They Were Counted by Miklós Bánffy Page A

when she walked she had the same long stride. Her colouring, too, recalled the Diana of his memory, the clear ivory skin with slight golden tints which never varied from her softly shining face to her neck, and the arms and shoulders that emerged from the silken décollet é of her ball-dress. Only her hair was different, and her eyes, for whereas Diana was blonde and blue-eyed, Adrienne’s hair was dark and wavy and alive – and her eyes were onyx, flecked with golden amber.
    Not only was Adrienne beautiful, but she was always interesting to talk to. Her ideas were her own, very individual for a young woman of her background. And she had ideas about everything. She was well-read and cultivated, and with her one didn’t have to avoid subjects such as foreign affairs, history or literature as one did with so many young girls who would otherwise take offence thinking one was trying to show off superior knowledge. She spoke several languages and she loved to read, but not the romantic novels which were all that most other girls read. Against these she rebelled, for in the finishing school at Lausanne to which she had been sent she had been introduced to Flaubert, Balzac, Ibsen and Tolstoy, and ever since the trivial had no longer appealed to her.
    The first time they had supper together, at Adrienne’s coming-out party, they had talked about books and ideas, and so they did again, each time that Balint would visit the Miloths, which he now started to do regularly. At this time Balint was reading Spencer’s Principles of Sociology and it had made a deep impression on him, especially the first volume which discussed the basic ideas about God and the origins of spiritual belief in primitive man. Carried away by his own enthusiasm he spoke impulsively on these subjects to Adrienne and found himself taken by surprise by the depth of her response and by her thirst for knowledge. This is how they began; but of course they did not stop at one subject but touched on numerous others, words flowing in an ever-guessing, probing search for the truth as is the way with the young. Balint told Adrienne about his grandfather, of his wise appreciation and understanding, of his unerring judgement and how it was only now after so many years that he realized how clearly and cogently the old man had explained life to a twelve-year-old boy. As he talked to Adrienne, ever more fluently and enthusiastically, it seemed to him that he could express himself better and more vividly to this girl who always listened with such intensity and whose answers were always so interesting. It seemed that her presence , with those amber eyes fixed on his, increased his power and his eloquence. They had spent many such hours together, and even when the days grew longer it was often dark before he left. Sometimes a late visitor interrupted them, but usually their talks were brought to an end in a different way. From beyond the double-doors which connected the two drawing-rooms would come the sour voice of Countess Miloth, stern and disapproving: ‘Why are you sitting there in the dark, Addy? You know I don’t like it. Have the lamps lit at once!’, and Adrienne would get up in silence, pausing to get control of herself, forcing herself not to answer back. She would stand for a moment, defiant, her head held high, gazing straight in front of her into the darkness. And then, still silent, she would cross the room with her long strides to the high standard lamp and light it. Before she returned to Balint she would remain there, motionless, gazing into the light with narrowing pupils.
     
    All these memories crowded into Balint’s mind, not in order, not in words or sentences, but in pictures vivid with every detail, time and place rediscovered, recaptured without the need for connected thought or conscious recall, the images of an instant, and as fleeting.
    Another carriage passed Balint’s: more acquaintances. As he waved to them the previous vision vanished, like