The Diary of Geza Csath

THE DIARY OF

GEZA CSATH

The Diary

of Geza

Csath Introduction by Arthur Phillips Translated from Hungarian by

Peter Reich

ANGELUSZ & GOLD

English translation © 2000 by Peter Reich All Rights Reserved Printed in Hungary Based on Csath Geza Naplo 1912-1913, Babits Kiado 1989

Angelusz & Gold 1075 Budapest Rumbach Sebestyen utca 10 Hungary [email protected] ISBN 963-206-653-7 copyedited by Sarah Barrett Cover and design by JozsefPinter Introduction © 2002 by Arthur Phillips Essay by Dezso Kosztolanyi originally published in Nyugat 1919 Vol 16-17 as Kosztolanyi Dezso: Csath Geza Betegsegerol es halalarol

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION by Arthur Phillips 9

THE DIARY OF GEZA CSATH 21

ON THE ILLNESS AND DEATH OF GEZA CSATH by Dezso Kosztolanyi 159

CHRONOLOGY by Mihaly Szajbely 173

INTRODUCTION

I.

STAR OF THE SUMMER OF 1912

We meet Geza Csath (the pen name ofJozsefBrenner) in the fall of 1912, age 25, in the grips of writer's block, which he is determined to defeat by writing a season's worth of autobiography. He proceeds to reminisce over the summer just past, a memoir that appears at first to be a candid private recollection of almost ceaseless promiscuity and very occasional medical practice in the spa town of Stubnyafurdo. We should know, however, that this man who claims to be "inhibited" from writing has recently produced a medical text, a volume of fiction, and the German translation of his monograph on Puccini. However serious his inability to produce more, we are certainly justified in taking his complaint with a grain of salt, and, sure enough, a paragraph later, he writes sixty pages of deft, funny, shocking, psychologically astute memoir. The writer's block doesn't seem terribly serious. Did he talk himself through it, or was he merely softening up his readership? That is the question, because, though the "Notes on the Summer of 1912" compose part of the author's diaries, it is worth asking whether they weren't intended to be read by us, whether we are diary voyeurs or invited

9

audience. First, the Notes seem to be rewritten, a summation after the fact, leavened with a degree of detail implying a pre-existing diary. (Such a daily diary seems likely, considering the astounding statistical summaries Csath produces for himself at the end of 1912.) Further, in this retrospective composition, I felt a literary stagecraft, a polished performance, and a full presentation of characters (including the leading man), that Csath's "real-time" diaries from later in the year do not display. What's more, on page one, he is already hiding something; we learn only much, much later that at the time of composing this bawdy memoir, Csath was suffering from something far more serious and intractable than writer's block. In other words, considering his admitted desire for literary fame, it is by no means implausible that he expected his journals would outlast him and would find a readership-admirers like you and me. He may indeed be performing for us, so beware his apparently perfect candor. With that in mind, we proceed to the performance, the adventures of Dr. JozsefBrenner, spa doctor and boiling Don Juan-nabe. Make no mistake, this character, this Geza Csath IJ ozsef Brenner is an unredeemed bastard. Most obviously he is a philanderer with vast appetites of such untamable ferocity they call to mind the modern notion of sexual addiction. He has betrayed his fiancee, Olga Jonas, within a week or so of arrival. He collects chambermaids, patients, his patients' daughters, and local peasant women at a pace that would exhaust most men not also fending off tuberculosis and opium addiction. His heartlessness in these love affairs is presented starkly,

10

without apologies. When one of his women loses her job for stealing a shirt to try to please him, he is unaffected to a degree that is almost comical, and perhaps he intends this. Csath's is an extraordinary self-portrait, one that is simultaneously introspective and self-deluding. This is a neat trick. (It also calls into question the idea that even the most careful observer can successfully observe himself.) The doctor is sensitive to slights and suspicious of others. He is highly analytical of himself, but uncomfortable with some of the most basic social interactions (shaking hands, determining his social position). He obsessively catalogues his peccadilloes (four bouts of "onania") and his victories (stop-watched kisses, the ranking of orgasm quality, his sexual recovery time as a function of his current level of "training"). He loathes self-pity, self-justification, and defense mechanisms in those around him, but his own writing is full of self-pity, self-justification, and defense mechanisms. He is an insecure but also happy-go-lucky rapist, faithless lover and would-be Casanova. He is apparently without redeeming virtues, unless brutal candor and persistently unsuccessful self-inquiry count. Misogynistic and misanthropic, faithless, vain, manic-depressive, arrogant, selfconsciously self-loathing and self-admiring, doctor and quack, he is also very entertaining, especially when hypocritical to hilarious extremes. Of a woman he has just kissed immediately after she has come from intercourse with her now-dozing husband, he notes: "All Jewish women ... were ... entirely without a sense of responsibility

11

and moral taste." This from a man who has enjoyed a "cruel trio", in which he has sex with one woman in earshot of his heart-broken previous lover. Later, he writes of another love, "I saw how much this woman enjoyed humiliation, so I gave her her share." (By the way, this busy summer, it turns out, was a period of which he was proud for having tamed his tendency to introduce sexual complications into his life.) For all his fondness for Casanova, his idolatry of his fiancee, and his evident delight at his successes (over women and over impotence), for all the connoisseur's lip-smacking (his admiration of the "formation of the hips, their transition to the back"), this lover often doesn't seem to like the women themselves very much. They are "dolts," "tasteless," "incapable of moral judgment." Except for his fiancee, he holds them in supreme contempt for that most unforgivable act, falling in love with him. At other times, there is an air of irony in his tone, an amusement at his wicked appetites that almost excuses them. It is a very wispy irony and may in fact be a lie, but still, it is difficult not to feel a certain fondness for a man who blames an unwanted second act with one lover on "the unparalleled weakness of human nature." Of course, this cad, this hypocrite is something far more. He does not mention it, perhaps out of false modesty, counting on Posterity to have told us before we had ever read the Notes. In case you don't already know, I will play the role of Posterity: This "villain" is a man of vast gifts. He is a neurologist, painter, composer and music critic,

12

pianist and violinist, playwright, journalist, short-story writer, and a man of superhuman ambition and energy. He is a bastard, of course, but so are a lot of people with nothing else to be said for them.

II.

CSATH THE CHARACTER, CSATH THE WRITER

I prefer Csath's diaries to his stories. In the former, he allows more layers and contradictions to appear. The character of "Geza Csath" has a fullness and a contradictory depth not achieved in the fiction. He is hoth symbolic and ghastly, but a figure more profound and haunting than the grotesques who people his stories of rape, murder, and animal torture. In reading Csath's journals, I thought of the atmosphere of sexual carnival found in Arthur Schnitzler, the viciousness and faux-scientific fetish of the Marquis de Sade, the artistic analysis and reductiveness of Freud. Csath is related (sometimes admittedly) to all of these and to some who came after him, too. The lurking omnipresence of tuberculosis and sanatoria haunts the diaries and the stories, as it does countless other works of the early 20th century, reaching its breathless pinnacle on Mann's Magic Mountain. There is a more than a passing similarity between the diaries' Csath and Italo Svevo's unsuccessfully self-analyzing serial smoker Zeno. And echoes of Kafka abound, most amusingly in the sudden appearance of Mrs.

13

Ilancsy, who, it turns out, after we have heard of countless seductions in Csath's office, has been a hovering witness to them all. The journals are full ofliterary pleasures that the stories lack, such as the gradual appearance of his lover, killer, and nemesis, that most important ofCsath's affairs, who at first is only an initial, P or M, like some Madame X or Lady B from a Victorian novel scrounging for credibility. The course of their relationship makes for gripping reading. At her first appearances, he is in control of their relationship; he still finds her seductive and she is still trying to please him, though with his effortless foreshadowing, we suspect that her intentions are sinister. The diary flashes with displays of wit and style missing from the stories. Csath employs delicate or violent (often very funny) euphemisms for the sexual act and anatomystallions and chalices. His women often appear as animals (rabbits, weasels, hens, etc.), preparing to "sacrifice" for love. This sentimental terminology from the pen of an unsentimental omnivore at the height of his raging appetites provides another layer to the character of Dr. Brenner, the gynecologist who haunts husbands' nightmares. "I performed the savagery upon her," he notes, and the effect impressed me more than anything he allows himself in his short stories. An odd and humorous vulnerability appears here and there, a trait the cold or macho or violent stories lack. When he tries to pep himself up, with his charming and dafiY list of things to remember, he is not without a loopy

14

charisma. You must hide from the world your doubts about yourself, he reminds himself, immediately after making a catalogue of the sexual acts one can enjoy when "coitus is not possible." Encapsulating millennia of philosophical doubt in one to-do list item he notes, "Fortification of the will is great work and produces joy, but ... " A truer ellipsis was never left unsaid. And, while there is a vast distance between us and this man of only 90 years ago, he is almost able, from time to time, to convince me I would have liked his company. Just when I am sure he is a rapist and a swine, a sexual predator beyond the bounds of society and law, his conviction that he is doing nothing that the women around him don't wish him to do almost convinces me. I left the Summer of1912 thinking, "Well, maybe. Maybe it's all relative ... maybe I have judged him too harshly, and the forceful way he grabs life's hot pleasures ... perhaps we are just of different constitutions ... "

III.

FROM MEMOIR TO DIARY, FROM LIFE TO DEATH IN THE COMPANY OF MADAME M.

The Summer of 1912 draws to a close, and the memoir becomes a real-time diary, peppered with to-do lists and lectures on self-esteem. It is much less edited, polished, performed. Yet as literature its power is horrifying, as the character of Csath metamorphoses from the villain of a melodrama to the victim of a tragedy.

15

The end of the summer is also the end, albeit seven years before his actual suicide, of Csath's life. Whether or not you like the man presented in the Notes, he is, at least, a man wrestling with life according to his own designs and ambitions. That cannot be said of him as 1912 turns to 1913. Csath met morphine in 1909 when she appeared as an easy infatuation, a consolation to his very real worry of tuberculosis. She enters the journals disguised as the alluring and agreeable Madame M who brings him to perfect ecstasy (in a trio with a human lover) but later abandons him to a mild depression. At this slight, he vows for the first time (but decidedly not the last) to be done with h er. She has served her purposes, and he will shed her as easily as his other love affairs. He manages to do without her for two weeks. Throughout the fall and winter of 1912, his tone changes, parallel with his entwining addiction. A creeping confusion muddles his relationship to sex and drugs, as he uses the same vocabulary of "effects" and "ecstasy" to describe getting high and getting laid. First the humor melts away, replaced by pretense, insecurity, and offended pride. Pride, though, becomes brittle when allowed to swell too large and soon it shatters; he is trapped, utterly without pride, in self-loathing and paranoia. From the summer where he pretended for seduction purposes to be a sorcerer, he descends to the autumn, where a mere fortune-teller's vague murmurs fill him with very real dread. His behavior becomes odd, manic. We are witnesses to an archteypal tragedy: a R enaissance man unable to use his mind to protect himself, squeezed to death by a very modern demon.

16

When addiction comes, there is a short battle between his older values (sexual, medical, artistic, duelist), and those imposed upon him by his jealous chemical mistress. The only value she offers in return for those he loses is the brief mirage of immortality, as Csath so eloquently described it in his famous short story Opium. This exchange of old values for new is the heart of the tragedy, and, despite everything one knows (or thinks) of the sober Csath, his downfall is heartbreaking. The obsession with injection quantities. The loss of interest in everything in this world. The repeated self-cajoling to quit tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. The loss of irony, wit, perspective, health, finally (and perhaps this is Lady M's most vicious trick), even the hope of achieving the ecstasy that only she can deliver. I found myself wanting Csath to get out of the house, to go betray his fiancee with his old gusto.

If the story Opium, and specifically the passage detailing how opium offers immortality to the brave, is one ofliterature's most eloquent statements of the drug user's philosophy, then its author's life is an equally eloquent refutation of it. The short story of 1909 appeals to the drug pioneer, the solitary and proudly unstriving hedonist; the story brilliantly promotes the Romantic transgressive ideal lurking in aggressive drug use. The diary of 1913, on the other hand, displays with greater intensity the pathos, the torment, the obsession, the forced striving, the most unromantic reality of addiction. "To transgress and harm myself, and not even to enjoy it-such bitter thoughts pursue me at these times, and often if there were a pistol nearby I would blow my head apart in a second."

17

Csath's every pleasure is diminished by the drug and also made impossible without it. His ability to focus, to tolerate himself or others, to sleep, to rise, to function depends upon the whims ofM. Hours without her are deemed triumphs. Plans for his escape from her multiply in vain. Paranoia ensues, and the journal entries about his wife (whom he will murder in 1919 before killing himself) begin to glow with a menacing foreshadowing, this woman who was once his only love and angel, his only flower in a desert of women. In these last pages the author Csath resembles most is Dante, and I felt he had left me, without the company of Virgil, to walk through every ring and fiery rivulet, every torment and stench found in Hell. This is not the tale of someone willingly, enjoyably disintegrating towards later soft regret, wreathed in the smoke rings of a faux-romanticism, enjoying himself before checking in to rehab. Csath does not even claim to be the sort of drug user who willingly trades his life or success for pleasure, and then willingly faces death when the pleasure is over. No, Csath is more honest than that. He shows that addiction is much worse, much less "literary" (despite making for great literature). This is addiction: Csath pays for decreasing pleasure at increasing cost, and is forced with each transaction to admit that the payoff is not worth the price, before he is allowed to reach for his feeble reward. He descends against his will, knowing that the price is too high, and that his dominating mistress is cruel in her implacable selectivity, for she takes precisely what her victim prizes most, in increasing order of value. "The usurious toll it collects in exchange for this simple trick on

18

human misery," he writes, in one sentence overthrowing the fantasy of 1909 with the reality of 1913. And as she peels away her next slice of the victim's life, her lover squeals that he doesn't want to play anymore, that he wants to go back to a time before he knew her. She does not listen; she proceeds to take what she wishes. In return, she still grants him her occasional favors, in decreasing intensity, until he is running after her, giving up everything, crying as he does so, and receiving nothing at all in return, but crumbling teeth and hellish insomnia and ceaseless vomiting. Casanova has become a pathetic boy in hopeless love. "I am so revolting, weak, and pitiful that I must genuinely wonder at Olga, that she still loves me ... I cannot perceive the smell of my poorly wiped ass or my decayed mouth." Here, then, is Opium's promised reward for bold transgression, what awaits the "real human being" who trades bourgeois concerns for twenty million years. By its horrifying last entry the diary has proven itself again to be potent literature, but this time didactic literature. Csath was opium's lover and he was her slave, and he is one of the rare men eloquent enough to express the elusive ecstasy felt by the lover and the inescapable nightmare lived by the slave. In that dual eloquence he stands as a very human lesson, proof that the suffering of the latter far outweighed the pleasures of the former. Arthur Phillips Paris,2003

19

THE DIARY OF GEZA CSATH

NOTES ON THE SUMMER OF 1912

A terrible and depressing thought: I no longer have any inclination to write. Since I began to work penetratingly with analysis and to examine my unconscious spiritual life in all its facets, I have no more need to write. Yet analysis only brings suffering, bitter recognition, and disappointment, while writing brings joy and sustenance. But still I can't! I write with difficulty, anxiously. The thought is killed in the bud by criticism. And I can't put my innermost, unsettled affairs onto paper. I am inhibited by the feeling that others can read between the lines as clearly as I - the psychoanalyst - can read into the writing of other authors. Nevertheless, with iron will, I force myself to write. I must write. Even if writing will never be my life's work again, at least it should be fun. I must play, even if! can't enjoy myself, because it's the only chance I have of ever making a lot of money. So, the summer of 1912! Dezso 1 and I made the trip together. The boy came back from Szabadka 2 very thin and pale. He had a cough. I worried. He slept badly. It brought to mind nights we had spent together long ago when he was in his second year of pharmaceutical studies; then I slept poorly and disturbed him. A beautiful summer morning dawned on Wednesday, 29 May. We took care of the luggage, washed quickly, 1. Dezso Brenner, Csath's brother 2. Subotica

23

Csath as a child in Szabadka, early 1890's (bottom row center, in white), next to him, brother Dezso

and within half an hour we were stocked with newspapers and having breakfast at Keleti palyadudvar3 • Altogether we had perhaps 300 crowns left of the 1,500 I had withdrawn for the spa venture; the rest had been spent a good while ago. We arrived at Stubnya4 on a windy, chilly spring midday. The large restaurant presented an unfriendly picture. We were cold, strangers. I worried about every move I made, and tried to find a way of winning everyone over as easily and stylishly as possible. I was hounded by feelings of depression and anxiety, which I tried to conceal by behaving in a superior yet still modest manner. I was broke again.

* In the mornings I usually sat in my office and wrote letters, or worked at arranging the furniture. Then I looked in on the bathing areas. Usually I found Dezso there alone, the bathing attendant massaging him while he groaned and laughed. The behaviour of this bathing attendant was the first warning that I needed to be careful. When I came down from Budapest for two days to visit the spa, I was straightforwardly kind to him, offered him my hand, and attempted to charm him. Now, when I arrived for a longer stay, he came to me laughing, but offered his hand first. These sorts of things, to which I have never paid attention before, now prompt me to serious thought. In principle, I have always been contemptuous of people 3. Budapest Eastern train station 4. Turcianske Teplice.

25

who try to elicit respect from others not by intellectual superiority but by proud, standoffish, arrogant, or reserved behaviour. Now I had to think of employing those silly conventions, which, I had to admit, were effective in regulating contact between people. Mrs Braun, too, addressed me entirely differently after I was contracted to work at the spa. Before I signed the contract, she treated me like the spa's pre-eminent professional, her own superior, and now she treated me like a businessman who had come to live off her and her spa. She clearly tried to sway her daughters against me too. They were not allowed to be kind to me, they could not enter into conversation of any length with me - or, if they did, they spoke as the daughters of a provincial pharmacist would speak to a trainee doctor, or the way a major's daughter speaks to a cadet. Therefore I stopped concerning myself with them. I showed no signs of being offended, but greeted them in all friendliness, and took no notice of the fact they did not receive this in a manner I had every right to expect, considering my station. When Dezso finished his cure, around 11.30, we usually took a long walk that lasted until 12.30. Then we had lunch. After lunch, we chatted with our partners at table, a veterinarian and a county assessor. Both were arrogant provincial fellows who thought themselves distinguished and very fine. Vibritzky, the assessor, had an especially high opinion of his own facial features, his clothes, and the effect he had on women. He never said a word about it, but it was clear just from looking at him. Both of them had dogs which they petted, patted, and fed during lunch, recounting endless idiotic anecdotes proving the intelligence and learning of the animals. Dezso and I couldn't

26

stand this company for long, and usually after three-quarters of an hour we were in our rooms, reading, washing, and chatting. During this time, I exercised moderation with the poisons. On average, I used .02-.03 ofps every other day at two in the afternoon, in a single dose. It did not produce harmonious euphoria, but it was necessary to quell sexual desire and allay my constant financial and moral worries. I was rightfully afraid that the saison would never really arrive. I saw no goodwill anywhere, I felt no warmth, no attraction. Only in Nandor Zaborsky, the chief magistrate, did I detect real sympathy. The beginning of June passed slowly. The instruments, the cabinet, the apparatus all arrived. The office was completely ready. I had work from the very first days. At first, the chronically ill of the surrounding villages consulted me. As I had plenty of time, I examined them with great care. In addition to a thorough internal examination I examined the nose, throat, and ears of every patient, although I had as yet little experience in the last two areas. By the time the real spa guests arrived, I was competent. The other advantage was that the patients spread my good reputation throughout the region and sent many new patients my way. On the third day, a widow came in with complaints of tubercular toxicosis. I soon put her on iodine-potassium (IP) treatment and fattened her up nicely. Her condition improved surprisingly, and she bade me farewell with overflowing gratitude. That was the first success. I considered it a good omen that my first patient suffered from a disease I had already learned to cure. 5. Pantopon, a morphine substitute.

