Later, when they met up again with Zutor, Balint sent old Zsukuczo on ahead while he and the head game-warden sat down on a fallen tree and discussed all the information that Zutor had collected about the notary Simo. Balint was now eager to pursue the matter, and they discussed how they could arrange matters so that Balint could meet those who had been oppressed without alerting the oppressor to what he was doing.
By now Balint had decided that he would stay up in the mountains for longer than he had originally planned. The calm, and the freedom from having to greet acquaintances and make small talk, would help him come to terms with his unhappiness and, perhaps even more important, if Adrienne by any chance should come to some sort of decision, it would be easy for her to send him a message if he remained so close to Almasko. Up here in the cold clear mountain air his tautly stretched nerves would relax and he decided that every day he would walk for miles hoping to tire himself out so that, after months of hopeless insomnia, perhaps he would also learn to sleep normally again.
On the way back to the little camp Balint and Zutor often stopped to listen, but they heard no more calls, maybe because the stag had changed his course, or perhaps the wind had changed and the murmur of the forest blanketed all sounds.
It was still barely nine o’clock when Balint got back to his tent.
He was just eating the bacon he had roasted over the little fire in front of his tent and reliving the happiness that the morning’s excursion had given him, when he heard the sound of a horseman arriving at the foresters’ cabin. A few moments later Winckler, the new forest manager, came down to see him.
He was not expected as Balint had understood he was out on the Beles part of the Abady forest holdings and had therefore made no attempt to contact him and arrange a meeting. His arrival here, thought Balint, must be just a happy chance, but when he looked up at his face he at once realized that Winckler had come up on purpose and that something very serious was the matter. The young engineer had a wounded and offended air about him and so Balint, after their formal greetings, at once said, ‘Something’s the matter! What has happened? What’s wrong?’
Winckler took off his pince-nez and rubbed each side of the bridge of his nose — which was a habit of his when angry or upset — and replied in a cold and haughty tone, ‘Wrong? Why? Nothing’s wrong! Nothing at all! A little unexpected, surprising perhaps. To me at least, for I can hardly suppose that your Lordship doesn’t know about it as I understand that it is he who gives the orders in these parts!’
He broke off, and then remained silent as if he were at a loss as to how to continue.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Balint. ‘What is all this? What are you talking about?’
Winckler drew a grey envelope from his inner pocket and handed it to Abady with an angry gesture.
‘I think you’d better read this,’ he muttered and turned away.
It was a letter signed by Azbej, and though it started merely by saying that Countess Roza had decided to cancel Winckler’s appointment as supervisor to the Abady forests, the next sentence had a second, and to Balint, sinister double meaning. Azbej wrote that from now until Winckler’s contract expired at the end of the year his reports should be sent directly to the countess’s estate office and it was from there that he would receive all further instructions. This was to be strictly carried out.
It was as if the world had suddenly grown dark.
So it was not only the engineer who had been dismissed but he himself as well. Though it had been he who had found and engaged Winckler, and though it was his efforts and devoted labour that had now put their forests in order and made them pay‚ he too was now forbidden those beloved mountains, just as he had been exiled from Denestornya. The engineer, a decent man who was doing a magnificent job, had to suffer so as to reinforce Balint’s own punishment; and the unscrupulous lawyer had stoked the flames of the old lady’s anger to still further discredit the influence of the son, whose zeal might one day expose Azbej’s own speculations.
For some time Balint could not utter a word. Then he gave the letter back.
‘Didn’t you read the last sentence?’ he said. ‘You surely don’t think this was my work? Don’t you see what it means?’
Winckler re-read the letter. Then, realizing its implications, he said, ‘I’m sorry! I was so angered by what it meant for me that I didn’t take it in. It was stupid of me. Please accept my apologies. This is quite different — not at all what I thought!’ The anger faded from his face, for though choleric by nature he was at heart a kind and understanding man. Then, in a rush, he went on, ‘I was hurt, you see, and especially as I assumed that it came from your Lordship who I had always thought appreciated my work. It was only that! Now I don’t mind so much. I can always find something else, though … I was hoping to get married, but that can wait a bit … that can wait, I suppose.’
Winckler, though he had little experience of the vagaries of human nature, had understood at once that the letter from Countess Abady’s agent was itself only a symptom of a greater and more dramatic upheaval. Since he could in no way question or comfort his former employer, he wanted somehow to show his sympathy, and the only way he knew was to cover his confusion with a flow of somewhat incoherent words. And again it was typical of him that he took off his pince-nez and started to polish them with his handkerchief.
That evening Balint left the mountains. Disgraced, and with his authority taken from him, he felt it impossible to remain.
What was his position? It was not even that of a tied estate-worker. How could he stay on where, until now, he had been the master on whom everything depended, where everything had been done by his orders, when he did not even know whether Azbej might not go so far as to forbid the estate foresters to supply him with pack-animals or to do anything else he might wish? There was also another reason why he should go away as quickly as possible. Soon it would become public knowledge that he no longer counted for anything in the mountains and he did not want his former dependants to start feeling sorry for him, especially as he knew how Gaszton Simo and his angry band of followers would gloat when they heard of Count Abady’s disgrace.
He struck camp at once and rode straight to Mereggyo where Winckler left him. Here they parted without anything further being said but with a warm handshake to express their mutual sympathy. Then he rumbled down to Banffy-Hunyad in a hired farm cart. It had been a lucky chance that he had left his car there and so could continue his journey by road, because he did not want to risk meeting anyone he knew at the station.
Night fell as he drove away from all those places he had loved so much. Now he could not see anything of that country to which he was bidding farewell, and as he drove swiftly through the dark all his attention was on the road illuminated by his headlights. The cold air was in his face and he told himself, ironically, that he was like a chicken hypnotized by the glare; and it was also with a certain tart irony that he was now able to look back on what the day had brought: at dawn, the royal stag in all his sovereignty; in the morning the arrival of the irate Winckler; and now it was he who was running as if pursued by the Fates.
Also, he thought, what luck that rascal Simo had! Just when Abady had acquired the power to ruin him and make him pay for his oppression of the mountain people and for his arrogant swagger, chance had intervened and saved him.