October 3, 1861. Especially Honored Compatriot! It is the great-souled, not the miserly, whom one is in the habit of pestering for gifts. So I do too, when once more — and so soon — I mean to rob you of a few hours. But what I would scarcely dare in person I do all the same by letter, for paper does not blush. — Enclosed I send you a play. I had no intention whatever of drawing Csák Máté in his full greatness, a thing at which a Károly Kisfaludy wore himself out; I wanted only to show the dying lion in his last days. Whether even this has come off I do not know, and I am especially unable to judge whether so unusually simple an action could make any effect on the stage. — With the trust I place in that inestimable friendly disposition of yours, of which I have already been fortunate enough to have such large proof, I therefore beg you: tear a few precious hours from your time once more for my sake, and judge my work — beyond its intrinsic worth — particularly from this point of view as well, whether it is fit for the stage; for I know well how hard and how peculiar a thing it is to answer even that. — If it is fit, then you will be so good as to submit it to the theater’s review committee; if not, to send it back to me. In the latter case I shall try to polish up another, richer in incident, from among my papers and trouble you with that as well; and if that too is no good, then I too shall say “non omnia possumus omnes” — and look for some other road on which I am capable of something, in no case losing heart after the words you wrote on the work I first sent you. Why I chose just this play among my papers for final working-out — the reason is partly my particular attachment to the subject, partly that the name of Csák Máté has for some time begun to revive in our literature, and I, to avoid any unconscious imitation, have to this very day not dared so much as to read Károly Szász’s Csák; I take it up only today — which is why I hurried to finish my own. In all else accept my most sincere respect, and forgive me the trouble. your humble servant and honoring fellow countryman Imre Madách.

November 2, 1861. Honored, dear Friend! You truly spoil me utterly, heaping kindness on kindness and friendship on friendship. If I did not approve, one and all, the observations you have shared with me, I should only be giving very regrettable proof of my own poverty. They are true Columbus’s eggs, as every just observation tends to be — one wonders one did not hit on it oneself. — At most I might have some objection to the over-delicacy you show in keeping what is already there; and though it adds to your labor, I can only beg you this: cut more boldly. — For even in one of your struck-through notes I found so apt a correction that I am bold to commend it again to your attention with a little red cross. — In a few places, especially at the start of your notes, you marked the fault but made no proposal. Since I have no copy of the manuscript by me, though I remember the ideas clearly, I do not know the text well enough to be able to supply the passages under revision with new and fitting ones. And since there are anyway only a few such places (among them the ominous “It is finished, the great work,” etc.), I beg you, supply those too, as you supplied the rest. Among the many things you have already done for me, undeserving as I am, this too may go on the account I can never repay. — For a few places I must nonetheless offer some justification, by no means to save them from alteration, for I know well that what in belles-lettres needs a commentary and does not make itself understood is faulty; but only to explain to you what I actually meant to say, or why I said it at all. First, what you say about the anachronism is perfectly true. Indeed, Ádám, besides the places you marked, speaks more than once in the early scenes of things of which, strictly taken, he could have had no notion. This I ventured on the strength of Lessing’s article in the Laocoön, “Von den nothwendigen Fehlern,” — in which, with reference to Milton’s poem, he asserts such liberty to be necessary. And now let us go through the rest in order: Scene I. “Here the ruin of things now perished” I wrote because Lucifer, too, soon after this passage, in analyzing the work of creation, speaks only of the kneading-together and mixing of materials, not of creation out of nothing. — For throughout the work such a reference often comes up: “beginning, end,” a foolish distinction — an end to one is a beginning to another. — With all this I wanted only to clear myself before you of the charge of illogic (which I hold, in poetry too, against the great majority of our newer poets, to be the greatest fault); to the public I cannot explain, and so it must be a case of out with it boldly. — Scene 2 “Here on your breast,” etc. You are perfectly right, the gush of two bowing dandies, a footman and a chambermaid. But I thought something had to be said by the paradisal pair, for the completeness of the whole, touching on their love. And I tried to do it as briefly as possible. I do suspect, true, that they did not talk of love as I write it, but I am afraid I cannot write as they talked. — Yet, all joking aside, this place again is such that without the manuscript I cannot judge whether it can be left out cleanly, or whether something must be supplied — [Madách’s collected works II. 55 865] and with what other words? — Judge it, I beg you, and help; or Ádám cannot declare his love, and the world dies out! — “Dung-tower” — to my knowledge this is the word introduced for “Mistkäfer” [dung-beetle]; in the Academy dictionary, however, it stands as “dung-beetle.” Scene 3 “The one-day fly” — this I translated from the German; its Hungarian name is “mayfly,” but that is not understood, and so it really will be best to have “the one-day insect” — “this is the backward glance,” etc. Lucifer, as I recall, comforts Ádám with the thought that he need only endure, for little by little he will pass through many schools, but his experiences will remain, and from these he can abstract knowledge. To which Ádám replies that he thanks him but will not avail himself of it, for this would be nothing other than the backward glance of an old man. His own young soul, however, wants to look forward into the future. — So I meant this passage to be understood, and when you write that you do not quite understand it, you simply fix upon me the “Gut gedacht und schlecht gesprochen.” If it can be done, improve it in this direction, I beg you. Scene Four “Nothing else remains but that knowledge,” etc. This too is as obscure a place as the last. — Let me explain this one as well. — The talk just before this passage, as I recall, is of sympathies and other such factors which in themselves seem nothing, are not graspable by hand, and yet act deeply on human destinies. — These factors science cannot explain nor bend under the power of physical force. To which Lucifer’s mocking remark refers: that if it is so, nothing else remains but for science roundly to deny even the existence of such hidden forces, while physical power laughs at them, mocks and belittles them, to cover up its compromising helplessness before these nothings. — For this happens in our own day too, does it not? In this sense, then, the passage above ought to be somewhat clarified. — After all this I beg you, therefore, that — except where you find a wholly unintelligible passage which you cannot make out and on which you would hold a question necessary — you should not even send me your remarks by way of a revision; it is truly mortifying to me, who trust you so far, and trusted you even then, when I knew you only by reputation, that — believe me, dear friend — if the old God’s tailor-shop outburst had frightened you off from reading my work further, and you had sent it back with a disapproving verdict, — I should long since have warmed to that, and Ádám would have dreamed his last dream out among the flames of purgatory. — In general, only do not think that I am in love with my works. I am past the age in which a man loves to see himself in print. — Yes, I too have my vanity, greater than that one — to put nothing mediocre before the world. When I had written something, I would as a rule not look at it again for a year. Then I could take it up and judge it as a stranger’s work, see its faults and throw it on the fire. “The Tragedy of Man” was the first that, surviving the trial year, brought me to the conviction that I had reached the development granted me; now another must judge — and so I brought it to you. — As to making my name public, and in all else, do as your friendly sympathy prompts; the substitute is a better one than the substituted would himself be. What you write about the technique, all of it I understand and know. It stood rightly in your paper, that it is the stanzas of perfect technique that seize our imagination, make the poet popular, and ring out across the country. You cannot imagine how much, and for how long, I have labored to acquire a better technique, but in vain; since it is here a question of many years, I am forced to resign myself to this curse weighing on me as to a true fate. To mention but one thing, I have many smaller poems whose ideas I at least believe original and good — I set to working them out, again and again; at the end of the trial year the rough technique frightened me off afresh, and that they still live in a corner of my cabinet they owe only to this, that other memories cling to them as well. — From your brief remark on The Last Days of Csák I read that there is indeed no drama in it. — Now that, in a drama, is no small misfortune. There is no greater calamity than the survival of a mediocre work. Sometime it surfaces — if not sooner, then after our death some heartless good friend compromises us with it. So I beg you, into the fire with it as soon as may be; though even after the auto-da-fé I shall gladly take a few observations on it from you, for from those I can only learn for the future. — All this that I write is my most sincere conviction; I should not hold myself worthy of your friendship if I wished to dissemble before you, just as from you too I always hope for the straightest truth — indeed, the blunter, the further your very mild observations on Csák fall, the better I see that you love me. — Your honoring summons regarding your paper I shall try to answer; oh, were I but able to show my gratitude by some small return of service. But I undertake it on one condition only: that you be even stricter with my contributions than with anyone else’s, that you cut them, alter them, or throw them out as your aims require. — If you should wish to have this or that treated, or to see some work reviewed, let me know, and if I trust myself I shall try. — Ever since I began this letter, Palóc workmen in the garden have been singing one song without cease; I cannot help giving you a share of it: Up went the little goat Into the tree, Tore off a green bough Into its mouth. This way it’s good, that way it’s good, This way it’s good — Another’s rose Would be good. Now forgive me my long letter, and keep me in your precious memory. your true honoring friend Imre Madách. A. Sztregova, February 20, 1862 That I answer your two very, very dear letters only now has truly a material cause, but by no means the kind that you do mention — yet allow me to believe that you do not believe it of me. — I was away from home for nearly two weeks, and for a week a military execution sat on my neck and only left me the day before yesterday. Yesterday I still rested, not wishing, with a temper to which perhaps something still clung from the air of my recent surroundings, to turn to one of my dearest occupations, namely to converse with you at least by letter. So I write only today. — The production of the Tragedy is the most pleasing possible to my taste too, and by general opinion. For your alterations I owe only fresh gratitude, and the printing errors are wonderfully few. Only on page 39, in the second line, “the beast condemned to it, which on the mill of every order will pull,” does not perhaps quite cohere; here I do not know whether I originally botched the construction and you did not notice it, or whether the little confusion got in some other way — but this is such a trifle that by the very mention of it I bring out the rare faultlessness of the whole. — One thing only shall I ever regret and blush for before myself, that I drew a spirit like yours away from its lofty calling for weeks to mechanical work, the correcting of faults, etc. And your yielding friendship and readiness only increase this shame of mine the more; for even when I seek you out with a letter, even then I am wont to think twice whether to take your time, and your already occupied mind, with such uselessness — otherwise you may well believe that I should trouble you more often with my lines. — As for the honorarium, I say this: had the Kisfaludy Society given nothing, that, together with its recognition, would be worth more to me than the great fees of the booksellers; but did it not bestow on me an extraordinary reward, truly above my deserts, by the mere fact of judging me worthy to take into its bosom? — Besides, the sum intended for me is itself so handsome that a man newly burst into literature out of the wilds, as I am, would scarcely get it from the bookseller — for the good name of my work, too, I owe only to the Society. — From the very first, however, it was my settled intention to consecrate my first spoils on the altar of the muses, and so out of this honorarium I should like to make a double foundation at the Kisfaludy Society; I believe the single foundation is 60 forints, so I should wish to found 120. The rest, made up to 200 forints, I intended for the Academy’s capital. Here in the country we do not follow the exchange rates so well, which nowadays always shift, so I beg you, be so good as to settle this matter for me and write me what would still be wanting to it — roughly, it will not be much. And as to the receipt of the honorarium, what acquittance I should send and whether to send one at all. — Now another new request! — You were the one who brought my name into literature; your verdict could have buried it forever. — After all the rest, would you do this too for me, that you should present me to the Society? — Have the Society’s sessions, further, a regular time at which I may take my seat? I am already preparing an aesthetic work for this purpose, but in any case I should like to communicate it to you, and I beg you, tell me then whether I may deliver it — for I should not wish to say something half-baked, since everyone already expects more of me than is truly in me, on account of the many over-generous reviews of my work. — I, dear friend, was a publicist before I stepped into literature; I took part in party struggles, in county cabals, so do not think that I am perhaps as sensitive in criticism as a virgin girl who blushes at once. My skin in this respect is thick, and one might say much to me before I should feel myself wounded. It is even oddly disagreeable to me, this silk criticism from every side toward my work; I so long for the homespun — I should laugh, it would not hurt — and the esteem of a man like you would outweigh a thousand others before me. But again I have fallen into chatter. Forgive me, and keep me hereafter too in your friendship, I who do not cease to be your true honorer and sincere friend Imre Madách. Alsó-Sztregova, March 7, 1862 I send enclosed herewith that essay-of-sorts with which I should like to make my entrance into the Kisfaludy Society. — To tell the truth, I began this for the Figyelő, when, the honor of my election coming upon me unawares, I adapted it to this purpose. — If it wins your approval, and you do not refuse my request, which I already expressed in my earlier letter, that you be the one to present me, then I await only your notice when I should come to Pest, and I come. Only do not forget that from the dispatch of your letter to my arrival in Pest ten days are needed, for the post too is slower with us, and the road worse, than perhaps you would think. — The essay requires forty minutes to read; if you find it long, we can leave something out of it, for I too hold with the French writer that “every manner is good except the boring.” Or if from some other consideration you think something ought to be left out — for example what I say about the novel — you have only to speak. — If you approve my essay, keep it, I beg you, until my coming, and if after reading it you can use it in the Figyelő, I shall be very glad, for I am already ashamed that I could not keep my promise. Indeed, if it should truly please you, I intend to continue the ideas with a second article. — I have hopes in our region of increasing the Kisfaludy Society’s capital, besides the double foundation I already announced, by at least four more, if only I can know the sum for certain, whether it is really 60 forints in Austrian value — I cannot clearly come at it. — In a few words, I beg you, inform me as to my requests, and keep me hereafter too in your very, very precious friendship, I who do not cease to be your honoring true friend Imre Madách. Alsó-Sztregova March 12, 1862 On the appointed day, that is, on the last Thursday of this month, I shall surely be in Pest, unless you should find my submitted essay such that, as my good friend, you would not advise its reading. — Many thanks that you have undertaken my presentation. I can already hardly wait to embrace you. Of all else we shall speak in person. — As to the foundations, I fully accept your view. — I will not detain you longer. Love hereafter too your most sincerely honoring true friend Imre Madách.

July 22, 1862 Dear, honored friend! During my stay in Pest I learned of your intention to visit Mihály Tompa in the course of the summer. Since then the Figyelő’s announcements have confirmed it. Truly, as painfully as it would fall on me were you to pass over my request in this matter, so I should count it my extraordinary good fortune if, by fulfilling it, you would add a fresh proof to your friendship toward me. — Inform me with only a few words of the day on which you mean to set out, and at Vác a conveyance will wait for you, to take you to the first station, whether to our friend Pál Szontágh or to my younger brother, where I shall already be waiting for you. — Traveling on, my dwelling is half an hour from the highroad, in which, with all its quiet, it will surely be the greatest feast that it can take You in. — I will not be a nuisance with a word to detain you; I leave the carrying-out of all your further plans to your pleasure, I wish only to be your fellow traveler to Tompa, whom I have not yet seen with my bodily eyes, and to whom I cannot be presented more favorably than thus. — Your letter you would need to put in the post a week before your departure. Since I was in Pest I have been busy with very prosaic matters — consolidations and the like took me up — through which I have happily come, and now I am again making myself some good days and occupying myself with some literary things. What these may be, if in my opinion they have come off, will be made known to you, in whose opinion I could rest more than in any other — and that I shall dare to call upon you, you have only yourself to thank. — Accept my most sincere respect, together with your family’s, and keep me in your memory! your honoring friend Imre Madách.

April 19, 1863 Dear, honored friend! I cannot help sharing with you a little joke I made not long ago with Vajda. In the sixth number of the Nővilág this stood: Rhymes. Strolling yesterday in the Szécsényi grove and thinking about the “Koszorú,” I came by association of ideas upon the following rhymes: father, hoe, brave, gatekeeper, Andor, adventurer, crane, sandal, Apor, dill, ox, torments, stumbler, broody-hen, etc., which we recommend to the attention of our tireless, zealous Szász clan — Károly Sz., Béla Sz., Gerő Sz., Péter Sz., Tuhutum Sz., etc., etc.: there is, true, no sense in them, but they rhyme fore and aft, top and bottom, every which way! Let them make a doggerel of it. — In the same number Vajda also says that Schulfuchses [pedant schoolmasters] write for the Koszorú. — Reading this, I posted a letter at B. Gyarmat to Vajda, in which, thanking him for the recommended and allegedly senseless cadences, I tried, according to his wish, to make rhythms of them, and even to bring sense into them; and the result of the latter effort I send him here, offered for the Nővilág.

Doggerel

Good father Kazinczy sends you this word: Not the lute is for your hand, only the hoe, And though in politics too you are very brave, Your head is no full cellar, only an empty, bad gatekeeper. A strong man is what this fine name Andor means,* So I cannot call you that, scribbler-adventurer, Your word soars high, like a flying crane, While on your foot the sandal sinks in filth. Whatever you beat about, it just whirls round you, the dust; But you have no nobler spice than dill. How could it be otherwise — a brawling ox, Who with his bellowing only torments without cease, With great clumsiness stumbling here and there, Never a hatcher, though always a broody-hen.

If amid your serious occupations you smile at this little jest, I have reached my aim. To your dear Family my sincere respect; to those friends who remember me, my greeting. From you I do not cease to ask your friendly disposition hereafter too, embracing you with the most sincere respect, your true friend Imre Madách.

March 14, 1864 Honored, dear Friend! How long I have wished for you, and all in vain. Partly the state of my health, partly my occupations, will scarcely permit me to enjoy your company before the summer. — Yet I do not lie idle; my inaugural address is ready, my work advances, and I am also polishing and ordering my smaller poems. — Enclosed I send three poems for the Koszorú, if they are to your taste; were I but convinced that they could somewhat further the Koszorú’s interest, I should knock at your door more often; but you, as great an artist as you are, are just as endlessly good a man, and your goodness carries you so far that you turn into a bad friend. — You know that I have drawn myself under the shelter of your mighty wings, and if I too may call myself a poet with the rest, I chose you as such for my father. But this position carries its troubles, and you must not, out of goodness, be indulgent toward my faults, but must scold and set me right. If, when I send something and know that, if it is bad, you do not merely pass it over in silence or overlook it and publish it, but bark at me — then I shall love you wholly and step before you boldly; till then, in fear and uncertainty. Do not grudge me this labor; it is a great thing amid your many occupations, but you have done greater out of kindness. — So it was, you see, with a novella and a few poems I sent to the book of contributions [the Részvét könyve charity album], that they might choose from them and pass the rest to your paper. — Months, half-years went by, and one after another appeared in your paper; I cannot orient myself — were these too published only by your indulgent good will, or are these the good ones and the rest bad — when I perhaps thought just the others better — is the novella, after all, wholly worthless, or what is its fault? — Since you have once honored me with your highly valued friendship, show it through to the end. Cut me down, kill me if need be, always — but teach me; this is even more necessary for me here than for another who can breathe public opinion in with the air of the capital. — For now I wanted only to ask this of you, and I hope you understand and appreciate me. I hope I may write again soon. Till then, with the declaration of my most sincere respect, I am your true, faithful friend Imre Madách. TO JÁNOS ERDÉLYI

September [?], 1862 Especially honored, dear friend! I do not know whether you still remember the time when, in Pest, you honored me as a university student with your kind good will, when later, from your journey to Italy, you even made me a gift of a piece of lava, which I still keep as a dear memento. This, and the circumstance that you have honored my book with your attention, emboldened me to the confidential address above. I am not among those who stop their ears before criticism, or in their conceit imagine themselves set above it; this is sufficiently proved by the very fact that I never plagued the reading public with my first attempts, and even the single work of mine that has seen the light I published only when I had heard favorable judgments of it from such as I believed I could trust, among whom You would surely have been the first, had your dwelling not torn you so far from my circle. And just as this year the motivated verdict of the committee of the Teleki dramatic competition so perfectly convinced me of the faulty basis of my competition piece entitled Mózes that it will see the light no more, so probably your criticism would have prevented many a perverse point of departure in my published work from perhaps scandalizing many. For, believe me, never the chasing of ephemeral glory, but — so far as my talent permits — at most the intention of enriching our literature with something of artistic worth would lead me onto the writer’s path. But this is all too late now. Your articles in “Magyarország” I could obtain only just now, and the aim of these lines, too, is no anti-criticism, no wish to gloss myself over, only a clearing of myself from one charge that no longer burdens the writer but the man, and the correction of two misunderstandings. The charge concerns socialism, as though I wished to make it an object of mockery. The whole basic idea of my work means to be this: that as man breaks from God and, relying on his own strength, begins to act, he does this in turn through the greatest and holiest ideas of humanity. True, everywhere he fails, and his vanquisher everywhere is a weakness that lies in the innermost essence of human nature, which he cannot cast off (this would be, in my humble view, the tragic), but though in despair he holds that every attempt made so far was a waste of strength, yet his development still went ever forward and forward, humanity advanced, even if the struggling individual did not notice it — and that human weakness which he himself cannot conquer, the guiding hand of divine providence supplies, to which the last scene’s “strive and trust” refers. The individual images or moments I then tried to place one after another so that they should follow from one another, even in a given acting person, as if by psychological necessity. All this I may — indeed I fear I have wholly fallen short of it. I only want to bring out that when you charge me with mocking socialism, then you may charge me also with mocking liberty, Christianity, science, free competition, and all those ideas that are the objects of the several parts, which I chose for my objects precisely because I regard them as the chief moments of humanity’s development. As such I regard the socialistic ideas too, and therefore I set them forth in an image. True, in every one of them Ádám fails. But he fails by reason of those untouched weaknesses which are in his nature, which only God’s hand can supply; the idea develops continually, and conquers, and is ennobled. — By this I wanted only to excuse this intention before you, to rehabilitate the man in myself, by no means the artist. Sooner had I written a bad Tragedy of Man, in which I failed to bring great and holy ideas to their due, than a good Devil’s Comedy, in which I made them ridiculous. Now I note only the two errors. In the Pharaoh I did not mean to paint precisely the Pharaoh of Joseph, only one of the countless Pharaohs who in high-aspiring self-regard built pyramids, of many of whom even the name lies in obscurity — and so the historical contrast will at once not be so rigid. In the Eskimo scene I do not carry the reader to the last [polar] north, where, I well know, the moments of history and human development could never have played themselves out; but, well or ill, I start from the supposition that the earth has by then cooled so far that only a narrow habitable belt remains beneath the equator, and even on that only Eskimo-like men eke out their lives. Forgive me my long letter, which is only a token of my true respect toward you, for you are among those by whom to be misunderstood, as a man, would pain me most. Like a [pupil] I accept your criticism without a word, and shall try to turn it to use in future. In all else, with my most sincere respect, I remain your true friend Imre Madách.

TO LÁSZLÓ FEKETE

August 29, 1855 Dear friend Laczi! I heard that you, having gone to the baths with your dear wife, returned only these last days, and so, after your longer absence, forgive me if I too trouble you in several matters. During your absence I sent a packet with the request that you hand it to Ferenc Toldy, secretary of the learned society, by August 20; in it was a play (Mária királynő) for the Tomori competition. — In yesterday’s papers I read the list of submitted works and saw that this one was not entered, for though there is a “Mária királynő” among them, it is under a different motto. — Since this one [of theirs] is who-knows-what botchwork, and if at any later time the now-belated play of mine were submitted, the kinship of names would rouse the suspicion that it is the piece that already competed and failed, so that perhaps they would not even read it — therefore it must be made valid now, before the competition’s result, that is, before October 1, and its worth brought into the clear; and for that I know no other way than to ask you in friendship to submit it as soon as possible, for performance, to the theater’s play-review committee; find out when we may learn its acceptance or rejection, and then ascertain the result. Dear Laczi, I hope you will not take it amiss that I burden you with this friendly request. — Against Mrs. Pál Majthényi you too, and the whole family, lodged the protest in due time; this, however, must be made valid within a year, otherwise it is useless, as the example of Mrs. Gosztonyi shows, against whom, this being neglected, the Gosztony estate is now being sold off. — Náczi Majthényi has withdrawn the whole protest, so I beg you, see to it that on our part this necessary step is not omitted. — The interest must be paid to Antal Majthényi, 600 silver forints; out of this Sándor Huszár’s share must be paid, the rest from the life-annuity that Sándor Huszár was to pay and from the Páh tenancy-rent, and that as soon as possible, with the lawyer Gyuracskay. If Sándor Huszár should not wish to pay the annuity against your receipt, write here at once so that we can send you Mama’s receipt. If the share falling on us could not be covered from the Páh rent and from this, then for a few weeks, until these come in, perhaps Frommer too would lend something, so that it could be paid, lest we get into such unpleasantness as last year. I beg you, dear Laczi, arrange this matter as soon as possible. As you said, the Pest urbarial loss has long been certified; if possible, press for the payment of the interest arrears and the capitals — when may we hope for it. — Finally, before going to the baths you wrote that we shall get the loan I planned, but that a schedule should be drawn up. I beg you, write me — but as soon as possible, as I asked once already, though perhaps my letter did not find you at home — whether I really do get it, and write me precisely what documents, and have them prepared. — I beg you once more in all these matters, and for the soonest possible reply; meanwhile, commending myself to your precious friendship, with a hand-kiss to your dear wife, I am your true friend Imre Madách. The Honorable László Fekete, deputy attorney with respect Pest Two Eagles Street, Kappel house A. Sztregova February 10, 1856

Occupied with urbarial-indemnity, clearing-summons, and other such affairs, I was scarcely at home, and so explain from this my long silence. — As to the tutor, perhaps you already know through Pali Veres that I have found here a very suitable, learned person, and so I no longer need that. That Sándor Huszár did not pay greatly surprises me, and since with that money Antal Majthényi’s interest, due already in August, must be satisfied, I fear every hour a fresh unpleasantness, as last year happened almost on the same account. — I beg you, tell this to Sándor Huszár and call on the others to pay; I have already made the declaration of the debt here, and as to the interest said that it is paid up to August. I beg you, act in this matter as soon as possible; I cannot say how it vexes me — as soon as you get it, deposit it for Baron Antal Majthényi. — At my departure I gave into your hand a slip about knitting cotton and asked you to buy some, for I have no time, and to send it by post. I beg you, buy it — its name is Halb Schottisch cotton No. 26. — And sewing thread of every thickness, 2 silver forints’ worth, I beg you send as soon as possible; my mother awaits it eagerly. — As to the savings bank, if no favorable answer has come to our application and we really must pay in cash, so that no declaration is needed, then I beg you, as you yourself reminded me, take steps as to whether of the 8000 silver forints I might not take up 4000, that is, the half, in my own name, mortgaged on my own estate. If so, I could make very good use of it; and write me the necessary steps so that I may do it, and in detail what is needed. You would do me a very great service, and oblige me to great gratitude. Finally, the original chief division-deed, of which we have but one copy, in one [issued] to Huszár, is with you. We have great need of it; I beg you, send it at once with the threads by post. — I have written to Sándor Huszár too. That Antal Majthényi affair really touches one’s honor; I beg you, do in it what is in your power. In all else, kissing the hands of your dear wife, her ladyship, and commending myself to your precious friendship, I am with respect your true friend Imre Madách. The Honorable László Fekete, certified attorney with respect recommended in Pest Two Eagles Street, Kappel house second floor

February 13, 1856. Dear friend Laczi! As I wrote in my earlier letter, so it really came to pass — you can see it enclosed here: with Antal Majthényi we have gotten into what unpleasantness again on Sándor’s account. I beg you, be so good and friendly, and at once communicate this trouble to Sándor; call on him to put down the rest of the money, and send the 600 silver forints here to me at once. Tell him that this is the kind of affair in which his conduct is the best gauge of the warmth of his disposition toward us. — If he does not put it down at once, then call Frommer in, ask him for 300 silver forints on loan, to be reckoned against my wool-price, and with the 300 deposited at your place send me the [whole] at once. I beg you very much to act in this matter, and that the money be here within at least eight days, otherwise we shall have great unpleasantness. — The other points of my earlier letter I lay on your heart again. The enclosed writing send back with the money, and the division-deed I asked for too. Begging once more, very much, I am your true friend Imre Madách.

[Madách’s collected works II. 58 881] TO PÁL GYULAI

February [?], 1863 Especially honored, dear friend! For the Részvét könyve [book of contributions] I was bold to send you a few pieces in the winter, with the request that if you can choose anything from them, choose; if you find anything usable for the Koszorú, give it there; but if they are of no worth at all, inform me with a couple of lines, so that I may at least not waste my time on putting the others in order. — For this reason too I should much have wished already to hear something of these works, for toward János Arany I am in the most disagreeable position — he, whom I so honor and to whom so much feeling of gratitude binds me. I should like, too, to give something for his paper, if I knew that I were thereby doing him some service; but I am afraid of burdening him with some worthless thing, so that his well-known gentleness and his friendly disposition toward me should only bring him trouble; and You, dear friend, the Bayard of criticism, are silent, and I do not know what to do — though you may well know that, if I have no other good quality, I have this one, that I am not conceited, and accept even the sternest word of criticism with glad welcome. Not wishing at any price to read my name in print. — I beg you again, therefore, do not grudge me that half quarter-hour which I claim from your precious time, and inform me at least dryly and briefly about the works I sent you, whether the Részvét könyve and the Koszorú can use anything of them or not. In all else, enclosed in your precious friendship, I am with respect your loving and honoring friend Imre Madách. TO LAJOS HAYNALD

November 18, 1846 Especially Honored Most Reverend Secretary! Only today I made bold to trouble His Eminence the Primate with a letter of mine, in which I commend to his most precious patronage the humble petition of János Szecsődy, a regular commissioner of our county. I commend him both for his personal integrity and on the strength of his merits, to His Eminence’s well-known boundless graciousness and patronage; I believe I am not supporting an unworthy man, and on that account too wish success to my modest voice; since I have been fortunate to find in the Most Reverend gentleman a kind friendly disposition toward me, and know very well the influence of his powerful patronage in such matters — as one who is, after all, a son of our county, I earnestly beg the Most Reverend Secretary to be graciously pleased to further the success of this request with his own precious patronage as well. — For the rest, renewing my request, enclosed in your most precious kindness, I remain with distinguished respect The Most Reverend Secretary’s humble servant Imre Madách.

To the Most Reverend Lajos Hajnald, Secretary to His Eminence the Primate, etc. With distinguished respect at Esztergom In the archiepiscopal residence TO ÁGOST HENRICZY

February 17, 1863 Most Reverend Pastor! The painting of the local Evangelical church’s organ, and the refitting of its bellows’ draw-rod mechanism so that it may be set in motion by pressure, I hereby offer and take upon myself. Of which, having the honor to inform the Most Reverend Pastor for his own arrangement, I remain with respect Most Reverend Pastor your humble servant Imre Madách. To the Most Reverend Ágost Henriczy, pastor with respect Here [in town]

TO LÁSZLÓ JÁMBOR

February 24, 1853 Honorable Attorney! On receipt of these lines bring me at once 40 silver forints, here to the captain on inspection duty; my money has run out already, and so there is no room for delay. Bring also two cheap Turkish pipes with stems, tobacco, and cigars. Order one pair of boots at my bootmaker’s. I am in good health. your humble servant Imre Madách. The Honorable László Jámbor, attorney with respect in Pest Two Eagles Street No. 18 second floor

TO MENYHÉRT LÓNYAY

you cannot even doubt, I hope. And it is just that which makes everything from you interest me more than from anyone else. But you must allow that to have a man styled a stupid cackling goose is disagreeable from anyone. I do not hold myself — indeed I cannot hold myself — for a particular genius, but so very stupid, so much a goose, I am not after all; I too have striven to cultivate myself. — That the others do not feel this hurt I truly wonder at, for did I not otherwise love you so, this would give cause enough perhaps for eternal anger. “Vanitas vanitatum” — that I talk so much and so stupidly is the reason I bore you long with my letter too; forgive the Goose who loves you.

traitors rose before my eyes — men who count it no sin to tear away that which makes a man a man. I went to study, but I learned only this, that here revenge is a duty, or life without honor is non-being. I am in a whirlpool in which my thoughts surge like the ocean, and you stand there — a word from you, a breath, would cost you nothing to save me from this, and you stand there, and I go under — this is cruel of you. — Had they said that I am a wicked man, that I had committed such crimes as the heavens shudder back from and draw their blue vault away from me, thundering in its place the heavy storm-clouds of the sky — I should have borne it, and the shield of my patience, my conscience, would have kept me safe from its lightnings. — But just here — just here, where at one stroke so many strings of feeling snap — so many that rang together so sweetly — all at once turn into the wildest howling, and the ground of it all is a mortal like me, who upon the ruins of my feeling, perhaps of my reason, will laugh out his bloody triumphs. At one stroke, before those whom I most revered on this earth, before those who stood before me like earthly ideals, who offered me a friendly breast into which I could pour out the holiest effusions of my feeling. — They who stood like earthly gods at my road’s end — and shall I rise in revolt against my god — shall I disgrace them, beside whom every other man lost in my eyes the name of man — oh heaven, if the human feeling cannot bend to this, it breaks, and so it is... But I have no witness save my conscience, which stands guard at the door of my breast — but feeling cannot declare itself, as the tongue can by the instrument of the lungs — which may be servants of the black hell. And with what face shall I go to you, go to that house which has been a glorious temple to me till now, and in which I stand thus disgraced. — This you cannot even ask — should I not collapse if I thought it — these who... believe themselves disgraced through me, and I, I who revered them as a mortal can only revere a mortal — I am innocent — but I cannot prove it — my friend holds the key to the lost honor, but he is an angel with a fiery sword, before whom my voice trembles away; he does not let me in. — Am I still a man, or am I alone on the desert’s terrible paths. — Now the fate of my whole life hangs on you — from you everything; “either he or I,” this shall be the watchword, there is no middle way at the plank that floats on the towering waves of the sea and bears up only one. Forgive me if I have written everything in confusion, my head is so heavy, I am very ill — the future is still in darkness, but in darkness there can be only the color of mourning... I say no more; do what you think good, I am resolved — to the very last — but by all that is holy, it cannot remain thus!!! Ernők.

a short time, since we came to know each other. We came to know each other, and with time there grew also in my heart that feeling which teaches one to live, in life, the true life — he who has never felt it does not understand it, but to him who has felt it the bliss of heaven is a foolish dream beside its bliss — and its loss is the loss of the universe. — Heaven sees how I love you, and this friendship grew and grew like the evening shadow, until it covered my whole being. — I was with you as the heavens are with the waters of this earth: I mirrored you back ceaselessly, you, whether your clear sun shone, or whether towering gloom covered your sorrow-laden face. — And I was as the heavens are with the flowers of the earth: if the one cannot pour its tears into their bosoms, it stays overcast, and its gloom thunders down into the void. — I forgot to live in myself, and lived in him, like the statue of Memnon that gives forth sounds only in the sun’s rays. From that time there was no thought, no feeling, that I did not share with you, and I tasted doubled joys, for yours were mine; I felt half-sorrow, for half of it you carried... Forgive my useless sentimentalizing — my breast is so full. And once for all I must pour it out... I wrote a swan-song, for my longing was gone from the world, gone everything — and has not nature placed the means in our hands to put an end to all at one stroke? — But then your image rose, like a star, an uncertain light on the great ocean to one suffering shipwreck, urging him not yet to cast away his last hopes — and I — I listened to it, though the pain was unspeakable that I could not pour into your breast my one and greatest feeling. — And when I resolved to tell all, everything, again a ghastly shudder covered my brain, and I stood like the wanderer over whose head the cruel sky howls, threatening to strike him down, while below sways the half-rotted bridge over the terrible abyss. — For God sees that I struggled enough; I must choose, and I choose, I choose heaven, which gave so much charm — its blow is lighter than the gaping deep, whose color is mourning. Read it to the end, and when you reach the end, ask yourself, if you can imagine my case, what you would have done, and pity me, if you can. I told you of that ardor which I once felt, still a child, and by cruel fate I am condemned to see nothing in its natural color, but to have every feeling of mine be suffering — I rarely feel anything, but when I feel, then very long and hotly, like the sun of Syria, beneath which all the grace, the flowers, fall. — My friendship toward you is a passion — and many a one who felt thus toward a woman would believe he loved her; it may be that I alone am this pitiable exception. I thought that I loved then as a child is capable of loving, or perhaps even more — long was this world bleak before me, and it may be that this determined my character, which loves rapture and passion. The memory of that feeling is dear to me even now, for it was so sweet, so Edenic, as pure friendship is. — I have seen many women since, but no woman triumphed over me again; into her face I said every beautiful thing and, turning away, laughed. I myself would already have wished that someone should please me, but how many did I not find. — For my feelings were ever wilder, and so weakly, as I once loved that time, I had already loved you too, and then I saw that the child had taken a pure friendship for love, since love is not so sweet... Last year I saw her for the first time, I was startled at first sight and wrote “The Kindred Feeling” — she then made on me such an impression as one whom I first knew as a dear object. But I was happy, and in my poems a sweet feeling poured out — the holy feeling of pure friendship. — I hid my secret within myself, for I could hide it. — And of its possession I was envious. — More and more I saw her, my friendship toward her and toward you grew in one step. — This year I saw her again several times, and with every seeing I discovered a new charm in her. By now I should almost have believed I was in love; I did not believe it, but explained it to myself as growing esteem; I wanted to persuade my own self, but it went hard already. Sometimes, when I came in to you, you could see me in utter confusion, breathless, not knowing where I stood — then I came upon her in the corridor, and I did not know what would become of me — I stood enchanted like a little bird, but the cause of it I would not seek out. — She was my dream, she was the soul in my lyre, she was the god that guided me on life’s road, and I counted the days good or bad according to whether I had come upon her or not. And my [ill?] fortune long wished it. And scarcely a day passed on which I could not see her. — This was my fairest season, for in it I loved, and it was so glorious as I could not have imagined before. — Through your kindness I was invited to the ball at... — I could see her in all her grace in the française, I stood petrified. — And the whole world was at an end; she alone was the whole world. — Heaven knows what name I should give this feeling — it is more than adoration, more than anything a man can have. — I felt that I was not master of myself; I often resolved within me that I would not go up to you, and this was the reason — you read it wrongly (it could not have been otherwise). Since then fate and the gods, perhaps out of mercy, have conspired against me; I never come upon her any more — and if I go that way, my heart beats so that its pain will burst my breast. — I do not go to the theater, for if she is there, for several days I am incapable of everything; if she is not, everything is so empty, so unbearable. The content of the secret writings was this, painted in the most poetic colors, for boundless was the feeling that would not fit in my breast: I had to pour it out. And I cannot sleep, cannot learn anything, nothing in this world, God well knows, and I cannot answer that my mind will not be unsettled. — Once I gave you a rose, you gave it to her; I came upon her with the rose, it had withered on her breast, ashamed of itself beside her — and through all this I play an indifferent role. — Heaven wished very, very much to punish me, and put me in such a case. — Zsömböry, before the love-philter [evening], made up some gossip about me and Her, before Bérczi, who told Kazinczy, and he me; you can imagine my fury — I called him out, he excuses himself, wished to be confronted with Bérczi, this happened in the theater’s courtyard — you reproached me with avoiding you, I had to keep silent. I had at last to hear from you that I had spoken the least evil against her, and not even know the name of him who said it, so that I might say he lies, that I might avenge her honor, not mine. — Oh, do not make conditions; this is my duty, and yours too. — This feeling is not love — oh no, this so few men feel that it cannot be called love; it is mad worship — it is greater than a mortal can bear, I break beneath it. I cannot sleep, cannot rejoice, cannot grieve, cannot speak, think, write anything; she is boundless as God, and her eternal power wholly occupies me, and by my God I am so very, very ill. But the sun gives life to so many flowers and so many wither beneath it, yet spring does not lose its splendor. It blooms gloriously — one flower a speck of dust in the universe. — But the sun pours its beneficent light alike on every flower — oh, but she does not; she smiles on everyone, is gracious and kind with everyone, and I am just the one with whom she is most grave, most silent — I paint, by the gods, I too paint myself a dawn, though it be with my blood; you gave your word of honor — you will keep to it, you will tell me who spoke of me. — I could say much more, but forgive me even this much talk; forget these things too if you can, I cannot forget. — This I had to do, for your friendship, which is so precious to me, I had to do it; you will be mute as the grave — you promised — May nature forgive it — I struggled against it — and was overcome. — I do not wish my fate on my greatest enemy. — You are one whose heart has not forgotten how to feel, one who perhaps beats with true love for me; you will perhaps grasp what it means to feel thus, and to you I should not have poured out the highest bond of my breast — blame me though you will — I could do no other. — The future is in darkness, mourning is this darkness, from whose hiding no summer beckons to me — my fair, bright dreams have all melted into the one, and I stand like the exile at his homeland’s borders, who, looking back, sees the image of his sacred homeland mirrored back in his tears. — And if one day you see the high-soaring poet-friend, under the weight of his sorrows, shrink into a Carthusian — remember that his fate too is like that one’s, and if you consecrate as many sighs to me as to him, the grave in which I bury myself will be lighter, for the dear friendly heart bears half the burden. — I hoped in time — this too forsakes me; this healer of all things passes me by. — My feeling grows, does not wane — it will yet consume me, as the worm born in the tree grinds away the tree’s roots. — I am not master even of my mind — that gives no comfort either — nothing, nothing, only your pity. I breathe more easily; there is now not a single fold in my heart that I have not laid open before you, there is nothing, nothing, and the whole reward of this anguish is your friendship; only do not strip this from me, and if I am deceived in all, if all my own is lost, on that I shall lean, and laugh out — only this is strong, this faithful — the rest a foolish shadow. This little scrap of chain I have stolen, I confess — as I hope it will be the one theft of my life; only give this back — you cannot imagine what value it has for me, this one treasure of mine — I beg you, do not strip me of it — your friend who loves you to the death. ME. [1840]

TO IMRE MADÁCH THE ELDER

Je vous souhaite de tout mon coeur: Une longue vie et du bonheur. Stregova 5 Nov. 1828. Emi Madách.

TO THE WIFE OF IMRE MADÁCH THE ELDER

I greatly rejoice in the day when I shall be able to kiss your hand in Buda. Auntie, Mari, Nintsi, and Fáni I kiss too, and I shall always be your obedient and loving son Imre.

Si le cours de nouvel an Prenait sa source dans nos coeurs, Vos jours tout doucement S’écouleraient dans le bonheur. Imre, Károly, Pali.

which I write for Károly, since I am the eldest; the tutor gave Pali and Károly each a quarter-sheet of paper, on which they painted for the new year, but Károly spoiled his, and the tutor will not give him another. Take pity on him, give him a quarter-sheet of paper; with this I remain your loving Imre Madách 1834/28 Dec.

could not declare the feelings of my heart. Far from you, robbed of that joy, I could only wish, and bear it. But where could I find words for it, where, that would paint my heart’s feeling; he does not feel who feels what can be unfolded in words. You know what blazes in my breast, you know the altars of this flame; did you not know them, in vain should I paint it, you would not recognize what your son wishes for you, feels, and nurses. Dear Mama, forgive my ugly writing, but I am not yet free of my bed. Raiszinger was just here; oh, could I but see you already, embracing you, and Auntie, Nintsi, to whom I wish what she wishes for herself; kissing your hand, I remain your grateful son, Imre.

has run by since your departure. And yet how little it is compared with that which must still run until November — and even now how hard it is to wait it out! — Only now have we at last come into order, and so we had to find that what you thought best was worst. For in the housekeeper’s chest a large piece of bacon and two pieces of loaf-sugar were found. She stays out at night till eleven o’clock, and if we should go to Keszeg for the new year, as I hear — she would go to Nagy-Oroszi! leaving the house to itself. Write me, I beg you, whether I should write to Keszeg with postage prepaid, and send a French dictionary and a reader, otherwise I must buy them. Up to now I am acquainted with Balassa, Kalai, Benyiczky, and Lubi; Laczi Majtényi lodges in the very street I must walk every day. If you come in in November, bring my money, with which I want to buy a certain thing and a lorgnette absolutely necessary for understanding mathematics. Nintsi, Auntie I kiss and salute, and commending myself to your grace, I remain to the death your grateful son Imre Madách. October 15, 1837.

Pesth To Madame Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majtényi Vácz at Sztregova per Sakal

how should it not move — this countless graciousness — the dear and ever-honoring love in my heart, bound to you as it already is. I thought at once that your motherly love would misread my lines. It would be ungrateful prodigality in me if I accepted those five silver forints too, and besides them as much for every month. I accept it, yes, with warm thanks, but only if you reckon these too into your monthly allowance. For who gave me that so-called “private cash-box of mine” — did I earn it? No, that too is from your goodness. So with that I ought to supply my needs. To strengthen you, too, in what your motherly heart supposes of me — namely, that I keep good economy — I send here my account. From home I brought a twenty[-kreuzer piece]; I bought sealing-wax and paper with it. You, dear, good Mama, gave a twenty for fruit; it went to a subscription which the whole school signed, and so I too, for a professor’s portrait. You gave me two silver forints, dear Mama, for October; out of this I bought, for 3 fl. 20 kr., a cap, for my hat had torn, and my cap was very ugly. A twenty to a robbed fellow logic-student, almost a necessity, and out of pity. A seal-stamp for 2 fl. 30 kr. A lorgnette, for without it I cannot see at such a distance the figures that come up in mathematics, 10 fl. From this you see that all these were necessary, but they will not come up every day either. Besides this I really threw two silver forints out the window, but for this I hope for pardon, for everything must be paid for as we still learn it. The larder is now splendid; only, I beg you, bring rice-groats. Oh, how hard I wait for the fifteenth. With this I remain, commending myself to your countless-times-proven grace, to the death your grateful son, Imre Madách. Pest, November 5, 1837. Mari, Auntie, little Pepi I kiss a thousand times; a thousand thanks from us all for the wafers, and likewise for the much sweet-bread, etc., etc. 500 fl. is in the clock-box, this in the big box, and this in the magazine [store-cupboard].

your dear lines, reading them through several times only now, I noticed that you are angry at that writing of mine, namely that “everything is in the schedule, nothing in the larder,” though I know very well that you provide for us above our deserts, and I said this only of such things as ham, smoked meat, etc., which are entered there and are not, indeed cannot be; of the rest I did not mean this, and far be it from me that I wished to offend you, when either everything is there that is needed, and more besides, or at least your will is there, and it has only run short since your absence. — I beg you, bring Wieland’s works; these Werner (professor of philosophy and dean) recommended at school. I hope this letter will no longer find you at home; if still there, then I hope you set out soon. Candel Cain too waits here. I kiss Auntie, Mari, Nintsi, K. Pepi, and kissing your hand I remain to the death your grateful son Imre. November 11, 1837.

that promised — but in vain — to bring you to us. We here in terrible despair hear nothing of you, and a man in despair always seeks dark causes; come, or write, we all beg you, and do not let us be lost in fear. With this I remain to the death your most grateful son Imre Madách. 1837, Nov. 18. Auntie, Mari, Nintsi, K. Pepi I kiss.

To Madame Pesth Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi per Vácz at Sztregova Szakai

I came home from the University with my heart beating with hope, thinking I should find you here already, and this hope all at once torn up, and who knows for how long! Write, I beg you, when you will certainly come in; here we wait so hard, and you are so necessary that it cannot be told. You surely know already that Antal Majthényi too is a baron, and that the Palatine’s younger son has died. — To little Berta I wish only two things: let her be like her mother, and fortunate. If you come in, bring, I beg you, my drawing-forms, the music-scores I have not yet studied, my sealed writings, and, if you will, the works of Sándor Kisfaludy, whose missing parts can be had. The cook too, dear Mama, you would do well to send, and, as I begged in my earlier letter, Wieland. Only write me the certain term of your coming, so that I may tell you in a letter those things that perhaps cannot wait till then. Nintsi is perhaps in love, that she forgets me so. I kiss you all, and kissing your hand a thousand times I remain to the death your grateful son Imre Madách. 1837 Nov. 21.

Pesth To Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi per Vácz Szakai at Sztregova

I read with joy of your fortunate homecoming, and I thank you for that Hungarian jacket which is already being made. — The bridge was taken out on the 14th, though no ice is yet moving. — For the bridge to be built there are very great preparations. — The Palatine, who in these days goes with his family to Vienna, resigns, and so in March there will be a Diet. — The newspaper here is surely full of the flea-performance, and it has often been in the paper; I saw it, and can only say that it is not worth a twenty, not even a kreuzer, and the whole thing is a fraud. We also saw the Buda antiquarian shop, which is worth more than it, though of very small compass. But I must finish, for tomorrow I shall surely answer. — With this I remain to the death your grateful son M. Imre. 1837 Dec. 17. Is Mari still at Sztregova? When does she go to Keszeg?

To Madame Pesth Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi Sztregova Dear Mama! Just now I have not been a very diligent writer, but the cause of this was only that I had much to do; hereafter I shall be more attentive. To Auntie I do not even write, for I hope soon to embrace her, and Mari, and Nintsi, with you, dear Mama. I was at the Ambrózys’ and dined with them later; tomorrow I must already present myself for the defense [examination]. K. Pepi, Berta, and all I kiss. With this I remain to the death your grateful son Imre, who must rise early tomorrow. 1837 Dec. 29

leges — it is superfluous to write how great was our joy at the conveyance’s arrival. But our sorrow too, that you did not come in its place. — Hamza wrote falsely about István, for he went only for a day or two to visit his dear wife, and came back punctually; so I beg you, bring his clothes with you, for otherwise he despairs, since his one joy is now cheated a second time. The housekeeper does not cook the best, but tolerably for all that, and is honest. To thank you specially for all your graciousness, my letter would not be enough, which would still not open our hearts wholly to you — which perhaps you understand even without it. The bound Spiegel I send here with all the little boxes sent here; only the small basket we keep, in place of the meat-basket. The shops are closed, and so I cannot send the lottery-ticket. Auntie and Nintsi, whom I beg not to be angry at my writing, I kiss. And let Nintsi not take revenge by not writing. With this I remain to the death your grateful son Imre. 1837 Dec. 30. We got no horseradish. Mari has not yet arrived. On the other side. Dear Nintsi! I hear of the Nógrád revolutions with wonder! — and I fear they will drag you along too; your dress will be ready. That lovely clock-cushion I thank you for. I have just come from the casino concert, in token of which I send this. About the law-students’ ball I shall inform you next time. With this I remain [Madách’s collected works II. 67 897] to the death your loving Imre. This certificate you sent, perhaps by mistake, and perhaps it is needed. To Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi To Mademoiselle Nina de Madách

for entry to which I had already provided. Even before I received your letter I gave my ticket away as a present, but however much I might have wished to go, not your letter, but a single word of yours would have been enough to hold me back from it. You wrote, dear Mama, that I should not go out in the evening, but this I cannot keep, for every day, after six o’clock, I come home from a Professor. Till the examination I hope to see [you]. And I hope to take my money from you too, dear good Mama, so that the tutor is not asked for it. Auntie, Nintsi I kiss, and kissing your hand I remain to the death your grateful son Imre. 1838 Jan 21 (I wanted to dry it and it got smoked)

carries me to your stay here is agreeable, but that joy is troubled by a sad recollection, which shows that, however I strive to win your contentment, you are still discontented with me. How that pained me cannot be told, when in the midst of my hope you so painfully declared your discontent, and how it struck down that strengthening hope, that your love rewards me. Babnik has still not fixed a definite hour, but all attend diligently; the turning-lathe machine has not yet arrived, at which I am very angry, for I cannot send you my works. The Kecskemét men will put down the money only in two weeks. Nintsi’s clock is not yet ready; it will be ready only in four days. The bridge has now been taken out, and much ice is moving on the Danube. Gábor Majthényi’s son (I do not know which one), who was also a soldier, marries the Darótzi miller’s daughter out of spite. Here two men were found murdered, at the horse-fair and at the timber-yard. A head too I send, dear Mama, from my drawings; now I am painting Calliope. Spányik behaves himself well so far, only that the love of the theater, his great spirits — to which the only obstacle is that he has no money — — — Since you were so good, dear Mama, as to give money for buying some scholarly book, I thought it best to subscribe to the Athenaeum, from which I can learn Hungarian literature, and since it contains very fine stories, I send a few numbers to Nintsi. Oh, how hard I wait for the ice to stand fast and then thaw again — if only then you come to us, dear Mama. — Auntie, Mari, Nintsi, Pepi, little Pepi I kiss; Bukva, Bódi, Bori too I salute. And with this I remain to the death your grateful son Imre. Two turkeys froze on the road. The cheese too is a little sour. For the pastry the thanks of us all, a new witness of your love. — You ordered fifty heads of cabbage bought, but since we have a hundred and they are already going bad, we send fifty of those. Imre. [February 1838?] To Madame Madame Pesth Anne de M... ch, née de Majth... at Sztregova [The dotted parts are missing. Written after:] it turned out after much trouble.

gives new examples of your love — and I! what can I do? Be assured, dear Mama, that I do everything to win at least your contentment. I wonder that you got my last letter, since István took it to the post without an address, and much ceremony had to be made over it. The Kecskemét men have still not paid; we finished the commissions with Károly, who, poor fellow, came off worst by it, for he lost two twenties, a ten, and five groschen, which he made good from his own money. The turning-lathe tools would come to fifty silver forints in all. — — To Mrs. Ambrózy too we send here some pieces of furniture. To you, dear Mama, a drawing. And the tutor too, I hope, sends the account. After this, kissing your hand, and saluting Auntie and the chamberlain, I remain your son who never ceases to love you, Imre.

Dear Mama! How long already is the time that has run by since your homecoming, but again nearer is the time that leads you back to us. Nintsi has already written about Robitsek, and I turned all my effort to procuring the money. But on the 2nd of May it will still hardly reach Gyarmat. Your letter, dear Mama, I received only on the 3rd of May. Balassa is not in town. You left here your knife and fork and a few old silver pieces too; is this what was lost? The Kovatsótzys sent for me the other day and beg, dear Mama, that you come in person if Sztrókai writes. Three or four days ago the Golden Eagle coffee-house collapsed. They say the king is coming down. The masters too now attend regularly, and I strive to win your contentment with them. Your letter grieved me much, in which you doubt my diligence, when after all my one aim is to be to your contentment. And truly the money is not bound up in vain. It saddens me unspeakably that I cost you so much. But sooner confine me to even fewer needs, a smaller lodging, and everything, than that we should bring you into expense with this. Believe me, even up to now I have withdrawn myself, so far as could be, from every expense, but I shall do this utterly, if it is your will. With this I remain to the death your most grateful son Imre.

To Madame Pesth Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi per Vácz a Sztregova Szakai Dear Mama! If, laying my hand on my heart, I look up to heaven and ask my conscience what I have done to deserve the contempt of the whole world — for if a loving mother does it, how much more the more indifferent crowd — I find nothing, nothing at all, save perhaps a few weaknesses, that could accuse me. I sacrificed my whole life to one holy aim, the holiest that man can long to reach, and it was this: to repay even some small part of that motherly toil, anxiety, and care, and if, exposing myself to a thousand discomforts, or withdrawing from a thousand joys, I asked myself: what is the reward for this — a voice rose in my heart that whispered, your mother’s contentment, and I then went on along the hard road, for I had so glorious a guide — hope. — I devoted myself to a sedentary life, read as much as I could, and against my morals perhaps no one anywhere can stand up. — Oh, how painful, with this consciousness, is distrust; I do not say what I feel always on such occasions, for it is unspeakable; I do not say the shameful blush before myself and my fellows, but this: that a mother suspects her son, who loves her so, if he is not home at six o’clock. — Oh, dear Mama! And if it is said besides that I am a wanderer, that I am never at home. — — Being at school from 8 to 11, in the afternoon again from 2 to 4, and coming home to satisfy my masters too, and if in the evening I cannot see to work, even then it is forbidden me to spend a few minutes in my friends’ circles. — But let it pass, you wish it. — And when I come back from church, or elsewhere, again those killing suspicious words, “perhaps you were not even at church,” and so on — every time I should sooner feel a dagger-thrust in my breast. — Truly I often thought at such times, would it not be better not to be — and I sinned against the power of heaven. — — Let it all be so; I shall never go from home henceforth except where I must, that my life may fall the sooner as a sacrifice, escaping earthly sufferings. — My breast and my health show, anyway, that the earthly course will not be so very long. Be it ever so short, it too is consecrated to you — — — your son who loves you to the death, Imre: I can write no more in my defense, but with this I can stand before my judge even at the Last Judgment, saying: such was I. Perhaps you will laugh at my confusion — oh, for me only he understands who feels my anguish. [May 1838?]

