Gyula Krúdy - Life Is A Dream

‘Thanks for the advice,’ Kalkuttai replied, ‘but ever since I found a long hair left by the cook in my portion of sour lungs, I have given up mid-morning meals.’

Meanwhile the soup arrived, brought by a spick-and-span, barefoot serving girl. Kalkuttai’s eyes lingered on her sturdy ankles. ‘Goodness, it must hurt when this gal pulls on her boots every Sunday!’ he exclaimed.

The lady of the house took her time ladling out his soup with great care before she responded to her man’s comment, for she did not want him to think her jealous on account of the serving girl.

‘Ever since I was first married, the maid is only allowed to enter my room barefoot. In winter she can leave her slippers outside the door. As for boots, you wear whatever suits you best. I can understand why some men still insist on wearing boots with elastic sides. They are so much easier to get into than laced or buttoned boots,’ she pronounced, while counting out six semolina dumplings into the golden broth steaming in the man’s soup bowl. ‘The soup’s piping hot, like every dish that leaves my kitchen. You might as well help yourself to a shot of aperitif from the cupboard. No, not the slivovitz — plum brandy’s only good first thing in the morning. This borovichka , from Gabriel’s still in the Uplands will help fortify your stomach. Here, have a few slices of St John’s radish with it, they’re in season now. It would have been nice if you’d brought your own radishes from the market. For some reason, don’t ask me why, it takes a man to pick out radishes.’

Kalkuttai did as he was told. He stepped up to the venerable antique cupboard that had bunches of grapes and goblets etched into its glass doors; surely many a bygone gent’s eyes had rested on this same view before opening the cupboard door to get acquainted with the items found therein.

Yes indeed, Gabriel, the borovichka distiller in Szepesbela, truly possessed the knack of squeezing the real scent of juniper into his brandy. Kalkuttai downed the aperitif with a flash of memory of the Popradfelka train station of his youth where he always stopped to purchase sprigs of edelweiss to fasten in his hatband. Simultaneously, a schoolboy mood coursed through his veins, as if a long-rusty chain had shifted the winch of his soul’s draw-well, sluggish at first, then more and more sprightly, as if turned by a young girl’s hands …

‘Mama, this borovichka merits further attention,’ Kalkuttai said, still in his former tone, but something must have stirred inside him, for now he noticed that it was in fact quite dark in the dining room because the cockerel-patterned lace curtains on the window swallowed much of the light; surely the soup would have a different fragrance served outdoors, say, in some verdant garden where distant, white-bosomed blue mountains send their cool breath blowing towards the town.

Janet had no reason as yet to suspect her man’s thoughts, since basically she doubted that a man, at the dinner table, was capable of minding anything else but his belly. Therefore she chatted on, as she always did at noon when Kalkuttai showed up for lunch: ‘I know that some doctors, such as the scientific-minded Sebastian Kneipp, consider saffron toxic for the liver and the cause of all kinds of facial blemishes, but I simply can’t imagine a real soup without saffron. It gives a touch of colour even though its value as flavouring is close to zero. It makes a good-looking soup that’s kind of like a woman with a pretty façade but nothing much inside. It’s the greens that provide inner content for a soup, especially ruddy peppers just torn from the stem, ripening kales, potatoes with some girth, and then soup bones, with bits of fat and chunks of meat. But a penny for your thoughts, Kalkuttai …’

To all appearances Kalkuttai seemed to be spooning his soup in the same manner as he had once observed a certain provincial guest at an old hostelry in Pest delving into his soup, goggle-eyed like some huge fish, ignoring the bored village dames who sat down at the next table probably hoping for a fling in the capital, for something not possible back home in the sticks. That’s right, Kalkuttai now slurped and chomped his dumplings with the same gusto that his anonymous paragon had exhibited, as if expecting these sounds of mastication to generate an even heartier appetite. He even indulged in a performance that never failed to please the ladies, lifting his soup bowl and tipping the last drops into his spoon like some country pharmacist vacationing in Budapest.

