They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [42]
Before dinner Balint carried Aron Kozma off to discuss with him various matters to do with the Co-operatives. Aron himself had some ideas for which he wanted Balint’s approval; and there were certain proposals that Balint put forward which he did not think were feasible. Aron had a logical mind and was full of common sense, and from that short discussion there emerged some straightforward practical measures from all the somewhat nebulous ideas that had been spinning round in Balint’s head since his reunion with Adrienne.
As both guests were going to leave Denestornya early the next morning good-byes were said that night.
‘Please,’ said Countess Roza as she offered her hand to be kissed, ‘greet your father from me, tell him everything that you’ve seen here and tell him too that although the years go by I am still quite sprightly and do not at all feel my great age!’
She had prepared this parting sentence early that morning and intended it as a poisoned arrow for her childhood playmate. She was determined to let him know that his uncalled-for mockery had had no effect upon her, and that his efforts to vex her with his peculiar form of birthday greetings had had no effect whatever.
As she spoke she was sure that it would now be Boldizsar’s turn to be annoyed and this pleased her so much that she smiled with renewed benevolence at his son.
PART TWO
Chapter One
LASZLO GYEROFFY LIVED in the house in the village that he had kept when he had sold his Kozard estate a year and a half before. He had kept it for the sake of his old servant, Marton Balogh, principally because he wanted to be sure that the old man had somewhere to live and would not be thrown out on the street, which he was sure Azbej would have no qualms about doing when he took possession of the manor house. He had originally thought of giving the place to Balogh outright, because it had never occurred to him that he might need it himself.
Not long after Laszlo had flung out of Sarah Bogdan’s house in a snowstorm and fallen dead drunk into a ditch near Apahida, a small one-horse cart had been driven along the main road. In it had been Bischitz, the Jewish storekeeper from Kozard who was driving home after a day in Kolozsvar. With him had been his daughter, Regina, who was the eldest of his children and the only one bright enough to feed the horse and look after the cart while Bischitz went about his business.
The storm had caught them when they were halfway home and their worn-out nag of a horse could hardly make any headway against the driving snow. By the time they had reached the iron bridge near Apahida they were hardly moving and it was because of this that they had seen Laszlo by the feeble light of the cart’s paraffin storm-lamp.
He had been lying face downwards at the edge of the ditch and he had been almost completely covered by snow. It was Regina who had first seen that there was someone there, and they had known who it was because of the familiar check of the coat he was wearing.
At once they had stopped the cart, pulled him out of the snow, and found that although he was by now almost sober again, he could hardly move but, though frozen stiff, was at least still alive. Together they had lifted him into the back of the cart, laid him down gently and driven him back to Kozard. Bischitz had thought he would leave him at the manor house, but it had been so late when they arrived, and the horse had been far too tired to manage the climb up to the house, so the shopkeeper’s wife had made up a bed for him in the only good room in their little house.
Laszlo spent one night there.
In the morning he woke with a high fever. The doctor was sent for, as was Azbej, and when the doctor pronounced that Laszlo would certainly develop pneumonia and would have to stay in bed for weeks, Azbej flatly refused to take him in at the manor house declaring that it was quite unthinkable