
They Were Divided Page 42