The Best Continental Short Stories of 1923-1924/Getting Acquainted

by Géza Gárdonyi

GETTING ACQUAINTED

By GEZA GARDONY

ON the evening of St. Michael’s Day I was coming home from the fair. I was alone in the cart. Martin Nagy was driving. It was windy, therefore we did not talk. The cart rattled and grated as it went. The evening grew darker and darker.

These journeys at night give one the impression of being in a fairy tale. You don’t know where you are, and all you can see is that everything is dark in front of you and behind you. In this black world there are black trees. They stand lined up like formless giants, and when the wind moves them they lean over and bow to you, and shake their heads.

Suddenly a red eye appeared in the distance, out of the darkness; then there were two, then three, and always more. We had reached a village. Here and there we heard barking; then a dog ran out in front of the horse. For some time he indulged in a furious dance, barking in front of the horse; then he allowed the cart to pass, in order to be able to bark at the rear wheels also.

After a few minutes we again plunged into the silent dark; only the red fiery eyes followed us for a little time longer.

In the middle of a village we overtook another vehicle. It was a peasant’s cart, like ours. Some big, angular thing was loaded up behind it. It was so dark we could not see what it was, or whether it was a dealer coming back from the fair or even some peasants bringing home some furniture.

In passing through the village, the road ran between two ditches, and as it was impossible to pass the vehicle in front of us, we had to follow at a walking pace behind it. When we reached the end of the village, our driver called out:

“Is that you, Father Kadari?”

“Is that you, Marci?” responded an aged voice.

The man who replied was Imadsagos Kadari, an old pensioner of the war of 1848 (the war for Hungarian independence, which was known as the War of Liberty), who had received a bullet in the knee at the Battle of Pisk.

Now we knew that his son and his daughter-in-law were also in his cart. They had taken a calf to the fair, and with the money for which they had sold it they had bought a wardrobe.

They had a marriageable daughter in the house.

The old man had been to see the picture on the great altar. There was a good deal of talk about this picture in his village, because, if you will believe it, this picture represented a Christ who looked at all who prayed before Him. Whether one was at the right or the left of the picture, the Christ looked at you with living eyes. Since the picture had been placed on the altar, many people from the village had gone to confession there. It was for this purpose that the old man had gone there today. He had made his confession and communicated before the Christ with the living eyes.

“Hullo there!” shouted my driver, “will you make a little room there to let Mr. Schoolmaster pass?”

“Right ho!” replied young Kadari, “but we must get over the bridge first!”

And in a changed voice he added:

“I should like to wish you good evening!”

The bridge was an old plank bridge that stood at the end of the village. Even in daylight one had to walk over it with care.

Did the horses know the bridge was dangerous, or were they merely frightened with the noise of their own shoes? In any case, they ran away.

Kadari gave them a blow from his whip. One of his horses made a leap forward, while the other rose right up in the air, and we saw the big cart turning over sideways. A moment later it rolled over into the ditch, making a tremendous rattle.

This kind of accident is very amusing to read about, but it is much more alarming in reality. The woman cried out in terror, the men swore. The horses floundered about. The waggon groaned and creaked.

My driver pulled on his reins, to prevent our horses from also taking fright. Then we both jumped down, and I struck two matches together, in order to see what had happened.

The wind prevented me.

“Go to the nearest house and ask for a lanthorn,” I told my driver.

When the man had left, all three occupants of the overturned waggon pulled themselves out of the ditch.

“The wardrobe! Oh, my beautiful wardrobe!” moaned the woman. “We gave eleven florins for it! Are you hurt, Jean? You haven’t hurt yourself, have you, Father? Oh,my beautiful, magnificent wardrobe!”

Kadari pulled at his horses’ bridles and swore furiously.

“Don’t swear!” growled the old man.

As the woman bewailed the fate of her wardrobe without ceasing, however, Kadari pulled more and more furiously at his reins and kept on swearing.

“Will you stop swearing like that?” shouted the old man, also letting an oath or two fall. “If you don’t, I’ll give you a good smack in the head! Did anybody ever see the like of it!”

And turning to myself, he added:

“If it is God’s will that we should turn over, then it is the will of God!”

He made this statement with such a convinced air that when one heard him one would have thought the Lord of the Universe had nothing else to do all day than to upset the Kadari family on the bridge.

“The principal thing,” I said, “is that you are not hurt.”

A light now shone from the last house in the village, and shot a gleam of brightness across the night. Two men followed my driver. One of them wore a fur cap on his head, and the other a hat.