27

StubnyaJurdo (Turcianske Teplice)

In the afternoons, at 4.30, we would have a snack. Afterwards, we would take long walks over to the neighbouring villages, playa little piano, or - at the cost of great self-abnegation - we would engage in conversation with Vitvizky, Marovitzky (an addle-brained, bankrupt landowner), and the honorary chief magistrate, all of ·whom were always idling in the park. At other times, we visited here and there. Of these visits, I preferred chatting or playing billiards with Jakobovics, the hapless railway medic. At least his dry, crude humour was amusing, and I enjoyed the self-important way he described his medical cases. We didn't usually stay up long after dinner. One or two games of billiards and off to sleep we would go. In bed, we read Casanova aloud to each other, spoke about the girls, Olga and Blanky, and recalled the beautiful love affairs we carried on with the young lasses. During this time, we slept poorly. Especially on days without P, sexual desire troubled me too. Recent trysts would replay themselves in my imagination with almost painful accuracy. I saw Olga as she walked to and fro in my room, in a shirt, as she bent at the waist, and the flesh of her little legs glowed through the thin black stockings. That's how I came, not long afterwards,Jaute de mieux, to seduce the hotel chambermaid, named Terez or something of the sort. I banged her hard a few times with a condom, because she had quite a tight vagina. Her virginity had been taken two years before by the spa's Dr Mahler. This 21-year-old girl with her thin, pale body was not an appetizing morsel, but as soon as her vapid blue eyes grew inflamed by lust, as soon as her face blushed red and she started to make violent counter-thrusts, there was

29

something interesting in that. Dezso tried communing with her as well, but the boy's penis drooped, and he called off the attack in vexation. Terez was naturally not at all satisfying for me, and I soon decided on a trip to Budapest. I only had three or four patients, none of them requiring constant treatment. Thus, at 7.00 a.m. on 12 June, I boarded a train. And at 1.00 p.m., after a long, tiring, and unendurably boring trip, I was finally able to embrace Olga. In the smoky black reflections ofKeleti palyaudvar, she first seemed surprisingly fat and strikingly lined. But afterwards I found her lips all the more sweet. Throughout the trip from the station, on the street and in the cab, I embraced her and kissed her greedily. Her kisses sent me into genuine ecstasy. My God, those kisses. What they meant to me. How much joy, suffering, all the complex excitement of a dissonant chord: marriage? career? future? honour? prestige? love? giving up other women? Sacrifice? For her, I felt I could easily give up all the women fate still held in store for me. Crossing at the end of Bares a utca, we got off at a little restaurant to take some nourishment. Greasy soup. We ate greasy pork or some such thing. I was utterly without appetite, but still I wanted to be over the problem of eating, so that afterwards we could live only for love. I looked at her constantly, I kissed her sweet face, eyes, neck, her soft, cleansmelling little hands, and I caressed her back, her tightly corseted, beautiful big thighs, her ankles through the thin net stockings. Meanwhile I ran over to the cafe across the way to telephone home and ask the concierge if everything was all right. I had taken .014 P the day before. The effect had completely worn off, so the weak and not

30

unbearable P-hunger dissolved into colossal, harmonious lust. Ezeizer, the concierge, notified me that my bed had been made and my room aired. Now every worry that things might not go smoothly disappeared, and we were home fifteen minutes later. I greeted the pleasant sundrenched room with a feeling of explosive happiness and satisfaction. Both of us undressed as fast as we could. Then I inserted a Vaginol suppository into her sweet little cunt, and five minutes later, mercilessly, with overpowering lust, lifting her little batiste shirt, I penetrated the thick black fur. In hardly more than a half-minute we reached the pinnacle of happiness. We had not even untangled ourselves from the enchanted kisses that followed when the second attack occurred. This we performed in stallion and mare position, lying on our sides. In sweetness it surpassed the first. We lay thus, almost unconscious with happiness, until 5.30 in the evening, kissing, embracing, deluging each other with praise and mutual confessions. The perfection of Olga's happiness was only reduced by the four Vaginol suppositories which irritated her dear little chalice. In the meantime we had a snack, smoked cigarettes, and I sat down naked at the piano to bring to life music befitting the situation from Wagner and the repertoire of the Budapest music halls. Wotan's farewell, Paraguay, Pali Palko ... etc. Dressed, I escorted my Olga to Kalvin ter6 . We agreed that I would not go up to her place, so as not to put the delights of the following morning at the slightest risk, or provoke her father's suspicions. We bade each other goodbye, and I went to the chemist to buy perfume, 6. Calvin Place.

31

I escorted my Olga to Kalvin ter. We agreed that I would not go up to her place, so as not to put the delights of the following morning at the slightest risk, or provoke her father's suspicions.

which I intended to present to the dear girl: Coty's 'Chypre'. I also had a little job to take care of at the repair man's. Nor did I forget the red carroe. I would certainly need that at the sanatorium. After I had thus taken care of everything, in a pleasant swoon, like a London gentleman down from his Yorkshire estate to spend a beautiful afternoon with his Agnes, I took a coach home in the warm dusty red and black evening. Gyula and Sandor were waiting for me, and we improvised a terrific dinner on the roof, engaging in lively talk. Their kindliness, honest sympathy, devotion, and delight at my happiness made my satisfaction complete, and under the beautiful starry sky, in the mild evening which made me think of nights in Algiers, feelings of youth, love and health filled my heart. Without any poison, I slept wonderfully well. The following morning, we had breakfast. I made a splendid dejeuner. In the beautiful sunny morning, the weariness I felt as the natural consequence of yesterday's encounters became a special source of joy to me. Around 10.30, my little Olga arrived. I soon undressed her. Her batiste shirt again bewitched me, so a sacrifice followed soon thereafter, in equine position. After that I dressed and went down to the ward to pay my respects to the professor. I chatted with him a little longer than I expected, so I was only back in my dear one's arms at 11.45. On this occasion too, I had an enormous erection, but ejaculation - after Sandor's telephone call disturbed us - was late. The sweet girl must have had all the more pleasure in it, as in the hen's position, she gave the 7. Almost certainly a personal code for morphine.

33

sweetest proof of all her love, devotion, and kindness. In this manner, I emptied the chalice of delights six times in twenty-four hours. Afterwards, perfectly satisfied, we slowly dressed. Rebekka set the table and we had lunch. We didn't have the greatest of appetites - our pleasures had passed the boundary of not disturbing the other functions - still, the food tasted good. We drank not much wine, and Olga became sick. I gave her an injection of Pantopon or Dionin powder, and she soon announced that she was well. The weather had turned bad in the meantime, and when we drove to the station, it had begun to drizzle a little. Pouting and tearful, my poor little Olga waved goodbye. I entered a coupe with my newspapers, took .02 P and began to read peacefully. In this manner, the trip passed quickly. Much more quickly than the trip to Budapest. At any rate, I was under the influence of the divine visit for weeks, and in enchanted letters both of us returned again and again to the joys we had experienced. For eleven days thereafter I was able to prevent sexual desire from overwhelming me. At that point, however, one morning, thinking of Olga, I committed onania (already the fourth time that year.) The next time, I took Terez offher feet again, because I was sure Olga would be more likely to agree to that than to my practising the ugliness of onanism, even thinking of her. The sexual feelings were slight, but still they produced tranquility and a better attitude toward work. Around this time, on a Sunday, Paula, the daughter of a midwife from Skleno, came to my office. I had treated her earlier, but this was the first time she sought me out alone. I examined her. She smiled at me coquettishly. Her

34

hard, pink little nipples almost poked through her thick peasant's shirt. Apart from that, she had full red lips and hen-like blue-green eyes with lids a little swollen. When I listened at her naked, snow-white back, I found myself suddenly kissing it, then her breasts, and finally her mouth. She embraced me voraciously and returned my kisses. That day I was angry with Olga, for she had played an unpleasant, petty trick on me in a letter. It bothered me that after so much work, I still had not been able to teach her what not to say, which womanly tricks not to use with me. - Thus my conscience didn't bother me. I spent a good one to one-and-one-halfhours with Paula, hugging and kissing. I was able to ascertain that the girl was a virgin, but I only made a weak attack against her virtue, and when she resisted, I declined to use greater cunning or force. As often, I was shocked by how swiftly a girl could be ruined and turned into a woman, at least in spirit. After I had had enough of the amusement, and my office hours were close at hand, I ordered the girl to get dressed. Her eyes burned, her lips gasped, her head ached when she staggered out of the room - as for me, I opened a window. In the first half ofJuly, I frequented Terez again a couple of times, but then, with the multiplying of my affairs, I felt less and less need for genital amusements. Slowly, fortunately, I lost the habit of them. One day, however, a surprising young girl aroused my attention in the ground floor hallway of the Erzsebet Hotel. A little girl with noblewoman's clothes and the face of a prostitute, a fine, tender little chick-shaped, pink face, full, blood-red lips, and brownish-yellow eat's eyes. All in all, a phenomenon resembling Mandy B., a little suspicious, but attractive at

35

Otatrafured (Stary Smokovec), where Csath worked as a spa doctor in the Summer of 1908 and met his future wife, OlgaJonas

36

the first moment. The girl showed overall the stamp of premature physical decline, but of having the calling, too. I saw her several times over the course of the day; she always smiled languidly, indifferently. I doubted the thing would go easily with her, because I was certain the chambermaid, that jealous old slut, would watch her. But I succeeded in making her mine the first night. While she was making the bed, I went up to the room. It was already dark, I embraced her, she curled against me. In a second I had laid her down, pulled on a condom and accompanied by her languid protest, I penetrated. During coitus she embraced me softly, looked at the ceiling, and quietly whispered: 'Hateful, hateful, how hateful.' Only in her honest moment of ecstasy did she fall silent. When we finished she carried on making the bed. I washed. my hands, and put on a clean collar and perfume. Finally, I gave her a gift of ten crowns. She asked me not to tell the chambermaid, because then she would have to give half the honorarium to her. I promised, on condition that she received no others, and reserved her chalice for me at the spa. The next evening she came to me after everyone had retired. She wore a surprisingly pretty slip, of good batiste, and she was exceptionally well washed. We communed only once this time as well because I took her temperature and found it was 38.3 C. In despair, I told myself: this cursed illness pursues me everywhere. The first half ofJuly was also given to a courtship 'by the book'. There was a superb Jewess at the spa, Zelma B. She was taller than average, with a wide Venus-like figure, sweet, full little mouth, a straight silly little nose (of the Iren Varsanyi type) along with shapely hands and feet. At first she behaved quite wildly. She saw only her older sis-

37

ter, the wife of a lawyer from Stubnya, and her brotherin-law. The director of the sanatorium, Dicker - who later left with sixty crowns of mine without saying goodbye besieged her vigorously from the start. But the little lady was savage and distrustful. As her refinement was slight, she openly confessed that she saw what the Director was after, but declared that he was greatly mistaken, because she was a respectable woman, etc. As far as I my own case was concerned, I was her mute admirer for a week, and tried in vain to win even a glance from her. In the mornings, she sat beside her coffee in a light violet wool dressing gown and a full-length white madeira apron, which made her hips even wider and more impressive. One would have pictured this woman's face attached to a thin (Lyca-like) body, but with her large, incomparably beautiful, and nobly formed buttocks, she could be attractive and bewitching. She lacked intelligence, however, the knowledge that makes my little Olga a woman of breeding and without peer. Olga can see her body at every moment, and feel its effect, almost unconsciously, but perfectly and constantly. A week later Zelma appeared in my office with her husband. Naturally, I didn't neglect to stick the thermometer into her, especially as her pallor awakened my suspicion. The thermometer read 37.1 C. Disappointment awaited during the chest examination. Her pretty lace blouse covered slightly drooping breasts, though the woman was only 28. I convinced her to take an Arsycodile 8 cure, and ordered her and her husband to return for a throat exam in the evening. The husband did 8. Arsenic trichloride.

38

not come. The woman spoke affectedly, did her best to be difficult, behaved completely differently from in the afternoon, and in the end, even after many attempts, I was unable to get a good look at her throat. I decided, however, that during the Arsycodiles, I would inject an IP or two and monitor the effects. On the days that followed, the woman didn't come for her treatment unless I grabbed her and took her into my office. I saw her defence against me was strong, and I was happy about that - oh, what base and true joy! - because I knew that if that was the way things stood, a strong impulse had to be there as well. I resorted to a trick. I declared that when she came to see me she should always bring either her sister or her cousin (whom I frequently saw, a little 16year-old Olga, with ugly features but a delicately blooming body) - 'so that the person who escorted her could help me with the injection', as her grace carried on in the most scandalous way each time, wriggling, wrestling, and shrieking. With this ruse, I was able to vex her. Besides this, when we talked, I always asked about her little cousin, and praised the young lass. Zelma wasn't able to hide how much all this bothered her. The sister soon departed, but I sent her messages through Zelma, who came for injections regularly. In the afternoons she invited me to eat cherries or cake in her room, where we finally exchanged our first kiss. I kissed her back or neck several times in the office but she would jump away, look daggers at me, and not say a word. I always kept calm, maintained my posture of superiority and joked about my actions. I could easily see that the game was to her liking. One day in her room she mentioned that if her husband came on Sunday, she would tell him about my behaviour, lodge a complaint, as it were ...

39

- All right, do it, I answered, if you have the heart to force that poor man into a duel. 'Force him!' she laughed, 'He doesn't duel - he's afraid. He's a coward' (loud chortle). On that cue I pushed her down onto the couch and kissed the evil little beast all over. Her lips trembled, and she rested in my hands in an utter swoon. Afterwards, of course, the obligatory hysterical crying followed, at which point I left the room. Several cases had proved to me that this was the wisest course. In the following days, however, she never kissed me of her own volition, but always struggled and resisted, unable to enjoy the transgression. The husband arrived on Sunday. He and his wife entered their room right away. The poor sap gave his all quite soon, however, and fell into slumber. His wife got dressed, locked him inside, and came to my office to kiss. I hated her, and was reduced to despair by the thought that all Jewish women - Olga too - were basically like this, that is, entirely without a sense of responsibility and moral taste. I was later informed that when the husband woke, he amused himself with the combinette game I left with his wife on the night table. This last despite his surely having heard a thing or two about our afternoon walks from his brother-in-law. He left the next day. So Zelma and I continued our afternoon walks. I usually had lunch around 1.30, because I had quite a lot to do. Afterwards I went to see her. We ate cherries, strawberries, or apricots, and kissed. Then we betook ourselves to the park so that we could arrange a siesta in the good air among the pretty shaded paths. During this period I generally took .02 P at around two in the afternoon, to ensure tranquillity and self-restraint.

40

Zelma was quite kind to me on these walks, complimenting me and pursuing me with offers of marriage. 'I'll get a divorce,' she said. 'I'll become yours and you'll see what a clever, good wife I'll be, and I certainly won't cheat on you, Gott, such a man!' We sat chatting thus for a long time, while I smoked one good cigarette after the other. At around 4.15 I had office hours, so we separated until 7.00 p.m. We met only after supper, when she entered the hall with her brotherin-law and sister, to sit over wine spritzers and fruit drinks while the gypsies played. I didn't always sit with them. I liked it best when Zelma and I could have dinner deux. Even that was no great joy, as the woman's intellectual capabilities were below the level necessary for one to be able to speak with her as an equal partner or human being. Her temperament, her animal instinctiveness, rude selfishness and its manifestations amused me, however. They did not increase sexual interest - rather the opposite - but they diverted me and induced splendid and profitable meditations on the nature of women. These meditations turned to sadness in the end, for the most part, and offered particularly strong arguments against marriage. Unfortunately, I could see that Zelma's faults were those of the female gender, though her lack of refinement and her country ways put them through a distorting mirror from which they emerged multiplied and augmented - I honestly pitied her husband, who seemed decent, wellmannered, and a good chap. Zelma declared innumerable times that she saw what I wanted, but that I was greatly mistaken, nothing would come of it, she hadn't lost her mind, etc. I knew she would be mine, she couldn't escape any more. One of the many arguments I used was that

a

41

everyone at the spa believed we were having an affair. If she had already acquired the bad reputation there was no sense in giving up the better and more pleasant aspects of the affair. - She ridiculed me. 'Good argument you've got there. Yes, I'm entertaining the notion.' But from her intonation and her gestures, I could tell she agreed with me. For a while, however, she systematically mentioned marriage at these times. She listed her virtues as a housewife, and sometimes went as far as to submit plans for an imagined married life together. Naturally, everyone at the spa knew about the matter. Even Mrs Palfty, the pretty widow, made insinuations about the shapely Jewish lady. Dicker, the director, the Joska Katona ofStosz, my jealous rival (in the sexual competition, I vanquished him as thoroughly as I did the filthy rich and handsome Katona), wheedled information from me, asking how things stood, and cursed that I had 'fucked' the woman away from him. It was not yet true. In her last days at the spa, Zelma took to her bed. The hot baths she took despite my admonitions had, it appeared, speeded up the warm processes in her lungs. She had fevers and her general well-being suffered. I looked in on her often, but she called for me even more. She had fevers from 37.2 to 38.3 C. Fortunately, severe tonsillitis was indicated as well. On 12 or 13 July, I told her 1 would be in to see her that night. 'Have you gone mad?' was the answer. '1 will come in.' 'I'll lock myself in.' 'But I'll take the key.' 'Y ou wouldn't dare.' '1 would.'

42

But I didn't take the key; I wanted her to have the opportunity to take it and hide it if she really did intend to preserve her virtue. When I made my evening visit - her relatives were there with her - I saw that the key was in the lock. On leaving, I took it out and pocketed it. I must note here that the woman had stood me up once. She had invited me to come beneath her window at night to talk, and then didn't open it. I planned to crawl inside to her and let Venus take care of the rest. Upon my knock, she stuck her head out but behaved as though she remembered nothing; she insulted me, declaring that she wanted to sleep, and that I should leave her alone, etc. This exceptionallack of ethics somewhat irritated me. That's why I could now act without a guilty conscience. At around 11.30, I appeared in my rubber-soled shoes, equipped with a little cap, condoms, and a flashlight, not forgetting the Vaseline either. The woman wearily whispered, 'Go away!' I reached under the comforter. Her body was all afire and perspiring. She had a high temperature. At that moment, I metamorphosed into a doctor. I sat down, took her fever, gave her medicine and left after half an hour, wondering whether it was my guardian angel or hers who had arranged things this way. Naturally, I put the key back in its place. The next day, I tried with all my powers to cure the woman, and to make her capable not only of giving pleasure but also of experiencing it. In two days' time, I had succeeded quite well. I then repeated the key trick. There was a strong possibility that I could leave the key inside and she wouldn't lock the door. With such a capricious little beast, however, I didn't want to take the risk that she

43

might suddenly decide to lock herself in. I asked the doorman to wake me after midnight. I dressed and crept down. This time, her defence was stronger. From the time I entered the room, she repeated the word 'insolent' continuously, at ten-second intervals. It was about 12.45. I heard a candle being lit in the neighbouring room. This made it certain that we too, could be heard; and so I signalled that she should be quiet, placed her on the floor and began to undress. It was a dangerous enterprise, for she was expecting her husband on the twelve 0' clock train. It was almost one 0' clock, but there was still some likelihood either that the train was late, or that the husband had already arrived, had found out by someone's machinations or an anonymous letter, and was waiting somewhere, perhaps, to catch his wife in the act. I told the doorman, a discreet old codger from Budapest (the former 'political' doorman of the White Horse), that if the husband arrived, he should either be kept waiting outside or sent up to the second floor while the doorman alerted me by knocking on No. 10. Soon I was lying in the bed. She didn't stop the incantation 'insolent' for a moment - not even when I had placed the instrument oflove inside her chalice and the bed's rhythmic squeaks signalled that the moments of mutual understanding were approaching. The woman changed her tactics while this was going on. She continued to lie motionless, without making my work easier or letting on that the events were to her liking in the least measure. On the other hand, she began to mention her husband. 'Oy, poor Armin, my poor husband, my God, what kind of woman am I, God, and poor Armin.' She spoke thus, in a distraught tone of voice and with honest intona-

44

tion. I showed no mercy for her, however; and though these comments were not at all of the sort that would allow me the enjoyment of perfect sexual delight, I finished off the battle with a middling orgasm. Afterwards we moved over to the harder divan, which didn't squeak. In the meantime, I tipped over a glass of water, a chair, etc., but I managed at long last to lay her down. I was angry that she was utterly unwilling to find pleasure in sin, and that her imagination was completely occupied by the possible untoward consequences of the thing. Nonetheless, I assaulted her once more and defeated her, without receiving a single endearment or a real warm hug. In truth, the woman's pleasure has always been the most important thing for me. Around 3.30, in a state of pleasant weariness, I went up to my room. Dawn had already spread its first blueish-purple traces over the landscape. A divinely beautiful and satisfied feeling came over my heart. The feeling of youth and power. I felt beautiful and powerful. My lamp gave off a yellowish flicker and still spread light in the looming dawn. I opened the windows of my room and breathed in a lungful of the fresh air that came from the mountains. I thought of my little Olga. How would the sweet thing be sleeping now? Would she be dreaming of me or someone else? Before me, on the pillow, I saw her darkly shadowed, kind little face, and I felt a little bitterness. I would have given up this tryst with pleasure and inner satisfaction had she not made such an effort, so many times, to demonstrate that she was undeserving and not worthy of respect. It didn't matter, I loved her anyway. I injected .014 P, lit a cigarette and, to the music of her combinette, I meditated a bit longer in bed.

45

1

I

The next morning, I awoke late. I looked out of the window, and whom did I see? Zelma and her brother-inlaw, approaching from the direction of the post office and discussing something animatedly. An hour later, I knew what it was about. A cable had arrived from the husband, calling the woman home immediately. The reason for this turn of events was not the husband's divine intuition, but the arrival of Zelma's mother. Not knowing what to do with the mother-in-law, the poor husband had called his wife home. I was rather pleased by this development because I was beginning to worry that Zelma might become accustomed to my attacks; what's more, she might realize how favourably they compared to her husband's tenderness, and then there would be complications with this imbecilic creature - they could hardly have been avoided. She came to bid me farewell later that morning. On the divan of my office, we sacrificed once more to pleasure; then, with tender embraces, we finished the scene and our brief relationship. On this occasion, though she did mention her husband a few times, it seemed to me that she had an orgasm anyway. She haggled and managed to reduce my fee by 30 crowns. I would have forgone the fee entirely had she not disturbed me in my delights, been more obedient, and admitted greater ecstasy. As the case stood however, I did not. I didn't even escort her to the train, because we would have betrayed ourselves in front of her relatives. From one of the stations she travelled through she sent me a card, protesting at my failure to escort her to the train; but from the tone of the writing one could sense that true love had really only begun for her at the moment of departure. That very night - whether from tension or from gluttony

46

- I invited the little chambermaid, Margit, into my room. Yes, yes ... I longed for what I had not received from Zelma, I wanted to see a woman openly enjoying herself, panting. It worked and I calmed down. Zelma continued to write. I didn't answer, of course. Still, a few days later I received a letter from a girlfriend of hers, warning: 'Do not write to Zelma) the letters she has written have already almost cost her life.' I was shocked, slipped my brass knuckleduster into my pocket and waited for the vengeful husband with each arriving train. But he did not come. Instead, two weeks later Zelma wrote, taking advantage of her husband's absence to recount the recent events. The crafty woman had used the 'vaccination' method: she spoke of me and mentioned that others had insinuated there was something between us, and she showed him the anonymous letter she had received at the baths, a broad and obvious rewrite of the couplet entitled 'Doctor'. Her husband remained calm. One day, however, when he came home, he found an unfinished letter on the table, one that was being written to me. The careless Zelma had gone to the bathroom and left it out. The husband seized the letter and ran off. The wife sent for opium and took it all. Then came scenes of reconciliation, thrashing and breaking things, beating, the husband's suicide plan, etc. In the end, the wife recovered from the mild poisoning in a few days, the husband apologized, kissed her hand, and made up with her. - In Zelma's letter this denouement is presented as self-evident and there is, in the end, a great pride in her being much spoken of in the village and referred to as a bad woman. The letter is a textbook example of imbecilic womanly thinking. I did not answer it. I responded only later, when

47

she wrote, with the permission of her husband, asking for her IP prescription. When she left the sanatorium, I had given her a small bottle of IP and explained its use, recommending it to her husband as a cough suppressant. There followed a sudden improvement in the recurrent tubercular complaints and coughing afflicting Armin, the stalwart veteran of the Erzsebet Sanatorium. I answered the letter and gave detailed instructions. Interestingly, this circumstance eased my conscience and actually made me happy. Ultimately, there was no denying that the help I gave the poor ill husband amounted to more than the pleasure I received from his wife. From the wife's description and the symptoms that had appeared previously (coughing, insomnia), and the improvement following use ofIP (the complete cessation of tussis, better general condition, etc.) I was justified in concluding that I had succeeded in averting a malignant relapse. Interestingly, since the scema, as I found out from the wife's later letters, the husband had returned to the style of tenderness and kindness he exhibited during their honeymoon. Clearly, jealousy had increased his love. Zelma, however, loved me more and more, and as she mused over her memories, her attraction grew apace. When her husband travelled - incredible recklessness - she invited me to visit her. In the village! Where everyone would have found out immediately. She promised I wouldn't regret it. I didn't for a moment consider going. Travel! Unfamiliar place. Bad, even fateful prospects. Had I loved her? Yes. But like this? Sometimes I recalled her pretty, wide hips, wonderful back, pretty little face, her clean white aprons and her Slovakian-Jewish accent. At these times I always smiled to myself pleasantly, but felt nothing otherwise.

