They Were Counted Read Online Free PDF

better to come home, where he could live cheaply, and where, with his experience and qualifications, he could perhaps make himself useful in his own country.
    When, therefore, he was at home on leave in the spring of 1904 and the Prefect of the district had come to Denestornya asking him to stand for the vacant parliamentary seat of Lelbanya, he had accepted without hesitation. He had only one condition; he would be an Independent, free of party ties. Even when abroad he had read in the newspapers of the fierce parliamentary battles in Budapest which had swept away two governments in as many years and, to Balint, the idea of being tied to a party line and obliged to follow a party whip was infinitely distasteful.
    The Prefect, somewhat to Balint’s surprise, had raised no objections . He agreed to the Independent label provided that Balint would respect the 1867 Compromise with Vienna, that agreement which ensured the independence of Hungary. What the Prefect did not say was that for him the only important thing was to keep out the opposition and to be sure that Lelbanya should not be represented by some ‘foreigner’ who had bought his seat from the party leaders in Budapest. Although Lelbanya, once a royal town, had declined until it had become a mere country market town with barely three hundred votes, it still had the right to elect a member of Parliament. For some time the elections had been rigged. Aspiring politicians, with money in their pockets , had come from the capital to win the seat. They would be welcomed, and their pockets emptied, by the Prefect and his friends, to an apparently vicious contest with a loud-mouthed demagogue who, spouting the revolutionary principles of 1848, had been employed to contest the seat. On one occasion the rich candidate from Budapest had tired of paying and retired; and, to the province’s shame and embarrassment, the phoney candidate had been elected.
    If young Count Abady would stand, the Prefect knew that nothing would go wrong. Since the town’s mine had stopped being worked many years before and the soil of the district only offered a poor living, the inhabitants of Lelbanya had lived chiefly by gathering and working the reeds of the lake, which was Abady property. Against the owner of the lake no ‘foreign’ candidate stood a chance, for if Count Abady decided to sell the reeds elsewhere, the citizens would lose their livelihood.
    Of course the Prefect said none of this to the young man. He spoke only in general terms, of the need for a sense of duty, of patriotism and, in Countess Abady’s presence, he spoke, with an air of understanding and sympathy, of how she and her people would benefit from the young count’s presence in his own country . He spoke too, temptingly, of the salaries earned by Members of Parliament which, though low enough, would be useful. He emphasized that there would be no embarrassing contest and that the election would be almost unanimous. Only when Balint and his mother had been convinced did he visit the countess’s agent, Kristof Azbej, and tell him that it would be wise to send a stranger to Lelbanya who would, in a most obvious manner, assess the autumn’s reed crop as if Count Abady were considering selling elsewhere. The electors would get a good fright and when, as in previous years, the crop was still made available to the town Count Abady would be elected. And this is what happened; even though Balint had no idea why the electors cheered him so heartily . Balint’s innocence stemmed not only from his straightforward nature and an upbringing that had shielded him from dishonesty and greed, but also from the fact that the protected years at the Theresianum college, at the university and even in the diplomatic service, had shown him only the gentler aspects of life. He had lived always in a hothouse atmosphere where the realities of human wickedness wore masks; and Balint did not yet have the experience to see the truth that lay