The lanthorn soon showed us the parapetless bridge, with some very high wild sorrel and all sorts of climbing plants growing about it, with the waggon lying on its side beside it. The ditch, fortunately, was only a yard deep. The wardrobe was undamaged, only one of the doors having come open. But the shaft of the waggon was broken, and so was one of the wheels.

The man with the fur cap raised his lanthorn and threw a light on us.

Kadari was covered with mud. The bottom of the old man’s suba—a sheepskin coat, the wool of which is worn on the inside in the winter and on the outside in the summer—was marked with blood. The woman had had the best luck of all, and had no mark of either mud or blood upon her. Nevertheless she had been the loudest to cry out.

The man in the fur cap turned his light on me also. I then saw that he was a dark-complexioned fellow of about fifty, with a Silurian head. The man in the hat, a fine, solid lad, was certainly his son. Both had little eyes and the air of being serious people.

“Well,” said the man in the fur cap, raising his head, “you had better come to my place. The old man has lost a good deal of blood and the waggon is smashed. Come to my house and spend the night.”

“The devil!” said Kadari, scratching his head. “Can’t we tie our waggon on behind Mr. Schoolmaster’s?”

“Willingly,” said I, “so far as I am concerned, but what about the old man? He’s hurt.”

The old man stretched his arms and legs, and even raised his lame limb off the ground.

“There’s nothing much the matter with me,” he said.

“But look at your wheel,” said the man in the fur cap, shaking his head. “Your waggon will fall all to pieces before you can get home!”

They first got the wardrobe out of the ditch, and then the waggon. I went along with them to the peasant’s house. I wanted to see how the old man was hurt.

The road to the house was in a bad state, and we walked along cautiously and in silence. The only sound was the noise made by the broken shaft, as it dragged along the ground, between the two horses.

Old Kadari must have stumbled against a lump of earth, for he just saved himself from falling; then he continued to limp along in the midst of us.

Suddenly he stopped, his eyes fixed in front of him.

“God of Mercy!” he murmured, in astonishment.

He started on again, took a few steps, and stopped again.

“God of Mercy!” he said once more, while his voice trembled.

“What’s the matter, Father Kadari.”

“My leg’s giving away!”

“What, the lame one?”

“Yes.” He continued, nevertheless, to limp along.

On arriving at the house, the horses were put into the stable, and the waggon and the wardrobe into the barn. Then we all met in the living room of the house. A smell of fur and cooked potatoes pervaded the place. We made old Kadari sit down on a chair, and his son took off his boots.

The old man’s knee proved to have been injured.

“Is there a doctor in the village?” I asked the strangers.

“A doctor? No; but our cowkeeper understands everything,” said the man in the fur cap.

“There’s no need to trouble him!” I remarked sharply.

The family with the Silurian heads stared at me. Their look plainly said: “It’s pretty evident you don’t live in this village!”

“Give me some clean water and some clean rag!”

“There is some warm water,” said the mistress of the house, a thin woman with white hair and a chronic cough. On reaching the door she turned and said:

“Our minister is a healer, too!”

“Then we had better send for the minister!”

While the young man went to fetch the minister who was also a doctor, the head of the family asked us to sit down and asked us where we came from.

We told him.

“And in whose house are we?” I asked him in my turn.

“My name is Etienne Soos,” he replied, pulling out his pipe; and seating himself near the table, he added proudly: “I am a juryman!”

“And so am I!” asserted Kadari, also taking out his pipe.

They both lighted their pipes, with a friendly look at each other.

“Aren’t we giving you a great deal of trouble?” questioned Kadari’s wife, timidly.

“No,” said Etienne Soos; “in the first house there are a couple of beds and a couch.”

He puffed once or twice, and then continued:

“When we have done what we can for your father, we will go into the other house.”

“Is that your only son?” asked the woman.

“Yes, the only son.”

“He’s a fine, well set up young man!” “A fine, strong lad!” said Kadari, approvingly.

The eyes of Etienne Soos shone with pleasure. He sucked at his pipe still more strongly, and remarked, modestly:

“Yes, thank God!”

And smilingly he added:

“A sack of wheat to him weighs not more than a pound to another!”

The village clergyman arrived. He was a young man, taciturn and pale. He looked at the injured knee, and poured some water on it.

“Don’t be alarmed!” he said kindly. “It’s not going to kill you!”

Complete silence reigned in the room. All that was heard was the water dripping on the floor. Then Etienne Soos sat down again and said in a low tone to Kadari:

“The other day he lifted a sack weighing four hundred and fifty pounds on his shoulder!”