Dear Mama! I heard the glad news that we shall after all go home at the end of July. Oh, if only it came true. Here they are working hard on the embankments; they have filled in the hay-market by a fathom. To every unfortunate householder the city has built two rooms with a kitchen free of charge. The masters attend diligently, and we too strive to win your contentment. The cook, I hear, will not stay, since she is sickly. — Whether to take Friderik on, dear Mama, depends only on your goodness; which, finding it always so great, I find again now. There is a rumor flying here that Forgách is marrying Nintsi... Trstyánszky said that he made Nintsi happy with a saucy dance — was there need of it? — Since the householders have so driven up the rents, the barracks are being emptied, and they must quarter soldiers as a punishment. With this I remain your most grateful son Imre.

but only my much business could have hindered me from informing you, dear Mama, at least in writing. The examinations begin on July 18 and end only on August 8 or 9; you cannot imagine, dear Mama, how I count every day, by whose passing too I am the nearer to seeing you again. Rossier’s wife has died, and he goes to the country with Mrs. Stubenberg at the beginning of July. There is a letter here for Nintsi from Mari; what shall I do with it? — For this short time it would perhaps not be worth taking on the piano-master, but only at the beginning of the school year, when, to your contentment, I can also turn greater diligence to it. For this is my one aim, my one wish. — Károly and Pali too have already begun with Friderik. — We are still looking for a turner, but have not yet found one; they are all very dear. And the tools too would come to 125 forints. — To begin to thank your kindnesses would be in vain, for their number too is unspeakable, and so I can only feel them, and wish at least to please you with grateful diligence. Imre. The summer clothes are not yet ready, nor the ring; I beg you, send in white linen; since then I keep wearing one pair of socks. — I kiss Auntie, Nintsi, etc. To Madame Madame Anne Madách, née de Majthényi Waitzen Sztregova Szákéi [Noted to the address] 24 June

Pepi being in town, we went to Raiszinger, who prescribed some medicine and an ointment for my chest that raises terrible blisters. I am already better, my chest does not hurt, the disturbance is less, and I cough less too. Just today I finished the second examination. Were it but the last; but, alas, I must still wait long for that liberating moment, which dawns only some August 10. Auntie, Nintsi — from whom I now demand the promised book of Józsi Gellén — I kiss. The mattress-knife, the tutor paid 10 fl. for it. Dear Mama, in your last letter you graciously permitted the buying of the mentioned Hungarian books, which permission I do not yet use; I rather leave it for your presence, for November. With this I remain your son who loves you to the death, Imre. Madame Pesth Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi per Vácz a Sztregova Szakai [Noted to the address] 25 July Dear Mama! Bori went home the other day, and I was very sorry I could not write by her, at least conversing with you in thought. But she came only in the forenoon, when Lónyay was with me; at once Schwind came, and so it was impossible. The Kecskemét men have still not paid, and Hamza wants to summon them to court. Spányik says there is still over 40 forints in the cash-box. After paying for the meat — This year there will not be so fine a law-students’ ball as other times, for in the third year there are only 20 shareholders. — The Ambrózys are already in town. — Horony was here the other day, and the poor fellow, making a long speech in great fright, asked for and took from me 25 forints on loan till March, invoking your promise, and meanwhile, as interest, wishes to copy out all sorts of things, brings books on loan, and so on. Tomorrow, according to a certain prophecy, Pest is to sink down; on the street-corners the city has had notices posted that it is forbidden to spread this opinion, and several of the cronies have been arrested. — That I have not yet written about the defense, the reason is that I still know nothing certain, and I am convinced of your goodness, which is so beyond measure toward me. — Kováts is here. — Of the Baráti, the 3rd Gregektus too has gone. The cook has improved; about Pista I beg you to dispose. — Bódi I salute, Auntie, Nintsi I kiss; was Boronkai there? — And wishing to win your contentment, dear Mama, I kiss your hand a thousand times and remain to the death your loving son Imre. The tutor subscribed to the newspapers, but now there is no money for the little clock. 1838, Dec. 11. Spányik, a member of the belletristic society, is writing a parody, its title The Magi, or The Slovak Tinker. To Madame Pesth Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi Rétság Sztregova Szakái 25 December 1838 Dear Mama! You reproach me for my scanty writing — how can you doubt that to be able to converse with you is for me the sweetest occupation! — But what should I write except what you know anyway: I hope that I, as I shall always, love you with reverence. For all that, I have already written three letters, which, if you do not believe, ask Spányik — the first by Alisa and since then two — and hereafter too this will be my sweetest occupation. — I cannot even imagine how it could be that you should not have received my letters, but the tutor’s yes. — Horony (I do not know whether you got this letter, dear Mama) was here the other day, and, invoking your promise, took 10 silver forints from me on loan, which brings me into great embarrassment. For, first, this is no trifle to me, he not wishing to give it back till March — second, he takes all sorts of things from us to copy, presumably on his own account, — and has already taken some — so I beg you, give me advice, what I should do, dear Mama, for this advice will surely be the best. The Kecskemét men have still not paid, and this is why the common cash-box too languishes in the greatest hectic [fever]. And, what is worse, the hungry wolves are already waiting on every side. — The lodging-money, and the payment for the arrived turning-machine, after much pleading from Pista, were kept up. The other day, at the old gentleman’s invitation, we were in his box, by your new graciousness in subscribing to the music society; you have procured me many, many pleasant evenings, which I spend in the company of Lónyay, whom I love better from day to day. And if I still have time for this amusement too, would there not be [time] to converse with you? — Nintsi, Auntie I kiss — and kissing your hands, I remain to the death your grateful son Imre. Ötvös has resigned — Lónyay has become His Excellency. Cziráky resigns, etc.; what I shall know better by another time, I will inform you of. To Madame Pesth Madame Anne de Madách, née Majthényi per Vácz Sztregova Rétság Szakái [Noted to the address] 27 Dec. Dear Mama! This day brought a double joy — the conveyance from Sztregova, which gave again as much proof of your love as your goodness toward me can only give, and Pepi, who is very hoarse. The cabbages, which I bought long ago, Spányik sends among the accounts. Ötvös has become some kind of governor,* Bedekovics vice-chancellor, Cziráky will become a prince in place of Krazsalkovits. I beg you, send in by the first occasion the last days of Alis and of Pompeii. I beg you, dear Mama, do not be angry that I gave Horony that money, but he invoked your promise, and even had he not done so — though I too had need of money — I should have given him my last money; I cannot help it, but it is easier for me to suffer want myself than to see another suffer. And to describe the victory of the sense of honor, as it showed even in his face, is impossible. — If I have a cloak and a great-coat, and see another freezing, if he asked me, I should not stand on it — should I not give it to him? The other day in the Lordly Street a child cried itself out because its parents had to pay one forint of stall-rent, and a ten was still wanting to this forint, and so the poor people will be turned out; believe me, for several days all my cheer was gone, and at night too this ran in my head, for I could not give it to him. — Here, dear Mama, I send a drawing. The turning-machine they will set up tomorrow. — Since you wrote in your letter, which was so dear to me, that such horrible, dreadful, monstrous, fearful, frightful, grim, bloody, terrible rumors are flying from here, I hold it my duty to set your careful, loving heart at rest, for none of it is true. But for all that, we do not ourselves go out into the street with Lónyay either, for at such times it is full. So I beg you, do not be anxious; I avoid even the least danger, and if not for my own sake, I should do it at least for yours. Knowing your gracious goodness toward us, by which your love wishes for us (“after work, rest is sweet” — if you remember that picture) that after work we should sometimes amuse ourselves — sometimes, when some notable piece is being played, we go to the theater, the more so since the tutor lets his mood be noticed with merciless grim faces, who is otherwise a very good, worldly, diligent * It now occurs to me, of Galicia etc. Trusting therefore in the deserving of your eternal love, I remain to the death your grateful Imre. My new-year’s wish — why even declare it; you know anyway what a son wishes for so good a mother. Auntie, Nintsi I kiss; I send a picture to her too, namely to Auntie. To Bódi I write; Bukva, Bori, etc., etc., etc., I salute, and so on and so forth, period. [End of 1838.] To Madame Madame Anne de Madách, née Majthényi [Noted to the address] Elegant out of necessity.

The day before yesterday I received Nintsi’s dear lines, which yet could only somewhat barely make up for the joy I feel when I receive your own letter. Every letter that brings me here Sztregova memories, such precious, fair memories, which this Pest din cannot make me forget, and whose lack only the reaching of the goal makes bearable — I am already waiting for a notice when that happy moment will be that leads us into one another’s arms; but I confess that I sought for this point curiously in your first precious letters too, the moment you set out! — I was at the Ambrózys’ the very day I received Nintsi’s letter. They wanted to force tickets on me for the Ladies’ Society ball, but Mrs. Lónyay had already forestalled them — she had already given me tickets earlier, with the request that I should go. So a whole caravan — Spányik, the Lónyays, the Benitzkys, Boronkay, Verzar, Pelati, etc., etc. — well dressed, set off; it was a fine warm evening, and after midnight we came home. We amused ourselves very well. — Had You too been there, with Nintsi, my contentment would have been more perfect still — what is more, there was a raffle; Mrs. Lónyay gave two large gilded jugs for it, but I won nothing. There were few masks, and fewer fine ones, but many people. — Since my hat, after a year’s service, was already very bad, so that its brim hung like a sick piglet’s ear, trusting to your goodness, we shall buy one. — That we did not buy it before its time is proved by this, that for a hat I no longer wear the Jew would not give two groschen, as I found with last year’s hat, which I gave to István — and the present one is its dear successor. Hoping, then, that I shall soon receive glad news of your coming, kissing Auntie and Nintsi, I remain to the death your grateful son Imre.

It now occurs to me — here in the old Post Street there is a Slovak theater, in which some of my fellow students too are actors — soon, with several others, I intend to go see it.

To Madame Pesth Madame Anne de Madách, née Majthényi Vácz Sztregova Rétság Szakái

[Noted to the address] 10 Jan. [1839?]

Since the conveyance went, I have not received a single one of your dear lines, which brought you so much witness of your love and surprised me so pleasantly. Those I could kiss in place of your beloved hands, and could think, when my beloved Mama wrote this, she thought of me, and I wish to be worthy of her love. But just this circumstance flattered me with the hope that you will make me happy with your own presence. Dark imaginings came into my heart, lest perhaps you have some trouble and I do not even know it. I beg you, come once more among us at last, and receive our embraces with our warm filial love. Nothing is now so dear to me as your presence, and I do not feel joy, for I cannot share it with you. Now I am preparing headlong for the examinations. I always rise before five o’clock. But let this only come to an end; then, every week, I shall fulfill my burning wish to speak with you at least in writing. Till then too I remain your son who loves you to the death, Imre. 19 Jan 1839 To Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthény per Vácz Sztregova Rétság 20 January Szakái [Noted to the address] 20 January

Only this evening did I get your dear letter, which, containing a sign of your contentment, is doubly dear to me. As for the robbing of me and Spányik — this is only the offspring of his peculiar humor, his especially; and if Pista does take a few groschen from me now and then without my knowledge, he knows that I, well fed, cannot look on one who is thirsty, and if I have money, he who has none may be sure that I wish to keep it for him rather than even for myself. — With joy, and scarcely able to wait, I await that time which shall lead me to you, and there, by word, by living speech, I may say to your heart what here I can only write with dead letters. — With this I remain your son who loves you to the death, Imre. To Madame, Madame Anne de Madách, née Majthény, respectfully

Dear Mama! Your gracious care for my health fills me only with fear, lest your own health suffer by it. I am already quite well. The doctor too said that I may eat everything I want. Your boundless graciousness, by which you wish to give me something from the Kecskemét money, I cannot now use, since, but for two or three twenties, the money you gave before is all still here; for I need very little, if I am not forced to give to some subscription. I beg you, dear Mama, if you should not be coming in soon — which we await so longingly — let a pair of trousers be made; these are very shabby and very worn. As often as you give new and ever new proofs of your love, my heart always grows heavy, thinking that I can never repay them. — I beg pardon for my short and ugly writing, but I have missed very much, and this I must catch up on. Your son who loves you to the death most warmly, Imre. To Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi at Sztregova

Dear Mama! Although it is still a short time during which I have not been able to kiss your gracious motherly hands, yet it seems as long as if it held years; long is any time, however short, that passes in the absence of our dear ones. Palya arrived this morning, and was welcome not only because he brought news of you, dear Mama, but because he is from that region too. — Pepi and Mari went to Keszeg today. Today I began oil-painting, it goes very well — swimming not so much, for when water gets into my nose, forgetting the actions of foot and hand, I let myself go entirely — though already somewhat better. The material intended for the furniture, it being nine o’clock, I could not buy at Lidemann’s closed shop, but I bought it at Hirsch’s; Spányik paid for it. Knowing your motherly goodness and grace, I was so bold as to present myself, with Lónyay and the others, for the Defense [examination] — it is the last one anyway. — — Nintsi’s sketches are in progress; by Palya I send a pepper-holder I made myself. I made it with monstrous joy, since by it I thought to procure you some pleasure. — — It will surely be my greatest delight if the name of your grateful son is well inscribed in your gracious heart. — Awaiting that slowly crawling time which shall lead me again into your arms, I remain your son who loves you to the death, Imre. Dear Nintsi!

Oh, would you let me write your name into my verses, Oh, how often it would see itself written by me! It cannot be, oh my Nintsi, to possess fortune only in the heavens, And yet a heaven, behold, I find in the night-circle of your eyes. Imre.

NB. On Thursday the Lónyays invited me to the Auwinkel for the whole day. Pesth Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi Sztregova

It was not the press of my occupations that kept me from doing justice to my duty and my dear occupation — writing to you — but rather that I was waiting for the conveyance, which always brings us so many signs of your love. — At last it has begun, and I eagerly seize my pen to tell you again what, feeling it so often, I have said before. The Classification has been read out. In Doctrine I am 22nd with honors, in Physics 7th with honors, in History 5th with honors, in Metaphysics 2nd with honors, in Hungarian with honors. If it is reckoned up, I stand a few places higher than last year. Balassa is three behind me in Metaphysics, Lónyay fourteen. — Benitzky twelve, Boronkay four. — In History, to the general scandal, Balassa is first — Lónyay deservedly second, Boronkay fifteenth, Benitzki thirty-third. In Physics Lónyay is first by merit, since, Physics being his favorite science, he takes five physics courses and reads them; this semester I shall be his rival. And perhaps we shall yet lift the baron from his saddle. — Only Lónyay, Luby, and I recited the whole of history, and yet he is first!! So too in Doctrine, though he got a mere tertia, a few stand before me. — But let us leave this. — I, if for no other reason then for your sake, dear Mama, have climbed high enough without any scrambling, and I hope to go higher still next year. — As for the theatre, I always saw that it makes no very good impression on minds of Károly’s and Pali’s age; it was therefore an unusual case in which I did not oppose the going, or even asked for it myself. Although I feel its good influence upon my writer’s career (for I write such verses that Lónyay and Spetykó wanted to have them put by force into the Athenaeum, and even a play, which Földvári urged me to have performed), yet I am so far from going at any cost to you that, were it the greatest of my passions, I would renounce it for your sake. I can renounce everything. — Besides, there is still time enough. — And you know, if I see my brothers and sisters not sharing well in something, I myself do not gladly share in it. My one aim is only to keep your love and to earn your contentment. — At the turner’s I now easily make snuffboxes, screws, little boxes, egg-cups, and the like myself. I would have sent you some, but whenever I make something, it is taken from me at once, and so I could not make any now. Babnigg bought music with the four silver florins that were left over. May that hard-awaited joy soon be ours, to embrace you again among us. — With this I remain your son who loves you to the death, Imre. Lónyay always lends me books to read, and the common German newspaper, and I him. [July 1839?] To Madame, Madame Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi Sztregova Dear Mama! I have just read Spányik’s enormous letter, of which there is nothing even to speak; no real harm it might cause is to be feared; at most we might fear his foolish noise and the gossip he stirs, but from him this is no great matter. — We took leave of the lectures; I gave Virozsil a Hungarian and very free-minded farewell speech in public, which he acknowledged very handsomely, and even asked me for a written copy as a keepsake; my schoolfellows too received it with such applause that they copy it for themselves head over heels. — Now only the examination remains, which I hope soon (on Friday perhaps) to get over. The clothes and so much furniture taking up three times the room, we cannot carry it all with us; Kata too would have to pay three twenties for the cab, so Palya and I thought it best to send word to Csesztve to send in a little two-ox cart; the journey will cost no more than three twenties, Kata can ride on it too, and we can take everything. We told them to have the cart here by Saturday evening. You, dear Mama, wrote that we are not to go to Keszeg, but Mary writes that you promised her we should go that way, your portrait being ready too and to be taken there; the stages are no more, nor the time; and not knowing whether your letter or Mari’s promise came first, perhaps we should go by Keszeg. — The money József took over and put away, except for the hundred in paper, that is forty silver florins, which I took over. We also got the fifty silver from Malvieux, but as we had to draw it four days early, with one silver florin deducted. — We have done all the commissions you charged us with, sending over the visiting cards; I remain your son who loves you to the death, fiad Imre. [End of June or beginning of July 1840.]

Pest To Madame Anne de Madách née de Majthényi at Sztregova

September 26, 1840. Dear Mama! Despite all the care and almost boundless attention I find here from my dear Mari’s kind affection and from Pepi’s goodness, I still feel ever more painfully the lack of a certain love, and that is those motherly arms that propped me up so unshakeably through so many heavy months. Görög was here yesterday with Argenti; poor good Pepi is still in the same state. — I have a little rash from the sweating — but for all that I could be up. — Mari was getting ready to go to Sztregova for a few days, but Pepi will not have it. Next time she means to write; but let me hope that the days spent at home, seeming as long to you as to us who remain here, may lead you into the arms of your loving son, Imre.

NB. I beg you, if you lack a conveyance, address Lónyay’s letters here by post. Keszegh To Madame Anne de Madách née de Majthényi Szakál at Sztregova

Dear Mama! The day before yesterday I took my examination in Police, Economy, and Finance, with very good success; the enormous sealed document is already in my hand. Now I am preparing with fire and steel for only the last examination. Jancsi arrived safely, but his clothes are not yet ready. I beg you, dear Mama, write me when Károly comes in, and when the assemblies begin. Mari asked me to look for a tutor for her little Pepi; I have so far found two, the one Erdősi, a doctor besides, a very modest and intelligent man, but who knows neither the piano nor French; the other plays the piano very well, is an attorney, but very flighty. — Jancsi has board at Hamza’s tavern for five silver florins a month. The law students are preparing terribly for their ball; there are white-feathered and black-feathered men among them; Luby will surely be president, and on that account he has already exchanged his room, which was very small, for that larger one not yet let, so that the deliberating commissioners may have room. — Kissing your hand, I remain your grateful son, Madách Imre. My respects to Cserny Mari. Pest, October 25, 1841. To Madame Pesth Anne de Madách née de Majthényi Vácz Sztregova Szakál

Dear Mama! I write these few lines in haste, not even knowing whether they will find you at Sztregova. By Károly and Pali I sent word to Keszeg that I shall be ready by the tenth, and you, dear Mama, in your letter sent by them, ask me to write when I shall be ready. — You write further that I should speak with Salamin about board for the year, and you send word that I should say nothing to him. So I do not know whether you already know, dear Mama, that I am awaiting the conveyance hourly with impatience. On Tuesday I took the last examination in the law of the land, very well. Now Huszár Károly is here. Yesterday I was at Veresvár with Hamza. Almássy, who is under bankruptcy proceedings, married the box-keeper’s daughter; Bujánovics cheated Trcstyánszky of fifteen florins. Kissing Mari and Nincsi, I remain your grateful son, Madách Imre. To Madame Pesth Anne de Madách née de Majthényi per Waizen Sztregova Szakál Saturday Dear Mama! Jancsi has just arrived at last, and having done nothing — he did not have the spectacles made, did not bring the three silver florins sent for them and knows nothing of them; of the eight volumes of my dramatic library left with Károly and Pali he brought home only three, the rest being lost. The little table is still not ready. From good Mari I received yesterday her lovely handiwork, and I do not even know how to thank her for her dear lines. — I do work a little now, but my appointment has probably not come because the lord-lieutenant is away. — I have written these few lines only in haste, as the time of the assembly will soon be here, and before then I must go to the old lady, who has already sent here four times to say she has some business with me, although I was at her house the day before yesterday too. I remain to the death your grateful son, Imre.

I kiss Nincsi, Pepi, Panka. [December 1841?] B. Gyarmat To Madame Madame Anne de Madách née de Majthényi at Sztregova

Dear Mama! The carts came in last evening, but I still cannot write of the ball, for ninety-nine reasons; the first being that it will only be next Sunday. — There was indeed a ball last Sunday too, for the benefit of the infant-asylum, but in it were mostly only Gyarmat people, and I, my throat aching a little, did not go out of the room that day, lest I come to harm; for I am much afraid of a sore throat, on the ground that the passage is narrowest there. I sent at once for Bajntner, but now I have nothing wrong with me at all. I will write of the next ball’s success at once; just now they are only handing out running-bills to the prisoners at twenty-five apiece. — The joiner thought the money too little. — Since I had your dear letter I have not spoken with Gellén, so of the Fábiánka suit I know nothing. Of Dolány he says it would not have been worth buying, the more so as Szentivanyi was determined to buy it at any cost. To confer about Kelecsény he will pay his respects at Sztregova. Kissing Nincsi and your hands, I remain to the death your grateful son, Madách Imre.

B. Gyarmat, Friday, 1841. B. Gyarmat To Madame Madame Anne de Madách née de Majthényi at Sztregova

1841 Dear Mama! The appointment, as I wrote, has indeed not come; but they say one must remind the lord-lieutenant repeatedly, otherwise he forgets everything; I, however, do get notarial work from Sréter. When the assemblies were over I moved in to live with him; he gave me a separate room, is very kind, comes every evening and chats, pacing up and down until supper. — He praised my first piece of work greatly, saying that no beginning clerk had ever worked so well. — His library stands in my room, and he has given me the use of it. — At present, besides Nagy, only Okolicsányi is here as articled clerk, but now he too has gone to the Heves restoration. We dine at one, sup at nine. The household consists of one hussar, a cook, a maidservant, and a man-of-all-work. — I have just been at the Szerémis’, where Bory Pál and his wife were. The old lady invited me to dinner twice, once with Sréter. — Mari happily escaped her watchfulness — we were just at dinner when she was called out. — But however much I may wish it now, I still cannot go to Sztregova, since Nagy too is getting ready for Pest, so that at least someone may remain here; and therefore please send in for me only a week before Christmas. A great trouble too is that you have not yet sent the promised trunk, and so I must keep my outer clothes on a mere table and my linen in my travelling-bag; please send it in as soon as you can. The old lady also sends word that the horses and the coachman are no longer needed; I do not know what she means, she says she does not know herself. She keeps pressing me whether you got the curd she sent; I have even said it was very welcome — otherwise, had I known what she meant to send, I would have held her back. I have paid Garba, but the little book is not here; he even gave back some seven silver florins, which I put away. Kissing your hand, I remain I kiss Nincsi. your grateful son, Imre.

Madame Madame B. Gyarmath Anne de Madách, née de Majthényi per Szakál at Sztregova

Monday Dear Mama! I have arrived here safely, but dreadful confusions are brewing. My throat too aches now only very little. — The noble companions listed in the enclosed roll I beg you to have summoned together for noon tomorrow; give them goulash and wine, and on the hills start them on their way here on two villein carts, please. Give Bory Lajos a couple of twenties in his hand, so that where they halt he may buy them wine, that they may arrive by evening. Here there will be care taken of them. I write in confusion, for all about me is confusion; kissing your hand, I remain your loving and grateful son, Madách Imre. To Madame Madame Anne de Madách née de Majthényi at Sztregova

Dear good Mama! Yesterday I spoke in the Diet with perfect success. Amid extraordinary applause and acclaim, that day in the town, in the taverns and coffee-houses, they spoke of nothing else; and all this was the harder because the subject had already been threshed for two weeks, the public was sick even of hearing it, and to find something new is a double feat. The newspapers that appeared this morning I have sent. My speech will appear in three foreign German papers too, and in a separate pamphlet in Hungarian and German; I will send some of these home. It is true it did my health a little harm, in so far as from the agitation my heartbeat grew stronger; but Kovács too had such joy in the success that he forgave me for it, ordered me not to go to the session for two days and to take soothing drops, and all will be well. I kiss your hands together with the little children, my respects to the rest, and begging your love still for the future, I am to the death your grateful son, Madách Imre.

The papers I sent please put away, and have them shown to my friend Sréter Miklós too. — After my speech every more notable deputy rose from his place, came to me to shake my hand, to congratulate me, and for some quarter of an hour the deliberation was broken off. During my speech my friends feared I would be taken ill, I was so extraordinarily pale, as they say. — MADÁCH TO MARI

Quel présent peut-on faire à notre âge Sinon le coeur où vous regnez. Agréez-le comme un heureux présage Il est constant chères soeurs, vous le verrez. Imre, Károly, Pali. (1829?)

Dear Mari! I read your letter with regret, which told me of poor Pepi’s illness. And only this one hope consoles me, that I may still embrace him here in December (according to his promise). Christmas Christs are not yet on sale; Károly has sent the chocolate, and I only resent (like the young Madame Fábik) that you did not entrust your commissions to me. (To squeeze a compliment, vulgo a lie, out of my pen, I must say very briefly) that it is a most agreeable, delight-filled occupation to do the commissions of so charm-laden and gracious a lady as you are — (bravo, this came off well, perhaps for the first time in my life, I quite broke into a sweat over it) — for against letter-writing and chocolate I have a peculiar antipathy — though it is much shaken by that joy and delight to be able to speak to you or with you even in such (I will not say short, but) ugly-written lines too — (this much compliment is far too much already; only do not grow vain of it, for it is the very recognition of merit that speaks in me, and lo, here is another — these flow very well from the pen when we write to one we love) — but in this way I should never finish — so God be with you; kissing Pepi a thousand times, I remain here in Pest — trouble enough that I cannot come to you, your elder brother — or younger, as you please, Imre. Verte subito. I have no pounce, so I must dry my writing at the fire; but it is not so black from candle-smoke, but from the smoke of my heart’s fire — n.b. firstly if I have a heart, for indeed I never reasoned this out; secondly if it really burns; thirdly if it smokes too. — Pest, according to certain prophecies, is to sink tomorrow; on the street corners slips, vulgo notices, were posted up, that it is forbidden to spread this news, and several accomplices have even been arrested for it, if it is true; well, then I will tell you how it was; if it is not true, so much the better — but I love news; of this too there will at least be something to talk about; one need not philosophize about how many libraries there were before the Flood, or how many hairs there are in the old gentleman’s wig. Imre

To Madame Pest Madame Marie de Huszár née de Madách par Waizen Keszegh

Long live her fair daughters. Auróra.

Die schreit auf! denn wer von euch verstopft, Wenn laut Gerücht spricht, wohl des Hörens zu langt. W. Shakespeare.

Dear Mari! Not so much to fulfil my promise as out of a sweet attachment, I shall narrate the whole of the merrymaking held at the Lónyays’. If you find a free minute at Gyarmat that you can devote to this trifle, read it through, and you will see a mirror in which everything is faithfully given back. — This is the very reason I beg you: do not show it to anyone, nor mention what is written within, lest it get back to the ears of those of whom it speaks — since I do not yet know in what color and from what point of view I shall paint these matters. For my scrawl too I beg pardon, but let it be enough that it is from a head that has not slept itself out. Hear, then:

I.

The clock strikes two; the frizzled professor comes in; then it comes to my mind that there is a lesson too, which yet could not fit into my head, this being full of the coming ball. — We sit down like — like — no comparison comes to mind, so let it be without one. — When with all charm I hear my honest name sung from his graceful lips, this ancestral utterance rebounds into the deepest of my ear, and I begin to answer — oh wonder — oh amazement — without any reading at all — excellenter. Having got through this too, I took it for a good omen; and scarcely hearing the first stroke of four, I was already down the stairs, and at home stood with a whole connoisseur’s air before the Trumeau lit by two candles. All that art can offer to assist negligent nature was in my hand, and I snatching among it like Bernard after the thunderbolt, to the end that in the evening I might appear classically in the best edition and the finest binding. Every fold, every button, after the most exact arrangement, drew from me a contented smile; and after my hair too was in fitting order, and the patchouli around me spread its ambrosial scent, my carriage halted before the gate; I got in, and we galloped off. — It struck seven as I floated down the steps, like a fragrant spring zephyr — toward the flowers. — Taking on the last polish in Alenyus’s room, we went into the hall.

II.

Our first business was naturally a bow before the master and mistress of the house, and a word or two for the sake of some formalities. — But after this we passed on into a little side room, in which was a great number of representatives of the dancing fair sex; many indeed might have been able to persuade the credulous that the fair sex is not the fair sex. — But these were here only for the sake of feminine policy, that beside them the fair might be the fairer, as the alabaster face beneath the black veil. — For a while we stood plunged in mute admiration, like — like the — like the calf at the new gate — but indeed only he can imagine this spectacle who has travelled through lovely spring valleys covered with flowers, where one delight dims another, while up on the crag the ruins of ancient greatness smile down upon the passing purple of foolish splendor. And the wanderer is reminded by the ugly representatives of a better age, a fairer world, of the nothingness of splendor. — We exchanged single words; these found an echo, until the whole became a scattered medley. Besides the two daughters of the house — who in one figure seemed to me to manifest best the two opposing forces of the magnet — there were present Baroness Jenny Szepessy, Ilona Takátsy, Clara Sizányi, Eufémia, Lizka, and one more whose name I do not know (the stone statue), two little girls, and other fair ones(?), eh? fair! — they say — let it be, fair then — on whom I wore out neither the soles of my lacquered shoes, nor the flower of my eloquence and my world-famous abundance of beauty-sayings (compliments). — Of ladies too there were several, one of them danced: Glokovska. — The dancers, besides the four masters of the house and my own lordship, were Beniczky, Kazinczi, Balassa, Jékelfalussi Kende, Hertelendi Takátsi, Jankovich Ambrus, Márjási — and others; lady dancers some fifteen, gentlemen twenty-three.

III.

All at once the band of musicians struck up, so that the heavens started and the earthly bounds gave back their voice. (A piano and a fiddle.)

Rows of dancers throng Through the crowded halls, And the angel of joy Glides along over their breasts, etc.

After two lively waltzes we danced a française, twelve pairs, I with the daughter of the house, with whom in the foregoing waltzes too I danced the most, as propriety naturally required. — In this dance there was so much confusion that often, just when I talked the most, my turn came, and I did not even know which figure we were doing — and yet, without praise be it said, I caused the least confusion. — Waltzes came again. The castle ruins stood desolate: Bare and bleak the autumn fields, No beast howls there, no bird alights.

They looked at me, as the drowning man at the rescue-boat, but I had not a drop of mind to row, and I too looked up at them, sighing:

But you must live, O homeland, and forever bloom like spring, Or trembling on your ruins I should crumble all to nothing — My homeland! My homeland! —

Came the cotillion; I went for a lady dancer, but no longer got one, or whatever. I drew back into the last room, a little intermezzo lately occurred giving matter enough for a thousand reflections — but I had no rest, they kept choosing me; I retired into the last room — yet there too they found out the — the — I do not know what title to give myself. — This too was over after half an eternity; again a waltz, and again a française, for which I no longer got a lady. — After this came, more patrio, the supper: "Long live the master of the house," which in Hungarian means as much as: let us drink. Post coenam stabis, aut mille passus meabis — that is in Hungarian: when we have eaten, let us drink. — NB. They brought every kind of refreshment and pastry, ice-cream too, before supper; in a side room stood a table laid with pastry, and there was such a tea-machine as Czadersky described. —

IV.

It was a soupé, not a supper. I ate nothing but Strasbourg pâté and Italian salad, this last a peculiar dish, very good, but the oil-drops swimming here and there in it bad to the point of shuddering, like the pearls(?) about many a good lady dancer. Tart and sweet, Always mixed.

Yet for all that this too was pleasant, for it reminded me of the Serbs —

I greet the nation Czuczor Long live the Serbs!!! Trembled the heart of Slovak and of Russian Horvát Cir.

NB. The tea here is very superb — there were twelve bottles of champagne; many a one, if he sat down alone to the table, rose with a second self — exempla sunt odiosa (examples are hateful). At this ball two pairs also tumbled, Jékelfalussi with Clara Sizányi, and Jancsi I do not know with whom. — Jancsi had a fit of the ague, but got up again; with little Lizka the Hungarian went prettily, and this last danced the Cachucha too very beautifully. — Just after supper I hastened to procure a lady dancer, and engaged myself with Etelka for the cotillion, and likewise, in case there should still be a française, for that too. The cotillion draws near; I, in full security, smiling, chat to the world, when there fall upon me, like two enraged lions, two fully-titled fellow dancers. The one, in a fury, throws it in my teeth that Etelka had already promised herself to him for the cotillion when I invited her; this one having been with much ado pacified, the other steps forth, that he had invited Phémi and that she had told him she was already engaged with Madách. You can imagine my dreadful case. — To my fortune the powers of heaven so willed it that my pretending lady dancer Phémi was taken ill and had to leave the dance-hall — I breathed more freely. — The cotillion too being over, after a couple of waltzes came the française. I go for my lady dancer, when I see her standing in the row with Balassa — I trot over; I, as a jurist, know quid juris. He excuses himself, that in thought he had forgotten his promise; I let her choose; after long hesitation, as the earlier-promised, she chooses me — ah, but already we are the ninth pair — one must step off the field of battle — my lady dancer, wishing to use the occasion, steps back to satisfy Balassa too, but another pair forestalls her, and we — danced. There were two more waltzes, and this too was over — everything was over at four o’clock. In the Italian salad at supper there were many sea-fishes, mostly cod. — I was glad to find in the morning my friends in full number — not one was missing.

V.

At four o’clock we took our leave, after the ladies had mostly gone. One part of the dancers went home, one part slept at Jankovics’s, who lives near the Lónyays; I at last, and at Beniczki Menyus’s, lay down on a few cushions in the middle of the room. The professor, with all comfort, undressed and lay down in his bed, and slept despite our din; while we three, with Bertzi, spread on the floor, kept watch till seven in the morning amid jests, laughter, versifying, observations, remarks, plans, fantasies, and noise. Beniczki then pulled on Lónyay Menyhért’s boots and trudged home with a long nose; while I, getting into a carriage, galloped home, lay down at once, and at a quarter to two, after I had already in my sleep turned away three visits, I was woken by the fourth, who was (oh wonder) the long-nosed Beniczky. — — So it was — so it passed — and now, besides a few memory-fancies, scarcely one or two dead, trifling things mark that it was real, not a deceiving dream-fancy. [1840] Your brother who loves you to the death, Emők.

February 1, 1861. Dear friend! Herewith I send the genealogy confirmed by the judgment of the Royal Court, which, however, as I see, comprises only the main branch from which we descend, omitting all the other extinct branches — and so probably what you know is more than I can teach you. — The last generations stand thus:

* Daughters: Mária, wife of Huszár József, later wife of Balog Károly, Hungarian colonel; Anna, wife of Huszár Sándor.

The Libercsey diary and the register of the archive are carried by the wagon-post; I shall be glad if you find anything useful in them. Till then your true friend embraces you, Madách Imre.

Herewith I send the Libercsey diary and the register of the family archive. Until now I have been so occupied that I could not give myself the pleasure of visiting you. Today I shall be at Buda, but henceforth I shall often look in at your library. Here too is a copy of that coat of arms which is to be seen on one side of the altar in the Sztregova Lutheran church, and which I hold to be the Rimay arms. Embracing you till we meet again, your true friend, Madách Imre. Pest, April 13, 1861. To the Worshipful Nagy Iván, University Librarian, respectfully, Here in town.

I should need the names of two French patriots, soldiers, statesmen, or writers who were born in Alsace or Lorraine. I myself believe Kellermann and Neckert to be such, but having no reference books by me, I do not know. Please catch some such for me. Pest, August 2, your true friend, 1861. Madách Imre. To the Worshipful Nagy Iván, with friendly respect, Here in town, 19 Újvilág Street.

November 2, 1861. Honored, dear friend! That I answer your letter so late, do not think it gave me no great joy. — Whatever the applause of the public (if there will be any applause at all), the sympathetic remembrance of an old friend is far more welcome. This Tragedy of Man has a peculiar history. — Truly it is so: habent sua fata libelli — books have their fates. — It has been finished for more than a year now. I mentioned to several acquaintances that I had written a poem in which God, the devil, Ádám, Luther, Danton, Aphrodite, witches, and God knows what all play their parts; that it begins with the creation, plays out in heaven, over the whole earth, in space — they smiled at it, but no one would read it. — At last, this past spring, I read it aloud to our friend Szontagh Pál, and he urged me to give it to Arany for his judgment. — I gave it to him; however, right on the first page, God speaks thus:

The great work is accomplished, yes, And all so meshes that I do believe For aeons it will turn on fair Before one cog-tooth needs renewing. —

There is no other such frivolous passage in the whole work, but this one was there, and at it Arany’s aesthetic sense took such offense that he laid the thing aside and for months did not even glance at it, until at Jámbor Pál’s request and urging he took it up again, and it pleased him. — While we were together in Pest, the manuscript was with Arany; I have no other copy that I could have shown you, and I had the less wish to reveal its whereabouts because the long detention held out no great hope of success. Hence it is that you knew nothing of it. — And to boast that I am writing this and that, and then nothing is ever born, would wound my vanity. — On the question of nationality I prepared a speech, but events prevented my delivering it in the Diet. I showed it to Eötvös, and he found it so excellent that, as he said, it is impossible to prepare a better one on this subject. Pompéri will publish it one of these days in his paper, and I think as a separate pamphlet too; I commend it to your friendly attention, you who showed me so lively a sympathy as I shall never be able to forget. You will find in it too the data you asked of me. — I had meant now to run up to Pest, but such a hoarseness has seized me that I cannot go; and to the assembly the day after tomorrow I go only that they may not think I am perhaps afraid, and may see that it is not that I cannot speak. — If I get to you, you may be sure I shall seek you out; but you, however often you pass this way, do not gladden your friends with a visit — this reproach Szentiványi Bogomér shares with me; he complained bitterly. — I kiss your dear wife’s hands, and beg you keep me still in your valued friendship, being your true friend, Madách Imre.

December 23, 1861. Dear friend! Already from the lumpish bulk of the packet you can see that I burden you with a request. — First of all I send enclosed a tragedy entitled Mózes (not the bishop of Beszterce), with which I should like to compete for the prize set by the learned Academy, the deadline for submission being, if I know rightly, the 31st of December. I had great troubles with it. First I was late in the writing of it, so that I could scarcely finish it, and so I had no time to let it rest a few months, when I might then myself have judged more justly whether it was worth competing with or not. — But thus, scarcely finished, I had to have it copied out head over heels, while the intoxication of bias still held me — that bias which every writer, I believe, feels toward his work right after its completion, as the lover at the first embraces of a new conquest. In consequence of this I truly dread that I am sending in a work that has not succeeded. I would gladly have sent it to Arany János, that he might judge whether it is worth competing with or not, and act accordingly on my behalf. From the peculiar friendly inclination he has shown me I might safely have hoped for this. — But for this too there is no time, and besides I feared that he too might perhaps be on the adjudicating committee, and so must not be allowed to know of the work. — To my troubles, finally, this too was added, that it was scandalously copied out, in a hand that frightens one off reading and makes an unfavorable impression in advance. I am sorry I did not ask you to have it copied, but that too is over now. — I send you this work now with the request that you first have it bound together, as the rules require. Further, that if there is still time, read it through — and judge, not as an expert, for you do not work in this kind, and do not wish to appear as such, by your letter either, but as a cultivated member of the public, judge with all openness whether it is worth competing with or not, and act accordingly. — Mózes again is so grand a subject, and bound up with such difficulties in bringing dramatic unity into it, as in its own kind The Tragedy of Man was. With this too I feel that one false step can make it ridiculous, one right conception great. I feel that this work too is of another sort than our usual plays, but whether it is better than they or infinitely worse I cannot yet decide. — The difficulty of the subject is shown by this too, that it is impossible the working of it should not already have crossed the minds of a hundred and a hundred poets — and yet, to my knowledge, no one has so far written it. — If any of your learned friends, among whom in your last letter too you named such names as merit respect, should still have leisure likewise to read my work and would take this trouble — always supposing him indifferent in the prize question — it would be a very great reassurance to me. Thus you would proceed by your double judgment, for upon my soul, and do not take it for idle modesty, I am not able yet to judge the worth of this work, and I should be loath to compete with some absurdity; let it at least be good, even if a better beats it. — The motto-letter likewise I beg you to seal up, for the case of submission. — In one of the three or four years before the revolution I wrote a drama, "Férfi és Nő" (Man and Woman), or some such was its title, and it treated the story of Herakles and Deianira. I was still a young man then; the experience of life too was wanting for the writing of a complete drama, but I think at least that fine ideas were laid down in it in plenty, at least if I shall now be as satisfied with them as I was then. This work too I submitted then to compete, and as usual I did not keep my copy. Now the plan of a similar subject occupies me. Could you have it copied for me from the Academy’s archive, and could you get also that opinion or critique which the judges of the competition pronounced upon it? — This would be of the greatest use to the writer, and these motives we never see brought to light. — If the copying can be managed, take steps in it, please, and write me what I shall pay; I will send it with thanks, together with the price of binding Mózes. — Your valued invitation regarding your scholarly journal honored me greatly. Oh, if I could but answer it worthily. — Could you use a treatise on phrenology? notandum, I am convinced of the truth of this science, and so the treatise too would be in this sense. Naturally, even if you answer this question by saying you can use such a treatise, this still does not imply that, when you see the calf and it does not please you, you must for that publish it anyway. — But it is only the principle in question. — Finally, since I have once begun with requests, that they may go in one breath to the point of impudence, I beg you to subscribe with the enclosed money:

fr xr 1. Magyarország, half-year 9 2. Gazdasági Lapok, half-year 5 3. Magyar Tudományos Értekező, half-year 4 4. Bolond Miska, half-year 3 5. Növilág, half-year 3 in all 24 fr. The first four numbers under the address of Madách Imre, A. Sztregova, post Szakál. The fifth number under the address of the gracious lady Madách-Majthényi Anna, A. Sztregova, post Szakál. — Forgive me my long letter and my many requests. Love your true friend, Madách Imre.

January 14, 1862. Dear friend! Many thanks for the fulfilment of the requests contained in my earlier letter. — One, however, went into forgetfulness, at least I think so, for you make no mention of it. I asked you, namely, to be so kind as to have copied for me from the Academy’s archive the drama entitled "Férfi és Nő," competed for in one of the two years preceding the revolution and treating the story of Herakles, since I have it no longer, with the judges’ opinion if possible; I could now make use of many an idea for a work of like sense. As soon as you write its price, I will send it with thanks for the copying. — Herewith I send the 30 xr for the binding, with thanks. — The phrenological article I cannot promise for certain by the end of the month, for though much of my preliminary work is ready, I want to make it very well, and this branch not being, to my knowledge, yet treated in Hungarian literature, to introduce it rightly. — In the course of next month, however, you shall surely have it. — Now I am in great haste. I embrace you, and beg you love me still, your true friend, Madách Imre. A. Sztregován February 9, 1863. Dear, honored friend! Forgive me if I ask you to fulfil a commission which falls very far from the sphere of your scholarly occupations, into the prosaic world; but knowing that you are not only a scholar but my friend, it is from such a one that I expect its fulfilment. — Please find out, or have your brother Zsiga find out — who, I know, will gladly go about my business — precisely from the Hungarian insurance company: that I, who am just now forty years old, if I should wish to insure a person at present just twenty-four years old in such a way that after my death, whenever it may come, he should receive once and for all 1000 florins in current value paid out, what I should have to pay the company each year while I live; and that in such a way, and whether there would be a difference in this, if in the possible case that the younger should die before me all payment made up to then would remain to the company’s benefit, or whether this clause, having in any case little likelihood, would have no, or very slight, influence on the sum of the yearly payment. — The second case, on which I likewise ask enlightenment: for a child now one and a half years old, that on reaching its twentieth year it should receive a few hundred florins for me, how much I should have to pay each year to the association for every hundred florins, in such a way that with my death intervening the payment would cease; and what, in such a manner that with the child’s death intervening the sum paid in remains to the company’s benefit, and what if it does not so remain. — All these I beg you to be so kind as to write me beforehand in clear and exact answers — the sending of pamphlets and printed matter does not lead to my purpose; I can neither make them out nor like to trouble with them; and likewise I ask of you the whole procedure needed in transacting the matter. — Shortly I shall send you an open letter addressed to you and intended for the feuilleton of the Ország, which, if you wish, you may give to Greguss, and if you do not wish, you do not. — For the rest, begging pardon for the trouble, commended to your friendship and awaiting your earliest answer, I am, respectfully, your true friend, Madách Imre. P.S. The enclosed letters please send according to their addresses; I do not know the numbers of their lodgings.

September 9, 1863. Dear friend! Forgive me for troubling you with a request. Emich Gusztáv bound himself by contract to 600 florins for the second edition of "Az ember tragédiája," half of which should have been payable last June. However, I was always meaning to go to Pest, and so did not press the payment. Now, however, I am in great need of the money, and so please be so kind as to receive it at once and send it to me as soon as possible by post. The sum to be paid would be 300 florins, from which is to be deducted the subscriptions procured on my behalf by Emich — for the first half-year to Országtükre, Bolond Miska, and Gazdasági Lapok; further 50 florins which, about a month ago, he handed to my house-tutor against my own receipt. Finally the price of four children’s books. — Take over the said receipt of mine and destroy it, hand over the present general receipt, and forgive me again, I beg, for the trouble. For the rest, keep me in your friendly kind disposition, I who am, respectfully, your true friend, Madách Imre. Turn over. [There is no text on the other side.]

November 1, 1863. Dear friend! Following my request concerning Mr. Emich, I have waited until today for the fruit of your kind promise. But now so urgent a necessity commands that I trouble you anew, which I can no longer put off. — A bill of mine at the Pest Savings Bank falls due on November 4th; I must pay 120 florins that day, otherwise they will protest it, which I would not take upon myself even for a far larger sum. I beg you therefore most earnestly: tell Emich this circumstance, and if he should be the cause of my coming into such unpleasantness, this I could never forgive him, and it would truly be an unbecoming act of his. — Therefore let him at least lay down this sum at once, and be so kind as to hand it immediately to Rákóczy János (most surely to be found in the Savings Bank building), who handles this affair of mine, and to send me the rest as soon as possible, for the need of money here is impossible to describe. What one counts on for certain, one does not get. — I lay that Savings Bank matter much to your heart, for if I were left in disgrace I cannot say how greatly it would shame me. Counting surely on your friendship and begging it still for the future, I am, respectfully, your true friend, Madách Imre.

February 17, 1864. Dear friend! That I did not thank you by letter for your kind, friendly action was truly a fault, but by no means ascribe it to ingratitude or discontent, only to that accursed laziness in writing from which I always mean with firm resolve to free myself, and into which I fall again, and which has already caused me so much trouble. — Herewith I send Emich’s contract, his recent account, and on the contract my receipt for the whole purchase price. Since, however, there is talk in it of a possible third edition to be issued, please leave this contract with him and take to yourself the one he holds, until you hand it to me in person at some occasion. Besides this, let him redeem my bill for 240 florins, and do you destroy it; for the current first half-year of "Bolond Miska" let him deduct the subscription, and have the numbers so far sent, likewise the following numbers left over from last year and never arrived here, which I hereby reclaim, in so far as they were not confiscated by the authorities: 2, 3, 24, 25, 45 — these of course gratis. — The money left over please send me by post. — As for my larger work now in preparation, of which the papers have spoken: that, if the Kisfaludy Society judges it worthy and wishes to take it among its publications, I give it to them out of gratitude. But I am now occupied with collecting, correcting, and arranging my smaller poems, which, in the form of Petőfi’s edition, would make about as much as two volumes of it. True, I carry this on now negligently, for I do not know whether it would be good weather for their publication; that they are at least of a somewhat different flavor — of their merit I cannot be my own judge — than the usual verses, of this a few pieces that came out in the Részvét könyve and the Koszorú can give Mr. Emich some idea; if he wishes, I shall publish more of them in the Koszorú and the Fővárosi Lapok — and if he is inclined to the publication, and communicates acceptable terms to me through you, in Petőfi-form edition by the sheet, with a fixed number of copies, I shall hasten this polishing work, and at his desire put the publication into his hands. For if it can be, I should like to stay with him in the future too; and though I make an exception this once with the work named above, of that too, if God help, the second edition, like that of my first work, shall be Mr. Emich’s — to which the closed circle of the Kisfaludy Society, drawn by the number of its patrons, causes very little hindrance. — Finally, regarding the enclosed letter, I would beg Mr. Emich, if he knows where, to dispatch it by its address, for that gentleman to whom this letter is addressed wrote me from Pozsony, from the Green Tree, where of course he has long since not been, and I do not know where to write to him. If Mr. Emich knows the way, he greatly obliges me by letting me know his address through you for future occasions.* This long letter, shifting a hundred burdens onto you so lightly, is not only proof of how greatly your earlier action satisfied me, but at the same time a witness of how firm is my faith in your friendship, that you will not take it amiss. — For the rest, please keep me still in your valued friendship, I who am, in true respect, your faithful friend, Madách Imre. With the redeeming of the bill let him not wait till its falling due; let him redeem it at once. [On a separate envelope] To the Worshipful Nagy Iván, Librarian of the Royal Hungarian University, Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, respectfully, At Pest.

* Since that gentleman to whom my letter is addressed is a writer, perhaps in the worst case he might be found through some Paris bookseller. —

TO PACZOLAY JÁNOS

February 23, 1851. Honored, Worshipful Sir! I once already made bold to trouble you with a few lines, but since, in answer to my request, I received no reply, I think my letter went astray, and so I hereby renew my request: which is, trusting in the Worshipful Sir’s kind friendship and in the goodwill you have shown me on several occasions, that you would be so kind as to procure for me, by way of loan, this sum — whether from the High and Mighty Chapter or from some other such institution of public purpose — for the payment of my old and more pressing debts (which come altogether to one thousand six hundred silver florins, but which on the one hand press the harder for the greater interest, and on the other are such as I should like to pay off as soon as possible, since the persons concerned have need of it themselves). — By this the Worshipful Sir would oblige me inexpressibly, and I should strive to prove my gratitude, both toward the High and Mighty Chapter and toward the Worshipful Sir, within my poor small sphere. — For the rest, I believe that both my personal credit and the necessary and requisite securities are such that, by virtue of them, this small sum I might justly claim. Begging your valued reply as soon as possible, I am, Worshipful Sir, your humble servant, Madách Imre.

To the Worshipful Paczolay János, Counsel of the Esztergom Chief Chapter, at Esztergom.

TO PAJOR ISTVÁN

Dear friend Pista! Though you sent your verse-piece to me anonymously, I recognized it at once as yours by the Buda People’s Theatre, and truly delighted in it as a very well-turned satire. In return I too will make you a little gift. In the sixth number of the Nővilág the contributors to the Koszorú are mocked as Schulfuchses, and in the same number this little article too stands, roughly thus: "Rhymes: The other day, walking in the Szécsény grove and thinking of the Koszorú, the following rhymes came to my mind: apa, kapa; bátor, gátőr; Andor, kalandor; daru, saru; Apor, kapor; ökör, gyötör; botló, kotló. In these there is, true, no sense, but they rhyme front and back, crosswise and every which way; I therefore commend them to the contributors of the Koszorú, and especially to our tireless and zealous Szászes — Károly, Béla, Péter, Gerő, Tuhutum, etc. — that they make of them a rhyme-piece for the Koszorú." To this I wrote Vajda such a letter: "The proffered rhymes I received with thanks; I believe I have succeeded in bringing sense into them too, and, shaped into rhythm, I send it you here, offered to the Nővilág." Szász Tuhutum.

RHYME-PIECE

This is what good Father Kazinczy bids you know: That to your hand belongs no lyre, but only the hoe; And though in politics too you are very bold, Your head’s no full wine-cellar, just an empty, broken hold. A name of strength is this fair name, Andor — So I cannot call you that, you scribbling adventurer; Your word soars haughty like a flying crane, While on your foot the sandal sinks into the mire and stain; The dust you stir but swirls about you, idle, poor, Yet has no seasoning, at the most some dill, no more; How could it be otherwise, you brawling ox, Who with your bellowing forever only mocks, Stumbling here and there with such great clumsiness, Forever brooding, but never hatching — kotló’s nothingness.

A copy I sent to Arany too, who laughed heartily over it with many, and will publish it. And I, thanking you for your remembrance, embrace you once more and am your true friend, Madách Imre, by his own hand. [April 1863.]

Dear Pista! At first I was getting ready for Gyarmat, and after the new year I suffered a severe inflammation of the eyes, and this was the cause that I can answer your very dear letter only now, writing being permitted me now. The sharing of your spirited verses procures me a pleasant day each time, and to be able to read several of them together, by your kindness, would be a double joy to me — both for the entertainment they give, and because I should take it as one more token of your valued friendship. And though I in general do not, and cannot, hold myself a judge of art, for my aesthetic principle is very simple and short, knowing no other than this: "beautiful is that which pleases, that which does our longing good" — and so, even if you wished it, you could make no use at all of my judgment; yet if, on the other hand, you wish to do me a dear thing, I take you at your word and await your newer compositions. I confess, indeed, that I should like it still better if, conformably to the rules of society, you did not send them to me as orphan children, but presented them in due order with their father, who could tell me many a spirited thing besides that he does not send word of by his children. For the rest, enclosed in your valued friendship, I am, with respect, your true friend, Madách Imre, by his own hand.

To the Worshipful Pajor István, attorney, at B.-Gyarmat.

TO POMPÉRY JÁNOS

November 2, 1861. Honored, dear friend! I have just learned from our friend Bérczy that Baron Eötvös handed you the work I prepared on the question of nationality. — This I am very glad of; even had he given it back to me, this was my intention with it. I only beg you, bring it out as soon as possible, for we do not know "either the day or the hour" when they may say this is no longer permitted. — However, since the said work was most greatly approved and praised by the most competent of critics — whose single approving remark might already rouse just pride in me — by Baron Eötvös, I should like to see it brought out as a separate pamphlet too. The offer you made through Bérczy, that you would send me 300 separate copies, is not necessary. Send me only 10 such separate publications, but print some 500 copies and bring them into trade as publisher. For my own part I desire nothing else than that you have it produced in a neater form and on better paper than the Diet speeches. — If you can manage the taking-over of my work into some German paper, or carry out a German edition, I shall take it as a new proof of your friendship. True, besides the 10 copies, as honorarium I desire as soon as possible your photograph and a letter in your own hand, long since promised but till now waited for in vain. Then I shall at once send your valued paper another article, which is already ready, and which I have striven to prepare as well as I possibly could. But if you do not make haste, you will probably no longer be able to use it. — For the rest, thanking you too for the friendship lately shown, with the communicating of the appeal regarding the tutor, commended to your valued friendship, I am, with respect, your true friend, Madách Imre. P.S. You may set out my name.

