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mouth, he would listen in silence to their long explanations. Occasionally, he would ask a question, or intervene with a gentle but authoritative word to calm someone who showed signs of losing his temper with his opponent. This was seldom necessary because in the count’s presence everyone was on their best behaviour. He spoke Hungarian and Romanian equally fluently and his verdict was usually accepted by both parties. When all was over, whichever way the count’s judgement had gone, they would kiss his hand and go away quietly. They would also go over to Balint and kiss his hand too, as a gesture of respect, and when once Balint tried to prevent this, his grandfather told him in French to let them do it lest they should take offence, thinking he withdrew his hand in disgust.
    Other guests would also come to pay their respects: young men to get an introduction or to ask for help in the great world; for though Count Peter seldom moved from home, his influence was known to remain strong and widespread, not only because he was the Protestant church’s chief warden and a member of the House of Lords and Royal Standard Bearer for more than fifty years, but above all, because he was known never to support an unworthy cause. It was also believed that he had the ear of the emperor and that Franz-Josef always listened to what Count Abady had to say.
    Older visitors would come for friendship’s sake – former provincial administrators from the years before the upheavals of 1848, when Count Peter had been the Prefect of Also-Feher, and ex-army officers whom he had protected and saved from imprisonment during the repressive regime of Count von Bach, the Austrian imperial minister imposed on Hungary after the 1848 rebellion.
    There were two other regular visitors: Aunt Lizinka, who came for two weeks every year; and Mihaly Gal, always called ‘Minya’, a great actor of former days, who would come for three days, no more, no less. The young Balint loved Minya Gal, and when he was there he would climb the park walls several times a day just to sit listening to the conversation of the two old friends, to their jokes and reminiscences, to Gal’s tales of the theatre and his memories of his old mistress, the once famous actress Celestine Déry, and to stories about many other people whose names meant nothing to the listening boy.
    The old actor came on foot and left on foot. He would never accept the offer of a carriage, though it was always made. All Balint knew was that he had kept this habit since his early days as an itinerant actor. Perhaps there was also something of a stubborn puritan pride and perhaps, walking the highways, he fancied he was young again. Minya Gal had been at school with Peter Abady in the 1820s and there, at Vasarhely, they had formed a friendship that had lasted over seventy years.
    Although it was twelve years since Balint had last seen Minya Gal – at his grandfather’s funeral in 1892 – he recalled that he had come from this region and had told him he still had a small house at Vasarhely. Balint wondered if he was still alive and reflected that if he were he could not be more than five or six years short of a hundred. Balint decided that when he returned from Siklod, he would try to find out what had happened to the old actor , who had such a large part in his most treasured memories of childhood.
     
    The sharp drumming of hoofbeats interrupted young Balint Abady’s dreams of the past and brought him back to the present. Two open carriages hurried past in quick succession. The first was driven by Count Istvan Kendy, whom everyone called Pityu; in the carriage Balint recognized one of the younger Alvinczys, who had two young women with him. It was only when they had gone ahead that Balint realized that they were the daughters of Count Laczok, Anna and Ida. When he had last seen them they had still been in the schoolroom wearing pigtails. Now they must be grown up and hurrying home from the races for,