They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [57]
Uncle Daniel also recognized the prince, but he could not remember if he had seen him at the Rochechouarts’ or at the Princesse de la Moskowa’s. At that time Daniel Kendy was a young man with great expectations for whom everybody predicted a brilliant future. If he had not wasted his fortune on drink he too would have been addressed as ‘Your Excellency’ today. He would have been seated at the right hand of the royal guest, covered in orders and ribbons and distinctions, and not where he now found himself, in an insignificant place amid a noisy rabble of ill-behaved young men. Looking up at the notabilities in the place of honour, all resplendent in their decorations with the noble Gobelins tapestry behind them, Uncle Dani’s heart was filled with sorrow and remorse.
As the dinner progressed he became sadder and sadder and sadder.
And what does one do when one’s heart is filled with sorrow? One drinks: there is nothing else. And so the old man drank and, once started, he did not stop and the inevitable happened. When the time came for that meeting to which he had so much looked forward and they called to him to come up and be presented, the old man was already so drunk that he could hardly put one foot in front of the other. Then, once again, the sad thought of what he had once been and what, through no one’s fault but his own, he had thrown away, once more pierced his poor fuddled brain and all that he was able to do was to stagger towards the prince, weaving from right to left and bending double at every step in a humble parody of a bow, waving his arms, and stammer out sorrowfully in Hungarian,‘K-K-Kendy! … n-n-nothing more … K-K-Kendy … n-n-nothing more …’
He was incapable of uttering another word. As the Comte d’Eu turned away, two young men grabbed Uncle Dani by the arms and carried him out; for everyone knew what was likely to happen when he started bowing so obsequiously.
At one of the side wings of the table sat Balint with Gazsi Kadacsay. Because he was a Member of Parliament and also an imperial Court Chamberlain the organizers had wanted to place him with the other important guests, but he had refused, preferring to remain with his own close friends to being put on parade at the boredom of the top table. Furthermore when they had met that evening Gazsi had said that he wanted to have a talk with him.
They had not seen each other for some time. At the beginning of the Carnival season Gazsi had been in Kolozsvar for a week or two, and then he had disappeared and been seen no more. At that time everyone had decided that he would shortly announce his engagement to Ida Laczok, for he had dined there three times, danced with her often, and called daily at the Laczok house at the hour when they drank coffee topped with whipped cream. He had even serenaded the girl twice in a week, and so everyone had said that the engagement was imminent. Then he had suddenly returned to the country and was seen no more.
At the beginning of the dinner the conversation where Balint and Gazsi were sitting was all about the royal prince’s tour to promote his famous Anti-Duelling League. As they were all young and high-spirited, as well as being from Transylvania, their talk was full of mockery. Among them only Isti Kamuthy and Fredi Wuelffenstein, who were sitting just opposite Balint, took the matter at all seriously; Fredi, not only because he was the league’s general-secretary in Hungary but also because he always liked to know better than anyone else; and Isti, because he had recently become even more anglophile than ever. ‘There are no duelth in England,’ lisped Isti, and for him this settled the question and therefore there could be no further argument about it. Fredi was in perfect agreement, but he was out of temper because he had also thought of the same argument but had not been able to get it out first.
The general conversation was not able to continue for long, for almost at once Laci