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 usto 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.