Kadari’s wife held a candle to give the doctor-minister light.

The clergyman, seated on a stool, poured out more water, and from time to time looked at the wound closely.

“Bring the light closer!” he said suddenly.

And between his teeth he murmured:

“What in the world can this be?”

He drew something resembling a button from the wound, and held it up to the light to see what it was.

“That?” said the old man with astonishment. “Why that is the bullet that was fired at me!”

And in a voice trembling with joy he added:

“It was the Christ with the living eyes that upset us!”

ΙΙ

On Advent Sunday, after the litany, old Kadari, wrapped in his suba down to his feet, came towards me. He still limped, although he could walk without lameness if he wanted to, but he had become so accustomed to limping that he preferred to continue it.

“What news, Father Kadari?”

“Well, a week ago the Soos came to see us—Etienne and his wife. Because I must tell you that when we made their acquaintance, they promised to come and taste our new wine. So they came, and they also saw the vines. We have become still better friends, and they have got to be very fond of our little girl. And while we were talking, Etienne’s wife said that it was a wife like that that her son wanted. And we said to her that we only wished God would give her a man like their lad!”

“My word, but they would make a fine pair!”

“Well, the lad has come today with his father, and if the two young people like each other, perhaps we shall celebrate their betrothal immediately.”

“So soon as that?”

“Why not? The young man lives a long way off; and then, if they look at each other three times, they won’t see any more than if they looked at each other only once!”

In the Hungarian villages these hasty betrothals are by no means rare. Love is born at first sight, and flowers afterwards. The principal factor in this case was that Tiennot Soos was an only child, and Juliette Kadari was an only daughter. There were thirty acres of land on each side, which would make sixty after the death of the parents.

The Kadari family asked me to have supper with them, and I went.

The young girl had been one of my pupils. She was still attending the Sunday School last year. She was my best pupil in arithmetic, and she also wrote a very good hand. She was very fond of embellishing her capital letters with all sorts of flourishes. Her father said to me one day:

“If she only wore trousers, she might be a lawyer!”

It was an icy winter evening, with a cold wind. There was a strange vehicle in the yard, and a glow of firelight under the door. The dog was sitting in front of the kitchen door, with his ears erect and his eyes shining. Naturally, he was looking towards the inside of the kitchen.

Juliette gracefully opened the door to me. She had learnt that from me. If she had not gone to school, she would have left me to find the door-string by myself.

“What a colour you have, and how nice you look!”

“That is because of the fire, Mr. Schoolmaster!”

“Of course it is because of the fire!”

It was a great family feast day. On the table, covered with a white cloth, an oil lamp was alight. Round it were seated some men dressed in blue, with wine and cigars in front of them. The young man alone was smoking a cigar; the others preferred their nose-warmers.

The room was cleared of smoke in my honour, then I lighted my own pipe, which was a long one, and we began to chat.

Our conversation was only peasants’ talk, to be sure: the weather, the harvest, the repairing of the roads, the taxes, the bridges, the new village parson, the elections, and lots of other things also.

The lover took no part in the conversation. He sat against the wall. On ordinary occasions his place would be on the outer side of the table, but today his eyes have plenty to do. Between the table and the door, that tiny stretch of space. On this little piece of ground his whole future life was going to be settled today!

Therefore he smoked his cigar; he smoked it and resmoked it, and his mouth took on a stupid expression, the look of a child at its mother’s breast. His little brown eyes were turned constantly towards the young girl, every time that she entered and gracefully crossed the room.

That light and undulating movement, that coquettish poising of the red skirt-no countess was capable of imitating that!

Nobody, however, had educated these common people in things of that kind. . . . An unwritten philosophy, nevertheless, had; a philosophy which informed the peasant better than all the schools and all the catechisms.

That unwritten philosophy sang in the ear of the lover:

”Don’t marry the girl for her golden hair,

For her kitchen things of copper or for her ‘broidered robes,

But love her rather for her goodness,

And for the graceful way in which she walks.”

For, upon my word, the graceful walk of a young girl, her blushing cheeks, her modestly lowered eyes, enable one to judge of many things!

The manner in which she carries a dish, places it on the table, offers it to the guests; the carriage of her head, the movements of her hands, her kindly amiability—all this counts.

The young girl knows well, also, that such hours as these mark a very important moment in her life. Throughout the whole evening she comes and goes, blushing up to her ears. Her eyes are always lowered when she brings in a dish. And it is only by a miracle of God that she is able to see her way even to the table.

