‘It is like a giant scales,’ said Gazsi. ‘One side of the balance holds happiness, the other sorrow. And they are always there in equal measure, no matter if one side seems full and the other almost empty!’
Kadacsay was gesticulating with fingers that were stiff from so much riding. Some of the others tried to laugh, but Gazsi’s eye looked gravely at them with something of the fixity of a fanatic.
‘Well,’ someone said. ‘What happens if one side of the balance is completely empty, if all the weight is on the side of happiness?’
‘Then whoever it was would dance and sing all day and would soon be locked in the madhouse!’
‘And if it were all unhappiness?’
‘He’d shoot himself!’
As Gazsi had been talking old Rattle came back into the room. He listened with growing amazement. Now he said, ‘Do you think I’m not grieving for my beloved wife? Why, I think of nothing else, day and night! Where on earth did you read all this nonsense, my dear boy?’
‘Nowhere!’ said Gazsi. ‘What with the army and the horses I’ve hardly had time to open a book … unfortunately. I’ve lost a lot of time but I’m trying to make up for it now. I just hope it’s not too late.’
‘The Devil take all that reading, dear boy! I had a chum in Italy, such an ass, a real bookworm, never had his head out of some work by goodness knows what idiotic philosopher; he’d even read by the camp fire! I’ll tell you a story about him; it’s really very funny.’
He pulled up a chair facing Gazsi and, despite the united protests of his daughters, started off his tale with gusto.
‘Listen! This happened when we were in camp after the battle of Calatafimi. This chap was there with us and, for some reason, the kindling wouldn’t take. Now there wasn’t much wood to burn — and very little else — so I said why the hell do we need a fire anyway? And then I said …’
Abady looked at Kadacsay as he sat facing the old soldier. Sometimes he inclined his nose to the right and sometimes to the left but all the time, though he seemed to listen, a tiny smile lurked under his moustache, a bitter, slightly mocking smile, and his forehead was lined with a deep furrow which Balint had never seen before. It was now that he recalled that when Gazsi had stayed at Denestornya the year before he had asked for a volume of Schopenhauer from the library and he wondered what deep hunger for learning and self-knowledge possessed this man who everyone believed thought of nothing but horses and playing the fool.
Rattle never finished his tale, though not for want of talking. He went on and on, occasionally bursting into loud peals of laughter, until the guests started to get up and his daughters suggested that it was high time for everyone to be in bed and asleep.
‘All right, my dears, let’s go!’ the kind-hearted old man agreed at once. ‘Tomorrow I’ll tell you the rest. You’ll see, it’s absolutely priceless!’
As they went towards the guest-rooms Balint touched Gazsi on the shoulder saying, ‘What you said was very interesting,’
Gazsi shrugged off the compliment.
‘Oh, it’s nonsense really. Old Rattle was right,’ and he laughed awkwardly as if he were ashamed of having unwittingly revealed something of himself.
Chapter Three
AFTER THOSE FEW DAYS spent in the high grasslands, Balint returned to Denestornya. He only remained there a short time for he had to attend the Szekler congress which was due to open at the spa town of Homorod a week later. As he had already told his mother about this more than once his rapid departure did not cause any surprise, but it did not lessen her resentment even though he was not going to be away for long.
Relations between Balint and his mother had recently become increasingly strained. In vain Balint tried to explain what he had already achieved in the Kalotaszeg, both in the management of the Abady forests and in the new co-operative movement; but neither the fact that he had doubled their income from the forests nor the news that the experimental farm and smallholders’ club at Lelbanya were doing well, removed the frozen expression of disapproval from his mother’s face. From time to time she would ask him some question, but it was clear that she took little interest in his replies. No matter what subject Balint tried, all Roza Abady thought about was that wherever her son went it always brought him closer to that accursed Adrienne Miloth.
There was little that Countess Roza did not know about her son’s affairs, for Azbej had organized an efficient spy service to check on all his movements.
Old Nyiresy, who had managed the Abady forest holdings for many years, could not stomach the reforms that Balint had brought to what the old man had come to look upon as his own domain. Until quite recently Nyiresy had been omnipotent, smoking his pipe with the air of a squire and able to do whatever he liked. Now a young, and highly qualified, forest engineer had been appointed to supervise the running of the forests and Nyiresy could do nothing without consulting him. It was unbearable. And that was not all; the new man, on Balint’s instructions, had moved into the spacious Abady estate house at Beles, which for thirty years the old manager had come to think of as his own property. The man had been given two rooms, both of them formerly guest-rooms; and the loss of these, and of the room reserved for Count Abady himself, meant that Nyiresy had nowhere to put up a friend for the night. Beles was so remote that now he could only be visited by those two close friends who lived in the mountains close by — Gaszton Simo, the notary from Gyurkuca, and the manager of the nearby sawmills. No one could come from further afield as there was nowhere for them to sleep. He couldn’t even have an evening of cards, let alone throw those wild parties which had been such a solace in his lonely life. So he asked to be allowed to retire, and he asked also, in recognition of his long service, that he should be allowed to live in the Abady house at Banffy-Hunyad which until then had always been let. This was really asking too much, but Balint agreed because he was anxious that the old man should go and did not want any more ill-feeling to spoil his departure.
Accordingly Nyiresy had now been installed for some time at Banffy-Hunyad, where, as it was a market town, everyone for miles around gathered once a week to exchange news and gossip. And what could be more interesting than to chronicle the comings and goings of young Count Abady? Though he did not much relish writing letters the old man wrote a note to Azbej every time he heard something that sounded interesting.
That was one source of information; the other was the inn-keeper at Lelbanya, who was a distant cousin of Azbej and who, greedy and self-seeking, hated the farmers’ club that Balint had founded, for although it was true that no wine was served there it still took customers away from the inn. Furthermore the inn-keeper did not like the fact that their Member of Parliament came so often to the town and poked his nose into everything that went on there. To him Balint was nothing but a nuisance. The innkeeper was an even better informant than old Nyiresy, for Lelbanya was such a tiny place and there, up in the lonely prairie-lands, everybody was so bored that if there was any gossip they all, peasant, minor civil servant or shopkeeper, would always think it worth a two-hour walk to spread it around.
With these two informers beavering away Azbej was quickly kept up to date with everything that Balint did; and he saw to it, through the housekeepers Tothy and Baczo, that Countess Roza was also kept informed. Every day, after lunch and dinner, the two old women took their places at either end of the table in the drawing-room behind which Roza Abady sat to do her needlework. As always at this season all three were knitting warm clothes to be given to the village children at Christmas.