Gyula Krúdy - Life Is A Dream

‘Mariska Simli?’ snorted the editor.

‘You know,’ Mr Mozel said in a conciliatory tone, ‘the poetess who tours the country dressed in a priest’s cassock. And a top hat over her hair which is cut as short as a man’s. You wouldn’t believe how one crazy woman is able to drive another one just as crazy. Betty, ever since she ran across Mariska Simli, spends all day writing poems, and is dying to meet Mr Sortiment …’

Although Mr Sortiment was listening to the head waiter’s words with great attention and the appropriate ironic smile, suddenly his attention turned elsewhere … to an occurrence that seemed extraordinary. The Parisi Street shoemaker came up with something that, for the moment, outdid all the Mariska Simlis of this world. For the shoemaker discovered that the bone remaining on his plate actually consisted of two pieces, similar to one’s elbow, bound together by muscles and ligaments. He grabbed the bone with both hands and, after considerable exertion, broke it in two, whereupon, sweeping knife, fork and spoon away from his side, he started to gnaw on the bone in such a spectacular manner that even a dying man would have hung around long enough to see the shoemaker finish picking that bone clean. You had to hand it to him, he was really grinding away with his teeth while pulling, tugging, sucking and picking at it with his fingernails — so that Mr Sortiment lost all his appetite for meat, and he, too, wanted a bone now, even though he no longer had the same faith in his teeth as once upon a time …

Indeed, fate decreed that on this late autumn day the editor Sortiment should have his bone, convinced as he was that this would assuage his dyspeptic stomach. It so happened that the puny corset-maker on Franciscans Place — whose shop window containing wax figures and other sights compelled passing women to stop — this corset-maker had come forth from his store that was full of whalebones, straps, hooks and fasteners, all of which served to make the women of Budapest as svelte, if that was possible, as Queen Elisabeth herself.

This corset-maker now entered the taproom of the Seven Owls, and made an extraordinary request of the head waiter, Mr Mozel, who hurried to greet him: ‘Last night I dreamed I was eating a marrowbone with toasted little slices of Kaiser roll and a tomato salad. Would your kitchen by any chance have a marrowbone for me?’

Mr Sortiment’s eyes bulged at the temerity of this man who left his prosperous business where ladies were trying on all kinds of corsets, in order to eat a marrowbone at a tavern … Even the Parisi Street shoemaker seemed to pause in his gnawing on the bone, although that sort of thing is not easy to leave off. But Mr Mozel the head waiter was not the least bit amazed. He cheerfully carried his rotund belly, decorated by a watch chain with a commemorative coin, in the direction of the kitchen, as if a long-awaited guest had just arrived. And in a trice he was already back, holding a steaming dish more beautiful than a cookbook illustration, and with the proud smile of a lucky prospector who had struck gold, placed it in front of the sickly corset-maker. Why can’t he dish out his Betty to that corset-maker? was the disgruntled thought passing through Mr Sortiment’s brain.

But the head waiter stayed by the corset-maker’s side, awaiting the forthcoming ritual. The corset-maker used his knife to trim the meat remnants from his marrowbone and, having applied paprika, salt and pepper to them, one after another he shovelled them into his mouth, all the while keeping his eyes on the bone, as if it might run away from him. Tilting his head left and right he peeked into the ends of the marrowbone, as if spying something delightful through a keyhole. Look at the grin on that fellow’s face, thought Sortiment with surprising agitation, and pushed away his dish, plate and eating utensils, as if suddenly mad at the world.

Meanwhile the corset-maker, under the lively scrutiny of the entire clientele, grasped the marrowbone in his left hand, and making a fist with his right, vigorously tapped his left wrist. This blow caused an avalanche of marrow to pour forth upon the hot plate in such abundance that this had to be the finest marrowbone served in the entire city today … But the corset-maker, that impertinent fellow, was not satisfied with this windfall: he looked through the marrowbone (as if to stare at Mr Sortiment through a telescope) and, sticking his fork into the hollow of the bone, twisted it two or three times, thereby producing a few more slivers of marrow.