48

The chambermaid! This is a new chapter. Short but poignant. She was a 36-year old, fleshy, big-nosed nymphomaniac, procuress for the chambermaids, with huge buttocks, slightly sagging but beautiful breasts, masterfully formed on the whole, with velvet-smooth pink skin. Her brutal healthiness and terrible sensuality captured my attention, calling to mind a Bacchante. On one occasion I saw her in the baths. The wet bathing suit clung to her skin and revealed splendid curves. The formation of the hips, their transition to the back, the body in its entirety was of a rare beauty. I decided then to attend seriously to obtaining it. I intended to be completely loyal to my Olga in our married life, and this type of woman had never appeared on my menu. At noon of 19 July, I trapped her in my room. I locked the door, and since I knew she was money-hungry I gave her ten crowns. A minute later she was prone. She worked with terrible enjoyment, pointing her legs at the ceiling while she balanced her huge buttocks and wide thighs against my belt. The orgasm she induced was significant, and worth the money. On the following day we sacrificed again. She came up at night in a thin blouse and with a wild fire sparkling in her eyes. This mother several times over became ten years younger at these times, moaning as she repeated, 'It's so good'. and embracing me frantically. As I discovered, an important part of her enjoyment was that I had neglected her for a long time after having caressed her and hugged her a few times at the very beginning of the season. She knew of my successes and was envious of the little chambermaid I had singled out while neglecting to initiate any new action towards her. I found out from her that Terez had been sent away for stealing a shirt.

49

A shirt, a shirt! That's when I remembered that I had once warned the girl to put on a nicer blouse or to come in a batiste shirt - then I would undress her and put her into bed. Later I didn't feel like doing it - but evidently our Terez did get hold of the shirt, even if not by reputable means. About a week later, a third new chambermaid appeared on the horizon. Her name was Karolin. Small, shapely, snub-nosed, black-haired, white-skinned, kind, with an arrogant voice. A common wench with the aroma of the bordello, but a healthy, lively, wicked little beast. Because of her similarity to Irene, I had my eye on her from the start. She rejected the standard advances and only days later was I able to get her to give me a kiss with her blood-red, hard little lips. I got no further. She didn't want it. She announced that her rate was twenty crowns. A few days later she said she would be willing for thirty crowns. I didn't mind - I had so much money the sum didn't really make much difference to me. A few minutes later she was lying in my bed and we were united in a lively duet. The girl laughed constantly, looked at me and said things of this sort: 'Oh, how fresh, what are you looking at there, my God, like a bear, polar bear, polar bear!' Her originality was decidedly refreshing, and although her orgasm on this first occasion did not seem great, I still felt it was worth the money, and that she was the most extraordinary of the women at the spa so far. Even later on, pleasure for her only lasted a very short while, like a little weasel or a domestic rabbit, but it grew consistently in intensity. The cause of the inhibitions she showed at first was her fiance, whose ring she wore. She had promised to be faithful, she had sworn, and she tried to keep the vow at least partially.

50

Later, she gave up completely. I could well see that the flame of true pleasure sparkled in her eyes, and in her finely formed little white basin, great upheavals took place. For the rest of the season I had only five or six more encounters with her, quite lively ones. The most memorable - or, shall I say, the only memorable one - was when I assailed Karolin within earshot of Margit, the other chambermaid, who was then ill. Margit pleaded with me not to do it but I could not resist the unique charm of the situation and I penetrated. Karolin, too, was excited by the unusual and cruel trio, and she gave her all. I left the room in the midst of Karol in's usual ribbing, 'polar bear, shameless person ... ' etc. and Margit's quiet sobbing. But that happened near the end of the season; much awaited me before then. At the end of July, two labourer girls looked me up. One of them had herself examined while the other safeguarded the patient. I had noticed the escort, Bozsi B., weeks earlier. Scrawny but sweet build, upturned nose, Jolanka face - I thought ofJolan when I saw her, J olan at 16 or 17, with silky, beautiful blonde hair and black doe-eyes. The whole girl was an arresting and picturesque phenomenon, a little Melisande, a little fairy-tale princess or the spring fairy from a Max Klinger kitsch painting. The next day, on their second visit, I kept her with me and sat her down. She obeyed. I kissed her. She pressed against me. 'J olanka, little J olanka,' I whispered to myself, as if under the influence of an old fixation. She looked up at me anxiously and sweetly, her beautiful eyes full of tears. I took her history and examined her. Naturally, I found a little apicitis at 37.5 C. I started her on an Arsycodile cure immediately. She was reluctant to take

51

the injection, though after I explained something important was at stake, namely, that I was going to cure her, she agreed to continue the shots and came regularly. I treated her very conscientiously and succeeded brilliantly in dispatching the first dose ofIP. Her temperature went down right away, and the feverish intervals were reduced to two or three hours. I provided her with money too, so she would have something to eat to supplement the disgraceful meals Mrs Braun gave them - members of the worker's cooperative fund - as board. Bozsi improved rapidly, and when she left the sanatorium around the middle of August, that is, after three weeks of treatment, she could boast of having gained almost six kilograms. She had gained colour, and her little bottom strained visibly under her skirt. Bozsi came in to see me two or three times a day. She helped me wash the instruments, and amused me with gossip that was circulating about me and my lovers. On 28 July, I reached the state of complete ecstasy while embracing her. This was followed by great depression, however. For this reason, I decided to stop using B.9 I stopped the poison at once and entirely, for two weeks, without any difficulty. We generally spent the afternoons together, wandering in the fields from two to four, singing couplets and chatting about events in Budapest. After the first days I could see she was a virgin. Her hymen was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. I t was also in the first days of August that I noticed a chambermaid who resembled Charlotte. I invited her to 9. Author's code for morphine.

52

my room, and with the help of condosa, I stormed her right away. She enjoyed herself terribly, but I didn't avail myself of her again, because I found her arms too thin. In the first half of August, a woman appeared at my office, Emma V. She wanted to have herself examined. I could see what her true purpose was immediately from her behaviour, dress, and everything else. Because of the surprising ugliness of her face, however, I only laughed to myself about her. She had a sharp, upturned nose, deepset light blue eyes, pimply facial skin with large pores, and big wide lips. Her manner of speech was supercilious and mincing. She immediately mentioned her acquaintances among the nobility. Then she narrated the story of her marriage. Her husband, one of the most famous of Kormocbanya'slO cavaliers, had committed suicide. Some disease of the blood, it seemed, and the fear of paralysis. This conclusion is also indicated by the wife's upturned nose. Unable to forget the phallus of her exceptionally potent drone, the widow attempted suicide shortly after the burial. She shot herself in the breast. She even showed me the bullet hole. Later, it seemed, she realized that pleasure could be obtained from other sources. Masturbation for one, and through men. Her face revealed that she practised the first much more often. During the examination of the genitalia, I was surprised by the beauty of the body, the pink, lip-like nature of the introitus and its blonde decor, the slimness and shapeliness of the legs. During the examination she exaggerated her embarrassment. When the speculum was introduced (only the smallest size would go in), however, her embarrassment 10. Kremnica

53

Kormocbanya (Kremnica)

did not impede her from enjoying herself openly. I stayed quite calm. She dressed, I wrote her a prescription, and excused her. (She had only a slight endometritis, with a minimal discharge.) In a few days she sought me out again. Another examination followed. By now, she stimulated me decidedly. Mainly I was affected by the nature of her pretentiousness, with its similarity to that of Charlotte. I was also struck by the woman's insolence, her imbecilic, base nature, her poverty (she was the daughter of a postal official and lived off her parents), and her saturation with desire. She undressed agilely, her black pants clung tightly. At the same time she undid her long, ash blonde hair, which fell to her knees. On her feet were good patent leather shoes and quite high stockings. When she spread her thighs apart, I asked when she had last had intercourse. 'Oh, a long time ago!' she said in a stifled voice, and her eyes sparkled with a green light, revealing anxiety that perhaps she wouldn't have it now, either. 'And what would you say ifI did it now?' 'I would permit it,' was her answer, while she hid her face, and her entire lower abdomen convulsed. I put on a condom, and there, on the examination table, I attacked, standing up. As much as she was able, she lifted her chalice to serve me better. My enjoyment was significant because her eyes sparkled wildly and her entire ugly being went through a peculiar transformation which excited and fascinated me. It was only the lack of a kiss which made the enjoyment imperfect. I did not dare to kiss her and did not even want to. As soon as I had finished I turned myself back into a doctor with insulting speed. I saw how much this woman enjoyed humiliation

55

so I gave her her share, ordering her to dress quickly because others were waiting outside. She was ecstatic in her praise of the pleasure she had received. 'It was a like a fairy tale, a fairy tale!' After that, she left. But first she planted hot, slavewoman kisses on my hair and back. Afterwards, the woman looked me up four or five more times. I always insisted on delaying the appointment by a week, and she obediently accepted the terms. The sexual pleasure I felt with her grew further on the later occasions. I tried her out in all kinds of positions, and her peculiar, devilish character could produce something new and filthily stimulating in each new situation. Her tall, supple, but not thin build, finely modelled hips, and large mound of Venus were quite beautiful. And to go with them, that pimply, distorted face with pink lips that looked like raw meat. Lying on her back, she was able to pull her knees all the way back to her shoulders. At those times, she always declared: 'I worship you, because you crumple me up under you so.' Aside from this, she always showered me with praise, and during the act of coitus itself, from under a veiled gaze, she quietly moaned: 'Unreal, fantastic, it's all unreal!' Several times she asked me to get a job for her in Budapest, and to allow her to come and see me at least once a month. 1 always hedged - the devil with it, a woman who had already tried suicide once could make a lot of trouble. Nevertheless, 1 could not prevent her from looking me up a couple of times in Budapest. The unparalleled weakness of human nature allowed her to have her way on one such occasion.

56

At the end of September or the beginning of October she came in a 'princess' dress, under which, as I discovered later, she wore only a blouse and knitted pants. That's when I gave in to temptation. From behind, standing up in front of the mirror, I performed the savagery upon her. A great weariness followed. I made grave accusations against myself of having cheated on my loyal little Olga, and with such a woman. But even today I conclude that it would be easier for Olga to forgive me if - as was the case - the woman was far beneath her in quality. I would restrain myself from telling her what intense sexual excitement this nasty beast could induce. (If I analyse the cause of it, I arrive at the following: (1) resemblance to Charlotte, (2) masturbatory past, (3) her little daughter, (4) her contemptibility, (5) in contrast to the preceding, her insolent hauteur, (6) the contrast between her pimply, ugly face and her outstanding figure, (7) the way she offered herself, that is, her shameless lust.) The further evolution of my relationship with Bozsi B. occurred in the first half of August. Until then, I did not want to hurt the lass because I felt sorry for her; now, however, I desired more and more to occupy her little virgin chalice. On 8 August, I undressed her in order to examine her, carefully inspected her hymen, and found it faultless. 'Allow me, my darling,' I said, 'to make you mine.' 'No, absolutely not,' she said, 'it's out of the question.' The arrogance and provocation in her tone made me wild. I laid her down and sans condom I soon penetrated her. Lustfully, as if it was something she had been anticipating for a long time, she received my assault. She gave herselflike a little lamb, with fiery eyes, and only protested out of propriety.

57

Stubnyafurdo, Green Mirror women's baths

'Don't hurt me, my dear sweet one, don't hurt me, you'll break me, my God, don't hurt me!' In the meantime, however, she embraced me with fire, and I could well see that her joy exceeded her pain. We both soon reached ecstasy and looked at each other astonished. She had only bled slightly, no doubt on account of the copious Vaseline I used and also because I had not penetrated her roughly. I did not want to rip the curtain apart entirely, and was satisfied to have got halfway through the door. Afterwards, I was a little frightened of what I had done. She was a weak, kind little girl, after all! What would happen if she conceived? Such questions thronged in my mind, and I bothered the sweet thing no more at the baths. A few days later, when she departed, I forced thirty crowns on her and provided her with advice and stamps, so that she could inform me of her condition. Later, in Budapest, she sought me out once a week for further treatments, usually on Sundays. On these occasions I always served her coffee, oranges, and pastry, and made her sing the songs she heard in the Budapest night. Her musicality left me in awe more than once. I played the piano for her many times. During a selection from Lohengrin, she exclaimed: 'How beautiful!' She understood music. She could sit at the piano for hours playing tunes, and working at harmonizing them. 'Oh, Lord,' she sighed, 'what a shame I can't do it with my other hand too!' In the Green Mirror women's baths, a pretty servant named Anna Schwarz had attracted my attention almost since the beginning of the season. Wide face. Creole-pink skin. A splendid body, rock-hard breasts. Huge muscles.

59

Big, round blue eyes. Fuller than usual lips and a slightly crooked little bird's nose. She was a distrustful, apprehensive virgin. Only after lengthy wrestling was I able to bring her lips to a kiss. When it happened, however, she embraced me fervently and kissed me back. I was astounded; she kissed like an artist oflove. I could get no further, though. A couple of times she promised she would come up to my apartment, but she always deceived me. She never came. Finally, I succeeded in getting her to come to my office one Sunday afternoon. Once there, she lay down on the couch, but heaped obstacles in the way of further natural developments, leaving no doubt that her lust was much weaker than her fear of possibly losing her virginity. Thus I let her go without having deflowered her. On the occasion of my leaving, however, she came to see me and left me her address, in case I needed a servant in Budapest. From this I deduced that my desire had affected her after all, and had awakened in her the desire to be mine. She was a blue-eyed woman. A peasant Lulu! In other words, she wanted definite value in exchange. A position as a servant would have satisfied her. Another little affair also occurred in August. Kitty W. was a pretty lass who had been to America, the daughter of a machinist's wealthy widow. I had treated Kitty's mother for gout. The daughter had awakened my interest weeks before, with her fine, slim body, big bird nose, lively bird's eyes, strange and endearing bird-like movements. Her complexion was a brilliant pink, she wore a pretty English hairstyle, high-heeled shoes and a tight skirt. In the restaurant, we frequently engaged in lively exchanges with our eyes. She appeared to be a flirtatious

60

and lively girl. I was displeased to discover she was engaged. Still, when she escorted her mother to my office and we shook hands, I noticed that she put vigour into her return of my weak handshake, and that she even smiled back at me from the door to the foyer. A few days later, I met her at the stairs on the second floor. 'Wohin gehen Sie?' 'Hinaufzum Mama!' 'Warten Sie, bitte, ein wenig.'!! I held her nervous little white hand. She stopped, her face shone with the blush invading it, and the sparkle of her eyes revealed that I was free to dare. I embraced and kissed her. She returned the kiss ardently - our lips did not part for twenty or thirty seconds. From then on, under various pretexts (urine tests for her mother etc.), she often came to my office alone. She allowed every genre of flirtation, but she saved her chalice for her fiance. Nota bene, in a few days I had the opportunity to see this little treasure of hers in its entirety. She wished to have herself examined as a brideto-be. I found fissures in her hymen. On my inquiry, she admitted that someone had seduced her when she was eight or nine. The seducer, however, could not have been a mature male. Utilizing this information, I made an effort to convince her not to deny me her charms, since her husband-to-be would not be getting her as a virgin anyway! I was curious to know how debauched she was. I was rather pleased when she resolutely denied my request (and I consider this strengthened will to be the effect of American 11. "Where are you going?" "Upstairs, to see Mama!" "Wait a minute, please."

61

morals and breeding). On the other hand, she declared that she loved me and would always love me. Before she left she brought her fiance as well. He stood before me, a slim, well-dressed boy with a respectable look. A little thin, but healthy. That is, not completely: he showed a slight orthostatic albuminuria. This, however, 1 did not tell the girl, nor even the patient. 1 met Kitty on one other occasion, when she came to escort her mother home. She was quite forthcoming, sought me out, undressed down to her undershirt, hugged me, kissed me, and left with tears in her eyes. Three months later, she sent me a warm-hearted wire in German, inviting me to her wedding. 18 August was approaching. The day set for the arrival of my sweet little Olga. All summer long we had exchanged letters daily and talked on the telephone every week. (I will never forget her sweet, longing, faithful voice, as it flew toward me from Budapest, from her little room above the drugstore.) 1 had returned to the poison. Mainly to ensure calmness for our forthcoming and dangerous trysts. On 18 August, at noon, they arrived. 1 embraced the sweet girl with overflowing joy - she had been my wife, practically speaking, for almost a year. Kissing her lips, 1 felt that the sexual delight offered by this girl was incomparable. All the ladies and girls 1 had kissed all summer out of professional enthusiasm did not give as much joy put together as this woman with a single kiss. In half an hour she was changed and waiting for me in her room. A few pounds heavier than at our last meeting, in her black batiste robe with white dots and her belt-like little corset, she seemed more beautiful than ever. We fell upon each

62

other's lips eagerly. We were genuinely drunk with ecstasy and our eyes were swimming in tears. After excusing ourselves from her father's company we were soon walking on the remote paths of the park, arm in arm, experiencing unforgettable, happy feelings. We wanted to fuse with the least possible delay. We found ourselves out in the pine forest, looking for a suitable place. Unfortunately, we could not find appropriate cover, and did not want to awaken the father's suspicion by staying too long. We were also involved in an unpleasant incident. In the grass, I discovered a gigantic horse skull. I was very pleased to find it, because it was pure white. The worms had cleaned it impeccably. We tied it onto my stick, and to make it easy to find for the servant we intended to send for it, we took the skull to the little gazebo in the wood. There, however, a horrid, unfamiliar woman who looked to be the wife of an artisan protested against the skull being left there. She even wanted to give me a lesson in decorum: 'I'm astonished that, as a doctor. .. !', etc. That made me lose my equanimity. 'Refrain from being astonished and giving me lessons in manners. I take exception to you daring to criticize me in any way. Where is a male relative of yours, so that I may demand satisfaction on account of your behaviour?' 'I am Mrs Fekete, and that's my husband coming over there.' Mr Fekete, a haggard, big-nosed, pathetic old dentist arrived. We already knew each other. Now I knew why the repulsive, blue-eyed, blonde-haired, servant-like wife of his was so up in arms. I had met her too, but as I did not remember the meeting, I hadn't greeted her. Most likely Olga's beauty, her youth, and our happiness also provoked

63

the envy and vexation of Mrs Fekete's base spirit. I got nowhere with the dentist Fekete so I left not knowing what to do. It was clearly ridiculous to ask for satisfaction from that pitiful figure. In the evening I discussed the matter with Nozroviczky, the honorary chief magistrate, and as Mrs Fekete had even used the expression this lady J we decided in favour of the challenge. The next day Fekete apologized to my seconds and I locked the official report in my desk. Olga and I walked until nightfall. We were only apart an hour and a half, while I had my afternoon office hours. During this time I received a letter from Mrs G (I will speak of her later) asking for a rendezvous that evening. I responded that I would go if at all possible - I couldn't promise because I had guests. We encountered Mrs G later the same day, several times, during our walks. Her face showed considerable concern. Sandor arrived that night. I had invited him by wire to enlarge our little company, and thus to make the whole affair seem to the women of the baths and to Mrs Braun not like a 'visit from the fiance', but rather a 'meeting of good friends'. It worked. Olga and I did not meet the first night. Her father's plan to take a room adjoining hers had not succeeded, but caution seemed advisable. Besides, I wanted to arrange the encounter under the stars. Around midnight I descended and knocked quietly - despite the agreement. From inside, all I could hear was the dear girl's deep breathing. So I went back to my room and was sleeping soundly myself before long.

