* Strictly speaking, 1 korona = 100 krajcár. 100 fillér = 1 pengô´ or forint, but the terms were often interchanged in popular speech as the name of the unit of currency changed.
† “Having no ears,” but here a pun on Független, “independent.”
‡ The New York, in the Erzsébet Ring Road, was a principal haunt of writers and artists. Not only did it cater specially for the impecunious tastes of many, it also provided paper, pens and ink. A “dog's tongue” (kutyanyelv) was a slip of paper.
* Sometimes known as “Souse's Soup.” A cabbage soup served in the small hours to reinvigorate the jaded reveller. There are various recipes, according to George Lang's The Cuisine of Hungary, all slightly greasy and very piquant.
* A small town on the Alföld, southeast of Kecskemét.
† A spa at the west end of Lake Balaton in western Hungary.
* “Small-literary.” The irótál, “writer's plate,” was a speciality of the New York, an inexpensive plate of cold meats, salami, cheese, etc. served only to writers. The kis-iro-dalmi was a reduced version for the even less well off.
* The verse drama by Imre Madách — the most translated item in Hungarian literature.
* “Oh, my soft little bird” and “Oh, my hard little bird.”
* A kind of pasta.
* German was the language of the army.
* Presumably from the Ludovika barracks.
† Ludaskasa, “goose porridge,” is goose giblets boiled with millet, a Martinmas dish. Cigánypecsenye, “gipsy roast,” is pork cutlets, spit-roasted or fried, with fat bacon and red cabbage. Kifl i is a pastry, similar in shape to a croissant.
VI
In which he comes into a huge inheritance
and learns that it’s hard to get rid of money
when a person wants to do only that.
AS DAWN APPROACHED WE WERE SITTING IN A NIGHTCLUB. The Negro band was taking a break. We were yawning.
Kornél Esti whispered in my ear:
“Quick, let me have a fiver.”
He paid, then said:
“Strange.”
“What is?”
“That expression ‘money trouble.’ You’d think it means that money causes trouble. Whereas it’s not money that causes trouble but the opposite, lack of money, impecuniosity. Tell me,” he turned toward me with keen interest, “you’re a bit of a linguist in your spare time: is there any expression that denotes that money can be a burden?”
“Yes, it’s French. Embarras de richesse.”
“Isn’t there a Hungarian one?”
“No.”
“Typical,” he muttered.*
On the way home he continued to ponder in the street.
“No doubt about it, money trouble’s a nasty business. But the other’s just as nasty. When it really is money that causes the trouble. When there’s far too much of it. I know all about that.”
“You do?”
“Uh huh. At one time I had a huge amount of money. Once upon a time,” he said dreamily, “heretofore, in days of yore.”
“In Singapore?”
“No, here in Budapest. When I came into money.”
“Who left you money?”
“An obscure aunt on my mother’s side. Teresa Maria Anselm. Lived in Hamburg. Wife of some German baron.”
“That’s interesting. You’ve never mentioned her.”
“No. I must have been thirty-five. One morning I got an official letter telling me that my aunt had left everything to me. The news wasn’t completely unexpected. But it did come as a surprise. That is, I’d heard that my aunt had another nephew and that she was dividing the inheritance between us. In the meantime he’d died. Somewhere in Brazil. Haven’t got a cigarette, have you?”
“Help yourself.”
“So off I went to Germany. To tell the truth, I scarcely remembered my dear departed aunt. I’d been taken to see her a few times when I was little. She lived in a luxurious mansion on her estate, on her model farm. She was stinking rich and as dull as ditchwater. There were white and black swans on the fishpond. That was all I knew about her. Apart from the fact that she had a lot of land, several big houses in Berlin and Dresden, and a huge amount in Swiss banks. Considering that I hadn’t answered her letters for ten years, I’d no idea what she was worth. When the inventory was compiled it turned out to be more than I’d thought. By the time I’d sold everything, realized it all — and after paying taxes, fees, lawyer’s expenses — a Hamburg bank paid me out almost two million marks.”
“Two million marks? You’re pulling my leg.”
“I’m not. Let’s talk about something more serious, then. How’s your blood pressure?”
“I beg your pardon. Go on, then.”
“That’s all there was to it, I changed the money into Hungarian currency, stufffed it into my suitcase, and came home. Here I went on living as before, scribbling poetry. I was careful not to say a word about the business, because I knew that it would be the end of me.”
“Why?”
“Look here — a poet that’s wealthy, in Hungary? That’s a total absurdity. In Budapest people think that anybody who’s got a bit of money’s an idiot. If he’s got money, why should he have a brain, feelings, imagination? That’s how they punish him. This town’s far too clever. It doesn’t want to understand that nature’s a savage, doesn’t share out its favors in a predictable fashion or on any kind of compassionate basis. Nobody here would have recognized that Byron — a lord and a multimillionaire — had the slightest ability. Here the rank of genius is doled out as compensation — as charity — to those who’ve got nothing else, who are starving, sick, persecuted, more dead than alive. Or actually dead. Mainly the latter. I’ve never been disposed to stand up to people’s titanic stupidity. I’ve bowed humbly before it as a mighty natural phenomenon. On that occasion too I didn’t break with the compulsory Bohemian tradition. Kept going to dirty little restaurants. Owed for my coffee. Inked my collars every morning. Made holes in my shoes with a fretsaw. Wasn’t going to damage my reputation as a poet, was I? Anyway, things were more comfortable and more interesting that way. If I’d let my good fortune be known, people would’ve been round at once, pestering me all day long, stopping me from getting on with my work.”
“So what did you do with all that money?”
“That was no trouble. Of course, I didn’t put it in a bank. That would have given the game away at once. I locked it in my desk drawer with my manuscripts. It’s surprising how little room two million koronas takes, two thousand thousand-korona notes. It was a pile only so big. It’s just bits, just leaves, like any other paper. When I looked at it in the evening I had mixed feelings. I’d be telling a lie if I said that I wasn’t happy about it. I’ve got a lot of respect for money. It means calm, respectability, power, all sorts of things. But so much money was a burden to me, not a relief. By that time I was too sensible to start a new life, buy a car, move into a nice three-room apartment with a sitting room, get out of the old ruts, take on new responsibilities and anxieties. I’ve never wanted to swill champagne. I’ve despised luxury, you know. All my life I’ve had bread and butter for dinner, and water to go with it. I’ve just been keen on rotten cigarettes and rotten women. So I started to think hard, logically. What was my purpose, my calling, my passion? Writing. By that time my pen was earning me five hundred koronas a month, easily. I added another thousand to that, so as to guarantee my independence for good. How long could I live? My parents and grandparents died before they were fifty. We aren’t a long-lived family. I gave myself sixty years. That generous allowance only came to 360,000 koronas in thirty years, my entire life expectancy, ignoring interest. The rest, I felt, was superfluous. So I decided to pass it round.”