TO RÁKÓCZY JÁNOS

August 10, 1864. Dear friend János! Never yet have I caused such trouble as on this occasion, and I believe I shall cause none henceforth either. True, you wrote me the due date in your first letter, but since I received money only in May, I thought the four months too could be reckoned only from then, and so, scarcely looking at it, I always had September in mind as the first payment deadline. — Now for a longer time my occupations sent me hither and thither, and so your letters came to my knowledge only now. Now again you did not enclose a bill in your letter; I could do nothing else than send the money here, and I beg you, send me at once a prepared bill. Darvas Lajos’s friendship and noble magnanimity, I believe, has averted the trouble in any case. This, however, did not surprise me in him at all — knowing him, I could expect nothing else, though another man would scarcely do it. — Material harm, I hope, came of it none, or if so, that of course I will make good. — Now, for future payment, I beg you to be so kind as to send a ready bill, and now I beg only this: forgive me this once my omission, made in any case from my negligent, though not wholly inexcusable, fault; and I am, commended to your valued friendship, with respect, your true friend, Madách Imre. TO LUDOVIC RIGOUDAUD

February 17, 1864. Monsieur! Si le libraire M. Emich n’avait pas tardé de m’envoyer votre lettre — il y a déjà longtemps que j’aurais pu vous remercier de l’intention par laquelle vous allez m’honorer en vous chargeant de la traduction de « La tragédie de l’homme ». — Si vous souhaitez à cet égard quelques renseignements — vous n’aurez qu’à vous adresser directement à moi. Vous me mettrez par là dans l’agréable situation de pouvoir tout à l’heure satisfaire à votre demande. — C’est l’adresse: Emeric de Madách à A. Sztregova, la dernière poste: Szakál. — Du reste je me signe avec respect Votre humble serviteur [The name cut out.] [Note on the 3rd page of the letter] The name I cut out at the request of the widow of Madách Károly, and sent it to her for someone, 1873. Turn over: [Note on the 4th page of the letter] This letter Madách Imre sent to me with the request that I hand or send it to "A Monsieur Ludovic Rigoudaud," a French journalist then staying in Pest. However, the said person had by then already left Pest, and no one could tell his address. In this case Madách Imre wished the letter to be left with me. Nagy Iván. TO SZÁSZ KÁROLY

September 12, 1862. Especially honored, dear friend! I trust that you, who held my work worthy to be occupied with so thoroughly and with so well-meaning a disposition, will not take it amiss of me if I address you thus familiarly. Among the notices and critiques of "Az ember tragédiája" that have appeared, to my knowledge, hitherto, yours alone was a critique, even though in it the voice of goodwill sounded well beyond the severity of the judge. (Of Erdélyi’s I have read only the first two numbers as yet, but as I see, his will be rather a philosophical study than an aesthetic critique.) Now, just as the second edition of my work is in preparation, I have studied your critique over and over again, and since on most points I had to acknowledge fully that you are right, I cannot say how hard it fell on me when at the same time I also saw that I should not be able to apply your valued remarks — which almost everywhere cut into the essence — without a complete recasting and essential reshaping of my work, and even so, who knows with what success, within those limits that set a bound to every individual’s talents. But then, perhaps it is not even the immediate aim of criticism that we should pull apart the organic whole, such as it is, already in existence, and attempt its reshaping; rather that we should learn for the future — and of this I assure you, that from your criticism I have learned, and I wish you to recognize it in another work of mine. Only two places of yours refer to single expressions. One: "Your son conceived in sin, on the purple of the throne." The other: "If on your great soul, as you call it," etc. These will be changed; with the second there is reference to other obscure places too. The writer most hardly ferrets out the obscure place, for he best understands what he meant to write. If you do not find it irksome and it falls not as a great trouble to you, I beg you most earnestly: mark out the like obscure places, that I may correct them; for of obscure phrases there can scarcely be a greater enemy than I. — I am sorry that I can at present show my true recognition and respect toward you — as toward my critic too — in fact only by these trifles; but as often as you shall hold any work of mine worthy of your critique, my gratitude shall be the greater each time, and shall grow in the same measure as your severity. I am not of those who stop their ears before criticism. In this year’s dramatic competition too I took part with Mózes, and the adjudicating committee’s opinion on the faulty foundation of my work so fully convinced me as though it were any foreign work whatever. Forgive me, I beg, my perhaps immodest request, and keep me in your kind remembrance, I who do not cease to be, with respect, Last post Szakál. your true friend, Madách Imre.

February 1, 1863. Honored, dear friend! That I have not till now thanked you for your inestimable and never sufficiently requitable kindness, with which at my request you were ready to communicate your observations on my work — the cause is that I wished to do it at once with the sending over of the second-edition book, from which you may see that your words have become flesh. However, the edition advances so slowly that I am now obliged, anticipating it, to send at least with these few lines a warm handclasp meanwhile, until on that occasion I shall justify the non-use of a few of your observations, and shall return too to a few places of your very valued critique that appeared in the Figyelő, though in any case over-favorable to me. — You see, magnanimity breeds impudence — impudence on my part, perhaps, that I intend in due time to send onto your neck a work of mine too, now begun to be polished for the press, to beg your friendly judgment and counsel. But ascribe it to yourself. One goes to the magnanimous for a gift, not to the miser. I beg you, keep me in your inclination, in whose respect I have long been, your respectful and loving friend, Madách Imre.

A. Sztregován March 18, 1863. Honored, dear friend! Herewith I send a copy of "Az ember tragédiája"; receive it kindly from me. I strove to make use of your observations as far as possible, especially to make clearer the places marked as obscure. It is very natural that those observations themselves which concern the whole structure and organism of the work — though I acknowledge their rightness too — I could note for myself only as a future direction, but could not enter so far into the reworking of the work, for I should probably have spoiled it still more. — To one such essential observation only I wish to reply, and that by no means as any anti-critique, only simply for my own justification. You say, namely, among other things, that the grand movement of the Reformation ought not to have been left out of the pictures of mankind’s history. — This I too fully share; indeed, even in the writing of my work this truth stood before me; but the Reformation proper, as victorious, I did not think I could use in the tragedy, for if I use it, I am obliged to end that too with some such disillusionment as the other scenes — namely, that this too led to no goal. — I strove therefore to use from the hard beginnings of the Reformation the struggling first germs of the working human spirit, and this I thought to attain in the Tancred and the Kepler scenes; it may be that I did it inadequately, or at least not with success — I only wished to justify myself before you, that the intention and the thought itself were there. — As to your kind promise, I take you at your word, and as soon as I am finished with the work now in hand, I shall fall upon you without any modesty, that I too may lay claim to a part of that valued time which you know so wonderfully to husband that there is some of it for everything. And if you already grant me of your time, grant me still rather a little of your love, which will be yet more precious than that, though that too is precious to the whole homeland. your respectful friend, Madách Imre. In my last letter I did indeed by a slip of the pen write Török Sz. Miklós, and scarcely had my letter gone when it suddenly came to my mind; however, I was not much anxious that you would not get my letter; I believed it impossible that, if my letter comes to T. Sz. Miklós, it should not there fall into the hands of some trousered man, and if it does, he will surely know who Szász Károly is.

TO SZENTIVÁNYI ZOLTÁN

My brother Emánuel being away from home, he cannot reply, but I will hand over your letter this very day, and he will answer. Your friend, [Added later] Madách Imre. 29/XI 85. Szentiványi Z. [On an armorial calling-card.]

TO SZONTÁGH PÁL

Many a cold, deliberating man, I think, will be scandalized at more than one world-view of the Village Reed-Pipe, at more than one principle uttered in it, and will be scandalized at those contradictions in which often two different verses stand at odds with each other on one and the same subject. To these gentlemen I say only this: that I did not write a philosophical doctrine in a comfortable study, with a calm temper, undisturbed by anyone — in which case I too should have been able to avoid the contradictions, I too should have been able to seek out the most agreeable world-views. But I wrote on a ship racing down life’s swift current, now amid storm, now in sunshine, as the moment inspired; and oh, life looks otherwise upon us in a warm room, otherwise in the wilderness of the wastes; we have other ideas at the grave, others at the banquet; life laughs the logician to scorn. ——— And which is the right one? perhaps all, perhaps none. You, my dear Pál, will not be scandalized at these, and where my song speaks out its idea only by half, as though in dread of cold, uninvited ears, you understand the poetry of what it kept silent. You know that the truths accepted among men as small change are more intolerant, more prejudiced even than falsehood. You know that often the very truth that was laughed at dares only a few notes in a light, easy song. — [Early 1840s?] M. I.

A thousand kisses to my dear Pali! Yesterday I arrived from Pest, and hearing of your inquiry after my homecoming, joy and sorrow seized me at once: joy at the news, which showed that I hold the remembrance of my soul’s friend; sorrow that my journey robbed me of your embrace. I hasten therefore to seize the pen, hasten to join to my thanks my request: that you do not, in punishment, withhold from me the sweet minutes of your company, of whose missing the innocent cause was myself; nay, that in compensation for the delay you grant me them as soon and as long as may be. This I may justly ask of you; this you could not refuse, did you feel with me what need my breast has now and then of a single moment in which it may safely pour out its feelings; in which it may entrust the wild children of its fancy to a kindred breast — a kindred breast able to understand the misunderstood. You will not refuse, if you have felt how sweet it is to see that there is another besides ourselves who breeds thoughts kindred with ours, who, soaring beyond the dross of the everyday, pitches his tent in the homeland of ideals, and warmly clasps the longings of his soul to his breast — the more warmly the stranger they are to the world. Yes, you will incline to my request; you will turn in as soon as may be to this quiet little valley, and brighten with your company the sameness of my solitude, parted far from the world; from here we can then go together to the Masked Ball that Madame Kubinyi will give on the 5th of this month, and to which you too are invited. — I think that the difference between this ball and other balls will be that to this one the "multitude of women" will not appear in their favorite mask. — Of women Victor Hugo says that mostly it is their character to have no character — I hold this true only of girls, for as soon as they put on the matron’s cap they lay aside the face of maidenly modesty and come forward in their true color. But away with this nonsense — Till we meet again! your true friend, Madách Imre.

July 7, 1843 Dear Pali! You see, it was not for nothing that I always said: whenever you wanted to settle and plan something out in advance — let us trust to the inspiration of the moment, let us fret over nothing beforehand. — For what do we really gain by it? Fate rushes on just as unstoppably either way; it ravages the already ripened plan just as irresistibly as it sweeps us — perhaps now and then toward our good fortune — without any plan at all. — We wanted it one way, fate wanted it another; and where the two collide, the weaker party is we, and fate has swept you southward and me northward. But never mind, "it will be otherwise hereafter." — Your apropos I read with great astonishment; a pity that Pista hits the mark just as inopportunely, but I do not wonder at it, for his wit never hits at all. — We might otherwise feel ourselves much flattered that such a dandy frets over the diary of our hearts, so that we learn its news from him ourselves — if only this dandy busied himself with such matters as it would be an honor for our hearts to stand among — but barely so. — Jankovich, if this belief makes him happy, may grow stronger in it just now, for in some 7 or 8 days I really do go to Pest. But to Pozsony probably I too only in August. Here it comes to my mind that I am likely telling news if I write that Hermin is again at Podrecsány — if only I could cite something from an idyll, but my soul is so withered and prosaic that, however I squeeze it at the inkwell, nothing comes of it but the black, the bilious, the discontented, so that its bitter taste rises into my mouth even of a morning, and if I write, my paper itself turns yellow, on which the hooked letters stagger, every one of them a melancholy mourning-thought. — In Pest I shall have myself treated against it. — I must leave off writing, for I feel the ideas of misanthropy and discontent swarming into my pen, and why should I poison with them the soul of my dearest friend, the better half of my own soul! — your true friend, Imre.

August 6, 1843 Dear friend Pali! I write these few lines in haste, and because I have so much to write that I should have to fill whole sheets, I cannot pick out what would most to the purpose fill the narrow bounds of my letter. — I wanted at any price to escape the Császár baths, but it is impossible, and so this afternoon I set out for there, to idle — or more truly to be bored — two weeks. — I beg you, if you would put this grubby little note enclosed here — which, as its thimble-seal, naive address, and ugly hand show, some very charming little woman must have written — into Draskovics Pepi’s hand; from whom it comes I do not know, they fastened it on me anyhow. — That we were last together — do not think I could not put it more poetically, but today I am in an unpoetic humor. — I was at Keszeg, at Csalomia, at Csesztve, and only the haste with which I traveled, or the guard’s office in which I served, saved me from the surprising surprise of springing up at Szécsény. — Going toward Keszeg, I sat in my carriage with my sister Mrs. Huszár, when we came upon the Gyürkys ahead of us in two traveling-coaches each with five horses; Mrs. Gyürky leaned half out of the window and stared her eyes red trying to make out what woman was sitting beside me with her face hidden by a parasol. — — Now I notice that today I write in a wholly old-womanish manner, which probably comes of my having, last evening, been picking apart Szécsényi’s academic address. — — I come home only for the Gyarmat assemblies, straight to the domus praetoria, and so I can have the good fortune of seeing You and Várady only after the assemblies; till then, embracing you countless times, and shortening the long hours of the Császár baths with the memory of you, I remain your true friend, Imre. The letter was already folded when I unfolded it again, to talk longer with you. I draw out in advance, as I thought, my whole fortnight’s worth of delight; why should I not draw it out in earnest? — The other day at Petény I was with Forgách Lizi, she was very merry; Cserny Mari is here no more — I shall tell you original things, and to the characterization of woman’s craving to please and of the old maid’s heart I can serve up, besides, the finer traits of a fairer woman’s finer soul; but of all this only by word of mouth, for to write it down would be too long. — Now arrives the chief magistrate Gellén — and I really must finish, and I write "official" on the address; may Jehovah forgive the fraud, but I do it perhaps for the last time, for at the August assemblies I resign the notaryship, and as a table-judge I cannot do it. — For the rest, though I shall in any case carry out this intention of mine, "si fractus illabatur orbis" [though the broken world should fall in upon me], yet I beg you, tell no one, I do not want it known in advance. — — Once more, God be with you.

October 31, 1843

I cannot help it, dear Pali, that, having stopped here on my way home from Rudnó, I do not write a few lines — in so far as it is permitted to compare small things to great, and this gorgeously equipped contraption may deserve the name of writing. — After a journey of three days and a half, in which — if only because I made it — nothing remarkable occurred; for that I spent one night in a straw-thatched hovel and ate eggs for supper, posterity will scarcely immortalize in this fashion:

Here halted Madách Imre, Ate up six eggs and more, And drank a hearty health to them, But only water bore. —

See what a difference in subjecto: Mátyás and I both did one and the same thing, but he had a knack for it — the kingship — and it was not that which made him immortal, but he his deed!! — and we? — — — I attempt to paint the wonder-man: Tall, lean, swarthy, round-faced, with a thin nose, his eyes of piercing glance, a large and narrowly cut mouth, little hair; on his head a skullcap [?] which bears the marks of some 30 years’ iron teeth, and so owes it to a good ten years that it is its master’s younger brother. — The room and the parsonage itself are very poor. — When I had told him of my throat trouble, he at once recognized in it a gouty condition, which gained him my confidence in great measure; — he prescribed remedies: powders under this title, pulveres Privigyenses, and a decoction which I think they could make up in any apothecary’s shop, for the herbs are named separately. — But here comes the most horrible part: the cure is to last 7 weeks, during which I must keep to my room, and drink this decoction instead of water. — I shall begin it on the 6th of November; I am sorry only for the assemblies, but if it helps, as he says, radically and forever against all my gouty troubles — it is worth this sacrifice. — He also said that if I want iron health, I should give up the restlessness of my spirit — this might lead, perhaps, to philistinism; this I will not do, indeed I do not even tell my mother of it, for out of pure love she would be capable of forbidding me to think. — In these seven weeks some world-worthy brain-child will be born, — and then your letters — I hope will make me forget my captivity. — But if you write, then do not leave clean pages, nor between the lines streets broader than the Viennese ones, nor paint such letters as Plachy Feri’s, with such long legs, but fine and close together, side by side. — From "side by side" it comes to my mind that you do not even know how much you are together with the little dark-haired girl — in my memory. — Are you content with the company alone? — she too — and I most of all. —. — — — The assemblies we shall yet speak of; on the 3rd I come to you in the morning, in the evening to set out together. But since perhaps you will meet several people before then, I beg you, do say that a little maid pleased me very much in Pozsony, but do not name her, say I strictly forbade it; — this war-stratagem practice chiefly before Ötlik and Mrs. Fráter. — Find out further, delicately, from Prónay Gyuri his Szliács affair, his observations, etc. This I write only to you in this way — only you will understand it, and only you will do it for me. — — — — — — — A few words yet on the Mystères de Paris; only the first volume was with me, and so I read only this. —. The Goualeuse — her whole character, and especially the execution, is masterly! — so beautiful that one must really search for its like; I, who read books of this kind mostly from a critic’s point of view and so coldly, was many a time moved — one step to the right and it would be base, one step to the left and it would be affected; thus it is the finest. Every other person too is good — but the murder-shop scene with the otherwise interesting Chourineur is out of place; — David’s episode too could have been left out, to the profit of the whole. And the article entitled Recherches is tedious; one sees the poet’s soul has grown weary. — — On the whole, as a novel, I cannot yet judge it; but I confess I cannot imagine what interesting thing he can write in so many more volumes after this. — Either he must come down lower, or tie new knots, and in that case it would have been better to write several separate novels. They have already harnessed up, and I — perhaps to your joy, that boredom should torment your gaping nerves no longer — must leave off this paper, still empty; but no matter, you can fill it up yourself from the thread of my thoughts, so far do you hold them in your hand — Till the third, then, your friend bids farewell, Imre December 1, 1843

"Life is a prison" — dear Pali — and even if things go best, with our life-plans, our longings, our hopes, we are like the squirrel that, when it has worn itself to death in its wheel and believes it has gone miles — is at that very same spot. — How is my present prison the worse, then? May I not range in thought, and do I not reach just where he reaches who labors and sweats — that is, nowhere? — — But such a prison-existence has nevertheless one good side, and it is this: that every little star which, surrounded by the sun’s light, burns unnoticed — shines in full glory in the night. — So your letter would scarcely have delighted me in your presence, whereas thus I enjoyed much rapture through it; this, then, is the good side of your absence here, this is the principle of optimism — springing from the very source from which springs the most bilious hatred of life; the world takes pleasure in contrasts. — — — From contrasts come to my mind the sympathies, and from these again the plaster you touched on in your letter: — Although the plaster itself helped only as if we smeared it on the skin and put it on us wrong-side out, yet self-deceiving fancy can often make us believe that already it itches beneath — but it raises no blisters. — So I, though I much esteem Kalo — but — after the first pleasant magnetic feeling had electrified my heart, which, far from all fancy, had drawn its rainbow colors only from the realm of the possible — anger took its place — why does he profane that which I worship. — And from the whole little story two lessons remained to me. The first: how foolish man is, that though he knows for certain it is only a dream-image which gladdens him, he does not tear his eye open with manly firmness so that the mist-image may dissolve, but voluntarily presses his eye shut to haggle a few moments more out of the dreamed bliss. — My other lesson is this, that it is doubly bitter to wake from rosy dreams amid storm and lightning. — — Kalo’s letter to me I have not shared with you only because it too is stuffed with such nonsense; perhaps he thinks he does me a dear thing thereby — he is mistaken — and I shall write him gently, perhaps thus: How can you be such an ass, Kalo, or, That is a vile thing of you, my friend. — — Now that he has behaved so handsomely in your letter too, I send mine over as well, for it pressed on my stomach like a millstone — that it should be a secret between us. — Now I notice how neatly I have slipped from one extreme to the other — from reasoning into gossip; which is the more insufferable? In the comparison of the Pesti Hírlap and Kalo I confess — however strange it may be — that I am not of one mind with you; for here one must at once take into account that Kossuth prints only what he may print, Kalo published everything that pressed his heart — hence the divergences. — Kalo’s, further, is far more furious, and for this I like it; I am very fond of it when men, if not each other’s, at least tear their own hair in their rage; — there is comedy in the thing too: Kalo flashes like a Lilliputian god — with little matches — and is angry that heaven does not answer him with thunder. — — Fráter’s machinations in the Lord’s vineyard too are stout, the more so because I hope by "the Lord" you understand, first, not generis masculini; secondly, because it is not God, but his devil, for it is this that rules the world. — At first I was glad you did not stay firm to your principle, for it would have been a sin against God crying — no, roaring — to heaven. — Or did you wish to practice yourself in the virtue of renunciation? — see, I have a peculiar notion of this matter; I think that he who practices himself in renunciation deceives himself, for he passes over much that is enjoyable, and would in any case learn renunciation even then, if need pressed him to it; and to renounce more than need commands — that is bad timing — but do not listen on this to me, the Epicurean; it is only my principle. — Of the interesting little woman you write with deserved interest — I confess that if the little girl had anything to fear from a rival, this would be it — in so far as a picture painted by a master-hand may be jealous of the proven praises bestowed on its copy. — — Of P. Gyuri I say only that he is not so much chevaleresque as, in the German university style, Burschikos. The falling-in-love I do not envy either. On one weighty, nay hundredweight matter you leave me in doubt — and that is the lord-lieutenant — I await its resolution; but only of the matter, not of the lord-lieutenant, and this too only in so far as appetite is more whetted by the latter, in so far as on "cur"... [Where the dots are, the letter-paper tore away.] one can make pretty variations; or, in another way, in so far as the foul hotbed can rear fine flowers. — But I wish to know the resolution chiefly because it is bound up with your coming. — Do not let me peer long; see, I do as the Jews do: when it storms too violently within me, I open the window of hope — when comes the awaited messiah — as a comforter into the valley of misery? — —???,; — — These marks of punctuation regard as an auxiliary corps; supply with them the gaps; I know in many places they were left out, where the thought was swifter than my hand. You write you are my friend for life and for death. — Life is short — on death I set no great store. — If there is eternity, then death is just a brief boundary-time; if there is not, so much the worse. — So that I may set my friendship an infinite goal, I say you are my friend still while among twelve men a dozen rascals sit — — still while the sons of our wives lie of love when, embracing girls, they reach for their purses. — still while the young pour quicksilver into their shins so that in their old age they may know the turn of the weather. — still while men sing of liberty and rattle the bass to it with their chains. M. Imre

Come as soon as you can, bring back Kalo’s letter, and take care that no one see its absurdities. — — Together with my sister’s thanks I send your books back. — Blessing on your steps.

For your weighty news I too, if you come, will serve up a piece of news a million times weightier — not in extension, but in intension — of a pearl of a little woman; — and this is no lime-twig. —

Halászi I left this letter there, lest perhaps the fate that persecutes me in everything should, just during my absence, bring you to Sztregova. — Coming back, I shall take my road by Szécsény. The partitioning commission has already, in fact, reported; ask our Laczi whether it would be well to set the appointed time for the second day of the assembly, or for when he wishes, so that I may notify, like the other table-judges, the parties too, whose names and dwellings I shall ask of you. — I am like the glass out of which some great toper has drunk the contents; there is nothing sadder in the world than an empty glass, at most two empty glasses; for a man knows that soul, strength seethed in it two minutes ago, and now it is a potsherd, or some sick man uses it, that his doctor may see the changes of his illness from its new appointment. — — Among many other likenesses between the calendar and woman there is this too, that both mark with red letters the days on which one may not work. — Now I really do, in earnest, renew my old resolve to give up the vagrant and adventurer’s life, and to begin to carry a few grains of sand — to my tombstone. The clock strikes one — good night. A thousand fine things to Jankovich and Lisznyai. [1843?] Your Imre

To the Worshipful Szontágh Pál, magistrate of the Worshipful County of Nógrád. Official at Szécsény

Let the magistrate of Halászi send it at once, in haste, to Szécsény, on pain of answering for it.

January 1, 1844 Better half of my soul! The address that you sought, I have found; there is wanting in it, true, some force, which lack I think my pen too felt, wishing by the corpulence of the letters to make up for the leanness of the meaning. — But it is enough to speak the half of such an idea, which without that too is worth something only if our friend supplies the other half. — Passing through Ráros — tell me — do you not feel some pull, I do not say like the iron toward the magnet, but like the magnet toward the fettered iron? — Did you not feel that a soul pines in the narrow valley for its better half, and that, if it did not at least unite with you in ideas pinned to dead paper, this could be caused by nothing else than the hope that it might do so even without the help of paper? — Whatever I write has no true edge; I do not know whether the reason is that I do not whet it at all, or that I whet it too much — only this comforts me, that, according to the proverb, the clever children die — and so the stupid spiritual offspring-letters live on. The rightness of this consequence drawn (in the manner of a fledgling) from bad antecedents I believe only in so far as my memory shall be bound up with these ragged lines, and that, with you, I know — lives on. — In confirmation of what I have said — see this gap-toothed article of yours! — I wept millstones over it, and the millstones fell upon my soul — I should like to have a dog-skin made by the furrier out of your censor’s hide; only this would lift the millstones from my soul — — —! On my soul’s child — as you called it — I make my last beetle-hunts [final polishings], and in the course of this week I shall wing it — or have it crawl (ad normam 6 or 24 strokes of the cane) to Szécsény, that you may decide, like a Spartan, whether the child is fit for a Spartan or to die; to ask the greatest sincerity is scarcely needful, and if you cast a black pebble on it, I take it just as coldly as I take life, and do not think I lose heart — I shall write another, perhaps a better. — Before me it is dear anyway only so long as I am writing it. — I cannot judge it myself, but to put out something that "smacks of the Diet" I have not resolution enough — and I believe in you too there is not a spark of enmity against me — not yet such as the Carpathian crag, which would be needful for you, even in such a case, to commend its publication. — So, sincere criticism, such as if the censor of your gap-toothed article were its author. — Single changes too I take with thanks. — Petricsevics: a camel, of whom the fable says: crush its head, it lives; break its hump, and it is done for. — — In his hump the lead or gold weight of the magnate-rank presses on him. — — Of your companions at Apátfalva I think those got off cheapest who drank the sour wine; — or, if we look at the matter through papist spectacles, the courtiers fared best, for they discharged a good part of their purgatorial punishment. — The decorations went today to Rudnó, on account of Pali’s frequent chest-pains. — The Privigye powders have so far visibly not helped me, and so day by day I am more convinced that the christening of the Pozsony news into Privigye powders — was a very apt thought. — For now I only endure, for the fifty days are not yet over — but this silence is like the calm before the storm, and when the time of redemption arrives, I shall be glad only that they have at last taught me to speak — that I may swear and curse. — — Your last year’s reckoning is classique, — but not so true. — Or if you so compare your past, then I compare mine to such paper as that, a quarter of an hour after, which we carry out with candle and house-coat. — The little numbers written between your lines I do not understand. — A row of Lisznyai’s pearls I shall of course buy. — This would have been the pepper of my letter; I cannot help it that it is only Hungarian pepper (according to Irinyi, straw). — Now follows the gruel. — As you may see from the enclosure, H. K. summoned me a good while ago, — to whom, according to my opinion several times spoken out here too, I gave a decided refusal with thanks. — — I might now take a (Brutus-like) brutal mien, might speak fancy words about the confidence shown, might mystify both you and myself with them, when after all we both know that these are only the outflows of your friendship and your individual intuition. — I do none of this; in short, the matter stands thus: my mother saw H. K.’s letter, and desires my taking office. — At the next renewal of officers she will help substantially to develop strength only on this condition, which strength, in a favorable case, will be enough to carry two seats side by side for us, for Horváth in any case drops out, — and you would have only Szily for your competitor! — whose unseating would not even win you glory. — And over and above all this, J. Pista, with whom I am as Falstaff was with the flesh-color, that if I but look at him I fall ill, so much is my stomach turned by him — on him they resolved, that if you should find Fráter to be of such opinion as would favor me, and so that no fear remain of my being shamefully left out of the candidacy; I should beg you very prettily, make the necessary announcement at Gyarmat (for I myself cannot take part in the next assemblies), but only in the case mentioned above, of which I beg you write me your opinion, and send it this very day to the Ludány tavern, whither I shall send for it tomorrow morning, that I may know whether to write to H. K. for the settling of the necessary informations there, by the next post. — I confess that, as your acquaintances wondered at you, how anyone can be Szontágh Pál and — a magistrate, so I cannot think myself into this prosaic condition — But let it pass; the pearls of poetry are the sweeter in the sea of prose. — I need not write that you should not put this letter behind the window, as our Turóc brethren do theirs. Just now I hear that you are laid up — and you did not write it! — but still I am glad you did not, a sign your trouble cannot be much. — Are not your expounded woman-hating ideas from this source? — — After the assemblies, on the Sunday morning before the courts, if you are at home, I go to Szécsény — to take compensation for my 7 weeks’ captivity. — In the letter to be sent to Ludány write me whether you are laid up [?]. — This clean paper I leave so that you may wonder at my prosaic perfection, so contrary to myself. Henceforth, if I really become your colleague or yoke-fellow, not a word more of despair, of renunciation! — for one must not rouse two sleeping lions. — — As nothing, as notary, as table-judge, and forever truly Your Imre

Enclosed I send a letter to Huszár Károly (on which note down his dwelling as well), and one to Prónay Gyuri. Read it carefully, lay your hand on your stomach, and you too will see it is good; if you wish, share it with Fráter as well. — I think this is the best way for us to climb out of the mire. — My reasons: If I let myself be put forward, he will surely appoint me; the Prónai and Pongrácz party will rise up against me; you know that I do not crave office, the less so if it were carried in such a disagreeable manner. Both these letters, sharing them with Prónay Gyuri and the whole party, send Huszár’s to Pozsony so that it may arrive in good time. — Your true friend, till our re-meeting at Szécsény, [January 1844.] Your Imre To my friend Szontágh Pál

See, it is always best to follow the first thought, which with me too was, very strongly and long, the not-standing-forward. — However, now it is done; if I wished to be angry with you, I should first have to learn how. I cannot answer more fully and coolly yet, for I have only now received your letter; however, whatever you have settled and do, I agree to it, only I do not wish to take Pongrácz’s place. — Such folly never disturbs the best thing — which is: our friendship. think, act, For life, for death in my stead; and I your friend Imre. agree. turn over. Turn your greatest diligence to motivating the deed; then all is well. [January 1844.]

To the Worshipful Szontágh Pál, magistrate, into his hands

did not conspire against me! — and the present year especially seems to have set everything in motion to bend my strength; yet I may be broken, but I will not bend. — Every day, anyhow, makes me more like a Lóránd written with prophetic inspiration, and there are moments which look on even more coldly, more resolutely, more weary of life than he. — A resolute lad, a surgeon named Weidinger, came to us, who told my Mother that with my little hand-scratch [wound] it is dangerous to travel in such cold weather; and seeing my mother’s great anxiety in consequence of this, I am forced again to renounce one of my dearest plans, till my hand is wholly healed — by which time the carnival too will be over. — — Truly, when I look back on the present year and its events, I shudder, and regard the whole as a hideous dream, not being otherwise able to grasp how I can be living even its second month. — — — If I could but lend you my heart for a few moments, that through it you might understand my feelings; otherwise you cannot understand them. — — From the deputy-lieutenant Károlyi I have just received an (à la Turóc) amiable letter; it consists of 6 lines, and in it the word "my friend" stands six times — (no exaggeration). — Henceforth, in the letters I write to you, I shall not write this word even once, for I believe the word and its meaning stand in inverse relation. — Károlyi, then, invites me to a house-entertainment in the new year [?]; if you go there, I beg you, come to me — we go together — Keszeg will be my first journey, if my mother’s carefulness permits the longer roads; my sister would be very glad if with you. — When I have given my piece its final polish, I should like, with your approval, to send it to Pest, as soon as may be. — We have scarcely parted, and I have an enormous deal to talk over with you already; if you would but fulfill, as soon as may be, your promise of a longer visit, to your friend who waits for you with difficulty, Imre

February 9, 1844 [Noted at the address by Madách.]

To my friend Szontágh Pál at Szécsény February, the last, 1844 at Sztregova To my friend Szontágh Pál. The books I have read through I return with thanks. With the outcome of Fleur de Marie I am not satisfied; she had, true, to die, but the endless lamentations are exaggerated, the becoming-a-nun is too romantic, the love for that man whom we see for the first time only at the work’s end is not regular.* The Chourineur’s death is very improper, as is his exaggerated dog-character too toward the end. — But for all that, especially if the author would ask a good friend, make of the XIth volume a IXth, the whole would be good. — I should like to be its author. — —

Infandum jubes renovare — —** armed duly, I set out with my younger brother for Losonc. Making a little excursion to Szakál to put a few letters in the post, I saw from afar Fráter’s great glass coach rattling on ahead toward Szécsény. — Ah, my carriage was enviable! — wondering, you will ask why? — I should like to torment you a little — but I will tell you: The ladies sitting in the great coach, recognizing my carriage by their well-known good logic, could think nothing else than that I was coming from Szécsény, and, spinning out the thread of their reasoning further: that you were with me. — I repeat then, happy carriage! for it is no small happiness to bring the hearts of two such (I cannot find a word fair and soft enough) women into a somewhat faster beating (when I say somewhat, I mean by it in the greatest degree). — If I could buy this property from my carriage, I would gladly take onto my face its green varnish too with its yellow mud-warts. — — But what do I talk of the carriage’s happiness? — I should be unhappy if, like it, I had caused such women a bitter disappointment, — and it was painful that in the second case my carriage shared its property with me, for as often as in the ball I approached the said ladies, I should have liked to shrink a little, like

* But down with the rules! —... ** Non dolorem [you bid me renew an unspeakable grief — but not pain]. a toy, and to have been a toy-like tombstone at least, instead of being thus the colossal tombstone of a — snapped-off hope!!!!!

After an hour’s primping, in which we three, with Ötük, waged no small sweat-costing battle against stepmotherly nature, we fitted on ourselves somewhat the ill-famed lion’s skin. The tower had drummed seven o’clock when we too rattled off to Mrs. Kubinyi’s — if one can call rattling the wading, accompanied by floundering and squelching, over the springy-soft and amicably adhesive mud. On our arrival almost no one was present save the most soul-nourishing part of the company; and this soul-nourishing part, this manna to the wanderer of the wastes, this comfort to the flagging nerves, was — not the hostess, not the F.s — but the afternoon collation. — Very slowly gathered especially the male company — I think the lads did not know that one must eat, for this now commonly gives our witty youths greater enjoyment than the most select conversation, the select being taken by me in a sense quite contrary to the vulgar meaning, for in the common sense it has the fewest enjoyers. — — The sodorna* appeared only after 10 o’clock. — Mrs. F. was a white dress, a very large rose-coffee-cup amphibium made of white and red ribbons over her left ear, with two long hanging feeler-polyp-legs, with which she seized the approaching hearts polyp-fashion, changing, in a manner against the police, the "your money or your life" cry somewhat slyly thus: "Homage or death!" — She said ja ja! and died — a German fellow: Mrs. F. was merry and went to bed early. — Quis quid ubi? etc.? — In contrasts life declares itself!! —! — E. would follow! — You said I should write a page on her; I could write a hundred pages, but let your page be: not counting here the pages of your heart! — — Where shall I begin to write of this microcosm of all that is winning and all that is treacherous, all that is good and all that is light-minded, all soul and all cynicism? — Her dress, as usual, very tasteful and simple, white; her hair, en prétension, with a little crest like a will-o’-the-wisp,

* I hope you know what this word denotes at Losonc. that burns,* wanders by night. — lures over the abyss and is ungraspable; in her basket-like chignon red and white roses thickly set, with hanging ribbon-ends. — The ribbon-end denoted attractive force, the rose divided enjoyment, the basket cynicism. — Her bracelet falling off — as every fetter falls from her — she lost a hoop-ring. Her humor was very changeable, amid rain and sunbeams; this is the sleet, and that — on which the sleet falls — is wounded. — Büky, by reason of his cunning and stratagem-seeking character, put it about that she had given me some little hair-chain; I should wish it were so, but — few are the chosen. — For the rest, let us keep this to ourselves, that we never court each other’s chosen ones, for, besides other dangers, one gets stuck there so quickly, which my wings too would probably have experienced, had they not, by good luck or ill, already been plucked bare elsewhere beforehand. — I danced the first française with E. lawfully, but a second came too — E. gets no partner, the pairs line up in rows, E. sits — blushes, her confusion grows — I, who likewise did not dance, sit right beside her and for a while take delight in her confusion — at last I became her partner. — Büky courted Kis Lina; it was original that before the great public he scarcely addresses her, but in the side-rooms so much the more. Ivánka Etelka was courted round about by the two cavalierly, lion-like, and high-hoping magistrates. — At 7 in the morning we dispersed, and I came home at once, drowsy-headed. Glad news: Mrs. Bory ref., learning of our journey by steamer, said: she too goes to Pozsony then. — I declare I shall not entertain her, nor her daughter, and so you two will be obliged, dragged by the hair of gallantry, to attach yourselves cavalierly and like men, like dahis. — Prosit! — Ad vocem: How shall we learn whether the steamer goes on the 10th? — by the time we can read it in the paper it has long since passed, for they announce it at most 2 days in advance. — From my letter you would think I am in a rosy mood — however, Ich werd’ nun einmal wilder mit den Jahren [I grow wilder, after all, with the years], — and if I laugh — the reason I told in "Csak tréfa" [Only a jest]:

I too have wept, now I laugh, How shall I show the real grief, When there are so many false tears in the world? * but it does not burn, and bakes no loaf as the moonlight does. In my fate there is nothing to my liking. In God’s creation and laws, in human institutions I see only tyranny, whim, sin, confusion, and to all this two weak arms, a limited understanding! — If I could but thunder for one moment, that at my thunder all should shudder together — but thus —. And do you think I would even then accept contentment from a fairy? no. There is life beyond the grave, but only for the few; if I too am among them, then discontent ist mein Eliaswagen [is my chariot of Elijah]. — Pardon my many whims. On the 8th I shall be at Szécsény in the evening. Till we meet again, in thought, Your Imre If by the 8th you should have a chance to Pest, send this writing off and pack it up. If not, I take it with me to Vác and send it in from there. — Seal the letter too. M. I.

——— your holy one [?] Perhaps, beyond all repair, You have fallen in love — One line, true, does not rhyme, but perhaps it is true all the same — But no matter, etc. Laci’s brand-new motion is about as new as Napoleon’s death — it surprised me, not by its newness, but by its age. — The other day on my way to Losonc I found Farkas Károly forcing his way through the thin mud of Tagár toward Szécsény on four sorry nags, and though his journey was not the most enviable — for the goal of his road I envied him. — Ad vocem Losonc — I do not know whether people really have nothing else to do — than to forge little stories about me, but such things spring up at Losonc, in that nest of mud and gossip, beyond all counting. When we meet on the 8th, I shall serve up another very surprising fabrication of this kind, whose higher aim, I think, is to dissolve that little harmony which is observed, on Fráter’s part, toward me. Besides this, I shall tell you of a plan, or rather a firm resolve, which "will carry the battlefield of my struggles over to other fields" — and which will astonish you — I shall ponder the hidden word with a lighter heart than Oedipus, for I need not fear that if I do not guess it, the Sphinx will kill me. — In our travel-route I am bold to make a little motion: Keszeg being a better night-quarters for us than Vác, let us go there for the nights, and from there we still reach the steamer early enough. — I meant to write only a few words, but I am with you as the statue of Memnon is with the day, which, when the sun shines on it, sounds of itself. — — Embracing you, with Laczi, Your Imre. March 5, 1844. A. Sztregova

I have already gone through Erdélyi on V[ölgy?]. One must wade through a sea of prose to reach the poetic green shores of one little island here and there. — I have sent I. E. his book. M. I.

A. Sztregován. Dear Pali! Your last letter did not kindle in me so pleasant a feeling as at other times; perhaps you will not believe it yourself? and yet it is so: in it was contained a plan promising much enjoyment, the impossibility of accepting which explains everything. — On the 1st, namely, after two postponements, the work of the commission of which I am a member was fixed, and so a third postponement on my part would have looked odd. — Here too, moreover, is Mrs. Huszár of Keszeg with her children and little Madách Linka, and my other sister we likewise expect. — Though I ascribe very little to my own eloquence, but the more to your sympathy, I began horribly to curse my forgetfulness, which caused me not to ask you to spend the holidays with us; but it came to my mind that you await your parents, and I consoled myself, as a man consoles himself that he cannot embrace his dear ones if — they are dead. — — I am unspeakably sorry that I cannot visit that man whom both nature and duty bid me honor; I beg you, tell him my obstacles. I hope soon to make it good. — We shall visit Jankovich Gyuri together too. — I have already begun the agitation against the plot-tax, and am making proselytes head over heels. — The resolution that has arrived on the matter of religion is no great thing! — Even so it is good, at least it electrifies people, and this too is a gain; for energy, and so the sense of liberty, is more easily smothered in roses than in iron; — and we still have need of these. — But I hasten to close my letter, seeing that today the spirit of Kruplanics has anyhow taken hold of me, and my lines are without salt and without wit. But that I may at least close my letter well, with embraces, sending my respects to Dessewffy and my warm handclasp to Jankovich Laczi, I remain your faithful Imre. To the Worshipful, High-born, and Valiant Szontágh Pál, magistrate of the Worshipful County of Nógrád. Official at Szécsény Let the magistrates of A. Sztregova, Szakál, and Ludány send it with the greatest haste to Szécsény. Madách.

June 2, 1844 Cough, hoarseness still torment me in great measure, chiefly in that they hinder my flights abroad. Since I cannot be sad, a tiger’s rage has seized me against the doctor, against myself, against the world and fate. Perhaps your dream will come true, but only in its quite prosaic simplicity, which, besides other symptoms, will be the more probable according to the enclosed "diagnosis," which plainly bears upon it the "conditionally fatal" signs. (I beg you, put it away, for there is no other copy; humanity would not lose by it, but just for the rarity’s sake.) I need not write that, if I can stir, my first journey will be to Szécsény. — My catarrh has not only a bodily but a spiritual influence; I feel myself so stupid, I see so wholly through the miserable condition of the man whose head is muddled, that I cannot even say it, nor need I prove it much if you read my letter and its enclosure through. — If you read my scrawl through and do not feel the worse for it, you need use no hardening remedy; you have stood the second trial after Piber; — as I today stood it in the company of the two priests, Piri, a young painter, and Sréter Miklós, and only this extraordinary testimony of my iron nature gives me some hope that I shall remain the victor in my illness. — If not, that too will be no national loss, and it will appear who is sorry; a pity that I myself shall not learn it. — I look over my ravings — I shudder; I think I had better write more, in a wiser humor, for your letter, shining with sparks of wit, quite shames me — but I see you smiling, hear you saying, "If you do not write till you write more wisely, I may wait long." — You are right. — Here comes the Laxantissimus — lest my letter at your place should wear its likeness, I cease to write. — I must mention still — to ruin your stomach with me wholly, and that you may see what perils-foreboding phenomena show themselves on my sky — that I have taken up the Italian language too again, with great diligence, for cultivation. — I ought to write also what I write, but — non est scriptum. — Think of a great curse, then of me — I too am always cursing, and thinking of you. — Your Imre. To my friend Szontágh Pál at Szécsény. A. Sztregován June 12, 1844. My Pali (per excellentiam)! I must begin my letter with a scolding, that you surely wrote my folly to Szalay, who honored me with a very amiable (but not in the Turóc sense) letter. In a word, the graver lesson shall follow. — I must write of one, nay two, nay six tragicomedies concentrated in one fact. Gellén Józsi and Ebeczky F. being with me yesterday, brought the dreadful news that Ötlik A. overturned while driving himself, and his face, his very face! he smashed up hideously, ran his nose through with an enormous loss of blood, plays all colors like the chameleon — oh, that many a man’s inside might thus serve for his face!!! — and it is to be feared he will keep the lasting brand of his skill. — I cough less and spit less blood too. — Today a Franciscan torments me, who was 22 years a common soldier and corporal; — he entertains me with the mock-tales of Protestantism, and especially of the Calvinists, which I hear out with exemplary patient cold-bloodedness (but hearing only the half). — Of the continuations of the verse-collection sent last time I send this one; I beg you, if you would visit me, bring them all with you, — would visit me — for, as to my being able to stir from home, I must yet for a good while put away the hope, though I am near despair, throwing off sparks from every limb with the electricity of restlessness. — I should like to know whether you too must hear so much stupidity, philistinism, slander, when you meet with strangers, as I; and if so, how it agrees with your health? — Me they besiege with such things; I could give examples, I dare not write them down, lest my paper blacken in its rage or my letters whiten in their surprise. — Hitherto I followed Confucius’s teaching that a man should be like water, which takes on the shape of every vessel — for it can keep its taste anyhow; henceforth I lay it aside, and I take over the vessel’s part; let whoever wishes be water. — Now I am often in such a state as the sick warrior who, if he dreams of battle, grasps at his sword, wakes, and sees he is crippled; often I want to make myself believe I am well, but it will not do. — And then, when I see besides that, if a man is angry, he cannot even thunder like the heavens, that not even the room shakes at his anger — I feel our whole everything so little, fame, eternal name, virtue, all — all — such folly that I cannot say it; at such times I go to shoot pistols (in which, be it said in passing, I have reached great perfection), and when the bullet, splitting the board, carries it off in splinters — I recover. — And I recover by means of this ragged paper, which has helped me to be able to talk with you, your Imre.

December 16, 1844

Dear Pali, I confess I was sorry you did not return from Losonc; now my only excuse before myself is that you felt your illness in advance, as the stork feels the winter. — The horrible Losonc affair, which You are pleased to call almost a brawl, I have heard, and have duly been scandalized at it. Your witty letter I read with great delight; I give no absolution, but I leave the fixing of the penance to your future wife, and I congratulate you on it, for I see in her alone the panacea of all your troubles — in earnest. — As I notice, the affairs of the party to which I am to belong stand worse and worse — but I have already made myself a whole plan of what I shall do if we fall, and how I shall divide my time and among what things. — I must write yet of one weighty matter; I need not tell you of my many expenses, which my removal to Csesztve drew after it, so that I am forced to beg you, be so kind and pay your little debt certainly before the new year; it would be very necessary, and if you did not, you would put me in great embarrassment. Renewing my request and hoping its fulfilment, I am your true friend, Madách Imre. I am here, and only 3 days before the new year I go to Csesztve, where I then remain. And in the second of January I go to Szécsény. M. The above-written either send to Sztregova, or — what will be much pleasanter — bring it yourself before the new year, whence we can go together to Csesztve or Szécsény. — Among other things, after the new year I wish to spend at least a week at Szécsény.

To the Worshipful Szontágh Pál at Szécsény

February 25, 1845. Dear Pali! Your two very witty letters, written long enough ago, I have only just got into my hands. Another letter, after so long a time, is wont to lose all its interest, for its value is like the value of the fashionable waltz, which the great devaluator (I mean not Dessewffy Emil, but time) hugely cheapens; but in your letters two lasting values lie hidden, and these are: the writer’s name, and the fine structure, which made me read them through with delight even after 3 weeks. You describe your Lutonautica-expeditio [mud-faring expedition] graphice, and into my sympathy joy was mingled, that even in this sympathy has so brought us together. I had time enough to meditate in the mud, only the wings of my ideas could not work free of the mud; I prepared the road’s — the philosophical — explanation of this word: the road, namely, is such a marked-out place on which it is worst of all to travel. (This of course is understood only of the real Hungarian, lowland roads.) And it was made plain to me why the nobleman will not make a road, when even in those made by the peasants he is near foundering, and then says a prayer of thanks if he struggles luckily off the "made road" onto the — turf. — I saw little towns which, affecting enlightenment, adorned their streets with lamps, but had no money left for oil; and I thought, do these not parody the country, which has such fancy lamps made and has no oil? — I saw a county where the tongues are sharp as the sword, the wits blunt as the log, where one may hear fancy oratory about liberty and public safety — whoever is lucky enough to reach the county-seat unrobbed and with unbroken head. — I saw a county where the stocks are abolished, the age of the cudgel is over, the county system is defended by true Hectors, the people’s representation is sounded, and from the assembly-reports you would think "there is the Hungarian Eldorado." — And it may be, there it is; for Hungarian spice is straw, the Hungarian express-coach is drawn by oxen — the Hungarian Eldorado too is perhaps Bihar. But let me give examples from the famous country of the great Beöthy, where he rules unbounded with his free principles? — I will; hear, and take in advance a dose of effervescent powder. — I saw an official letter, sent urgently and under strict command, take 12 days to cover one station! — A Russian [Orthodox] priest in his shirt and drawers driving an ox and brawling in the tavern of an evening. I saw a people of whom whoever has an idea, and writes only such satires on our country as appear abroad, I hold to be a critic of dove-like gentleness and exemplary mildness. — This people cannot be called one in a forsaken state, wholly without education — that would be a perverse mystification — but a race stripped of its human form and demoralized to its very root, such as perhaps did not rule even when the Flood washed the world away. And the gentlemen, you ask? Of these, in mercy, I say only this: that indeed, if anyone would deeply examine a nation’s language with all its peculiarities, he would know the nation in its whole reality. Bihar is the homeland of Magyardom; there the language was born, and there it made the distinction between the man and the Lord [Úr]; I do not wonder at it. Of newspapers they perhaps know only so much, that the Hungarian Mercury appears, but I say no more; and if there is not as much faith in you as in St. Augustine, who said, "Credo quia absurdum est," you would doubt my word; otherwise it would anyhow be only infandum jubes renovare dolorem. — — Optimism has taken monstrous root in me; even after such heart- and hope-killing images I cannot help setting down a brighter one. At Nyíregyháza I saw the idea of perpetual redemption itself attested in its whole greatness and significance; the enormous progress in every respect within the short time, the Magyarization, etc., is unspeakable. — I should have hastened, right after my return, to your friendly bosom, but you will forgive me that I hastened to my good mother — you will not be a company-jealous rival — I did this the more easily because your letter assures me that we shall spend a good long time together as soon as may be. — The time of my staying here I cannot yet fix, at the end of which at least, if I cannot embrace you sooner, we meet at Szécsény. Embraces, Your Imre. To the Worshipful Szontágh Pál at Szécsény

March, Thursday, 1845. I have sat down to write, but what, I do not know. You ask such a thing as I have perhaps a hundred times not only said, but shown by deed, that I am your friend; if this was not enough to make you believe it, will it be enough if I repeat it once more? That I give my love as alms, you do not believe yourself; for would you thank the beggar if he promised you protection? could you use my friendship as alms, when it is anyhow worth as little as may be? — That there is no poetry in you, I said, and I believe it too in the sense in which I said it, and which I shall explain. But can one not love a man heaped with faults? Then I might be the first to fall into despair. I have heard of a certain woman who loved her drunkard husband extraordinarily; the husband gave up the drunkenness, the woman her love. — This is a true story, and life is full of such anomalies. — If, then, I see in you that you can take everything coldly in the world, and so much from another point of view than I; if I see that by this — which can only be the result of bitter experiences — you may feel yourself more unfortunate, more weary of life, than I, may I not love you for that, may I not look on you as the Greeks looked on a place burnt and so sanctified by lightning? — If you do not believe that two such opposed ways of thinking can look on each other with delight and sympathy, you force me to doubt your friendship, for that our world-views stand thus is undeniable. — But I do not wish to doubt you; nay, friendship from such a man as You delights me doubly, for I am proud to see that from his bosom all piety toward everything is burnt out, and only this has remained as a green oasis. — What harm, then, does that declaration of mine, raised by you to such great importance, do? Its consequence will at most be that, if my bosom has, besides our friendship, a holy object which it would be unpleasant for me to see otherwise than from a poetic point of view, I take it wholly out of our circle. — For there is so enormous a deal else in which we are united. — One evening at Sztregova we had a peculiar conversation; a certain object came up before me, very holy; you wounded it unsparingly; we were alone; I broke into anger, perhaps into rudeness too. This was not enough; instead of keeping silent, as I did, you told it to several, through whom it came also to the knowledge of that person of whom you so spoke. Though it fell very bitterly on me too, and with several repetitions would surely scatter poison among us and dissolve our friendship (which is the very reason — for I should not like to dissolve it — that I take this object wholly out of our circle, that I have often hidden something from you or been more reserved than toward my common friends), I should still have liked to forget the whole. But can the offended one not justly wonder how I can be the friend of one who speaks of her thus? — I think much of my conduct, my words, is now explained to you. — It often happened that in single moments I behaved peculiarly besides this. And perhaps it was then, if I found your enormous, ill-applied sincerity toward anyone, as in the above example, or even worse, where you paint yourself with passion as worse than you are. Yet a man is held to be only such as he shows himself, and it does not please me either when others hold my friend bad. — Or I had such moments if I saw your bad relation with your mother; I have, true, no right to say anything of this, but at least I might justly beg you not to let every man know it. — Or I had such moments if you broke a hundred times your hundred-times-given promise that you would not gamble, lightly setting aside your honor, the assurances of your friendship. But all these are absurdities. — That my friendship is rooted deeper, and very deep, is shown by this, that it stood the first giant blow, and stood these latter ones too, for I say so. And even if you supposed that I lied this word from interest, I think I have no interest in doing so. I have just come from the Ivánkas’. On Saturday I come to you. I kiss your mother’s hands. Burn this letter, or at least tell its contents to no one. your true friend, Madách Imre."

To my friend Szontágh Pál at Szécsény

June 12, 1845 Dear Pali! Fate has offered nectar to my suffering soul; and the vessel was worthy of its contents — You. — I do not write at length, lest it should seem as if I wished to talk myself out with you in a letter, for this I will do only by living word, which comes from the heart and reaches the heart. The more so to thank your angelic post from the heart, for it was the first letter of yours over which I rejoiced more than over you yourself. Till the hope of an early re-meeting, your friend embraces you, who would like to embrace the whole world to his heart, Madách Imre

To Szontágh Pál at Szécsény

Csesztvén August 12, 1847

To Szontágh Pál from Madách Imre.

