During the spa’s high season this room was used as a general place of assembly and amusement. It was built of wood and the outer walls were mostly windows. At one end there was a platform where gypsy musicians would play every afternoon and evening and where visiting theatrical companies would erect their stage. The hall had now been filled with rows of chairs where the delegates took their places, automatically following the rules of social precedence so that the more prominent and important had the better places. Between them and the presidential table was a space where the various delegations could come forward to present their points of view. There were not many of these because, although the Szeklers were an enterprising and vigorous people always ripe for new experience, they were also essentially practical folk who were reluctant to leave their land just at the moment when their fields should be ploughed and winter sowing begun. As a result there were not many of them there. Those who did attend quickly retired to places at the back as soon as they had delivered their formal speeches of welcome, and from there they listened somewhat suspiciously to what all these lords and great folk had to say.
The largest group was that of the charcoal-burners, and this was because they felt they had serious grievances to be laid before the congress. There were some sixteen of them and instead of approaching the presidential table they went immediately to find places at the extreme back of the hall.
They were stern-faced, serious men who all seemed to look much alike, perhaps because of their unceasing work in the forest where, day and night, the success of their work depended on unrelenting attention to the fires. They were dressed in the same clothes; black in colour, with black boots, and their skin too was darkened from the wood-smoke that had stained their foreheads, faces and hands with indelible little black marks.
The charcoal-burners sat in silence, waiting while the formal speeches of welcome were made, and while all the other delegates were greeting each other, exchanging compliments and somewhat vaguely outlining a rosy future for everyone present. Then someone read out the agenda for the discussions, followed by an explanation of the Minister’s proposals.
Balint was sitting at one side of the hall studying the notes he had made of his proposal that the Szekler land inheritance should be by entail and not by general division of property. At one moment he looked up and saw to his surprise that one of the faces among the charcoal-burners was familiar to him; it was Andras Jopal, the young Transylvanian mathematician who had discovered how to make a flying machine at the same time as the Wright brothers and Santos-Dumont, but who had not had the means to present it to the world before they did. He had missed his chance not only from lack of money to complete the model and build the engine, but also because he was so suspicious of other people that he had refused help when he most needed it. Balint had come forward with an offer of aid but Jopal had rejected it angrily, believing that Balint merely wanted to steal his secret from him. It must surely be him, thought Balint, as he looked at that very individual face, broad shaven skull and domed forehead, and those small bright piercing eyes. But what was he doing here among the charcoal-burners, seated at the centre of their group, holding in his hand the paper on which their complaint was written and apparently being treated as their leader?
The debate started with discussions about the Minister’s proposals for the free distribution of breeding stock and the choice of which cattle would be most appropriate to the different types of farming land.
Although there was general approval of the overall idea an argument soon started between the government expert and some of the local authorities. Whereas Daranyi’s man proposed Simmenthal cattle, one local man stood out for Pinzgau stock and another for the established local breeds. Both were talking in vain because the Ministry of Agriculture’s men, having studied the situation, had already made up their minds what was best and were not going to change their view, especially as the experiment had already been made with success in northern Hungary. While reluctant to argue about a free gift the local men were determined to have their say, if only to prove that they knew what they were talking about. The same thing happened when they started to talk about stallions at stud, poultry and pigs. And when pigs came to be discussed a self-appointed ‘expert’ from the Szilagy district, which was far removed from any Szekler settlement, got up to champion the ‘Baris’ pig which was popular where he came from even though everyone else knew that you could feed it for five years without it ever getting fat. ‘The Baris has no equal!’ cried the man from Szilagy in the tones of a religious fanatic.
When all these discussions came to an end the Minister’s proposals were unanimously accepted. Everyone was delighted even those who had argued the most fiercely — for it was recognized that if Daranyi had initiated the programme then he would see it through; and also because it was well-known that the congress had been convened only for one purpose, which was that the public should know what was being done for the Szeklers. And, of course, there would always be those ready to declare that it was their personal participation at the congress that had had a decisive effect on what would have been done anyhow.
At the end of the morning session the meeting was adjourned for lunch. Abady waited until Jopal should come forward with his companions. Then he went up to him and said how glad he was to meet him again, though it was a surprise to see him with the charcoal-burners.
Jopal stopped. A faint smile lit up his smoke-grimed face. ‘But I am one of them,’ he said. ‘I’ve lived with them now for two years. I work with them. They are very nice people.’
‘Don’t you think it is a waste for a man like you, with your knowledge and skill, to bury yourself like this? Even if the basic problem of flying has been solved and others have got the credit, it’s still very primitive and there are many more problems to be solved. And flying isn’t the only field for a mathematician like yourself.’
‘It’s all foolishness,’ replied Jopal. ‘Vanity and foolishness. And to what purpose? There’s more satisfaction in hard physical work among good and simple people. Only that is really worthwhile. To live out of doors, in the forest, chop wood, cut trees, build the ovens … to learn how long the charcoal must smoulder inside, and when more air must be let in and when the fire extinguished. To watch over it, guard it, care for it … it needs a lot of care, and knowledge and strength. And it’s beautiful, too, to live naturally, to be free …’
How different Jopal had become, thought Balint, from the time they had last met on the crest of the Ludas hills a month or so after Santos-Dumont had flown for the first time. Then he had been so bitter, while today he radiated peace and serenity.
‘Come and have some food with me,’ suggested Balint. ‘I don’t at all mind missing the official feast.’
The inventor-turned-charcoal-burner shook his head. ‘Thank you, but I can’t leave my friends. I belong with them now.’ And he said goodbye and went off with the others who had been waiting for him a few yards away.
As Abady walked over to the restaurant he was thinking over what had happened to Jopal. How strange it was, the destiny of Hungarians! How many there were like Jopal, as full of talent as their greatest rivals in the world but who, once they had reached their goal, would give it all up as easily as it had been obtained. Such people would never fight for the recognition they deserved; it was as if they would soon lose all interest if everything didn’t go their way from the beginning, and that they had striven so far only to prove to themselves that they could do it if they wanted to, and not for worldly success. Several names at once occurred to him. There was Janos Bolyai, one of the outstanding men of his generation, who gave up everything at the age of twenty-one; Samu Teleki, who had explored so many hitherto unknown parts of Africa and discovered Lake Rudolf, but who never bothered himself to write about his travels; Miklos Absolon, who had been to Lhasa but who never spoke of his travels except obliquely and as humorous anecdotes. Then there was Pal Szinyei-Merse, the forerunner of the Impressionists, who gave up painting and did not touch his brushes for more than fifteen years; and, of course, Tamas Laczok, who earned fame in Algeria where he could have made history but who abandoned it all to return to Hungary and work on the railways as a simple engineer.