64

We met around nine o'clock in the morning at breakfast. Olga wore a light green raw silk robe, a green sIlk scarf on her shoulder, a pretty hairdo, she was washed, fresh, young, beautiful - perhaps more than I had ever seen her before! After breakfasting, we left to walk, leaving the father to his own devices on the terrace of the restaurant. We hurried to search for an appropriate spot in the pine forest. Our excitement was already excessive. It was a brilliant, beautiful warm morning, but the grass was still a little dewy. We had to find a place that was protected if possible, where we wouldn't have to worry about surprises, and where the ground was covered by dry pine needles. It wasn't easy, because I wasn't really familiar with the forest. Like the fleeing Walsung offspring, Sigmund, I hurried far ahead, trampling across the fallen pine trunks, while Olga followed me stumbling, scarf on her arm, knees giving way from inner excitement. Finally, we found a place. I spread out the green scarf, she quickly lay down, lifting her skirt. She sensed that our mutual and extreme desire made unnecessary the modesties and protests she otherwise never neglected. Spread out before me were her clean, tight lace pants and her clinging, thigh-high net stockings. Between the stockings and pants there was a two-inch-wide segment of naked thigh. The corset's tight garters hindered penetration, however. I unfastened them. Then I undid the snow-white pants, and, almost dizzy with pleasure, I caressed the thick, coal-black hair of her little cunt. I lay down on her and embraced her. On account of the great excitement, we had to wait a few moments, but when she tenderly stroked the stallion, it obediently began to rise, and the inhibitions ceased almost entirely after the first

65

Forest at StubnyaJurdo

friction, later disappearing altogether. That embrace in the fragrant pine forest, in the brilliant, sunny morning under the blue-grey sky, was divine pleasure. And perhaps a moral delight too: it was terrible to think that the poor thing might return without us having sacrificed to our love at least once. Slowly, arm in arm, our journey punctuated by kisses, we returned to the baths. To explain our lengthy absence better, we bought potted flowers at the gardener's and took them home. In this way, we could deflect the father's attention from Olga's somewhat wrinkled skirt. We couldn't use the scarf to cover it: it was soaked with dew and sperm. The rest of the morning turned out quite well. While I was in my office, kindly Sandor occupied Olga; and with similar self-sacrifice, he left us alone when I arrived. It occurred to me that r would never be able to give him fitting thanks for this piece of kindness. In the afternoon I apprised my father - who was waiting anxiously for the news - of the chances for the marriage, then Olga and I went to the park again, to roam. Tenderness almost overflowed on both sides, and we were both inexhaustible in lyrically recounting episodes of our summer apart. On our first walk, the day before, Olga had already posed the question: 'My dear boy, tell me honestly, did you cheat on me?' 'How can you think such a thing, my child!' I said, but without truly convincing force. 'Oh, my God,' she whimpered sweetly, examining my face, 'I can see you've cheated on me. Confess, I forgive you, you're a man, confess, sweet darling.' But I confessed nothing; instead, as she desired, I swore that I had been true to her.

67

1

1

j

1 Olga and her father retired early, so that waking early would not cause difficulties. It seemed her father believed Olga and 1 wanted to discuss what we would do that night during the proposed 'partie de lune', and for that reason he did not agree to the walk. So we separated. 1 took a long walk with Sandor afterwards, smoking cigarettes and chatting; then, around ten o'clock, we went to lie down. 1 changed into the tried and tested outfit. Rubber-soled shoes, a loose, soft grey nightshirt (without vest), stockings, and a hat. 1 left the condom behind but did not forget the Vaseline. Around 11.45, after sneaking down to the first floor making as little noise as possible on the creaking staircase, 1 first established that Olga's father was snoring, then knocked on the sweet one's door. Soon the key clicked, and with weak, pleasurable excitement, 1 stepped inside. A candle was the only light inside the room. Olga sat on the bed in a thin batiste shirt, which her curves filled out even more than usually. The shoulders consisted of nothing but thin straps. (I liked these shirts of hers very much. Unfortunately, there were only three of them.) She had done her hair again for the occasion. She wore her hair in 'shells' on each side; and on top of her head she had smoothed out her hair from the parting. This preparation gave her a sweet, shameless, womanly air. 1 felt she was like a Renaissance woman. She covered her face with her pretty arms, and the excitement made her stomach convulse. 1 locked the door and quickly undressed. Soon we sank into a flood of kisses. When she pressed against me lightly in this half naked, nobly stimulating condition, a piercing, warm happiness flooded me. She, poor thing, must have felt something completely different. Her teeth chattered; their rhythmical clattering

68

could be clearly heard; her body trembled and she had goose bumps. I covered the keyhole, laid her down on the couch, and with my magic wand soon released her from the tortures of fear. I felt her become calm in my arms, her skin warmed, her cold trembling stopped completely, giving way to sweet, hot, maddening rapture, this most beautiful, most blossoming child of youth and love. Soon we reached the moment of ecstasy. We whispered for five or ten minutes more, promising each other eternal love, then in view of the situation, which was unremittingly worrisome and frightening, I departed. Olga's father had made significant mention of his ability to wake at night whenever he wanted. I considered the foregoing and my little wife's need to get her sleep. Thirdly, not being in training, my testes worked more slowly, according to the physiological rule, and I could anticipate another pleasurable copulation only within three-quarters of an hour to an hour hence. Therefore, amidst ardent kisses and hugs, I left the room. Had I availed myself of one or another of the women who offered themselves in the previous weeks and carried out regular daily coitus, I could have caused more numerous transports for my little Olga. Would she have forgiven me, the sweet thing, had I done that in her interests, for her sake and to increase pleasure for both of us? I think not. I slept wonderfully until morning, when the porter woke me according to my instructions. I dressed hurriedly so that I could have breakfast with Olga. I found her still in her room, the whole place still full of the scent and memories of the night's events. During breakfast she sweetly declared that she would stay with me or run away from home and come to me, and her kindness gave me

69

much joy. At the train station, I jumped up onto the carriage after her and covered her with kisses in the narrow corridor. I was downcast afterwards, as I returned to my office with Sandor. We went to the baths shortly thereafter. While we bathed, we engaged in much talk about our women, marriage, its likelihood, rules to be followed, etc. We were disturbed by little relatives of Mrs Braun, the landlord, Austrian Jewish girls in tight bathing suits. One of them caught Sandor's fancy. She was called Frida Steinlich. She had blue eyes, a Greek nose, a large forehead and an outstanding figure, and reminded Sandor of Sophie Tiegarmann, his former love from Ujfured l2 . I introduced them, but without great results. Because of the girl's pretentiousness, Sandor was not able to attack. Later, in the last days of the season, I experimented for several whole afternoons with this Frida, out of boredom and in the interests of practising German. I managed to get her to walk far into the woods with me alone, something she was completely unwilling to do at first. I did with her what I did with Szidi, for example, and - what I hold to be quite a good idea with musical Jewish women - I took her to a church and played the organ for her. This pleased her in the sexual sense as well. I also fascinated her as a sorcerer. I declared that I could read her expression and that I knew she had been in love a year and a half ago, been disappointed, and thought back to the affair often, sometimes without any emotion, but sometimes with quite bitter feelings. She was astonished, confessed that everything was true down to the last detail, and maintained that I had 12. Novy Smokovec

70

heard the story from someone. The truth was I hadn't heard anything, but from her great caution, rare in a 19year-old girl even if she was blue-eyed, I deduced that she had already been through it. She swore that no one had ever kissed her. I declared I would be the first. And so it was . The girl didn't behave warmly or kindly - perhaps she recognized the whole thing was a game to me - so I put an end to the affair. Her cousins told me she cried whole afternoons in her room, but rather than make up with her I ignored her. Later, we were on good terms again for a couple of days, but when I renewed my attack, she reacted in the same way as before. I did not speak to her again. I held her in contempt because I saw that she loved me. Many times she crept to the win~ow when I played the piano and watched me for a long time. If I had supper with company, she watched me from the terrace outside. She and her cousin, Grete Loeff, whose love I had also awakened, spoke only of me . This was confided to me by the chambermaid, who was a witness to their discussions. Nevertheless, I shook Frida's hand on my departure. Her voice was soft and tearful. She was waiting for some confession, some promise, even the slightest one - but she was disappointed. I told her I was sorry we hadn't been able to understand each other, and that I was sure we would meet again. 'Aber wo, Herr Doktor, aber wo?' she asked. 'Irgendwo,' I answered. 13 I did this with professional enjoyment, and felt great satisfaction in being able to take revenge on the species of 13. "But where, Doctor, where;>" "Anywhere. "

71

blue-eyed women, in my own name and, as far as this girl was concerned, in Sandor's name as well. Her cousin, the well turned-out, shapely, petite, Olgafaced, muscular 17-year-old Grete Loeff, had a similarly cautious temperament, though without the blue eyes. A few times, the course of events were such that I gained her confidence, but I could achieve nothing more than kissing her face and neck by force. The girl showered me with insults afterwards, but from her blush, I could tell that in addition to the humiliation she felt some sexual pleasure as well. These two girls convinced me that real success and warm kisses were to be had only among refined and mature women. And this view of mine is not altered by the favourable experiences I had that summer with younger girls like Bozsi B., Kitty S., Margit (the little chambermaid), Paula L. (the midwife's daughter), and Annie Laplace. Among these belongs the little fairy tale with Edith G .. She was an enormous 17-year-old, slightly fat, but quite shapely, a brunette with a pink face and brown doe eyes. Her mother, the 135-kilogram widow of an appeals court judge, brought Edith to my office. I removed a grain of soot from the lass's eye. Then with a little adrenaline, I returned her expanded veins to order, liberating her from hours of suffering in a minute. On one occasion, I began to speak to the girl in the hallway on the second floor. After giving her a few compliments, I took her hand and pulled her close. She laid her head on my shoulder and returned my kiss ardently. I attributed this success purely to my reputation, and I was therefore far from overestimating it. It appears that women and girls suffer equally from the frailty of not being able to resist curiosity if someone's legend gets

72

into their heads by way of gossip. We kissed a few times more in the hallways during similar accidental meetings. The girl's quick leading question ('But you don't even love me!'), though put with fitting modesty, took away my inclination to court her. Apart from her prettiness and her enormous, blooming, youthful body, only her great sensuality spoke in her favour. But the effect was completely ruined by the provinciality of her manners and intellect, and her unpleasant affectations of gentility. Her reproachful look and rapid weight loss over the next two weeks were clear to see, appropriate punishment for me for the prodigality with which I disturbed the poor child. On the same page would be my affair with the landlord's daughter, the small, shapeless Hilda. She came to my office a couple of times for galvanofaradization. The thickness of her neck and her heart complaints made me suspect early Basedow. She accepted a few kisses from me with pleasure, but when her prettier cousins arrived at the spa, I forgot about her completely. She didn't mind, because she was still an immature little dolt, incapable of inner emotion. She lacked charm. The temperament of the ageing Directrice was all the more fiery. She was a 35-40-year-old divorcee, but allegedly played the coquette in Budapest during the winter. Her manner did not reinforce those rumours, but her facial features did. She had a slightly stubby, thick nose, blue eyes, blonde hair, and a quite beautiful body. One night, when she had an attack of migraine in her room, I examined her. I was enchanted by the youthfulness and beauty of her breasts. She had superb, thick white arms and wonderfully hot, muscular pink lips. On that very night same night she gave me proof

73

that she embraced and kissed masterfully. I renewed the attacks later as opportunity arose, but we never went further. She talked of being faithful; also there was a pharmacist who loved her very much and was courting her for all he was worth. I didn't want to knock him oUt of the saddle. (He was a scrawny bespectacled boy, whom Lea tortured like a dog.) Actually, even today I regret that I didn't knock on her door one night. I'm quite certain I would have partaken of exceptional pleasures. We parted good friends ... There were a number of girls and women in whom I recognized willingness, but with whom I did absolutely nothing to exploit the possibilities. Dora J. was the daughter of an undersecretary; her mother was a charming writer with a great past. She interested me very much and was quite friendly to me from the beginning. She came to see me alone during my office hours, had herself examined, had her throat treated along with her alleged toothache ... (nota bene, the naughty lass's parents must not have known a thing about her visits, because I received no fee). Her behaviour was aggressive. She squeezed my hand as if she were holding a phallus, and fixed her hysterical blue eyes on me. Her affected, unprovoked laughter when we were alone also revealed what was happening within her. She had an exquisite figure: thin ankles, huge calves and thighs, a pale sensual face, hysterical, nervous movements. She was so sexually charged that she constantly kissed her little French companion, and as I found out from the French girl, Dora continued and escalated these embraces in bed at night. At these times, Dora and her companion took it in turn to play the male role.

74

The French Miss, A. Laplace, a bird-bodied, big-eyed Parisian girl with a prematurely aged look, came to me for facial treatment. With vibrational massage, I succeeded in smoothing out a few wrinkles. From the beginning, her behaviour was imbecilic and unambiguous. She frequently asked me, in Hungarian and French, why I didn't love her, insulting and disparaging the girls and women she had seen with me. Margit N., the old maid of 32-34, awakened her disgust especially; she regaled me with gossip about Margit N. 's great love for me, her clumsy and exaggerated yearning. Dora J. and A. Laplace amused me with these things; I had some good laughs at the outright malice with which they attempted to belittle that poor ugly girl in my eyes. They imitated her glances, her gestures, her embarrassment and her behaviour when they affronted and vexed her with innuendoes. That poor, stalwart and well-educated girl was the daughter of a former minister, and the cousin of Frigyes Koranyi. Completely alone in the world, she had been coming to the baths for years, chiefly to enjoy the friendship of the Erdelyis, who took her in and supported her. Having heard that she could play the piano well, I recommended her to Pardy, the director of the college, who wanted to organize a concert. The invitation was extended. I played Wagner's Emperor March with her four-handed and she accompanied my violin playing. During the rehearsals, I noticed the girl's behaviour was unpleasant, nervous, and that she had become shy. I began to avoid her because I was horrified of the thought of causing this unfortunate orphaned creature suffering. It was no good. It was even worse than that. She sought out my company, invited me to play the piano or go walking,

75

and I frequently could find no way to escape having dinner with her. This led to the problem of her wanting dinners together to be the rule. She watched me from her window to see when I went to the dining hall, and my tactic of eating supper very late - just so that I could be alone and in peace - this too was a failure. The affair became increasingly miserable. The whole group - the Erdelyis, Jozsef Szabo - made fun of her, which must have been double torture for such an intelligent and reticent old maid. During one evening walk, she shepherded the conversation towards the subject oflove, and I felt a cold shiver at the thought that she was about to make some kind of confession. It did not happen, but I was careful afterwards not to join the group at night if she was with them. One day she appeared at my office in an excited state. It should be noted that she had made insinuations several times about wanting to have herself examined. I hadn't said a word or invited her to my office. Now she came anyway. I wanted to cry over the cruel whims of fate which produced such impossible situations. She complained that for several nights she had slept not even an hour. I examined her - oh, how pitiful her fine ribboned shirt was! - I ordered half-baths 14 and tranquillizers. After a week, she signalled that she was better. I suspected early Basedow, however, and ordered precise measurement of the neck weekly. During her last check-up, she invited me to visit her. She sent me several postcards during my stay at the baths. The whole company went to see her off and I had to go too, for they had made a point of asking me. I did not, however, want to take part 14. cold baths.

76

in ridiculing her, and so did not take the advice of the vivacious but malevolent general's widow, Mrs Zsoldos, who suggested that presenting Margit N. with a bouquet of flowers would be quite the thing for me to do. An unusual case occurred on the last day of August. Mrs B, the vacationing aunt of a doctor from Teschen, came to see me for a check-up. She was a rotund, hunchbacked woman with pretty buttocks, pink skin on her face, fine features, grey hair and tiny ivory-white hands. Her entire being was flirtatious, assured, kind, and sexual. Despite her 52 years she was attractive and arousing, a widow with seven grown children, spiritually still fresh, with a lively appetite for life, and without self-pity on account of her bodily defect. This was natural, as she was loved, and thoroughly at that (seven!), and she could not see her hunched back unless she used a double mirror. (How can we explain the lively wits, will to live, and good nerves of hunchbacks? I believe it is the excellent circulation of blood to the spine and brain.) After just a few minutes, under the effect of the woman's provocative smile, a faint excitement began to take hold of my nerves. We spoke. She mentioned her grown-up son, a first lieutenant in the chiefs of staff. Then I examined her. I made her lie down on the couch. She smiled. Between her full, pretty, blood-red lips, her beautiful porcelain-white teeth sparkled. I took her hand and suddenly started kissing it. Smiling calmly, she watched. In a state of strong excitement, I continued the kissing until I reached the finely shaped arc of her elbow. Then I suddenly bent down and kissed her lips. I glued myself onto them for a long time. She blushed. I covered her cheeks, her forehead, and her shapely jawline with insatiable

77

kisses. She suddenly started laughing. She laughed at me. She pushed me away. 'Aber Herr Doktor, was machen Sie, einem solchen alten Weiss?' 'Sie sund nicht alt, Gnadige, verzeichen Sie wegen meine Freiheit, aber ich bin entzuckt von ihrer Schonheit und Reiz und von ihrer Jugend! Verdannen Sie mich nicht. Ich fuhle nur eine unendliche Ehre gegen Sie!'!5 (It's queer that my knowledge of German always triples in such situations.) She sat up and allowed me to continue kissing her hands, but then she laughed again. Her laughter was not chiming, but distorted: 'Hee-hee-hee, heeheehee.' That cooled me down. I sat down. We talked of inconsequential matters for a few minutes more. But I did not accept money from her. Anyway, she wasn't with me long. It wasn't her touch of rheumatism that brought her to the baths, she was just on holiday. Her group left the next day. But the night before, on the Promenade, I won a kind and slightly ironic goodbye smile from her. I would have liked to convince her of my tender feelings for her, but cruel nature, which limits the possibility of sexual enjoyment for women to precise time periods, deprived me of this special pleasure. In midsummer a blue-eyed woman in mourning came to my office (with her husband). I later found out Mrs B 15. "But Doctor, what are you doing with someone so old?" "You are not old, Madame, excuse the liberty I take, I am charmed by your beauty and overwhelmed by your youthfulness! Do not condemn me! I feel an infmite respect for you!"

78

was born a H ... szky girl. She was one of the most brazen hysterics at the baths. Her face and body could have been called decidedly attractive, but her voice, manner of speaking, and intellect spoiled the effect. I received daily visits from her. She behaved provocatively from the start, complimented me, spoke of her intimate affairs. Her husband, a nervous and stupid Slovakian merchant, was exceptionally possessive of her and frequently wrote her long, jealous letters. In one of them, he wrote his whole life story in hopes of swaying the lady. The letter was quite pitiful yet still interesting. What I learned from it is that love increases to an incredible degree the expressive powers of even a person of low intelligence. The woman translated the letter for me and had some good laughs as she did so; I was in no doubt about the effect she wanted to achieve. She wanted to inhibit me from honestly feeling sorry for her husband and giving up my attack on her. Little could she guess that all her wiles were in vain because my heart was completely taken. She stayed at the baths almost six weeks. Zelma and she were on friendly terms, and while the former was at the baths, she didn't try anything. Later, however, she frequently called, inviting me to her room during her hysterical fits, making even the chambermaids laugh at her. This woman had no fewer than five daughters, who frequently wrote her kind letters in spidery handwriting, called her 'dear mamakins', and were manifestly very attached to her. I didn't understand the woman's problem - she spoke of her lack of fulfilment and dissatisfaction in marriage as an excuse for her behaviour. But after all, siring five children is no small matter, and doesn't exactly demonstrate impotence. No matter. I felt no inclination to relieve the

79

woman's unhappiness. Only rarely, when I examined her on the folding table and she was without corset and skirt, panting, with eyes covered in tears, looking at me almost pleadingly, it crossed my mind that I might take pity on her. But this was only a thought; no feeling accompanied it, because at these times my little Olga also came to mind. Now, far away in sweltering Budapest, in a curtained thirdfloor room, she was thinking of me, with sadness, sweetness, and loyalty. All alone she was moving about, coming and going, perhaps with a weak headache caused by longing and the heat. At these times I was further away than ever from violating the promise I made to her. Though I never appeared with Mrs B in public at the baths, quite a few people believed she was my lover. Perhaps the rumour originated with women like Mrs Ilancsy, who sat on the terrace of the restaurant, watch in hand, noting who visited my office and for how long. Mrs B often did stay a long time. She arranged things so that she would be my last appointment of the morning, so there would be no need to rush. She often sent delicacies from her husband's store - cheeses, candied fruits, honey, gin - which I never consumed, however. I felt a kind of revulsion for her offerings, and gave everything to the doorman and the chambermaids. In contrast, with what divine enjoyment and gluttony did I consume the fine fruits my little Olga sent me.

80

'Jar away in sweltering Budapest ... she was thinking of me.

JJ

Good advice: 1. Don't forget, if coitus is not possible: there is still opportunity for O.C.,16 frotte, cunnilingus, coitus in anum, fellatio. 2. We must have doubts about succeeding, but behave as if we had no doubt whatsoever. 3. It must not beJorgotten that bromine, the barber, bathing, clean linen, heart-washes 17 , enemas, nose-washes, alcohol, etc. are tools which can be of much help in a difficult situation. 4. If we can no longer control ourselves: let us take an additional 1 gr. of bromine and wait half an hour, lying down. 5. Counting slow, deep, even breaths while lying horizontally affords self-control. 6. Fortification of the will is great work, and produces joy, but ...

16. Obverso Corpore, known in the vernacular as 69 17. probably cold water applied externally

82

19 SEPTEMBER 1912

I want to write down in detail the hard day I had today. I dislike the number 19. From now on I must arrange things so that if possible I need not leave the house on this day. I woke at 9.00 and injected .012 P, then lay back down in bed. Euphoria did not come. I drank coffee without appetite and my cigarette did not taste good. I went down to the ward and started speaking to Somlyo, the paralysed ex-husband ofElza Szamosi. His disjointed chatter was sympathetic. He told me pleasant and frivolous anecdotes about his sexual life. The story of his last coitus was harrowing. He arrived home from a night of revelry at the Feszek 18 and started to bang his wife, then digustedly pulled out his penis. He already knew his wife was unfaithful. I wanted to take the opportunity to go and have a look at the big [... ] that an antique dealer was selling. The doorman rang, however, and signalled that our master required our presence for his first lecture. There was no alternative. We had to listen to the whole lecture, which lasted two hours and was completely devoid of interest and colour. There wasn't a single interesting point, clever pedagogical approach, well-articulated phrase, pause, or talented gesture anywhere. Long sentences, sentences left unfinished 18. Feszek Klub, a venerable restaurant and club for artists in Budapest's Seventh District.