When shall we be together again, my friend Pál, For that to me is rightly always my Sunday: The many servants, oxen, I almost forget, I take my plumed hat, my spurs put on. I make merry, as though the last day On which we might still live were that one only; Our own troubles too, over which we ought to weep, Serve us then as matter for wit, And whoever crosses our path, happy or unhappy, Hungarian-fashion we trim him shamefully. We talk green and foolish, this way and that, So that many a Philistine would burst to hear, (What a pity that not every Philistine hears it! From this fair earth they would all perish together.) But we know how good it is to talk folly, For wisdom and whimsy are brother to each other; Who knows the line that divides them, Whom men have always confounded? — Our whimsy too, like Shakespeare’s fool, Often speaks the deepest wisdom, For which, if he laid off his cap and bells, Men would even stone his kind. — But our Sunday is not always mere play, We trudge to church sometimes too, And though short, our prayer is holy and devout, And the object of our prayer is man and our homeland. — For he who always walks with upturned eye (as I know many do) and folded hands: His soul, believe me, never grows higher, For prayer is fervent only when it is short. — What a pity such a day can rarely fall to me, My critic friend is far happier than I, "Pulszky the big-nosed," I call him so, because "Ajax of the great shield" they said in olden time; And he always takes great delight In seeing the old in a new edition; He surely uses no friction-match even, But, as old custom bids, hammers on flint; Why does he not wear sandals — they are so fine! And the bast-shod Slovak folk have kept them faithfully. Ah, when I hear him in the new French style Praising prettily the antiquity of crypts: It seems as if cloister-life Were preached by a fair lady born for kisses. — But let him only delight in it for my sake, The warmed-up cabbage I will eat, But if perhaps he serves it twice-roasted, Then indeed I will not sit at his table. For just now the loaf was lean everywhere, So in our literature too it could be lean; But since now there is a rich harvest, With old loaves, I beg, let them not choke us to death. In vain does Pulszky put new yeast into it, It only cries out of it, and gives it no strength. — —

But that I thus jest with our friend, For all that, I worship him as Lektűr worships the duck; You know that I am wont to pinch only him Whom my heart, my soul, cannot help loving. For how do we tug at each other in love — In vain — thus the Hungarian man is wont to do it. You know still how foully you tore down my "Évening," So that I heard your critique with gaping mouth, And on every point of it I do not agree even now, Yet there is no poison between us for that. — Pulszky the big-nosed, whom I now stroked, I have nonetheless boldly taken for our judge; I appeal to him, and if he has the leisure, I shall bring a few scrawls to his judge’s seat. For say what you will, I hold it an authority: If he approves, well and good; if not, I tear it up. — — — And now I take my leave, may my God bless you! I heartily greet my critic friend. Soon I shall send him Tompa, I send it at his risk, if he gives no rest, For I like to watch (only for that I send it) When men tear each other well, And I laugh when Tompa Miska stares in wonder That on his orphan head there was not one good hair. As soon as may be, yourself, or your answer, I beg, But do not think I squander the common work; To Jankovics László I have sent a letter, Under the one smoke this scratch too went to you. Once more I greet you, friend of my soul, When shall your Imre’s Sunday dawn again.

To the Worshipful Szontágh Pál, magistrate of the Worshipful County of Nógrád, from the Chief Commissioner of Nógrád County, with respect, at Szécsény

Official. Let the magistrates of Csesztve, Szügy, Patvarc, Trázs send it at once.

With very great sympathy I heard, only the day before yesterday, the painful outcome of your duel, together with Bory Laczi, who is here and sends you word, may it serve for your comfort, that "you shed your blood for the homeland." Would it could be so; or rather, would that for the homeland one could shed the blood of others, for I grow ever stronger in my old belief that only a bloody road would lead to happiness, and that during the French Revolution too those were the most honest men who shed the most blood. It is always better that a man shed his blood at one sword-stroke than that his blood be sucked, and yet that is what those impossible men intend to do to us again and again during the November assemblies — those men who have already outgrown the head of the white-feathered party’s chief, and will yet carry the ship where its helmsmen not only never dreamed, but where it will surely be against their will too. — I know you cannot write yet, and so I do not even expect a letter from you, though, had I been able to come to you myself instead of these lines, how enormously much I should have had to say! of course important only in so far as in such a frog-and-mouse war as this county one, we count important the thousand little nutshell-intrigues, as men who have, for the time being, likewise undertaken a little role in this grand drama — a drama which yet resembles Hamlet in so far that in it too there are ghost-seeings, and one may likewise say, with such an antichristian face, "To be or not to be, that is the question here"; and "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than your philosophy even dreams of." And in the end it is all, after all, according to Goethe, on the day of judgment only — But enough of this folly; I have not yet said why I did not go myself, then; the reason is that until the three weeks after the loss of my ague are out, I dare go nowhere, for one neither keeps the diet nor takes medicine if one feels so well, especially as I do at your place. They say you are deputy for Libetbánya; if it is true, I am very, very glad. They say too that Kossuth made some such furious speech that they want to bring an action down on his neck; if this is true, I am furious with Kossuth — why did he not keep his fury rather for the Diet — though in my view, as an elected deputy possessing salvus conductus, he cannot be brought to action. — Honoring your parents together with my wife, I embrace you with Laczi, and hope soon to embrace you as a healed champion, Your Imre. [1847] To the Worshipful Szontágh Pál in friendship at Szécsény

[Noted outside in pencil] Szontágh Pál comes home from Pozsony on the 12th of November. February 2, 1848 Csesztvén Dear friend Pali! Very, very greatly did your letter gladden me, which I received a good while ago; but why do I write this, which you know anyway? — And yet I did not answer so long, you will say, and against your charge I have no other excuse than that I shall strive to make my fault good by deed, writing hereafter all the more often; for everything else I could bring forward in my excuse — such as my many wanderings, the birth of my little son Aladár — would be very weak grounds for the neglect of so friendly and so sweet a duty as that in which I feel myself guilty. — In your letter you excuse yourself for writing so much about yourself; see, I find that you write little, for of you I should like to know much, everything; what could interest me more? — Receiving your little secret note intact, I sent it to its destination. — Very gladly I read the new outbursts of your goat-footed Muse, the more so because they formed a very reassuring and pleasant contrast to the dejected tone of your letter; for believe me, he who can satirize thus feels no great world-sorrow; it is not men’s malice but their folly that is his point of view, and so he feels not dejection but superiority; — therefore, spirit and strength for more satires!!! — if only because it has long been written that it is easier to write than not to write. — Now I too ought to write something which should somewhat give you back the delight your lines gave me. But what can I write of the wretched condition of this fallow-pining, scarcely-anything-but-sheep-and-cattle-herd-showing, sandy-pasture-shaped, long-since-superannuated, pigtail-brandishing bumpkin-cratic county life?* — To you, who sit there at the source, as the canvasser sits under the tap, need only open your mouth to be choked to death by the most splendid and most constitutional spiritual outpourings. I might write of Aladár, that he is just such an individual, betraying as gorgeous and great-promise-flattering enormous mental gifts

* I beg pardon that I borrowed the coinage from you. as I myself could have been at such an age; but these you partly imagine anyhow, and partly my brother Pali has told. Or I might write with what enthusiasm they wished to honor me at Gyarmat, that, because the door did not open suddenly, drawn by the noble ardor of their souls, they broke it in, demolished the cowardly barrier that had thrust itself between our friendly bosoms. — — But these too you know. I would send the two gorgeous pictures with the inscriptions "Dessewffy party" and "1847 Oct. 19," but I do not want to burden the postage with Szentiványi, who there would probably turn out weightier than here, for at the post they would weigh him more than he weighs his own deeds; and why should I burden you with him, when here he is already enough of a burden to us, and there too you can see the pictures at de la Motte’s. Beside Szentiványi, as an attribute — as the eagle beside Jupiter — there is, true, no key; but the key to this is that the key was handed to him otherwise, for I painted him with a much more essential attribute, which can serve everyone as a key to recognizing him,* and this is the ass’s ear he made for himself. — But one real, palpable ass’s ear with an evil spirit is, after all, better than the very great and underhand, ambitious mind. — I say this not because anyone has such a thing, but because Szentiványi has not. — It is true we live through peculiar things; how many times have there been elections, falls, gains, and the irritation did not outlive the election; now it was not so, nay, the irritation grows; a man wonders why this is so, and as a natural consequence it comes to his mind that something must have come between in the most recent time which was not there before, and that this causes the whole. What can it be, then? Since then a railway has been built, the Ruzsinszkys came to Nógrád, a tannery was set up at Losonc, Prónay fell, Pulszky came to Szécsény — the Review fell. The paper is edited by Csengeri, Károlyi speculated in pigs — and other trifles — which of these, then, can it be that nurses the irritation — I think none of them, — but what, then? — — — In one moment I thought: my God, how far I may yet rise, for who received a charivari already at 25 years of age! —! — But oh, vain hopes — Huszár Pista received one at 21, and so again he may go further! — Truly someone said well, that these good white-feathered gentlemen are the cleverest pecsovics-tanners,

* I mean Szentiványi. for, forcing a man into it, they easily make him one — it being inherent in human nature that if on the right they say you are not wanted, you belong here, true, but still you are not wanted, he goes where they say you are wanted. — And what would it be, with a little talent, to form an enormous pecsovics party in Nógrád? — —! child’s play! — If there were in me only some little leathery nature, whether of the saddle-leather, the dog-skin, or the morocco breed, under such tanning I should infallibly have become the best-dressed pecsovics; but, alas, there is not, and so they may boldly put me in the tan-vat — I who went into it as a stone, shall come out a stone perhaps one day, when of course the zest, the joy, that recognition gives in one’s youth, will long since be over; then I shall at most smile at what I should now thank for; but no matter, I do not mind if even in this I become the opposite of Dessewffy Emil, who went from the plough-handle into public life — late; I go from public life to the plough-handle — early. — I would write much, but my paper has run out — more, very soon. I beg you, write much too, and soon; I wait for it longingly. My Aladár I commend to your love. Matolcsy sends respects and demands national and European news. Love, as your true friend, Your Imre.

NB. With delight I read your speeches, and recognize you in them. — Greet my acquaintances.

To the Worshipful Szontágh Pál, deputy for N. Libetbánya, at Pozsony, Dunasor No. 64.

March 27, 1855. Dear Pál! My murderous journey had a quite gentle outcome, as every great-prepared thing is wont to be; for it seems to be fate’s whim to laugh logic to scorn. — Like the Eastern question, like the European war, this horseback ride too had no result worthy of remark — or at least not such as was to be expected, namely neck-breaking, choking, and the like; but there was indeed one unexpected, one pleasant, and this is your witty little letter. It struck me as, in these world-soaking days, a sunbeam; as, in the midst of my fodder-lessness, the gift of a few carts of forage would strike me. — That the Aristophanic anecdotes did not exercise their purely aesthetic effect on you is, in so far as it is a disgrace artistically, so a praise philosophically; for Goethe the great master said that every passion, every feeling, every ideal becomes an art-object only when it has ceased to be passion, feeling, and ideal, when, like the learned physician, we take them under the dissecting-knife without pity or sympathy. — I wish for you, dear friend, together with myself, that the Aristophanic wit may become an art-object to us as late as possible. — Since I began writing these few lines, your impatient courier has urged me three times, and I think this is the fittest name for that Palóc individual who is too dove-like for kissing, and who really can scarcely have sprung from Horace’s imagination, nor perhaps even from Lisznyai’s, for then the Palóc songs would long since have driven off with their wild stench the choice pieces of my hand-library. Mercury he is not, I know, for despite the spring season I felt at his coming no shooting in my shins; nay, nor express either, for expressly he could not even say how long you stay at Lapujtő, which would have interested me much, and so he is just a courier. Let him run, then; rash is he who reaches into fate’s wheel; I too dare not hinder his destination — let him follow his calling, let him run, carrying off from me with him many fine friendly greetings to you, and sincere and true Christian-Germanic respect, from the chivalric age, to the ladies and to Ferenc — all such spiritual imponderabilities as the Palóc, this historical zero of humanity, philanthropic antidote, antichrist, will, I hope, not even notice on his back; and so he may run, as befits a courier. — Truly only grand is divine providence; what good fortune that the office of courier was already discovered in this individual’s lifetime; otherwise he would have died and not filled his purpose. — My mother and all of us especially honor, through me, both you and the Lapujtő people. I am, in spirit, embracing you, your true friend, Imre.

NB. With shame I must make good an omission; I forgot Gunár — I wish him always such a master as the present one, and his master much oats, "spirit he has enough of his own." —

August 11, 1856

To Szontágh Pál from Madách Imre, a friendly greeting.

The maiden, friend, I too feel it, Is the shining constellation of night, A fairy rose-tide in the winter, The poet’s loveliest thought. — A morning-star among the maidens, The one you chose — well, love her, She deserves a poet’s* love; But because you love her, let her not be your wife. You know your soul’s proud flight, In marriage you will not be happy, * Not he is the poet who makes rhymes, but he whose circle of ideas is above the commonplace. The lightning and the racing storm Are for the free sea, not the hearth. Who seeks a housewife for himself May find domestic peace with her; Who has but a few embers, Let him guard them with marriage; Who weighs every quality And, as a ware, chooses a wife, Let him marry and be glad Of his good fortune, his rosy son; But you who know well, my friend, That all this is not love yet, In whose bosom, like Etna, A hundred kinds of desire and longing burn, You, if you love with a poet’s ardor, Your feeling needs a hard struggle, And, like pearls in the sick shell, Your joys grow in a bleeding heart. You, if you love with a poet’s ardor, It is your heart’s holy prayer, And this is fervent only while doubtful Is the godhead’s blessing — or curse. You, if you love with a poet’s ardor, The object of your love grows spiritual, And, like a mirage, becomes for your heart A deceptively beckoning ideal. — A morning-star among the maidens, The one you chose — well, love her, She deserves a poet’s love; But because you love her, let her not be your wife. Or say — the Etna-fire in your heart, Will it be able thus to burn forever? Only the star twinkles forever, Because flame does not heat its breast. — Or, amid bleeding strife and prayer, How long does the human heart not tire? Only the indifferent, the unfeeling, Can command his own feeling. And the ideal that, like a mirage, Shines, and you adore with rich ardor, Amid habit and household care Will it not disperse like vapor? — See, to the sailor the far shore Beckons like Eden while he is at sea, But when he lands, when he safely holds it, He treads it with cold composure. The blue distance’s fair coloring Forsakes the peaks of the crags, And becomes only barren earth, What from afar he believed so charming. If you possess the woman you adore, Whom you saw only radiant, in dread, And then on your life’s muddy road She stands fettered to you always; She does not come then as a heavenly spirit When your soul fills with God, And in the hour of boredom and care Still lengthens the file of bad moments. Will you not be like the sailor with the shore When he has reached the safe harbor? Does not the poet’s thirst too drown In the reaching of the spring? Who weighs every quality And, as a ware, chooses a wife, Let him marry and be glad Of his good fortune, his rosy son. But the poet who, with flaming feeling, Clasps an ideal to his heart, Like a Pegasus bent to the yoke, Will never be happy in possession. You who possess such an ideal, Keep it as your heart’s godhead, Do not drag it down into the dust of earth, A curse upon you both.

To the Worshipful Szontágh Pál, in friendship Rétság Horpács A. Sztregován February 7, 1857 Greeting to my friend Pál!

You take it too seriously, my friend, This life; do not, for woe to you, You will curse man and the world, Though you could put all this to better use. True, our world, sad to the point of madness, Will after that become ridiculous; Through its first stage I have already passed, And now my heart is near lost in laughter. God too looks on his world as a jest, A jest is everything man does, Else long ago, from his fair universe, He would have flung it off like a carrion-sore. — If you see famous men leading Whole countries with grave faces, And, gazing in awe at them as higher beings, You believe yourself a dwarf, Believe wisdom hides in their steps, And he who does not grasp them is you, Laugh, laugh, for the great men are all Not a thread better than yourself. If you see the holy cause’s banner raised And under it an inspired speech resounds, While an enraptured troop gathers beneath it, Faithfully grasping the orator’s spirit: Laugh, laugh, for every single one knows That the banner is only thick delusion, The principle and the scorn belong to a few students only, The rest have each a different interest. And if the holy cause’s banner conquers at last And lofty feeling rises in your bosom, Wait a little and laugh, for the one who conquered Becomes just like the conquered. — If you see a mother flattering her child, And in your bosom wakes a pure ray of delight At nature’s voice — oh, laugh out, Know that she has done some mischief, or awaits a game. — If you see a dying man turn to his God, Devotion seizes your soul at the sight, And the seeing of a man’s last hour Gives matter for many a secret thought, Laugh, laugh — the sinner turned to God That he might still deceive God too, Believing that to wash off his long sins One moment’s penitence is already enough. And the priest comes, says a blessing over the dead, His old knees bow fervently, Laugh, for while the lips move, He is reckoning up the burial fee. — — You take it too seriously, my friend, This life; do not, for woe to you. Laugh with me, until in much laughter Your heart is healed, or bursts. embraces, your true friend, M. I. To the Worshipful Szontágh Pál, with friendly respect, p. Rétság Horpács

October 14, 1859 Dear friend and Hunting-comrade! If there is a time longer than eternity, then this is precisely it, which has flowed by since we last hunted together, shooting bucks, does, witticisms, and half-baked things. — But not for nothing is this time great; great things too happened in it, for just as you have grown gigantically in glory and fame before the world since then — not before me, true, for you stood already at the zenith of my esteem — so I learn with regret that you have shrunk in body hideously; and so my love, which hitherto was distributed over 150 pounds of live weight, now bears perhaps with its whole weight on 100 pounds, and I do not know whether this diminished subject can bear the pressure. Only this comforts me, that the nature of the pressure will not be in mathematical proportion to the mass, but the hundred pounds of live weight will bear just as much pressure as the 150 bore, and will require just as much love too, from doe or buck. — Our old eagle will have the good fortune to spend next Sunday with you; according to the rule quae aequalia uni tertio, I too shall be there among you in spirit; and that I shall not feel the taste of the sardines and caviar too, and not swallow with you at once, ascribe only to this, that, to my misfortune, this is precisely the one point in which our friend Matolcsy’s principles are not identical with ours. — I shall see whether I am to feel the taste of the Szirák Riesling and red, as I justly expect, since my representative in this fills, I trust, the place of two men. — At the Csalomia feast we meet in persona; till then, in spirit, embraces, your true friend, Madách Imre. This page was destined to be filled by me with jokes manufactured about your German belly; however, since you have already gloriously parried all these in your letter to Uncle György, the page stays empty. — I know it gives you too as great a joy if some distinction reaches one of our triple alliance as I rejoiced in a like case; therefore I inform you that Bory Pali was just here, bringing with him the brute draft of a newspaper article, to ask Matolcsy, as a learned man — in his own words — that, dissolving it in the proper sauce, he should style it. So that in the press it might come first under the Press [Sajtó], then under cheese [sajt]. Otherwise it would have been no great pity to put it straight under cheese, for the spiritus remained only in Bory Pali’s head, none of it got into the article — and Matolcsy would have been left with the sauce. For the rest, the Learned One will explain this by word of mouth, and so a part of the sauce you too can enjoy. CERTIFICATE.

The undersigned certify that Matolcsy György, even before the admonitio that arrived from Horpács, had already resolved to compear at Horpács on the 16th of this month. Nay, already before, after his custom, he had several times been ready with his travel-plan, which only the elements and other duties frustrated. Csalomia, October 15, 1859. Madách Imre Madách Károly.

To the Worshipful Szontágh Pál, my friend, in respect at Horpács

February 23, 1860 Dear Pál! The knight Toggenburg, whom Schiller sang, really does not deserve a word beside me; for though he too looked continually at a window, from that window at least a fair lady looked back at him, while I, likewise spending my days gazing at a window, can in no way spy out your arrival; and that I have not yet died, like that one, I owe only to my stronger constitution; but the escape of my bodily death I must make up for with a spiritual death, in so far as cursing, despite my best resolves, quite overpowers me; and what crowns all these calamities of mine is that there is not even anyone to sing me. I report that I now live in Hungarian trousers on Sundays; to this, on the one hand, our friend Protman’s brilliant prognostication moved me too, but I do not find that the insurrection really resides in them. — For the commissions’ resolutions I am bound in the highest degree, and I have already issued the subscription-sheet for the erection of a monument; which, however, if I wait much longer at the window, will in any case be three-legged, that I may keep the constitutional custom. — Herewith, then, I summon you once more, as Danton summoned Robespierre, that (not within three months, like that one, but) within a week you come this way. — I do not continue further, for here comes the fury, and this it is a pity to pour into a letter. Therefore, the God of the Magyars with us, embraces, your true friend, Madách Imre.

January 21, 1861 Dear Pál! According to my promise and wish, I should today be at Lapujtő, for your sister-in-law’s name-day — she whom, as is commonly known, I hold to be one of the model images of the womanly bright side — to pay my respects. However, the surging of political life this time forces me elsewhere, and so I am obliged to have myself represented only by an absentium ablegatus. — In my own person I set out toward Sztrácin, with Bory Károly, as a table-judge to proclaim liberty, and to recommend myself for the coming deputy-election; from which circuit I return home only on Saturday. I have already finished one circuit of like aim, and have secured for myself, I think, the largest communities. — All this detailed account I have made only that the applicatio may now follow: I have sent you, by Huszár Pista, the communities of the Szécsény electoral district. — Set everything aside and get into a cart, go round one part yourself, the other part let Feri do; seek out everywhere the most influential men and recommend yourself to them. To hold mass-meetings and orations is not yet timely, but the turn will come for this too. — Do not think this beneath your dignity; this Coriolanus did, as well as Alcibiades, Madách Imre as well as Sréter László. — The qui prior tempore potior jure counts for very much, and on Básti Barna’s part the district is already covered; and one must never make light of the enemy. — Therefore I say again, into a cart at once! — Further, you must secure the officials’ favor in your electoral district. But I preach no longer; I say only this: if you fail, I shall beat you to death, or renounce my friendship, as to a helpless man, for only your negligence and over-confidence would cause it. — If you have brought the Bible from Pest, as I asked you, send it by this man; but first seek out from your namesake’s [Paul’s] letters that place which speaks of love, mark the verses in question throughout with a red pencil, put a strong sign among the pages in question, and so roll it up again and send it. To the ladies in question, such as your sister-in-law and your sister, to the men in question, such as Feri, Pista, Tivadar, and Bakó, for the carrying-out of my messages I name You my deputy without instruction, hoping that you know your elector’s spirit well enough to be able to answer his confidence; embraces, your true friend, Madách Imre.

September 16, 1861 Dear Pali! To you I owe again a great joy. This, true, is an everyday matter, for every meeting with you is a joy to me; now, however, I speak of a more unusual joy, and I hasten to make you a partaker of it. The day before yesterday I received a letter from Arany János, which I write here word for word, keeping the original: Honored Compatriot! Since you, before your departure, did not seek me out, allow me to visit you with these few lines. "The Tragedy of Man" is, both in conception and in composition, a very excellent work. Only here and there in the versification — and in the language — do I find some heaviness; especially the lyric parts are not sufficiently sonorous. But even so, as it is, with a little outward polishing, it may take its place among the most excellent products of our literature. I do not know what intention you have as to publication: I should wish to bring it about by way of the Kisfaludy Society, which, I hope, would succeed. — If my wish should meet with your will, then I should mark out, line by line, the places where I should think a change — in no case essential — advisable; or, if you acquiesce, I should myself make a stroke or two of the pen on it, then present it to the society. This I should boldly dare to do, without fear of refusal. — I await your valued reply. Receive my warmest greeting for the delight which your work has caused me, for the luster to which it is called to raise our poetry. Pest, Sept. 12, 1861. Your fellow of kindred feeling, Arany János. — So much for the writing. I have not yet answered, and I should extraordinarily wish to be with you before my answer. On Sunday at noon I shall be at Szentiványi’s in Szakál, in the evening I come home. You have not been at my place for 100 years now, and you know my Mother too, what a peculiar admirer of yours she is. If you can, my Pál, come then. But before you go to Pest in any case, for in another matter too I should have likewise notable commissions. I should like to embrace you and scold you at once. — However, let there now be no talk of any Bolond Istók-like looking-in, for sooner could Sztregova be Debrecen than you a Bolond Istók. Embraces, your true friend, M. Imre.

January 20, 1863 Dear Pál! Your dear letter I received yesterday afternoon, and I can say with very, very great joy, incomparably greater than the news of my election, on which you congratulate me; for while this latter was embittered by the dread of the inaugural address, in your letter the unmistakable tone of sincere friendship and sympathy would have melted even the most savage English temper. From your champagne-like state of soul, however, which appears from your letter, and the greatest part of which I do indeed arrogate to myself, forgive me if I at the same time conclude that the letter that awaited you at Rétság was well lined too, for otherwise it is impossible that I should not discover some dregs of bitterness in your heart. In that case I too congratulate, and am glad I was no vates. — At Mr. Ordódi’s motion, I send Gyuri, bored to death, enclosed here. Our friend Gyuri has not for a long time seen his wife such a Diana as he will see her now, and I believe he will gladden the world with a well-made Palóc. He was so weary of life that I began to lock the ropes away before him. — He received 15 groschen for the road. Ordódi’s account I shall communicate later. — I cannot help ending sadly the letter I wrote in good humor. This unlucky day today makes me 40 years old, and from this not even my two holy patrons, Fabian and Sebastian, saved me. With the ladies I should only now begin to be truly fortunate, I notice, when already to the best deal I say pass — and never bid higher than a peasant betl [a card-bid] — But no matter — in friendship for that I hold everything ad internecionem, and I am, embracing you, your true friend, Madách Imre.

TO TOLDY FERENC

March 12, 1857 Worshipful Secretary! In my family archive I found a manuscript of the following title, extending to 26 sheets: Ex Diario Mscripto autographo Emerici Tökölj, quod in Bibliotheca Eminentissimi Cardinalis et Regni Primatis Principis Josephi a Batthyán asservatur, descripti dies illi, in quibus Petri Madách mentio fit. NB. in praelaudata Bibliotheca solummodo Diarium annorum 1693 et 1694 existit. — The diary is in Hungarian, comprises 77 days, and my grandfather Madách Sándor had it copied out in 1797. — Since I do not remember ever having seen Tököly’s diary cited as a source, I am forced to believe that its existence is not known to the learned world, and therefore I am bold to trouble you with these present lines. — If I have lent some helping hand toward the discovery of the originals, or can render some service by these fragments here in case the original should have been wholly lost, I shall count it my good fortune. — Likewise my grandfather had copied out the XXIXth Article of a book of the following title: Succincta Medicorum Hungariae et Transilvaniae Biographia Centuria altera. Pars posterior. Excerpta ex adversariis Stephani Weszpremi Med. Doctoris Lib. Regiaeque Civ. Debrecinensis Phys. ord. Viennae 1781. The said article speaks of Madách Gáspár, after long and great praises, as follows: Qui admissis in contubernium Musis aetatem in meliores litteras remque imprimis medicam post publici, ut videtur muneris administrationem raro inter nobiles exemplo impendit. Hoc satis dolere nequimus, quod reliqua nobilissimi viri doctissima, quae in litteras retulerat, commentaria vel computruerint temporum injuria aut certe concerpta, vel ad foeda ministeria rejecta sint. — — — — En itaque codicem, qui in manus nostras fato felici incedit botanicum anno 1628 tersissime manu sua in forma octavi ordinis phileris 30 exaratum typo destinatum, et in litterariam lucem educendum, qui praestantissimum P. Andr. Matthioli Librum Herbarium Civitate Hungarica donatum, et hoc insignitum titulo exhibet: Haazy Apateka. Szok rendbely irott orvosságokkal eszközökkel tellies ezen konivv mellieket könnien meg késithetny mindenfele kvvlső és belső niawaliak betegsegek ellen, melliek származnak az emberri elette folliasanak minden ideiben. Nemet nielwbeol az tudós Doctor Matthiolus András Herbariumos köniweből chech nielwre forditatott és mostan chech nielwbul Magiarra forditatott az Nemzetes és Nemes Stregowai Madáts Gaspar áltál. Az ezer hat száz husson niolts estendoben.* — In proof of the author’s exactness and scholarly culture, a sheet’s worth of specimen from the work follows. — This I communicate partly that I may draw the attention of your Worship, who have such inestimable merits about the history of Hungarian literature, to Weszpremi’s book (which I have indeed so far not been able to procure), in which many a learned Hungarian may find mention. I must beg, however, that you not be pleased to interpret this as any presumption, or to receive with a pitying smile that which is the outflow of my most sincere respect and zeal. — Partly that, if there is anything interesting in the fact that in 1628 a Hungarian herbal was written, I may show the way to its discovery, and that the Worshipful Secretary, according to his discretion, may set some reward for its discoverer. — After a further look through my archive, I shall gladly communicate several documents, Hungarian decrees of Turkish pashas, letters of Zrínyi Péter, Nádasdi, etc., if you will find them interesting. — And now, if my long letter, despite my best will, contains nothing worthy, I must beg pardon for your valued time I have robbed. I am, with [...] respect, Worshipful Secre... your humble servant, Madách Imre [The dotted parts are cut out.] [At the beginning of the letter, by the date, in Toldy’s hand] Received. — 17

* This inconsistent orthography may have arisen either from Weszprémi’s or from the copyist’s error. —

TO VERES GYULA

Have the Domiáns not yet been at your place? When shall I see you at last at mine; from here together we might still perhaps visit either the polar bears, or the Csemiczkys. — If any criticism of my book came in the Gombostű, send it me, I beg, to read through. Embraces, your true friend, Madách. Your wife’s ladyship’s hands I kiss. Farmer Pál, I hope, has revived. MADÁCH IMRE’S RECEIVED LETTERS ARANY JÁNOS

Since you, before your departure, did not seek me out, allow me to visit you with these few lines. "The Tragedy of Man" is, both in conception and in composition, a very excellent work. Only here and there in the versification — and in the language — do I find some heaviness; especially the lyric parts are not sufficiently sonorous. But even so, as it is, with a little outward polishing, it may take its place among the most excellent products of our literature. I do not know what intention you have as to publication: I should wish to bring this about by way of the Kisfaludy Society, which, I hope, would succeed. If my wish should meet with your will, then I should mark out, line by line, the places where I should think a change — in no case essential — advisable; or, if you acquiesce, I should myself make a stroke or two of the pen on it, then present it to the society. This I should boldly dare to do, without fear of refusal. I await your valued reply. Receive my warmest greeting for the delight which your work has caused me, for the luster to which it is called to raise our poetry! Your fellow of kindred feeling, Pest, Sept. 12, 1861. Arany János.

Dear Friend! Let us drop the ceremony; in intimate conversation like this we understand each other more easily. I did not want to write until I had gone all the way through your tragedy with my observations, but I see that this takes a little more time, and as I am occupied on other sides as well, I cannot sit on it continuously. And yet time presses: I should like to see your work in print as soon as possible. Here I send a part of my notes. From these you can see what their nature is. With hardly any exception they belong to the most external technicalities. What a pity that such things occur: in my opinion "The Tragedy of Man" would, with a Dante’s or a Goethe’s technique, be a masterpiece. As it is, it is one too; but a superficial reader stumbles on the little clods. With your leave I have already announced it to the Kisfaludy Society. Your name is not yet known: it depends on you when it shall be brought to light. Supposing you do not object, on the 31st of this month, in the Thursday session, I mean to read out a couple of passages from it. For the rest, the publication could be carried out on my own responsibility too, since I am authorized as to what shall go into that sixty-sheet enterprise which was promised to the patrons. For works taken into this enterprise a modest honorarium is also due (its little sheet 20–30 florins); which is indeed not in proportion to the value of your work, but I see it as advantageous to your début that it should happen under the aegis of the Kisfaludy Society. More attention will thus be turned to your work, and it will not be exposed to the risk of remaining unread until it somehow struggles itself out of obscurity. If, then, you have no word against my procedure — if you approve my corrections in part or in whole, or supplement them with new ones, send them back to me as soon as possible, for I have no duplicate of them, and I have changed nothing in your manuscript. If my modifications should not please you, or if you should wish in general to modify nothing at all (except here and there the orthography, for that must be done in any case), write me that too. This is no obstacle to the work’s appearance; I have proposed changes only for your sake. As soon as I have received the first consignment with your observations, we could begin the printing at once. Then, as the work advances, we could exchange our observations from time to time. Of this I can assure you, that my notes will all be merely of this kind, and always in diminishing number. They will not concern anything more essential; composition, economy, and so forth are all complete. Indeed it will perhaps not occur more often than it has here in a couple of cases, that I make an observation on the thought. Csák I have received — but I have not yet handed it in to the theatre. In my opinion it will be advantageous for you if Csák is not even known until the "Tragedy" is read. I find that in this — despite the fact that the characters represent an abstract idea — there is still more dramatic quality than in Csák. But of this another time. Receive my most cordial greeting! your respecting and loving friend Arany János. P.S. I see that no one could speak better to aesthetic and literary questions than precisely you. I edit a literary paper; I am in very great want of collaborators. Would you not be so kind as to support me? I hear and know that formerly you worked in the journalistic field, albeit in another branch. You may write under a pseudonym too, or without a name. A discursive article, a notice or review of domestic or foreign literary products, and so forth, all fall within the scope of my paper. Do not withhold your labor from me. [Enclosure.] Remarks on The Tragedy of Man. Scene I "Glory in the highest to my God." This is very personal, it forces the tone, and on account of the meter it seems interpolated. "Our share is but the shadow," and below: "In its radiance such a share of part…" It seems a contradiction, unless we take it that the shadow is a part of the light. Perhaps it may be so too. "Let us adore Him for the boundless grace, that…" This that, especially in lyric, at the end of a line, is bad. Could it not be helped? "The great work is complete, and so
All fits so well together that I think
For millions of years it will turn fairly on
Until one cog of a wheel must be renewed." — In these lines the I think is a little odd: but the whole four lines, with their craftsman’s self-complacency, appear in a comic light too. The more so, because it is at the beginning of the piece, and is God’s first word. Could it not be exchanged for one of more majestic tone? It made such an impression on me at first that I laid the work aside, and only at Jámbor Pali’s urging took it up again. "Sverak" (in several places). Spheres, or sphaerae. "foolish spark" — the foolish seems only a gap-filling epithet; "spark" and "light" are an impossibly bad rhyme. "Two globes are contending against each other,
To tear apart, to fall together" — the latter line expresses the thought obscurely, syntactically and grammatically. "Star of love" — this is perhaps frivolous here, the more so because it was not yet such; but in any case only a son of earth can look on those spheres as stars, an angel is under no such optical illusion. "Here the remnant of the perishing" — If the play begins immediately after the creation, perhaps it is not yet in place to see worlds perishing. "they exchange — over them" not a very good rhyme. "forever" — eternally. The orthographic errors I shall no longer mark out; I shall correct them when the proof passes through my hands. "But even if it be, you have no power to alter it." The even if it be is not Hungarian. "Is it worthy of such an old gentleman…" The old gentleman is very Goethean, Mephistophelean. — Could not another title be given everywhere. A narrow-minded man bellows the charge of imitation out of such things. "Hosanna, Lord!" (2nd person) "who set the holy law" (3rd person). It would be well to harmonize, it is a little jarring. Scene II ("Beating sun" — they say sunbeam, not beating-sun.) "Ah, how sweet, how fair it is to live." I do not know whether a comma comes after the to, or whether it stands for a noun. In any case it is troublesome. I should make Éva exclaim thus: "Ah, to live, to live! how sweet, how fair!" — more emphatic too, and the verse and language are better. "As though a hostile stranger…" This frequently recurring "as though" very much exposes the fetter of the verse. Perhaps rather a monosyllabic interjection should come before it: Hah! Look! Ah! As if… "Here on your breast, it seems, I still hear it." (The heavenly harmony.) Instead of seems, better appears, for Ádám is not speaking of something visible. The whole is a sugary modern compliment to love, just as Éva’s compliment is to Ádám’s reproach. "would head" — perhaps would open; this heading first puts us in mind of a boot. "Doubting I stand yet once more" — Is it doubting, or hesitating? The latter is unusual. "the old gentleman"… See above. "like a witless child" An anachronism in Ádám’s direction. He can have no conception of this. Later (when he lives in vision) there is no anachronism, for he may know everything; not yet now. "dung-heap" the heap I do not know. Perhaps it would be more intelligible, if not finer: "But like a dunghill…" "to thrive in the soft lap of your little sphere"… The catalectic verse lines are too many even without this. They must be thinned, where possible, for after all this is not a rule in the iambus, but an exception. "span" instead everywhere span, unless the meter commands otherwise. "if you enjoy that"… that is popular enough, but the grammar disowns it. It could be avoided too. "Still only a tyrant"… harsh. "Still a great tyrant"…? "The glory clears a little"… This glory thus by itself is unusual, in place of the gloria, which they translate as halo. However, I see that it would be stronger, if one grew used to it. "The old negation haunts…" The meter wails. — But I see it is hard to set right without spoiling the precision. "Help me,
You elements" In such things Goethe shows great lyric virtuosity… But it is short, and let it stay. "A different horizon surrounds each of the two." The syntax is decidedly faulty. takes is needed, unconditionally. Perhaps thus: Each of the two is girdled by a different horizon. "beyond your horizon" — possible, like beyond doubt. But Boeotia stumbles on it! "Just so do we regard…" "do we" is an unusual order. "choosing this world of dust"… The participle is jarring. It would be easy to help. "measured-out life" a bad sound. Ordered life? "But the Lord said that he would punish." A hiatus too. "among sun-beamed days — one day is a pleonasm. Scene III "As ours once was"… Hard. "While industry and homeland come of it" — Perhaps thus. "you defy the clear heaven" one defies with something. Let the rhyme rather perish. "Which goes in its track, in the dejection"… it rhymes. "But if the band of gratitude". This not even pure Hungarian band is ugly… clasp? buckle? "What man shall fashion with foolish plan…" I do not know whether Ádám speaks of himself or of another. "Nor did I need your help" this word forged from need is not fit for verse. "Perhaps a thread" this thread is vulgar… fiber would be needed rather. Or a hair, etc. "can still defy you." See above. "Concealed, because it works without noise" — The inversion is very harsh. "Let me see, then, that working…" Hard, with the spondee. "Which can flow upon me" — the predicate is far from the subject. The parentheses very much turn aside the sense of the speech. "you sink" The like of this we must set right at the orthography. "if there is no other over you" — a clumsy inversion. "More kindred than the cold old one was." A bad verse, a bad sound. "Who will be gentler than the grim old one." "a fine modest lad, that one." — the that one is not needed. "spirit = with me" — not a good rhyme. "If I take on my image, you collapse" "as I ask you, are already resolved" (there are). Such a thing is hard in Hungarian. "and the one-day fly" — The fly is one thing in that it is not very poetic, another in that it multiplies the catalectic verse. Would it not be better: "The century-old tree and the one-day insect"? "we alone change" — even without the alone it would give the same sense, with more emphasis, a better verse. "you too fulfill your purpose, then" The then can again be left out. "pressed it" hiatus. "This is the old one’s retrospect" — I do not understand it clearly. I do not know whether the second line rhymes intentionally. Perhaps it would be easier thus: But my young breast’s ardent desire is other:
To cast a glance into my future. Scene IV "In vain you call it" The call (rufst), in Hungarian, does not render that: for aid. Perhaps you ask, though that is more vulgar. "what magic she possesses for her own" — a lost sound, a bad syntax. "snatches to her being" — would it not be better: Drags down to herself wallowing in the dust? "What then shall I do" — Would it not be better should do (i.e. the wise king of whom Pharaoh speaks), then the following two lines of Lucifer would come better. It is hard to understand these two lines. "What the strong man piles, and setting up a successor in his yoke, dies." The reader may rather refer the latter two predicates to the strong man. "A vile number to you" — a better meter is given by: a paltry. "As I am to power" — power is indeed a better meter than the deleted force, but this is stronger. "As I to force." "You forbid it then" — Effective, but seems strong. "Hush it?" "that with the yoke" — "with the yoke that." "That the people’s woe" — "That the people’s woe" or "this people’s woe" if the special reference cannot be omitted. "And I with you" — the I with you can be read by the distracted thus: "And do you think, I?…" The meter is nothing. "The beast condemned by destiny" — A hard sound. Perhaps: "The beast condemned to that." "What else do you desire" — to desire something? It would be easy to set right: "What is your other desire?" "with this useless, this foolish prattle" — the foolish comes up already very many times. Here it could be: silly prattle. "which on your faces" — they take it that a face is one (Gesicht), cheeks are two (Wangen). "Which brushes your face and flits away." "A thin layer of dust remains after it — on the face? no, on the ground. But the other way it can be understood first: "remains, where it flies off." "it lodges" possible and better too: it dwells. "not the heaven-shaking tempest" — "And all this not an earth- and heaven-shaking tempest" or: the sky-shaking tempest — "Which from individuals forms a whole" — it does not ring. Perhaps thus: "Which makes of individuals a great whole." "Lead, lead, Lucifer, to my new place." — "Lead, Lucifer, to a new goal. (?) "with broken hope etc… Clumsy. But it may stay. Scene V "Look, your father went off that way…" "Look, your father went off that way in a swift ship." "and may it bring our heroic father into our midst." "grief consumes me at home — Only: at home. "God’s curse sits…" "only the woman in love has the right." "would come to superior force" = would attain, or get. "no one even calls me on account of my vote"… on account of is not good. for, or because of would be needed. "And no one needs the vote." "What is man to begin with now" — Germanic. "Tedious life! What are we to do now?" "A little weak disturbance would do no harm" (A little hubbub would not be bad) "Away from here, this place here belongs to me…" germanism. "Off! this place here is mine!" "crown it." "Come now, deck the beast with flowers." "From the table of the great — "At their masters’ table!…" Hard. The is-it-not is not even good Hungarian. Boundary and may rap is a bad trope too. "Will not the dread bound of your tedious shadow-play soon set in?" "Ah, Miltiades, why do you come, if your wife cannot even rejoice at your coming. — My son…" "I consecrate it above your altar. — "Consecrating I fix it above your altar." "This vile people deserves only the fetter, Which (the which is to be understood rather of the fetter) "Indeed the people deserves only the fetter, Which…" "As mine." To help it somehow, for it is forced. "And how much more, if it is pure, like this one of mine." "Oh yes" — Oh, very. "You, woman, who from paradise"… Elsewhere Ádám does not recall his paradisal state. And this is perhaps better too. "Does it not shudder you…" A bad construction: Does it not make you shudder. — That is-it-not is bad everywhere. — "Now then, valiant one, does the cold breath of grimacing death not shudder your limbs a little?" "Freedom is not so sweet." "And yet freedom is not so sweet to you as it was painful to me. — may stay too. Scene VI "angular table (in the stage direction)." Was it not rather a round table that the Romans had. See e.g. Rich, Dict. Antiq., Mensa. "Who is there among us who still believes in gods — many i’s, many k’s. "Who among us would still believe in these gods?…" "Or who is it, more richly… Who keeps a sweetheart?…" a bad sound; and the maîtresse-keeping is modern. "even if = if you could even. To insert it somehow into the verse. "You desire pleasure" — you long for pleasure (better still, if not deponent). "And will it not eat me up" — decidedly an error. "And will you not be the prey of the foul worm? Or: And will the foul worm not eat you too?" "if a little blood ran" germanism. flowed. "Well is well = it is well, well. "I hold it to your eyes, etc. I sense its meaning, but as a veiled thought it is obscure too. "Already the black death lurks within it." Not an iambus. "The black death burns lurking" would perhaps rather pass. Hippia’s and Cluvia’s song. A very good idea, but without lyric resonance. "It haunted in the brains of the great. Es spukte. German. "Or are you not well?…" Not Hungarian. The Hungarian is well, when he is not ill. Such a thing does him good. "Is it not good for you to rest on my manly breast? Ah, it is good. —" "If happiness tunes one to gravity… I hold that which laughs is not even genuine." — These I do not understand. "As though I flew into the distant past" — Éva’s memory of paradise is here brought forward much more beautifully than Ádám’s above. Thus perhaps Ádám too should recall his former existence. Ádám. "So I feel" etc. Here the memory is already obscure. The more necessary it is to correct the 5th scene. — "that it have a sphere = that it have a sphere" (in Ádám’s prayer). "as on swelling pillows" better than this: "as on the swollen pillows." Scene VII Do you not see… Or do you not see? Why not? fraternal band… "That with so many vile, base designs." The vile can likewise be read as the epithet of the design. A substantive would be needed, or: "That with a base aim so many a brigand waves the holy banner in his hand." I strike him down. The him we do not know whether it is carried to the people or to the spirit. Better thus: I strike down. L. And if he has spirit too? Is it not nobler… Why, is it not nobler? "companion" — forced. "do you not believe already… Why, do you not believe already. "And you still always… — The conjunction is not needed, for a participle precedes it. "barefoot"… It will not do, it could be bare-legged. "they are numbered" — The style is hard, not the verse. — They are counted… For they are reckoned… Even if, what have I gained? "And what should I have gained?… And so damned… I am damned. is it not a great idea? why, is it not a great idea? "when one night surprised his camp… Hard. "Remarkable (Merkwürdig)" "This is strange." "dares to hinder my victory…" — victory is always long. I love you. — There is no way to make a flexion-form! "It is not forbidden, perhaps, that I should love?" Where to love is forbidden to us alone. "Where to love alone is forbidden us." to defy everything… Not to it, with it. "shamelessness" is quite other than impudence. "Facelessness" it might be.

Dear Friend! It is my misfortune that when I have already grown weary with a whole day’s mechanical and other-ish occupation, then I get a little time to write a letter, with my forever buzzing and for the most part dizzied head. Hence it is that while your letters refresh themselves in the fullness of feeling, mine, with an editor’s curtness and distracted carelessness, toss out a dry sentence or two. No literary antiquary will ever find my epistles worthy of collecting! Now too only of the matter: shortly and lazily. On the last of October I read out the first four scenes of the tragedy in the Kisfaludy Society. If you had seen how an Eötvös, a Csengeri, and so forth cried out — even at the local beauties alone — this is glorious! very fine! and so on. We have won, my friend, so far we have won, and we shall win hereafter too. The work, in its fundamental idea, in its composition, in all that is essential — original, bold, poetic — that in the external, but in the most external, some deficiency shows itself here and there, that is perhaps to be attributed to your circumstances. Perhaps the sense of the Hungarian folk-speech did not penetrate you as it should a poet so great; while the literary language for years has been deteriorating, taking into itself more and more that is foreign. Perhaps you received the German and in general the foreign culture earlier than the Hungarian language-spirit could have eaten itself ineradicably into your sense of language. Or if it were not so, then perhaps you play a bolder game with the language than the language could now endure. And verse technique very much requires public practice: since my début I have learned very, very much in this respect, though even before I thought I knew it. The famous four lines — at which, for the rest, no one but myself found fault — I should prefer that you correct yourself. You would perhaps still remember them: there they are, right at the very beginning. But it should be done soon, for time presses, the press waits. My soul does not carry me to put a thought in place of a thought that is not yours; if, however, you should not do it, or it is delayed, I shall attempt it. As for the rest I make use of the freedom with which you are confiding enough to invest me. But I do not abuse it. There is much among my notes where my correction is smoother, but your text is stronger. In such cases I think twice about the change. That at first I did not supplement the censured places with my own, the reason is that I only wanted to mark out the faults, for you to correct. I thought you had a foul copy. This much, however, I can say, that if it went to press just as it is, a sensible man would involuntarily acknowledge that he has to do with no common writer. But I want, as far as possible, to remove even the chance that the unsensible should carp at it. Lo, someone has spied out an orthographic error — and it is set up that the orthography is bad. Nevertheless I cannot promise that by my corrections I shall make its technique (that is, its verse) perfect. In some places it goes, in others it does not. But for example the lyric places — in which I do not very much find the lyre’s resonance — remain roughly as they are. The iambic places are in general better — and there are places where with the diction, the pathos, the verse rises to its every non plus ultra. Such, for example, is St. Peter’s speech, such many another, where Shakespeare himself would not have made it otherwise. And in some places a certain roughness sits so well that one would be sorry to part with it, as with some of the harshnesses of Bánk Bán. All this is well for him to consider who corrects. God bless you, my dear good man! I await your kind support as regards the paper — it will not be needed long, it may be. Receive my embrace! your true friend Arany János

Let us never be in such great haste with Mr. "Csák’s" auto-da-fé. I will say when it is needed: but it is not needed yet. More fully of it, as soon as I get time and inclination.

To the Honorable Madách Imre, Esq. respectfully Balassa-Gyarmat A. Sztregova

Honored dear Friend! I have abused your patience, keeping silent so long about the fate of your tragedy. But for one part I did not see it necessary to hinder the course of the printing on account of slightly essential corrections, for another I was much occupied with my petty affairs, so as to correspond without imperative need. Now the book has appeared; from it I have directed 20 copies to you, and I think you have by now received them. I do not know what you judge of my changes in the text — for the rest it stands in your freedom, in a probably soon necessary 2nd edition, to restore everything to its original form. Despite the fact that I myself, with the greatest care, corrected every sheet three times, it was still unavoidable that a printer’s error or two should creep in. I do not mean the orthography, where I proceeded consciously so as to use a long or short vowel (i, í, u, ú etc.), a single or double consonant, as the iambus required; but one or two real errors remained in it, and a letter dropped out, another ran together after the correction, when it could then no longer be helped. — On a paper strip I have marked them out, that the reader may set them right. — But even so I dare flatter myself that I have not made your work unsightly, though the Society’s situation did not permit any splendid production. — The work will be in demand, it seems, and the criticism, if not with unconditional praise, will yet speak of it handsomely. Gyulai is writing a study of it in the Budapesti Szemle; in the Figyelő — I did not want the first word — I have it first read by Szász Károly. — And meanwhile "I greet you in the bosom of the Kisfaludy Society!" It would remain for me to speak of what I ought already to be sending, the honorarium. This, as I prepared you for in advance, will not be great, but considering our circumstances and the Society’s situation, decent. Instead of a few florins per sheet, in round numbers there will be 50 gold pieces at your disposal with me. They are indeed not yet converted — for there are several hundred florins from last year’s payments, but since I put them to bear interest in the savings bank, and now the new payments are already coming in, I want to send your portion from these, which can happen within a couple of weeks. Or do you not intend coming to Pest soon, that I might have it ready by then? Awaiting your valued reply, and greeting you warmly, I am your admirer and friend Arany János. [On a separate envelope] Honored Madách Imre, Esq., with respect B. Gyarmat toward A. Sztregova Szakál Pest, February 13. 1862. My dear friend, I wrote to you a good while ago, to which I hoped for an answer, but it has so far been wanting. Could you not have received my letter, or — what I dare not even think — could something have offended you in my procedure about your work? In that hastily written letter I tried to give account of the technical side of the matter, especially as regards the printer’s error or two that crept in despite my best will and effort, and of the changes, to which you boundlessly authorized me, but in which I confined myself chiefly to those already communicated to you. I mentioned too that if these are against your will, in a second edition — which, thank God, will sooner or later be a pressing necessity — you can restore the original text (your manuscript is still with me in usable condition). What I will not believe is that you should have taken offense at the smallness of the honorarium, since I wrote in advance that the Kisfaludy Society cannot promise much, and roughly indicated too within what bounds its remuneration can move. That this, instead of payment per sheet, was expressed in a sum and in gold roughly corresponding to it, happened at my motion, who, if I could not increase the value of the fee, wanted at least by the manner of its handing over to make it more agreeable. The Kisfaludy Society is a society whose whole yearly income from its foundations, as you can read from the secretary’s report, does not amount to 400 florins, and so cannot cover even its running (internal) costs from this; it can therefore honor only from those 4-florin payments which it receives from its patrons. The sum of these even now scarcely exceeds a thousand, and from this 60 sheets must be produced, sent out by post, and so forth. For honorarium it can therefore devote only as much as proportionally falls from this — and that is infinitely little in relation to your work, I know, and knew in advance: but in the favorable reception of a moral body there was surely more for you than if a bookseller had paid as much again. This of you I hold sacredly, the more so as my own début was somewhat similar to yours, and though for Toldi I bargained for 15 — say: fifteen — gold pieces, and got 20, I would not part for much with the memory of that début. I do not continue, then, this material excuse, of which there was probably no need at all, but ask your valued reply, whether I should hand the thing to be sent to someone, or send it by post, since I am now in such a position that I can convert it at any hour. The notice of your tragedy in the Figyelő has also begun. I am not satisfied with it (with the review) in many places, especially I hold the conception deficient, but let it speak itself out: by and by let several of us speak to it. Such a work deserves to be studied from several sides, and for the writer even a mistaken review can be useful, for he can see from it, for example, how far a subordinate spirit is able to grasp what he thought, and accustom himself to an expression more comprehensible to the majority. I should have written of the work myself, but for one thing the preparations for the general assembly and the cares of my paper (and my wretched sick temper) did not let me enter into so larger-breathed an examination, for another, that (you have hardly tried this yet, but so it is) if one has read a work over and over again mechanically, set it right, chewed for weeks on its printer’s errors and the proof-sheets printed on blotting-paper, be it the world’s first poem or one’s own sweet offspring, one will be so filled with it that for a couple of months one will not even care to look at it. Hence it is that I entrusted the first presentation to Szász Károly, since Gyulai had promised himself to the Budapesti Szemle, while Salamon (and these are my only critics) is in bondage at three papers. But now this latter too has promised to write of it: and for half a year we shall keep up the Figyelő with it. God bless you, my dear friend, and I beg you, be with full confidence toward me. You may think me anything, only not a man "who carves out of much wood." It may be that you will find me hereafter too a "surly silent one" — or a "confused" letter-writer, but one less filled with respect and love toward you — never! Live happily, and forgive me if, unknowing and unwilling, I have offended you with anything. your true friend Arany János. Honored Madách Imre, Esq., with respect Balassa-Gyarmat A. Sztregova Szakál Pest, March 6. 1862. My dear good friend! I wanted to answer at once your very longingly awaited and very joyful-contented letter, and lo, days have already passed in the delaying. I waited to be able to be entirely without care, entirely yours; I waited so long that now, in a more discordant state than ever, I must make up my hitherto neglect. So you get from me again a letter thrown together topsy-turvy — this is already my lot. That you are satisfied with your tragedy’s production, of that I should rejoice exceedingly, did I not on the other hand feel that it could have been done better, and deserved to be. But the Society having a contract with Emich, neither its paper nor its production could be other than what we settled for the printings of the 60-sheet enterprise; and to contract separately for something more splendid, the treasury did not permit. As for the type, I find fault that the personal names were printed in such small capitals in the small-letter lines; somewhat larger, but of a similar kind, would have been needed. But I came to this when the full number of copies of the first sheet had already been printed, so I could only have helped it with great loss. As for the "printer’s error" you adduced, I confess contritely that it is no printer’s error, but one of those soi-disant "corrections" to which you authorized me a little lavishly too, but with which I strove to deal gently. Your line was thus: "The beast condemned by destiny" The word destiny did not please me, since a certain forcing showed in the word for the meter’s sake, as we usually say fate. But it did not please me for this reason either, that despite this little violence the meter is still not pure, the two suffixes being short. I therefore made a turn in the syntax: "the beast condemned to that by destiny." The "to that" thus does not connect with the which, for then such a construction would be needed: "to that, that it should pull." The "to that" refers as a whole to Ádám’s earlier speech, namely that the millions are for the one; a syntactic turn which, especially in classical poets, is not indeed everyday but not unexampled either, and is reckoned among the figures of speech. You could have made a similar remark already on the operation carried out on the first four lines: there too there is an apparent confusion: "The machine turns, the maker rests.
For millions of years it goes on its axle, (the maker?) someone might ask, for that is the nearest subject. But poetic language often makes such leaps; read Horace, or Virgil. Nevertheless I do not fight for my correction; you do with it in the future edition what you will. À propos, the future edition: what is your intention in this regard? Your noble decision as regards the honorarium I cannot gainsay: perhaps in your position I too should do the like; only I am sorry that you have not yet read in the papers that your foundations and donation are paid in at the proper places. The reason for this is that as regards the Kisfaludy-Society foundation I had to write first. It is not, as you thought, 60, but 100 florins. Formerly it was 50 in silver, true, but now, at the Society’s reorganization, it has been raised again to 100. Accordingly I cannot deposit your double foundation before communicating the clarification to you. Now therefore I ask your new reply. As regards the amount of the honorarium — if paper is wanted at all costs — we can come clear at once. The agio, according to today’s P. Lloyd, that is the rate, is 6 fl. 55, which on 50 ducats makes: 327 fl. 50 kr. And so hereafter we can speak of this sum. You need not therefore have supplemented anything, if you destined 200 for the Academy and 60 + 60 florins for the Kisfaludy Society. But since this latter is otherwise: be so kind as to let me know your will; I think a foundation will come here, and to the Academy’s capital 200 fl. — while the 27 fl. 50 kr. will be at your disposal with me. All this I will arrange. There is no need of a receipt. The Society’s sessions are held on the last Thursday of every month at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. And so the nearest is: the last Thursday of March. If you should come up by then, it would be very agreeable of you, and I would gladly take your presentation upon myself. Only let me know your intention in advance, for improvise I cannot. The reading-through — I think — is superfluous as regards your work; this I do not say as an excuse, for I do it gladly. It would be best if you sent it up in advance and came yourself after it. If now it cannot be, then in April. What you say about my — on your account — losses of time and so forth, I pass over with silence. You would surely not have written it had not certain places of my letters sounded to you like some indirect complaint. I did it gladly — you took it gladly: let us speak no more of it. God bless you with all good things! your true friend Arany János.