She has never been sufficiently beautiful to paint. She has a rounder face than any Venus. Her lips are thicker than those of the other peasants.

In spite of all this, she is beautiful today. What makes her lovely this evening are her radiant eyes, her embarrassment overflowing with happiness, her hurried little steps, the lightness of her movements, her watchful care. And when all is summed up, it is these plump and kissable faces that the peasants like the best.

The person who was most delighted with her, however, was undoubtedly the lad himself. He gazed at the young girl, while twisting his budding moustache, and every time she said:

“Will you please serve yourself?” he was ready to eat even sawdust, if she had placed it before him.

I addressed a few words to Tiennot. (I called him Tiennot, and his father Etienne, as these were the names they used between themselves):

“Tell me, Tiennot—have you many fruit trees?”

“We? You may be sure we have!” proudly replied the lad, “and we planted some more last year.”

“Have you yet served your time in the army?”

He looked rather embarrassed, and his father replied for him:

“You see, he is an only son, consequently he is exempted.”

“Thank God!” ejaculated Kadari, with a nod of his head.

All these questions were apparently of no importance, yet each opened a little door, and each reply opened up a picture of the future. For these poor, simple people stand with trembling hearts, like the intelligent rich, before the veil of the future. For parents, be they rich or be they poor, their own child is always their hearts’ idol. Their whole thought is concentrated on him, and when the time comes for him to choose a wife, or for them to select a husband for their daughter, the pearls of hope begin to be engendered in their souls, midway between joy and anxiety.

Here, in the villages, the young people do not become acquainted at dances and evening parties and five o’clock teas, or at the watering places. Nobody has ever heard of “The Moonlight Sonata,” and when a young girl blushes, she has no ostrich feather fan behind which to hide her face, but buries it in her apron. It is the ruddy tint of the peach that makes it beautiful!

What a life of hard labour awaits them! When I look on this frail young girl, still a child only yesterday, I can-not help thinking of pretty Madeleine Szabo. Madeleine is sixteen and already a mother.

Perhaps in twelve-months time this young girl will also have a child in her arms, and the first marks of care will have begun to appear on her pure and smooth forehead.

Then I look upon this lad of twenty with the broad shoulders who, intoxicated with gazing on the girl, is looking at everything through rose-coloured glasses, through which he sees only one thing: a future companion to whom, in a few weeks, he will be “Etienne,” like his father. The human lot is filled with good things, but what a price they cost! Bread does not grow upon trees, as in fortunate Africa. In this country it has to be got by tilling the soil, by harrowing, mowing and threshing. Each slice of bread represents so much human sweat, and when one has secured it, one has to break it into two and give one-half to the tax collector. And later on, when there are seven or eight little beaks screaming in the nest? Then is the time when the parent birds have to get up with the dawn, and go to bed with all tomorrow’s cares in front of them. Provided that the woman is honest, industrious, cleanly and good tempered, however, our people are so hardened to labour that it is impossible for them to imagine the world can be otherwise.

We smoked and talked round the table. Notwithstanding all that was said, the word “marriage” had not yet been pronounced, as if these people had not even come for such a purpose. And if it so happened that they went away without mentioning such a subject, well, nobody would ever whisper a word about it. The young people did not please each other, that would be all. Such an eventuality would not prevent the Kadaris from saying how d’ye do to the Soos, every time they met them at the fair, or the Soos from going to see the Kadaris. They would remain good friends, and perhaps the youngsters of their third or fourth generations would meet and take a fancy to each other.

Supper once over, Etienne Soos put the question: why had not the pretty little rose of the house come to table with the rest?

“On such occasions,” said the girl’s mother, with her eyes full of joy, “her place is in the kitchen.”

She went, all the same, to fetch her daughter, and gently pushed her into the living room.

And it is really surprising that young girls should make a habit of working in the kitchen in their holiday clothes: pretty white chemise with sleeves, blue silk fichu, necklace of clear glass beads, and ribbons plaited into the hair!

Blushing all over, she seated herself in front of the young man, but buried her face in her hands.

A moment afterwards she rose and ran out of the room. She must have hidden herself in the larder, or at least in the inner room. Nobody would be able to get her out again, not even with a rope.

A few minutes later the Soos left the living room “to see how the horses were getting on.”

A brief silence followed their departure. Kadari pulled hard at his pipe, and looked at me.