84

and started again, etc. I had a feeling of great fatigue. Then the doorman announced Sassy, my friend the painter, was waiting for me. He had brought a carpet expert with him, as I had requested the day before. They looked over the carpets at my place and made an appraisal; conversing with them was so tiresome I had difficulty being polite. I was called to the telephone. Harmos 19 was on the line and asked for a rendezvous. I gave her one: Kalvin ter at 2.15. I thought she could accompany me to Olga's and we could talk on the way. I had lunch. The meal felt good, but I made a mistake in not pausing between each course. The cigarette afterwards again provided no enjoyment. Bozsi interrupted me in it as well. The girl came up to see me ebullient in colour and mood. The effect of Monday's IP no. 5 was visible. She said herself that she was much the better for it, and asked for another injection. I gave her the same dose; her temperature of 37.5 C led me to opt for caution. She asked for my portrait. I gave it to her. We went to Kalvin ter together, and I accompanied her a bit further into Kecskemeti utca. Returning to Kalvin ter, I didn't see Harmos anywhere, so I went into the Bathory Cafe and bought a box of Luxors. I was saddened by the pretty German hostess, who, while quite kind, was not nearly as friendly as I was to her. It even occurred to me that Harmos put Desire 20 on the phone so she could boast that I had wanted to meet her. Reading the Est21 , I took a coach and, with considerable appetite for P, I hurried up to Olga's flat. I 19. Ilona Harmos, wife ofDezso Kosztolanyi. 20. Csath's nickname for Dezso Kosztolanyi. 21. The Evening (newspaper)

85

Illustration by Attila Sassy (Aiglon)

found her little brother home and the windows open wide. I was disconsolate. We chatted. Olga's beauty, purity, and shapeliness aroused me, and not being able to satisfy my passion, I had to pace up and down in the room to calm down. I injected .045 P, but euphoria again did not come. She made a snack. In the meanwhile I gave her a lesson in ethics on account of a lie [she had told], making her sulky and angry with me. Even so, I found her sweet and adorable. After the light meal I left quickly, prompted by the little brother's lack of resolve to do the same. I wanted to visit Moravcsik. He wasn't home. I went over to Jozsi Szabo's, who was included in the agenda because he lived nearby. He wasn't home either. In the chilly, beautiful evening, I started walking downtown with the intention of doing some shopping. First, however, I made my way to the Harmonia to pay for my piano. The new upright had been shipped two days earlier, and the way things stood I was able to pay the entire price easily. Conferring with Kohn, the piano dealer, I was sad to discover that the upright piano Harmonia sold me for 840 crowns actually cost 700. But then I calculated two years' interest on 700 crowns is actually 140 crowns, and I had been leasing a piano from Harmonia for that long. So I wasn't making a completely bad deal. Another problem emerged. While I had actually repaid 270 crowns, the manager's books indicated only [ ... ] had been credited to my account. I was irritated by the sweet-talking corpulent fellow, who acted like my friend and admirer and meanwhile tried to swindle me as if! were a country landowner. I left, promising to bring in my receipts. Going all the way down

87

Harmos was on the line al1d asked Jar a rendezvous.

Vaczi utca, the multitude of well-dressed people put me in a bad mood. I saw that there were gentlemen in Budapest better dressed than I, whereas I should have liked to consider myself pre-eminent in that regard. To make matters worse, I ran into Laci, Olga's little brother. He probably left home shortly after I did - in other words, after the unsuccessful visits to Moravcsik and Szabo it would have been best to go back to Olga's and make a sacrifice to Amor! While I mulled that over, I bought a book, the musical writings ofE. T. A. Hoffman, which had caught my attention in the shop window. Then, providing myself with the latest issue of A Nap22, I dropped into the Gerbeaud for a little pastry. Unfortunately, the first person I saw was Pal Farkas, that disgusting toady who is living proof that money rules over everything in the world. Against it, even our selfesteem is not sufficient counterweight, for how can we esteem ourselves if we want money and cannot get it? In the Gerbeaud's water closet, another .012 P consoled me. I slapped on my monocle, but didn't feel at ease in the smoking room; extravagantly dressed women provoked my envy and anger, as did an impeccably dressed, fat humanities student who looked like a 90-kilogram Daniel Job. I ate my pastries and smoked a Gianadis while reading the 'Nap'. I did not feel comfortable. Next, I went into a carpet shop on Gizella ter. There I found a blue Halina cloth rug I wanted to use to cover the whole floor of my room. It was so expensive I left the store utterly dejected. Covering the floor would have cost 120-140 crowns. In order to have done a prudent bit of business 22. The Day (newspaper)

89

nevertheless, I went into the Keleti Cafe and paid 100 crowns on my tab. That calmed me somewhat. I started homeward. I trudged along the crowded street, interested in nothing, seething at the wealthy passers-by and ashamed of my poor circumstances - only 1,200 crowns left to my name by then. I reflected on the uncertainty of my earnings for the winter and on whether I would succeed in obtaining three months' severance pay from A Vilal 3 (if I had to leave). I would have liked to buy pens to salvage the evening, but I was unable to do so. In the vicinity of Kossuth utca, on Muzeum korut 24 there was only one stationery store, and its selection of pens was scandalously small. I did not find the desired writing implement. Thus, without a pen, I boarded the tram, not wanting to risk having to gape at the 'Full' sign at Ulloi ut. - The tram advanced slowly. The prettier women sitting inside showed no inclination to notice me. I laughted at my vanity, but it is a fact that success of that sort would have helped my difficult situation then. I got off at the clinic. I bought shoe polish, string, and green peppers. At home, the doorman told me a German-speaking woman had called me twice on the telephone. I worried that Mama G. was in Pest and would look me up. 'See?' I said to myself, 'Now you'll have to reap what you've sown.' In the doctors' dining hall, a lively and unsympathetic colleague played billiards. Millasin reminded me ofJanosi, his essential stupidity made me envious. I ate supper, but had no wine. Gyula had drunk it all and hadn't sent for 23. The World (a periodical for which Csath wrote at the time). 24. Museum Ring Road

90

Reading the Est, I took a coach and, with considerable appetitefor P, I hurried up to Olga'sflat.

91

more. I had been hoping alcohol would help. Now this hope was down the drain too. Meanwhile Winter came back from the rendezvous. A little girl who lived in the neighbourhood had invited me to meet her in a letter addressed to 'JozsefKrajner'. We sent Winter. The girl was there but she didn't say a word to Winter. Clearly, it was me she wanted to meet. I went to my room and played the piano a little to lure her into the open. A little maiden did appear, but soon withdrew. What could I do? In a tearful mood, I started rearranging the room, but I couldn't manage the heavy rugs, grew tired, and gave up. After that I thought about having to write the letter to Mrs Braun. I was gripped by the revulsion we feel when we start something in the hopes of failing. Finally I sat down to my diary. I wrote and wrote. Now I feel better. At 10.30, I helped myself with another .012 P. In the meantime, I went down to the ward and gave a paralytic an injection. Meanwhile, I weighed myself. 80 kilograms. That means 82 in clothes. I have gained something in the last two days maybe. But what is it all worth? There's no hope anywhere. I looked in the mirror downstairs. The lamps glow sootily, giving off hardly any light. 'Get yourself together,' I said, 'or you're going to croak, chum, you're going to croak.' I spoke thus, then came upstairs to continue writing. It is now 11.15. How much better I am now than last year at this time, and still I feel much unhappier. Maybe a better day will dawn tomorrow?

92

20 SEPTEMBER 1912

I awoke in the dissonant mood of my dreams, which continued the problems of yesterday. The actors were myself and Olga. The location: Iglofured 25 or Stubnyafurdo. We arrived and were put up in a little room, but no matter how we searched for an opportunity, we did not succeed in making a sacrifice to Amar. The situation was desperate. Everyone harassed us;an old peasant was even put into our room for the night. Finally Bolemame interrupted us, calling me to a consultation. I felt anxious: 'I won't go because while I'm gone someone will bang my wife.' In the morning, the clinic. In the afternoon, Olga at my place. We grappled twice on the two newly purchased Persian rugs. The girl was sweet and beautiful. In the evening, we supped at Olga's place and I repeated the Jewish blessing after her father. Later, after supper, we engaged in a good-tasting, long-lasting kiss, ardent and with virtuoso variations.

25. Spisska Nova

93

21 SEPTEMBER

I woke late. It was 10.15 by the time I got down to the clinic. I was irritated by Moravcsik's energy and patience as he pursued his minute but unthorough investigations. I recognized that my intolerance of others and contempt for all work and human effort are both attributable to P, and I decided again that by 1 October at the latest, I must free myself of the curse. 'I will purchase good palinka" 6 , I decided, 'because only that will help me with the withdrawal.' I'm scared again, I'm scared of it. It won't be nearly as hard as last year, but still it's quite painful. Why? Because in a P-Iess state I can't smoke even half as much, and that's unbearable. Still, a hundred times more joy will open up in my life. It must be admitted that in pleasures, one cannot go to infinity. After a lunch consumed with exceptional appetite came my French lesson. The imbecilic little Annie Laplace came over. We chatted, but it was quite difficult for me. I often thought myself stupid. Distressing, distressing the path offered by P, 'la grande volupte', and the usurious toll it exacts in return for this simple trick played on earthly misery. Later, the barber gave me a shave. Then Olga did not come, but telephoned. I felt it in advance. So I got my things together and by four o'clock I was at her place. One sacrifice, with inhibitions, as the 26. fruit brandy

94

I dropped into the Gerbeaud for a little pastry .

useless thing didn't pull down the curtains. To punish her I let it be known that the second sacrifice would be cancelled and it was purely her. fault. She cried, but I retreated to the bathroom, and with a large dose of .027 committed a miniature suicide. In the evening I supped at Olga's again. Beer put us in good spirits. Later we went to a film. Othello was playing, and the Desdemona on stage was Olga word for word. Her face, her character, the way she moved. Olga caressed me during the play to divert my attention from this resemblance, but her cleverness seemed symbolic of the weariness instilled by the poison. Unpleasant, boisterous ruffians sat behind us. During the intermission, I slapped on my monocle. One of them made a comment, barely audibly. I made the mistake of not taking him to task. For one thing, I didn't want to waste the money; secondly, I thought of the disagreeable aspects of the thing: trying to find a second, etc.; and thirdly, I was afraid that in the confined space of the cinema, I wouldn't be able to take care of the matter quietly, with an exchange of cards. I feared it would turn into a fight, for which all my energy and freshness were missing. To offset this unpleasantness, I behaved as if I didn't love Olga enough to make it important whether or not I tolerated this sort of thing in front of her. In spite of everything, I felt that I did not proceed properly, and now I know what I should have done. This is what I should have said: 'Please give me your card. How dare you offend me by making a remark about me?' Had I hit upon this formula then, it's certain that would have been the end of that. But at the time, only expressions like: 'What lack of breeding, making com-

96

ments' came to mind. I imagined the response would have been drastic. The lesson of this incident: the game with P must be stopped urgently. The gravest, final, irreparable harm awaits me ifI don't.

97

22 SEPTEMBER 1912

Today brought me another big step closer to my final decision: to break from the cursed poison and return to the joys of real life. I was awakened at 9.00 a.m. I dressed still feeling deathly tired. After washing, I felt refreshed. I thought back to the dream which woke me at 2.00 in the morning. I dreamt a woman - Uda Buchwald, but thin and charming like Dr Bozsi - that is, a woman composed of those two was chasing me and wanted to pour vitriol on me. I ran, in panic, but slipped on the keramite stones and my pursuer splashed the caustic liquid on my neck. I let out a great scream that I could still hear when I woke up. The roles of the two women are clear. Both loved me and though I loved neither, I accepted their being attracted to me. I even did what I could to heighten their feelings, partly out of vanity and partly out of amusement. The repressed thought: I deserved to have them pour vitriol on me. The thought of something similar happening had already crossed my mind because B.B. was an angry girl who had learned much romanticism from the 'Nap' and movies, and she might have known that a woman scorned can pursue such amusements without risk. One motif was Zelma, who had even mentioned that she wanted to pour vitriol on me. In the morning, before I went to the clinic, I injected .018 P, which did not produce euphoria. I conducted the rounds myself. I was unbearably bored and found no pleasure in the observation of patients. Remembering

98

January and February of this year, I concluded that it would be worthwhile to break with the poison and enjoy medical and musical pleasures again. In the morning, my former patients Bozsi B. and Mariska K. looked me up. I provided them with IP injections and good advice. Bozsi brought her friend Gizi with her, quite a charming girl whose resemblance to Margit Veszi made her extremely sympathetic. I had seen MV just recently and thought to myself: this woman actually still interests me somewhat, sexually. The girls left. I ate lunch without appetite. Afterwards, 0.02 g genuine M provided great euphoria. Due to the tolerance of the heart, however, the feeling could not last. For this reason, I injected two more Coff. Natr. Benz. 20% later in the day. The main reason for my poor spirits that afternoon was Dezso's letter. In it, a horrible woman, a sorceress, told him many true things about his past and that of our family. She declared that I would marry Olga but that we would divorce soon - 'That woman would like to see the whole world at her feet,' said the fortune teller, describing Olga. The suggestive effect of the prediction was great, and I immediately had a vivid daydream of an unhappy marriage dominated by Olga's allegedly flirtatious nature. That is the curse of Muse. All sober judgement is lost; anything that can be imagined appears already to be true, and is accompanied by the same LustgeJiihl that recognition of a truth causes, even if that truth is unpleasant for us. Toward 3.30 I went to Olga's. Before that, I walked for about three-quarters of an hour with Harmos on the side streets off Kalvin ter. She spoke of her own affairs. I would have liked to speak about Olga and ask her opin-

99

ion but I didn't dare and it would have been laughable anyway. Olga was waiting for me jealously. She thought I had stayed away on account ofPrutyi, as I had told her Gyula was organizing a lunch to which I would have been invited with Prutyi, officially. She reproached me gently, but I felt exceptionally weak beside her. Of course there was no M in her, she couldn't have been experiencing the distressing psychic paraesthesia that was afflicting me, augmented by it being Sunday and the family being home. I felt intolerably bad among them -like a victim, stupid, a beast, a simpleton, etc. Olga cheered me up when she declared she would be willing to run away from home tomorrow and go with me wherever I wanted to go. If! had 30,000 francs now, I thought to myself, and felt very miserable in my poverty. It seemed to me that the difference between both of us being very happy our whole lives and my being very unhappy depended on trifles. I stayed for supper. Afterwards [we went to] a film again. I didn't find Olga as warm, as effusively soft as at other times, but by then I had been without the syringe for seven hours. I have come home, now it's easy. I am not really in a good mood, but I feel massive. If Lady Luck smiles and there is no trouble for a week, now, now I will climb out of the morass again. I must do it, otherwise mental illness awaits me.

100

23 SEPTEMBER

A wonderful, unforgettably beautiful day. In the morning I stayed away from the poison. Life gave me a regal reward. In the afternoon, with Olga, from 3:00 - 4:45 ++++ ... ecstasy that can be called miraculous. Afterwards .024 P. Of that, unfortunately .006 was M. Sublime euphoria. Afterwards home to Olga's place. We ate raw Westphalia ham, Romadour cheese, green peppers, grapes, and pears. Then we drank malt beer and Marsala wine. Both of us got drunk and spoke more unin:' hibitedly than we ever have. o. was kind and naive and more sympathetic than ever before. She showed the spirit of a girl-child - I was truly awash with joy and fulfilment. She seemed noble and angelic . We said our goodbyes still drunk, luxuriating in love.

101

24 SEPTEMBER

A terrible day followed. In the afternoon, finding Olga's little brother home, the first part of my plan was ruined. I ordered Olga to get dressed to go out. The little brother came with us. I was annoyed again. Then Olga said this about a little boy: 'What a beautiful little boy!' I was annoyed. She pointed out a beautiful woman - in selfdefence, of course - 'Look at that woman!' That, too, annoyed me. At the bridal shop she engaged in intimate conversation with the clerk. I was annoyed and kept silent. The harmony between us was destroyed. She accompanied me home and didn't speak. (Afterwards, she said she had been worried about the young French Miss.) I regarded this as wilful wickedness; that is, intolerable sexual selfishness, wanting to make herself the centre of attention every minute. I wanted to send her home to cause her pain. She began sobbing bitterly on the street. I took her home. I sent the French Miss away and smuggled Olga into my room. An unusual sick feeling came over me - as if the thing were happening in the autumn of 1910. The girl was beautiful and gave herself ardently. Then she started crying bitterly. She had a bad feeling. She said something like: 'We might not ever be together again.' I also felt that, if ever, now was the time I should and still could break up with her; but also felt that she was indispensable to me. Then I was struck by the premonition that her sexuality would ruin me. I hated her and loved her at that moment.

102

We got dressed. In mutual understanding, we took a carriage home. I wanted to get drunk like the day before. We ate the same supper and drank Madeira afterwards. This time both of us grew sleepy because we drank the wine fast; no liveliness or excitation ensued. During dinner, she said that one of her cousins had a sarcoma - I had just mentioned the subject. Suddenly, I was despondent. Then I noticed she was observing me, smiling. I felt revulsion toward her. I thought I would be miserable with her. Later, I blamed P for corrupting my reason, making me paranoid and delusional. I thought ofJolan, with whom I had never felt such confused feelings. I reflected on my diseased logic with full critical faculties and nevertheless, like the paranoiac, I reached the conclusion that I wasn't crazy after all. With a sick stomach and a thr.obbing heart, half-dead from sleepiness, I went home, swearing to cut off the use of the cursed poison.

103

25 SEPTEMBER

I went to Olga's late, around 5.30. She was exhausted with crying. After I arrived she sobbed another good bit. She complained that she was miserable, it wasn't her fault, I was mistaken, she hadn't been observing me. I tried to hug her, kiss her; it didn't feel good, I was revolted by her. I kept a cold distance. I tortured her. More crying. Inwardly I rued the fate that made her employ such wiles out of constant worry that she would lose me and that everything would be over. Again, I noticed I was more suspicious and sensitive immediately after the injection ofP. I raged over having to give up this divine and horrible pleasure, about there being no possibility of using it with any sort of moderation. Before supper, I wanted to leave. She guessed someone was waiting for me at home. (True enough, I had ordered Bozsi to meet me there at 7.00.) I saw her anxiousness and started to feel sorry for her. Our kisses felt good again. I wanted to phone Bozsi but Olga sensed that too and came down to the street with me. That's why I had to post the letter express. In the delicatessen, I skulked around the telephone but she noticed when I wanted to speak. We were both in better spirits after supper, and later, sitting in front of the stove in the bright room, after her little brother had gone to bed @ It was special. I can see the ribbon of her little corset even now.

104

26 SEPTEMBER

In the morning, at my place, ++ in three-quarters of an hour. In the afternoon, she showed off her trousseau. She is excited and happy. In the evening, after another dose of P, more worries. We spoke of feelings that arise in certain positions. She said: 'You're so good, dear, you aren't selfish.' The phrase made me suspicious: 'What's it like when someone's selfish?' 'I don't know!' 'But you've heard about it?' At that point she seemed embarrassed. She shrugged several times, and a certain physical effort in the entire body betrayed her effort to formulate the answer well. I understand clearly that this is insanity and, if I consider [the scene] in a P-free state, I laugh at the whole thing. While thinking back to little things like this - under P-poisoning - I am seized by unbearable nervousness and doubt, which do not affiict me at all when I am sober. I worry seriously that I shall never be happy. IfI had a lot of money, with Olga, I could be, but as it is I must include her in all my dealings, and thus I deprive her of the extra joy unfamiliarity gives.

105

"".ti_~:

f1.A.d' II;,. tJ

'''I

,..,~,.......".

I

Bud~pest

Holel PflNNON1f\' . ,d•. V ",II

Pannonia Hotel

MONDA Y 30 SEPTEMBER

Today was rainy, but not unpleasant. In the morning I examined a paralytic named Rady, who is full of jealous fantasies and illusions. He complained that the coachman is banging his wife, he can tell from certain signs, and for this reason he wants to divorce her. I calmed him as much as possible. After lunch Elemer gave me a shave and told me about yesterday's football match. That scoundrel always puts me in a good mood. I had barely finished washing when I was called to the telephone. It was Szid. She asked me to come to the Pannonia [Hotel] urgently. I dressed in a hurry. I popped in at Gyula's to say goodbye, and who do I find there but Winter and his Bozsi, engaged in a lively embrace and kiss. I wasn't at all sorry for barging in on this ungainly, donkey-voiced, underhanded fellow, so I encouraged them to make use of the little time available and get on with the thing. The girl hardly blushed; a few months ago she was still a virgin. Winter deflowered her without giving any value in exchange, but had she stayed faithful she certainly could have counted on some compensation. She had obviously thrown away that possibility. I thought a lot about whether it was right to stay faithful for pecuniary and moral reasons. Finally, I concluded that for men, this type of faithfulness was not to be desired. In my own case, I only value faithfulness that rests on purely sexual grounds. If I discovered that Olga was true to me only for material or moral reasons, I would leave her right away.

107

Not morally and materially, but sexually, in any case, right away. While I thought about this, I arrived at the Pannonia. The doorman said there were two people in the room; the woman received me alone, however. She wore street clothes. She started speaking in a friendly way and I soon recognized that it depended only on me whether the sacrifice would take place. She said her husband wouldn't be home until 5.00, and she wanted to spend the time until then with me. I grew frightened because I wanted to be with my little Olga as soon as possible. All the more so as the day before there had been only a gallant conjunction sitting by the stove, which, because of the risk to propriety and the precarious nature of the thing, always left something to be desired. I felt a little ungrateful toward Szid., who was so devoted and admiring and who unconsciously allowed herself to be an instrument of revenge. Nor was her love killed by the coldness I showed concerning the continuation of the matter. The fact that she had an old and sick husband injured my pride. Compared to the attraction I felt toward Olga, my desire for the lady could be said to be [ ... ], though she was appetizing and full-figured. She said her weight was 84 kilograms. Seeing that I was not tuned for love, she pinned her hat on and invited me for a walk. I said I was free only until 4.00, when I had to visit a patient. Our walk took us to the bank of the Danube and to the Modern Cafe. She ate grapes, I drank black coffee. She inquired about my adventures, and how many children of mine women had taken home from Stubnya. I made discreet excuses, because I saw that she very much wanted to believe that I had achieved innumerable seductions. I couldn't confess that I was engaged, and that I love my little Olga so much that I resisted every temptation. (By the

108

'Our walk took us to the bank of the Danube and to the Modern Cafe. She ate grapes J I drank black coffee . J

way, I notice that Olga too prefers to imagine I have been unfaithful, and privately considers my summer of sacred chastity a sign of ineptitude.) From the cafe, we went back out to the bank of the Danube and Sz. told me of the onslaughts she had endured from her husband's doctors at the baths. She boasted of having spent 12,000 forints; her room had cost 32 francs a day. Then she heaped compliments and confessions oflove on me and finally declared that she loved me very much and thought of me constantly. Now comes the unique, womanly swinishness. She treats her husband very well and patiently because she thereby has the right to love me without guilt, so to speak. She expiates the sin with her great patience and suffering, and with her vigils. It's not the thought I find immoral, but rather the astounding and matter-of-fact ingenuity of the defence mechanism, her having hit upon this justification so easily. Before we said goodbye she shed a few tears. She said it hurt her very much that I didn't kiss her at least once, but told me that in spite of all that, if I ever wanted to marry her, she would be willing to divorce her husband and [leave her] children at any time, and to come wherever I ordered her. In consolation, I paid her a few banal compliments and told her the lack of a kiss was purely her doing, because she had behaved coldly. This was not true, of course, since waiting was natural behaviour for her; but she believed it in the end and was consoled. I ran to the streetcar at the Ferenc Jozsef bridge while she departed toward Eskuter. From ten steps away, she called out to me: 'Don't get married!' In spirit I was already with my little 'Ham', however, and the warning fell on deaf ears.