Dear friend! Only now can I answer your valued letter, and even now not as definitely as I should wish, and as I ought to requite your very kind, friendly invitation. What we spoke of together about springtime, that I would visit you, and stay first with you and then longer with Tompa: of that, my dear friend, nothing comes. Balassa, with my chronic head-buzzing, sends me to Szliács; I should have gone before now, had I been able. But perhaps fate itself would grudge it, if a poor poet were to go to the baths while the "noble saison" lasts; I therefore resign myself to this late happiness too. I should only like to know now whether this Szliács journey could not be joined with a meeting with you and Tompa (or with you at least). On the map I do not see it as a very great detour: though my road as far as Esztergom-Nána is railway, and beyond that toward Selmec to Szliács. But I do not know whether it would be worth your sending to Vác to meet me, since I could tarry with you at most a few hours, one or two days. I also fear that such a detour would take very much from my allotted time — especially if we were to take in Tompa too — and the frost would set in, by which time I should reach the water. I think that a week from today, Thursday, August the 7th, will be the day on which I can set out. Lo, then, I write a week in advance. If you think it worth sending to meet me at Vác, so that — reckoning everything, road and all — we may be together a couple of days — but only together (for I go to no saunter-amusement, no toast-circles, no presentations — except those belonging directly to your family) — if you think, I say, that it is worth attaching yourself to me for this, I thank you very much — but I do not at all demand it of you. Now listen. I say it would be a pity for you to trouble yourself to meet me as far as Vác. If you yourself see this too: write a line, I shall still get it by Thursday. Then I shall take the ticket straight to Nána. But if you should be of the opposite mind to me, I shall most gladly do your will. You may write. Or if you write nothing: then too I shall take the ticket as far as Vác. My departure with the morning train, Aug. 7th. If something should intervene, on account of which the journey must be delayed or fall through, I shall hasten to inform you of it. I have written to Tompa in like manner. I had to write to him, because we are just now expecting his wife to Pest, to the baths: so I do not know whether we can safely go to the grass-widower. He has not yet answered. God bless you, my dear Imre, with all good! receive my embrace in anticipando! your true friend Arany.

Revered and beloved Friend! This is still not handsome of me, that since our parting I have not informed you with a single line of my sojourn here; although it would perhaps interest you just as much as I should wish to know whether you reached home happily, and found your dear ones well. I, after your departure and at the close of the bath exercises, at once settled accounts with the astonished room-waiter, and leaving the bug-ridden Pepi, moved over here, to the good-aired, fine-prospected Belvedere, and since then have been here. The place is much to my liking, a romantic, quiet little nest; but that which chiefly induced me to move here, namely that I might work, of that nothing came. Time and quiet there would be enough: but the effect of the bath, the much walking every morning, so tires and slackens me that I am incapable of more concentrated spiritual labor. Nor do I mind it. Thus the spiritual rest is complete: I hope at home my nerves will be the more elastic for it. It is a veritable vegetation-life, I think neither forward nor back, I do not fret, only my soul looks out of me, like the watchman from a tower. Truly, I should never have believed that one can live thus; I am too sluggish even for boredom. An active soul is bored at once if it must stagnate: but mine is now in so passive a state that it is not even capable of feeling boredom keenly. So day passes after day — by and by the one month too will run out, I have still some 10 baths left, and then, about Sep. 10, I shall take leave of Szliács. The bath public is fairly dispersing already, the old ones have gone too, but a new man or two comes as well, so that I shall not be the last after all. Berecz leaves here today: but an acquaintance or two of mine still remains. I, however, should not mind if I remained alone too, so used to it am I already. My family is at Szalonta; this too is one reason for me peacefully to serve out my exile, in vain should I go to Pest, there too I should be alone. When I came here, the first three days so disheartened me with their cold rain that I thought I should never endure it: but since then pleasant, bright, even warm weather has been going, only the morning is beginning to be cool (today the thermometer has already sunk to 6 degrees). But even if it grates, I shall hold out these 10 days — then adieu Szliács! The bath’s beneficence, so the natives here say, I shall feel only afterward. God grant it. I have rested in any case, and this, I think, turns to my good. So interesting an event as would deserve that I should make news of it, nothing happens here. So I close my letter too, which would have no other aim than to let you know that I am alive; to thank your goodness once more; to kiss the hands of your blessed dear mother and your dear fair children (is the jackdaw still there?); and you to embrace a thousandfold, with such ardor as is capable of your friend soaked and tanned by the daily bath, Arany János. [On a separate envelope]

Honored Madách Imre, Esq. respectfully B. Gyarmat A. Sztregova last post Szakál

BARON BALASSA ANTAL

Concerning the statutes and other preliminary work of an agricultural association to be formed in Nógrád county, I herewith respectfully invite your Honor to a consultation to be held on the 12th of this April in the forenoon hours at my castle-dwelling at Kékkő.

Your Honor’s Pest March 27. 1859.

ready servant B. Balassa Antal

To the Honorable Madách Imre, Esq. through Losonc Sztregova BENICZKY ERZSI

Lisznyai Kálmán is now wrestling his last moments; his wish is to meet you once more. Making the dying man’s request known to you, I remain your unknown admirer Beniczky Erzsi.

BÉRCZY KÁROLY

Dear Friend! Eötvös handed your manuscript over to Pompéry, who in these days will publish it in the columns of "Magyarország." I wanted to ask the article back from Pompéry, but he did not release it from his editorial claws, and so I, sub spe rati, came to terms with him that he should print it separately, in 300 copies, in octavo columns, and send it to you. If you should have any objection, be so kind, by the returning post, as to write me this. Forgive me that my answer was so long delayed; — I sought several times first Eötvös, then Pompéry, before I could meet with them, and only now, since I have moved in from among the mountains, could I attend to the affair. And if my commissioner’s reputation has not entirely perished before you, command for the future too your friend ready for every kindness, Bérczy.

Pest, nov. 5. 1861. Dear Friend! The other evening, several of us sitting around the fireplace at the casino, Csengery Antal could not heap praise enough on "The Tragedy of Man," which he placed on a par with Faust and Manfred. I congratulate you on this grand success, and on your name-day today wish you many healthy years, and our literature many such gems of art from your pen. One of those sitting in the fireside circle, Count Keglevich Béla, expressed his regret that this summer he asked you to drop the parliamentary declaration, though he did this from general duty and by no means from his individual view; he regretted this still more — so he said — after your speech — but most of all now. The next day I received a note from him with two portraits of himself, and he, dedicating one of these to you, I hasten to send it. Pompéry promises from day to day to publish your work; but lest we run out of time, on finishing these lines I shall at once seek him out and set him a closing deadline. Receive the most cordial greeting of your devoted Bérczy.

Dear Friend! Your spirit- and content-rich article I handed to Pompéry on the day I received it. I knew in advance his not-anticipated opinion: of the einheitliche Monarchie and Machtvollkommenheit one can no longer speak today in such a tone, with such comparisons. For the rest, from the quality of the papers’ contents you can have convinced yourself since then that the editors are compelled with regret to return your excellent article. This is now with me; let it, I beg, stay in my possession, if you have a copy of it. Pompéry said he would write to you; but he will hardly confess to you what, out of loyalty to Eötvös, I must mention, that on your "nationality" article an editorial gelding-knife ravaged. Forgive him, as you forgave Eötvös too — political publicity is in any case in recess, and at such times belles-lettres make their vintage. Then too, in you the orator and publicist have here in Pest, for a time, even without this been pushed into the background by the author of "The Tragedy of Man"; I read in Emich’s printing-house the first proof-sheet, and now doubly congratulate you on the brilliant success. Kemény, Jókai are writing novels; I too am sharpening my pen and shall soon — gnaw on it. The four lustres are indeed on my back, but now again I say what the old table-judge said at the planning of the chain-bridge: "what for, already, for this short time?" — Though this comparison limps mightily; for the table-judge the chain-bridge may outlive by centuries, while my butterfly-lived letters would perish before me into nothingness. For the rest, everything is but "vanitatum vanitas"; it is well that Kölcsey drank it, at least he can be quoted by one who — like my own self — wants with this consolation to gloss over for himself the lack of strength. Szontagh writes that you come to Pest together "when it freezes," that is, when the harder winter sets in; God bring you; a few days to be spent with you will do me very good. your devoted Bérczy.

BARON EÖTVÖS JÓZSEF

Levél 128: Széchenyi-hegy, I 862

Having spent six weeks at the Kissingen baths, the enclosed letter and translation came into my hands only the day before yesterday. Being, on account of my long absence, behindhand in everything, I am far too occupied to compare this translation — which I would so gladly do — with your excellent work, and so, according to the translator’s wish, I rather send his work at once, on which no one could judge better than you. Heaven bless you, honored friend. I hope that in the course of the winter you will only come to Pest, and then you will seek out your sincere friend Eötvös.

Among the heavy losses of the last years there is perhaps none more perceptible in our present circumstances than that which we suffered through the death of Szalay László. We were robbed of one of the homeland’s truest sons, of one of the most zealous laborers of our literature, of one of the most glorious representatives of our scholarship; and whether we regard the present, whose dangers can only thus be averted, if in that sphere which is left to our activity every single one faithfully fulfills his duties, or the future, from which we await the healing of our wounds — in the present there is no one who would fulfill his task with more zeal, and thinking of the future, there is no one on whom we reckoned with more confidence; indeed, our loss extends even to this nation’s past: for we have been robbed of him from whom we could await the satisfactory history of this stormy but glorious past. If anyone deserved that the whole nation should stand mourning around his grave, it is he; and those thousands who accompanied his coffin, the mourning into which the capital clothed itself, and the grief with which the news of his death filled all the regions of the homeland, all showed only that the nation feels its whole loss. A fair reward this for a life which from earliest youth to its last moment was consecrated to the homeland, a fair reward chiefly for him who longed rather for the love of his fellow-countrymen than for splendor and glory; but it seems to me that the nation has, toward Szalay, besides this, yet another duty: that of expressing the gratitude it feels in a manner worthy of itself, and of not leaving the labor of so many years without reward. Szalay László, who inherited no fortune from his parents, and consecrated his life to literature, to scholarship, and to the public affairs of the homeland, beyond those merits and that name which he won for himself on this career, left no inheritance to his children; but would not these merits and this name be sufficient to secure this family’s future, and the duty which he could not fulfill toward his children, will not the homeland take upon itself, in whose service he forgot to provide for his family’s welfare? I know our nation far too well to doubt this, and I am convinced that if I come forward publicly in this affair, my word would not die away unheard. I have been called upon to this by several by word of mouth, and by letters from the various parts of the country; for indeed the relation in which I stood to Szalay for so many years is known to all those who knew him or me; but it is precisely this relation that hinders me from following this appeal. Since his merits are not such as the public must be made aware of; since the nation, which clings with so much piety to its past, of itself feels the gratitude it owes to him who did more than all others to illuminate its history: I hold it far more natural, and for the deceased more honorable, if the proposal that his merits be rewarded by the nation come not from a single person, but from several, in several places, at once, appearing as it were the spontaneous declaration of a general feeling; and that what Hungary does for its great historian be done in that form in which, for example, the English people rewarded Cobden’s merits in the abolition of the corn-laws, and in which Szalay, were he living, could himself have accepted this reward without blushing. However well it would do me, then, if I, who lived with him for 37 years in the closest friendly relation, and owe him so much gratitude, could now myself come forward in the interest of his bereaved family, I hold it more becoming both to Szalay and to the nation, if, confining myself to communicating the unforgettable man’s family circumstances to others, I leave this fair task to them. That in this affair I turn to you, and ask you to step to its head in your county’s circle, is justified by the relation in which we stood to each other at the last diet, by your patriotism, and by the conviction that no one appreciates Szalay’s merits more than you; and I am convinced that in this you see only that sign of the friendship and respect with which I am disposed toward you. You know your county’s situation best, and so you best know whom, and in what manner, to call upon, on my part only remarking that in my conviction it is more expedient if you confine yourself rather only to those who know Szalay’s activity, and thus his merits too, and that in any case I hold it chiefly to be emphasized, that what individuals sacrifice to Szalay’s memory: is no alms given to the family, but a reward which the nation, if Szalay lived and could complete his work, owed to its great historian, and which it now gives to his children, as the inheritance of their glorious father, as a sign of that gratitude with which the homeland was disposed toward its great son, and as an example that the nation does not forget those merits which are won in its service. Thus what happens for Szalay’s family is not only far more honorable for it, but more salutary for the whole homeland too, inasmuch as such a procedure will serve as encouragement to all those who advance on a similar career. Regard this letter, which I have not written with my own hand only because, addressing a like request to one of our fellow-believers in every county, I have no time to write so many letters — as a private communication, and communicate it, if you see fit, with individuals, but so that it not come before the public. The collection in your county’s circle must be made by you. The sum gathered, when the subscription is closed, is to be sent directly to the Academy with the request that through it it be conveyed into the hands of Szalay’s heirs. Since the Academy has an ordered treasury office, and stood closest to Szalay, it is natural that the handling of this affair be entrusted to the national institute. The donors’ names, and the sums subscribed by them, will likewise be made public by the Academy, but only after the conclusion of the whole affair. Receive the expression of my sincere patriotic respect, with which I remain Pest, 1864. Aug. 15. your sincere friend B. Eötvös József [Only the signature is in Eötvös’s hand.] FRÁTER ERZSI

God! to whom I raise my fervent prayer with the purity of my conscience, give me strength to gather the feelings of my tumultuous breast, give strength to a weak and therewith timid being to receive an assault that strikes at her heart as at her soul! I feel it my duty, according to my heart and soul, to sacrifice to your appeal with these present lines — to sacrifice, indeed, with the breaking of my moral strength; for I believe such a weak being is created only to suffer, but not to wither — and oh, the thought! that I could cause to you, spirited man, even a moment’s grief, knowing this — I would avoid it though with the sacrifice of years. — Ah, but even now, where shall I begin, and how shall I be immodest enough to want to satisfy your wish, unworthy as I am, in whom there can dwell no such vanity that — though to lines that shake my whole being, and that are altogether innocently accusatory, as to the never-enough-to-be-prized declarations heaped upon an unworthy one — I should keep, you excepted! the type of my feelings independent of all else, and of the timidity that may flow from this — — — Therefore I beg you by all that is precious and sacred before you, give no place in your precious breast to your suspicions, to your doubts, demand of me too nothing new, for if it be permitted me to echo your lines, this much, by my pure consciousness — if I must — I answer: that yes indeed my breast steadfastly nourishes, since our parting, the spotless enamel of my spirited attachment to you and of my esteem above all else, and, knowing no alien longings, longing for none, I am the old one, and only the old one toward you — with the bonds of my attachment, known to you too, not so easily — as you seem to suspect! — to be dissolved; and this, I think, is enough for now; loving to presume of your magnanimity that pity and sympathy according to which you will not begrudge granting a little rest to my unwonted spiritual torment, arisen from the shaking of my whole sensibility — — — F. E. Honored Madách Imre, Esq. at Pest and through B. Gyarmat. Csesztve [Crossed out and written above in a strange hand: Sztregova.]

Dear Madách! Your charm-filled letter I received; lo, I do not delay a moment in answering it, though I cannot esteem my own poor lines worthy to be able to satisfy your dear lines; but I believe that consciousness, though it touches but a slight being whom you make happy, will lighten it; yet I leave off my doubtful reveries, for again I should bring up what I have once already declared to you. Your dear lines are many, but still you make me suspicious: you write your homecoming day indeed, but beside it you set no words to calm my anxiety about your long journey; there is one thing in your letter that serves to soothe all my soul’s hitherto anxiety: if truly we might call your dear Mother’s tears sweet tears, together with your sisters’, — your dear sister Mari wishes to convince me of her friendship; it is very easy to believe that from so good a soul one can expect only goodness, and that beyond desert. Dear Madách, you cannot conceive the joy I enjoy in consequence of your dear letter, with the one written by your sister to my Father; you are wont to assert that you cannot torment; the contrary one cannot conceive what anxiety my good sister caused with her roguery — she writes painfully that she did not sleep the whole night in her anxiety. My one request to you is, that you be sincere toward me, write me as sincerely the things unpleasant to me as you heap upon me your most blissful words. You remind me of my promise; I have not forgotten it; again I confirm it on this occasion, I shall fulfill it now; God be with you, your loving Erzsi. My Father greets you warmly.

Honored Madách Imre, Esq. Debrecen Pest B. Gyarmat Csesztve

Dear Madách! Forgive me if I cannot requite your rich-contented letter, full of fine words; I know you, your wishes, but they are not excessive to me — who possess your heart’s treasure, and you in turn, with that striving to win such matchless appreciation before everyone, all your matchless love toward me; I have one request to you: be calm, trust in God and in my ardent love; this I shall be able to know, how far you will accept my request, and to trust in it; more I cannot say; and if even with this I cannot calm you, it would pain me much, yes, that I did not pair it with my faith, but can one conceive love without faith and hope? the first gives strength to the soul, does not let it despair, hoping for a happier future; yes, but what is my happiness? if I can see you happy! my striving is the latter; if I can attain this, it will pair itself with mine. Dear Madách! you bring up in your letter: how I could conceal my love for three days? yes, but truly you did not understand me! I said that if my love came into collision with worldly prejudices and obstacles, I should not be able to sacrifice, but would cast away love. Do you not deem this a sacrifice? but to me my whole world, like to you your dear parent and relations and my Father, my loving kin, had your dear ones not appreciated me, then I should indeed have sacrificed love and my love, but from this heaven preserved me! or only your unutterable love [a word unreadable for a tear], though it spring not from your hearts? this would pain me, would lay waste my breast, for I should want to make you infinitely happy; then my striving for your happiness would be in vain, I, such an unworthy being, how should I bring those lofty souls to appreciation? this I will not believe, in consequence of dear Mother’s letter, which serves as my guardian angel, every word of it the comforter of my fear; my God, give strength to my poor being, that I may be a worthy member of your family; God be with you, ardently feeling Erzsi. Madách Imre, Esq. Debrecen Pest B. Gyarmat Csesztve

Dear Imre! I received your letter with joy, in which you address me with the dear word Thou; my joy is doubled, believing that my letter caused you an unexpected, equal joy, and produced as dear an impression, as yours did in me. Dear Imre, believe me it pained me so to read your complaining letters, knowing that I did not let a moment pass without answering your letters; but I hope that your breast is now calm, I was very sorry that you cause yourself so many unpleasant hours with your impatience, but your latest letter calms me too, in which you hope that I forgive you. You wrote how and where you spend the feast-days; accordingly I share with you too — there were then very great floods here, so much that one could not go anywhere by carriage from Cséhtelek; I had a great mind to spend the feast-days elsewhere than at home, but I saw no possibility except to go by ox-cart to some nearby village, to our relations, which did indeed come to pass; we set the first day of the feast for the attainment of our aim; for my pleasure Fráter Dini came too with his family, to whose brother we went, though [it was] a good road two hours from Cséhtelek; though the ox goes slowly, still it is very much, two hours we went to Tóti; dear Father came on horseback, but even he lost his patience; my patience did not leave me, on the contrary I was in very good humor; we arrived happily in the evening; having spent here the second day too of the feast, on the third day we returned home; in your letter you warn me to take care of my health; truly the warning is needful, for I am very confident of my health. Dear Imre, I know that you will again accuse me, that I write so little, but I have already far exceeded my promise; only recall what I promised, was it not this, that I would accept only three letters before May, and answer them once; but neither of us has kept it; it is always better to promise little and do more; I do just this, and still you are not satisfied, though I told you in advance that I would write little. I have one more thing to say, and it is this: if my hope does not deceive me, and extraordinary obstacles do not arise, for the feast of Pentecost we shall go up to visit you; it may be that this is my last letter before my setting out. Your beloved sister Mari I honor; I am your loving Erzsid.

Your father! receiving with kindred-tender feeling your filial love and confidence-full attachment shown toward him, wishes to assure You also of his very warmest feelings of love, confidence, and esteem, and sends this time too his cordial greeting.

Madách Imre, Esq. Debrecen Pest through B. Gyarmat Csesztve [Noted to the address] 8th April Dear Imre! Cséhtelek, Ap. 21. 1845. Truly your cause must always win; this cannot be wondered at, who finds everywhere a loving breast, both you, and before those your cause turns. In your dear letter you ask me to be your spokesman with dear Father, and this happened the other way round; it was not I, but dear Father who was your spokesman; — take my advice, address your request always to my Father, then you will always be the winner. Dear Imre, I know what you would like to read from my mute letters; I too should very much like to be able to write the day of our setting out, but believe me, that despite all our endeavor that time is still very far, when we can fulfill this; this I know, that you do not fret over whether I love you as if I were in your circle; if you knew, I would set you at rest; believe me, in the distance the breast burns far more for the other than if they are already in each other’s possession. You ask how I amused myself at Joseph’s day; I can say only this: everything passed before me as a machine, without all feeling; my enjoyments were only outward, for my soul was in your circle, conversed with you without your knowledge; but with all this still I amused myself well, though not really, only in imagination I was with you too; and there is one more thing, the earliest mover of my good amusement, this was the music, which conjured up the past, on which I look back so fondly; one would not believe how the dear waltz of the past time gives many a happy hour with its hearing; you write that you would have liked to be in our circle; truly you would have made me very happy, but I must end my letter now; you will permit that I cannot requite your rich-contented letter; believe me, there is but one word, and I should write whole pages with it, but it is all one whether I write it a thousand times or once, there is but one meaning, and will be forever before me, your loving Erzsid. To your dear Mother and your sisters convey my respects. My dear Father greets you cordially. Madách Imre, Esq. Debrecen Pest through B. Gyarmat Csesztve Csécse 1845: 6, 1. Beloved good Imre! Fair hope nourished me, though with pain, till evening, my dear one, hoping for a blissful moment in which I might see my life’s radiant stars, might spy out in the bewitching dreaminess of your eye the happy days of my life; but instead of these I read your dear lines, though this too, of my doubtful pain a certain one, gave the object of your suffering. My dear, all day long my breast lost its pain at every distant carriage-rattle, with joy I gazed toward the west, that even from afar I might catch sight of my bringer-of-joy, but in vain I gazed, so many times the wound of my breast grew the more painful, like the fire that is about to go out, you pour oil on it, again it flares up, only my pain does not flare away until it offers a beneficial ready balm (the balm of it the reunion). Dear Imre, you ask in your letter when we go to Pest; if my hope does not deceive me, in the middle of June, but for certain I cannot say. Good Klárika greets you cordially, Luizka likewise; they too took your illness with great sympathy. My dear, wishing you recovery from God, I remain to the grave your loving Erzsid. P.S. Your dear Mother’s hand I kiss, Mari I honor, Károly I greet cordially. Madách Imre, Esq. Csesztve

Dear Imre! From day to day I hoped, but in my breast, in place of hope, the greatest anxiety had now appeared; now this has gained a little relief, through your Friend who saw you these days past, my dear, that you have already risen from your bed; believe me, I could not have endured another week without seeing you; I do not write this that I might perhaps wish — at whatever cost to your self-ruin — that you should come; my Dearest, but strive to win back your health, for I too pray to my God; you will forgive me that I write so badly and so little, but I must hasten, my dear; let me know if you cannot come on account of a change in your condition; in my imagination ardently embracing you, amid my kisses, your loving Erzsid. Károly I greet very cordially.

Madách Imre, Esq. Csesztve

Beloved good Imre! Though even hitherto my pen was very weak to interpret to you my breast’s inner feelings, the more so to requite in even the least part your lofty pen, seeing my dear one’s unrequitable attentiveness toward me, my one request of my God is only this, that I may one day be able to make him happy; but, alas, what if that is not even granted me; can I reckon myself among those women who possess this? Dear Imre, you know how great my joy was to hear favorable news of you, but even now I beg you, do not ruin yourself for my sake, rather let me suffer; if your Friend visits you, give him my thanks too in my name, that he so suddenly fulfilled my request. My dear, the Büky family arrived Wednesday afternoon; my good Brother we expect every day from Pest; your request I most gladly fulfill; perhaps I may not know what my dear one wants with my family’s coat-of-arms; wishing you recovery from my ardent heart, I remain, awaiting you amid a thousand joys, your loving Erzsid.

Your good Mother’s hands I kiss, your sisters I greet very cordially. Csécse 1845. 6. 18. Beloved good Imre! Again I received your lines; though this too is very dear to me, yet my hope is to be able to press to my ardent breast him through whom these lines are dear; believe me, it is already an eternal age, the happiest stretch of my life; do not conceive that I should be vexed at you for it, but my heart aches for you and for myself; these days I count every minute, alas, none of them brought my bringer-of-joy into our circle; I can hardly wait to see you, how much I have to talk of; my dear, I dare not say even with a single word, come as soon as possible, with joy I suffer for your well-being; believe me, my feelings, my thoughts are so confused, my mood so very changeable, that I could not tell you, perhaps not even by word, not in writing; my Dearest, you will forgive me that I write so briefly, but it is midnight, I must rest; in your last letter you inquired when we go to Pest; my dear, if some unhoped-for obstacle does not arise, we shall set out on the 24th of this month in the afternoon; if you have a mind, then come so that you may come in with us, if it shall please you; my good Brother goes in to Gyarmat; my dear could go in too, himself, to the assembly; there from my Brother he could learn everything well; wishing my dear one better health, I am the loving Erzsi, his in life and in the beyond. They all greet you very cordially, they too have a share in my pain and yours.

To Madách Imre Csesztve

Your goodness is so extraordinary that so unworthy a being as I am not able to requite it; there is only one thing with which perhaps I may lull you, and this, my dear one, is the love that comes from the depth of my heart toward you; this will never burn out of my breast, thus, if I can make you happy, but not even then if it were the contrary, were it to perish with my whole being. Dear Imre! you will forgive me if all my things are not quite arranged, but believe me, I would have ransomed it with my blood, only that I might cause you no inconvenience; wishing my dear one good night, I remain your loving Erzsi. Madách Imre, Esq. with love Csesztve

853: Mar: 6a. Dear sweet Emi! So far I still get about, but I am slowly running out of time; I am compelled in these few lines to make known to you my situation and my request, and to ask you to help me, as far as your lot allows; already in January I asked you for what I likewise ask here, but perhaps you did not get my letter, though I addressed it to the Auditor; or perhaps you were no longer in Pozsony by then — all this I do not know; up to now my request is this: be so kind as to send me a bond for 600 pengős, that I may raise money on it; I will not be long, only this much I say, that the utmost need compels me to it; you know that we have no property of our own, we live only on what your Mother gives, and even this is uncertain, chiefly for me; I have no right to demand, but neither do I want this. Once more, pray make arrangement about the bond; though you too have no property of your own, yet perhaps some relation or friend of yours will help out in the utmost need; otherwise I am not able to live at Csesztve; if I had not the hope, every day, that you are coming, I should already have moved to my Father’s, but for this short time it is not worth it; for is it not, dear Emi, that God and your just judges will soon send you home; then I shall render a strict account of all the money that has passed through my hands. The Children grow finely and are healthy — if only you were home, it is so bitter without you; now if only I could visit you soon — but by then you will already be home; write me a Christian name, whichever pleases you, for you wrote a girl’s name from Pozsony. Kissing you ardently, your loving wife Erzsi. To Madách Imre in the Újépület at Pest [Led on after the address by a strange hand] Zur Mittheilung W. [In Madách’s hand] Gelesen Madách Imre.

May 12. Dear Emi! My pen has not the power to express the joy that dwells in my breast since I know you free; now again the good hope has brightened in me, for this too had begun to leave me from much bodily and spiritual torment. O believe me, I have had a share of much torture since you ceased to be my guardian angel; but however deeply this much torment penetrates my soul, I believe and wish soon to forget it at your side. — Dear good Emi, I should already have been with you, did not my present circumstance compel me so that I cannot go, for I have not a farthing, it is impossible to stir from the house; Bende has not yet raised the 600 pengős — from your Mother I get just nothing; so do not be vexed at me, but as soon as I can go I shall be with you at once; my health is only so-so, except that after the child I twice had a flow of blood, and this so weakened my nerves that the least unwonted noise or clamor affects me dreadfully, which hitherto I had never experienced. No, no, I do not want to complain, I too know how to endure, and I shall hardly have strength to finish with this; yet I have one request to you. I have owed Czizmann-né for a long time 112 and 42 pengős, Mutsenbacher 155; seek out Fekete Latzi, he will direct you to a very honest Jew; take up from him, pay them off for me; there was money for them, but with this the servants had to be paid, and Baba — and I lived on it, for there was nothing else; Czizmann-né is under bankruptcy, give the money to Fekete — her account is here with me, only let her send a receipt; to Mutsenbacher give only 140 pengős, I shall settle with him, for I left money with him too in November; this account is likewise half under bankruptcy, only let him give a receipt; do not be angry, Emi, I shall keep a strict account, you shall see — where I put even the last kreuzer. God be with you; I must still write to Klárika, I do not know how I shall be able to thank their goodness, only it is a pity they live so far, and now the whole winter the roads were impassable, and even now — — Will you permit the saddle-horse to be harnessed instead of the lead-horse, for the latter is utterly done in on its forelegs, otherwise it looks well but limps badly; the Nóra has never been so fine as now; Jóska behaved well, though their fodder was bad and scant; that they lay about always — that was the luck — the lead-horse I should like to cure, so that if you get home you can sell it, but if it must be harnessed it will be lost forever, and you will get nothing for it; the Csillag is at Sztregova, Károly went off on it once, and I have already asked that it be sent home, but he only torments with this too; if you permit it to be harnessed, write him to send it home, for I shall ask no more, and so I am not able to harness the horses; God be with you once more; the little children are healthy, the little Jolán grows finer day by day and is a good, blessed child; they kiss you a thousand times, your loving Erzsid. [On the margin] If you meet Sréter-né, I kiss her, and ask her not to be angry that I have not yet answered her letters; she was always very kind to me, and the Békésys; they were my comforters, the rest only vexed — or harmed you. Madách Imre, Esq. Új tér Boszkovits house No. 12 first floor at Pest Csesztve 853 May 25. Forgive me that I do not send your things, but since I came home with 27 pengő-kreuzers I am not able to pay the carriage; and your Mother went off without giving even a couple of florins; do something that I need not forever be tormented amid care and bitterness; or perhaps your Mother wants to torment me to the end; this she can very easily attain, for I do not like to be tormented in vain; so speak with her and give me some secure position, however unworthy, only that I may be free of all contact with your Mother; with her I will never live in one village, this is my fixed resolve, and so I shall not be an inhabitant of Sztregova; I beg you, let me know, for my Father calls me to him, I must answer him; what shall I do, do I go or not; this will depend on what my position will be in the future, for this eternal begging, waiting, idleness I am sick of to my soul. Ana and Jolanka are sick with smallpox like me; I bring no Doctor, neither did I doctor myself; let them too endure; even so, the bliss that has befallen them dwells in the grave; it will only be better for them if, not knowing the bitternesses of life, they find there their eternal rest; write me how I may help myself, I am not able to exist thus; did you tell Károly to send the Csillag home; I will not send for it until you write him and order him to send it, for I know he would be glad to turn back the man sent, to my vexation; in such things he is a great hero, but otherwise a shameful coward. — God be with you; do not delay to make arrangements; your honoring wife kisses you Erzsi. Madách Imre, Esq. Új-tér Burgman house: No. 12 first floor at Pest Csesztve, June 4. The good Békésys were kind enough to inform me that they are going to Pest; I send here six pairs of shoelaces; send me too those that are in them, I shall pack them tightly, for all is in disorder; they would send more, but now I am measuring and do not even want to send a big parcel, for I go only with a hand-bag. Alas, with your dear Mother I no longer know what to do, I have not a kreuzer, and she has given nothing since February, and this year I have hardly got enough to satisfy the meat, salt, and servants; I never ask anything of her. We are ragged, children and all, I shall soon grow gray, this is a dreadful life, how long will it last thus, what hope have you. Bori is already out there, how right Antal was. If you can, send out my parasol; I am not even able to go to my brother’s, I am so weary of life already; from much sleeplessness I am so weak that if with great difficulty I once walk around the garden I am tired for three days, and my chest aches; every nerve is utterly weakened, and since I had this smallpox, on my right side over the rib-bones, at the least exertion or excitement the blood beats so, as if I had a second heart there. — The Children are already somewhat better, Jolán is very weak and thin, poor little thing. Did you get my letter by the Post, for I have not yet got your answer; I was just about to go to the Post; I beg you, if you should press the cobbler, let him send shoes, and likewise some good strong shoe-thing for the garden, that I may use it in the mud too; tell him, I beg, for he does not send these. If Mutsenbacher has made that silk bodice — if he got the stuff for it — send it out by Mari, who knows what may come up, I cannot stir from the house without it; my house-hat I shall be compelled to send in by Post to be cleaned, if Czizmann-né still cleans it; but write me whether she will still take work from me, then I shall send it to her; among the shirts that I took away, there is one with a double border, and between the two borders are several little stitches; send this back by Mari, that I may at least have two shirts left of those fine ones. — I send here 2 fl. 30 kr. that I gathered from milk, and Marica’s book-account; give it her back with the money, for I was not able to scrape together the pengős when she came home; I said I had left it with you, and that you would inquire about the books. — Write me too, by this occasion, something of the world’s affairs; only one ought not to have to live in this uncertain position; it is terrible now at this Csesztve, as if it had died out; I just pine away like one damned — — I kiss you a thousand times. God be with you Erzsi. To Madách Imre with greeting Új tér No. 12 at Pest

Thank you for finishing so punctually everything I ask of you; I received the hat, and not one but two, though I wrote that he should clean only one and not two; what do I want with two; you write in your letter that the embroidered quilt-sheets which I found in the box, that were at Nanet’s, you likewise send; but I did not get them by Post, and they were not in the box; so be so kind as to look into it, that they not be lost. I beg you, be so kind, at Mutsenbacher’s a white Swiss bodice, but not cut low, rather high to the very neck — and not very dear, for it will be only for such skirts whose bodices are already worn out; if it can be at all, send it out by Károly, I have great need of it. You are likewise kind enough to write me to tell which dresses I should need; well, if you can, send a 3-pengő-florin one, and buy a 6-pengő one at the Bride’s in Úri street, the corner shop — and only such as goes ready-made; money I would send for it, but there is none. — Your dear Mother has now given 600 florins, but every farthing of this is spoken for. Servants, meat, salt, and you know that last year no greens grew at all; even for these it just suffices. My God, my God, if only she would come home already; I am at last quite sick of my life, and grow weaker day by day; at night I cannot sleep, by day then I am tired and weak; and you know that I like to keep everything in order, and according to your Mother, even with the many servants there is enough work that falls to me too. I almost forgot: the coachman pressed me much for clothes and his Guba for the past year; however I manage, I am not able to satisfy him in this respect; write me what I should do with him, chiefly on account of the Guba; this is an unavoidable necessity for the winter too; if I sent him anywhere, he always borrowed one or I gave him the servant’s cloak, but it is a pity to have that ruined by him. So much I wanted to write you, but truly my head is not in its place; I cannot write you a single letter without weeping, and then I forget everything; the other day Pali wrote with great joy and awaited word that, hearing from you, I shall go in at the beginning of this month; why do you encourage me with things I cannot do; then they will reproach me for not visiting you; if you meet with him, tell him that he should only come out, at least he will visit me sometimes, and at least with his eternal good humor procure me a couple of good hours; he wants no parade, and if he comes, he does not come to me to disparage or to be bored like Huszárek, who are used to great splendor. — The Little ones are healthy, they kiss you; you would not even know little Jolanka any more; I kiss you, I am your honoring wife. — By the Jewess woman I sent 10 pairs of shoelaces, and did you get your dressing-gown. To Madách Imre [1853. June 5—7.] at Pest

853 June 8. Dear Emi! I send here by Majthényi your white trousers and waistcoats, your dress-coat, and a shirt in place of the one I asked back. — The neckcloths I sent by Mari, the rest I shall send soon; now I beg you only this, do something that I might clean the house, for already the dining-room with the two guest-rooms cannot be used, the glass-house and the sitting-room, since both the heating-flues are broken in, so that they might somewhat be set in order; I do not know what I shall do; here a week from Easter Monday, run out of everything, the servants will be asking for money, and I shall be left without a kreuzer; do not take it ill that I trouble you so much, but what shall I do, others do not even heed me, you are my only protection; God be with you; the Little ones are better; some two smallpox-marks have remained on my face; we all kiss you your honoring Erzsi.

To Madách Imre with respect Új-tér Burgman house — No. 12 Pest

1853 June 9. Dear Emi! I can write only briefly, for my hand hurts much; today I scalded it, indeed the right one, at melting goose-fat, and bandaged it all day with clay. — Now I beg you this: my Brother is likewise in there; learn from him whether that housekeeper-lady can come down to Pest as agreed, since she is ready to accept all her wishes point by point as Klárika wrote; so let my Brother be so kind as to inform me in this respect at once. — a thousand kisses Erzsid. To Madách Imre with respect Új tér Burgman house — No. 12 at Pest Csesztve 1853 June 25. This occasion came unexpectedly, so I can write only in great haste; I have very much to do, I am having the place whitewashed; the other day your Mother sent 100 W. fl., but for the servants nothing; did you write — in such a state one must go mad — dear Father calls me to him; I want to know whether your Mother gives enough that I can subsist at Csesztve or not; if she does not, then I shall go home; write her at once; I am quite embittered; if I write, then I should find dreadful things to write, for all that I have not deserved of her; I send here 10 pairs of shoelaces; your summer dressing-gowns are in the chest; let Mutsenbacher make another bodice for a silk dress of mine, for thus I can no longer wear it; tell him to make it narrower at the waist and fuller at the bust; 2 hats for Czizmann and a mantle; of the 2 hats let her choose one and clean and trim it up — if she chooses the open-weave one, then put a white ribbon on it; but if the close straw, then put a Scotch ribbon on it; the Mantle, if it can be done, let her clean it and make it as they now wear it — if it can be made out of it; when these are ready, then send them out by Post, if they will not be ready before the leaseholder’s wife tarries there. Thank you for paying off Schrammel; I did not want to burden you with this, but I have not yet been able to pay him off; my shoes are not with him, but at König’s in Párizsi street, on the side where Schrammel is; if you can, redeem from Nanett the two quilt-sheets, for she will wear them out entirely; I would send money — but today, tomorrow, I shall have no money, not even anything to cook; send out my shoes, and order at König’s a pair of leather slippers, or if he has any ready, let him send them; he gives on account too. — Forgive me that I burden you; I shall write by Post soon; we are healthy; I kiss you your honoring Erzsi. I got the 20 p. fl. To Madách Imre Új tér Burgman house No. 12. first floor at Pest Honored Imre! The receipt demanded of you I send enclosed; for the rest I think it is proof enough of my punctuality that a year has passed from the time of payment, and no one has disturbed anyone in this respect; you may be perfectly at ease — now I beg you very much, be so good as to send me a bill of exchange for the 420 fl. already due, payable on 1 June; necessity drives me to this request; if I get the bill, I shall at once, joining the bill too with a general receipt, assure you that you may be at ease, that here, when in May you send my money, I shall redeem it with the greatest conscience; but I know you have no money, and me this good will of yours, if you only fulfill my request, frees from much trouble; I still struggle always with unpleasant lawsuits; in a word, the winning of this bill would bring about a great good for me; though from your past-experienced procedure I can scarcely believe that this too should have a result, for several times I have asked you, when one or another thing concerned my relief; this was always put off, though it brought no harm to you — now too for this I ask the bill for 1 June, so that if your leaseholders too are late with payment, no trouble may come of it; and I now again very kindly ask you, be so good as to fulfill this request of mine; for the rest, awaiting your notice, and indeed so that I get it by the 24th of the current month, after these, kissing my children, with all respect I have remained Nyíradony Feb. 17. 864 Fráter Erzsébet Receipt. Concerning the torn-in-two bill of 150, that is one hundred fifty Austrian-value florins — which was issued November 5, 1862, accepted by Madách Imre, Esq., whose payment due-date fell on February 5, 863, and which has been punctually paid to me the undersigned, I herewith acknowledge the sum contained in this bill and above mentioned. — Done at Nagyvárad February 17. 1864 Fráter Erzsébet Honored Madách Imre, Esq. with respect Szakál Sztregova

Forgive this renewed trouble, but the bill, despite all good intention, you wrote wrongly; I send it back here, and sending a new bill, be so good as to sign this; in all the error is slight, but it cannot be helped if they require the correctness of the form; with full confidence I hope that you will hasten to return this bill; with all respect I have remained Nagyvárad March 16. 864

Fráter Erzsébet

Do not wonder if my letter is a little impatient in mood; illness too has brought this on; I am now convalescing from a liver-ailment [?]; a chill, much vexation caused this trouble — but to the matter: with your writing dated March 21 the return-receipt came; I wonder that for so long a time I can get neither a good nor a bad answer, though I wrote clearly enough and asked you at once that only burning need compels me to the request for the bill; I wonder that you can be so prejudiced, causing yourself no harm by the fulfillment of this request; and yet you so stubbornly drag out and delay the sending of this bill, whereas I for my part have made a sacrifice even then, when I consented to the May and September payments, my burdensome payments being arranged according to my contract’s due-dates; so I think you too would somewhat appreciate so important a reason, when I have already written and assured you that no abuse will happen with your bill; this, as a sober-minded man, you can yourself see; now I beg you, but at once send it, or I will gladly be content, with a remission of 10 in every hundred, thus instead of 420 with 380 florins, if it pleases you rather to take it up there for me; take this request of mine into consideration, and do not let trouble and anxiety kill me; the writing too is very burdensome and tiring; with sincere respect, kissing my children, I have remained Fráter Erzsébet.

Madách Imre, Esq. with respect Szakál Sztregova

[Postmark date] Apr. 10.

This is now my fifth letter; now it is already May 15, and now I beg you very much, be so good as to send the 420 florins, already in any case due; my letter I keep short; why should I say again what I have already done five times; awaiting a result-rich answer, in the best hope, with respect I close my lines Erzsi Nagyvárad May 13. 864 My lodging Apolló street No. 15, Fog-tövi house. FRÁTER PÁL

Dear Imre! I arrived home happily on Saturday at half past 6 — and I cannot tell the joy that gathered in my Klári at the news that I could spend a couple of days in freedom with you — that very evening she even prayed for the gracious Emperor and for that mild measure of his government — according to which you, whom together with me he believes and knows innocent — even if your final acquittal has not yet followed, are at least not compelled, until your sentence, to suffer the hard imprisonment — and so, for the expression of cordial and deep kindred sympathy and the enjoyment of the sweet joy of reunion, we shall take our way to Tárkony by way of Pest, that she too may see you as soon as possible — therefore on the 12th of this month be so good as to await us in the afternoon between 5 and 6 o’clock, and inform the Habai family’s caretaker of this too, on the 2nd floor — that he await us ready at the Hodorai family’s lodging — I hope that then we may embrace our little Erzsi too and your dear little ones. — Now God be with you — to counsel you is superfluous — that you fulfill with full fidelity the word you have given as to the pardon — my Klári together with me embraces you without end, and I am your loving true elder brother Fráter Pál.

FRÁTER PÁLNÉ

4 Csesztve Dear good Emi! I hope that by now you have received the notice that our Erzsike was happily delivered of her burden last Sunday in the early hours, with a sound little girl, whom we commend to your fatherly graciousness — both Erzsike and the little girl are well; we are spending a week now among your dear family — how you are wanting to us I cannot even describe — in your dear little son’s company we dine and sup in your room — how clever and dear little Aladár is; he will surprise you, if God helps you home, which is the chief wish, the object of the prayer, of us all — that we might already greet you at home —. I hope fate ceases now to persecute your dear, valued presence, which radiates happiness on us all; soon may we enjoy it. In you I have found that noble great soul which I reckoned on; this now shows itself best in your ill fortune —. With joy I learned through my Pál with what great soul you rise above your sufferings — for your health we are much anxious; thanks to providence, that hitherto you have been strong in body and soul —. May fate too guard you from every ill event —. I am convinced that your condition will turn to the good as soon as possible — granted that they cannot be unjust, if they take up your affairs — for you did nothing —. but enough of these —. little Jolán is a very dear little creature, prattles with her innocent voice; with little Aladár they often speak of dear Papa, they await him cordially — likewise all your relations, your good friends; toward you everywhere the purest sympathy reigns, but chiefly we who stand close to you by kinship, knowing your character by your noble feelings, are the more closely attached to you —. Erzsike too will grasp this, that she is a very fortunate woman to have so good a Husband as you, who are toward her with such tender attention and love — God bless you for it, that now ill fortune keeps you far from each other; this is painful, and that we who would do anything for you from the heart can do nothing, and are always directed only to waiting, to patience —. but the time of this too will come; my Pál goes in on the 19th of this month; he will do everything for you; only would Heaven grant it might lead to success —. From Erzsike and from me cordial kisses enclosed here; your children kiss your hands. I am your loving kinswoman Klára. [Written crosswise] If only we might sometimes be fortunate enough to receive your lines at Etséd too. GALGÓCZY KÁROLY

Honored sir! Since only mutual friction and the publication of good examples can effect a sound advance in our agriculture, I confidently ask your Honor to be gracious enough to communicate to our paper the following data concerning your excellently managed farm: On what kind of soil do you follow what crop-rotation; the soil, before what, in which year, and with how many cartloads or hundredweights of manure is it usually manured; what kind and how much livestock manage the necessary manuring, or is the farm in the habit of buying manure for money, is it to be had and at what price, and otherwise what procedure is followed in the preparation of manure, and what supplementary manuring materials are used. How does the feeding of the various animals proceed, how is the quantity of the feeding rations determined from the various fodders. Does the farm practice summer stabling, how, or are summer sown pastures in use, for what kind of animals, with what success, of what kind, is any industrial enterprise connected with the farm for the supplement of fodder. What fodder-growing, with what result, does the farm practice; how did the fodder seed-growing succeed this year. What agricultural machines are at the farm and with what success in use. Of what origin is the sheep-flock, when did it begin to be improved, what is its number — ram, ewe, etc.; what flocks are in the region or in the country in nearer kinship with it; how much was this year’s wool production, where is it usually sold, and at what price; did any illness visit the flock this year, of what kind, and how was it forestalled; does the flock milk, with what profit; how are the covering and lambing practiced. What is the shepherd’s wage; and what is usually the wage of the other servants; can good servants be had; has the new servant-law already any beneficial effect. What was the day-wage this year at the various farm labors, is there a shortage of labor-hands; and what is the morals of the working folk; finally, what means does the farm use as regards the supplement of the necessary labor-hands or their procurement as cheaply as possible. Repeatedly beseeching for the communication of these data, with full respect I am Honored sir’s humble servant Galgóczi Károly editor of the Falusi gazda correspondence column. Honored Madách Imre, landowner, Esq. with full respect Balassa-Gyarmat Alsó-Sztregova Szakál f.

GREGUSS ÁGOST

If Szliács has helped, if you have leisure, if you love me: then, I know, you will fulfill my request. The powerful ones — in the form of grave counsel — have pushed Pompéry away from the editorial table, and I have had to sit down to it: if you do not regard him, regard me; or if you do not regard me, regard him — and lend support to the "Ország." I should like to bestow more care on the feuilleton, and so I ask of you not merely so-called leading articles, but feuilleton-pieces too. Write me that you will write — it would be most agreeable if you sent something ready at once — and inform me at the same time under what address the paper should go. Pest, Sept. 24. 1862. With respect and love your devoted Greguss Ágost. Honored Madách Imre, Esq. Alsó-Sztregova (Last post: Szakál) IPOLYI ARNOLD

With my obliged, humble thanks I send enclosed herewith the inventory of the family archive used by your Honor’s kind and high grace, which, at my confiding request, you were graciously pleased to have communicated to me with such great-souled, not to say matchless, liberality, as I dared hope only by virtue of my known love of scholarship. Permit your Grace that I express, first of all, my extraordinary joy and surprise at the proportionately exhaustive inventory of this archive, equally valuable and rich, as well as — as I can observe — very well ordered. It served me as a truly valuable study; not only because by its numerous fuller and better-ordered data I found supplemented and supplied in most places the deficient parts of the similar-content archives of our larger Hont families, better known to me; but otherwise too I came upon surprisingly interesting and new subjects in it as regards my other investigations. Not to mention its other notabilities of period-history, and especially the source-data fully supplementing the monograph of your Grace’s famous old family, as I see. How I should wish to use some day, for my collectanea and works, numerous other data of this kind. Now, however, with your leave, only noting out the most interesting from the inventory for my further knowledge and orientation, lest I be troublesome and abuse your kind grace, I detain your Grace no longer with these; and only in the matter concerning Rimay, as regards which I made bold to request your communication, I repeat that humble and confiding request, if you would graciously be pleased to permit the use of the three numbers here indicated, whether in the original or in a — but faithful — copy, and graciously to effect their conveyance to me. Precisely in this respect, indeed, I find less in the inventory than I supposed, but even these indicated documents seem of no small value in my subject. These are the following: 1.) On the 10th leaf of the II fascicle of the archival inventory, in Bundle V, No. 1, 1604—17, the division between Madách Péter and Rimay János, one original, one copy, and extract. 2.) The same place, No. 2, the share that fell at the division between Madách Péter and Rimay János, concerning those belonging to the sole male line. 3.) The same place, No. 3, 1616, Nénye, Palota, and Lám: the heirs of Dubák divide. (This latter I should wish to see not so much on account of Rimay, but for the tracing-out of the interesting Dubák descendants, known from this codex diplomaticus.) Humbly imploring, then, for these, while I do not cease repeatedly to thank your Grace’s high grace, I in turn joyfully offer my insignificant self’s ready service in everything at your disposal, being with the deepest respect your obliged servant, Honored Lord’s Zohor near Somfa, V. 4. 838. humble servant Ipolyi Stummer Arnold.

[Note at the end of the letter] These documents have been sent back and are extant. 871. Madách Aladár.

ID. MADÁCH IMRÉNÉ

Here today there is again a draw of lots; my God, perhaps with us too; for this I had to live so long, that I might live through this sorrowful time; my life and my property I count for nothing, but for You, my dear loving Sons, this trembling, this dread, for your lives — would that my life would end — I have lived enough, I have fulfilled my duty, You I have raised up, with God’s help, as good Citizens — the threads István has spun are already drawing very close together over the capital — what we are to do I do not yet know; for women no harm, but, as we read, they round up the young men and send them to Galicia — to counsel anything is impossible; I commend you only to the protection of the Almighty, my one dear loving Emi — Here they are fitting out the cellars for dwelling, in case there is a siege; the landlord has already offered us too the refuge — it would be better for you to come in too, for in the villages it will perhaps be very dangerous — with open arms I receive you all — write, my dear Emi, did you get any money? I always grieve over you, I cannot help — me too Hamza only encourages, without all success — Balog, after a stay of 5 days, went down again yesterday to Ó-Becse; he will not rest while Földvár is not soon besieged; but they are very black-yellow down there too, as at Buda — if everyone carried fire like Károly, there would long since be peace — I kiss you all. — There was a call for buildings suitable for soldier-rearing; the old Sztregova house would be very suitable for that; it would be well to make a report, dear Emi. — Come or write as soon as possible; meanwhile I kiss you all a thousand times; to death I remain your loving Mother 29 Dec 1848. Anna Mari, Károly, and the children kiss you all. Write me of dear Aladár, does he walk yet? Kiss for me Erzsike and him — on the new bridge for 2 days they crossed by force, but from today it is forbidden.

Whether these lines come into your dear hands I do not know! grief will soon drive me to madness on account of You and Pál — Károly is happy; the office-holders are sent to Szeged or Debrecen; the armory, the crown, are sent away; the youth will be called up by placard to go, for from the other side they are being rounded up — for God’s sake take care of yourselves — God bless you, keep you, protect you; in this world we shall not see each other again — do not come in, for God’s sake — the spring illness, how good it would be now — they worked by torchlight on the Danube — we saw the fires on the Pest side — as if we had heard rumbling too — Live happily, take heed; God bless you. Love your Mother, loving you to death Anna first [?] Jan 849— They have opened all the prisons; they go to war.

Dear beloved good Emi! Bende is always reasoning about the decision; by today’s post he wrote to Károly that with you the taking-over was not carried out, you yourselves are at fault, that the one year’s usus is in his favor; while that it was not solemnly or lawfully handed over is against him; Bende now summons Károly to Hont for the taking-over of the documents — he writes too that I should give it, that is, to Sándor, in lease — but then we should only be where we are, that he would not pay as now — He asks my intention, what I want to do? My intention is this: to pay him a thousand florins in bills yearly, as I paid from the revolution, and put the rest to Computus. — In my opinion, even if he takes it as a testament, I can change it. — Perhaps it may help too that 20 thousand are intabulated from the Savings-bank. As for the further disposition, I think a couple of weeks make no difference, at most if death unexpectedly surprised me. — That too may be a reason for the change, since the loss is greater. — Only I beg you very much, dear good Emi, do what is in your power, that I may win back from the hands of the ungrateful one. — You wrote that I should write to him, but it is impossible for me to do that. — On the sixth I intend to set out from here, if nothing intervenes; but the first reason may be that I have not a farthing of money, if the wool-money does not come before then. A thousand kisses, my one good Emi; to death I shall not cease to be your loving mother Anna Károly now rides to Szalatnya, to de la Mote.

dolog [continuation:] the setting-in-order of this matter; therefore, my Son, on the love of justice, and as far as I flatter myself, on your love and gratitude toward me, I trust that you will answer everything punctually, and even if something has been left out (since I am no advocate), set that too in order; this is my last resource; for you a good harvest makes up for everything; the Orphans’ affair grieves me most, since they received the estate without any building; I, from my life-annuity on, will render account for the Orphans’ part, lest perhaps after my death they curse my memory. — You know well, my dear Sons, that I have not laid aside a farthing for myself; of the compensation those couple of thousand florins I should have liked to leave after my death to one and another in memory — but that too, alas, has gone, so to speak, entirely on debts, interest, the setting-in-order of buildings, Anna’s upbringing — the fall of Vörösvár, Sztregova’s bad harvest for several years, from 1852 from Csalomia I got nothing, neither wine nor anything else, and so I suffered the greatest need — everyone knows well that my house was not provided for even a week with kitchen necessities, and so I had at once to live out of ready money — Had you not been against me, as regards the recovery of Vörösvár, I should have shut that ungrateful one out of everything, which I shall indeed do, as far as I can, to harm him; I have wronged no one, but it is easy to make a quarrel with one from whom one no longer expects anything. — Hereafter the actual payment must be settled punctually, and bound, lest the payment depend on their free will; therefore I ask the Fiscal Sir to be graciously pleased to settle it punctually and set me at ease. — As it appears, I was not [able] to pay the 853 accounts, which at least I should have done; thus I do not know where to turn. — Once more I commend to your hearts, with the Fiscal Sir, the dispensing of justice Madách Anna

I enclose the documents, which I also ask back. The unpaid accounts which I did not pay in 1852 and in three are so large that I am not able to pay them.

ban [continuation:] in writing I wanted to communicate with you, and at the same time to ask your counsel, is the reason, that I feared my own emotion, since that, dear Emi, would be a burden to you — First, the Division did not happen as I wished; on Your part I wanted to give you much more — Second, the Orphans got the worst part, on top of that no building, and from so many years scant income (or none) — On these, as far as it can be helped, I wished, as well as the inheritance after Pálné, Béla Arad — these are not yet in hand, and the costs upon them I bear, such as the keeper’s wage, the suit-costs (which can be seen from Fekete’s accounts); the Division-deed is like a Testament, therefore I am free to make a Codicil concerning what is not yet in hand — that I may shut out that ungrateful daughter, who in eight years did not even try at reconciliation, and got the best lot, from that future — To you, dear good Emi, I can give nothing in particular, since I have nothing; Károly I do not wish to offend either, for he is a good lad; the Orphans, as far as may be, I should want to make up their lot, and so I would divide it into three parts; this I have already told Bende, and promised a thousand pengős (but only if it stands firmly, and you win it); that you three could pay him after my death. To make a Testament it is high time; I am much advanced in years; I do not know how to draw up a testament, which indeed need consist only of this — the exclusion of her, and what little I have, that alone I leave to you, for I am not able to show my gratitude toward you, my dearest child, and to thank you enough for your tender treatment; therefore I beg you very much, good Emi, speak with sensible men learned in law, and on your return let us set it in order; have it drawn up, that I may peacefully await my last hour, [she] who will love You to death Madách Anna

In 854 I gave a receipt to Fekete in Sándor’s name, but I did not take up the money; that too must come to Computus. — With Fekete, for God’s sake, have the Computus made, that I may be under no one’s guardianship; by what way am I to get my due Life-annuity, and the Orphans their Lease?

