They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [155]
She did not sleep for long. In barely half an hour she was awake again.
Her first glance was at her son who had sat there without moving, his hand imprisoned in hers, all the time she had been asleep. Again she smiled at him.
Perhaps subconsciously recalling what Balint had been telling her before she drifted off to sleep, Countess Roza’s first words were: ‘Let’s go … to the studfarm … to the stud …’
Balint did not at once understand what she was saying, so the old lady shook three times the hand she still held imprisoned in hers, repeating, ‘To the stud … with you … the stud!’ and when Balint tried to dissuade her some nervous energy so took possession of her that again she said: ‘… to the studfarm … I want … with you… to see the mares …’ and the veins stood out on her forehead.
The nurse ran to find the doctor, and when he came the three of them tried to calm her down and explain that it would be too tiring for her to visit the stud-farm straight away, too much for her. In the end they succeeded, possibly because by then she was too tired by her own eagerness to argue further, but it was only after they had promised that they would take her to see her beloved horses in the morning. Then she dozed off again.
The next day the country practitioner from Aranyos-Gyeres was called in early and the two doctors discussed whether they should allow the promised expedition. In the end they agreed that if the patient still wanted to go out she should be allowed to do so, for the weather was exceptionally fine and surely, if she were carried carefully downstairs and pushed gently along the smoothest paths, no harm could come of it. On the contrary it might help renew her will to live, that will which until the previous day’s miraculous revival had so noticeably declined.
Balint was still somewhat anxious, but felt unable to forbid it; all the more so because the previous evening, when he had gone to visit his mother in bed, and early that morning when he had looked in to see how she was, he saw in her such happy expectation and joy that he did not have the heart to disappoint her.
With a contented smile she had welcomed him to her side; and each time she had again called him by his father’s name. Filled with renewed joy she told her maids, in his presence, which dress and which bonnet she would wear that day … and what she chose was her finest.
As might have been expected the news had spread early that the old countess was going to visit the mares and so all the Denestornya employees gathered below the castle hill just where the great avenue of tall Hungarian oaks began.
The wheelchair was carried down the stairs by Simon Jäger and Balint. At the bottom of the steps that led up to the castle’s main entrance old Gergely Szakacs was waiting to ask for the honour of wheeling his old mistress along the paths of the garden and park.
So a procession was formed.
Balint took his place to the left of the wheelchair, his hand still held by his mother’s. On her right was the nurse Hedwig and behind Gergely Szakacs walked the two physicians and the second nurse. These were followed by Peter the butler, holding a big box of sugar-lumps, and Countess Roza’s elderly maid Terka. Behind the group tottered the two housekeepers, Mrs Baczo and Mrs Tothy, overweight and struggling to keep up with the others. Breathless and flatfooted, these two were forced to give up before they were half-way to wherever their mistress was going.
On each side of the alley that ran between the great oak-trees stood a line of the entire staff, indoor and outdoor, of the castle and estate of Denestornya. Everyone was there, even two of the park game-keepers who, hearing that there was a chance to catch a glimpse of their mistress, had come to be there with the others. All the men held their caps in their hands and saluted silently as Countess Roza’s chair was pushed slowly past.
Sitting almost upright, her slipper-shod feet placed on the footrest as if it were a footstool, the old countess