Gyula Krúdy - Life Is A Dream

‘Now, now, Uncle Friedmann, you mustn’t view the world through such gloomy glasses,’ said the landlady in a conciliatory tone.

But Friedmann refused to be disarmed: ‘My poor sainted wife liked to stay in bed late, so I’d go marketing in her place. Yes, I took the shopping bag and walked to the market halls to find something that would please me and I could look forward to during my day of work. For it’s quite another thing if a man can anticipate a wonderful dinner when he comes home tired after a hard day’s work. Although it’s true that towards the end of my married life our meals began to be somewhat burned, but that wasn’t my wife’s fault. It was because we had a lodger who demanded that his kidney and brains be served in bed. Ever since then I haven’t been able to stand the sight of kidney and brains.’

The landlady contemplated the toe of her shoe for a while — she liked to wear comfortable ‘sensible’ footwear at home for running ‘up and down the stairs all day’ — then she leaned forward, emanating the warmest friendliness towards the broker, who shrank back like a hedgehog.

He feared that this sudden warmth presaged some kind of trouble, for he was a man of considerable experience, and for this reason he quickly exclaimed: ‘Madam, can you tell me why there is no barley flour to be found anywhere in town, the kind that goes with potatoes into that wonderful black bread?’

‘I have some, and I’ll knead the dough myself just for your sake. But first I have a great favour to ask of you, Uncle Friedmann. This afternoon we’ll be trampling cabbage here, and I’m still a novice at it, because until now we always bought our sauerkraut from the grocer. I would like to ask you, Uncle Friedmann, to come and supervise.

‘Supervise? Why, I’ll jump in and take a turn in the tub myself. Just yesterday I went to the Rudas Baths for my weekly visit,’ replied the broker with real enthusiasm, so that Aranka walked away from the table near the cash till as delighted as if she had received the greatest present.

*

The inn had a cellar that was reached from the courtyard, through an arcade where large, empty hogsheads were kept, too large to be rolled away unobtrusively, as smaller casks might be. Past this arcaded porch lay the actual wine cellar, the keys to which never left the innkeeper’s side, but the vestibule was part of his wife’s domain.

There stood the celebrated tub, made of oak, recently brought back from the cooper’s workshop.

‘Don’t you have some brawn that has the tastiest cartilage, liver and kidney chopped up in it? That’s the kind of winter food that goes with cabbage-trampling, rasped a voice under the arcades. The green cabbage heads were heaped there as if they had been laid low in some great battle recently fought against a gardener or scarecrow. The rasping voice belonged to Mr Paszmati, who showed up at the cellar entrance carrying himself like the men who used to roam the countryside with bunches of copper hoops dangling on their belts and at whose approach the black-bristled boars about to be unsexed would flee with ears pointing at the sky. Hearing this wintry note, the proprietress looked up from the stool on which she sat among the cabbages, sharpening a curving blade on her husband’s razor strop.

‘But where is the obligatory man from Tyrol, wearing a broad-brimmed hat with a tuft of mountain goat hair in his hatband?’ Paszmati jested.

But the knife-sharpening woman was ready with her reply: ‘The Tyrolean who’ll slice the cabbage is sitting in the taproom, recalling old wartime memories with my husband.’

Reassured, Paszmati removed his leather jacket and hung it on a wooden peg that had been inserted into the drystone wall by means of God knows what sort of devilish trick. Seating himself on a three-legged stool, he contemplated his feet shod in comfortable elastic-sided boots, above which one caught a glimpse of the fine, snow-white footcloth, like the tip of a handkerchief peeking from a dandy’s pocket. The landlady’s eyes also came to rest on Paszmati’s feet.

‘I never wear socks,’ announced Paszmati in a solemn, one could say ceremonious, tone, very different from his everyday livestock-trader’s voice. ‘My feet happen to be too sensitive to stand anything but the finest footcloth.’

‘The kind great lords wear,’ countered the woman seated on her stool, as she picked up a cabbage. ‘For unlike socks, the footcloth must be changed frequently.’

‘In the summer I use floss paper to wrap my feet in, simply the best antiperspirant there is,’ said Paszmati, still absorbed in eyeing the feet in question. Maybe his chin even nodded at them. ‘But in wintertime, flannel is still the best. True, it tears easily, and it doesn’t whiten well in the wash, but it makes the best footcloth because it doesn’t let the melted snow seep through.’

‘That’s right, melted snow can be the death of many a good man,’ added the landlady, while her curved knife blade cored several cabbages. The sound of coring cabbages is comparable to that of cutting reeds, and invokes winter scenes shrouded in mist, in which expert hands set fire to bundles of reeds at the edge of a thicket, while deep in the thicket of reeds fishermen catch little black loaches under the ice, tiny fish that can add a matchless flavor to cabbage soup.’

‘In my youth, when I cared more about my appearance,’ said Paszmati, ‘I used to cut up my former lovers’ shirts to make footcloths, and every time I squeezed my foot into the boot I would say to myself, “Take that, bitch”. For by nature I was too tender-hearted to lay a hand on a woman.’

To which the landlady had this to say: ‘Whereas, believe it or not, Mr Paszmati, some women just beg for a good thrashing, they think it’s medicinal. Some women are unimaginable without a thrashing — they look good with black and blue spots on their faces. It’s seems to restore their lost honour. I tell you, Mr Paszmati, I never feel sorry for a woman whose husband lets her have it. There must have been a good reason.’

‘Why, does your husband beat you?’ Paszmati inquired in a low voice, as if the question addressed to the hefty matron had not come from him but from someone a good distance away from the cellar entrance.

‘If he dared lay a finger on me, I’d use a knife on him. I’d put out both of his eyes and blind him for life,’ declared the woman seated atop the pile of cabbage heads, and her sudden flare-up implied there was much more she could have added on this topic.

Then the Tyrolean, in his grass-green knee breeches and shirtsleeves, plus his commanding goat-hair-trimmed hat, appeared on the scene and giving his mustache a twirl, appraised the cabbage pile. ‘We’ll be done in an hour,’ he announced, and casting a Lothario glance toward the pile of cabbage, picked up his cutter from a corner, like a singer his harp, before launching into his performance.

The landlady was still shaking her head while cutting the cabbage cores, as if she couldn’t get over Paszmati’s earlier question. The Tyrolean seated himself on a three-legged stool in the manner of someone about to play the accordion.

Paszmati lifted his head in discontent: ‘Why don’t you toss me a cabbage core, it’s been twenty years since I’ve had one.’ He already had his pocketknife out, all set to slice.

While Paszmati was munching, the landlady and the Tyrolean discussed the ways she intended to prepare her cabbage for the winter. She wanted to keep some slices intact, in the Transylvanian Szekler style, for that way the cabbage remains cool in its pickle juice, and most suitable when served with certain roasts and barbecues. But she planned to pot some cabbage cut into long thin filaments, an absolute must for everyday kitchen needs. It was also essential to have some core pieces mixed in with cabbage cut into squares, for it is a great delight for the cabbage eater when the exploring tooth bites down on a real chunk of cabbage instead of a piece of potato. Furthermore, regarding the outer leaves of cabbage for potting and the cores left in their entirety for pickling, the innkeeper’s wife had enough detailed instructions for a lifetime’s supply.