110

Olga was very kind to me. She was sweetly anxious when, with a few modifications, I explained the reason for my lateness. (The woman had invited me to the hotel to examine her husband.) There was no + because her father was home. (They were comparing some text with dictation and listening to Olga's angelic voice as she gave her slightly schoolgirlish reading was a genuine delight for me.) We had an amusing time and today nothing disturbed our harmony. Now, in the evening, I ascertain that I have smoked twenty-four Egyptian cigarettes today. I hereby swear that tomorrow I will smoke only six.

111

TUESDA Y 1 OCTOBER

Short story writing at Olga's, 'The Champion'. + with anXIOusness.

WEDNESDA Y 2 OCTOBER

Discovery of the 'baccio granda stabilimento'. It is accompanied by wondrous pleasure. The origin of our invention was necessity. Their divan is well-worn, and when we embraced, our enjoyment was disturbed by the most improbable creakings. To avoid it, I thought of the new variation, which worked brilliantly. This was our 230th act of coitus.

3 DECEMBER 1912

12.15 a.m. Today I begin a new era in my life. I must give up my M habit for good and relegate use of P to rare instances. In the last two days, there have been symptoms indicating that my system craves a serious increase in dosage. I must therefore put an end to the perilous game. This afternoon, ample and tempting pleasures slipped out of my hands irretrievably owing to my prodigality. In the

112

afternoon I invited Olga for a walk. She had to change clothes. I opened her door. She stood in the middle of the room in new American shoes that came up high on her ankles, and a fresh shirt. I had never seen her this way before. She was adorable. I ran to her, and though the erection was greatly delayed by the brightness and the thought of the father coming home, we carried out tergo coitus equinus. The girl was marvellous, beautiful. My sexual pleasure, however, was imperfect, average - not the piercing and harsh ecstasy that would have been justified by the novelty of the situation. The cause was purely myself this time. I also recalled the unnecessary and silly .025 M employed at noon. See, you fool, if you hadn't done it, you would now be enjoying divine ecstasy. It is an undeniable fact that in the sexual sphere, P does nowhere near as much harm as M. They've just returned my rejected piece from Beothy. I bought a new box of King James 27 • I heard that Elet28 published a piece of mine, earning me 60-80 crowns. Now ... for final renunciation of the poison. I feel it's going to work. In the morning, I will awake with Gyula. I will take a bath. Quickly. We will have breakfast. One cigarette. Work. Work. Bath. A shave. Lunch. Defecation. Aspirin and Bromural. In the afternoon Olga + - +; 0.02 P between 4.00 and 6.00,just for another few days. From 6.00 to 8.00, career, work. Theatre. In the evening, theatre or writing here at home. The next week will unfold in this way. IfI cannot do this, I will be lost.

27. Cigarettes. 28. Life (periodical)

113

4 DECEMBER

Yesterday I almost completely succeeded in achieving what I wanted. In the morning, I did not use poison. By the afternoon, quite serious inanition manifested itself. This, however, I was able to vanquish. Finally 0 came. We spent a sweet afternoon, though twice during the first attaque and during each ejaculation demission took place, because of my too violent movements. Without a doubt, I have lost the habit of normal coitus, and the coitus equinus, which I carried out subsequently, actually gave me much greater pleasure. The reason for it is given by my Kama Sutra when it warns that for physical reasons it is advisable for the 'elephant' to take the 'elephant cow' in the same way the elephant does. After the coitus, the .02 P was sweet. Amidst lively chat, we walked home slowly, earlier than usual. In the evening, I went to Nagy Endre's with Gyula and Sandor. The evening was beautiful and we had a wonderful time but I was nevertheless sad. I perceived that Olga did not feel as much sexual delight as heretofore. At first I accused her of having become indifferent towards me; then I realized I had become so towards her, and that this had led to her genuine and evident decreased sensitivity. This is all for the best, however. We haven't yet tried this aspect of marriage. Yet it is the most important one. Now we will show each other what we are worth.

114

5 DECEMBER

Woke at 9.00. Worked at the clinic until 11.00. 0.015 P then. Kalvin ter, rendezvous with Olga. Brilliant morning. A stroll along the bank of the Danube and downtown. Happy time spent together. The thought of our cooling toward each other no longer bothered me and with that, the cooling ceased to exist. Fever measurements. Reminiscences over events of two years ago. Slow preparation. A light meal. Olga + \ - Evening spent with Gyula Farkas, Sandor and E.B. I was honestly enthusiastic about the play. Sometimes I am taken by surprise by unpleasant thoughts, though without vasomotoric symptoms. I am getting old. Time is passing. Why can't the love between Olga and I remain forever in honeymoon colours, as it has been up to now? The thought that other love must and will come is painful. For a moment, I would like to cry at the cruelty of nature. With Gy., we take E.B. home by coach, then drive ourselves home. I decided I would not contrive to reawaken love, but would let events take their own course. I would be happiest iflove flared up again. My poor, dear little Olga was so sweetly sad today. When she cries, I'd like to fall on my knees before her and smother her with kisses. She is sweet and disconsolate, she senses something is wrong. What should I do with this dear girl to make her very happy? In had money now, a lot of money, a new situation or a trip would fix every-

115

thing ... This terribly deep and repeated expression of love is not right. The 'grande madame' game of the last few days also hurt her. This is a love scene played by Olga, as the lady, and I, as the man paying court to her, at the expense of the absent husband (Pali). The lady defends herself at first, violently and disdainfully, but in the end she kisses frenziedly and sensually and admits she has long loved her attacker. Olga's rendition of her role was astoundingly true to life. And yet it didn't astonish me, or even hurt me. What must be done:

1. Suspension of coitus for three days. 2. Coitus every other day throughout December. 3. Much walking. 4. Trips to the dentist 5. Work on financial and theatrical matters. 6. Teaching of Olga in every area, with testing. 7. Intensive milk and egg cure. S. Cold water treatment of the sacral area and the perIneum. 9. Arsycodile at my apartment. 10. Mercury face cream for Olga. 11. Discontinuation of the masochistic situations recently introduced by me. Placement of the head between the legs, etc. 12. Flagellation. 13. Jealousy to be completely denied and parodied instead. 14. Inducing of spiritual erection. 15. Examination of cafe behaviour. Now, when it doesn't hurt. 16. Discontinuation of gifts.

116

17. Discontinuation of praise. 18. Transfer of the relationship to more spiritual grounds. (Books) 19. Fewer kisses. 20. Calm and slow, logical behavior. 21. A bit of rowdiness! After saying goodbye, I was given cause for unpleasant forebodings: the horse of the only carriage waiting at the station was white. I did not take it. The coachman had already slammed the meter down. 'I won't get on,' I said, 'white horses bring bad luck.' The coachman said nothing. He didn't cajole and didn't swear. He stayed mute as fate, as if he were saying, 'Even if I'm not the one who takes you home, you won't escape your destiny.' Crossing the bridge on the way home, I met only ~hite horses, practically speaking, all the way to Kalvin ter. I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally encountered a brown horse pulling a coach displaying a favourable number. The sum of the numbers was 16. In gratitude, I gave the coachman a sizable tip, and he wished me a Happy New Year. I went around the ward and was the first everywhere to write my name in the duty roster. Everything was quiet. The nurse was asleep. I didn't have the heart to wake her. Only Count Kreith walked up and down in his drawers, with genial indifference. I wished him a Happy New Year and came upstairs. After a short defecation I gave myself .00 P [sic] then .01 M, which even together did not bring euphoria. Still, my colour is good enough. The reason for this is the daily vial of arsenic and the .0002-.0004 g. of strychnine. I have come to recognize

117

the latter as a marvellous substance. After this let us see the balance sheet Jor the year. 29 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Coitus: around 360-380+ Income 7,390 crowns Publication of Schmidt, Brioche-maker Publication of the German edition of Puccini Publication of Pean Procurement of (the job at) Stubnyafurdo Ten different women obtained Among them, two virgins Publication of The Psychic Mechanism oj Mental Illness Play entitled The . Horvaths ./ Trip to Vienna with Mrs 0

29. Author's italics

118

9jANUARY 1913

It seems it was futile to reject the coach with the grey horse on New Year's Eve - for me, misfortune, failure, and bad luck were waiting at the gate of the New Year. Within a few days I was forced to suffer a whole series of complex wounds. I can't easily get over them. 1. In view of Winter's imminent departure, I could have anticipated being named teacher's assistant. Justifiably, because I have been at the clinic for two years longer than anyone else. And yet Moravcsik promised the job to Verres, that talentless, colourless fellow. In vain, then, was all the work, patience, the 600 crowns I sacrificed on the printing of my book, all the waking up early, all the galvanofaradization, boring rounds of visits trailing after the old man, trying to gain his favour, underhanded and despicable toadying, being friendly with his family, night house calls, writing case reports of a length no one at the clinic had ever equalled. In vain was the measurement of Olga Stern's temperature for a year, devising of menus, electric bathing, the slave-like suffering of the trip to Cologne, duets with Tibor Moravcsik, all the hypnesia, the long and conscientious treatment of the Misses Klein, the psychogalvanic examinations, the histological efforts with Goldberger, which I carried out grinding my teeth, all the feeding, writing extracts of books for the Mental Health (department), all of it down the drain, useless.

119

I didn't want the teacher's assistant post, since I couldn't have made a living from it, but Moravcsik passing me over without a word, with no excuse, is still unparalleled injustice, a vile, shifty, miserable thing, commensurate with his cruel, servile, sanctimonious character, his vengeful, oversensitive, unobjective, ignoble character. In all this, the only thing that consoles me is that some of the reasons for my being passed over are ones of which I can be proud. 1. Moravcsik is privately angry at me, and cannot forgive me for having had no desire to discover, see, or occupy myself with his cousin Erika, whom he secretly thought he would betroth to me. 2. He is envious of me, for despite my young age, I make a lot of money, have a large circle of acquaintances, and do not require his patronage. 3. He is envious of me because I live well and am successful with women, copulate a lot, and enjoy life, while at a similar age he was a miserable and wretchedly tormented servant ofLaufenauer, going about in frayed trousers and unable even to dream of owning Persian rugs. 4. He doesn't want anyone to obtain such a desirable post comme fa, effortlessly, without great perspiration and exertion. 5. He is vexed that I do not feel or demonstrate any dependence on him, I sometimes get up late for weeks, I do not parade myself before him or hang onto his coat-tails with the others. He is hurt that I have not reciprocated his sympathy and interest in me in an appropriate way.

120

IfI think all this through, the thing doesn't hurt at all. I am only vexed and embittered that there is no way to thwart this injustice. It cannot be done! My vengeance will catch up with him, however. It will be noble revenge but he will suffer like a dog. I will dedicate a short novel to his Napoleonically conceived life, to the description of his character and the proper representation of the dirty work done at the clinic. This novel must awaken nationwide interest. The other great complex injury to have affected me is that my play The Horvaths has now been rejected by a second fomm, the Vigszinhaz. 30 'It doesn't meet our standards,' said Miklos Faludi insolently. I knew the Vigszinhaz wouldn't be wild about the piece. My having given it to them was based on the 3 in 100 (no more) chance that now, when they have few pieces and the press is hostile to them, they might do something sympathetic, something seemingly unselfish and literary. I was disappointed in this calculation, but that wasn't what hurt. It was the director's tone of voice. I sensed he didn't consider me the kind of writer who could ever produce a piece that was right for them. The third: my Puccini did not win the Greggus Prize. The fourth and most significant injury: the dashing of my hopes for a position at the Hercules spa. The job would have provided 10-12,000 crowns income by summer's end. Only yesterday, Gajari promised to intervene on my behalf: he said he and the wife of the undersecretary of agriculture were childhood friends, so I could consider the appointment a certainty. Today at noon I was informed the position had already been filled. 30. Comedy Theatre.

121

Thus did I receive several slaps in the face from fate. Only Olga consoles me in my troubles and vicissitudes that is, she would console me if I didn't always feel guilty in her presence on account of the poison, and didn't worry about her future faithfulness. Often, I am seized by the ominous presentiment that my marriage to the woman will not be happy, that she will be a nasty disappointment to me, while today I find her kind, patient, and sweet. For the second time, I console myself that these are just natural jitters before exams, unavoidable thoughts of the worst that can happen, failure. Last night I had a horrible dream. I had to take part in a skating race, but on a bicycle course (that was the track, as it were), and I couldn't, the skate (penia) was short; a terrible feeling, the ice melted and I stumbled through the mud, fell onto my stomach, while Aunt Lujza (who perhaps thought the most of my talent from the beginning!) cheered me on anxiously. A little girl also took part in the race (it was her skate I had to strap on), but she had an easy time because she was pulled along by a rope attached to her waist. It doesn't matter! I mustn't hang my head. I trust in my talent, and with perseverance I will achieve results. I have no intention today of compromising or abandoning my hopes (of the possibility of a comfortable, beautiful, and wealthy life). I will begin again ten times and one hundred times and - if I must - a thousand times. I must not lose sight of the goal. I must look toward it. I still see it before me: worldwide literary success, an easy and remunerative position as a doctor at a spa, in a beautiful hotel with a terrace, white tennis shoes, a good cigar, a fine bedroom, an incredibly

122

elegant office, books, refined literary work - without excessive diligence - but making continuous progress, music, around 35 my first opera or pantomime with full symphonic apparatus, Munich, Paris, travels, German premieres for my plays, later children, one or two - all the happiness which at this moment, when I am slightly nauseous in consequence oftoday's high dosage (3.2 cgm M+ 3.8 cm Pantop.) seems unreachable. You must not be impatient, young man. Last year at this time, how much worse was your situation? Two years ago, what a miserable state you were in sexually. Three years ago, how much more problematic was the health complex! Today - the health complex has healed, the evil infectious granuloma no longer threatens. The psychological impotence has dissolved. You've shown that you are still capable of a grand career. You are able to earn money. Your financial affairs have become ordered enough. Why do you want everything right away? Why do you want to obtain every complex happiness Jor yourself simultaneously? Wait your turn patiently, industriously, and enjoy the struggle itself, which is beautiful and - this is not a kind of compromise - represents the essence oflife itself.

Practical priorities 1. The job at the clinic is to be kept. In a year there will be a chance of obtaining the teacher's assistant post. Resentment with regard to professor not to be shown. Not too much work, but what there is should be visible. 2. Short stories and articles: 'Az Ujsag', 'Nyugat', 'Po M.', 'Vasarnapi Ujsag', 'Elet' and 'XX Szazad'. ("The

123

Csath (3rd from right) with the editorial staff of Budapesti Naplo (Budapest Journal) including Lajos Biro (center), Dezso Kosztolanyi (far right)

News", "West", "P. Mt", "Sunday Paper", 'Life', and 20 th Century.) 3. Look into other spas. Deploy Schverer for ElopatakY 4. Greater attention to nurturing of social connections. 5. Take The Horvaths to the Nemzeti. 32 6. Work in freemasonry. 7. Coitus every other day. 8. Fixing of teeth. 9. New morning coat. 10. Finding outlets for German plays. 11. Detoxification. (Habituation to one dose per day , no matter the amount of suffering.) 12. Energetic search for a contract position at a newspaper.

31. A spa at Valcele 32. National Theatre.

125

10 JANUAR Y, 11 P.M.

I promised Dezso, Sandor, Gyula and myself that I would say goodbye to unproductive, indulgent living, that I would cut out using the narcotic poisons, namely M and P, and be a respectable working person again. I truly feel the time has come: this is the last hour I can still escape unscathed, without consequences. Therefore, I will not revoke my decision. The withdrawal plan is simple. For tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, 0.02 g. Pat night, and after that, nothing. Come what will. A hellish 2 x 24 hours await, but after that, a new life and everything that is beautiful and grand, rebirth, joy! I will never, never return to these accursed substances. Mainly because it is impossible to enjoy them just once, for obe day. To inject M or P once a week is impossible.

1. A person doesn't enjoy the first dose. 2. The side effects appear immediately and accelerate rapidly (headache), making one fall head over heels into the whirlpool. Since their prudent and moderated enjoyment is impossible, I must renounce their use forever, reserving them only in the event that great and irreparable misfortune strikes me, and for the joyless days of old age. Below, I shall set down (I want to finish this tonight, in eight hours) the story of the vice.

126

THE STOR Y OF MY MORPHINE ADDICTION

On 9 April 1910, university professor Dezso Kuthy tapped my diaphragm and spoke thus: 'A little apicitis on the right side.' In the dimly lit office smelling of carbolic, I was suddenly assailed by the smell of the crypt. Icy cold ran through me. 'So, what I was most terrified of has caught up to me after all.' I pulled myself together. I wanted to hope, and I gathered all my energy. I was a tough young man then. I showed no distress in front of my friends either. But that night I couldn't sleep at all. Memories of the past welled up in my head, one after another; the beauty of happy times tortured me along with my sins, every wrong I had committed, self-accusations, petty villainies committed against women. Kato, Lyca, Irenke! I took the first dose of bromine at midnight, the second at two, the third at five; and at 5.30 in the morning, in the gorgeous rays of the spring sun, using the needle on my table, I injected the first dose of a solution which was also lying there: .02 M. (In the women's ward at the time, we were treating a lady tabes 33 sufferer addicted to morphine.) I did not feel any unusual effect, I didn't even get sleepy; all that happened was that the inner agonies abated quickly, surprisingly quickly. I calmed down. A few minutes later Winter came into my room. I asked him for veronal, and told him I had been thinking about injecting 33. Posterior spinal sclerosis, syphilis.

127

morphine. To this he shouted, 'I'll give you what for!' and took the bottle along with the needle. From then on, I did not use the poison. I travelled to Ujtatrafured, collected all my strength and kept only the hypnobromide, with which I struggled at nights against insomnia and disturbances to my general well-being. I did not want to think about my problem, the terrible notions conjured up by the specific illness 34 drove me to find a means of escape. At Ujtatrafured, towards the end of May, I was tortured by strong intestinal pains and stomach ache. I took 25 drops of opium toward morning. It helped. This was my second encounter with the toxin. At the beginning of June my boss, Szontagh, went away for 14 days. During this time I felt quite ill. Too much work, the assorted haemoptysis of the many difficult patients, and having to act the strong, experienced, healthy doctor exhausted me. The exhaustion was spiritual, because I thought every day, every hour I spent working was causing irreparable damage. During this time, on a beautiful afternoon before office hours, I injected a centigram from the phials lying there already prepared. I vomited immediately, then euphoria flooded me. I felt a sweet warmth in my abdomen, spreading through the sympathetic nervous system like a warm tide. I conducted my visits with pleasure. I was not restless and sat with my patient, Mrs Heinrich, for a long time, talking with her. In the meantime I looked at the landscape, the sky. Everything made an exceptionally harmonious, favourable impression on me. That day I slept wonderfully without hypnobromide. The next day I didn't give a thought to 34. Tuberculosis.

