For some days he stayed in a hotel, drinking in the evening and going out to carouse the night away with the local gypsy girls. He seldom got up before the afternoon. One day Balint met him by chance in the street in Kolozsvar.
‘Why are you destroying yourself, keeping away from us all and drinking alone?’ asked Balint. ‘Come back with me now, to Denestornya!’ And though Gyeroffy, who nowadays seemed all too ready to take offence or pick a quarrel, merely grunted ungraciously and said: ‘Leave me alone, I can take care of myself!’ In fact he did as Balint had suggested.
Countess Roza was delighted to see her nephew once again. She loved to show people round Denestornya, to take them to see her horses and her gardens; and now, as Balint had told her of Laszlo’s sad and disappointed love for Klara, she made herself especially kind and indulgent to the nephew she had not seen for some time, going out of her way to be sure that he had everything he needed. She even ordered wine for dinner, which was by no means her custom.
Early one morning, when Laszlo had been there for some days, Gazsi Kadacsay (‘Crazy’), whose home was not far away, arrived at the castle. He was on his way to Brasso to rejoin his regiment and was travelling alone with three horses, one of which he rode while leading the other two. ‘Just like the wild Cossacks, my frrriends!’ he said, rolling his r’s proudly, ‘Like the Tarrrtarrrs!’ Although Gazsi’s two pack animals could have carried far heavier loads he travelled only with an old army sack containing a couple of ragged shirts, a crumpled civilian suit, a razor and a toothbrush, not only because he was totally unpretentious but also because he loved to shock people by dressing unconventionally. He arrived at Denestornya clad only in an officer’s tunic which lacked several buttons, stained khaki riding breeches, boots with tassels of gold braid and a red hussar’s cap.
After dinner was over Countess Roza stayed in the yellow drawing-room, which she always used as an office, to interview the lawyer Azbej; and the three young men retired to the library. This was a circular room in the tower above Balint’s own suite. All round the walls and even between the windows were fitted bookcases made of teak and fitted with doors of mirror-glass. These were full of all the volumes collected by generations of Abadys and, as they could not hold all the books, more cases had been built above them, also fitted with looking-glass doors. Above these, even more books were piled up, almost hiding the stone busts of the Seven Wise Men which had been placed there to look down on the baize-covered round table in the centre of the room.
While Baron Gazsi was looking into the bookcases, Laszlo and Balint sat at the centre table under the green-shaded hanging lamp. Their talk soon deteriorated into an argument, which began when Laszlo once again started grumbling about his treatment by his cousin Stanislo. His bitterness and resentment so overcame him that soon he was saying that there was nothing left for him but to sell up, move right away from Transylvania and leave all this misery behind him. What, he asked rhetorically, was there for him in that forgotten little province? He’d do better to go elsewhere, anywhere, where he could live his own life free of responsibilities anywhere, even abroad, where he could get right away from this trivial life.
Balint’s hackles rose. All that Laszlo said was directly contrary to everything that he had been brought up to believe was important. Balint lived by that creed of duty that had first been instilled in him by his boyhood talks with his grandfather and by his grandfather’s example, and later by his mother’s entreaties and the letters from her which had finally induced him to give up being a diplomat and return home to look after the Abady inheritance.
‘Go abroad! Never! That is something you really shouldn’t do. To desert your own country is unthinkable!’
‘Why not? What do I owe to this rotten society here?’
Balint jumped up angrily, the veins swelling on his forehead. ‘What would you be anywhere else? Nobody! Your name would mean nothing: you’d just be a number on a passport. How dare you waste your inheritance, dissipate everything that is yours by birth! You never made your own fortune. It’s not yours to throw away. You have a duty here, a duty to the community that raised you and gave you all these advantages!’
‘What should I do?’ said Laszlo scornfully. ‘Go into politics like you?’
‘All life is politics; and I don’t mean just party politics. It is politics when I keep order on the estates and run the family properties. It’s all politics. When we help the well-being of the people in the villages and in the mountains, when we try to promote culture, it’s still politics, I say, and you can’t run away from it!’
Baron Gazsi joined them at the table: ‘That’s interesting, what you’re saying, very interesting,’ said Gazsi, poking forward his woodpecker nose.
‘It is as I say. The only thing that gives us any moral right to the fortunes that we inherit is a sense of duty. Our parentage binds us to it and it’s an obligation that none of us can escape!’
Laszlo laughed offensively. ‘Well I don’t have the same Ahnenstolz — pride of race, as you, my friend!’
‘Why speak so scornfully of Ahnenstolz? What do you mean by the word? If you just take it as meaning that you can name your ancestors because they are recorded in the archives, and that those archives have been preserved, then you’re a fool. But when capacity is proved through several generations, is tested, refined and polished by experience, then don’t you think we have a right and a duty to use our capacities for the ends for which they have been developed? Fox-hounds are better at chasing a fox than pinchers and they’ve got better noses than a bulldogs! The Hungarian nobility has ruled their country, and served it, for centuries. They know their job, whether it’s in service to the community, to the provincial administration, to the church, or in government. And they serve freely — in honoris causa!’
‘What an unselfish lot!’ said Laszlo ironically.
‘Not at all. Nobody is unselfish. Nobody ever was. But they’ve learnt to recognize what is for the public good and to fit it to their own advantage, too. This insight has been bred into us; just as military discipline has been bred into the Prussian Junker, and commercial trading into the Jews and Armenians. It’s not by chance that until now almost every great national leader has sprung form this rank of society, for leaders must know how to lead. ‘Leadership is our responsibility and we should not lightly avoid it until such time as all our people develop some sense of social responsibility themselves, as our Saxons seem to have done.’
It was at this point that Balint noticed that his mother was in the room, standing near the door. She must have been there for some little time, for he could see from her smile that she had heard and approved everything he had just been saying.
Countess Roza came further into the room and went over to where Laszlo was sitting. She caressed his hair lightly with her chubby little hand.
‘I’d like to show you something, boys,’ she said, and she went with her little tripping walk back into the drawing-room to her writing desk. From it she took an old, frayed, yellow exercise book, which had obviously been much used. Bringing it back with her she sat down, placed it on the table under the light and started to read:
I know that I am placing a great burden on you when I command you to deal with everything personally. You must realize that our agents, and our tenants, see only what is to their own advantage or what is to yours. I expect more than this from you. The patriarchal relationship that has existed for centuries between the landowner and the people of this village did not end when the serfs were liberated. You must still take the lead, help people, take care of them, especially all those who are not as privileged as you in matters of fortune and education. Think of them as your children, the village people and the people who serve you in the house. You must be severe, but above all youmust be just and understanding. This is yourdutyin life …