They Were Counted (92 page)

Their love was never mentioned in these letters; indeed they made only oblique allusion to it: Adrienne would end each letter with three letters instead of a signature: Y.E.M. And Abady would head his missives with the same cryptic initials. They stood for ‘Yellow-Eyed Monster’.

Each time that Balint reached this ending to Adrienne’s letters, he would think back to that day when they had walked up to the Hazsongard and he had angrily given her that name on
realizing
for the first time that for all her beauty she was not a real woman but only the incomplete image of one, infinitely desirable, but remote and hating the realities of love. How little progress he had made in his pursuit! Practically none, if their last day in the woods was any criterion. However perhaps it was better like that for who knew what might happen if he did become her lover? This was not something that could be a passing adventure, rather it would be a bondage for life. Perhaps, after all, it would be
better
to lose himself in work. He would pour his love into his writing and perhaps, possibly, if he could transform his feelings into words he would somehow manage to cauterize and burn out the yearning he felt to possess her body. As the weeks went by he
consoled
himself with these thoughts and became quieter, even, he fancied, free.

 

On 16th February a telegram arrived: ‘P
LEASE COME AT
 
ONCE. Y.E.M
.’ No more. What could have happened? It must have been serious. Perhaps Pali Uzdy, or the mother-in-law? Whatever it was, however dangerous or disastrous, Adrienne clearly thought that only he could help. He had to leave at once to go to her; he must.

The telegram had been delivered early in the morning before his mother was awake, so Balint had plenty of time to work out some untruth that his mother would accept. Only one thing seemed plausible. Parliament had unexpectedly been recalled for 19th February, in three days’ time, and though there was no need for him to go, his mother would certainly believe him if he told her that he had been asked to return. It would only be for a few days, or a week, and then he would come back to bring her home.

Countess Roza listened in silence when Balint said that he had to leave at once for Budapest. Though her eyes filled with tears she said nothing to hold him back. At last she said: ‘All right, I’ll wait for your return. I know a few people here now so I shall not be too lonely. They’ll keep me company until you come back.’

Balint left the same evening.

W
ICKWITZ HAD TO RETURN
to his regiment in the middle of October. He did not want to do so but it was forced upon him by a chain of unfortunate events. In August he received a
letter
from Tihamer Abonyi, Dinora’s husband, begging him to come back to Maros-Szilvas for a few weeks so as to get his horses ready for the races at Vasarhely and Szuk. Abonyi wrote that he had no faith in any other trainer. When Baron Egon told Mme Bogdan Lazar that he was going to accept this invitation she was not at all pleased, thinking that it was merely his excuse for going back to Dinora. Nitwit tried to convince her that she was being stupid as he really was going there only to train racehorses, but she wouldn’t believe him and threw him out.

That autumn the Miloths did not go either to Vasarhely or to Kolozsvar and this made it extremely difficult for Wickwitz to keep in touch with Judith. Occasionally he sent her a scribbled note – addressed naturally to Zoltan – just to make sure that the girl ‘stayed in form’; but as letter-writing bored him and he felt he was no good at it he soon realized that he’d better look for some girl near at hand in Brasso, or his affairs would never get settled. He had heard tell of the daughter of a textile millionaire, who was going to come out that winter, so he did everything he could to scrape acquaintance. It might well have worked, for the girl clearly liked him, but her family began to notice Wickwitz’s attentions and, as they had already decided that the girl should marry a cousin who had shares in the family firm, they took care to keep Baron Egon away from the house. This was serious,
because
Wickwitz had spent a lot of time in pursuing the girl, time that was now seen to have been wasted, and the date was not far off when Dinora’s promissory notes, which he had deposited with the banker at Nagy-Varad, would expire. The Privatbank Blau, as the money-lender so pretentiously styled himself, had recently been pressing for repayment and though, this had been done with a veneer of respect, Wickwitz was quite bright enough to detect the menace behind the polite phrases. Something had to be done very soon, for Wickwitz was haunted by two little words that seemed engraved in huge black letters in his brain:
‘Infam
kasssiert’
–
dishonourably discharged – cashiered’.