128

the whole affair. Repetition of the pleasure didn't even occur to me. I quickly put on weight, became stronger, my appetite increased admirably. By the end ofJune I had gone from 75 (April) to 80 kg. At the beginning ofJuly, however, my attraction to Jolan began to cause greater and greater fluctuations. While I trembled for her, the woman did not want to show that she loved me too. Besides that, in the afternoons the swings in my general well-being became much wider than before. Either the toxin sensitivity had grown, or (more likely) I had caught a new infection, or I was suffering from the increased and enormous flow of matter, those unparalleled pig-like meals! To combat the cold/warm feelings and paraestheses after lunch, every other day or every third day I used .006 M on average. Until the time that Jolan too confessed her love, especially on the horrible rainy days preceding it, I divided the .01 g dose into quarters. At 10.00,3.00, and 6.00, I took .0025 g, always injected into the lower left arm. At that time, its effect was like that produced today by .01. After Jolan's departure, I again stopped using the poison. Olga was next, in August. I began to live sweet days without being conscious of how happy I was. I always read the distant woman's letters a hundred times, however, and employed all my wiles to make Mrs H, her friend who had stayed at the spa, speak of her with me. Sometimes the news concerning her was bad. At these times, I would take .01-.007 grams without delay. I only acquired the habit of taking two or three doses a week in September and October. After lunch, I usually took some and went over to Olga's to lie down. I used the

129

excuse that I was better able to rest this way, and the damage I was doing amounted to less than the benefit. Sometimes however, instead of M, I would take 10-20 drops of opium, and its effect proved one to two times longer-lasting. Slowly this small dose gave me less and less pleasure, while I became prey to restlessness and headache along with a certain lassitude. Then on the afternoons without M, deep depression and taciturnity seized me; all of Olga's kindness and skill couldn't put me in a good mood. I did not stop using sleeping potions either. I combined codeine with paraldehyde and bromide, with a nightly dose being 1 g bromide, 1 g paraldehyde and .01.02 g codeine, intensified by .05 g veronal. If I woke between 3 and 5 a.m., which was quite often, I repeated the dose. Until the effect took hold, I read Nyugat - I was especially partial to Imre Halasz's political reminiscences. The combination was unique and unforgettable. Night in the Tatra mountains. An open window, thick fog outside. Gurgling water all around. Under electric lamps, tucked in up to my neck, I read; on the wall, shadows of decay and doom swirled. On returning to Budapest, I did not increase the dose, but stayed at .07-.08 g, taken regularly between 2 and 6 in the afternoon. My better nature protected me from increasing the dosage. Under the effect of the euphoria I was able to write and work well, then I would sleep one or two hours and dress only at 5 or 6 to go into town, or to walk with Olga, or to go to her place to hug and perform frottage, or to the Vilag, a concert, etc. In this manner, I arranged my life pleasantly and earned an average of 300-400 crowns. This money, however, Dezso and I spent in short order, because I had taken on the boy's

130

case personally; to my delight, we succeeded in achieving excellent results within a short period of time. I did not go home for Christmas. On Christmas Eve I ambled back from the Valeria with .02 g under my skin, and with dignified, misanthropic insensitivity, I slipped into bed. In the winter months I went to Hultl's. My body was quite well on the whole, but in the mornings weak subfebrility caused a laziness close to collapse. I couldn't abide the great heat in the operating room, the standing, the washing. I became very fatigued during anaesthesia. Not having had intercourse for months was a big problem. Kuthy did not prohibit it, but the thought made me incapable of sexual enthusiasm with a puella publica. I worried about whether or not I would succeed, and thus the attempts were unsuccessful. Besides this, all sorts of complications arose. Jealousy interfered with my attraction to O. The M consoled me. In March, I abandoned it anyway. I eschewed it for an entire month. When I took it again, it caused great nausea: in the WC at Olga's I disgorged my whole Sunday dinner. In May I realized for the first time how good the morning dose felt and how easy it made starting the day. At that time I took .015 g per morning, and in bed I read Siklos's textbook on music arrangement. I felt a queer, unproductive enjoyment whose precise analysis would need more time. The Magyar Szinhaz35 was rehearsing my play Janika. During the tiring rehearsal period my daily dose became .04-.05, and even so it barely .brought about euphoria. On the other hand, it caused perspiration, fatigue, and lack of 35. Hungarian Theatre

131

appetite. Still, by opening night I was back on form; if I remember well, that day I easily refrained until the evening, before leaving for the theatre, when I took .01 g. I spent the summer at Stosz. InJune at the spa, I wrote The Psychic Mechanism oj Mental Illness, working on the book continuously for four weeks. During this time I increased my dose right up to .2 g. In the morning, on waking I usually took .04 g. I breakfasted, lit a King or a Shepheards, then worked until 7.45. I washed and went to work from 8.30 to 11. An hour of writing followed. Lunch. Afterwards .03 g. I wrote until 3. From 3 to 4.30 galvanofaradization again. Work from 5 to 7. At 5, another .03. After supper, 0.03 to .05. In this manner, the work proceeded wonderfully. I wrote with patience and enjoyment. The only big problem was the emergence of strong heart pains and constipation. For the former I employed ether and caffeine, for the latter, enemas. On the 11 th of this month I visited Jolan at Ujfured. Seeing her again was a great disappointment. It was clear to me that the woman was incapable of the great Isoldelike devotion I had anticipated. She was constantly afraid that a professional seducer of women lurked within me, and the belief that she could become the victim of an enterprise undertaken out of bravado distorted her attraction. It was only at night, when she hugged me in a light open-necked silk blouse and I could feel that she was wearing neither drawers nor petticoats, only then did her desperate and ardent kiss make me realize she wanted to be mine. But I no longer needed her. I wanted to leave. I had neither inclination, desire, impulse, nor condom. I worried that I would cause her irreparable harm, and she would no longer be able to remain with her fam-

132

ily. Today I still feel I did the right thing in not coiting36 her. At the beginning of June, Dezso arrived. I was deathly pale by then from the poison. We began withdrawal immediately. I also discovered that Pantopon was a terrific substitute for the original substance. In a few days the dose was .06, then .05, halfP and halfM. In a few weeks I was down to .04 P. Had it not occurred to me then to take a tuberculin cure, which significantly disturbed my general well-being, I might have withdrawn completely. But my obsessive jealousy and feelings of helplessness also prevented it. At the end of the summer I was still on .03 P. Then here at home, in Budapest, I succeeded in resolving completely the question of impotence. I copulated with Szidi and Olga both, with success and complete pleasure. My joy knew no bounds. I was overcome by feelings of fortune and happiness. Even half a year later, I was seized by great joy when I thought back to that night, when with will, skill, persistence and ingenuity, I resolved the apparently irresolvable. In my great joy, I injected again. Truly, joy and pain are equally unbearable to a real morphinist. In October and November my dosage was .05 g. I took .016 of a 2% solution ofP and M in bed in the morning, the second dose followed lunch or coitus, and after coitus or between 5 and 6 in the evening came the third. Now and again I would inject a fourth .012 around 9 in the evening. During this time I never emerged from the toxified state, hardly enjoyed anything, and was obliged to 36. word coined by the author.

133

use heart stimulants to counterbalance my collaptoid condition. Finally, one night, 27 November, at the New York Cafe, I greatly worsened my already poor condition with a superfluous little dose, and felt exceptionally discouraged. I sensed disparagement in Osvath's37 remarks. The young writers looked at me as ifI were a person past his prime, since I had written nothing in months. On going home, I spat at myself in the mirror and, almost weeping, I abused myself mercilessly. The next morning, for the first time in a long time, I went to work without poison. On that day, I injected only .02 g Pantopon at around 5.30 in the evening. It caused a wonderful euphoria and satisfied me for twentyfour hours. The next day and the third day I proceeded in the same way. The main principle was one dose per day. By the second night, I couldn't sleep. Through the skilful combination of alcohol, bromide, aspirin, cold water and warm baths, and by maintaining a strong and unremitting resolve, I succeeded in withdrawing from the poison completely. On 5 December, I injected the last dose of that year. The nights were the hardest. If I awoke, terrible heart pains tortured me. I endured them. I bathed for hours, then did 50-100 cold heart-washes, and only after all this did I inject .01 P in 1% solution. By these means, my sleep soon returned to normal. I did not take much bromide in the evenings. In January and February 1912, in March, April, right throught to 5 May, for five whole months I lived without poison. Only every two weeks on average, I took five or six drops of a 2% solution in Gyula's room (it corre37. Erno Osvath, editor of Nyu gat

134

Erno Osvath

sponded to only .005-.006). This small dose took effect within five minutes, almost like an injection. I needed the foregoing especially because Olga's brother had been brought back to Pest terminally ill, making free and unconstrained sexual relations impossible, and more than once, an injection was the only way I could stop myself from committing onanism. Today, I still believe that of the two evils, M is the lesser. The other theme of these small regressions was cigarettes. If tobacco didn't taste good, I always thought of the M euphorias, during which smoking is a great and incomparable pleasure. On 5 May, when I decided I would go to Stubnya, I returned to the poison again. During the trip I took .015 P. It enabled me to remain sitting in one place, and I was capable of making use of the time, applying it to reading, etc. I was reading Cagliostro's life at the time, but the pleasure it gave me didn't approach the enjoyment I got from Casanova's writings, which made March, of the Mfree months, unforgettable. In the morning following a bath, with a washed heart, drinking coffee and smoking a great Luxor or Gianaclid, I drank in those lively, charming, and wise volumes, which doubled my appetite for life, and reduced my jealousy as well as my bent for causing sexual complications. During this period I had intercourse with incomparable pleasures, but without any spiritual dimension, and starting from 5 December, I fortunately made the girl pregnant every month. In May, the travelling drove me to use the poison again. On average, I took it every third day, in the afternoon or morning, but only once did I inject .02g P. I proceeded similarly in June. The boredom at the empty spa on the one hand, worry about success and my

136

medical career, and the desire to attain a confident, calm demeanour all kept me from stopping. To produce the substance, I used the pastilles I had brought myself, dissolving them in boiled water with glycerine and 100% alcohol, then purifying the mixture using the funnel of the urine filter. In this manner, I took 1-2 to 3-4 cm 3 of3% solution. In the month ofJuly too, I used the poison only every other day. It completely satisfied me, and I was easily able to complete much work I couldn't otherwise have borne. There were patients whose treatment irritated me. The faradization of Mrs Daisy Kovacs for example, because of the woman's exaggerated modesty, her advanced age, kindness, and deafness. I took the first dose before breakfast, in the form of .01 M. Getting dressed and starting work became excruciating, even detestable acts. Depression was much greater in the morning than at any other time. I arranged things so that I would not inject again until evening or late afternoon, but here at home, after supper, I would employ two or even three doses at short intervals. The strength of today's dose is clearly justified by my influenza, because while on the preceding days I took .03-.04 M, today .045 P and .013 M were necessary. What shall I do? This week is the last, the one on which I pin all my hopes.

137

31 JANUAR Y

One after another I recount the bloody defeats I suffer in battles against myself. And still luck does not favour me. The week started well enough with daily doses of .044 and .046, split into three or four parts, but yesterday and today I again fell into the wretched circulus vitiosus which is the source of the most shameful self-accusations. The problem at these times is always that I don't have the strength to wait for the afternoon defecation. If I manage to do this, and the M reabsorbed from the intestines has departed, there is always a pleasant M-hunger that lasts all day and can be satisfied by the normal dose. If, on the contrary, the first sin happens in the morning, while I am still in bed, or before excreting the stool, the dose usually doesn't bring results or even cause euphoria. Defecation doesn't happen either, to make matters worse (after lunch I can only produce something with the greatest of suffering), and the poison reabsorbed through the lower intestine makes the morning desperately unhappy. To transgress and to harm myself, and not even to enjoy it - such bitter thoughts pursue me at these times, and often if there were a pistol nearby I would blow my head apart in a second. What do I do instead, however? ... Usually I take the second dose early, three or four hours after the first. This normally produces euphoria lasting twenty or thirty minutes, then the most pitiable, miserable state returns, one in which:

138

1. All human action, industry, diligence and work appear laughable and odious. 2. All speech is tiresome and stupid. 3. All plans are unworkable and appalling. 4. Everything grand, beautiful and noble is unreachable and meaningless. At these times I smoke one cigarette after another, until I can no longer even taste the smoke. I eat oranges until I am bored. I play the piano with revulsion. I wash. I go to Olga's. I find life intolerable. I make an effort to entertain her, but I lack real sexual interest, and therefore I am soon very bored at her place. Though my sexual interest is almost nil, and I know why - I forcefully exaggerate it, hugging and kissing her constantly, and whether I need it or not, I insist on coitus, which is carried out with a shameful half-erection, and results in two or three [orgasms1for her and one ejaculation for me. Afterwards I would like most of all to leave; to make staying bearable, I disgustedly inject another .02-.03 in the we. In the evening, after supper another .02, then .01 and .01 follow - the last shot with the excuse that it counts toward the next day. An infinitely loathsome, contemptible life is this. I am so revolting, weak, and pitiful that I must genuinely wonder at Olga, that she can still love me and not be unfaithful. That she doesn't become utterly disgusted with my weak, breathy voice, my constant glancing at the mirror (the natural reflex gesture of the health complex), my cynical and shrivelled penis, my withered face, my witless conversation, my impotent, idle life, my suspicious income, my lack of will, the shamelessness with which I withdraw each day to the we at length, my stupidity. I think I smell too; on

139

account of my ruined olfactory sense, I cannot perceive the smell of my poorly wiped arse or my decayed mouth. Yet today I was strong. In the morning I started to dress properly, without poison. I worked. I took nothing all the way until 1.00. When I wanted to reach for the accursed PVZ,38 I always recalled that 'uncle' Pista is 68 years old and still has intercourse weekly. Therefore I, too, surely can hope to be an active male until I reach 60. My God, 34 more years, how much pleasure, how many good days, how many books, how many beautiful ideas, how many landscapes, smells, milk, cigarettes, flowers, possessions, money, glory, music, children, happiness, reading newspapers, the wholeness oflife, thirty-four more years oflife, of which every day is worth more than this life saturated with false ecstasy and bitter suffering, this life which is planned for only five years, but of which a hundred years aren't worth as much as those thirty-four with their real, true pleasures. On this basis I had a chance to complete today successfully, to take the day's single dose at night and in bed. What happens? Bozsi, who promised to come for lunch, is late. I wasn't happy about her coming, but if she is coming, she should come on time. What does the poor, complacent-snotty little thing think she's doing, breaking up the order of things? The little delinquent. All right, I'll compose until she gets here. I sit down to Legend of the Sun, which I started yesterday, and so that I might enjoy it more, so that I might be able to go further in the construction of the exposition, I take .02 P in 4% solution. This was all well but I soon regretted it, because the liveliness of my spirit was lost. 38. Almost certainly another codename for morphine.

140

Another unpleasantness at O's. Aranka Gardy's maid and son were there, so I took the girl into the bathroom, wanting to be done with the + soon so that I could inject the next dose ofP. 0 was terrified, she resisted and I had hardly any pleasure. At 7.00 I left, using the excuse that I was going to the ... On the way, however, I had a 4% solution ofM made up. Even before supper, here at home I injected .03 M. I played at writing, making petty calculations, little plans for the next month - self-deluding, silly lists these are, the brilliantly comic report cards of my worthless life. In the meantime Poli comes in to make the bed. I jump her. As an experiment, I want to see how she behaves lying under me, in bed. I stick myself with one of her pins. She is red, pants with desire, but clings to my hair, mentions the professor repeatedly, and cries out. I stop - and step outside. In the hallway Mariska is eavesdropping. She tells me - another unpleasantness - that she has still not finished typing Vajda's case report, because in one place she was not sure about the remark appended. I have supper, but in the struggle the poison's warm, even effect has been lost. Afterwards another .03 M in two doses (.015) at tenminute intervals. Diary writing, despair. Feeling of disgust. Tomorrow's programme. No M. No substitute sex. No alcohol. No nicotine. I can look forward to a nice bit of suffering, but it doesn't matter. You may as well suffer now, dog, wretched waste of a man, suffer and chew the carpet. For the night, after midnight only, .03 P is allowed subcutaneously. By the date of my mother's death, 6 February, I will be completely free. Final injection on 5 February. The last one of my life.

141

Ledger for January 1913.' Earned: Spent: Coitus: Orgasms for Olga:

260 crowns 390 crowns 45 times 58

In my life with her, coitus has occurred 424 times - in 345 days, which means that 1,268 acts of coitus occurred per day during these 345 days. (From 15 September 1911 to 31 January 1912 (sic), not counting the hundred days' absence in the summer, the twenty Sundays and thirty days during Fredi's illness (actually forty-two) when we could not meet and I was forced to resort to other women (to my immense regret). Consumed: M: 170 centigrams 5.6 cg. = .056 average per day therefore

142

6 FEBRUARY 1913

I smile as I read the last despondent diary entries. Their contents are actually quite serious. Desperate struggle, strain in the interests ofliberation from the poison. Naturally I did not succeed in living through this morrow without poison, but the result was quite nice anyway. At noon I took .02 P and at night, .03 M. I hardly smoked. On the next day, however, I went up to .08, then on 4 February to .16 g. This last is excused by .06 of it being P. During this time depression pursued me constantly; I experienced the bitterest feelings. My sexual interest sank to nil, and I thought I would soon be a case of premature debilitation. Yesterday, however, I pulled myself together. In fact a fortunate circumstance interceded. At night the weather changed. From frost, the atmosphere changed to mild, spring-like, cloudy but pleasant-smelling. I couldn't sleep. Though the daily dose was .10, at night I took doses of .02-.02-.02 one after the other between 2 and 3 0' clock, in order to sleep. It was all in vain: I lay in bed half-asleep, dazed. Today too, my opinion is that the real cause of the insomnia was the change in weather. But this became the cause of the fortunate next day too. I slept little: from 122 and 5-9; but I felt quite fresh. I bathed, vomited, and took nothing right up to 7.30 in the evening. At that time I twice injected .02 P in 3% solution. It decidedly worsened my condition. So after midnight I again took .04 P. The night was not great. I slept from 2.30 to 10.30. Today I

143

again behaved heroically, though waking up was much worse. Vomiting and bathing helped. Now I clearly see why those attempts at withdrawal in the autumn didn't work. Though they weren't serious, with luck they might have brought success. The problem was that I believed vomiting could be avoided, whereas without it all effort is in vain. By morning, as it were, the excreted poison collects in the stomach, and if we do not dispose of it in time, it is absorbed again, this time with no narcotic effect but because it is a relatively small dose - it increases the hunger. This is the problem with Pantopon too. Therefore the most suitable principles of painless withdrawal:

1. One dose per day, which must, however, create at least twenty hours of peace, that is, the next craving must last four hours at the most. (The craving begins with the beginning of salivation and the onset of the stomach's hyperesthesia.) 2. The daily single dose should at first be at least 214 of the total daily dose. 3. Vomiting should be induced in the morning even days after withdrawal is complete. 4. With the beginning of withdrawal, Arsycodile cure; the substance to be taken after each dinner subcutaneously. My heroism had its reward. In the afternoon, Olga and I experienced unforgettable joy. Coitus equinus gave such burning and sacred rapture, the likes of which I can hardly remember. Within half an hour another + in Cleopatra and Antony position. This too was regal pleasure. The .03 P (3%) taken after the ++ satisfied nothing; indeed, it increased the hunger. Because of this, on my way home

144

after taking the little mother home, I purchased phials of 3% M and gave myself the gift of a .02 dose of M. Now I think I have got it right, my night will be good, and so will waking. Tomorrow's plan: .02 P at 6 in the afternoon, and .01 M on going to bed. The previous days' account: 4 February: .10 M 5 February: .02 M+ .08 P=.10 6 February: .07 P+.02 M = .9 Tomorrow therefore: 0.05 Saturday: 0.03 Sunday: 0.02 P And by Monday: freedom.

145

7 FEBRUARY 1913

Today took matters forward successfully. After vomiting, bathing, and defecating, I took .02 M . Then toward evening another .015. That's how I achieved today's .035 after yesterday's .09. Naturally I kept my promise with regard to the AyAyAf9 at night. There was no +, but that will make it so much the better tomorrow.

39. author's private code

146

12 MARCH 1913

Shameful failures. I was unable to carry through my plan. And now, when Sandor (who was nearly driven to suicide over his pleuritis, due to my ugly lack of concern) and Gyula beseech me, crying and swearing and in despair, when Olga sighs, and quietly, anxiously , supplicating, sobs in my ear: 'My boy, you love it more than me!' - r now face harder work then ever. Because in the last week my dose jumped up from .22 to .36. This is a terrible amount, several times greater than the largest doses up to now. Nevertheless, more than ever, I must begin a final and irreversible withdrawal, because if there is no result by the 20th, if there isn't complete success, then retreat to a closed institution is the only path left for me. That would mean the complete cessation of my professional clinical work. Tomorrow, therefore, the [mal attempt, for life or death. 1. I just have to think about how smoothly the withdrawal of December 1911 went, even though I had strong doubts about success then too, while now I know that I am not attempting the impossible. 2. Think, Jozsef,40 of poor Olga's despair, and her terrified, beseeching gaze. 3. Think of what grand, joyful days will follow, just like then [December 1911-12]. 40. Csath's real name wasJozsefBrenner.

147

4. Think of how nice it will be to return to life, to work, to be happy about everything, to live, real life. 5. Think that you must live sixty-eight years, like 'uncle' Pista, who has + even now. 6. Think of what tremendous spiritual progress can be anticipated in terms of the Mansfeld plan. 7. Think of the lively, beautiful Casanova. mornings and the colossal ham suppers. 8. Think of your future, which you can raze completely, or build into something grand and beautiful.

148

NOTES TO

D41

1. I stress that I was always a sadistic man, and never jealous. I started the same way with O. I ruled over her, but M and jealousy weakened me, giving her the courage to turn the tables. 2. The first M injection should be written up at length with many details, along with the fear that accompanied it. Then later, the conscious, reckless and successful use of M in small doses. 3. Degenerate birth should also be stressed. Illusions about the deceased mother. The boy is devoted to his father: however, certain matters lead to perpetual misunderstandings. 4. Ambition that is too great, then suddenly broken, should also be stressed. 5. The fact that there is no more glorious, beautiful thing than to be a young intern at a spa. 6. Detailed descriptions should be written of the trip to the spa, packing, hopes, arrival, mood changes. Andor's tragedy is self-contained. Here, however, many things are united: a) the father abandoned the boy. b) the .... [unfinished] 41. Dezso Kosztolanyi. Csath wanted Kosztolanyi to write his story.

149

Csath at Stubnyafitrdo in 1912 ' ... there is 110 move glorious thing than to be a young intern at a ~pa. J

GENERAL REMARKS

I do not condemn my wife because she cheated on me many times, and finally bore a child by another (she could have freed herself of the embryo, as she had before - approximately eight times). I am a scientist and a philosopher, therefore capable of understanding desire and the rights of the flesh. I understand human nature: no matter how well and happy we are, we wish for ever more pleasure. On the other hand, the following are unforgivable:

1. Before the wedding she told others that I would maFry her or she would kill me. A slut has no right to say this, only a woman in love, who lives or diesfor one man. 2. She ruined the first weeks of the marriage with her constant abuse, only to divert attention, because she was already pregnant by someone else. 3. She knew that she was unfaithful by nature, and she saw at the sanatorium how much I suffered from the presentiment of that, and still she did not agree to divorce. 4. She stopped me from settling in Szabadka (where my best professional prospects lay) - because she wanted to go to Pest. (She did not want to be under my family's supervision.) 5. She caused my estrangement from my brother. 6. When she recognized my bodily and spiritual degeneration, she did not take me to a doctor, she did not do

151

everything she could to help me, but instead left me to my fate. I didn't see myself, I could not observe myself - it was she who had to see. It would have been her duty (and her family's), but they all pretended they saw nothing the matter with me. (And at the time I believed it too.) 7. She humiliated me, because later she gave herself to everyone and hardly bothered to conceal her sluttishness. 8. At Regoce,42 she drove me, chased me, compelled me to do the hardest, most exhausting work; though she already knew what my problem was (the medical orders called for a moderate lifestyle), she made me believe I was a: hypochondriac, and I worked until I dropped. (During my Spanish illness, she forced me to get up and go to the farm.) 9. She allowed us to get settled, she allowed me to live in fantasies of the future, when she already knew the horrible catastrophe she was preparing for me. Knowing me, it would have been essential for her to divorce using any possible means - before giving birth. She would have known the way to accomplish that with me, because at that time it still would have been possible. 10. She allowed me to investigate the matter of the child, to go here and there, to make myself ridiculous (as an honourable person, I looked for certain facts, not wanting to throw a woman out on the basis of mere suspicion). She dragged me all over the place, drove me crazy with all kinds of terrible machinations, made me travel to Szabadka, Baja, etc., She destroyed my desire 42. Ridjica

152

to work, my joy in living, my reputation. Until then, no one had suspected I was a morphine addict. By the end the whole region was talking of my having gone insane. And she did actually get me sent to the madhouse. 11. When I escaped back home she was quite embarrassed, and received me reluctantly. That same night, there were two quiet knocks on the bedroom window. I think the deaf pharmacist was her newest boyfriend, whom she seduced because he was engaged. That excited her. 12. On the very next day, she did everything she could to vex me. She constantly called the little child 'my little lover'. She combed her hair the way the suspected father wears his. She insulted my family, suggested that they had stolen her money (my earnings), which I had given to my father for safekeeping. 13. The most abominable was the following: I asked the maid to tell me when she first noticed that my gait had become poor. The girl answered: 'Only recently.' Whereupon she [Olga] rails at me - Why am I trying to get information from the maid? I saw that she felt guilty and didn't want me to keep on putting two and two together. Mat kind of vile, ignoble woman recognizes her husband's tabes and says nothing, but continues to torment him: to abuse him so that the problem will get more serIOus.