Your dear lines, copied over from Fromer, I read with joy, of your better health, thanks to the Almighty — when I was in there, You too, I, on account of my ailing health, did not say what lay on my heart, and what indeed most ruins my health — Borsodi’s thousand upon thousand annoyances — but now I am already resolved that I shall have Károly taught by him no more; to enumerate the reason of this is impossible, but this could have been foreseen, that in your absence he would multiply his badness; every day dead drunk — he spends hours, half-days, in quarrels, so that the people stop in the courtyard — You, dear Emi, once wrote him well, but what use; after an hour-long speech he blames another for the fault — the poor little children look very ill, headaches, and are quite cast down in their whole body; do not believe, dear Emi, that he treats Aladár better, even were he alone; never do they hear a sensible word from him but quarreling; Aladár is likewise not exempt from all this, only not in so great a measure — Károly he hinders in his learning, in order to show that he does a bad examination, which he himself now says; I shall be lighter, that I have poured out my heart’s pain; I beg you only this, that he not learn of it before the examination, for woe. Do not be vexed at me; I live only from today to tomorrow; in these two boys is my joy; therefore I would rather part from them than see them tormented thus. — I send here the receipt, dear Emi; deduct the 22 fl. I know not how many kreuzers. — Károly has even now paid only the half, though I have several accounts to pay. — The little children kiss your hand, embrace you; I kiss you; I commend you to God’s protection. I remain your loving mother Anna. [1861]

MADÁCH KÁROLY

... will follow and fulfill its admonitions. Fellow-citizens! our watchwords: long live the king! constitutional reform! liberty! equality! peace! and order! Dated March 16 by the committee described above. Szathmáry-né, coming down from the second-floor window with the white flag, going in front, led the people to the museum courtyard, where, the volunteers gathering under separate flags by city-district — that is, those who voluntarily had themselves enrolled as national guards, whose number at Pest already runs to some 8 or 10 thousand — they selected those whose turn it was that day to patrol and watch over quiet and order. On the 16th in the morning, the people of Pest wanting to come over to ask for arms from Lederer at the armory, partly for the volunteers, partly for the newly increased civic guard, Lederer, taking fright at this, had cannon brought into the armory and ordered as much soldiery into the courtyard as could fit; nay, even on the parade-square he had the two cannon that stand before the Hauptwacht loaded too, and stationing gunners there with burning fuses; but the people, hearing of these preparations, or rather of this fright, as though they wished to storm the armory, turned back, and only sent a deputation to Lederer that he should give 2000 pieces of arms from the armory, and another deputation to the governing council to the end that the governing council had promised that soldiery would be set up only in the event that quiet and order were disturbed; and lo, the soldiery is still set up, nay the cannon too are loaded. We, sending word to Lederer, the soldiery was at once ordered off. On the 16th in the afternoon the twelve points were accepted by the Buda city council too; here too placards announce the council’s resolutions; in a word, Buda does what Pest does. Volunteers have themselves enrolled here too; a separate subscription-sheet went around at the Governing Council, on which the younger part of the Councilors, such as my principal Török, Fiáth, Bujanovics, Havas, councilors, signed themselves — naturally I too; so I am a national guardsman; their duty, when the turn comes to them, is to appear at the city hall at 9 o’clock in the evening, where, getting arms, one must patrol in the streets with the other citizens, watching over quiet and order. The service began today; among today’s turn too are two councilors, Csernyus and Cseh; I am curious to know how the patrolling will please Török; the best of it is that one need not have a uniform made, everyone goes in whatever he likes, gets arms free, no need to spend on that either. On the 7th in the evening the grand illumination was held; to see this was truly grand, especially the city hall; from every house national-colored flags waved, from some houses two even from every window; the opposition circle was very prettily illuminated; on its façade was this transparency:

Free Press Rise up from your prison-bed’s stone pillow, sick, numbed thought, Cry out, feeling, that groaned beneath the stifled, bleeding heart. Oh come forth, prisoners chained in iron! behold the glorious, happy day — To the homeland that long endured, with you bring light, comfort, and blessing.

That evening, in Úri street, Petőfi’s poem was scattered about, partly from windows, partly thrown up, among the unspeakable multitude; in some places again other slips, under the gate of the opposition circle other slips with the following content: Whom does the Nation desire for Ministers? Batthyány Lajos foreign affairs Deák Ferenc internal affairs Kossuth Lajos industry and communications Pulszky Ferenc finance Szentkirályi Móric religion Szemere Bertalan education Perényi Zsigmond justice Nyáry Pál police Teleki László war Eötvös József keeper of the seal as Ministers.

Today the tempers are fairly quiet; one can altogether much marvel at this order and peace that reigns, but this can be thanked only to Nyáry and Klauzál, who stepped to the head of the affair. At Pest the national-colored banners still adorn the windows; I forgot to mention that the royal castle too was illuminated, barracks, the customs-house, everything, and the dreadful crowd behaved itself so peacefully that during the whole revolution they did not break a single window; the first day the shops in Váci and Nagyhíd streets were all closed; at the university there is still this confusion; there are holidays; the university even sent its flag over to Buda for safekeeping, lest the students should all riot again into cholera; but on the 16th they already sent over for the flag, that it be sent back, and when they carried the flag back to the university square, one of the students, at the rector’s summons, beginning to declaim Petőfi’s poem, the professors first raised their fingers and spoke the oath, which the students then echoed. Hatvani street is henceforth Free Press street; the city-hall square, Liberty square, because for the most part on the 15th here liberty fought itself out; the university square, Concord square, they call it. Now everyone wears a national cockade; those of the governing council at first dreaded it, but now, except for two councilors, all have put it on. According to the governing council’s measure, the two-headed eagles are taken down everywhere; today already it was taken down from the pawnshop, the post; and everywhere the coat-of-arms of Hungary comes. According to the permanent deputation’s order, the German shop-signs are all canceled tomorrow, and Hungarian inscriptions come in their place. These three days have brought about unspeakable changes in these two cities; only let it advance thus. As far as I could, I have striven to describe the whole faithfully, for I was almost everywhere, saw, heard the whole. Read it to mama too, perhaps these movements interest her; for the rest set her at ease, for here, except the great shoutings, the least disturbance of order has not yet happened, except that here at Buda, on the parade square, the window of a certain old bachelor was broken in, because at the illumination, out of stinginess, he put out the candles already at 9 o’clock. To the Bory family too, whom I honor, read this description of mine; I think it will especially interest Lajos. Finally I write here too the Vienna Our Father, and Hail Mary, and the Hungarian Creed. Vater Metternich, der du bist in Wien, entheiliget wird jetzt dein Name; zu uns komme eine andere Regierung; der Wille der Unterthanen geschehe, wie in Ungarn, so auch in Steyermark und Österreich. — Gib uns ein größeres Brot, und unser Schelten und Schimpfen, als auch wir dir die neue Anleihe vergeben; führe uns nicht in Versuchung mit deinen Creditgagieren, sondern erlöse uns durch wirkliches Gold und Silber. Amen. Gegrüßet seist du, Papiergeld, du bist voll Betrug, der Curs ist mit dir, du bist vermaledeit unter den Geldern, und vermaledeit ist, der dich aufgebracht hat. Scheinheiliges Papiergeld, bitt für uns arme Unterthanen jetzt und in der Stunde unserer Crida durch die Eisenbahnen. Amen.

I believe in one Kossuth, In his omnipotence, In the creator of Hungary and Transylvania, Who was conceived of justice, Born in Zemplén, Was tortured by Metternich, Was buried in the castle of Buda, On the third year rose again from the dead, And ascended into Pozsony, Sits at the right hand of the Lord Personalis, Thence shall He come to judge The quick and the dead of Vienna.

I believe in one Kossuth, In one responsible ministry, In the unity of the Hungarians, And in our life everlasting. Amen.

As far as I could, I wanted to describe the whole circumstantially; but even if it be not so perfect, take the good will; your loving elder brother Madách Károly

The camp of Perlasz is taken!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This important news arrived today around noon, which Szemere at once reported too in the house of representatives. Perhaps God still helps this table-judge nation after all. But how high they too carry their heads after this news. And this battle went according to no preliminarily prepared strategic plan; from this one sees that not tactics but enthusiasm and energy are needed for the winning of a battle. As they tell it, who heard Szemere’s report, the rise of the battle they relate thus: that after Voronyeczky, with his free swift hunter-troop, made up mostly of the most desperate men, came down to the camp, who were received by the soldiery and the honvéds with the greatest enthusiasm, the battle-lust so spread among them that they were hardly to be restrained; and after the not so much unfortunate engagement at Temerin, but rather the surrender, came to their knowledge, they became downright unrestrainable, so much so that the Serb camp of Perlasz, with no plan at all, from one side the Voronyeczky-ish swift hunters, from another side the spirited Don Miguel regiment, from a third side the 10th honvéd battalion attacked, who all, rushing with great fury into the strongly entrenched camp, scattered the robber-band of six up to eight thousand Serbs; meanwhile Kis Ernő, lest the bodies acting entirely separately, each after its own head, should crush one another, brought up his hussar regiment, and the Serb camp being scattered, into which on account of the entrenchments he could not break with his hussars, had them pursued by his hussars. Kis wrote this report of his, indeed, at the battle’s end, but with the remark that he is still pursuing them, and his intention is to keep pursuing them, lest they should be able to gather their strength again; so far eight of their cannon have already been captured, and a great many taken prisoner, with a fair quantity of munitions; the number of their dead is not yet known. Kis Ernő’s old plan, if once he can outflank them, is not to halt before Zagreb, where the Croats, seeing the Hungarian strength, will likewise rise up, and so Jellačić too be at once ruined, and thence to penetrate as far as Fiume, which he then wanted to have supplied with well-disposed Hungarian soldiery. Kis up to now has not only never been driven back, but has always carried off a great victory. Bechtold has resigned. Beöthy Ödön, who came up after the Temerin surrender, and was here all this time, the representative house, at the ministry’s and Kossuth’s motion, sent down with full and extraordinary power, that he should at once purge Mészáros, who in the camp commands the soldiery, of the foreign and ill-spirited officers, and name a commander-in-chief, after his own judgment, in Bechtold’s place. In a word, he was sent out with boundless power; one can imagine what the little furious Beöthy will accomplish down there. The infantry regiment bearing the name of Mariássy, after, in consequence of a royal order, all Hungarian soldiery except that in Italy is exchanged with the German regiments here, when it stepped over the country’s border, set itself on a Hungarian footing as far as it could, voluntarily — to wit, they cut off the tails of their dress-coats and made jackets out of them. May God give the country many such soldiers. Our ministers who went up for the sanction of the soldier-levy law have not come back even up to now, and nothing can be heard of them; in consequence of which, at Kossuth’s motion, tomorrow a hundred-member deputation will go up to Vienna to remind the king of his many-times-made promises, namely when he intends to redeem his so-often-given word as to his coming down to Buda, and thereby to show that Hungary’s independence was not wrested by force but granted of his own good will; the deputation being strictly enjoined that if within 24 hours it does not gain an audience, this is to be regarded as a denying answer, and they are not to tarry an hour longer. Kossuth declared in today’s session that within a couple of days we face great events. Of arms we have a vast quantity within a couple of days; in smaller deliveries already, for 500 a couple of thousand have already arrived; four days ago 4000 arrived at once; today again 7000, that is seven thousand; tomorrow again as many, which I can say for certain, for I myself saw both the consignment and the receipts about it; as they say, on the 9th of September forty thousand pieces of arms will be delivered for the newly to-be-established soldiery. I intended to go out on Thursday, but these few days will be so full of event that it is impossible to leave Pest now; therefore I have put my departure off to Saturday; therefore, as you sent word by Bory Lajos that if I wished to go home you would be so kind as to send a carriage for me, I beg you, but only if it will not be the least inconvenience to you, be so kind as to send a carriage to Vác on Saturday, that is on Sept. 9th, by noon; but once more I beg, that if I am thereby not the least inconvenience to you — which if you are so kind as to send, I hope to find at the Csillag. With this, honoring the Majthényis, kissing Erzsike, you, and Pál, if he still tarries at Csesztve, a thousand times, Dated Buda Sept. 4. 848 your loving younger brother Madách Károly Honored Madách Imre, Esq. at Vác and Csesztve through B. Gyarmat.

"848 Dear Imre! Encouraged by Nina, I hoped that today perhaps, together with Pali, I might embrace you here, but, alas, I was disappointed in my hope. Jellačić, as you know, was pushed back; now, as it is heard, he keeps retreating; he was much disappointed both in our strength and in our enthusiasm, which increases our strength daily, but most of all he was disappointed in our gunners; for first he believed, since he too has gunners from the fifth regiment, that ours would not fire on them, who, however, distinguished themselves especially; secondly he believed that our honvéd gunners, who have been learning only some month, had not brought it to such perfection as they all showed; this Jellačić himself said to Ivánka, whom, however, he has already set free, since the war-court did not judge him lawfully captured. Ivánka’s capture, if you should not yet know it, happened thus: Ivánka, by a skillful turn, cut off a part of his force, and so skillfully pressed it that the Croat troop had no other choice but either to retreat into a lake, since he had hemmed them in entirely against a lake, or else to go among Ivánka’s bayonets; then from the Croat side an officer sprang out with a white kerchief; at this Ivánka too went forward, whereupon the Croat officer announced, in the name of his troop, that they surrendered, which Ivánka accepting, went back to his troop to declare it, which the Croat officer likewise did; later from among the Croats again another officer sprang out with a white kerchief, and Ivánka likewise, but at a sign from the Croat officer he was captured, and Ivánka’s troop, having lost their chief, retreated; but, as I premise, Ivánka was set free the same day. Among the Nógrád men, Paczolay Nárcisz behaved best, who, when his company was skirmishing, shot down — not by his own but by his men’s testimony — five Croats. Tersztyánszky Zsiga and Horváth Valér, however, fled cowardly, but were later driven back by the reserve force. These details I know from Ivánka Zsiga, who was present during the whole battle, and naturally followed his younger brother’s troop with the greatest attention. Yesterday and today very good news circulated here; namely they said that the grenadiers most lately brought from Vienna to Italy, because he had them decimated for enlightening the Hungarian soldiery about the affairs here, shot Radetzky dead; that they hanged Doblhoff, set Latour running in Vienna; that the royal family — this is fact — has gone from Vienna, and come here near Pozsony, to Schaumhof, I think, or whatever it is called. According to the placards of the representative house’s defense committee, Hurbán, Štúr, and the Hodža-ish robber-band were driven out of the country, especially by the Pozsony and Nagyszombat national guard, and fled into Moravia, and the most energetic steps have been taken to prevent the possible new outbreaks of these pan-Slavistic movements. As they tell it, one frontier-guard battalion of Jellačić’s has come over. The history of Lamberg, as the Pesti Hírlap published it, I do not know, for I did not read it; but since some here related — whom indeed the example of Zichy Ödön silenced for a while — as if it were not even certain whether he had accepted the royal commission or not, of that I wish to inform you: that Lamberg was already at Török’s, whom, as royal commissioner, he forbade to send our force either victuals or money, to which Török answered that since his commissioning happened without ministerial countersignature and so unlawfully, he would not obey him; whereupon Lamberg again asked, what if he should use force-power; Török answered that then he too would be compelled to use force to repel force. I, indeed, cannot approve Lamberg’s execution, especially in such a cruel manner as it happened; but I am perfectly convinced that in the opposite case Pest would have been the scene of the greatest bloodshed, for one part of the national guard certainly recognizes Lamberg’s royal-commissioner appointment, the other not, and so among ourselves, instead of fighting the enemy with strained strength and joined shoulders, we should have had to wrestle among ourselves. Zichy Ödön, former administrator of Fehér county, Görgey Arthur, commander of the volunteer national guard on this side of the Tisza, had executed by the rope on Csepel island, in consequence of a court-martial sentence by a gypsy, after Jellačić’s proclamations, nay even a letter of Jellačić’s, were found on him. Zichy Pál, the Palatine’s chamberlain, who was a captain in the Hardegg cuirassiers, they brought captive yesterday. For the rest, the Hungarian officers of the Hardegg regiment are beginning to take their discharge. Móga behaves with unimaginable energy; otherwise he cannot do, if his life is dear to him. Bory Laczi, after the Földváry-ish battalion was disbanded, joined the Pest sharpshooters, otherwise the 14th honvéd battalion, as platoon-corporal. A larger part of the deputies’ corps the day before yesterday and yesterday formed into a hunter-troop in the camp. The Pest national guard, since here too there is a general levée en masse, set out yesterday, today, and tomorrow for the camp. The 2nd battalion of the Buda national guard went off today; the first battalion sets out tomorrow; whither, for how long, no one knows; I indeed, as a member of the civic section of the war ministry, am exempted from the march to the camp, for now we have chiefly to do with the provisioning of the camp, and going away from here would be a greater obstacle as regards the provisioning than the profit we should make down there; since, however, in Pest and Buda only the lame and crippled are now left, despite this leave I should be ashamed to remain here; tomorrow I too set out. Today I bought a cloak, a cartridge-pouch; in a word, splendidly equipped, with the greatest pleasure and courage. If we should chance to tarry longer in the camp, I shall inform you. If you think fit, tell Mama; I do not mind. Until I can see and kiss you again, keep me, with Erzsike and all of you, keep me in your memory, to death your loving younger brother Madách Károly Honored Madách Imre, Esq. at Vác and Csesztve through Gyarmat

Dear Imre and Pál! My letter sent by Jancsi, consisting of a few confused lines, certainly alarmed you, and therefore now, calmly, as far as I can, I write down the events; I hope I can set you at ease. That, when I wrote the letter sent by Jancsi, the two cities were in great terror, you can easily grasp, since just then it came to general knowledge that the representative body, the defense committee, nay Kossuth himself, had left Pest, and since from Perczel’s scattered force too just then several larger troops arrived. But the preliminaries lasting very long, I now begin the history. Görgey’s camp, setting out from Pozsony, hastened by forced marches toward Győr, so that, starting from Köpcsény, resting half an hour at Rajka, in one breath they went to Győr; reaching Győr the day before Christmas, his men were billeted. On the second day of Christmas, Görgey heard that Győr was surrounded by Windisch-Grätz; at 5 in the morning, having the battle-drum beaten, he marched out into the very strong entrenchments made at fearful cost; thence, not yet perceiving the enemy, he marched out of the entrenchments, and was soon received by Windisch-Grätz’s troop with cannon-fire; this Görgey returning, the enemy drew back, but not the way he came, but down toward Buda; which Görgey perceiving, he wanted, with a great part of his camp, to get ahead of him by side-roads, and with a smaller part meanwhile to keep harrying him; but the enemy everywhere avoided open battle, for ours everywhere had an excellent position. While ours were at Győr, a part of Windisch-Grätz’s army, around Hédervár, where the Danube already splits into several branches, crossed on the ice to the Vác side, but whither at once — chiefly over the Pest chain-bridge — two brigades, some ten thousand strong, were transported across. Meanwhile, while Görgey wanted to get ahead of him, from Bábolna, where a battalion of Prinz von Preussen and two squadrons of imperial hussars were [stationed] for the securing of the stud, was attacked by an enemy troop; the imperial hussars fled scandalously, so that in the chronicles a like flight of hussars is not to be found; the Prinz von Preussen battalion, on account of the officers’ Schwarzgelb-ness, surrendered without a shot. Colonel Szegedy, however, this coming to his ear, with half a brigade rushed upon the enemy, and cut the Preussens out, who, however — that is, the men — by their heroic conduct on the occasion of the cutting-out, washed off themselves their former disgrace; and Szegedy drove the enemy back with fair loss. Meanwhile Windisch-Grätz, hearing the news of Perczel’s coming up, wanting either to cut him off from the union, or to forestall him, made a flanken-bewegung, and with circa 25 thousand men set out toward Pápa and thence toward Fehérvár, meaning to come into Pest by Jellačić’s road. Perczel, who came by forced marches from the Dráva, wanting to continue his road at Mór toward Győr, on account of the union with Görgey, when he was unexpectedly attacked, and in consequence of his bad dispositions, and chiefly of his overconfidence, his army was split into two; the army of 6 or at most 8 thousand, split in two, unable to withstand 25 thousand men, took to flight, and of Perczel’s 22 cannon 3 were captured, and circa two hundred cut down, the rest, fleeing into the woods, scattering in groups. Görgey, however, getting news of this second-edition flanken-bewegung, sent after them Kmety and Korger, both individuals of especially excellent talent, who at once gathered up Perczel’s scattered army, and partly at Promontor, partly at Martonvásár they are being re-ordered; some 6 or seven hundred fled here to Buda-Pest too, who, however, this afternoon, being gathered up again, are again taken to the camp. Perczel, whom the dragoons had already surrounded, was cut out by his hussars. And so Perczel’s loss is not so dreadful as we first heard, and within a few days his army being re-ordered will hold its ground again, judging too by the enthusiasm of those who fled here entirely. And so Windisch-Grätz, from the direction of Vörösvár with some 8 thousand, and from the direction of Fehérvár with some 25 thousand on the Vác side, or with some 12 thousand, intends to come. Inasmuch as credit may be given to the account of that officer from whom I know these details, Görgey’s camp they put at some 36 or 37 thousand; this, supported by the levée en masse, makes it impossible that he should not reap a victory. From the Vörösvár road the enemy least of all, also because, according to the experts’ saying, perhaps in the whole country there is no such good position as at Vörösvár; but the Martonvásár one too, where Móga also showed himself, they call very, very good; on the Buda highroad, partly on account of the defiles, partly of the forests, he cannot come, which, however, he has also avoided. On the Buda-Pest population the departure of the representative house and the defense committee made the worst impression; under this they naturally thought of open danger. A bad impression was made too by the sending-out of that deputation which I wrote of in my earlier letter, which, however, Görgey, as I hear, set right, since he did not let the deputies cross over into Windisch-Grätz’s camp, since this would be an eternal disgrace to the nation, now to ask an armistice and a peaceful settlement; for the rest, the time of it is not yet here; and so it seems that he has even strong hope of keeping the two cities too. On the 30th of last month our pay was given out two months in advance: the Defense Committee goes to Debrecen, the war ministry to Törökszentmiklós; I too go with it. The cashboxes, the crown, clothing, grain, are likewise being carried down; the workmen working in the arms-factory were taken too, and the more artificial machines of the arms-factory. Schlick advanced as far as Szikszó, but was pushed back by Mészáros in a battle. Szecsődy’s petition and his documents I received, but at present I shall hardly be able to issue them, since we do not know when we must go, which will be made known to the public by three cannon-shots; this will at the same time signify Görgey’s passage through the two cities. Pál, I must beg pardon a thousand times that in our great terror I sent back his things; for the rest, between us be it said, mama’s and Mari’s weepings increased our terror. My paper and my ink running out too, I close my letter. If some non putarem does not intervene, if the war ministry goes, I go; therefore I do not know when I can see and embrace you. God bless you all. He kisses you a thousand times Károly

By the kindness of Bamberger I write this letter, since postal communication has not yet been opened with your region — he set out today from here to Gyarmat, and from him you can hear by word more fully of what happened at Pest from the 5th of January than I could now write down in haste. You will wonder that I am still at Pest, but since Török in the last days carried it with Vetter, as provisional war minister, that in such warlike times there is no need at all of our civic section, the whole section remained here, and I, without occupation, did not want to go off with the ministry, but neither did I want to await here the imperial troops’ entry; I resolved within myself to go on Friday afternoon to Abony, and if the imperial troops should chance to approach there, to go on still farther; but this plan of mine was frustrated by the entry that took place Friday morning. Friday morning I had just got up, about half past 8, when Lenhossék comes in to me, that the enemy is already in the Christina-town; I, since I knew nothing of our retreat, nay was always deluded with the most brilliant victories, took it to be our retreating army. Dressing in haste, I went out to the Christina-town bastion; at the cemetery on the Fehér road I see the cannon set in a row and aimed at the castle, but even then I did not believe they could be the imperials, for I could not grasp, and even now cannot grasp, where the Hungarian army could have got to. I had hardly stood a few minutes on the bastion when I saw a hunter-battalion approaching toward the Christina church; at the church a few honvéds, billeted here the previous day, resisted a battalion, and, as they say, shot down an officer and a private, but the hunters likewise shot down one of them; the rest fled into the vineyards. The hunters first went into the Christina church, thinking that perhaps some hostile force was hidden there. Meanwhile the representatives of the Buda city council went out to the army, and to their commander Vrbna surrendered the city and the castle, and gave their heads as surety that no hostile force was in the city, and that on the citizenry’s part no resistance would take place. At this Vrbna declared that on the city’s church-tower, on the city hall, and on the castle the yellow-black imperial-colored flag should be hoisted that very day; the burgomaster answered that the citizenry had agreed to hoist the white flag; whereupon Vrbna shortly answered: "Ich habe schon davon gesagt, entweder die schwarzgelbe Fahne, oder Standrecht." The choice was easy, the yellow-black flag was hoisted that evening. The hunter-battalion, coming out of the church, scattered in small troops through the whole city and castle, and came into the castle at once from every approach; I was just at the Christina-town stairs when a little troop, perhaps seven or eight men, came up, and to the gaping crowd there said quite gemütlich and roundly: "Guten Morgen, meine Herren"; these at once relieved the sentries everywhere from the national guard. After these came the uhlans, cuirassiers, and, the lancers’ band being drawn up along the Vér-mező by the Christina-town church, it began to play the Gott erhalte, which the soldiery received with three hurrahs; after that began the Einzug; beside the cannon, with burning fuses, came the gunners; the cavalry too all held their weapons ready in their hands; the whole entry resembled rather a grand funeral than a triumphal procession; the public was wholly of one mood, except a few; and on the Czech gunners here the soldiery’s eternal shouting and rejoicing made not a drop of effect. Despite this dreadful indifference of the public, the officers wanted to make themselves believe how joyfully they were received; I myself heard when one officer said to another: welcher Jubel. This entry lasted from ten in the morning all evening, while the billetings took place. Windisch-Grätz came at 4 in the afternoon, and put up in the castle; Jellačić in Pest, in Károlyi György’s house. The next day all sorts of placards came out, but older than old, such as Ferdinand’s abdication, Franz Joseph’s accession to the throne. Yesterday a general pardon was proclaimed, from the sergeant downward, to the rank and file; as for the officers, Windisch-Grätz reserves to himself to plead for the king’s grace toward those who shall justify themselves. So far only Batthyány Lajos, Jovich the former fortress-commander of Eszék, and Szapáry Antal have been arrested. The soldiery attained its aim, for here it made quiet and order. Buda is quieter than it ever was. For the rest, the citizenry avoids not only collision with the soldiers, but even meeting them. If you can come in, come in; believe me, nowhere is a peaceful and faithful citizen now safer than here. Of the Debrecen region we hear just nothing; sometimes, if we do hear something, such incredible things that we had rather hear nothing. Once more I beg, that if it be possible, come in as soon as possible, for as long a time as possible, with Erzsike and the Majthényis; he kisses you a thousand times Dated Buda, 849, on the 6th Károly Honored Madách Imre, Esq. Csesztve [Beside the address] Mr. Droba János, town-keeper, is requested for the forwarding of this little letter. Madách Károly

From day to day I put off my report, always in the hope that perhaps the next day I might write of a more favorable result of my sojourn here; but despite the fact that even now I cannot write of any favorable result as to the state of my affairs and my sojourn here, I can no longer neglect to inform you at least with a few lines. On Friday I arrived at Debrecen, and at once inquired about the justification of the officials who stayed behind; all of whom I asked, after I told my case, encouraged me with the best hopes, the more so since two days before my arrival the finance ministry, regarding Barkóczi Miska and Láng — both of whom had taken service with Windisch-Grätz — as justified, had restored them to their former posts. Hearing these, I went home and put my justification in writing, and the next day went to General Répásy, deputy war minister, to justify myself. I had hardly stepped in to Répásy, saying that I had come to justify myself, when he so attacked me, and in such genuine hussar fashion, that he almost called me a scoundrel outright; I beginning to answer him back, said that until he knew the state of the matter he should not treat me so unsparingly, and that if he would not hear me out, let my justification take itself as much time as it needs and read it, and if after that he holds me guilty, then let him abuse me if he has a mind to; he at this began to grow still more furious, did not even take my justification, and said that Földváry, the surrenderer of the Eszék fortress, also wants to justify himself, yet is nonetheless a scoundrel — in other words, that I too am one. At this, coming out of my phlegm a little, perhaps I too somewhat overstepped propriety; pocketing my justification, I went out. The next day I handed my justification to Major Asbóth, Klapka’s adjutant, with the request that he be so kind as to read it, and if he holds the things adduced sufficient for my justification, tell me, and only after that I shall go to Klapka, so as not to make unpleasantnesses for myself. Asbóth, reading my justification, held it sufficient, and said that I need not even go to Klapka, he would settle it himself. On the third day, going to Asbóth, who had already conferred with Klapka, I received this endorsement on my justification: "The justificatory petition is referred to the head of the civic and economic section — who must have fuller knowledge of the circumstances — for an opinion-report, with the remark that the petitioner is — until he can fully justify himself — to be provisionally employed, by order of the war minister, Major Asbóth." I, thanking Asbóth’s kindness very much, wanted to take my justification with me. Since, however, Asbóth said that every petition must be signed by Korponai, I left it there. Later Korponai, getting my justification to hand, as soon as he saw my name, raised a fearful clamor, abused Asbóth, that he dared thus endorse my justification; he saying that he did it at the minister’s commission, he said that cannot be, the officials who stayed behind cannot be taken in, whether they justify themselves or not, and so forth. After this he went in to Klapka; there too he raised a merciless clamor; coming out thence, he sent my justification over to the justice section for an opinion. I, not being acquainted with the head of the justice section, sent a couple of my good men to him to inform him; he, however, said that since he has instructions that those officials who justify the reasons of their staying behind shall be dismissed with their honor preserved, those who cannot justify themselves with loss of honor, he can do nothing, but in this one case of mine he will make a separate report. Since, however, Klapka went back to the camp and took Asbóth as his aide with him, I have no hope of a good result, since now again Répásy is the deputy minister. Nonetheless I await the result, and if I really get the endorsement on my justification, what instructions the justice section has, then my justification, which I have already prepared in another form, I shall hand directly to Kossuth, since the ministerial council set up a principle in this regard, and other ministerial men who arrived much later than I are justified, and so it cannot be permitted that the justification of the officials depend on the arbitrariness of individual men. From Korponai I did not much wonder at the above-adduced things, since, having quarreled with him over a certain matter, he was never my good man. As regards my sojourn here, I note that the dearness is dreadful; for lodging I pay 30 p. fl. monthly; everything else too is very dear; I rarely dine without having to pay over a pengő-florin; coffee is 15 kr. pengő, while a smokable Hungarian cigar 5—6 kr.; every day, with all one’s economy, one spends two pengő-florins; I have already spent over 50 pengő-florins for nothing. For the rest, there is nothing new; today they bring the Buda prisoners. There is much talk that Jellačić is captured. To the Turkish borders 100,000 arms have arrived; yesterday the courier came for money. Huszár Pista it was who brought the first news of the recapture of Buda castle; that day he dined at Kossuth’s, but he caught it from him too. For the rest, I hope my letter finds you all in the best health; Erzsi, Pál, you, and all of you he kisses a thousand times your truly loving younger brother Madách Károly.

My lodging is in Nagy Cegléd street, Fráter house No. 22. Fráter Béla is in Transylvania, a lieutenant in the second hunter-regiment; Náczi a first-lieutenant in the 16th hussar-regiment; the government and the diet go to Pest in some 10 days. Honored Madách Imre, Esq. through B. Gyarmat Csesztve

[Postmark date] 5/30

The commissions I wrote in my great drowsiness and sent by Nina, as regards the tailor, do not understand as though that should be ordered, but those clothes already half worn out, being so far unpaid, are to be paid off. You wrote that Jámbor at once subscribed to the agricultural papers, has a receipt for it, and so far I have not seen a single number of it; be so kind as to go to the editorial office and learn the reason of this. — As to the Mikulai matter too I have not yet got your answer, though I wrote you the whole circumstantially, in consequence of which you could inform me of your opinion. As regards the wool, with Frommer there was not the least trouble; a truly noble merchant; and as I was satisfied with him, so was he with the washing of the wool, for in conversation he brought up that the sheep ought to be culled, for some scabby ones are found among them, and if we culled out just those 50 or 60 head we should get 20 p. fl. more for our wool; ihre Wäsche ist ausgezeichnet. My friend, if a merchant says this when he buys the wool ab invisis, and from the purchase on the wool-price has even gone down, you can imagine what the washing was like! The toothless wethers I cull the day after tomorrow; if it were only possible I should most like to exchange them for lambs, if possible for young ewes; write me your opinion of this too. We have very much and very good hay; every possible loft is crammed; on the pusztas there is almost twice as much hay as was the whole year’s fodder last year; besides that I had a stack put up in the curia 9 fathoms long, 3 fathoms wide, and at least 4½ fathoms high; the aftermath shows finely; stubble-clover, if it only gets wet once more, there will be infinitely much; so far I have had everything mown, gathered, and carted by my own strength; for half-share I had only the fallows mown, for third-share the Dankóc field-strips and the Mali-Janko plot, which on account of the water I did not see worth having mown for myself. There is great backwardness on account of six oxen being short!!!!!! 4 of the old ones I sold in the winter, and spent their price, and since then, on account of money-shortage, we have not been able to buy them; one ox, moreover, swelled up at the clover-carting and died, so the [other] one of the pair remained without a mate. — At Csesztve too 4 oxen are short; two they sold long ago, two in the winter, with whose price they bought hay; this shortage must be supplied in both places as soon as possible; I indeed here have already finished the fallowing by the 12th of June, with hired labor alone, and indeed I had at least 30 measures more fallow plowed up than was hitherto plowed on the Gyelikó and Nad-Pravicska; but at Csesztve, on account of the lack of strength, they have not even finished the fallowing. Oxen would be most necessary here now, for the manure is almost all in still; but in my opinion only three oxen should be bought here, one to the mateless one so that the six carts be complete, and for the seventh cart only two oxen should be bought, for that with the two draught-horses would be the 7th complete cart; for if into the seventh cart we buy 4 oxen, then the draught-coachman is a veritable calamity, for one would not know what to do with him, since with two horses he can do nothing either at the grain- or the manure-carting; and the chief thing is that thereby at least 300 fl. saved at present is a great position. The presentation of the reforms to be introduced in the Sztregova farm I leave to the time when you come home; despite the fact that I have been running the farm properly only since November, I have perfectly come to know all its ins and outs, and am perfectly convinced that one can farm to purpose only thus; that hitherto I have not put it into life is because strength is needed for it, and one must be independent. — If Mama comes home from Pest I intend to go in for a few days, if my occupations about the farm permit. Meanwhile he kisses you a thousand times your loving younger brother Madách Károly

During my stay at Pest neither time nor occupation permitted me to confer about all those Sztregova farm-matters which, being more essential, require your consent. First of all I inform you that, in consequence of your approval, the remaining weaver’s plot, which in all was 338 square fathoms, I exchanged with Bardán, from his inner plot bordering on our plum-orchard, for 382 square fathoms; thus he gave 42 square fathoms more, and on it a fair plum-orchard, whereas on ours there was, so to speak, no tree, since Blasso bought it, and a part Szeverin got. — Last autumn Illauvszky moved the potash-boiling and the brandy-distilling, and this spring the potash-boiling too, into the stables lying directly opposite his dwelling; the whole conversion of the stable cost only 10 p. fl.; in consequence of which, from last autumn the manor beyond the bridges stands empty, and by and by will become perfectly useless, partly since the building itself was in olden days built only of mud and by bad workmen, partly since the dreadful great floods, which went especially this spring, weaken the whole building; I am perfectly convinced that further use of this building cannot be had, partly on account of its quality, partly its situation, and now especially, since it stands empty, to watch over it is almost impossible; I, already last autumn, when there was a fire at our place, which could only be prevented by the complete unroofing of the heyduck-house, which, on account of the lack of thatch-straw, is even now not entirely roofed, with a view to the roofing of this house too intended to have the manor unroofed; this, however, not daring to do without your approval, it has so remained up to now. Therefore I call on you to confer with Bory in this regard; I, in the winter, in accordance with Bory’s order, had sedge cut in the fish-pond, but of this, since it was frozen and broken up by the wind, it was perfectly impossible to make faggots, and so the cut sedge we used for litter under the cattle, and the heyduck-house is uncovered. Therefore inform me what your opinion is of this manor, whether it can still be used or not; for if we now unroofed it, the remaining part of the heyduck-house could be roofed, and the timbers and planks on it could be used at the time of building, whereas thus, even with watching, they are beginning to carry off the planks from its loft. The Pinczi family, coming home from Pest, I already found at Sztregova on account of the Fábiánfalva lease; I, in hope of subsequent approval, let it for 2000 W. fl., but they offered no more than the previous 1500 W. fl., and so we parted; therefore I beg you, inform me as soon as possible of your opinion in this regard, that I may provide either for a leaseholder or for something else, for at Michaelmas the lease-time runs out. The fulling-mill stands since autumn in the same state as it was; the old miller indeed wanted to mend it, but since I understand nothing of it, lest he should somehow spoil it, I provisionally forbade the mending of it, the more so since of our last year’s clover-sowings, except the Bikóc and Kisfalu fields, nothing came; therefore what is to be done with this too, is it to remain thus, or shall I have it mended. This year’s clover-fields are very fine; I sowed 6 hundredweight, and 1½ hundredweight of lucerne in front of the castle, where likewise of last year’s sowing nothing came, and at Bikóc. The mill-dams I had mended again as far as possible, at least they can grind; with the Kisfalu dam I have an immense deal of trouble with the Kelecsény people, who come up with this or that pretension, that Bory promised this or that; I, however, hitherto always put them off thus: bring writing from Bory, then I grant it; especially a certain Polonyi, or Schindlyás Márton, a one-eyed man, pretends to compensation for that new ditch which Bory had the Kelecsény people dig on our own meadows, asserting that Bory promised him the Hiska-ish meadow for that ditch; therefore I beg you, call on Bory to inform me what the matter consists in, how he agreed with the Kelecsény people, and who can have a just claim; let Bory inform me too why he did not give into Holman’s hand the contract signed by him, for hitherto both copies are here; from some I hear that Bory required a caution from Holman, and that until he deposits it he will hand over the contract; Holman, however, asserts that Bory promised him he need not deposit a caution, and the contract he himself did not want to take over because Bory wrote a higher lease into it than he had bargained for; Laczko too has no caution, and both remained in debt for last year up to George’s day. As to the big mill’s ditch too communicate Bory’s opinion, for its dam being already of giant width, and besides this there being four other dams on the ditch, why their maintenance becomes by and by impossible; according to Laczko’s assertion Bory has already approved that the dam be made right at the slope below the garden, and from here the ditch should go on the lower part of our Techlovnya [?] field and along the boundary between the former cottar-lands, and along the peasants’ lands almost to the upper edge of the great meadow, in the old ditch; while the Bresztyi-water ditch should be carried below the mill-ditch into the brook; I indeed think that this plan thus stands in theoria and is workable, and since the ditch falls considerably farther from the brook it will be more lasting than the present one. The Commassations, according to the new law, can be set in motion from the 1st of May; nay, everywhere where they want to introduce it must be reported within a year, for after the lapse of this term it can be set in motion only with the consent of both the landowners and the peasants. I have already written to Bende to confer with you in this regard. As I hear, everywhere where the surveys took place by furrow according to the urbarial holding, there an individual survey must take place; and indeed, except Hartyán, neither at Sztregova nor at Csesztve did an individual survey take place; to this end therefore one would have to agree anew with the surveyor, and perhaps report all those places where a survey has not yet taken place, viz. Parócza, Priboly, Borosznok, Kisfalu, Riba, Kopasz; for that at Parócza the consolidation could be introduced with the peasants’ consent, I think there is not much prospect. — Have you written yet to Gyürky Felicián, the Nizsa steward; if not, write him at once, and ask him to have patience at least for a year. As to the Pinczi family inform me without fail as soon as possible, for henceforth they will come down very much upon my neck. Ask Bory which is more to purpose: in the present Gyeliko furrow to manure a smaller piece well, or a larger less; I think, since the consolidation comes in without fail, and manuring is unconditionally needed, for without it there will not even be bread, especially in the Gyeliko field it is more expedient to manure a larger piece less than a smaller piece better. Subject I should still have enough, but my paper runs out; I should have several more proposals for this farm, for the more expedient running of the farm, which I shall present either by word, or later in writing; meanwhile he kisses you a thousand times A. Sztregova 853, May 29. Bory I honor, and your soonest notice I await. your loving younger brother Madách Károly

Your longingly awaited letter I received on the 3rd of this month, in consequence of which I at once informed the Pinczi family that Fábiánfalva is henceforth not given in lease, and that the lands, according to the contract, are to be handed over in good order and plowed. — The manor I shall have unroofed this very week, and the heyduck-house I shall have roofed, and its timbers carted into one pile. As regards the Commassations I called on Bende the very time I informed you; he, however, answered that until the courts are appointed nothing can happen; this, however, does not hold, for the surveys at least can take place, since we should gain both time and cost, for the surveyors are still cheaper now than they will be when everyone is having surveys made. The Sturz I had prepared, in due order and manner, but on account of the continual rains I could not yet wash it; tomorrow, however, that is Monday, I want without fail to set to the washing, and this week I intend to finish the shearing too; for the wool-sacks I likewise send tomorrow to Losonc; I do not know whether we shall already find them there. From Csesztve I had the sheep driven here, and the shepherd, who is infinitely wasteful and a rogue, I drove off. The mill-ditch I shall have set right as far as possible. And the fulling-mill, as soon as we have leisure, I shall have made with full strength. — Yesterday I came home from Csesztve, where I was for the expediting of the shepherd, and on my way home from there I found your letter here. Erzsi told me nothing of needing money, which, had I known, I should myself have provided her with; I am the more sorry, however, that she had not so much confidence in me, and did not mention it; for the rest, be at ease, in these days I shall without fail send her some; only I beg you, write Erzsi to confine herself only to the unavoidable needs, for it is hard to give a little to Mama, when we all are like to be in want — for, besides that I had 154 measures of rye brought from Csalomia, I bought 30 measures of rye; for the servants, until the new harvest, 84 measures must still be bought, and for the reapers 36 measures of rye; this is an unexpected outlay. I mentioned Huszár Sándor’s matter to Mama; Mama is infinitely angry at him, and now she will know nothing of the Computus, but wants to overturn the whole affair, on account of the shortness of time and my infinite occupations. With Bende I have not yet been able to speak, but I wrote him to come out without fail to Sztregova this week; then we shall reason it out, and the result I shall inform you of at once. That Bende, during his stay at Barát, brought up the computus to Sándor several times, this I know positively, and that Sándor always said he wants to know nothing of any computus, in consequence of which Bende, seeing that he could come to nothing with him, sent over the computus and money to Huszár Károly with a paper headed Pro memoria, in which he enlightens Huszár Károly about the whole subject and asks him to be a go-between. Huszár Károly, however, declaring that he indeed gladly takes it over, but can tell in advance that it will have no result, since Sándor has for some time grown estranged from him too and inclines not the least to his counsel, took back the documents, which since then are always with me. And Sándor, on the receipt produced by Bende, did not want to issue the original deed either. The whole matter, I think, is this: that Sándor, in consequence of the new laws, fearing the annulment of the whole, repenting his sins, would like to shift them onto others, and as far as possible to make amends. I took very greatly that sincere confidence which you developed toward me in your letter; be convinced that I do everything and in everything that I see good and to purpose; but in this above subject I beg you very much, be so good as still to give me some direction, and communicate your opinion, for this is so important a subject that I cannot take the whole responsibility on myself, if Mama remains at her hitherto intention and overturns the whole. As soon as I finish the shearing, if only it be possible, I shall at once go in to Pest, if only for a day, partly to see you both, partly to confer about one thing and another. It would be very good if in your letter you wrote to Mama in such a way that you hope the old castle’s courtyard and fences are already in due order — for this I have already mentioned twice to Mama, and yet she will not set to the making of it, though it costs not even a hundred W. fl., and if all at once the harvest, the threshing sets in, we shall not even get masons, while in front the paling is not even up yet, nay one of the great stone-walls now too [lies] flat, in the lower part of the garden a piece of the fence has fallen out, which is patched only with brushwood, and so from the street-side ruin still shows. It would perhaps be necessary to have too a wood-shed, and a shed for the little cart, in the courtyard, for which wood could be used from the manor. The Huszár Sándor-ish documents I shall send out at the very first opportunity; had I received your letter a few days earlier there would have been opportunity enough to send them. — Write, I beg, as soon as possible, if only a few lines; would that we could get a letter from you every post-day; but I warn you that on letters addressed to Sztregova you should put a 6-kreuzer stamp, for on every letter of yours we have to pay a 9-kreuzer fine. Dear Imre, your Pest life, to wit that you neither breakfast nor sup, I in no way approve; you must breakfast and sup, partly because you were used to it, partly that you may regain your strength; and this I expect of you, that you will do so henceforth. In the Huszár Sándor matter I beg you once more to write me your opinion for my direction as soon as possible; believe me that I shall do everything to clear the matter up; awaiting your soonest answer as soon as possible, he kisses you, your sincere loving younger brother Madách Károly Mama, Anna, little Károly kiss you; Nina and Pál honor you A. Sztregova 853, June 4.

The shearing we finished happily yesterday; I beg you, be so kind as to inform Froman Áron of this; at the same time I beg you to inform me how much foot-wool is set out, for in your earlier letter you write 140 pounds, whereas this is very much, for it is always wont to be around 80 pounds; with the washing I hope the merchant will be perfectly satisfied; if not, he is not an honest man. It is all Sturz-washing; at the beginning of the washing I had very much trouble, until the men learned it, and with the shepherds too I had trouble; they greatly opposed the innovation; I heard enough of it from them at the beginning, "uz sz dohnye, uz z doho"; but, thank God, we finished without any trouble or loss, except for one yearling, whose leg broke carelessly when they put it in the tub; it will come round, however; at the shearing, however, every shepherd already liked the washing, and now it seems they would not much have the mind to swim them in the old fashion. We sheared in all, together with the sheep driven home from Csesztve, 1596 head; that is, the Háj flock — 80 rams, 201 ewes, 196 wethers, 53 yearlings; the Bikóc — 211 ewes, 177 wethers, 86 yearlings; the Dubrava — 302 ewes, 231 wethers, 86 yearlings; so again the sheep-number is less than it was last year, for last year they sheared 1796 head, so it is just 200 head less, which is caused chiefly by last year’s infinitely few lambs. Therefore I just today told Mama that at least with the price of the sheep to be culled, lambs must without fail be bought, for one more bad year on them and we shall run out even of the breeding-stock; therefore I beg you, let me know your opinion as soon as possible. With the Bikóc shepherd too some order should be made, for now after the shearing he gave 6 yearling rams into the Háj for breeding, and there remained to him 470 head, and his convention is as much as it was when he had 1200 head; confer about this with Bory. In this farm the chief attention must be turned to the sheep, for without them there is not even enough bread, as for some years we sorrowfully experience, whereas formerly, there being enough sheep, there was everything, and there could be now too!!!!!! Yesterday Mikulai was here, whose grandfather first mortgaged perhaps to Baross, then to Terrai, his little Sztregova portion, who then made it over to Szubszki, from whom perhaps in 1802 Madách Sándor took it over; he, in consequence of the new law, wants to sell us his part forever, or to redeem it; I, being occupied with the shearing, answered him that I shall first look through our documents, communicate with you, and then answer; but I have not yet had leisure for the looking-through; but I shall look them through at once, communicate with Bende, and then inform you for the communication of your opinion and intention. With Bende, on account of H. Sándor’s matter, I have not been able to speak now either; I have already written him 3 times when he can come, but so far I have not got his answer. To Erzsi, as I wrote in my last letter, I sent 100 florins. On account of the infinitely much rain we have fallen behind with all the work; we have not yet finished the fallowing; if, however, the weather favors, we shall finish it this week; to the mowing we have not even set, for I do not mention what I had mown at the Hlohom on the fallow, and it has been getting wet for almost two weeks; hay on the meadows will perhaps be less than it was last year, but on the contrary at Dubrava in the dells there is so much grass that, if we can gather it happily, to Dubrava not a single blade of hay need be carried from the boundary; the wheat too shows fairly; for straw there will be very much, for they are very grassy. That the Catholic parsonage’s roof is in very bad order, I hope you know, and remember perhaps that I urged its repair already last year, fearing lest it collapse; last year, however, being occupied with other buildings, we had no leisure; I, lest its wall too collapse, in hope of subsequent approval, had cut in the winter 7 beams and 10 pairs of rafters for the parsonage, for the money in the building-fund is to be enough only for laths and tiles; lest, however, this come into usus, of every piece of timber a few groschen must still be kept; in these days they will set to the making, that it be ready by the time the bishop comes here in September on visitation, for otherwise we should get a snub from him; write me sincerely whether you approve it or not. If at Pest or at some acquaintances’ you could find a good little cheap rear-horse, I should much beg you to inform me; with these qualities they must possess: first, above 15 hands in any case, for [a word unreadable] my 15½-hand lead-horse for 15 [hands] in any case must be a bay, for my first two horses are bay; they must be strong, healthy, and good-going horses, that I may put them into a pair too; as to their age they may be 8 years old, nay even older if they are well preserved. I think you have heard that with me even more than with Pista the 4 horses have become a question of honor; he they vexed last year with this; for it is now about a year that I sold my grays and bought, with great rejoicing, two parade fore-horses, and a rear-horse since then I have not been able to buy, while the fore-ones I cannot use in a pair, and last week too they utterly smashed my carriage. Awaiting your letter as soon as possible, honoring old Bory, he kisses you a thousand times A. Sztregova 853, June 17. your loving younger brother Madách Károly

Mikulay Márton’s Alsó-Sztregova estate, which consists of one urbarial and ¼ manorial house-plot, on the 16th of March in the year 1792 he mortgaged to Terray János for 14 years for 1500 florins. On the 30th of July in the year 1798 the widow Terray-né hands over this same estate to Baross László for the original 1500-florin mortgage sum, and for the redeemed meadows 160 fl., and for the buildings made 490 florins, thus in all for 2150 florins. On the 26th of May in the year 1801 Baross László hands over this estate to Madách Sándor — for 2204 florins, namely the 2150 fl. paid by him to Terray-né, for buildings 29 fl., for soil-improvement 29 florins. On this estate, on the 25th of Jan. in the year 1818, Madách János gave a fresh 700 W. florins auction with 24 mortgage-years; these 24 mortgage-years ran out on the 25th of January in the year 1842. There is here yet a letter, dated the 16th of December 841, from Egri-né, Mikolay Johanna, in which she asks an auction from Mama, with several letters written in this subject, from which it comes out that for the end of March in the year 842 a term was set here at Sztregova for the coming-together for agreement; what they settled, however, there is nowhere any trace; whether they gave an auction or not I do not know, but I think Bory can remember this, for it is precisely from his letter, which he wrote to Gellén, that I know a term was set. If, therefore, an auction was not then given, the 10 years according to the newer laws have elapsed, if the revolutionary years are not excepted; if, however, they are excepted, then it is still redeemable; therefore I beg you, look into it and inform me as soon as possible. If, however, the revolutionary years are not reckoned off, I do not much know whether an auction can still be given them, that is for the perpetual buying-in, for this original mortgage sum was — not counting the buildings — 1500; for the meadows redeemed by Terray-né 160; in all 1660. This, being silver at that time, in W. fl. makes 4150 fl. To this is added that given by Madách János, 700 fl., [making] 4850 fl. The estate consists of one urbarial and ¼ manorial house-plot; the end of the urbarial house-plot, nay even of the manorial house-plot, in case of consolidation a forest part is given; is the remaining ¼ manorial house-plot worth more then, or as much. — About Sándor I spoke with Bende; he took the documents with him, promised Mama that he would overturn the whole; the receipt too he took, with the intention of going himself to demand them back; today, however, he wrote me, and writes me that I should demand them back; I indeed with this letter wrote to Bende, in which I communicated to him in their whole extent the things written in this subject from your letter, and as I can I shall myself go to him to confer, and then to Pest. Mama by this same letter wrote to Jámbor about the forbidding of the Vörösvár lease. Have you yet informed Frommer that we finished the shearing, that he should come as soon as possible, for we cannot even stir, so pressed are we. With the mowing we are occupied; on the meadows it has not yet been possible to mow, they always stand in water; on the pusztas there will be infinitely much fodder, if we can cart it in happily, but every blessed day it rains. At Csalomia they will not even mow hay this year; since spring the water has not gone off the meadows; last week there was such great water that from Csalomia one could not even go to Kővár on the highroad, the water being waist-deep; I do not know what Csesztve will do in the winter. In these days Farbaki-né was here; she has a bond here from Mama, which does not fall under the moratorium; on account of this she had already written several times, but not being satisfied with the answers, she came up, and on this bond demanded 600 fl. at once; however, being able to pay no more than 300 fl., for the rest I gave a draft; the bond is dated the 18th of February 851 and speaks of 720 silver florins; the remaining 1200 fl. she likewise gave notice on, and asks to have it paid off by November, which I too, of necessity, promised, for first she can give notice, since it does not fall under the moratorium, and secondly because they are very hard-pressed, for they are building, and bought some little estate too; and so, to avoid unpleasantness, I promised the payment. I do indeed remember a great Bossányi suit, but what it contains I do not know; I have not yet had time to look into it; but for the rest I beg you too, learn from him from whom you learned the existence of this suit what kind of estates that suit contains; thus perhaps I could search both sooner and with result. I have already racked my brains too over whether there is not some case where the 10-year mortgage-redemption term according to the new laws may not prejudice us; altogether it is a great trouble to me that hitherto I have not procured the new laws, and so hitherto I know nothing. I beg you very much, be so kind as in my name to ask Jámbor to be so good as to subscribe me, from Mama’s money, on my part, to the Agricultural papers from the 1st of July for half a year, under this title "To Madách Károly" at Sztregova per Szakál; to subscribe at Pest on the Üllői road at the Köztelek, or at Geibel Armin’s bookshop; the subscription fee for half a year is 5 p. fl. But I beg you very much, do not forget to tell Jámbor, lest I get it later. As soon as Frommer takes away the wool I go at once to Pest; meanwhile, honoring Bory and his wife, he kisses you a thousand times A. Sztregova 853, June 22. your sincere loving younger brother Madách Károly