At the end of January Wickwitz was at his wits end and wrote a letter to Judith, who was now in Kolozsvar, which completely revived the girl’s now somewhat faded feelings for him. Adrienne had been right when she wrote to Balint that Judith seemed
calmer
and more at ease. This had come about because it was now some time since she had last seen the Austrian baron and, as her infatuation was largely based on the sacrifices that she would make to save that unhappy man, it needed the constant reminder of his presence to keep her love alive. Judith’s feeling for Egon Wickwitz was based on the belief that she alone could save that great but unfortunate man, who was the soul of honesty but in trouble through no fault of his own other than his helplessness when faced by the world’s duplicity. She it was who could keep him from eternal damnation, and so she loved him. Now,
however
, it seemed that for several months Wickwitz had no longer been threatened, and so the self-sacrificing element in Judith’s love had had nothing on which to feed. Without a battle to fight on his behalf her love had lost its heroic character. She remained true to him, but she was prepared to wait calmly for whatever the future might bring. This was how she felt; and so, deprived of the urgency and opposition that had made her so rebellious and determined, she had gradually learned once again how to laugh and joke and be merry.

In this new letter Wickwitz reverted to the trick that had been so successful when he first wooed her. Then the lie had been that he could have had Dodo Gyalakuthy if he had not fallen in love with Judith and felt it dishonourable to go on pursuing the
heiress
. Now he used the textile manufacturer’s daughter. He wrote that he had only begun that pursuit so as to free himself from his ‘obsession’ with Judith, an obsession that was not fair to her. But it was no good, there was no way he could rid himself of his deep love for her and therefore it was better that he should, must, kill himself and be done with it. He could not live without her and he could not bear to share his life with anyone else. In a few days his shame would be public knowledge, so that it was better that he should shoot himself now – it was the only solution. There was, of course, one other possibility, but he hardly dared mention it and wasn’t even sure he wanted it: it was that Judith should elope with him at once. However, he would never ask for such a
sacrifice
. He would rather choose death! For once it was a well-written letter, and it was written well because Wickwitz penned the words with very little hope and with real despair in his heart.

When Zoltan gave his sister Wickwitz’s letter she answered it at once, getting her brother to address the envelope and post it. She wrote:
‘
I
do
want
to
save
you.
Come
for
me.
From
here
it
will
be
easy
for
us
to
run
away
together.
’

Three days later Wickwitz’ reply arrived, full of humble
gratitude
… and a carefully worked out plan. ‘
We
will
go
to
Graz,
’
he wrote,
‘
and
there
we’ll
be
married
in
church.
No
civil
wedding
is
necessary
in
Austria!
’
His mother would find them a priest. In a few days he would get leave and come for her.

Margit Miloth, who was sharing a room with her sister on the nursery floor of the Uzdy villa, noticed a change in Judith when she received Wickwitz’s first letter. She said nothing and she asked no questions but merely watched and saw Judith’s attempts to conceal her agitation and her sudden increase of nervousness. She also saw Zoltan hand over the second letter and again watched her sister carefully and noted where Judith hid it when she went to bed. Later, when Judith was asleep she got up, took the letter quietly from its hiding place and hurried down the
servants
’ staircase and along the passage to Adrienne’s apartments. In her long white nightgown she flitted down the dark corridor like a benevolent ghost.

Adrienne was in bed, reading. Margit sat down beside her and together they read Baron Egon’s letter. The next day Adrienne sent the telegram to Balint to call him back from Portofino.

 

Abady arrived in Budapest the evening before Parliament was due to reassemble. He decided not to go on to Kolozsvar until the next afternoon so that he would be able to attend the morning
session
. He knew from the newspapers that he had bought on his
journey
that this time there would be no adjournment but that Parliament would almost at once be dissolved by royal decree. This was contrary to all law and custom for it was part of the
constitution
that Parliament could not be dissolved until the budget had first been passed. Balint saw the whole manoeuvre as a violent step which would widen the rift between the Crown and
Parliament
and could lead to open rebellion. Anxiously, he went straight to the Casino so as to hear the latest news. The great hall and all the public rooms were filled with a large crowd all talking
excitedly
, even though this new move had come as no surprise to the people in the capital for, just as it had been at the beginning of the crisis, everyone already thought they knew what the government was planning and what the coalition party’s answer would be.

