If Balint was not there one of the fat housekeepers would start off by sighing deeply. Then the other would ask why; and so, like a game of question and answer, with many ‘Indeed!’s and ‘Not possible!’s, and much nodding of heads and pregnant silences, they would relate the gossip they had heard. Not that they ever addressed the countess directly, their tales were directed only at each other. In this way Balint’s mother learned that her son had again been in the forests at Hunyad and that he had had a lodge erected there, a lodge that was — guess where? Just where the Abady holdings adjoined those of Count Uzdy. And where did the young master go? To Almasko, of course. And in the same way the drama of the watchman’s cow at Mezo-Varjas and Balint’s part in it, quickly reached Denestornya and was related with much drawing in of breath and self-righteous disapproval.
In this way Baczo and Tothy laboured hard to poison their employer’s love for her son; and it was no wonder that, however hard Balint worked to improve the family fortunes or whatever he achieved in the public interest, the old lady believed none of it and imagined that her son was making it all up just to cover his godless relationship with the hated Adrienne.
And so it was that when Balint announced that he would soon be leaving for Homorod, his mother fixed him with a glassy stare and said, ‘Surely the season’s over now, at the end of October?’ in a mocking tone which meant, in her roundabout way, that she supposed that Adrienne had gone there to take the waters, even though it was late autumn. Balint knew instinctively what his mother was thinking and so took pains to explain that Homorod had been chosen for the Szekler congress for the simple reason that as the spa was closed there would be plenty of rooms in the hotels — and even villas to let — and so all the two hundred or so delegates to the congress would be able to find a bed.
‘Strange place to choose, Homorod! Very unusual!’
‘Yes, it is unusual; but I believe that Samuel Barra wanted it. And, of course, there will be plenty of room, much better than in most country towns.’ And though it was obvious that his mother did not believe a word he said, he went on to outline the project he was going to present, hoping that he could convince her that it was true that he was going only for political reasons.
But Countess Roza merely looked in another direction and began to talk about something else.
The congress had been called to discuss a problem that was beginning to grow to alarming proportions. The districts inhabited by the Szekler people were becoming dangerously depopulated as a result of emigration. Daranyi, the new Minister-President, had proposed giving aid on an unprecedented scale so that the afflicted areas would be re-populated by the very people who were now seeking their fortunes abroad. Among the new proposals were free distribution of breeding stock, free technical advice on modern farming methods and the appointment of a special delegation drawn from the Szekler people themselves to help direct how this aid should be organized.
The plight of the Szeklers was indeed grave. They were a prolific people and their inheritance traditions exacted that each child should receive an equal portion of the family holding. As a result the Szekler small-holdings had been divided and subdivided into such tiny strips of often very poor land that even the thriftiest farmer could hardly glean from them a fraction of what was needed to feed a family. At first the Szeklers had tried to find a living working in the forests or on the railways, or even in small businesses; but wherever they went there was never enough work for their rapidly increasing numbers. Then they started to go to Romania, and now more and more were heading for America and there, save for a few, they stayed.
Istvan Bethlen, realizing that this growing emigration and the depopulation it left behind were a serious blot on the reputation of the Hungarian government as well as being damning proof of a careless economic policy, had encouraged successive agricultural ministers to take some measures to reverse the trend; but instead of searching for cures to the reasons why so many were leaving, all that the government had done so far was to organize the emigration. Though this was done so as to prevent exploitation of the poor emigrants the only real effect was to contribute to the evil itself. Daranyi was the first national leader to tackle the problem seriously.
The official delegates, together with Mihaly Koos, the lawyer who had been elected chairman of the Szekler representatives, took a slow train from Budapest to Kolozsvar. They could have travelled by the express but Samuel Barra, shrewd politician that he was, thought that it would be better to take a train that stopped at every station along the way so that delegates from country districts could join it anywhere on the route; and then they would all arrive at the same time. It had not escaped him, either, that slow trains always stood for some little time at each stop thereby giving time for the politicians to greet welcoming committees and make themselves better known.
By courtesy of the Hungarian State Railways a restaurant car had been attached to the train and so they all travelled in high good spirits. At one end of the car Barra held court, revelling in one more opportunity to argue with, and upbraid, his own supporters — and the more he insulted them the more they loved it; while at the other end the journalist-turned-politician Marot Kutenvary kept the Transylvanians in a roar with the latest Jewish anecdotes from the capital. Kutenvary had just managed to scrape into Parliament for some district in Gyergyo by making the most of his resemblance to Hungary’s great patriotic poet, Sandor Petofi, who had died on a Transylvanian battlefield, and so felt obliged to attend the Szekler congress. These two were the opposing poles of the restaurant car. Loud political discussions at one end, loud peals of laughter at the other.
Balint joined the train at Aranyos-Gyeres. Seeing that although most of the compartments had been taken very few passengers were actually in their seats, he walked down the corridor hoping to find some interesting company. In one compartment he saw Mihaly Koos and his two secretaries with Istvan Bethlen, but as he presumed they were discussing the organization of the congress and had covered the seats of their compartment with papers, it did not seem the moment to join them.
Instead he too went to the restaurant car.
When Balint first came in the two groups, the serious and the jovial, were still fairly evenly balanced, with as many men surrounding Kutenvary as were grouped round the great Barra. This was all changed after the train had stopped at Kocsard, for all the newcomers at once joined the Barra group. Among them were Zsigmond Boros, old Bartokfay, Bela Varju, Jeno Laczok and the banking baron, Soma Weissfeld. Laczok was attending as a great landowner in Szekler country and Weissfeld because, as a director of the bank at Vasarhely and chairman of the company which exploited the Laczok forestry holdings, he was one of the principal employers of the Szekler people.
The newcomers were all in gala dress: Bela Varju in a brand new black traditional outfit and Bartokfay in a short mulberry-coloured spencer-like jacket covered in braid and embroidery, and tight trousers. More magnificent than either, however, was Soma Weissfeld who had put on the traditional Hungarian costume that he had had made a few years before when there had been rumours of imperial manoeuvres on the banks of the Maros. Though the King never came the costume remained and so, ever since, the banker had seized any opportunity to wear it. Made by Grünbaum and Weiner in Budapest, the outfit had cost a great deal of money and was in the most exaggerated old Hungarian style. The dolman was of snow-white silk, the trousers deep carmine and the boots of yellow morocco leather. The bright blue cape with its wide ‘Zrinyi’ collar was trimmed with rabbit fur dyed to look like marten; and the whole was richly decorated with clasps and buckles all large as pigeon eggs and made of gilded copper. To top it all he wore a gold-plated sword. III-natured gossip said that the banker looked like a cross between a chimpanzee and a cockatoo, but the man himself was quite satisfied with the vision he saw in the looking-glass. That the pince-nez clipped to his nose were not entirely in the manly Hungarian tradition was unfortunate; but the banking baron could hardly tuck them away in a pocket for without them he could see nothing.