The lambs I had washed today by shower without any mishap, and now that my men have learned it, it went very quickly, for since our water being very scant we could work only on one screen, still we washed almost 400 lambs in 3 hours and a quarter; tomorrow I begin the shearing; Frommer, during his stay here, asked that the lamb-wool I should send in to Pest by way of some Gyarmat merchant, which I promised, but I forgot his address; therefore I beg you, be so kind as to learn from him under what title at Gyarmat I should hand it over to Arkadi, and where he should have it deposited at Pest, and that the money coming for it he should hand not to Jámbor, as I told him during his stay here, but to you. — The cull-sheep, 96 head in all, I exchanged, and got for them 120 head of lambs, shorn, very fine large lambs, so that only our Bikóc lambs can vie with them; I gave them to Dubrava; in fleece a little coarser than ours, but infinitely thick-wooled lambs; only let God keep our sheep and lambs in health, ward off from them every danger; I hope that next year we shall shear at least 250 head more than this year, for at present we have 491 lambs in all. — The increase of the sheep being my chief endeavor in my present short farmer’s career, I always rack my brains in every kind of way how, and how one could most surely effect their increase; after much reasoning of every kind I settled on this, that one must join one’s own interest with the shepherd’s interest if one wants to prosper; and this I find attainable thus, if one gives the shepherd not a fixed quantity of sheep-wintering set in the convention, but according to the quantity. Thus for example I think that the shepherd, for every ten head of manorial sheep, should be given one sheep-wintering — for at present, for example, the Bikóc shepherd has 474 head of old manorial sheep, and 60 head of sheep-wintering, and so almost for every seventh one a sheep-wintering; to these indeed I reckon the lambs, 142; in all he has 616 head at present, and so really for every ten head he has one. But the shepherd has no interest in increasing the sheep, for his convention is fixed, and so whether the sheep be more or fewer makes no difference to his convention; if, however, he had more sheep he would have more work too, and why make more work for himself for the same pay — when he can do with less; for this again an example: the Bikóc shepherd had in the winter 207 ewes fit for the ram, he had lambs which I marked 154, besides these before the marking 3 died. The Dubrava shepherd had in the winter ewes fit for the ram 329, he had lambs 142 which I marked, a few died before the marking; thus of the Bikóc ewes only ¼ part gave no lamb, of the Dubrava ones more than half gave no lamb; this great difference, of course, strengthens one in the belief that they themselves do not want the increase, lest their work grow; and what still more strengthens my belief is that the shepherd’s own sheep, one may say, almost every one has a lamb. Therefore I beg you, weigh this with good Bory — In the Háj of 211 ewes there were 104 lambs which I marked — and if perhaps it should win your approval, not I do not say in the proportion set up by me but in principle, then inform me at once, and if at the same time you want it introduced, give circumstantial instruction; only I beg you, inform me at once if you accept my proposal; I hope that for next winter there will be at least half as many more lambs as there were this year. The autumn grain is already reaped, and last week I had it carted in too; the Dubrava is good, the Sztregova ones will yield badly — it is an eternal sin for ⅓ of Dubrava to lie fallow, but I hope too that it will not rest long now. — The greater part of Gyeliko I had manured, a part is being penned; at Dubrava the manure is still in, but by next Thursday it will be out. To turn it, on account of the great drought, has not yet been possible; here since Peter-Paul it has rained only once, but even then the ground did not get wet. Acorns showed infinitely much, but on account of the great drought and heat they have fallen much; but still fairly remains. If it be possible — and one can do much if one really wants — this year the whole Dubrava wood to be planted must be planted out; the old planting grows very, very finely; I am very sorry that I did not set to farming already last autumn; last year too one could have planted a good piece. — At the Losonc-Tugár fair last August, being there for the buying of oxen, I met the Pinczi leaseholders, whom, calling to account whether they had fulfilled their contractual duty, that is whether they had fallowed, they answered that according to the contract they are not bound to that; I argued with them long, but the contract not being with us we could not come clear. Coming home, I at once searched out the contract, whose 2nd point runs thus: "The leaseholders shall be bound to look after the estate’s boundaries, to keep the lands in good order, to cultivate, improve, and both to set right the now in some places existing erosions, and to hinder them in the future too during the time of the lease — and in the last year to leave a third part of the plowlands, reckoning into this the lands worked with the hoe under spring crop too, fallow for the owner’s part, and to cart out onto it the manure gathered there." — The whole contract having only three points, the lands do not come up again, and so they are not fallowed, and in my view, according to this contract, they cannot even be compelled to it; so I do not know what should be done; at Sztregova even now there are two oxen fewer than there were, and only with the two draught-horses are the two carts complete, while there is a vast deal of work, since by the three-week June rains we fell behind; turning, there is none yet, though a great part of it should already be finished; so on account of this I do not know what to do; and there is no money to have it done by hired help; but for the rest perhaps it could not even be got for money, for everyone is behind with his work; turning, no one has yet turned, nay happy is he who has perfectly finished his fallowing; and now in this drought it would even be impossible to plow, while if it gets wet everyone will hasten with his own work; and by and by the aftermath-mowing too is upon our necks. Write, I beg, in this regard too at once. — Altogether I beg you, be so kind as to inform me as soon as possible how you are, what you are doing; and inform me, I beg, of the two important subjects communicated in this letter according to my view, at once; and of other things too, if you have any wish in some farm-matter; believe me I should much like it, for there is a great difference in whether one farms for oneself and does as one’s fancy likes — if something succeeds, good; if it does not succeed, that too is good. — If it be possible I should like to go in to Pest for the St. Stephen’s day fair, and if I had money I should buy a horse, but this not being [the case], the horse-buying is again put off, alas, to happier times. Meanwhile he kisses you a thousand times, and longingly awaits your soonest answer A. Sztregova 853, Aug. 10. Bory I honor. your loving younger brother Madách Károly

I send enclosed here Zoltán Feri’s letter; be so kind as to answer it as soon as possible, and to write at the same time that you answer so late because, wishing to know something of the suit’s state, you communicated with Vidliczkay, who, however, knows nothing of the whole suit, since Matyasovszky conducts it. — As to the Zoltán István-ish ancestral capital, one would have to search in the Archive, for if interest is to be got from that money, as it must, for otherwise he would not offer it, then there is not three years’ interest in arrear; but you will probably get enlightenment about this in the Archive, where the correspondences between Zoltán János and Mama, on account of the common estates, the ancestral capitals, you will find in the Székely Bundle. — A pound of gunpowder for you, together with the arms-permit, is with me; I send it by Lehoczki. — We must always go through every kind of malheur: two years ago at Csalomia one of my oxen died, last autumn again one likewise at Csalomia; last year at Martin’s day my hay and straw were set on fire; soon after, 10 buckets of very good last-year’s wine of mine ran out; this year twice the hail beat my Csesztve sowing, my hay all silted up; this year at Martin’s day they opened my pantry, and carried off the lard, bacon, fat, honey, and the 10 pints of cow-butter I had bought in autumn for winter need, of which scarcely any had been consumed — and yet I can say that we were fairly well provided up to about February with all the above-counted things. It must have been some servant who knew very well that the cook and the maid sleep in the nurse’s room, for in the kitchen he somehow opened the [door?], and the pantry with a key; the cook, waking at some rattle, went out with the maid into the kitchen, and finding nothing there, went on; when she found the pantry door open, raising an alarm there, Jancsi ran up, who, seeing what had happened, at once ran out around the house to look, but saw no one; since our servants, being new, did not know what was missing, and Jancsi sealed up the pantry door, thus we found it. — And so the rattle he must have made when, packed up, he went on. — Hoffman wrote me, in which he called on me to call on you to go to him, to settle certain affairs, for that he can wait no longer, and despite his loving and honoring you greatly, he will be compelled to summons you; Bende Pista too told me by word that I should call on you in this affair. — For the rest, kissing Mama’s gracious hands together with my Emma a thousand times, he embraces you Dated Csesztve 855, Nov. [9?]. your true friend and younger brother Károly A Monsieur Monsieur Emeric de Madách per Szakál à Sztregova Dear Imre! I cannot tell my joy when, from Kovács Feri’s letter to his brother Kovács Sándor, I first read the effect of your speech held on the subject of the resolution; it made just as great an effect here too in this region when we read it in the papers; even now it is a chief subject of the talk; — have you read your description in the Sürgöny? if you have not, read it; in one number you are characterized, you, Nyári, and Besze, which is indeed very fine and flattering, but is yet vexing in so much, that it calls you plainly a Slovak, for as it describes your exterior, "Chinese drooping mustache, blond Slav-charactered face, but a Hungarian breast"; by this "but a Hungarian breast" it plainly pretends, in my view, that you are a Slovak, for otherwise why would it put that there; this I can say I apprehend; or in his view every blond, Slav-charactered face — I hope you got the recipe against sheep-scab which I sent in the letter sent by Kovács Sándor; I likewise hope that you got that letter of mine too, in which was enclosed the letter for Rákóczy Jani; but since from Jani I have got since then neither money nor letter, I do not know how to interpret it; therefore I beg you, be so kind as to inform me, did you get it, and did you deliver my letter to him, and what did he answer, for I can say I have never been in such tight circumstances as at present, and therefore I shall be compelled to press him anew. — My poor good Emma is ill, indeed already some two weeks; at first it seemed to be a third-day ague; against this Brintner gave her something too, and the fever stayed off for a day, but the next day, and since then every day, she has her paroxysm, and is quite weakened, and for four days has been lying down, and very yellow; it is plain that she is troubled by the gall, which I told Brintner at his very first visit here, that he should give her something against the gall; but poor Brintner, scrupulous as usual, wanted first to cure the ague, thinking to himself that the jaundice would pass off. With great joy I heard from Vattay Lojzi these days that you, thank God, are healthy — only take care of yourself too. Do you not intend coming out for a little Urlaub? Ragályi Miksa was at my place on his way home, last week. Is Szontágh Pali in Pest or Buda? and where is he lodged? whither should one address the letter? for in two very important matters I must write him. I beg you very much, be so kind as to answer the above questions of mine. For the rest, my poor Emma kisses you; I, embracing and kissing you, am — at Csesztve 861 June 19. your loving friend and younger brother Madách Károly To the Honorable Madách Imre, Esq. representative of the Nógrád county Balassa-Gyarmat electoral district, with respect at the Golden Eagle inn at Pest franco

MADÁCH MARI

The news of your illness I received weeping, not that I should think it dangerous, but knowing how painful a trouble it is, picturing your cheerless situation, and still more, when from our good Mama’s letter I understood that you, dear Emi, had meant to surprise me too, my grief was unspeakable. But I trust in God’s goodness; perhaps He will turn our sorrows to the good sooner than we ourselves hope. Be not the least dismayed that this trouble has come on you again, for this year even those who never had a sign of such trouble felt some changes. In me too the pain went from one finger to another, and the finger that hurt always swelled and reddened. — My little Pepi always remembers you, dear Emi, and if she were more practiced in writing, she would surely answer your kind remembrance of her. If she sees me sad, she at once nestles to me, and in so sad a voice says, "Ebike sick, poor thing." — Pepi went to Pest on Saturday, Julie and Carol on Sunday, Musslay went yesterday to her Mother, and so at dinner I am [alone] with the Old Gentleman, and in the evening quite by myself. — Pepi is now buying himself a new carriage, half-covered; now, coming from Pest, you will already come on that, for he gave his over to you. When I come to Sztregova we shall ride out together on it, and judge whether Pepi chose well. If only poor little Nincsi would not cough, that she might at least entertain you by reading, but it may be that by the time this letter of mine reaches Sztregova everything is already in its place. Poor Auntie, whom I so truly pity from my heart, I can imagine how greatly she is grieved that she cannot help the others’ trouble; she, as our Mama writes, is already on the way to recovery, but for that let her still take very, very great care of herself; through you I beg her not somehow to have a relapse. — The other day I wrote that perhaps for Easter Okolicsányi-né would visit Mama, but since then I have heard there is nothing in the matter. — In the greatest restlessness I await tomorrow’s post, that I may hear of you, dear Emi, some improvement. Until then, on the next post, I can write you again countless times; I embrace and kiss you, good Emi, and am to death Dated at Keszeg, 15th March 836 your truly loving sister Huszár Mari. A Monsieur Monsieur Emeric de Madách, mon très cher frère per Szakál à Sztregova

Beloved good Emi! Tomorrow is your name-day, and I cannot be among my dear ones, that with them I might wish you every conceivable good. But take these lines of mine as proof that surely no one in this world wishes you, my dear, more good and more blessing for the whole course of your life, nor can wish it, than I! Be happy — as happy as a man can be — and keep in your love henceforth too your so truly and ardently loving Mari. Dear Emi, in this true sisterly wish hereby declared shares your loving brother-in-law and friend József. To Károly too I wish from the heart every good. Monsieur Emeric de Madách à Pest

MADÁCH PÁL

Dear Imre! Your lines I have received indeed, but your lines did not the least shake me in my faith — I do not go off — but do not therefore think that I should expose myself to danger — oh no, I have far too much sense to do that — I have gone away indeed from home, but by no means to submit — and to Majthényi Laczi tell him that since the 2nd of February I am no longer notary, in token of which I send here my official seal too — though I bought it with my own money — I this night... toward... *-ba — and from there I know where I am going. That for a long, long time we shall not see each other, that I know — set Mama at ease as far as you can — though there will be no need, I know, of much reassurance, for indeed Mama will not grieve so very much — and besides, I shall be better off than I ever was — in case, then, that for a long, very long time we should not chance to see each other — God be with you — God be with you — more warmly than this I cannot take leave of you — your dear Wife’s hands I kiss, Károly too and Matolcsy. Keep me in your true, true friendship and love — if you would yet do me any good, do this: if they should send to seek me, hold them up at least till tomorrow noon, with promises or by whatever way and means — this is what I ask of you. God be with you your loving younger brother Pál. Under Somoskő there is no power that could make a pen in my hand take up — let them put Balázs or anyone else — but under Somoskő, beneath the headsman’s sword, I would not write a sentence — for the rest, that they did not promote me I am glad — to me in any case it is a distinction. Madách Imre, Esq. at Gyarmat

Headquarters, Eperjes, February 9, evening 6 o’clock, in the parsonage, at the government commissioners’. I am as well off as can be — in the carrying-out of a plan thought up in a moment God too has helped me; everywhere so far fortune has attended me — in vain; for my homeland and the holy cause, for which I sacrificed as much as the homeland could ask of me, a reward too must reach me — I traveled thus: On the night of February 5th [two words unreadable], thence on the 8th in the morning to Tornaalja, there I dined, here I dined, and fell in with several Nógrád men who were likewise traveling to the camp, namely First Lieutenant Tober, Petykó Feri, Szentpétery Józsi, and Guduli — in their company I traveled that day to Rozsnyó, there I slept, and on the 7th in the morning, on hired carts, over the giant Hnyilc heights and pine-forests, among copper-foundries, to Igló — here the lovely tower burnt down, with 12 of the finest of the houses on the marketplace — the case of this was thus — Guyon was here Monday night with a few battalions — while of the enemy 2 battalions [were] at Lőcse — these, in consequence of treachery, were informed that the number of our troop staying at Igló was small, were informed that our powder-carts were drawn up along the marketplace — and so, after our forces were received very warmly at Igló, and being weary, had drunk their fill of wine too, soon fell asleep, nay a part of the outposts too — then after midnight at 2 o’clock the enemy, which went out of Lőcse through 4 gates and concentrated before the town, sent rockets onto the powder-carts, and captured a part of our outposts — however, the munition-carts did not catch fire — but the tower and the houses did — by this time the enemy was still on the road toward Igló; to us again came a few thousand troops, and so our strength was great, but all asleep — the enemy came right to the marketplace, and while some of our pigtailed officers wanted to fire cannon, Guyon drew bayonet — and with the bayonet they drove the German out, and we cut down some 30. They pursued them to Lőcse, and captured 2 of their cannon, and 2 cartloads of rockets too. From Igló, on hired carts, the next day, the 8th of Feb., we went to Szepesváralja — this lovely romantic region — and at noon to Korytnó, which lies under a dreadful peak of the Carpathians that stretches between Szepes and Sáros — they call the mountain-peak Branyiszkó — mark this name well to yourselves, for this mountain will have a great name in history — I shall tell its case — imagine to yourselves a dreadfully high peak around the Carpathians — from which mountain-peak on two sides still more giant mountains rise. Over the middle summit just mentioned runs a highroad, whose highest point dominates the whole Szepesség; up this mountain winds the most artful serpentine road, cut out of the rock, on one part of which is a gravelly stretch covered with steep crags and pines, on the other a dizzying depth — and behind it everywhere ridges piled one on another, with pines, into Sáros — and before it, that is toward Szepes, a plain broken by smaller hills — the most select positions of this Branyiszkó mountain-pass the enemy had seized, a part of Schlick’s army with several cannon — and 4 days and four nights they bivouacked there on the straw on the mountain-passes, until at last on the night of the 5th Guyon set out from Szepesváralja, drew the cannon onto hills below the mountain-passes — and feignedly stormed the road, while the Nógrád battalions and — I do not yet know which other — with fixed bayonets, by assault, outflanked it, and storming with bayonets, drove the enemy out of 23 positions — and he was master of the height — the enemy, like the startled chamois, fled one by one over the crags; the streams of blood show it, the tramplings show it — our rockets did glorious service; we beat the enemy dreadfully — on this snow-covered mountain-ridge, where the streams of blood are visible, we even gathered up several bullets — at Korytnó we saw the still-open graves of the dead, whom they still find daily among the woods — the greater part of these dead are mostly German soldiers; one sees on many a face the dreadful Hussar slash, to look on which too is loathsome — there they lie stiffened, half naked — since I saw this place, and know the things related most authentically, since then I believe that the Hungarian cannot lose, as surely as there is one God in the world — Just yesterday afternoon we came over this Branyiszkó ridge, and were witnesses of a little — but painful — engagement at the very same place — on our side they were carrying 500 hundredweight of gunpowder toward Eperjes with a half-company as escort — and opposite came Benyiczky’s troop; from these in front the sappers; the powder-officer ordered them to put down their pipes, and at this they clashed — and fired on each other; the officer got two wounds in the head, and several were wounded — the court-martial was at once held; what its result was I do not know. — Crossing over this branch of the Carpathians, going through Sirok, Lacsnó, Hedri, Bertót, which are hidden in the corners of the Carpathians — at half past 6 in the evening we reached Eperjes — this lies under mountains, over whose shoulders one sees the giant snow-peaks; for the rest, as on the Branyiszkó, so on the Hlinyec mountain-peaks too, which shut off Gömör from Szepes, we went over eternally frozen snow, and while down below there were streams of mud on the road, above one should have gone by sleigh; Eperjes is a very pretty town — as Igló too is lovely beyond all expectation — so Eperjes is grand; on the long, oval-stretching marketplace of Eperjes stands a giant church, an old and splendid-looking flat-roofed quadrangular Lyceum — getting no lodging at the inn, they directed me to the Catholic priest — who indeed went off and fled — but out of Schwarzgelb interest, and from Gergely he feared for his life — here by chance 3 government commissioners were lodged — Luzsenszky, Ragályi, and Ludwig — and here I occupied a room — just the parson’s. This morning I, bona fide, in the interest of my true and holy cause, went up myself to the government commissioners — relating to them the case, they received me with very, very forthcoming kindness — and their first word was at once that if I need money I should tell them, and most gladly they give it — and that I should travel with them to Kassa, whose taking tomorrow, at the latest the day after, is certain. There, supplied with money enough, they will send me down as courier to Kossuth, at the same time writing him the case, [so that] I can enjoy the most secure good condition — beyond this I think I need say no more to you — from this you will see my glorious position — and together with me be proud of that deed of mine which perhaps at the first moment you disapproved — yes, the deed boiled out in a moment — and may be decisive for my whole life — but this had to be, and thank Heaven it turned out well — I had hardly come out from the government commissioners when news of my being here spread, and Szontágh Samu visited me at once — he is now a honvéd captain — invited me to him, and to dinner too — but before dinner, coming home again, I rummaged out one thing and another in the parson’s room — and lo, the homage-letters and instructions to the other priests I found sealed up, with several suspicious documents, which all together I at once carried again to the government commissioners, who took this very greatly, and together with me will send it down to Debrecen — they detained me to dinner — but being invited earlier to Szontágh Samu, I went there. All day today we tarried here, and perhaps tomorrow too — it depends on what and what kind of news we get from Guyon — who leads the vanguard, and is in the Kassa mountains — and Klapka behind Kassa. — Life here is lovely, especially if one enjoys only its finer parts, as I do, and not its sufferings — all day that vast thronging — many soldiers — and countless cannon — the music — the carousing, oh divine — or a tavern scene, where one makes music, another dances, a third staggers half-drunk, while yet another dozes — such glorious picturesque scenes that finer cannot be imagined — If I wished to write all this down in as many copies as the persons with whom I should like to share it, I should never finish, and therefore I beg you, honored Borys, that as soon as you have read it over, send this letter of mine by express to Imre, who should share it with Károly and Matolcsy too. Bukva, Body, Nina I honor — especially to Bukva tell what happened to me, and set him at ease, for I know it will much interest the poor old man — a line or two I send here, and on these leaves, to Mama; I beg you to send them as soon as possible — Today Görgey had two peasants shot through the head; a whole village is occupied here — the Sáros people are very ill-spirited — God be with you — write as soon as possible to Debrecen — at once, as soon as you get this letter — write on it that it stay at the post until I send for it God be with you Pali. [Continued in the same letter] Kassa, February, evening. I am at Kassa — Kassa is ours. Schlick is entirely hemmed in — and within a couple of days he is ruined. — I am as well off as can be — all day I am with the government commissioners — and we call ourselves the civil staff — we are already 3 émigrés with them, who always travel together; I, however, go from Kassa to Debrecen the day after tomorrow — here I came today; my lodging is in B. Luzsinszky the government commissioner’s palais — toward evening there will be a great tea-table here, to which Görgey too appears. Kassa we took without a battle — Schlick, confounded by our position, retreated all the way to Torna and Gömör — Much, very much I could write — but to confess truly I do not even want to yet — this much I can say, that I never was better off — and if I had not to do without you — to which I always think back with pain — I should never long for Nógrád; even so, who knows whether I shall go — as soon as I reach Debrecen my position will be secure — and to the very last moment I shall not abandon my homeland’s party — where I shall post my letter I do not know, for from here there is no post. Kassa is a divine little town — I have already, partly at Eperjes, where for four days I caroused, partly here, bought every necessary thing — a cap — a pipe — a traveling inkstand, a dagger — The day after tomorrow I travel as courier, perhaps a day later — they want to have Schlick’s complete ruin announced by me — in a couple of weeks I too shall send Jancsi down from Debrecen to you for my things left behind; God be with you. he embraces you Pál.

That you may know I am alive and well off, I write a few lines only for that; for the rest I have no time to write at length, for I am always on the road. — At Kassa I got 200 W. florins from Luzsenszky out of the state treasury, for my own upkeep — thence then I came in a very urgent matter as courier to Kossuth, so that from Kassa to Debrecen, which is 20 miles, I came in 22 hours, everywhere on the most splendid post-horses; in one night and one day I was here; yesterday evening I arrived at Debrecen at 9 o’clock; at once I went to Kossuth — he received me very kindly, I spoke with him over half an hour; he asked Majthényi’s letter of me, and kept it with him, and ordered me to him for 9 o’clock today; I went in the morning too — but he was very busy, I could not speak with him; I waited till half past twelve, then he sent word that I should be at ease until the letters are ready, and he will at once send me as courier to Szemere — my life, then, is this — my daily fee is 4 pengő-florins — besides that one could liquidate for profit [?] if one’s conscience permitted — but this I do not do. — From Kassa to here too, together with my daily fees, I liquidated only 30 pengős, but I know that I shall get at least 100 — for this is how it goes — from Luzsenszky too I asked only 80 and he gave 200 — in a couple of days I go to Transylvania — I write no more — our affairs go splendidly; if you write, write only to Debrecen, and that the letter stay at the post God be with you Bory István, Esq. Miskolc A. Sztregova Szakál

MAGYAR IRÓK SEGÉLYEGYLETE

The directing committee of the Society for the Relief of Hungarian Writers, at its meeting held on the 9th of this month, in the matter of the yearbooks to be issued by the society for the increase of the basic capital, brought this resolution: that for the present only one belletristic album, appearing once a year, be started, and that the first volume, if possible, appear still at the end of this year. In consequence of this resolution we are bold to call on you for collaboration. Our aim is, in proportion to the state of our literature, to produce as excellent an album as possible, so that it may both redound to the honor of literature, and by its revenue be able to increase the capital of this so very noble-aimed institute, so nearly touching the writers. The attainment of this double aim we can hope for only through the support of such excellent talents as we have the fortune to honor in you. The album will make some 24 printed sheets in large octavo. Exclusively only belletristic works are accepted, in verse or prose. Art-translations from the older or newer classics we likewise gladly publish. The manuscripts are to be sent in by the end of October, or by the 15th of November, to Gyulai Pál (Sándor street No. [9]). As regards the honorarium, according to the committee’s resolution every work appearing in the album will be remunerated. The refusal of the honorarium will under no pretext be accepted; we shall do everything to be able to send the most equitable fee possible. Once more requesting your valued collaboration, we remained with respect Pest, September 13. 1862. B. Eötvös József committee chairman. Gyulai Pál provisional secretary and editor. Honored Madách Imre, Esq. Szakál Alsó-Sztregova

NAGY IVÁN

Although, recalling Libercsey’s diary, no very sanguine hope stirs my pen, nevertheless, since such pedantic men like myself do not easily recoil before the obstacles rolled up by that Hungarian obstinacy, for that very reason I am bold again to knock at the double-locked padlock of the Sztregova archive, that it may open at least for a moment, to the end that from there the complete genealogy of the Madách family, reaching at least from 1240 to the present moments, be sent me for my work. I do indeed have data on the genealogy, but only from 1470, and cannot even trust their accuracy; with full patriotic respect I therefore beg, be graciously pleased by the returning post to send me the family-tree, surely standing ready in your archive, and completable by you to the last shoot and collateral branch, by the returning post (together with the whole index if you will), that, getting it in good time — for it is urgent — I may use it; and likewise send it back. In the opposite case I shall wash my hands of all possible blunders. I hope so slight a task will not be wanting, and that a few minutes can be consecrated to the literary or scholarly cause too among the constitutional movements. With the expression of my high esteem I remained Pest, Jan. 17. 1861. your respecting friend Nagy Iván Lodging: Újvilág street No. 19.

It is still a "thunderbolt" thing, that you should reach the top of Olympus with so quiet, or rather noiseless, a leap; for that I should have to learn it (or guess it) from Toldy, that the father of "The Tragedy of Man," matchless and grand in our literature, should be you? Within one short year to reap laurels on two fields! — that is no everyday thing. Not Nógrád’s, — the Homeland’s ornament are you already! Receive my friendly declaration, sincerely rejoicing at your glory, who am with my whole heart your devoted Nagy Iván. Pest, October 21. 861.

Dear Friend! For a long time I have not been so thickly heaped with daily tasks as from the beginning of this month; this is the reason that I can send my answer to your very valued letter only now. Forgive this delay! Your lines made me certain in that strong and pleasant belief, according to which I may honor you, and the world may honor you, as the excellent author of "The Tragedy of Man"! Permit me to express myself thus, for these are no sought-out words, no improper garb of that true friendly and patriotic rejoicing sympathy which sprang from my truly inner feeling. I have not yet read your work, and besides could not even venture to set myself up as its competent judge, but from Toldy Ferenc and Greguss Ágost I have heard the praise; the former pronounced on it with immense rapture and truly with that genuine love of the cause toward national literature which could not be denied him. He told that that meeting of the Kisfaludy Society listened with flaming joy, and with that amazement that is wont to follow the surprising and grand, to those few scenes which Arany read out from it — and it made such an impression on those present that, Szász Károly having to give a reading after it (according to a previously made announcement), he began his reading by declaring that after the tasting of so rare, precious, and sublime a delicacy as your tragedy was, he was ashamed to read his own poem, chiefly at that moment, for he must feel, after the effect of that grand work, the weakness and dying-away of his — as he said — in any case mediocre poem. Toldy also said that your work, translated into German or another language too (which will without fail come to pass), will surely become world-famous, and will make an epoch in world-literature. And by his word, Vörösmarty is the first, and now you are the second brilliant star of Hungarian literature. — From Greguss too I heard similar praises. By his account your work is rounded, whole, and so masterfully carried out that in this it surpassed Faust, and so forth. And he too likewise prophesies its world-fame. At the same time he reminded me, and now I too beg you, be so kind as to authorize Arany János as soon as possible, lest it be too late, that your work come out under your name. Truly our literature deserves this glory; lay aside now, then, in this regard, all coyness, and let your name, of which national literature has become proud, stand there. But I beg you, hasten with this authorization. And after these I have nothing else to wish but that the God of the Hungarians bless you with yet a long life and good health, that "The Tragedy of Man" may be followed by another such grand work of yours, that it may not stand alone from you in the manner of Bánk Bán, though with this too you have "exegisti tibi monumentum aere perennius." And I, who hitherto was your respecter and friend, shall be, and am now already, your admirer! and my soul rejoices that Nógrád has such an ornament too. And you, receive the declaration of my true sympathetic friendly joy kindly, and as sincerely as I feel it. Your articles (or speech) written "On Nationality" I read in the Magyarország, and read them with joy, with interest, and with enjoyment; to me they are masterly; but as if it had not appeared entirely, as if I still had something to await. Is it so? Or is it finished? I shall edit, with an academician, a periodical entitled "Tudományos Értekező"; you would much oblige me, if from your drawers you would gladden me with some such article lying about there. The program is now being printed. I shall send it. The Új Magyar Múzeum I should wish to supply. God bless you, and deem me worthy further too of your highly valued friendship, who remain your faithful respecting friend Nagy Iván

OSZTERMANN JÓZSEF

Since not long ago I was at Sztregova, and left you then in health, I hope that you are even now likewise. May God grant you only constant health, that you may be the more cheerful and bend yourself the more diligently to your studies. As to what new thing I might write you, I have nothing other than that lately I was in the highest-lying villages of our county of Nógrád, namely in Turopolya and Lest. Many robbers and thieves dwell there, but they did not plunder me. Next week, on Wednesday or Thursday, I shall come again to Sztregova, and then perhaps I shall already find your parents at home too. What new thing we shall learn, we shall then tell each other in turn. Farewell, then, until then too, beloved Emeric; he embraces and kisses you, Your N. Lám, 24 Feb. 1832 everlasting friend Josephus Ostermann, in his own hand. To the young master of the best hope, Emeric Madách, most diligent student of syntax, my dearest friend at A. Sztregova

BÁRÓ PODMANICZKY FRIGYES

Surely already by now, even in your scholarly seclusion, it has come to your knowledge that some of us, as members of the Hungarian liberal and latterly resolution party, would hold it to purpose to procure a paper for ourselves. This paper is the "Magyar Sajtó," in whose January 29th number our Program comes out, and which from the 1st of February appears as our paper. In the name of my companions I am now so bold as to approach you with this request: be so kind as to honor our paper with your valued patronage, and, if possible, now and then to enrich it with a leading article. Our homeland’s position is at present so critical that it is made, as it were, everyone’s duty to stand on the alert, that we may use as much to purpose as possible whether the hope- and salvation-full or the dispiriting conjunctures — the single fortunate trait of which our situation lies in this, that as it now is, it cannot in any case remain — our position must change, just as the European relations too must change, of whose present untenability everyone is convinced. I beg you very much, then, that if it be possible and agrees with your conviction, be so kind as to enrich our paper’s contents with the offspring of your pen — for which we, in the name of the public cause, express our thanks in advance. God be with you, all good things. Frigyes. Pest 1862. Feb. 12. Angol Királyné hotel No. 122. [On a separate envelope] To His Honor Madách Imre Vác at Sztregova Gyarmat Szakál

PRÓNAY EMILIA

In advance I beg pardon that I trouble you with my lines, but the motives for this will excuse me before you, when you perceive the cause from my lines; and in advance I hope to gain my request, since I know you, dear Madách, as an upright, worthy man, who surely denies sympathy to no soul. Only the pitiable condition of my good daughter Emma moved me to take up the pen, since she, prostrate, begged that I should write to you, dear Madách, in her name. She is capable of no thought since the death of our common darling, her noble, splendid brother Paul, whom my whole family hotly mourns — softly may his ashes rest — yet what is our grief against that of this girl, who loved him so intimately, so from tender youth, who lived ever only for the other, sharing every thought, [so that] never a week passed without Pali writing one, but usually two letters, full of tender intimacy — Their parting was on both sides accompanied with tears; it did every person good to see these happy ones; their innocent, intimate inclination was of so rare a kind that it gladdened the heart — the letters of her splendid brother are worth any printing, this tenderness, this melancholy mood, this premonition of his death, the premonition of parting from the dearest he had — only in this gravest illness had he no premonition of his death; he wrote, already half dead, to my daughter, that she should be untroubled, he would soon be well, and would often visit her here — I sought to prepare her enough for his death, but she believed only him. So you can imagine, dear Madách, what a blow that was when we received a letter, right after the burial, that Pali was dead and buried; she received the letter, senseless she sank to the ground; with difficulty we brought her back to life; nine days it is since that time, she has not closed an eye, has not yet eaten; a raging fever tears at her limbs; to see this misery, for a mother, this my pen is not able to depict; like a dead woman she lies there in bed, all Pali’s letters, his splendidly true likeness, his little gifts on her bed, and a wretchedness withal that a stone might pity — today she sat upright, gazing wistfully at Pali’s ring — Mother, she said vehemently, my ring Pali took with him into the grave, this I have learned; his never comes from my finger — Dear Mother, she said, will you fulfill an urgent, hot request of mine, you would perhaps save me — she wept vehemently — anything, I said, only speak — well then, beg Madách Imre, the darling brother of the dear departed, that out of pity he fulfill my request. Forgive, pardon the deeply bowed mother that she troubles you with this description, yet I am convinced you will gladly contribute to the recovery of this good creature, and answer me so that I can show the letter to the gravely ill one; in suspense she awaits an answer. She wishes to learn whether he suffered much, who was with him in his last hours, whether he wished that he should die, whether he remembered her? I believe, since he did not foresee his end, it is certain [he did]; yet I beg you intimately, add to it that he remembered her; then she begs that you would be so good as to give her back her letters that she wrote to Pali, a cap she had long crocheted for him, black and gold, that he always wore, even when he lived with us two in Romhány and was already ill; then a used cigar-case that she embroidered, the new cap and the other new thing that he never wore — that would intimately gladden my daughter if Pali’s brothers kept it. And the hottest, most intimate request: of his hair only a little piece — you will gladly give me that, I hope — for no soul had my son more regard in Sztregova, for whom you were a support even in the grave. — Oh my God, help me to calm her, she is indeed the hotly beloved of the departed. How we too pity you all, your mother, who in a short time has lost so much, and how lost, great God; we mourn intimately with [you]. Dear good Madách, have the goodness, write satisfyingly, comfortingly, heartily, and promise her in a letter these next days to fulfill her request, and be her saving angel; she deserves it, the heavily bowed one, the misfortune deserves pity. Poor good Pali, rest softly, you are well, you did not live to see these dreadful times. Oh, be not angry with me over this long letter; only the dread of losing my child excuses me, and lets me seize every means to save her; a nerve-illness is in its beginning — calming can save her. Say to your lovable Wife too all that is fine from us, and herewith, hoping with certainty for a satisfying answer, I remain with esteem your servant Emilie Pronay. RÁKÓCZY JÁNOS

Dear Imre, revered and beloved Friend! In my hands is the diploma by virtue of which, in consequence of my brother Sándor’s petition, the death- and property-forfeiture sentence pronounced over me still in 851, and the burden of answering for all my deeds of 1848—49, is unconditionally remitted. How this could happen so soon, so extraordinarily (on the 3rd of Sept. this year I arrived at my brother’s)? is a riddle to me. But it happened. And it happened without even the shadow of inconsistency weighing on my self-respect. Natural it is, then, that the first moment in which I ceased to be a fugitive be filled by the thought of my gratitude toward my Saviours. And above all the thought of my gratitude toward you, and toward your dear ones, beloved Friend! — Nine long years I wandered, homeless, in my homeland! — Much I felt through! Enough of torment to slay ten human lives. — And from devotion, enough to oblige a world. I felt, in the great majority of my saviours, the unspeakably good warmth of the brotherly arms opened before me — enjoying all that Brotherhood, in the holiest, most sublime sense, is able to offer from devotion and self-sacrifice. And the feeling of my gratitude toward them will tear out of my soul only with my soul! — But what you did for me, dear Imre! is to me so sublime a thing that man’s soul can rise no higher, and where that boundary-line is, which, if it has been able to reach it, is exalted into spiritual greatness. — Into a greatness before which any soul of worth is constrained to bow with piety. — And my soul bows, lo, before the sublimity of your soul! — To know this, and to tell it to you! to tell it to your sublime-souled dear mother, Her Ladyship, and to your brother Károly, my friend! — was, in the first moment, the very first stirring of my soul and my sense of honor. To know and to tell you! to tell you all! that I owe my life to your sublime brotherly devotion. To know and to confess: that I am your eternal debtor. — That my debt is of such a kind as only God, the almighty, can repay; a mortal is incapable of discharging it, because mortal. — But if a man is needed, ready to do for you and your dear ones all that it can stand in a man’s power to do on the path of honor — here I am — if there is anything you need, and a man is wanted who shall die that you may have it — and die without his lips giving a sound — and die so that he feels himself sufficiently rewarded if you could but rejoice for a single moment — here I am — speak — dispose of me — I write, lo, take my bill of exchange, for all times, for all the circumstances and changes of my life and for all that is mine — And believe me, I beg, that to be able to pay toward the redemption of this will be the most sublime joy of my life. And to tell you! to tell you all! how those with whom my destiny blessed me, in the hard days of peril, of abandonment, of endurance, with devoted Brothers — in my soul I embrace you now as my brothers, and confess: that I shall embrace you under all the circumstances of my life, unchangeably, to my last breath, in the truest, most sublime sense of Brotherhood. And to tell, finally: that if I may have the fortune to keep in future too the devotion shown me with so much loftiness, so much sublimity — your devotion! — that will be the fairest, greatest pride of my life — so help me God! My lines, dear Imre, speak through you to your dear mother, Her Ladyship, and to your brother Károly, my honored friend, too. Be, I beg, my interpreter to both of them. — I should have wished to express my feelings to Them separately too — but to write so many letters I do not yet at this time hold advisable. Life has taught me to be very careful! I do not know when my lines can reach your hands! I get no man here who could go. To send such a thing by post would be folly. I am constrained, then, to wait for an opportunity. Yes, to wait for an opportunity, dear Imre! to this I have come in nine years, with a yearly income of 12 thousand W. fl., that it is not in my power to go in person, as the hot longing of my heart and soul and my holiest duty bid me! For the ancestral roof where they rocked my cradle, for the piece of ground where my Parents’ ashes rest, for the daily bread — for the garment to put on — in a word, for the material to-be-described and not-to-be, I must wage war — to this much have nine years of womanly fidelity and honesty brought me — — But whichever way this bitter war may fall — be, I beg, convinced that I shall use the very first opportunity of possibility to honor you, to embrace you, beloved friend! Meanwhile I beg you, be so kind as to convey my deepest respect and hand-kisses to your dear mother, Her Ladyship, my warm friendly greeting to the dear good Károly. — And receive you too the most cordial, most warm greeting of your eternally grateful and respecting friend, Rákóczi János.

LUDOVIC RIGOUDAUD

Be so good as to excuse the indiscretion of my request. Occupied in your country with researches on Hungarian literature, your Tragedy of Man fell into my hands. Having read the first leaves and recognized a work of taste and merit, I took the trouble to translate the whole volume, and today, when the work is finished as regards the question of translation, I come to solicit of your obligingness your approval for its forthcoming publication, and to beg you to tell me whether I may dispose of you for the information that will be necessary to me, to polish and correct my manuscript. As soon as I have finished, I shall take the liberty of going myself to consult you; or if not, I shall address the manuscript to you, with a request to point out the errors which my slight acquaintance with your language has rendered inevitable. Having wished to finish nothing before consulting you, I preferred to write to you, being unable at this moment to disturb myself, held by serious occupations. As soon as your reply is received, I shall address to you the requests for information on a few points obscure to me, as well as the developments that seem to me necessary for my work. Receive, Monsieur, with the expression of all my sympathies for your book and for your talent, that of my most respectful and most distinguished sentiments. Ludovic Rigoudaud. Hôtel de l’Arbre Vert. 68. Pressburg, the 12th of October 1863.

SZÁSZ KÁROLY

Your letter the post sent on after me here from Kún-Szent-Miklós, where I am at present spending the vintage-time at my wife’s family. And this is the reason that I cannot fulfill your wish. My vast notes, together with that copy of the Tragedy of Man on whose margins I pencilled all over, are at home; and I could hardly, here, after another copy, satisfy your wish. In my review, which even so stretched out very long, I could make few remarks on individual expressions; but I shall perhaps be able to write out more from my notes. At the end of this month, or at the very beginning of the next, I go home, and my first business will be, if it is not even then too late, to do what you wish, as well as I can. And now, the matter dispatched, allow me to express great thanks for your kind and valued letter. Not only because you deem me worthy of your friendship and of intimate address — which to me is in itself of exceedingly great value — but because you procured me with your letter one of those pure and high hours of joy which the critic (qua critic) can so very rarely enjoy. When the Thaly Kálmáns and other patriots of inviolable sanctity, standing above all remark, cry out at the criticism, which measured against them is certainly all too gentle — so that they almost dishearten one from this exceedingly necessary but often insipid enough kind of work — meanwhile true merit and great talent modestly confesses that in him too there can be and is fault, and gladly thanks even one lesser than himself for the setting-right; for he who is not even capable of writing a Tragedy of Man can, as an outside observer, see through its deficiencies; but rare is he who, standing himself within the besieged fortress, is inclined to this simple acknowledgment too. I thank you, noble friend, for this dear surprise! Truly, as greatly as I esteem your work — that with some reserve I marked out what I thought a deficiency in it too — so sweetly does it fall on me to see that the hope expressed in the closing lines of my notice was realized, and that I did not draw your displeasure upon myself. Criticism indeed, you say rightly, is not exactly for the criticized work, which is already, once it is what it is, what it is — nay, properly not even for the writer, whom it often does not help at all — but for literature; nevertheless it is encouraging for the critic too, if he knows that the writer’s sympathy, on which he perhaps sets much, he does not forfeit by his sincere examination. We do not dissect a corpse, on the table of the university hospital, with a cold heart, for the edification of the pupils; we make the incision often on an organic and feeling being — that we may heal it too, and in general be of use. Again I thank you, therefore, that you set me at ease, freeing me from an anxiety which — had I known you — would perhaps offend, but thus is pardonable. God be with you. May the muse be with you, and create yet more works, for our delight and the honor of literature. I am, with respect and love, your obliged friend Szász Károly. Halas, 1862. Sept. 18. Very honored Friend! You have doubtless received my letter written from Halas. Having struggled home thence only the day before yesterday, lo, here I send the promised notes. You asked of me only the marking of the obscure places; and I weary you with a heap of petty remarks. Forgive me, and if you cannot use them, draw a cross on them. This much they can prove: that I occupy myself gladly even with the most minute details of your work, and should like to see it faultless in outward things too. And in what — and probably in much — you do not share my observations, or even find them ridiculous: let my good intention excuse me. God be with you, keep me, I beg, in your valued good will! Kún Szent-Miklós, 1862 Oct. 6. your loving, respecting friend Szász Károly.

[Enclosure]

Notes on the language of "The Tragedy of Man."

First line: instead of "to my God" it would be better: "to our God"; for a choir of angels sings it. In line 10: instead of "is complete" it would be better: "already"; for the rhyme. Page 4, line 1. "my worlds" is unusual, better: "my world." Page 5, line 8. instead of "you come," "come you!" Page 9, line 10. instead of "to me enough," "enough to me." Page 13, line [11]. that the feeling should receive the heart, seems odd. The line would perhaps be better thus: "Which, shielding, shades the languid heart" — though with an anapaest. Page 14, line 14. The expression is not clear; perhaps it could be translated thus: "Thus, you will not even need consciousness!" or: "To be conscious, thus, you will not even need." Page 15, lines 3—7. "its waves" and "of its bed," — how do "it glitters" and "falls back" agree, plural with singular? Page 16, line 8. instead of "the old negation" it would be better: "the ancient," or if the meter does not strike, "the primeval." Page 22, line 9. "You hurl defiance at the clear heaven" is un-Hungarian too, and not clear either. Page 22, lines 17—18. "he will be worth his pains" is un-Hungarian and unsightly; "his pleasure" will not do. Page 23, lines 1—8. I do not understand it at all. Grammatically too it is hard, but through that I somehow break; logically it is more obscure. Page 25, line 17. "with my being"
last line "the providence" — unusual. Page 27, line 10. "Detailed..." etc. Who? man, or the spirit of the earth? The reference is not clear enough to me. Page 29, line 12. "conjoint" — a philosophical technical word, not fit for poetic style. Page 33, line 6. "with your old success," that is: unsuccessfully — this is not so used, or not understood. Page 34, line 17. "Nothing else remains," a prosaic turn. Page 33, line 5. "As you found me..." not clear; thus perhaps it would be better: "as you came upon me." Page 36, lines 18—19. "To our striving — — a smile —" unintelligible thus; perhaps it means this: to the agitation of our striving this calm is mockery, or to its (striving’s) vain quality a pitying smile is that...? Page 38, line 2. "To amuse" is to be understood as "to entertain." Page 39, lines 13—21. "For all — — its dreams," would be better placed in the following scene, opposite Miltiades’s attempts. Page 40, line 7. The master does not remain, but servitude, or that state by which there is a master. Page 46, lowest, "as though" is very unsightly, instead of "as if" (almost everywhere this word occurs, it is thus). Page 33, lines 7—8. by "eternally fair" I do not know whether he means Éva or the temple? Page 60, two last lines: Why? I do not understand. Page 62, line 13. "you desire pleasure," it would be better "to long for pleasure." Page 65, line 10. "From my head — the garland," why? Page 65, lines 13—14. "That — — to deserve." What is it? I do not understand. Page 67, line 17. What is that "bare earth"? Page 75, line 4. Read: "which," for it refers to the new idea (line 2). — line 6. Understand: "pleasures." — line 8. "Such... its like..." Why? Page 81, line [11]. "Bare-footed": "barefoot"? — lowest: "among my ancient mountains..." Where? in paradise, or like Tancred? Page 83, three lowest lines. "To God’s praise..." they do not say. Page 98, lines 3—4. "The spirit of the age defends it..." Why? not clear. Page 102, bottom, and 103, top, I do not understand: to what does "it warms the fine time," and "not manly" etc., refer. Page 103, line 13. Better ordered thus: "It shall be, my lord, as you command." — lowest line. "The philosophy-salt of feeling..." What is it? Page 105, line 8. "pays homage as to a god" is unusual, improper, and not even clear an expression in the sense that he pays homage to the woman as to a god... Page 122, lines 3—4. "Perhaps that... the world" — I do not understand. Page 123, line 8. instead of "reconciled" it would be better: "made peace." Page 129, line 8. instead of "they observe," "they perceive" is needed. Page 130, line 1. "To take the thing thus: we should become objects of mockery" is un-Hungarian, but not even a clear expression. Page 133, line 7. Thus I do not understand it; reversed, yes: "you stand amazed at these grave things, when you perceive that the whole is only a comedy." Page 33, lines [13]—14. "The existing — in the name of" so forced that I cannot analyze it clearly, to comprehension. Page 138, lines 8—10. "Fine... reaches up" — hard thus; if I understand rightly it stands so: "In the heights it sounds fine, like the temple song, however much any cry of woe, hoarse voice melts into it, until it reaches up." If this, then it must without fail be ordered otherwise, that it be intelligible. Perhaps thus — "In the heights it rings fine, like temple song,
However hoarse a voice and cry of woe melt
Into it as it reaches up..." Page 139, line 20. I understand it only if we exchange it thus: "of the past only the song" — to wit, what in the past is not fine, not song-like, is not heard up, is lost. Page 142, line 21. "has hanged"? — no, but "hangs." Page 143, line 9. not "calls up," but "brings up."
"— who brought up —" Page 143, lines 3—5. What does the second workman want? — I do not understand. Page 147, line 19. "you draw," a euphony-contrary regularity. Page 134, lines 12—13. "Until once... before us" — I should like it if these two lines were left out, which do not at all suit the antecedents. Page 133, lines 18—19. More correctly ordered thus: "Lucifer does not even waste his strength on such a nothing." Page 159, line 3. "it is becoming to me" — un-Hungarian. Page 163, line 3. instead of "observes," "perceives" is needed. Page 172, line 3. "We should be annihilated" — this I do not understand here. Page 174, line 1. "as a god": does he create the work as a god? or does he as a god create the work? Obscure. Page 177, line [11]. not "let him possess," but "possesses." Page 179, lines 10—[11]. "This sword..." It is not clear to me what he aims at. At a duel? or at the law’s sword? that he who kills with this is not held a murderer? I beg something clearer! Page 182, lines 1—8. Fine, but a little clumsy; the whole thought I understand, not every detail of it. That monster: will be feeling too, a being too; the "free of every effect, of suffering" is not clear, because the sentence is so constructed as if its nature required that it be free, whereas the contrary. Page 184, line 7. That it is too narrow, this I understand; why too wide, I only guess. Perhaps because the generative force is wont to work in a smaller flask, e.g. in the cell or the fiber?... — line 12. For whom is he anxious? I do not understand. For Ádám, with whom he speaks? or for the glass, lest it burst at the boundary of fulfillment? Page 186, lines 13—[13]. "It does not excuse... flawless." Obscure. What is the flawless? The skull? but he calls it ill-formed; the inclination? but he calls it inexcusable. Page 188, line [11]. instead of "knowing" let it be "acquainted." Page 193, lines 16—17. if greatness and force perish, how does mathematics remain? Page 201, line 3. "to make a noise," it is not Hungarian. Page 203, lines 7—8. "Your reasoning is that of repletion"... It is not clear to me why, in how far? Page 207, line 5. "evens it out" — the image is not clear. — line 13. "both of them" — who are those both? The witless one, one; who is the other? The spirit? but the witless one does not feel that. Ádám’s whole speech I in no way understand. Page 210, lines 12—13. "Why... its horrors?" Obscure.