As it had been a few months before, so it was now, and
everyone
in the Casino had their own ideas of what was going to
happen
on the following day. They wandered from group to group noisily broadcasting their views. The only thing upon which everyone agreed was that a period of dictatorial rule had started and would continue into the foreseeable future. What should be done? There were worried faces on all sides. Everyone had a
different
theory. No doubt, swore some of those arguing in the
Casino
, their leaders would come up with some clever, hitherto unthought-of solution, politically adroit and unassailable. As they waited for definite news the arguments raged. One idea, which made everyone laugh gleefully, was put forward by a
well-known
Budapest lawyer renowned for his wit; and this had at once been been headlined in the newspapers. It was beautiful, it was simple and it put everyone in a roar. Briefly it was that all Members of Parliament should at once resign their seats and all elected official resign their positions. Thus there would be no speaker, no officials of the house, not even a sergeant-at-arms to whom the royal decree would be handed.

‘What a tremendous joke that’d be!’ shouted Wuelffenstein. ‘Fancy General Nyiri running about in all directions, paper in hand, and no one there to give it to! Why, he couldn’t even call a meeting as the house-rules state you have to have forty members for that.’

‘Pity they hadn’t thought of this before. It’s a bit late now!’ said someone else.

So they waited and talked until word came from the party
leaders
: everyone was to be at the parliament building and in their seats by half-past nine at the latest. Nothing else; but it was enough.

In the morning all entrances to Parliament Square were blocked by police. No one could pass without showing his official papers. The square itself presented an alarming, sinister sight. Everywhere there were soldiers, national guards with their rifles stacked in neat pyramids, and Colonel Fabritius, their
commander
, standing in front of them. Right in the centre there was a squadron of hussars, mounted but at ease. Behind the police
cordons
waited groups of silent, grey-clad working men, not many but certainly a few hundred. More of them were collected farther back in Alkotmany Street, and a man in the crowd called out that the workers had been summoned by the government itself. There were a few newspaper men in the square and these cheered the better-known deputies as they arrived. All the elected members hurried inside, where they collected in groups whispering among themselves.

Bells sounded to announce that the House was in session and everyone went swiftly to his place. The official notary started reading something, gabbling in a low voice. Then Rakovszky, the vice-chairman, took the stand.

Rakovszky was heard in dead silence. He said that the session had been called to receive the King’s message. General Nyiri, the plenipotentiary Royal Commissioner, had announced that he would expect the people’s elected representatives to attend him at eleven o’clock at the royal palace, when he would read out the royal decree dissolving Parliament. Rakovszky now added his own remarks to the official statement, raising fine points of the legality of such a procedure. It seemed that the royal message was not to be handed to him by the Minister-President but by two army officers, and that it would be in a sealed envelope. Since, he said, it was customary for such documents to be presented to the House by the Minister-President, he advised that the Parliament should not accept the envelope but that it should be handed back at once to the appointed officers. This was the formula decided on by the party leaders at the previous evening’s meeting. It was a
revolutionary
decision because it would mean that, after all the fuss, nothing would have happened. It would be a fact that Parliament had been called into session … but dissolved? No one would have any knowledge of that, either officially or legally. Those unfamiliar with parliamentary procedure were somewhat bemused by this solution and it took a few moments for Rakovszky’s words to sink in. However, so strong was the feeling that they must act in strict accordance with the law, and that this only was important, that general approval was soon given to the proposal.

The chairman of the assembly now quickly suggested that the house should meet again two days later, on 21 February.
Everyone
knew that this would never happen, for the army had already been ordered to occupy the Parliament building and at that
moment
the soldiers were pouring into the ground floor and were
already
coming up the stairs that led to the chamber. This was disregarded, for everyone felt that they must stand on their own legal rights and proceed accordingly. At this point one of the
sergeants
-at-arms rushed in and shouted: ‘They’re coming! They’re already in the corridor!’