The Wickwitz affair came as a godsend to Aunt Lizinka, who promptly dropped the hopeless cause of the Tulip Drive for the infinitely more delectable task of stirring the cauldron of local scandal. She applied herself to this with tremendous energy, serving up daily to the old ladies who frequented the Sarmasaghy drawing-room new slices of scandal-cake, each more titillating than the last and new draughts of witches’ brew strong enough and shocking enough to go to anyone’s head. Lizinka made the very most of such a tasty affair and stirred up the biggest storm she could: a storm in a teacup it might be, but a tempest to those who lived in a teacup — and poor little Dinora drowned in it. It was not long before Aunt Lizinka had ferreted out all the facts, and everything she discovered she immediately broadcast using an assumed moral indignation to mask her enjoyment of such lurid and sordid details. She became a sort of dirt volcano whose daily eruptions splattered all within reach. Apart from the central figures, Wickwitz, Dinora and poor Tihamer Abonyi, there were plenty of others who suffered from Lizinka’s gossip factory. Jeno Laczok and his banker friend Baron Soma Weissfeld were given a good smear as it had been their establishment that had first accepted Dinora’s notes when presented by the Austrian baron: ‘What a disreputable action by a bank, my dears, downright shady I call it to accept such things’; Laszlo Gyeroffy: ‘my precious nephew, you know, the reckless gambler’; young Dodo Gyalakuthy, because Wickwitz had once pursued her; Baron Gazsi, because he was Wickwitz’s companion in arms; Abady: ‘Remember how he used to run after that little whore!’; and even Miklos Absolon, though all she could think up to say about him was: ‘I can’t say anything now, but you’ll all soon find out that that old liar is mixed up in it too!’ Everyone came in for their share of Lizinka’s brand of innuendo and self-righteous condemnation.
Abonyi, though much against his will for he owed his social position to his wife, found himself obliged by convention to sue for divorce and, when this was granted, retired sadly to his own property in the Vas district where he counted for nothing.
Poor little Dinora was socially ostracized and cut by everyone. She found herself with a mountain of debts, but she somehow managed to survive and remain cheerful, for being possessed of very little brain she never really understood what had happened to her.
In every great upheaval there is always someone who comes out a winner: and this time it was Kristof Azbej, Countess Roza Abady’s cunning little man of business.
A few days after the Wickwitz affair had set the town by the ears, Azbej received a telegram from Gyeroffy asking him tersely to come to see him at Kozard.
As Countess Roza was still at Portofino, Azbej was free to do as he wished. He replied that he would obey at once. At the station at Iklod a carriage was waiting for him which took him swiftly to Laszlo’s manor-house at Kozard. As he drove, Azbej had a careful look at the fields beside the road: they were loam-rich meadows which bordered the river. On arrival an unkempt old man led Azbej into the house. From a small entrance hall a staircase without a hand rail led to the low first-floor rooms under the sloping roof. The walls were only whitewashed for the Kozard manor-house had not been finished when Laszlo’s father had shot himself and the big reception rooms on the ground floor had not even been plastered for decoration. Laszlo had therefore installed himself upstairs, as his parents had before him. Here everything gave the impression of being temporary, even improvised, the furniture placed at random with no attempt at order or convenience. Laszlo’s bed, which stood in one corner of the long room, was unmade and the remains of the previous day’s meal were still on a tray together with a half-empty bottle of plum brandy.
When the little hedgehog-like attorney waddled into the room he found Laszlo pacing up and down impatiently. Laszlo stopped briefly to shake hands and then at once started again to walk up and down as he had done for several days.
‘Here I am…’ said the lawyer, and pushing aside a pile of clothes from the chair on which they had been thrown, he sat down without further ceremony, ‘…at your Lordship’s service.’
The young man did not answer at once but continued marching up and down the room. Then he stopped and said in a stern voice: ‘I need eighty-six thousand crowns … at once!’
‘Ah,’ said the attorney with a sigh, ‘that is a very large sum, a very large sum indeed!’
‘I know. I’ve tried every way I can think of but I can’t raise it. I don’t understand these things. That is why I sent for you.’
The fat little attorney closed his bulging, prune-shaped eyes.
‘How large is the estate?’ he asked, his lips hardly moving behind his untrimmed beard.
‘The cultivated part is eight hundred acres.’
‘Is it mortgaged?’
‘Yes. For sixty thousand.’
‘I see! I see!’ repeated Azbej, seemingly deep in thought. After a long pause he said: ‘When do you need the money?’
‘I’ve told you already. Now! At once!’ cried Gyeroffy. ‘I can’t wait. I can’t stand it any more!’
‘Excuse me. Please…’ said Azbej apologetically. ‘I don’t quite know … if your Lordship would permit me, perhaps I could just have a look round, and then … then maybe I could think up some solution to your Lordship’s problem.’ Bowing obsequiously, he backed out of the room.
In an hour he was back, still bowing as obsequiously as before. He sat down and now the words poured from him.
He was ready to help, he said. His only object, naturally, was to be of service for he was after all only a servant, a servant of the Count’s family and, as Count Gyeroffy was a member of the Noble Family he served, therefore, and only because of this and to please the noble Count, he would seek a way to make himself useful. Then he recounted all the difficulties there were in raising money, listing the various obstacles and delays there would be in trying to raise such a sum from the banks. Even though this might eventually produce results there were bound to be delays for all the necessary discussions, searches and legal formalities, not to speak of the expenses involved. Some other solution must be sought, either leasing the estate or pre-selling that year’s crops or a part of them. Yet even the whole would not raise the sum needed, and tenants were always reluctant to pay in advance even if an eager tenant could be found at such short notice. This was the sort of thing which could never be done in a hurry and anyway he would never recommend it for he had only his Lordship’s best interests at heart. No! That sort of solution could never be hurried, indeed he wouldn’t even consider it!
‘Well then, why are you telling me all this?’ asked Laszlo angrily.
For a few moments Azbej looked at him without expression, seemingly bewildered and helpless. Then, as if he had suddenly seen the light, he opened wide his eyes so that they protruded more than ever and cried: ‘I have it! I’ll do it myself, even though it’ll be a sacrifice! I’ll lease the whole property myself, come what may. I’ll pay you what you need!’
The very same day the contract was drawn up and signed and Azbej became Laszlo’s tenant, paying ten years’ rent in advance. As it was to be paid all at once it was only reasonable — was it not? — that he should set the rent at five crowns an acre. That made forty thousand crowns. For a further fifty thousand crowns or thereabouts he bought all the agricultural machinery, though, as God was his witness it was worth barely half that sum, but he did not care for his only desire was to be of help. The next day he handed Laszlo three savings-bank books from Kolozsvar worth eighty-seven thousand crowns in all and three new banknotes of a thousand crowns each.