By now Mr Sortiment had had enough, so he half turned his back on the corset-maker and propped his chin with his elbow on the table, like some outlaw at a country tavern. ‘Head waiter, I’d like some beer!’ he shouted, to interrupt Mr Mozel who was still enthusing over the exceptional contents of the marrowbone, eagerly rearranging the salt and paprika cellars to be closer at hand, for as soon as marrow sees daylight it cools off.

Hearing Sortiment’s voice, the head waiter turned and floated over to the editor’s table in shoes as soft as glove leather. ‘A glass of beer, you said?’ he asked, but Sortiment, with darkened brows, merely nodded.

By the time Mozel returned with the glass of beer, Mr Sortiment had somewhat relented, for he had noticed that the corset-maker did not know the proper manner of consuming marrow from a bone, and was spreading it like butter on large slices of bread, whereas you were supposed to place it on small, bite-size pieces of toast. Neither did he see a steaming bowl of hot consommé that had been placed in front of this ignorant customer, although everyone knew that as soon as the marrow sees daylight it must be placed in piping hot broth …

‘I feel like having a marrowbone,’ the editor announced out of the blue, when the head waiter placed the glass of beer in front of him. And Mozel was already on his way to comply with the request, with an alacrity seen only in footmen who adore their master; his corpulent figure practically flew, waving his napkin from afar, signalling the kitchen. His fair, balding pate was bedewed with perspiration when he returned with a bone twice the size of the one the corset-maker proved unable to do justice to. Mozel had also brought a bowl of hot consommé to accompany the bone, as well as toasted slices of Kaiser roll that were indeed no bigger than bite-size. Mr Sortiment triumphantly looked around in the taproom of the Seven Owls, receiving truly respectful glances from all sides. Once again he tied the napkin around his neck and condescended to address the head waiter who was mopping his brow: ‘All right, why don’t you send your Mariska up to see me during office hours this afternoon …’

‘Please sir, it’s Betty,’ rhapsodized Mr Mozel.

‘We shall see if the girl’s any good at writing poems. But let’s make sure you have authentic Szeged paprika here, before I taste it … I have a sensitive stomach.’

Mr Mozel raced off again, and returned with the container of paprika to assure Mr Sortiment it was the authentic stuff from Szeged.

*

During the afternoon office hours Mr Sortiment usually soaked his feet in a basin of hot soapy water after all the running around he did during his mornings. This is what he was doing now, seated behind his ink-stained, slim-legged, rather feminine smallish desk; his aching feet comfortably immersed in the warm water while his associates busied themselves around him. Vacsok, a short man who resembled an overweight hamster, was assembling the Miscellany column, pasting in news items about thirty-storey skyscrapers in America. He liked to inform his readers at least once a year about the tallest tower in the world. Murocski, an individual who looked like a ladies’ tailor, was taking care of the Puzzle column, working at random, devising a rebus. He was a world-weary man whose wife had left him, and he could hardly wait for the evening, which he spent at some outlying tavern sitting at a table all by himself. Bosnyak was a former captain of infantry, who, despite his very modest salary, was secretly building a ‘villa’ on the outskirts of the capital. He had the red face of a habitual drinker, but it stemmed from his military years, for he had not touched a drop since becoming a civilian … He always wrote about the army as if he had served in every single regiment of the Dual Monarchy. And there was the picture editor of the Sunday News , Mr Palotai, pen and ruler in hand, sitting at a desk with many drawers; he was a hunchback, his shoulder and waist bent like some misshapen tree. He had a predilection for publishing pictures copied from foreign periodicals. All around, pens were scraping away and blotting-sand being squished over the pages filled by the scribblers. Mr Sortiment, editor-in-chief, was musing over his life, something he was not in the habit of doing …