But as a matter of fact his mind wandered far from here, back to his youth when one dawn in early summer he arrived at the Kassa train station and devoured two portions of the local smoked ham, with a julienne of mild horseradish in long thin strips. (He was no fan of the wickedly mordant, Phtrugy variety of horseradish.) Ah, would he ever in his life eat ham and horseradish like that again, seeing as how he’s got himself involved with this woman whom sooner or later he would have to marry? Those landscapes of his youth were so beautiful; the gentlemen wore cummerbunds of white or blue polka-dot silk around the waist, the ladies had their white gowns trimmed with blue braid, and their faces were the colour of vanilla from all the ice cream, their hands smooth, white and firm as pianists’, who always take very good care of their hands.

The lady across the table watched Kalkuttai with seemingly impassive eyes, although these same eyes were capable of beautiful dark flames that would smoulder after peaceful digestion has taken its course, like marsh fires over fertile bottom lands.

She took away Kalkuttai’s empty plate. ‘Of course you didn’t even notice the soup was yesterday’s, because a consommé is best on the second day. It must have a chance to settle down, and come into its own, just like a man who in the course of a lifetime had got over-excited about all sorts of phonies and fakes. The real flavour of a consommé arrives only after it’s past the first boil. The same way, a man becomes truly lovable only after he’s tried a thing or two in life, been around a while, had his ups and downs, tasted both bitter and sweet …’

Hmm, thought Kalkuttai, this woman’s trying to make me older at any cost, even though I’m not even up for section chief at my office.

‘Moreover, you had better give up the boiled beef, although I know it’s your favourite. After all, life is not all filet mignons, one gets tired of even the finest cuts of beef — although in the old days women used to enrich the consommé with small pieces of pork. That’s why some old portraits show men with pig’s snouts and the head of an ox. So, my good sir, what do you say to some sort of migrating bird — say a duck, or a goose? …’

Done with the sweet talk, Janet rose to personally supervise the plating up in the kitchen. Ladies always meant this gesture as a great honour, and loved to don the white apron that, upon returning to the dining room, they would undo with a distracted air.

Kalkuttai did not mind being left alone at the table with his droll thoughts that were impossible to share with this solemn and dignified lady.

He was forty years old and took care of his bunions, which was why he could still strut like a cock of the walk whenever his customary even temper flared up into high spirits. But in fact his comfort came first and foremost, a quality he had inherited from his grandfather, along with a predilection for certain kinds of cheese. When his official business called for travel he liked to pre-plan the venue and menu for every lunch. He envisioned entire protocols well ahead of time, down to the amounts of wine he would consume, how many glasses before resorting to the sodium bicarbonate; also, where he would find the picture — or illustration cut out of a newspaper, showing the execution of the Emperor Maximilian by a Mexican firing squad, or else a plate from some decades-old fashion magazine — usually pinned on the walls of WCs in provincial inns, an image to contemplate with teary, blinking eyes for the duration of a proper bodily function that follows digestion. He knew the places where the tavern-keeper gave discounts to travelling government officials, and he made sure to inventory his socks and handkerchiefs in any hostelry where the chambermaid wore too much make-up. His job at the tax bureau required sitting around a lot, so he looked forward to official outings, a chance to drink his fill of beer at the train station without having to worry about his cantankerous supervisor and his busybody colleagues. On the road, he could indulge in feeling superior to a certain extent, mildly ribbing fellow travellers, especially itinerant salesmen of sundries and dry goods, for he had inherited from his grandfather, along with a love of cheese, a tendency to chaff and banter. But he never carried it far enough to be ejected from a tavern; he preferred to leave, complaining indignantly. No, seeing this unremarkable person you would not have suspected he had a clandestine passion for womanizing — another trait inherited from grandpa who, on his deathbed at age ninety-two, married his housekeeper, a woman with cracked heels.