They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [192]
He went to say goodbye to his favourite animals, firstly to the horses out at grass in the hillside pastures, then to the young stallions and then to the mares in their separate paddocks in the park. To each he gave some sugar as a token of his farewell and became very moved by the affection of his old hunters, and especially when Honeydew, Gazsi Kadacsay’s thoroughbred, came up and rubbed his face with her soft velvety muzzle.
He made the round of the gardens and then walked up to the summerhouse on the hill above the castle. From there he toured the kitchen gardens and the orchards.
Finally he returned to the house and went into almost every room in that vast building, including his mother’s apartments, which had been left unchanged since her death. Everywhere he went, he stopped in front of all of the treasures of art and ancient pieces of furniture, and, above all, stared hard at the many family portraits. In the billiard-room were hung great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers in their wigs and powdered hair, great-grandmothers holding tiny bunches of flowers or a little mirror in their delicate tapering fingers. There were also many of more distant relations, young and old, and some of children, boys little more than toddlers, clad in silken skirts but already sporting Hungarian fur hats.
He went the round of the mirror-fronted bookcases in the library and locked up two of them that had been left open so that the magic circle of looking-glass in that round tower room should remain unbroken.
From the billiard-room he passed into the great first-floor dining hall. Through five of the tall windows the sun shone blindingly bright on the polished wooden floor and glinted on the gilded surface of the showcases and the ormolu feet of the Chinese lacquer cabinets that stood by the walls. The contrasting shadows in the ceiling threw the baroque carved plaster into high relief. Balint stopped in front of one of the pair of copper samovars that stood on the wide serving tables and caressed it lovingly. Then he gently stroked the little white porcelain figure of one of his great-great-uncles in Hungarian gala dress. He looked into the showcases with their heterogeneous collection of many little objects, greeted the china pug and the dancing girl, and then went on through the blue salon to the yellow drawing-room; and everywhere he went he murmured a soft farewell, to the four famille verte K’ang Hsi plates that had been set in gilded bronze in the seventeenth century, to the clusters of glass grapes in the early Murano chandeliers, to the sets of Delft vases and above all to the full-size portrait of Denes Abady, painted by Mytens in the green and gold uniform of the King’s Master of Horse; and then to those of his immediate forebears, his father and mother and grandmother, that gazed at him from every wall.
And all the time he said goodbye to many childhood memories. It was on the sharp corner of this table that he had banged his head when only five years old and he had stood just there when his mother had swiftly pressed a silver coin to his forehead. It was on the corner of that carpet that he had tripped, upset the lamp and nearly caused a fire. Here, in this armchair, his grandfather had always sat, with crossed legs, when he came to lunch at the castle every Wednesday. Balint had sat on the floor at his feet and played with his tin soldiers, and from there he had first noticed that Count Peter wore soft half-boots under his trousers and how amazed he had been by the sight, not then knowing that it had been the fashion until the first half of the nineteenth century.
He opened a door at the far end of the room. It led to a small staircase and, beyond this, to the wing that he had started to modernize in the spring. The work had been well under way until he had had it stopped by telegram from Salzburg. He stopped there, feeling he could not bear ever again to see those rooms where he would have lived with Adrienne, to gaze upon anything associated with