CHAPTER VII
WELTSCHMERZ CONDITIONS[25]--"REMAIN OR FLY!"
[Footnote 25: _Vilag fajdalmas_ allapotok. There is no Englishequivalent of _Vilag fajdalmas_.]
When I got back to Pest, I found two letters awaiting me on mywriting-table, one from Tony Varady, inviting me to stand godfather tohis new-born son, and the other from Petofi, informing me that he hadjust been married to Julia Szendrey, and that they were having veryhappy days at Teleky's Castle, Kolto. Both of these friends were poorfellows, like myself; and the ladies who had chosen to be theircompanions through life were girls belonging to wealthy, eminentfamilies, accustomed to luxury and splendour, surrounded by obsequiouswooers, and their mothers loved them as the apples of their eyes. Theirfamilies opposed the marriages, and the enamoured young ladies,handicapped as they were by the weight of their parents' refusal,followed their beloveds notwithstanding.
Then true love is no dream after all, but pure gold. And yet when I seekthis pure gold they call me a crazy alchemist!
And now Petofi begged me by letter to seek out a convenient lodging forhim, where they and I could live together. That a newly-marriedbridegroom should invite his faithful bachelor comrade to be afellow-lodger with him is a fact which belongs to the realm of fairytales.
I immediately hunted up in Tobacco Street a nicefirst-floor-apartment,[26] consisting of three chambers and theirdomestic offices; the first room was for the Petofis, the second for me,while the intermediate one was to be a common dining-room, and therewere separate entrances for each of us.
[Footnote 26: Used here in the French sense of a suite of rooms.]
The young couple came in during the autumn; they kept one maid, and Ihad an old servant. We had both very primitive furniture. Mrs. Petofihad left her father's house without a dowry; she had not so much as afashionable hat to bless herself with; she had sewed herself together asort of head-dress of her own invention, which she never wore. Her hairwas cut short, so that she looked like a little boy. They had nothing,and yet they were very happy! Julia's sole amusement was to learnEnglish from Petofi, and afterwards, at dinner (which was sent in from"The Eagle"), we spoke English, and laughed at each other's blunders.And I had to be a witness of their bliss every day!
It was just as if one were to season hell with piquant pepper.
Just about this time there appeared in _Eletkepek_ some very ordinaryverses entitled "Word-Echoes," by one "Aggteleki,"[27] ostensiblyaddressed to a certain actress. I am now able to confess that _I_ wasthe author of those verses. But for all that (though the verses were notso bad) I solemnly forbid any one at any time to include these versesamong my works, for even now, forty years after the event, I am not suchan old, decrepit, suicidally inclined fellow as Aggteleki was.
[Footnote 27: Aged Teleki.]
But, indeed, every one of the works that I wrote at that period breathethe same bitter tone. The paroxysms of a crushed spirit, the dreamyphantoms of a diseased imagination, self-contempt, a moon-sick view ofthe world in general, characterise all my tales belonging to thatperiod. And yet they pleased people then. I even had imitators. I turnedPetofi himself away from the right path. He himself confessed that hisnovel entitled "Hoher Kotele"[28] was written under the influence of my"Nyomarek naploja,"[29] a literary abortion.
[Footnote 28: "The Hangman's Rope." It certainly is a wretchedperformance.--TR.]
[Footnote 29: "The Cripple's Diary."]
Who knows whither I should have got to with my tower of Babel, had not ahealthy earthquake brought it to the ground?
One day Petofi caught me in the act of touching up Bessy's portrait. Hesaw from my eyes that I had been weeping. I tried to hide it, for I wasa bit ashamed.
"_It is well that it is so, my son_," said he on that occasion; "_it ismen who are unhappy that the world wants now._"
A memorable saying!
It was in those days that he wrote "I dream, I dream of bloody days,"and "My Songs," with this final strophe, all blood and fire:--
"Wherefore doth this race of thralls endure it? Wherefore rise not? Rend your chains and cure it! Do ye wait, forsooth! till God's good pleasure Rusts them off, and makes them drop at leisure?"
And then he would lead me into his room. On the walls there, in handsomeframes, hung the portraits of the chiefs of the French Revolution--thiswas his only luxury--Danton, Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins,Saint-Juste, Madame Roland. There, too, the parts we were to play weredistributed; Saint-Juste was designed for me, Madame Roland for Julia.And then we spoke of "the bloody days." They were to be no mere dream,we were to see them with our eyes wide open. And we were to be among thefirst to feel them.
A healthy-minded man would have been ready after such words as these tohave left the house by jumping out of the window; but they had a charmfor me. It suited my peculiar frame of mind just then to set on fire theDejanira robe that was about me, and then rush out among the people andset them on fire also.
"Man's fate is woman!"
Had that young lady the last time I held her hand in mine said "Stay!" Ishould certainly have remained. I should have crept into my little nookof bliss and never have gazed after the moonshine of fame. In that caseI should now perhaps have been one of the judicial assessors at theRoyal Courts, and have joined heartily in the laugh when one or other ofmy colleagues at the end of a friendly banquet might take it into hishead to quote some monstrous sentences out of my earliest romance, animperfect copy of which turns up now and then as a literary curiosityamong other antiquarian rubbish.
This is what would have happened if the young lady had said "Stay!"
But if that young lady had said "Fly!" then I should have flown like therest after the falling stars. And, indeed, of those who stood with me onthe 11th March[30] before the mob on the balcony of the town-hall toannounce "This is the day of national liberty!" of those myyouthful-visaged, warm-hearted comrades, three have perished in defenceof that word "Liberty" then pronounced: those three names are"Petofi,"[31] "Vasvary," "Bozzai." And certainly, in that case, thefour ounces of lead, or the cossack's lance, or the grenade splinterwhich killed them, might have sufficed for me also--that is, of course,if that young lady had said "Fly!" Fate, in fact, confronted me withthis paradox--"Either live and be forgotten, or be remembered as one whodied young!"
[Footnote 30: When the Hungarian revolution of 1848 began.]
[Footnote 31: Petofi was most probably killed at the battle of Segesvarin July, 1849; at any rate he was never seen or heard of afterwards. Hewas only twenty-seven, and in him the world lost one of its great lyricpoets.]
"Stay!" or "Fly!"
Then a voice said to me: "Go! but let us go together!"
But it was not the voice of the lady with the eyes like the sea.
* * * * *
One morning Petofi rushed into my room roaring with laughter.
"Ha! ha! ha! Do you want to laugh? Just catch hold of that _Honderu_."And into my hands he thrust the latest number of the opposition paper.
I immediately caught sight of what had made him laugh so much. There wasa magnificent description from my native town of the wedding which hadtaken place between Mr. Janos Nepomuk Bagotay and the world-renownedbeauty--I didn't trouble to look at the name. "The happy pair will spendtheir honeymoon at Paris!"
"Ha! ha! ha! ha!"