Gyula Krúdy - Life Is A Dream

The butcher’s wife picked a few choice green peppers from a basket and cut off a hefty hunk of rye bread. ‘Here, take these along,’ she said generously, as she handed over the packages wrapped in paper for the Colonel to tuck under his cape.

The Colonel did not know why he was obeying this woman he had never seen before. ‘Is there some tavern around here where I could eat this?’ he inquired with a touch of condescension.

‘There’s a tavern nearby called the Grey Arabian. The sign has a Gypsy on it with a peaked cap. They’ll have salt and wine for you there,’ said the butcher’s wife, and she was already gazing out through the open door as if expecting another customer.

The Colonel touched two fingers to his Tyrolean hunting hat and, swinging his umbrella-cane, left the butcher shop, and before he knew it he was already seated inside the small tavern known as the Grey Arabian. Once you take the first step on the road to depravity, the rest will soon follow. Our Colonel, a member of the Casino, had never dreamed that one day he would be a patron at the Grey Arabian. Back in the members’ lounge at the Casino, that grand salon where not only the ornaments on the mantelpiece but even the leather armchairs appeared to be cast in bronze, he had heard rumours about the wild carousals of certain younger Counts, who partied with cab-drivers at taverns in the outer districts where, to the music of a hurdy-gurdy, they gave the scullery maids a whirl; but as for himself, it was inconceivable that he would be a guest at one of those out-of-the way dives. And here he was now, seated at a table with a red tablecloth, black-handled knife and fork, and a plain white china plate set in front of him by a young man with rolled-up shirtsleeves whose ambition in life was to lift a barrel of beer with one hand when the tavern was full of customers.

‘What is your name, son?’ asked the Colonel in a paternal voice.

‘They call me Janos,’ the young man replied, non-committal.

‘Well then, Janos my son, I’ll have you know that today I am going to shoot a man I don’t even know and have never seen before, a man who’ll be put in front of me like some target at the rifle range.’

The young man called Janos may not even have heard the Colonel’s words, because he had for some time now been expecting the assistants from the nearby clinic to arrive so that he could tap a fresh keg of beer. The arrival of these uniformed men signalled the beginning of the customary ceremonies surrounding a fresh tap. The horse-traders, who were playing cards at a corner table presided over by the stout tavern-keeper, usually ordered glasses of wine spritzer, and set them down by their side, to fish the cigar and pipe ashes out at their leisure. The few patrons who dropped in on the run — coachmen and drivers of freight carts, cabs and hearses, official messengers, mailmen, tramdrivers whose business brought them this way — they would always order wine, for it packed more of a wallop than beer. Only the assistants from the clinic counted as serious beer drinkers, with time enough to savour their brews and hear out the conversations that customarily accompany beers — because across the street the day’s autopsies will have been concluded, the world-weary professor washed his hands with a sense of finality, and tagged the cadavers that could at last be buried now, while others might need to be pulled out again tomorrow, the devil take their ways. As I was saying, the clinic assistants proved long-staying customers once their duties were done. And so Janos said nothing in response to the Colonel’s comment.

But perhaps the Colonel did not expect a response, for without another word he spread out in front of himself the paper wrappers containing the cracklings and the cool green peppers; with great relish he cut a slice of brown bread and was at the point of digging into his snack when Janos stepped forth from behind the bar.

‘What will you have: wine or beer?’ he asked brazenly.

‘A nice mug of beer,’ replied the Colonel, even though an army doctor had forbidden him to drink beer on account of his heart murmur. Janos nodded, secure in the knowledge that he had a pitcher’s worth of beer left in the keg that was tapped yesterday. He was on his way when he suddenly stopped. No, he could not give the Colonel yesterday’s beer, because he had intended it for the janitor of a neighbouring building who had stolen away a girl from him, but still sent his small son over every evening for beer.

‘Why don’t you drink wine instead?’ he called out, turning back towards the Colonel.

The Colonel flared up. ‘Have you served in the army? Is this how they teach you in the army these days? I asked for beer, because I feel like drinking beer. Why, you …’

The hearse drivers and other transient guests all looked up towards the Colonel’s table, for in taprooms, just as in drawing rooms, people love to pay attention to a raised voice. A man who dares speak in a loud voice cannot be an ordinary mortal.

‘Let ’im have it, Janos,’ said the owner, deeply immersed in his card game. ‘Let ’im have it!’ he shouted and slammed a card from his hand on top of another one that happened to lie on the blue tablecloth. After this stroke he sent an inquisitive look in the direction of the man who dared to raise his voice in this tavern. The owner had once been a cab-driver and as such had a good knowledge of all types, but even his knowing eye could not peg the gentleman wearing yellow shoes as a member of the Casino.

So Janos, by repeatedly tilting the keg, managed to squeeze out a last pitcher of beer from yesterday’s tap, then with a show of strength ripped the spigot out of the barrel and decanted the leftover liquid into a dish to be saved for his rival, the janitor. Next he kicked the keg away as if it had no further use in this life. After all, the new barrel was already under the bar counter, to make the clinic assistants happy, so that they would keep the promise they made to Janos, and find a remedy for the long-standing rash his sister-in-law suffered from, back home in the village.

Meanwhile the Colonel was using all of his fingers to dispose of the cracklings. Some were crisp, some melted in his mouth. Just like life, thought the Colonel, and he recalled his youth when he had served in provincial garrisons where, towards the end of the month, he always had his orderly secretly bring him cracklings from the butcher’s while he kept to his quarters, as if he, a young lieutenant, were already studying for his examinations to become a staff officer, instead of doing like his fellow officers who supped on credit at fancy restaurants and, ashamed of small debts, made sure to guzzle enough champagne to run up a tab that was respectably large. No one could raise objections to a bill garnished with plenty of champagne. He had learned to shave himself, and claimed it was only because he could not allow a stranger’s hand near his face. He even drove the boot-trees into his boots himself, because his orderly was so clumsy. And he locked away the expensive moustache wax because he once caught the orderly casting a covetous glance at the container. Ah, those old-time orderlies were willing to swallow the castor oil prescribed for their officers, but could not resist the temptation of a box of moustache wax.

As he ate, the Colonel raised the mug of beer towards the light and peered at it mistrustfully. ‘Surely that good-for-nothing I’m about to dispatch to the other world is drinking stuff like this today, because he can’t afford any better!’ he reflected, closing his eyes while he drank from the mug as if in silent toast to the salvation of that good-for-nothing’s soul.

The Colonel found the beer tasty. God only knows what makes flat beer taste so good. It was as if in it the hops flowered once more, to soothe, relieve and fill you up with flavour. Flat beer has its aficionados just the same as the freshly tapped. Why do people in certain regions drink beer out of a ‘boot’, when nobody can empty one in a single gulp? And who can tell why real beer-drinkers, the common run of folk, do not down the freshly drawn beer straight away but wait instead until it settles, all the while eyeing the mug meditatively? There is a mystery about beer that will never be fathomed by the mind of mere mortals. — Such were the Colonel’s thoughts as he drank his bitter beer, finished up the last morsels of his cracklings, discovered a few fleshy bits near the stem of the green pepper, and cut them out one by one, what a pleasure. And that brown bread was almost as phenomenal as the army bread he had once enjoyed during some field exercise, bread that gave off the scent of the saddle and other horse accoutrements. In a friendlier mood now, he surveyed the scene in the little tavern on Ulloi Road. He still had plenty of time left until the execution of that scribbler.