Instead of Kún-Szent-Miklós you addressed your letter to Török-Szent-Miklós, and it strayed beyond the Tisza until someone turned up who happened to have heard of me and knew that I live here; he struck out the wrong name and directed your valued lines here. I received it late and can answer only now. Quite beyond my desert you set so high that slight service which I was perhaps able to render by communicating my remarks. I longingly await the new edition of your work, and wish it great circulation and every success. Your promise much gladdened me: that you want to surprise me before long with the manuscript of some new work of yours. Send it as soon as possible! If not profit to you and your work — to me you will in any case procure delight with it. With great joy I look forward to it. I hoped that at the general assembly of the Kisfaludy Society we might honor you too, at which I could have rejoiced most, for the gaining of your personal acquaintance. Alas, I was disappointed in my hope! If you should ever come to Pest, and visit me with an excursion from there, what a great joy that would be to me! God be with you! Keep me in your friendly disposition, such as I am with, K. Sz. Miklós, 1863 Feb. 17. Your loving friend Szász Károly. SZONTÁGH PÁL

For three days now I have been sitting here where they forge German unity in St. Paul’s church, and if God too wills it as Szalay László does, then from that forge whence German unity — at least in a tolerable form — comes out, will come out the recognition of Hungarian independence by foreign nations too. But you may wonder, dear Imre, if, to wit, you thought that the radicals over the whole world are our friends — by no means. Herr Ruge and his companions, or rather Robert Blum, for this is their leader — want to make the whole world, or perhaps every single individual, free, and so they regard the Croat, the Serb, the Slovak, or whatever the name of our poor homeland’s medley of population, as gleichberechtigt with the Hungarian. Well, if you please; but I want only Hungarian freedom. — But — um auf besagten Hammel zurückzukommen — how did I come here, then? — If I were Jankovich Laczi, the "generally esteemed and generally beloved" deputy-lieutenant of Nógrád county, I should say: by railway and post-coach; but as I am only the "man" of modest spheres (oh Frideghy), I tell you that I was sent as courier, i.e. courrier, of the Hungarian foreign ministry with a dispatch to Szalay Laczi, with such a dispatch as contained his credentials and (this, as a diplomat-embryo, I only whisper) his instructions, and which therefore did not seem confidable to the post’s uncertain chances. That, being a courier, I now sit, the Hühner of it is that I only had to run hither, inasmuch as I forestalled both the Reichsverweser and the Vienna ministry’s envoy, Baron Geringer — since they, coming later too, always arrive early enough — here, however, I gained leave to rest, nay to be away from Vienna a whole 20—21 days, it being understood that only the stricte necessarium of the expense will be reimbursed me, and only for so many days is the 4 fl. 48 kr. daily fee given, which spent on excursions and superfluous tarrying is charged to my own, or rather my dear creditors’, purse — whom I am compelled to pay so much the later, the more I spend on my journey. — Do not dread, dear Imre, that I shall now fill my cheeks and write you a vast travel-description, perhaps copied straight out of Tót Lőrinc’s portfolio; I have not yet sunk so far, though according to my father I have already done so deeply enough, wearing a rascal’s painter’s-jacket and short waistcoat. Fate was stepmotherly toward me, for it did not gladden me with even some railway adventure; in my whole journey I met only men. In itself this was not without interest, for, especially in the post-coach confined to a narrower circle, it was interesting to listen to a Prussian Justiz-Mann — whose name I do not know — in his discussions with Educationsrat Dr. Mager, of whom the latter belonged to the liberal, the former to the radical or philosophico-atheistic Feuerbach-Ruge-ish school. The former very trenchant and seeming to raise himself above all; the other modest in his conduct. If only you had heard — not to mention that he sent Ruge and his companions to the madhouse — how he criticized the "superficial," Schwachkopf, ignorant Welckers, Mittermaiers, Itzsteins — as if he had only read Martius, sitting in judgment over Hungarian names hitherto held in honor. — The 4th fellow-traveler was Baron Türckheim, son of the like-named former Baden minister and publicist writer, formerly Legationsrat on the prince’s side in Vienna. With this one we agreed most, except in the question of nobility, for he was a great nobleman. He was, however, a very good fellow-traveler; in the inns we put up together, etc., since he was so kind that at Breslau, where at the railway they wanted to take even my Austrian twenties below value, he paid my ticket, and I, changing German money only at Leipzig, gave it back to him there. — I make one more general remark. To wit, if my heart ached with envy, seeing the German land cut through in every direction by railways and lovely tree-bordered stone roads, in so far my national feeling again swelled, that I found the people sad, ugly, and, though it was Sunday, badly dressed. On reaching here, however, Szalay L. said that the stretch over which I came is Germany’s ugliest part and at the same time its poorest too. Here yesterday, with Szalay’s admission-ticket, I was in the National Assembly on the diplomats’ tribune; the talk was of the German people’s Grundrechte, and especially of the keeping or not keeping of the titles of nobility. Being saturated with Vienna ideas about German parliamentary skill, it much surprised me that I heard good orators here too. There spoke Ahrens, Robert Mohl, Prince Felix Lichnowsky, old Arndt, two Austrian deputies, and a radical deputy from Oels, whose hard-sounding name, since he is not a notability, I forgot. The most interesting orator was Lichnowsky, who [spoke] for the noble titles, the rudest, and so the radical I mentioned, who won my sympathy, whom they call Reichskanarienvogel, who was against the titles. This latter dresses entirely from top to toe in yellow nankeen, hence the name, and did not change this dress of his even when, in honor of Prince John, even the other liberals dressed in black. Mohl against the titles, Arndt, though declaring himself a republican, spoke for the titles; a vote has not yet taken place, the discussion will be continued today. — Toward the Hungarians the Prussians think best, even those who are extreme right-wingers, e.g. Prince Lichnowsky; the radicals, as I said, by virtue of their philosophical world-view, fumigate. Tomorrow I probably go on, to wit down the Rhine to Cologne, thence through Berlin back to Vienna; in Berlin and Cologne I should like to make stops. I was here in the deputies’ reading-circle too, where, except for the vast number of papers, nothing notable. I was glad to be able to see that the German too is but an ape; here the inns are almost exclusively French-signed, the shops named either in both languages or exclusively in French, very rarely only in German; vivat Michel! — If your state of health permits, write me to Vienna; from Pali I seriously apprehend that he has not written so far. When we are together, my travel-observations and abstractions I shall complete; your Wife’s hands I kiss. Aladár I honor. Last night I dreamt of your sister, Madame Balog; where and how is she? I go to the National Assembly again; in the afternoon I visit Julius Mayer, Madame Walter’s brother, who is a zealous left-winger and Lichtfreund. God’s blessing on you and your house’s folk! He embraces you, your eternal devoted Sz. P. À Monsieur Emeric de Madách par Vienne Csesztve Pest (Hongrie) B. Gyarmat

Dear Imre! Our friend Matolcsi, at the Gyarmat fair, gladdened me with the news that you, intending again a little Ipoly tour, mean together with him to look in on me too. However, I see that the plan has so far not been carried out. At Losonc I hoped I might see you; however, on the first day I had already gone, and only from Bakó Pista could I hear, the next day at Lapujtő, your fine reputation; and indeed truly your "fine" reputation, for Bakó, who came home from Losonc filled by every kind of event with bile-matter, said with a full mouth, as if consoling himself — I was with M. I. too, that worthy man already! — Instead of enjoying you in person, then, I thus heard only your reputation, and than this, according to the song, the letter is still less, and so I offer you still less, to wit my letter. "Not only do you not hear my reputation, but you do not even get my letter." — Baron Eötvös J.’s letter has long been in my hands; however, I waited to be able to hand it over in person, and at the same time to come to terms as to what should be the further thing to do, since the baron, attributing "little importance" to his verses, is now occupied with grander "ideas." "So lange die Ungarn ihren Tokaier haben, können sie sich darüber trösten, dass Lenau deutsch schrieb" — this idea Heine expressed somewhere. Well indeed, I too believe that Eö.’s "little-importance" verses will immortalize him sooner than his weighty "ideas." I indeed am still always at the first volume — but I keep putting off cutting into the 2nd; his verses, however, I should by now have read over ten times, were they collected together. And so it will be with the great public too, and with posterity. But such are the weaknesses of great men. — Such was Richelieu, and others. Eö. too thinks little of the "poet" — he wants to be a state-sage, having already shown that he was no statesman. — But take his letter here. I for my part shall meanwhile seek the verse in other poets’ collections, until I can be with you; though I believe that the verse is indeed Eötvös’s, and in this opinion is Bérczy too, with whom I spoke not long ago at Pest; I leafed through Hiador at Lisznyai’s in Eger, but did not find the poem. — "Eger" and "Pest"! — you will say; yes, I was in Eger and Pest, there for almost 2 days. — In Eger I visited Lisznyai. He is now the old one, in every respect the old one. These two words "in every respect" express everything. This contains his own misery, his wife’s unhappiness, his little son’s future abandonment and beggary. He affects geniality and thinks: geniality is debauchery, raffishness; but his raffishness is shabby, not genial; his geniality is mimicked, affected — his raffishness is the only thing original in him, that is, what he did not learn from another, but even that has no objective originality. His old song goes so far that for certain reasons — being at Pest — on the occasion of my visit he lived homoeopathically, and abstained from wine, etc. The reason his wife too guessed! — At Pest I took part in the convention of the evangelicals of the mining-district, and I think I was the one who delivered the funeral-oration over the autonomy of the Hungarian evangelical church. But this must be so; into the frame of the centralized absolute state an autonomous evangelical church cannot fit. This too, like much else, is henceforth nothing but a ruin, over which, like Marius, one can at most only weep. — These tirades put me in mind that my sister, after our last being together, said of me that I had become dreadfully pedantic, and that men, when they grow old, all grow pedantic. This seems to prove that pedantry stands in inverse proportion to the goodness of the "pumpkin." While the lower pumpkin is perfectly good and raw, the head too is pumpkin-like and without pedantry; as the pumpkins ripen, the lower loses its value, and the upper, thinking it has become more valuable, begins to teach, to play the doctrinaire, in a word to play the pedant. And for this reason women are rarely pedants, for they have only one pumpkin, and that which in them is in place of the lower pumpkin, is by age too rarely made pedantic in the discharge of its functions — rarely ripens. — My Aristophanes has arrived. The translator’s preface I have already read too. For the continuation of my reading, however, I have not yet enough bodily and spiritual calm. Bodily not, because the big toe of my left foot having gone sore, the tending of it gives great nourishment to my hypochondria; I cannot even pull on a boot, cannot mount a horse; spiritually not, because, my scant wool not yet sold, money I indeed have none — but debt all the more. And the wool-sale is connected with the foot-ache, for as soon as I can mount a horse I go to Gyarmat and give [it] as they ask, the deuce! For the rest, returning to Aristophanes: denique we two have rightly discovered that only the "fair" is eternal. This is especially true of the literary fair. Where are Hellas and Rome? meaning the states — and their art, the plastic as well as the literary, now too is, and will be, in omnem aeternitatem. Therefore, however they buckle down on the associations from Muscovy, am jüngsten Tag, it will be only a Furz, for there is in it, and within its greatness, nothing fair. — My servant Veronica today (the 12th of May) reported that she saw you driving through Patak; from this I conclude: you went to Csalomia, and from there, together with Matolcsi, you will come to me; therefore I now cease my prattle, awaiting — are you coming? if you do not come — habebis epistolam — if you come, then you get your share of oral and written prattle. — [Continued in the same letter] On the 15th of May. Veres Józsi, coming home from Riba, said that you have traveled with Majthényi Pali to Gyiva, and so the passing through Patak is explained, but the worse is the prospect as regards Matolcsi’s prophecy. — I do not know whether to send this letter after all; it seems to me that it is pure nonsense; I dare not read it over, for then I should surely tear it up — and then what should I have written so much for, and on such fine paper. Still I send it after all; for had we come together I should have talked ten times as much foolishness; it is true that it would not have come out so giantly stupid as in writing. — For the rest, no matter! you take my letter as it is, and me as and what I am. — You know well, for indeed it happened with your knowledge too, that the young breast’s "gods in the new age were all clubbed dead." — Politics, ambition, worldly pleasure, love, etc., all — a Furz! not only am jüngsten Tag, but already now. But in this Herwegh is not right, that with those gods friendship too should have been clubbed dead. This lives ever-young, nay its worth grows with its age. For its reality is justified, it becomes ideal. — Having its own warmth and light, it is not to be put out together with the other lamps of life’s stage. — Each sacrifices to his deity with what he can; if the sacrifice is paltry too, at least the intention is sincere and warm. — My gypsy I await tomorrow from Lapujtő, with news — when I must travel to Onga in the interest of my little ward; the Pentecost feast I shall spend there, but by the 1st of June I want to be home already. God be with you! My hand-kiss, that is, my respect to the ladies; the children I embrace from the heart. your true friend Sz. P.

To Madách Imre, after his diet-speech held on the 28th of May, 1861. Through a long life many strive to clear the mute obscurity of their name, yet — small is the success! Patriot; Sage; Artist — boldly you may break through to Olympus — Lo, a threefold wreath today your homeland pins on your head. Sz. P. H or p ács, July 6. 1862. Dear Friend! — With humble thanks I send here the Thirty A.-value florins you lent me on the 20th of last month. — To Onga I did not go, first because I had not just enough money to hand, as much as I thought necessary; further, because one of my horses developed some ailment, which does not make a longer journey advisable; finally, meeting the Ferencs family after all at Dolyán, they came here to me on Thursday, going to Buda to bathe, and so we settled that we shall visit the Darvas family together en suite. — What this can interest you? — I do not know; however, I did not want to send your money wrapped in a piece of clean paper, lest the purely "business" letter confirm you in your belief that I am really a "clever" Jew. And so you must get necessary prattle "mit in den Kauf," for at this time the world stands so that a man, after taking a few moments’ deadly tedium — to wit, conning the letter by heart — even then, when he "sees again" his own money, says with some consolation: letter here, letter there, only that the money has arrived. — For today, in consequence of a positive promise, I expected the Tivadar family to me — they did not come. It seems that this is already their habit. And so our "English" friend in this respect is rather a "Yankee," which, translated into Hungarian, means as much as: gypsy. The harvest we began under fairly bad auspices, nay I say more, by and by we finish it. My barley got wet on the stalk once; my rye is bad and seedless. — And though the rain was enough to do harm, it is little for the growing of the aftermath. In a word, calamity on the right, calamity on the left. Here a few days ago were Dezsőfi Otto and Révay Guszti. — The former earlier, the latter the day before yesterday. — Dezsőfi, as I noticed, some well-wisher of mine had already painted as a finished pecsovics, so much that he felt moved to admonish me kindly, that I should not give my enemies cause to be able, at the possible representative-election, to agitate against me with some data!! — to wit, that I cultivate too thick a friendship with the actual officials, etc. Funny! How rigorist our friend Otto is now, though, if I know rightly, in 49 he did not want to serve the independent Hungarian state. — Guszti seemed to be in rosy humor. His Balaton-regulation "début" turned out very well, and he seems very content too with his relation to Zichy. Denique I see great wisdom on this occasion too in that customary saying of yours, that having eaten one’s fill, a man is reconciled with his lot. — Huszár Pista’s wife, Gyurmányi Gabriela — having happily borne her girl-child, the day before yesterday — died! — Monday they bury her. The hunchbacked Berchtold was just here; he told it; he says Pista is inconsolable, in despair, etc. — Will he not now, after all, since he is rich, and has already had fine but not exactly young wives, take some very fine and young one? — But let us not play the malicious one — before such an old bachelor as myself such feelings are pearls cast before swine, and so I blush and am silent. — I have now discovered Forgách Jenő’s real darling [Leibstück]; she harvests here at my place, from Felső-Sztregova, not so much fair as interesting and young; come as soon as possible and look at her. — God be with you! Love your to-death devoted Sz. P.

TÓTH KÁLMÁNNÉ

Forgive that, unknown as I am, I burden you with a request, by the fulfillment of which you would cause us a very dear feeling. There will perhaps be, at one of you, the late Pali’s portrait; the copy of the picture I should much wish to possess, for I had a brother who likewise died and resembled Pali strikingly. You can imagine what joy this picture would cause my mother, and therefore I beg you, if one of you has it, let it over for a short time, until I have it copied. With cordial greeting Majthényi Flóra. Tóth Kálmánné. Pest, Újvilág street No. 1. Madách Imre, Esq., to Losonc Al. Sztregova OFFICIAL WRITINGS DOCUMENTS

MADÁCH IMRE A BOND OF HIS

[continuation:] in payment of the price of the N. Csalomia estate-portion bought from her, last summer my mother, Madách-Majthényi Anna, paid 1210, that is one thousand two hundred ten pengő-florins; however, since not long after, the rate of the Hungarian banknotes began to weaken, and so, according to the assertion of the above-honored Mrs. Kossuch Antal, the above sum has remained with her up to this day, and now she must hand it in; my mother, taking into consideration, and not wishing that the above-written lady, being also an orphan, should herself suffer the loss of it, herewith declares herself ready, that by however much the compensation to be given by the government for the one thousand two hundred ten pengő-florins handed in by the honored Mrs. Kossuch Antal should be smaller, she takes upon herself the half part of the deficiency arising hence, and will pay this half of the loss to the above-honored Mrs. Kossuch Antal; for the securing of which I have issued this letter; dated at Losonc 1849 Oct. 1. Madách Imre as full plenipotentiary of my mother, Madách-Majthényi Anna [On the back] No. 1 NB: of the 1210 p.p.fl. contained within I took up 1200 fl. p.p.; while 10 fl. Höller Emma kept with herself. Forspont [relay-horse charge]. From April 14th, 11 fl. p. Up to July 14th, half-year’s interest 18 fl. p. On this bond there remained outstanding 405 silver florins, which today, against the return of the original bond, I took over from her commission for handing over to Mrs. Kossuch Antal. — Dated Sztregova ut [supra], 1851. March 25. — Steiler Antal advocate

COURT-MARTIAL DOCUMENTS

You are requested to appear without fail on Friday the 5th of this month at 9 o’clock in the forenoon, in the chancery of this court-martial, Neugebäude Pavilion No. 3, on the first floor, door No. 19. Pest, the 4th of August 1853. Franz Grohmann First Lieutenant, Court Auditor [Cover] Imperial-Royal Court-Martial at Pest. To Herr Emerich von Madách, landowner, resident at the Neumarktplatz, House No. 12 on the 1st floor, inner city, in Pest. Ex officio. [Seal]

In consequence of the court-martial verdict of the 28th of February 1854, made known yesterday, the investigation here instituted against the landowner Emerich Madách of Csesztve, Nógrád county, now at liberty, on a charge of high treason and of harboring a fugitive high traitor, is, on account of a defective state of facts and insufficient proof, discontinued. This for his legitimation. By the Imperial-Royal Court-Martial Weheck Pest, the 31st of March 1854. Regimental President Bilkom Major Auditor Personal description of the within-named. 30 years old. Religion Catholic Status married Stature middle-sized Face oblong Hair blond Eyes brown Nose regular Own-hand signature: Madách Imre Pest, the 31st of March 854 [Seal] Hlavath To Alsó-Sztregova. Pest ut supra [Seal] Hlavath Seen [Vidi] Balassa-Gyarmat, the 8th of June 854. [Unreadable signature] Judge

DIVORCE DOCUMENT

[continuation:] "The undersigned, after mature and long consideration, being convinced that the mutual confidence, concord, and self-denial unconditionally required for the maintenance of married cohabitation has irrecoverably ceased between us, as a result of which not only our own perpetual unhappiness, but, in consequence of the broken family life, many-sided harm to our children too would follow, have agreed to put an end to this state, no longer maintainable, and, passing over the indelicate and unpleasant fuller probing of the causes of our separation — which in a litigious way before a judge we could not keep silent — by common agreement to separate from each other forever and finally, under the following conditions: 1. I, Madách Imre, bind myself, as well as my heirs in case of my death, to pay my wife yearly, in two installments, half a year in advance, eight hundred pengő-florins to the day of her death, while she bears my name. The payment of the first portion will take place at the nearest August Pest fair. 2. If my daughter Jolán, whom my wife keeps with her, reaches her tenth year, for her increased upbringing costs I am bound to pay yet two hundred pengő-florins above the eight hundred florins written above; or, after my judgment, I shall have the right to provide for her upbringing otherwise, likewise too in case my wife ceases to bear my name, or dies. 3. My children Aladár and Ara remaining with me, I shall tend and bring them up. 4. I shall effect the conveyance of all my wife’s dowry and other own movables to her paternal house. (To Fráter József’s house at Cséhtelek.) 5. I renounce, for my person, all widower’s inheritance after my wife, altogether and decidedly. 6. At my wife’s call at any time, I shall have this our actual and perpetual separation confirmed before the law too, the material sides of our separation set out in this contract remaining in any case unchanged. On the other side, I, Fráter Erzsébet, return to my paternal house, and: 1. I bind myself to the careful tending and upbringing of my daughter Jolán, whom I take with me. 2. I accept all the points of this contract, likewise too my yearly allowance of eight hundred pengő-florins. 3. I renounce, for my person, all widow’s inheritance after my husband, altogether and decidedly. 4. We have issued this our agreement-letter in one original copy, which original copy was handed over to Fráter Erzsébet, its authentic copy being found with Madách Imre. Dated Ecseg, 1854 July 25. Madách Imre, in his own hand; Fráter Erzsébet, in her own hand. — The agreeing parties, having with full satisfaction read over the agreement, signed it with their own hands before us, as requested kindred witnesses. Dated as above. Fráter Pál, in his own hand; Fráter Béla, in his own hand. — P.S. As regards the eight hundred pengő-florins touched on in the first point, I subject myself and my heirs, in case of non-payment, to the oral summary jurisdiction. Dated as above. Madách Imre."

REPRESENTATIVE’S CREDENTIAL

[continuation:] verified in the IVth session of the house of representatives held on April 17, 1861, Keglevich Béla, recording clerk. Minutes of the representative-election held on the 20th day of March 1861, in Nógrád county, at the seat of the B.-Gyarmat diet-representative electoral district: 1. The President appointed by the County Central Committee to direct the representative-election, Count Forgách József, in the assembly of the numerously gathered B.-Gyarmat district electors, first of all offered that, since up to now, as a central committee member, he had not taken the oath, he wished to take it, and indeed the oath prescribed in the law of the year 1848 — as indeed he took it at once before the electoral district’s assembly. After this he set forth how, His Majesty having convoked a Hungarian diet for the 2nd day of April this year, and on the thread of this the Nógrád county central committee having fixed the present day for the representative-election to take place, according to the sense of Act V of 1848, of the deputies to be sent from Nógrád county’s 6 electoral districts, and having made it public beforehand: he calls on the electoral district to celebrate the national constitutional feast with just as much fitting gravity and order as to take its electoral right into use with full freedom. The same president further reminds the electoral assembly that, by virtue of § 27 of Act V of 1848, any elector has the right to propose one individual for the diet-deputyship, declaring the election opened. In consequence of this, the elector Horváth Elek proposed, as representative to the nearest diet from this B.-Gyarmat district, both by virtue of his learning and of his honesty, Mr. Madách Imre, which proposal was received with resounding cheers, and the undivided general wish centered solely on Mr. Madách Imre. After this, 2ndly, the same Count President further put to the electoral district, according to § 30 of the cited law, the question whether anyone besides Mr. Madách Imre wished to propose any other person as diet-deputy, to which question again the undivided will centered solely on Mr. Madách Imre alone, no one having put forward another deputy-candidate. Wherefore, then, 3rdly, the Count President, likewise according to the sense of § 30 of Act V of 1848, declared and proclaimed Mr. Madách Imre the diet-deputy elected by the B.-Gyarmat district, and herewith at the same time declared the electoral assembly closed. Which electoral minute, in one original copy, is handed over to the elected representative, Mr. Madách Imre, to serve as credentials according to § 44, while two original copies were resolved to be handed in to the central committee according to § 43. Dated Balassa-Gyarmat as above. Count Forgách József, president deputed to direct the deputy-election. Thomka Sándor, vice-president. Feistl József, deputed clerk.

FROM THE COMMITTEE OF THE TOWN OF B. GYARMAT

Madách Imre, Esq., diet-representative of the B. Gyarmat electoral district, at Pest. It having come to our knowledge that the Pest Diet has taken up for discussion the systematization of the administration of justice, we hold the present a fitting time to approach your Honor with the request that you be graciously pleased, by your effective influence in the legislative body, so to work that the town communities not yet endowed with an ordered council, but capable of it — especially the market-town of B. Gyarmat too — be endowed by law with autonomous self-government rights, both in respect of jurisdiction and of internal economy. This our request we ground as follows: 1st. The town of B. Gyarmat is a community of 8000 souls, its commerce and industry developed, its intelligentsia large, the seat of Nógrád county; its touching by the more-than-certain railway line promises a fine future; but only thus, if, casting off its present subordinate position, it shall be able to move more freely on the field of jurisdiction and self-government. 2nd. The town in the present times cannot apply for an ordered council, since, according to the sense of Act XXIV of 1848, neither the responsible Hungarian ministry nor the Hungarian royal lieutenancy actually stands, exists. 3rd. A local authority provided with a fitting sphere of action hastens the dispensing of justice, and spares the town’s population troubles and larger lawsuit-costs, and thus indirectly increases the population’s material well-being. 4th. Before 1848 the jurisdictions were bought as privileges. However, the spirit of the sanctioned laws of 1848, declaring equality of rights, abolished the privileges, by which the dispensing of justice became an obligation and a burden, which, in the interest of the dispensing of justice, it is the moral and patriotic duty of every community to take upon itself in greater or lesser measure. And since the town of B. Gyarmat, from the standpoint of its population’s number and culture, can justly claim this enlarged and more extensive jurisdiction, nay has sufficient material strength for it, the timeliness of its request is justified. For example, the town of Losonc has scarcely half as many inhabitants as B. Gyarmat, yet has an ordered council, whereas our town stands in this respect on a line with the most insignificant village. Finally we entreat that you be graciously pleased to inform us whether it would be expedient or necessary, in this affair, to approach the house of representatives with a petition. Dated B. Gyarmat, year 1861, June 20. Ách Ádám town judge.

FROM THE COMMUNITY OF THE TOWN OF BALASSAGYARMAT

Knowing the representative’s enlightened thinking, this town’s community, full of confidence and at the same time of respect, calls on you to be graciously pleased, at the present national diet, to propose the general and obligatory abolition of the heaviest of all tithes, the vine-tithe. We do not enumerate the conclusive reasons — which are known to the representative — but, merely as a spur to thought as regards the manner of redemption, we wished to communicate our own views, that, in so far as you find it practicable, you may be graciously pleased to use them in your proposal. One of Hungary’s chief treasures lies in its vineyards. It is a provable fact that he who wishes to bring his vineyard, with great sacrifices, into a flourishing state — since the tithe must be rendered from the gross income — such a sacrificing farmer will in the end have less income than none. For this reason the redemption must, for the whole homeland, be general and compulsory, that this so weighty branch of farming be freed from its fetters. The general redemption, in our opinion, is effectable only thus, if the state, up to the strength of the redemption-capital to be fixed, should procure a loan on the vineyards to be redeemed as on a many-times-valuable hypotheca, with which the tithe-owners being satisfied at once, the vineyard-owners would, by capital-amortization, pay back to the state, together with the tax for a time, the sum falling upon them. In such a manner the tithe-ownership would suffer no loss, while the vineyard-ownership, bearing scarcely a greater burden than the yearly tithe, could easily bear it, and the tithing in kind could be abolished at once, which in many regions would result in the flourishing of the vineyards. If, however, the state should not intervene by mediation in the redemption, then be graciously pleased at least to bring it into proposal that every vineyard-owner be entitled to individual redemption, and not be bound to the whole mountain vineyard-ownership, nor to any part of it. — The possible objection that in such a manner the tithe-capital would be much fragmented — deserves no attention; for if the tithe-owner should not want to take up such individual capitals before the whole is paid in, then the individuals could keep it, with prompt payment, until the condition perhaps to be fixed by the law sets in, but — and this is the chief thing — industry would no longer be numbed by the tithing in kind. — This would be our respectful request, to the consideration of which we confidently ask the representative. For the rest, with particular respect we remained B. Gyarmat, year 1861, June 28. your humble servants the Community of the Town of B. Gyarmat.

FROM THE FIRST DEPUTY-LIEUTENANT OF NÓGRÁD COUNTY

ein [No.] To the committee member Madách Imre, Esq.! Wishing to hold a court of law on the 9th of the current month, and on the following days as need requires, at 10 o’clock in the morning, at B. Gyarmat at the usual place, I have the honor herewith to invite you, table-judge, to it. — Dated Vanyarc, year 1861, October 3. First Deputy-Lieutenant Dessewffy Ottó.

1947 ein From the First Deputy-Lieutenant of Nógrád County To the committee member Madách Imre, Esq. Szakál at A. Sztregova up. B. Gyarmat Ex officio

KISFALUDY SOCIETY

The Kisfaludy Society numbers you among those champions of our literature whose due recognition, on the one hand, it wishes to express publicly for their merits won on the field of Hungarian belles-lettres, and of whom, on the other hand, it is so convinced that they are not only able but ready effectively to support it, by their actual cooperation, in the furtherance of its aims. The Kisfaludy Society has therefore, in its today’s member-electing session, chosen you for its member. Your excellent work bearing the title "The Tragedy of Man," as well as the zeal that inspires you in the raising of our literature, encourages the Kisfaludy Society with the hope that you, contributing to its work with your own work too, will, in proportion to your excellent talent, increase and augment it as far as possible. While we declare this our hope in the name of the Kisfaludy Society, we at the same time inform you of the [9th] paragraph of our statutes, which runs thus: "The newly elected member is introduced by a fellow with a speech suited to the occasion, to which the introduced one replies and takes his place with a lecture falling within the society’s sphere of work," — and according to the sense of this rule we ask you to choose for yourself, on the completion of your inaugural work, an introducer from among the Kisfaludy Society’s members, and to be so kind as to inform the society’s director of this beforehand. Until this takes place, we invite you to the Kisfaludy Society’s sessions, and indeed first of all to the twelfth general session, which will be held this year on the 6th of February at 10 o’clock in the forenoon in the festive hall of the national museum. Dated at Pest in the electoral session of the Kisfaludy Society, Jan. 30, 1862. B. Eötvös József Greguss Ágost president. secretary. From the President of the Kisfaludy Society. Honored Madách Imre, Esq., as member of the Kisfaludy Society Ex officio. at Alsó-Sztregova (last post: Szakál)

HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

While with this I have the honor to declare my rejoicing that the general assembly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences elected you, on the 13th of January this year, in appreciation of your literary merits, a Corresponding Member in the Linguistic and Aesthetic Sciences Section: I know that, advancing hereafter too on the path on which you met with the Academy’s recognition, you will be ready, by independent scholarly investigations and works, to carry your branch forward, to take a supporting share in our affairs for the realization of the aims set our Institute, and thereby to fulfill § 17 of the Academic Statutes. I remind you at the same time that, likewise according to the Statutes, every newly elected Member takes his seat within the lapse of one year, by reading out a work belonging to his section, or, in case of inability to appear in person, by sending in such a work; otherwise his election remaining void. The Diploma recognizing him as an Academic Member is presented to him after the reading-out or sending-in of that inaugural work. Commending myself to your valued favor, I am with distinguished respect — Pest, February 13, 1863. your ready, bounden servant Count Dessewffy Emil president.

FROM THE SECRETARY OF THE NÓGRÁD COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY

Your Honor having been elected a committee member by the society’s general assembly held at Losonc on the 10th of the current month: I have the honor to inform your Honor of this circumstance, and at the same time, for the formation of the sections, respectfully to invite you to the committee meeting to be held at B. Gyarmat on the 24th of this month. Dated at Losonc, November 11. 1863. society secretary Szakall Elek. Honored Madách Imre, Esq., Ex officio at Alsó-Sztregova last post: Szakál MADÁCH IMRE’S TESTAMENT

ben [continuation: In the name of the Father, the Son, and God the Holy Ghost], Amen! Since the hour of my death, like that of every man, is uncertain — but its coming would be certain, I herewith declare in the following my last will, that is, my testament. 1. My soul I commend to the grace of the Almighty, my body to the lap of the mother earth. 2. All my property, both my immovable goods and my movables — my ready money, my outstanding debts owed me, my fundus instructus, in a word my whole substance taken in the widest sense, I leave to my son, Madách Aladár, whom I thus name my universal heir. 3. This whole property of mine being accurately inventoried and listed, that is, appraised, from it let the so-called obligatory portion (Pflichtteil) of my two daughters, Madách Jolán and Madách Borbála, be paid out in ready money; expressly noting that this obligatory portion can be taken up, that is, calculated, according to the present state of my estate — as it shall be found at my death — after the deduction, that is, the subtraction from the appraised value of the property, of all my debts and burdens, whether entered in the land-register or pending and unregistered. 4. This obligatory portion shall be paid to my daughters only on the occurrence of their coming of age; and in case of their marriage, that which is spent on their dowering is to be reckoned into this sum, while of the rest 6% shall be paid until they receive the capital. 5. As guardian (tutor) and curator of my children I wish, ordain, and appoint my dear kinsman and friend Mr. Veres Gyula at Szakál, and indeed so that in this his commission and office he may proceed unrestrictedly and with full power, owing account and answer to no authority or court or any office whatever, and may in this respect never be disturbed. — At the wish, however, and for the reassurance of his noble soul, I note that in case and on the occurrence of my son Aladár’s coming of age, let him present his guardian-curator’s accounts once for all: as to which, if my son Aladár should have observations, and these could not be settled amicably between the two of them, and my son should refuse to issue the requested absolutory document, in this single case let my son name two, the guardian-curator Veres Gyula likewise two, and let these four chosen persons name a president, who shall, within the shortest possible time, as a court of compromise, finally so settle, that is, adjudge, the existing differences, that from this judgment it shall be free to neither party to effect any further appeal, or to apply anywhere, under any pretext. 6. My dear good mother, the widow Mrs. Madách Imre, née Majthényi Anna — if she so wishes, and as long as she desires, with her present customary household, shall remain at her hitherto Alsó-Sztregova dwelling, and for the further upbringing of my dear daughters too the guardian-curator is bound on every occasion to ask her counsel and to take it into consideration as far as possible. 7. The persons standing in service-relation to my house and family, as well as my servants, I commend to the guardian-curator’s considerate attention. Dated Alsó-Sztregova, on the 4th day of (September) October in the year 1864. Madách Imre.

The undersigned, as witnesses especially called and summoned to this end, and gathered together at once for this purpose, herewith authentically testify that the Honorable Mr. Madách Imre, signing this present document in our presence with his own hand, at the same time expressly declared and stated that this writing should be his last will, that is, his testament. Which we thus testify and attest with the signing of our names and the impressing here of our fore-seals. Dated Alsó-Sztregova, the 4th of (September) October in the year 1864. Károlyi Miksa, as called and present witness. Alsó-Sztregova, October 4, 864. Henrici Ágoston, local evangelical pastor, as the witness called to this end and present, in his own hand. Alsó-Sztregova, October 4, 1864. Matólcs György, as called and present witness. A. Sztregova, October 4, 864. Bory Sándor, local notary, as witness called at once and present. Alsó-Sztregova, 1864. Oct. 4. Pass András, as witness called at once and present. Alsó-Sztregova, 1864. Oct. 4."

THE ELDER MRS. MADÁCH IMRE’S TESTAMENT-FRAGMENT

hagyni [continuation: It pleased the Almighty to leave me so long in life], be His holy will. — May the Lord God give His holy blessing upon you, my beloved Children and Grandchildren, who were so good toward me; may the Almighty guide you always on the best path; never forget it, for your own honor, and let your comfort be at all times in the faith. — I have lived long, but in everything I saw God’s providence over me. — I thank you, my dear good Son Imre, from my pure heart I thank you, and be blessed for all your care, with which you were so ready and tender toward your weak mother. — And one more grateful thanks I say to you, beloved good Emi, my dear

Madách Collected Works II. 75 [running head] 1153 grandson, for your goodness and magnanimity toward Anna and Károly, for which may the Lord God reward you; hereafter too be with fatherly care toward beloved Károly, guide him to the good path, be a father and his leader; and since he must serve, therefore through dear Miksa let the Chancellor, whom I beg from my heart, be his help and guidance. — My dear good Anna the Almighty has blessed with a good, honest, and tender husband; may the holy blessing rest unceasingly upon you. — You know, my dear ones, I have nothing; I have been stripped of everything; therefore I took the more greatly your love, which made me very happy. — Thus far I wrote in 1864, of my illness up to mid August-September; after that I was plunged into mourning by the illness and the death of him whom I love best, the parting of my unforgettable Son. — Oh my God, that I lived through it, that is something unspeakable. — You, beloved Károly, never offended me; with your dear good Erna you will always be happy; may God’s blessing remain always upon you; may you have good little children for your joy. — One request I have: be Aladár’s counselor, his good guardian-father; if he calls on you in anything, be his help. — My beloved good Aladár, you inherit my love after your unforgettable, beloved Father; this I beg you, go on that career as your dear Father and Uncle Károly went; guard yourself from bad company, which would ruin both your health and your finances; this, dear Károly, holds for you too; let it sometimes come to your mind how I love you both.

PLAYS. Pp. 23—93. Man and Woman. — Published by Gyulai, cited work, vol. II, pp. 1—84. Its manuscript is in the manuscript department of the Széchenyi Library of the Hungarian National Museum. Shelf-mark: 2065 Quart Hung. 44 leaves. A copy by a foreign hand. On its title page, besides the title and motto cited in the text, we find the following note: „Dramatic competition-work for 1843, 1st number.” Further: „Veres, March 18, 1853.” (On this day he submitted it for the academic competition.) It competed together with The Last Days of Csák, but was not even mentioned. The copying was made for the sake of the later revision, but to this it did not come.

Pp. 95—218. Only a Joke. — Unpublished. Shelf-mark: 2064 Quart Hung. 60 leaves.* One of its scenes (the conversation of Zordy and the poet from the fourth act) was published by Frigyes Riedl: From an Unpublished Tragedy of Madách’s. Egyetemes Philológiai Közlöny, IV, pp. 56—63. Madách broke up certain of the play’s tirades into lyric poems and inserted them, under the collective title From the Diary of a Madman, among his poems. (See in our edition II, pp. 376—85.)

Pp. 219—364. Queen Mária. — Gyulai, vol. II, pp. 85—254. — 2067 Quart Hung. 51 leaves. On its title page, crossed out: „1855 Jan 1—Apr. 27.” Its first elaboration is missing.

Pp. 365—462. The Last Days of Csák. — Gyulai, II, 143—261. (The text of the 1861 revision.) Of its manuscripts, the 1843 first elaboration is among the academic competition-works in the Academy’s manuscript department; two copies of the revised text, both in his own hand, are in the manuscript department of the Széchenyi Library. The one came in with the Madách bequest (1913), shelf-mark: 1398 Fol. Hung. 23 leaves. On its title page the following note: „Made already in 1843, submitted to the learned society, mentioned with praise, but the little letter was not opened. — I revised it completely on Aug. 12 of the year 1861. I finished it on Sep. 28.” It appears to be the first draft of the revision, with dense corrections and insertions. The other, cleaner copy, according to the testimony of Gyulai’s preface, was brought to him by László Arany, who in turn had received it from Ferenc Salamon. It was this text that he took into his edition. From the gift of Mrs. László Arany the manuscript then came into the Széchenyi Library as early as 1899, shelf-mark: 1539 Quart Hung. 40 leaves. It shows minor divergences from the previous one; this is the final text, and this we too followed in our edition. At the 1843 competition it was commended together with Jókai’s The Jew’s Son, the prize being awarded to Károly Obernyik’s piece Lord and Peasant. It was staged on October 9, 1886, in the Kolozsvár theater.

Pp. 463—508. The Civilizer. — Gyulai, III, 261—316. A newer edition under the care of Géza Voinovich, Budapest, 1938. (Published by the Hungarian Working Community.) 2069 Quart Hung. 20 leaves. On the title page the year 1859.

* Henceforth, without separate indication, the museum location and his own handwriting are always to be understood. In our edition, within the limits of possibility, we have restored the original text’s Aristophanic, roguish allusions, which Gyulai altered; where this could not be done, we have indicated the omission with dots.

Pp. 509—699. The Tragedy of Man. — Gyulai, II, 255—485. Its manuscript is in the relic-collection of the Kisfaludy Society. Octavo, 150 pages. His own handwriting with Arany’s corrections. On the separate leaf showing the assignment of the characters (see this in our edition at vol. II, p. 740, in the supplement) stands the following date: „begun 1859 Feb. 14, finished 1860 Mar. 26.” The manuscript, as is well known, he handed over at Pál Szontágh’s urging to János Arany, who, after the first distrust, all at once recognized its value, smoothed the text as well, and saw to its publication too. Later Károly Szász also recommended certain corrections, which Madách likewise in part accepted.

More important editions: The Tragedy of Man. Published by the Kisfaludy Society, Pest, Gusztáv Emich, 1861. — Second, considerably corrected edition, Pest, Gusztáv Emich, 1863. — Third considerably corrected edition. Pest, Athenaeum, 1869. Gyulai: Collected Works, Palágyi, Alexander, Voinovich: in the cited editions of the Selected Works. With the notes and explanations of Bernát Alexander, Budapest, 1900. Fifth corrected edition 1928. With the notes and explanations of Károly Kardeván, Budapest, 1942. Critical text-edition by Vilmos Tolnai (Napkelet-Library no. I) Budapest, 1923. Second corrected edition 1924. It takes as its basis the 1863, second edition, the last text published in the poet’s lifetime, with János Arany’s corrections. Its notes show the original wording and all the variants and corrections. For the detailed bibliography of the editions and the literature relating to them, see Voinovich’s cited work. For the stage it was adapted by Ede Paulay, its premiere being on September 21, 1883, at the National Theater. On its varied home and foreign stage life see Antal Németh’s book The Tragedy of Man on the Stage, Budapest, 1933. Among the works of Hungarian literature it was the Tragedy that most fully conquered the foreign world. On its translations (up to 1922) the second edition of Voinovich’s cited work informs us. The foreign-language renderings that have appeared since we give here in Jenő Mohácsi’s compilation. In English

Charles Henry Meltzer and Paul Vajda: The Tragedy of Man. Budapest, 1933, Dr. George Vajna & Co.; New York, 1935, MacMillan.

In Bulgarian

Konstantin Belcseff: Tragediata na Csoveka. Sofia, 1939.

In Esperanto

K. Kalocsay: La tragedio de l’homo. Budapest, 1924, Hungara Esperanta Instituto.

In French

G. Vautier: La tragédie de l’homme. Budapest, 1931. Librairie Française.

In Hebrew

Avigdor Hameiri: Chazon-ha-adam. Warszawa, 1924, Stybl.

In Dutch

A. S. C. Wallis: De tragedie van den mensch. Amsterdam, 1922, Maatschappij voor Goede en Goedkoope Lectuur. (A new edition of the translation that appeared in 1887.)

In Yiddish

Josef Holder: Die Tragedie funm Menschen. Published 1930, in the New York monthly Zukunft, and 1934, in the weekly Czernowitzer Blätter.

In Polish T. Prazmowska: Tragiedya Człowieka. Warszawa, 1898, S. Lewenthal. Missing in Voinovich.

In German

Jenő Mohácsi: Die Tragödie des Menschen. Budapest-Leipzig, 1933, Dr. Georg Vajna und Co. Elsa Reitter Podhradszky: Die Tragödie des Menschen. Budapest, 1939, published by the translator.

In Italian

Antonio Widmar: La Tragedia dell’Uomo. Milano, 1934, Genio. Umberto Norsa: La Tragedia dell’Uomo. Milano, 1937, Remo Sandron.

In Romanian

Octavian Goga: Tragedia Omului. Bucureşti, 1934, Fundaţia Pentru Literatură Şi Artă „Regele Carol II”.

In Swedish

Olof Lundgren: Människans Tragedi. Stockholm, 1936. Ungerska Institutet vid Stockholms Högskola.

In Serbian

Klearh [pseudonym]: Tragedija čoveka. Subotica, 193?, Stamp. Minerva. Vladislav Jankulov: Čovekova Tragedija. Novi Sad, 1938. Svetislav Stefanović: Čovekova Tragedija. Beograd, 1940. S. B. Cvijanovića. In Slovene

Vilko Novak and Tine Debeljak: Tragedija človeka. Ljubljana, 1940, Založba Ljudskih Iger.

On the basis of the German translations, several seminar papers were produced at the theater-studies institute of the University of Jena on the problems of the Tragedy, and in their book-series a serious comprehensive study appeared, Wolfgang Mergendorff: Imre Madách: „Die Tragödie des Menschen” („Das Nationaltheater.” Writings-series of the Theater-Studies Institute of the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena). Würzburg, 1942.

Pp. 701—815. Moses. — Gyulai III, 1—142. — 2068 Quart Hung. 48 leaves. Another manuscript is in the Academy’s manuscript department among the competition-works. On the title page the year 1860. The title page is repeated once more inside on a folio-leaf, with the roster of the characters. Entered upon it: „Begun 1860 Jun. 9, finished 1861 Nov. 16.” Here too the lines summed up: 1st Act — 727; 2nd „ — 570; 3rd „ — 401; 4th „ — 460; 5th „ — 312; total 2470.

Madách competed with the drama for the Academy’s Karátsonyi Prize (Dec. 1861). Károly Bérczy wrote the report of the judging committee (Arany, Bérczy, Jókai, Kemény, Pompéry), which was unfavorable. „Dramatized epic,” they established as the piece’s chief fault. Its first performance was at the Kolozsvár National Theater, on Feb. 16, 1888. In Budapest it was staged in 1925 at the National Theater.

FIRST DRAMATIC ATTEMPTS

Pp. 819—914. Commodus. — Unpublished. 709 Oct. Hung. 64 leaves. Written in prose, with frequent iambic lines. A copy; from the fourth act on, his own handwriting; the title page is missing. According to the notes entered upon it, he wished to make certain changes in the order of the scenes — thus to exchange scene 3 of Act I with scene 3 of Act II, perhaps to combine the two catacomb scenes — but he did not carry out the revision. The end of the third act and the beginning of the fourth he wrote twice; we give only the final version, which he continued. The following note too relates to the planned revision: „Whole Hilár drops out.” On the use of certain parts elsewhere, the following two sentences: „The first brotherly-love dialogue into Jolán.” „Lucius into the frivolous Rákóczi.” (All on the first page.) In scene 2 of Act III we find this: „The last hearing here.”

DRAMATIC FRAGMENTS

Pp. 1013—1043. Good Name and Virtue. — Unpublished. 1399 Fol. Hung. 6 leaves, no separate title page. Its date of composition is uncertain, the early 1840s. He exchanged the two scene-headings of Act I, but the text continues in the order written down. One act and one scene of the second were completed, but of the whole a sketch-plan survives, with the subtitle False Shame. (See Miscellaneous Notes, Stage, II, 721—23.) The elaboration is still somewhat sketchy; he merely indicated a detail or a monologue here and there, but did not write it out. Thrown-off remarks indicate the direction of the scenes, and on the 3rd leaf he summarized in a brief sketch the elaborated first scene. This fragment we give here:

BALÁZS

(comes in with Gergely)

As I see, the house of a good citizen, king and saint.

GERGELY

(timid, quiets Balázs, does not let him sit on the sofa. Says, let him ask)

BALÁZS (says)

Why, I desire my right.

GERGELY

Do not forget me when you fare well; from your small childhood I raised you, I would have kept you too, but you did not work, you ran riot.

(comes, exchanges very friendly words with her brother, who goes off.)

BALÁZS

So come into my arms, if the brotherly feeling is so sacred to you.

ÁGNES

(brags.)

BALÁZS

(steps forward with the papers.)

ÁGNES

(All at once grows gentle, begs for them.)

BALÁZS

We know this trick. (Does not give them.)

GERGELY

Come back to me as a waiter.

ÁGNES

(stipulates that he keep silent and promises him support.)

BALÁZS

Only this obstacle, very gladly, only let me have no work.

GERGELY

When you have grown tired of it, come to me, even if the yearly pay should fall away. (Off.)

MOHOL (comes in.)

(Devotion-mongering, they rob their master, they make Gergely a watchman. He turns Petőfi away. Petőfi’s complaint.) Pp. 1045—1051. Lajos II. — Unpublished. 1400 Fol. Hung. 2 leaves. According to his stage notes, he wished at first to develop the piece around the figure of Verbőczi. On the title page of the wholly short fragment a note: „Sept. 17, 1855.” Pp. 1053—1064. Fairy Dream. — First published (the first scene) in Koszorú, 1864, II, 123—25. After it Gyulai, III, 317—28. The beginning of the second scene here for the first time from the manuscript. 1041 Fol. Hung. 9 leaves; the first scene is a copy, from the second scene on his own handwriting. Corrections throughout from Madách’s hand. To the excerpt published in Koszorú, Arany attached the following editorial note: „This fragment is a piece of a work in progress, which, that the author should finish it, the honored readers will wish just as much as the undersigned editor. (p. 125.)” Death did not permit the fulfillment of the wish. *

Madách sketched out plans for his pieces, gave characterizations of his persons, and noted down certain thoughts to be spoken as well. These are to be found on separate leaves among his notes, under the collective title Stage, and in the manuscript of Fairy Dream at the end of the booklet. Volume II

POEMS

Madách himself arranged his poems for publication, on loose leaves bound in a quarto-shaped leather writing-folder, but to this it did not come. From this collection he left out his first attempts, which appeared in 1840 under the title Lute-Flowers, and other early poems, while the later poems, without regard to their time of composition, he divided into two volumes, articulated into cycles on the basis of subject and mood grouping. The poems came onto the leaves already in copy, yet they give the impression of a first draft, so much is there in them of ever-renewed deletion, correction, insertion. He was constantly polishing the form, exchanging his expressions, and not always with success. Meanwhile he changed the order of the poems too, reassigning some from their original place into another cycle; the poems remained in the manuscript in their old place, the changes he indicated on the table of contents, and of the final order of the first cycle, Love, he made a separate list as well. The cycles themselves are unchanged, though as a passing notion the change came up here too. On one paper-leaf attached to the poems he noted down a cycle-division simplified to the utmost: I. Yellow Leaf, To Individuals (Love-poems, letters, album-leaves). II. Echo, Legend (Legends, ballads, tales). III. Wind-Harp, Sundries (Impressions, characterizations, meditations). The final order, however, is the two volumes, with four cycles in the first and seven in the second. The opening poem, Yellow Leaf, and the closing one, As Provisions, with My Poems, open and close the volume respectively, outside the cycles. In our arrangement we have in everything faithfully followed the order of the poems, carefully attending also to the establishment of the final text, which was sometimes laborious enough. Madách placed his insertions, the new text of the deleted parts or of whole poems, either on the already densely written-over leaf, or, mostly without title and marked only with signs, on separate little slips, which in the course of time were torn from their proper place and are now gathered together at the ends of the quires. The crossed-out old variants, our aim not being a critical edition, we have left out. (Gyulai the same.) The manuscript’s shelf-mark: 1397 Fol. Hung., 103 leaves, in two columns, throughout original handwriting, with corrections from various times. Of this the first volume (in our edition: part) is 35 leaves; its first leaf is the table of contents belonging to it, the 10th is the separate division of the Love cycle. The second part with its table of contents extends from leaf 36 to 71, the rest being various

Madách Collected Works II. 74 [running head] 1169 paper-leaves of various sizes with the supplements, among them no. 79 being the simple division mentioned. From the collection only toward the end of his life, after the success of The Tragedy of Man, did a few poems appear. After his death a few were from time to time published from the literary remains; their fuller collection came first in the Gyulai edition, with the already mentioned omissions and alteration. The cited newer editions of the selected poems too scarcely freshened up the material, while more recently the praiseworthy enterprise of the Hungarian Literary Rarities issued the first cycle in its complete entirety and original fidelity before the public. (Imre Madách’s Poems, I. Published by: Dr. Mrs. György Bajusz and the Teaching-Colleagues of her Girls’ Gymnasium. Hungarian Literary Rarities, no. 48.) The itemization of the first publications is the following:

Poems published in his lifetime:

For those published in 1839—40, see among the notes to the First Attempts. Book of Compassion, 1863. (Edited by Pál Gyulai.) Self-Denial, p. 68. Resignation to Fate, p. 223. In Winter, p. 269. Koszorú, 1863, II. The Tears, p. 268. The Captive Family, p. 340. 1864, I. To Borbála, p. 341. 1864, II. Two Suitors, p. 219. Vasárnapi Ujság, 1864. The World’s Trouble, p. 118. Petőfi, p. 202. (On Petőfi’s Grave) Home, p. 423.

Poems published from his literary remains:

Koszorú, 1864, II. Autumn Feeling, p. 372. 1865, I. Our Principles, p. 341. Figyelő, 1871. Death, no. 19. In Church, no. 21. First Kiss, no. 22. The Redeemer, no. 25. The Mourner, no. 42.* Képes Világ, 1871. To My Children, no. 23. Budapesti Szemle, 1875, no. 15. In Autumn; O Little Girl... (Wild Roses III.); In Camp (in Vasárnapi Ujság too, 1875, p. 578); Patriotic Grief; A Toast; In an Album; On a Martyr’s Grave; Metamorphosis; Differing World-View; On a Priest. Vasárnapi Ujság, 1875. A Toast, p. 578. Let Us Rejoice, p. 675. 1876. Pereat, p. 18. Életképek, 1876, no. 24. Tamás Szana’s article on Madách’s literary remains; he announces Gyulai’s edition in preparation. Verse-quotations. Budapesti Szemle, 1878, no. 35. In Company; On Coming Home; The Heroic Lion (From the Diary of a Madman 2.); O Vain Man (do., do., do. 9.); Faith and Knowledge (Epigram); The Enthusiast; To a Coquettish Lady; Right Balance of Weight; At a Woman’s Grave (At the grave of Mrs. D. la Motte). 1878, no. 36. Burial in the Wilderness; I Do Not Fear for You, My Country. Gyulai’s cited work I, 1880. Besides those published thus far, 73 new poems and 62 epigrams.

* In the table of contents the poem In the Cemetery by Gyula E. Kovács, published in no. 36, is erroneously attributed to Imre Madách. Beneath the poem the name is already correct.

From further unpublished pieces: Jelenkor, 1896, no. 41. Contentment (in Fővárosi Lapok too, Dec. 2, 1896); Should I Go Mad?; The Captive’s Last Journey; Let Us Join Hands; On the Lowland. No. 43. Faith and Knowledge (from the Inner Struggle cycle. In Fővárosi Lapok, no. 355, too, in facsimile.); To Her as Woman, part II. (In facsimile.) In Voinovich’s cited work, excerpts, 1914. Nemzeti Újság, 1923, no. 16. At the Flea-Market; To a Woman (from the poem „God Be with You.”); Maiden and Woman; Grave-Song; The Poetry of Death, I. Új Idők, 1923, no. 4. In Revelry. Madách Breviary, 1926. Wishes Fulfilled, p. VIII. The anthology of Károly Balogh’s cited book, 1934. To Lujza, p. 313. Most Beautiful Poetry, p. 327. Give Me a Heart of Stone, p. 337. Happy Hour, p. 352. On a Sickbed, p. 353. Hungarian Literary Rarities, no. 48, 1940. Part I, 1. Love cycle, almost half unpublished. In our edition, 49 new poems and 13 new epigrams.

PART I

Pp. 6—11. The poems grouped here are addressed to Mária Cserny; he kept her name in the one entitled Homage to Mária, but later crossed it out in the title On Parting from Mária. She was an orphan girl who in 1841—42 lived in their house as the companion of Madách’s mother.

PART II

Pp. 339—42. At My Younger Brother Pál’s Grave. — Besides three children who died in infancy, there were five siblings, two girls, Mária and Anna, three boys, Imre, Károly, and Pál. Pál, the youngest, was born in 1827, obtained a lawyer’s diploma, then entered the service of Nógrád county and soon rose to the second vice-sheriffship. In February 1849, when the county submitted to the victorious power, not even at the urging of his elder brother Imre did Pál join in (see on this the note written to pp. 1101—08), but rather fled from home and hastened to Kossuth at Debrecen to take up service. The unaccustomed exertions ruined his weak constitution; he came home with pneumonia and soon died at home. Pp. 342—44. The Memory of My Sister Mária. — Madách’s Mari’s first husband, József Huszár, Nógrád vice-sheriff, died in 1842; five years later she married Károly Balogh, a captain in the Austrian army. During the war of independence Balogh fought in the honvéd army, then after Világos fled southward with his wife and her son from the first marriage. At Lúgos, however, Wallachian highwaymen attacked them and cut down the whole family. Pp. 344—49. To My Children. — Aladár, Ara (Borbála) at the writing of the poem, then Jolán. Here in the Sztregova castle there were also reared the orphans of M.’s Mari: Anna Huszár (from the first marriage) and Károly Balogh. Pp. 368—69. To a Lovelorn Friend of Mine, pp. 370—71. To My Friend P. — Pál Szontágh was born in 1820 at Szécsény. In Nógrád he was notary and district magistrate (1842—47), after his resignation a delegate at the Pozsony diet. After the war of independence he suffered two years’ fortress-imprisonment at Olmütz. Returning home, he farmed in Nógrád county on his Horpács estate. He was Madách’s most intimate friend; his lively, ironic personality well complemented the latter’s gloomier nature. Later he became a member of the diet, president of the Liberal Party, then a member of the upper house. He died in 1904. P. 375. Mrs. Csernyus, Emma, p. 391. On the Grave of Mrs. D. la M. — Madách’s Károly married Emma, the daughter of the widow of Emmánuel Csernyus, executed after the war of independence — born Countess Izabella De la Motte. Balogh’s cited work, p. 69. The grave-poem was written on the death of the grandmother, Mrs. Károly De la Motte, Lujza Szápáry. P. 389. To a Lady. — Noted on its manuscript: Erzsi. There likewise, beside To a Friend of Mine: Sz. P. * Among the fragments written on the separate little slips, one (no. 78) could not be fitted in anywhere. We give it here:

Bringing sameness into the world’s
Torn-apart, up-wailing song,
And he who suffers it half his life, weary,
Pouring rich compensation into its other half
Looks scarcely enviously, who, wakeful,
Drives a hundred glints — and his soul is loveless,
When the word of abandonment, of pale care
Frightens him far, far away into its other half. On the margin of p. 60, with the reference „See A Visit,” he wrote this: „which formed the family, | strives for us, we do not fall away.” At the poem (p. 39), however, there is no trace of what he intended the ill-fitting lines for. h Of a part of the poems we find among Madách’s notes a kind of table, which we insert here. Home: Epigrams. Peace, Peace. Now I Would Enjoy. The Guest’s Arrival. Resignation. Light- and Shadow-Pictures IV. Send: A Married Man’s Song. The Memory of Carthage. Camp Pictures V. From My Captivity II. Eastern Tale. Night Burial. Summer Day, Winter Night. The Angel’s Way. Below: As Provisions, with My Poems. To the Captive’s Flowers. The Crag. Here: The Poetry of Death III. To My Children. Azrael. The Dying Child. Northern Tale. The Ruin of Nineveh. The Mother’s Portion. To a Prison Wall.

Into the row of the Love-songs come:

Shepherd-Girl. New article: Memorial Offering. Modest Girl.

To Erzsi: From My Captivity II. Homeward. Total 6.

And so, subtracted from the above 38, 6 taken off, there remain 32. Of these, as a final section comes 11; a section to be newly created, 11; distributed into the other 9 sections, 1 each, 9; a close, 1.

Total 32. There have been so far 76 Love-songs; 6 come newly to them; total 82.

II sections at II poems each, 121. Beginning and Close, 2. The total is 205.