“Well,” I said, cautiously, “he looks to me to be a very good lad. He is strong, well set up, and fitted for hard work, and so far as I can see they are a very good sort of people.”

“Very good people,” said old Kadari, between his teeth.

“We saw their land when Father was ill there,” said the girl’s father. “It is good land, very rich. If ours was like it, it would be worth twice as much.”

“I only wish it was not so far away!” sighed the mother, as she wiped away a tear.

“But do you think the lad is pleased with her?” asked Kadari.

This doubt was addressed to me. Kadari knew very well that his daughter had pleased. Nothing could be more certain, but certitude is truly certain only when other people affirm its certainty.

The two Soos returned. The father knocked at the door first, and a few instants later, the boy.

The father filled his pipe and while doing this looked us each over in turn.

Every face bore an imprint of amiable benevolence.

Seeing this, Etienne Soos gave a preliminary cough, to clear his throat, and then, holding his smoking pipe between his fingers, he began:

“Well, now, it’s getting late, and we have a long way to go.”

“Oh, oh,” said the host.

“Why, the train hasn’t whistled yet!” added the old man gaily.

“Well,” said Etienne, with formal gravity, “having made the acquaintance of this honourable family, I have brought my son to see them.”

“And you did well!” said the Kadaris simultaneously.

“Very well, then; now I ask you if you have anything to say against my son?”

And he looked around him.

“He’s a very good boy!” said the Kadaris. “May God give you a long life, Tiennot!”

And they drank with him.

Etienne Soos did not drink. While they drank the health of his son, he puffed slowly at his pipe.

“What we came for,” said Etienne Soos, in a softer voice, “was that ... seeing that the first man in Paradise was likewise ...”

And he continued with the customary comparison, which was listened to with great attention. Even the flame of the lamp appeared to grow larger, as if for to listen also. And the flame rose with a jump when Etienne Soos, starting from Paradise, reached the house of the Kadaris and found in it the admirable girl who in baptism had received the name of Julie.

In the course of two visits the parents had already made each other’s acquaintance, and now it was the turn of the young people to declare themselves. Everybody in the house was certain they were pleased with each other. The manner in which the girl had invited the boy to help himself from each dish, and the fact that he had accepted each time and had eaten almost alarming quantities, was regarded as extremely significant.

I went to look for the girl and I drew her out from the other room, where she was sitting on a coffer and waiting amid God knows what thoughts and what sentiments.

“Now, have courage!” I said, in real schoolmaster’s tones. “Don’t let them think you are a good for nothing. You alone have more brains of your own than the whole village where they live. Courage, then, my girl!”

With this I made her enter the other room.

“Well, Juliette,” I said to her, formally, “you have a suitor, in the person of this good lad here!”

Juliette dropped her eyes, and I believe she would have liked to sink into the earth.

Once in the living room, she had lost all her courage!

I held her firmly by the arm, however, so that she could neither sink into the ground nor hide herself in her mother’s arms,

“I am quite aware,” I said, “that you are too embarrassed to be able to speak, but you must not forget that our dear friends live a long way off and that they cannot wait for your reply. If this young man has touched your heart, therefore, and you are willing to say that you accept the choice he has made, hold out your right hand.”

Juliette timidly raised her head and looked at the lad. The latter was as red as a lobster. Then she lowered her eyes again and held her hand towards the boy.

It was already nine o’clock, and the happy parents had a heap of things to talk over together.

In the midst of handshakes and benedictions, the young man gave the girl a ring, and she gave him a silk handkerchief.

Then we took them into the inner room, in order that they might become acquainted with each other, while their parents talked.

“Tell me, Juliette,” I said to the young girl on the following day; “you have always been intelligent and frank. Tell me what you said to each other last night!”

She blushed, smiled and looked embarrassed.

“Nothing.”

“Is that how you reply to your schoolmaster?”

“But, really, we did not say anything, Mr. Schoolmaster!”

“And when you were left by yourselves, what happened first?”

“I sat on the coffer, and what’s his name on the chair.”

“And then .. .”

“And as I was terribly ashamed of myself, I hid my face in my hands. Because the candle shone too much in my eyes. I waited for him to say something, then I should have replied.”

“He must have thought you were crying.”

“He couldn’t have thought so, for afterwards I took away my hands. I was sitting so that he couldn’t help seeing me, and he could very well see I wasn’t crying!”

“And he said nothing?”

“No.”

“What was he doing all the time?”

“He was sitting on the chair. Once I looked up at him, and I saw that he was as red in the face as myself and that his eyes were fixed on his boots!”