Laszlo did not reply.
‘Look, my dear fellow, if you really have to part with family things it’s absurd to give them away for practically nothing to the village store. My mother and I would be only too pleased to have a valuation made and give you the proper price. Far better than let it go to waste!’
Laszlo screamed at him, ‘Leave me alone, all of you! I don’t need telling how to run my life. If I want to go to hell, I’ll go to hell. And I’ll sell what I please to whom I please and when I want to. As for you, you can stop sticking your nose into other people’s business!’
Now it was Abady’s turn to get angry. He turned away and left the room without saying another word.
Laszlo followed him out slowly. Only now did he realize how offensive he had been to the only man who had been a faithful friend to him as long as he could remember. He wanted somehow to make amends, but was not quite sure how. By the time Laszlo reached the head of the stairs his cousin had almost reached the bottom, so he called out, ‘My love to Aunt Roza! As soon as I get some money I’ll come over to pay my respects. Do forgive me, Balint, please. I’ve become such an ill-tempered bear these days,’ and he turned and went back to his room. Despite the implied olive branch he still could not resist the temptation to slam the door behind him.
Chapter Two
WEEKS WENT BY and it was the end of March before Balint was able to get back home to Kolozsvar. Parliament had now been adjourned after a winter session made monotonous by a series of futile verbal battles, mostly about the proposed new House Rules. The only serious piece of legislation to receive the assent of the House was the motion concerning land reform in Transylvania. This was the first tangible result of the Szekler congress at Homorod. It was only a modest beginning to what Balint was anxious to bring about, but at least it was a first step. The rest of the debates were given over to meaningless obstructive measures put forward by those who wished to embarrass the government; or resentful echoes of matters the Hungarian representatives had discussed in Vienna, particularly a proposition made there by the Hungarian Minister of Defence concerning army officers’ pay.
There seemed to be some connection, though no one was quite sure what, between these events and the reappearance on the political scene of Kristoffy. At the beginning of March his banner arose again when he presided over a political meeting called to announce the formation of a new so-called ‘Radical’ party. Since his resignation from office Kristoffy had been in close touch with the Heir and the party which surrounded him. When he had been a Minister he had, of course, been a faithful servant of the old King, but now he had transferred his allegiance.
The Radical party itself existed only on paper. It was a sort of slogan to be brandished only by those few university professors, do-gooding intellectuals and the recently-formed Galileo Circle made up of cranky university students who described themselves as ‘citizens of the world’ or ‘superopeans’. The group was of thoroughly bourgeois character and as it included neither socialists nor anyone of the working class, it was not taken seriously by the general public, particularly as Kristoffy, as a former member of the unpopular Bodyguard government, was generally thought of as politically tainted. Nevertheless, though of course it was not then realized, it was from these sources that flowed the current that, ten years later, would lead to revolution. Neither, of course, was it then known that Kristoffy had sold his soul to the Belvedere Palace.
For Balint these weeks passed slowly. He went to meetings, to sessions of Parliament, to dinners and evening parties, but he felt his life to be meaningless and empty. He tried to take up once again the half-philosophical, half-doctrinal treatise that he had started to write under the spur of his love for Adrienne but which he had dropped when it seemed that this love was doomed never to be fulfilled. Then it had been a song of love, for Addy had not yet been his and his yearning for her had inspired every line.
Now that he had not seen her for several months his desire for her had in some way been strengthened and he determined not to put off any longer serious plans for their future life together.
While they had been able to meet frequently this thought had not been so compelling. Even when they had had to take extra care in planning their secret meetings — and days had often gone by without any opportunity of seeing each other — the intervals of separation had never been prolonged and this gave them both the feeling of belonging to each other, almost indeed of their living together with his absences caused only by his work. The previous spring, summer and autumn had passed in this manner. Balint had often had to absent himself for political reasons, for his work for the co-operative projects or simply to look after the Abady lands and interests at Denestornya and in the mountains; but all this time, because they both knew that they would soon be together again, these absences did not seem to matter. But for the last three months, three long months, things had not been the same. They had had no opportunity to meet at all and their situation was far from happy. There was no way now that they could meet; they were inexorably shut off from any contact. If Adrienne had fallen ill he would not have been able to go to her or help her in any way. He could only wait in the hope of perhaps hearing something by chance gossip just as if he were a stranger. It was dreadful and deeply frustrating. Adrienne managed occasionally to write and this was how he learned that her daughter’s attack of measles had developed complications, that the girl’s convalescence would be slow and that she could not leave her side until the child was completely recovered. Waiting …waiting … waiting …
As the days passed into weeks and the weeks into months Balint’s determination grew ever stronger: he must somehow force Adrienne to seek a divorce. They had to marry.
There were only two obstacles in the way, and from a distance both now seemed to him far less formidable than they had previously. The main problem was Uzdy, and Adrienne always insisted he would never let her go. Although she never said it, behind her words lay the conviction that he would rather kill both her and the man she dared to love. But was this really so or merely a fantasy of hers, an imagined nightmare? It was true that he was a deeply confused, unstable man, who was obsessed with firearms and always carried a revolver … and whose father had died insane. She knew that none of this constituted proof, for he had taken it quite calmly when she had refused to sleep with him. Balint had taken heart at this; but what he did not know, for Addy had not told him, was that the following day Uzdy had followed them like a hunter stalking his prey. So for Balint it seemed that all they had to do was to face the situation, confront Uzdy, and tell him openly …
The other seemingly insurmountable problem was his own mother. She hated Adrienne and would certainly oppose any plans they might make for a life together. Her hatred of Adrienne was unreasoning and senseless and, thought Balint, quite unfathomable. Aware of his mother’s dominant and intractable character he knew that it would be far from easy to get her to change her opinions, all the more so since in every other way he had, until now, done everything to please her and avoid giving her pain. And if now he were to defy her and challenge her authority? He was deeply sorry for the sorrow he was bound to cause her and, until recently, had thought that their relationship would be destroyed by such a marriage. Now, however, he tried to make himself believe that the inevitable rift would heal, that his mother’s anger would fade and that, in time, she would come to love Adrienne as soon as she had allowed herself to get to know her. Balint, in his loneliness, went on weaving new dreams. He convinced himself that the coldness would pass, that the first grandchild would come, that grandchild for which Countess Roza had always yearned and to whom she constantly referred, and that when there was an heir, a boy, of course, someone to carry on the line … but here Balint’s arguments would dwindle away to be replaced by his yearning for a home-life of his own, for a woman who was his companion in life, who would be a mother to his children — who was a mother already — sitting by a peaceful fireplace, a life without problems, a life of occupation and love and lightness of heart and children for whom it would be a joy to toil.