153

Postcard to Desire

TO DESIRE:

I was pained also by the woman's ingratitude to me as a doctor. I cured her of tuberculosis. For years, she ran a fever in the afternoons. I cared for her, taught her. I treated her with IP, and when she became well, when her hitherto constantly hot body became nice and cool, soft, when her shoulders (which the apicitis had pulled down) straightened out, then - she looked elsewhere. 1. In the autumn of 1918 I suspected, but I knew nothing for certain. I believed her and waited for my child. (According to the textbook a morphine addict can father a child.) 2. When I looked at the child, I was happy as could be and I decided I would cure myself. 3. From 15 December, I began to suspect. 4. On 26 December, Olga herself told me a dream, with which she admitted her unfaithfulness. She knew what this dream meant though she always pretended not to be interested in Freudianism, declaring it to be foolishness. (I slowly lost the habit of observing her thoroughly; that is difficult enough for a husband anyway, and my self-respect protests against it.) 5. In January and February, I continued my investigation. She screamed her innocence, but only to drive me insane and encourage me to do more pointless research. The child is cross-eyed in the left eye - so I

155

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

wanted to exclude the possibility of another father at all costs, and to calm myself. It was impossible. When I calmed down, she let me know through the maid that 'x. Y. does not resemble the child, he has hair as abundant as a wig'. Therefore I looked at X on other occasions too, and then I noticed that the head structure was the same. But I still didn't realize O's intention. (She wanted me to force X to marry her.) For the time being she wanted to drive me crazy. She always behaved as if she were hiding something from me and wanted to poison me. If I was at home, she was constantly coming in and out of rooms and arranging things in her chests of drawers. When I entered the room, she would close the drawers. I would then rifle through them, only to find nothing. She knew that this searching made me agitated, destroyed me. When she served soup, she would fuss over my plate. Today I know she wanted me to believe she was poisoning me, and to be afraid of her and go mad. With the same end in view, she kept six or eight little empty bottles on the shelves in the kitchen. So that I would find them and be suspicious and upset. The maid was trained to lower her eyes if I looked at her. Whereas even a guilty woman can calmly bear her husband's regard if she wants to. On the way home from relatives, she didn't want to see X one more time. You go and take a look, said o. Be convinced once and for all that your accusation is baseless. I didn't want to go, I wanted to keep my wits intact. Then she said that if I was going, I should get dressed properly, and she would get dressed too. She

156

11.

12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

took out the velvet dress. With that she planted in my brain the thought that she wanted to be attractive for him, so I said: we'll go in. I still doubted, even after this, because she again cried that she was innocent. This was the most repellent, most horrible evil. That is how she drove me insane, by vilely exploiting my good nature, my desire to be a father, and my love. She kept taking me to see my parents, knowing that my mother would convince my father to get me taken to the hospital. She clearly counted on that. At home, she pretended that withdrawal from M would not satisfy her; with that she made me irritable, sexually too; after that I became even more excitable; and after that came the insidious hiding of objects and other little tricks (with her slut of a maid). I believed she wanted me to be cured, and I went with her again and again to my father, like a fool. I entered the hospital with the notion that I would totally regain my health and clear up the affair of the child afterwards. That's when I slowly realized the following: 0 never loved me. She was an incomparably wicked, evil woman. I read here that such is the typical fate of the morphine addict, becoming the husband of a slut. She was pregnant by me once at most. At first she cleverly tried it out to see if I suspected. She announced that her period had not come, and I gave her quinine twice. Then she announced her period had arrived (though she knew she had not been pregnant).

157

18. She arranged everything for her own advantage and my ruin. That is why she never protested substantively about my morphine addiction. 19. In public, she was stupendous in the role of the fine aristocratic woman, one who was cheerful and temperamental than coquettish. 20. I realized everything there, during the thirty horrible sleepless nights, while my head burned like embers and I panted from constant shortness of breath. It was horrible! 21. Then I realized I am fatally ill, and there's no help.

158

ON THE ILLNESS AND DEATH OF GEZA CSATH

Dezso Kosztolanyi

I would like to pass on to friends and admirers a little information about the illness and death of Geza Csath. An acquaintance from Serb-occupied Szabadka sends the following report: .. . In March your poor COUSin came here again by coach, to get himself admitted to the Moravcsik clinic. He was not able to obtain a permit to travel to Budapest so his younger brother put him in the hospital at Baja, from where he escaped back to Regoce. From there, he wrote to his father that as a doctor he attests he is completely cured of morphine addiction and thus there is no reason for him to spend any more time in the hospital. Naturally, it was a bluff. That is how he came to shoot his wife to death on 22 July, in the consulting room, with three bullets from a revolver. The unfortunate woman took the first shot with her daughter beside her. She had enough strength to escape next door, where she died an hour later. Afterwards, Geza Csath slashed the veins in his arms and took a large dose of morphine, but a Serbian military doctor pumped his stomach, stitched him up, and saved his life. The same evening he was taken to the hospital in Baja, where his brother visited him several times. Even after being shown the funeral bills, Csath refused to believe his wife was dead. He was treated in Baja until the first day of September, when he was transferred to the psy-

161

chiatric ward of the hospital here. On the night of 11 September he escaped and at 6 a.m. on the 12th - in hospital trousers, striped hospital cap, and jacket - he turned up at his uncle's, the pharmacist's, asking for morphine and atropine. Naturally, he did not get any. After a half-hour stay there, he took his leave and started for Budapest on foot, with 100 crowns cadged from his uncle. He reached the demarcation line, where soldiers stopped him and began to escort him back. He begged them to shoot him, because he did not want to return to the hospital. When the soldiers did not satisfy his request, he swallowed the poison he had with him - obtained we know not how or where - and at 6 p.m. on 12 September, he died. His corpse was brought into the city the next day by coach and lay in state in the funeral parlour of the cemetery here. Before the burial, Csath's younger brother had an autopsy performed at Csath's expressed request. Dr Dezso Valy removed the brain, heart, and liver. Csath's brother stored them in formalin and intends to take to them to Budapest at the earliest opportunity, to be examined at the clinic.

Geza Csath was a morphine addict, and morphine - literally - killed him at the age of 33. When he began to use the poison I do not know exactly, but I would not be too far off if - on the basis of certain signs - I settled on 1910 as the year he first pricked himself with the hypodermic syringe and became habituated to the drug. At the time he was working as a medical practitioner at the Moravcsik psychiatric clinic. His literary name shone brighter with each passing day. His pieces

162

Dezso Kosztolanyi

were performed at the Magyar Szinhaz, and he wrote in short succession short stories and articles which became events in the renewal ofliterature. The effect of the poison manifested itself slowly. Even though I was in frequent contact with him, for four years, until the beginning of the war, I did not realize he was ill. Only in retrospect did I discover deeds and events which now - on the basis of what we know - strike me as incongruous and demonstrate his slow demise. This much is sure: he wrote less than before. He finished a drama but locked it in his desk drawer. Sometimes he spoke disappointedly of literature; he said he 'wanted to be happy', then one day, unexpectedly and incomprehensibly, he married. Neither close relatives nor friends could understand his choice, they thought it mysterious. Obviously, by this time two were thinking and acting: he and the morphine. Pieces he wrote at the early stage of the disease show the transformation only very faintly. They are still original and polished, but the observant eye may already perceive that their effect is somehow different. I remember sensing this before I knew anything of his tragedy - I wrote to him saying as much on the occasion of his last book of short stories, Schmidt, Brioche-Maker. His lyrical voice of old, which welled up from the sweet depths of our common childhood and memories, suddenly faltered and his attention was fixed on very earthly, tangible phenomena. It seemed he had set some sort of psycho-physical goal for himself. I told him the preceding; he became embarrassed and claimed the age oflyricism was over, and said that perhaps he was getting older too.

164

The truth is that by this time he was trying to leave behind the psychological atmosphere of The Magician '5 Garden and Afternoon Dream, that nervous agitation which he wanted to cure with morphine. His later, earthbound writing shows the drug's influence. Morphine does not cause dazzling and otherworldly fever, as those who do not understand it imagine. Its effect is actually the opposite. It narrows the pupils and the field of vision. Its intellectual effect is about the same. Details come alive but the whole becomes secondary. The drug pulls one down to the earth, makes one numb, indifferent, satisfied, calm, and prosaic. Geza Csath was a seer of dreams when he was healthy; later, he kept his eyes focused on the ground. An unusual transformation, of which I have not read up to now, as writers overwhelmingly see morphine in a romantic light. Trembling with worry and with oh! such vain and hopeless effort, I tried to call him back to life. The painful experiences noted here only have value because they apply to a person so exceptional and self-aware. After an injection, every bodily and spiritual conflict between the morphine addict and the world ceases. He no longer feels the ancient tragedy: desire that cries out to be satisfied and disgust that emerges after satisfaction. He is as if set free from the fatal web. His body and spirit seem light. He wants nothing, only that everything should stay this way forever. In this state, r know, everything was infinitely interesting to him. A table, for example, or a match-holder, which opened itself to him in its own ancient mystery. After a dose of the drug he generally became immersed in his reading, which was rather unselective in the latter stages.

165

A shoddy newspaper article or a mediocre novel completely satisfied him. His sharp critical sense stopped working. What he read in this psychological state, he enlivened with his drugged imagination. He, who discovered Puccini for the Hungarian audience, and loved Richard Strauss, once played for me a couplet he had heard on the street. He praised it much and expounded on its beauty. I thought he was joking and laughed. Then, however, he looked into my eyes seriously, deeply, from the depth of his dreams. This lowering of standards was the first warning of tragedy. For a time I believed I was a poor observer, or that he had suffered a loss of form. Perhaps I had overestimated him, I thought, and now I was seeing him in his true colours. With time, however, the incidents began to add up. The bohemian artist took on incomprehensible petit-bourgeois habits, and became friends with people so insipid he would surely have laughed in their faces before. He left Budapest - 'hot asphalt hell,' he wrote to me -left his job at the clinic, and worked as a spa doctor in the countryside. He distanced himself from everyone so that he could live solely for his passion, like a misanthropic drunk. Habits I recognized from the time he was a tenyear-old schoolboy returned conspicuously. He coloured his letters with blue, green, and red ink, illustrating every sentence with tiny drawings. Certain words he would frame in black. He spoke much of trifling matters I did not understand. A few years ago, he constantly mentioned his little white dog. He wrote hardly at all. Once, at my cajoling, he read aloud a piece in which he expounded on the notion that meat should be cut into small bits for soldiers

166

on their way to the front because on the battlefield there is no time for the eaters themselves to portion it. This outlandish essay was very long and made my head hurt. He noticed and stopped reading with a languid wave of his hand - 'You can't understand this anymore,' said the gesture, 'and I can't understand the rest of you either.' Sometimes, however, he was the old scintillating intellect, especially when he had taken a stronger dose of morphine. Last year he sent me a short story based on one of his psychiatric cases and written with a sure pen. Some of his letters are pure wisdom and goodness. At other times, however, his writing is confused and bored. I could always tell when he had taken an injection beforehand. In time, he could reach his normal state, his old level, only with morphine. This poor, poor lover of the illimitable could not escape from the earth's eddies. The tragedy that for us is desire and satiation, eternal lack of satisfaction, was for him that he could not raise the dosage infinitely: his body cracked under it. He could not go further and he could not stop. He suffered indescribably. On his martyred body there wasn't a penny's circumference of room the hypodermic needle hadn't ripped up. Abscesses formed, and he tied belts around his legs so he could drag himself along somehow. He worked that way for years. Daily, he would see to his medical duties in the small Bacska county village, and while he trudged, head down, toward certain death, he restored the health of many others. He knew very well the state he had come to, until his last month. Sometimes he also knew there was no way out. As a doctor, he

167

'He ... stopped reading with a languid wave of his hand - «You can 't understand this anymore,» said the gesture, «and I ran 't understand the rest of you either.»'

observed himself and experimented with his body. He varied his poisons - morphine, pantopon and opium - but like the swimmer ensnared in seaweed, he became increasingly trapped. To counter morphine's slimming effect, he took a weight-gaining cure with arsenic, in consequence of which he thickened beyond recognition. Then, to lose weight, he took emetics after lunch. For years he could only sleep with his eyes open, light, unhealthy sleep. The slightest noise disturbed him so much that he would stop his pocket watch when he went to bed. Driven by an unbearable malaise, now and again he would decide to rid himself of his vice and commit himself to a sanatorium. This, however, was a kind of pious self-delusion. He entered smuggling morphine inside his shoes. Upon leaving he would return to his old dose. Later, he would not hear of the sanatorium. He lost his willpower; even his logic became confused when applied to his illness. In a long letter he wrote to me last year, he tries to explain that he can only quit morphine if I send him as much as possible. His family attempted to have him committed a few more times, with his permission, but at the last moment he would always disappear. He escaped from every hospital. His disease took its own course. He was tortured by fear and began to suspect everyone. He was afraid someone would pierce his sternum with a needle and stab his heart. He had his relatives watched by detectives. He hid sharpened knives in his pockets. Finally he became passive and indifferent, a good-natured infant. The man who once dressed like a prince completely neglected his appearance. Buttons hung from his stained coat - this grand phenomenon of spirit, knowledge, and talent

169

resembled a country bailiff. It was dreadful to watch the experiment. He pried the poison from those surrounding him with bloody fights. When his relatives cried in front of him, he told them: 'I see your tears, but I don't understand them any more.' Could he have been saved somehow? I hardly think so. Physical separation, unconditional withdrawal of the drug might have restored bodily health and possibly prevented the final bloody tragedy, but it could not have arrested the progress of his psychological illness, which morphine disguised for a few years with its own hot, dense, cloudy veil. Morphine is always an effect and never a cause. When he reached for the poison, unconsciously he knew he was choosing the lesser of two dangers. He tried to escape from melancholy, whose sweet otherworldly melody resonated in his writings. For a while he transferred his pain to art, then it was too much: the receiving environment could take on no more and the disease broke his body apart. The tragedy branches far back into his life. Studying to be a psychiatrist was perhaps an unconscious recognition that he was sick and wanted to help himself. He embarked on clinical work with feverish eagerness - and in the footsteps of Freud, at a very young age he wrote the book On the Psychic Mechanism oj Mental Illness. Professionals praised his crystal-clear diagnoses, his medical intuition. He dreamed of morphine addiction in his twentieth year, when he couldn't yet have had any idea of the drug. That is when he wrote The Death oj the Magician, the source of his one-act drama Ash Wednesday.

170

The magician is a man of less than 30, whose face is prematurely sad, wrinkled and childlike from all the opium cigarettes and kisses, and on Ash Wednesday, early in the morning, he was dying.

In 1909, when he had hardly begun using morphine, the following passage appeared in his short story 'Opium': If you start smoking opium as a strong, mature man and put a lot of care into the maintenance of your physical well-being - which is best entrusted to a clever doctor - you may live ten years. And thus, at the age of20 million you can rest your head on the icy pillow of eternal annihilation.

Poor thing, he too lived ten years as a morphine addict and by the time he died he was as old as ifhe had suffered 20 million. I must resign myself to the idea that life is not as it portends. Geza Csath, in whom music and intelligence, colour and light, poetry and science were unified, had a stunted career. When he was 19 and no one here even dreamed of modern literature, he published his short stories one after the other in a provincial newspaper. He did not know other languages. In a small Hungarian town, isolated from every influence, he explored his own depths, and the nightmare he dreamed later turned to reality. He was wonderful at drawing, painting, playing the violin and piano, composing music - just like the spiritual relative he did not know, E. T. Hoffmann. In a more peaceful age literary historians will surely return to him.

171

His last wish was for his brain, heart, and liver to be removed from his body and examined at the clinic. With this bequest, he continued to search for the truth, the secret of his nature, even beyond the end of his life. It seems I too have complied by attempting to describe his suffering, the struggle and crippling of his heroic body, the fading of his bright soul, all so that I might understand and make others understand - his tragedy, and lessen the unyielding pain I feel on his early and unjust death.

172

CHRONOLOGY by Mihaly Szajbely

1887 Born ]ozsef Brenner in Szabadka (Subotica) on 13 February, to Dr. ]ozsef Brenner, lawyer and Etelka Decsy. 1895 Mother dies of heart disease. 1896 Begins high school. 1902-4 Receives prizes and recognition at school and local competitions for essays written about Szechenyi, Vorosmarty,]anos Arany and Mihaly Szabolcska. 1902 First published article in the newspaper Bacskai Hirlap (Bacska Newsletter). 1903 Graduates from high school 1904-9 Music critic for Budapesti Naplo (Budapest Diary)

175

1908 Publication of his first book of short stories, A varazslo kertje (The Magician's Garden). 25 June, he finishes medical school and becomes an intern at the Neurological and Psychiatric Clinic under the direction ofErno Moravcsik. His book Albiroek es egyeb elbeszelesek (Deputy Judges and Other Stories) appears in the Mozgo konyvtar (Moving Library) series. On 20 April, at dawn, the day after a medical examination which uncovered symptoms of tuberculosis, he gives himself a shot of morphine. From May to October he works as a doctor at the spa in Otatrafured (Stary Smokovec). He meets his future wife Olga Jonas. 1910-1912 Music critic for the periodical Vilag (World). 1911 The Magyar Szinhaz (Hungarian Theatre) of Budapest performs his plays Janika and Hamvazoszerda (Ash Wednesday); his book of short stories Delutani Alom (Afternoon Dream) is published along with a collection of writing on music Zeneszerzo portrek (Portraits of Composers). During the summer months, he works as a spa doctor at Stosz, and writes the medical monograph Az Elmebetegsegek Psychikus mechanizmusa (The Psychic Mechanism of Mental Illness). He accompanies Professor Moravcsik to Munich.

176

1912 On his 25th birthday, he applies for admission to the Martinovics Freemasons, becoming a member 26 April. His short story collection Schmidt Mezeskalacsos (Schmidt, Brioche-Maker), his medical text as well as a German translation of his study on Puccini are published. He spends the summer at the Stubnyafurdo (Turcianske Teplice) spa as an assistant physician. 1913 He uses ever larger doses of morphine, and becomes addicted. Marriage to Olga Jonas on 19 June. He spends the summer in Palics (Palic) as a spa doctor, then commits himself to the Liget Sanatorium in Budapest for withdrawal. He leaves the hospital in December without having been cured. During the year, his short story collection Muzsikusok (Musicians) is published. 1914 He leaves Budapest for good. He works as a doctor in Elopatak (Valcele), then enlists in the army on 3 August, at the beginning of World War I. He is ordered to the Southern, then the Eastern front, and from October he serves in the Auxiliary Command Center in Trencsen (Trencin). 1915 In the spring, he is transferred to the First Army

Infantry Unit in Budapest. After his morphine addiction is discovered, he is put under supervision. He works at Elopatak in July then spends ten days of

177

August institutionalized. Forced withdrawal ends without success. He receives a one year release from the army and works as a doctor in Foldes from October. 1917 He is permanently discharged from the army. From autumn he works as a district doctor in Regoce. 1918 October, Olga gives birth to their daughter. 1919 15 April- 2June, Csath undergoes withdrawal in the psychiatric ward of Baja Hospital. 2 June, he escapes from the hospital and walks home to Regoce. 22 July, he kills his wife with three bullets from a revolver, then attempts suicide. He is rescued and taken back to the hospital at Baja. 11 September, he escapes from the hospital. Heading for Budapest, he is detained by Serbian soldiers at Kelebia. He takes a huge dose of Pan top on and dies.

178

Cez a Csath, Dezso Kosztolany;, Deszo Brenner

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The publishers wish to thank the following for their help: Szilvia Demeter, Marta Faur, Isabelle Gabolde, Dr. Gabor Gyani, Miklos Konrad, Dr. JozseJ Kovacs, Andrea Kreisz, Ildiko Nagy, Agnes Peresztegi, Marly Rusoff, Dr. Zsolt Unoka

Photo Credits: Petofi Irodalmi Muzeum, Magyar Nemzeti Muzeum, Budapest Gyujtemeny, Andras Szanto.

He is a neurologist, painter, composer and music critic, pianist and violinist, playwright, journalist, short-story writer, and a man of superhuman ambition and energy. He is a bastard, of course, but so are a lot of people with nothing else to be said for them ...

From the introduction by Arthur Phmips

'My dear boy, tell me honestly, did you cheat on me?' 'How can you think such a thing, my child!' I said, but without truly convincing force. 'Oh, my God,' she whimpered sweetly, examining my face, 'I can see you've cheated on me. Confess, I forgive you, you're a man, confess, sweet darling.' But I confessed nothing; instead, as ·she desired, I swore that I had been true to her.

From The Diary ofGeza Csath