My husband, poor soul, was not a writer: he was a solid citizen, an artist without an art. That’s why he suffered so much. Then, when one day Judit Áldozó returned, the woman he believed to be his real wife, wearing cologne from Atkinson, saying “Hello” on the phone like an Englishwoman — well, that was when we divorced. It was a difficult divorce, even if I say so myself. I insisted on the piano.
He didn’t marry her straightaway, only a year later. How do they get on? Just fine, I think. You saw him a little while ago, buying candied orange peel for her.
It’s just that he’s aged. Not a lot, but in a melancholy sort of way. Do you think he knows by now? … I fear it may be too late by the time he finds out, that life will have passed him by.
Now look, they really are closing the shop.
I’m sorry? … What did you say? Why I started weeping when I saw him just now? Why, if there is no such thing as “the intended”—the chosen one, the real wife — and one is completely over it all, why I should have started powdering my nose when I saw he was still using that crocodile-skin wallet? Wait, let me think. I think I have the answer. The reason I felt embarrassed and started powdering my nose was because while there is no such thing as the one-and-only, special intended, and while I have no more illusions, I still happen to love him. Which is different. When we love someone, we can’t help our hearts beating a little faster every time someone talks about them, or whenever we see them. What I mean is: everything passes, but love does not. It’s just that it no longer has any practical significance.
Let me give you a kiss, my dear. Good-bye. Shall we meet here again next Tuesday? … It was such a nice conversation. About a quarter after seven, if it suits you … not much later than that. I’ll be sure to be here before a quarter after seven.
Part II
See the pair just leaving, there by the revolving doors? That woman there. The blond one in the round hat? No, the tall one in the mink, yes, the tall brunette, without a hat. The one getting into a car. That stocky fellow is helping her into it, isn’t he? They were sitting at that table in the corner earlier. I spotted them as soon as we came in, but I didn’t want to say anything. They never even saw me. But now that they’ve gone I can tell you that that was the man with whom I had that stupid, embarrassing duel.
On account of the woman? … Well, of course because of her.
I’m not sure I’m putting that quite right. There was definitely someone I wanted to kill at the time. But maybe it wasn’t our stocky friend. He was nothing to do with it really. He was simply the nearest object.
Can I tell you who this woman was? … Oh, I can tell you all right, old man. That woman was my wife. Not the first, but the second. We’ve been divorced for three years. We divorced immediately after the duel.
Another bottle of wine? After midnight this place suddenly empties out and grows rather chilly. Last time I was here I was still an engineering student — it was at the time of the carnival. These famous old rooms were full of women then: colorful, glittering creatures of the night, laughing all the time. I didn’t come back for many years. Time passed; they dolled the place up, and the customers changed too. Nowadays it’s the cosmopolitan crew out for a night’s entertainment … you know, what they call cosmopolitan. I had no idea my wife was a regular here, of course.
Nice wine. As pale green as Lake Balaton before a storm. Cheers.
Will I tell you the story? If you like.
It might not be a bad thing if I did once actually tell it.
Did you know my first wife? No, I don’t think so, because you were in Peru then, building the railroad. You were lucky to find yourself in a big wild country straight after finishing the course, when we both got our diplomas. I must confess I envied you sometimes. If fate had taken me abroad I might have been happier than I am now. As it worked out I stayed at home, taking care of things … Well, one day I got tired of all that, so I’m not taking care of anything now. What was I taking care of? Was it the factory? A way of life? I really don’t know. I used to have a friend, Lázár, the writer, do you know him? You’ve never heard of him? Aren’t you the happy man! I knew him well. At one time I thought he was my friend. This man kept arguing that I was a rare representative of a vanishing form of life, the pick of my class, a model citizen. According to him, that was why I stayed at home. But I can’t even be sure of that.
It is only facts you can be sure of; they are what matter … All those explanations we give to account for the facts are pure, irredeemable fiction. Literature. I should tell you that I am no longer a great admirer of literature. I used to read a lot in the past, everything I could lay my hands on. I suspect it is bad literature that fills men’s and women’s hearts with lies and false feeling. It is the false teaching of dubious books we have to thank for most of the contrived tragedies of human life. Self-pity, false sentiment, all those artificial complications are, to a great extent, the direct consequence of fake, ignorant, or simply mischievous fiction. You find it under banner headlines in the press and in smaller articles on other pages: the seamstress who drinks lye because the joiner has left her, or the female representative involved in an accident after she’d taken Veronal, all because the famous actor failed to turn up for a date. The glorious fruits of literature! Why are you looking at me like that? Surprised? You want to know what I most despise? Literature? The tragic misunderstanding that goes under the name of love? People in general? That’s a hard question. I don’t despise anyone or anything, I have no right to. But in what remains of my life I intend giving myself over to a passion. A passion for truth, that is. I will not have people lying to me anymore, neither books nor women, and I will have no patience at all with the lies I tell myself.
You say I have suffered. That I’ve been hurt. That’s true. It might have been that woman you saw just now, my second wife, who hurt me. It might have been the first. Something went wrong in any case, and whatever it was it was a dreadful emotional experience. I’ve become quite solitary as a result. I am angry. I have no faith in women, in love, or in people. What a ridiculous, pathetic creature, you must be thinking. You’d like tactfully to remind me that there are plenty of people who are both happy and passionate; that there is love and patience and participation and forgiveness. You’d like to accuse me of lack of courage, of impatience with the people I happened to have met, of not having the guts, now that I am this solitary wild creature, to admit that it was all my fault. Look, old man, I have heard and considered all these charges. You could torture me and put me on the rack and I’d still think what I think, feel what I truly feel. I have examined the lives of people close to me, I have looked through the windows of other people’s lives; I have not been too shy or too reserved, I searched and listened. I myself thought the fault was mine, that it was in me. I explained it in terms of greed, selfishness, lust, social constraints, the ways of the world. Explained what? Failure. That well of loneliness into which everyone is eventually plunged, the way a traveler might stumble into a ditch at night. We are men: nobody is going to help us in this respect; we have to live alone and have to pay the full price of everything down to the last penny. We have to put up with loneliness, with being who we are, and we have to do so in silence. These are the laws of life as far as men are concerned.
And family? I can see you want to ask me about that. Don’t I think the family is, in abstract terms, the highest meaning in life, a superior kind of harmony? Life is not about happiness. Life is about supporting your family, bringing up your children as honorable people, and not expecting either gratitude or happiness in return. But I want to give you a straight answer, and my answer is, you are right. It’s just that I don’t believe family “makes you happy.” Nothing can “make” you happy. The family is a vast project, so enormous and important, both for us personally and for the world at large, that it’s worth putting up with all the incomprehensible cares of life, all that superfluous pain, for its sake. Nevertheless, I don’t believe in “happy” families. I have seen families where there was a certain harmony of purpose, a proper set of human relationships, families where each member’s life ran a little against the grain of the others, where every member of the family led a separate life, but where the whole, all the members of the clan, despite fighting each other tooth and nail, still lived for each other and somehow held together.