The story of my struggles: the memoirs of Arminius Vambéry, Volume 1
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Title: The story of my struggles: the memoirs of Arminius Vambéry, Volume 1
Author: Ármin Vámbéry
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF MY STRUGGLES: THE MEMOIRS OF ARMINIUS VAMBÉRY, VOLUME 1 ***
THE STORY OF MY STRUGGLES
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
ARMINIUS VAMBÉRY:
His Life and Adventures.
Imperial 16mo, cloth, 6s. Boys' Edition, crown 8vo, cloth gilt,
gilt edges, 5s.
THE STORY OF HUNGARY.
Fully Illustrated. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. (THE STORY OF THE
NATIONS SERIES.)
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
[Illustration: PROFESSOR VAMBÉRY AT THE AGE OF 70
(_Photo by Strelisky._)]
THE STORY OF MY STRUGGLES
THE MEMOIRS OF ARMINIUS VAMBÉRY
PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BUDAPEST
VOLUME I
[Illustration: Logo]
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE . 1904
(_All rights reserved._)
Preface
Authors of Autobiographies are much exposed to fall into
self-glorification. If I nevertheless have undertaken to write the
following pages, I have done so because of the unexpectedly favourable
criticism which the first two chapters of my book--_Life and Adventures
of Arminius Vambéry, Written by Himself_--met with in England and in
America. In this book I tried to lay before the public an account of
such travels and wanderings of mine as were not comprised in my first
book on Central Asia, and in addition I thought it advisable to give a
few outlines of my juvenile adventures and struggles. Strange to say it
was the narrative of the latter which elicited the particular interest
of my readers, as I noticed from the many letters I received from the
most distant parts of Europe and America.
Well, I said to myself, if such short sketches of my curious career have
evoked this interest on the part of my readers, what will be the
impression if I draw the picture of my whole life and of all the
vicissitudes I went through from my childhood to my present old age?
This is the main reason of the issue of the present volumes. Keeping in
mind the Oriental proverb, "To speak of his own self is the business of
the Shaitan," I have reluctantly touched upon many topics connected with
my personality, but events are mostly inseparable from actors, and
besides I have found encouragement in recalling the appreciation Britons
and Americans are habitually ready to accord to the career of self-made
men.
There are besides other motives which have served as incentives to these
pages. The various stages of my life have been passed in various
countries and societies, and a personal record of men and events dating
from half a century back may not be without interest to the present
generation. Unchecked by conventional modesty and false shame, I have
related all I went through in plain and unadorned words, and if I have
not concealed facts relating to my very humble origin and to the
mistakes I committed, neither have I thought it necessary to leave
unmentioned the result of my labours and the honours entailed by them.
It is now forty years ago since I had first the honour of coming before
the British public, and my desire to be thoroughly known by it may be
pardoned.
A. VAMBÉRY.
Contents
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
MY ANTECEDENTS AND INFANCY 1
CHAPTER II.
JUVENILE STRUGGLES 33
CHAPTER III.
THE PRIVATE TUTOR 69
CHAPTER IV.
MY FIRST JOURNEY TO THE EAST 105
CHAPTER V.
MY SECOND JOURNEY TO THE EAST 161
CHAPTER VI.
THE RETURN TO EUROPE 203
Illustrations
PROFESSOR VAMBÉRY AT THE AGE OF SEVENTY _Frontispiece_
PROFESSOR VAMBÉRY IN HIS EIGHTEENTH YEAR _Facing page 35_
My Antecedents and Infancy
CHAPTER I
MY ANTECEDENTS AND INFANCY
"_Cogito ergo sum!_" Yes, I am here, but the date of my birth I cannot
positively state, as I have no means of ascertaining it. I had the
problematic good fortune to be born of Jewish parents, and as at that
time the Jews in Hungary were not compelled by law to be regularly
registered, and the authorities were satisfied with such scanty
information as the parish documents afforded, I have not been able to
get any official certificate as to the date of my birth. My mother told
me that I was born shortly before my father's death on St. Joseph's Day,
and as my father was one of the last victims of the cholera which began
to scourge the land in 1830, I cannot be far wrong in giving the year of
my birth as 1831 or 1832.
Genealogy not being one of my favourite subjects, I will not trouble the
reader with a detailed account of my pedigree. As far as I know, my
great-great-grandfather came from the worthy little town of Bamberg, and
when the Emperor Joseph II. commanded his Jewish subjects to take a
surname, my grandfather, who was born in Hungary, took the name of the
town of his ancestors, and was entered as Bamberger. As time went on the
"B" was changed into "W," and my father wrote his name as Wamberger,
although he made but little use of this registered name, for in those
days the Orthodox Jews followed the Oriental custom, according to which
the father's name is the one generally used, and the family name is
merely of official importance. My father was not only a devout Jew, but
also a distinguished Talmudist who often spent whole days and nights in
study, without troubling himself much about mundane affairs. Religious
zeal and love of learning are the two powerful levers of this especially
Jewish erudition, and its disciples who regard intellectual and
religious attainments as one and the same thing necessarily live in a
visionary world into which none but theologians of Asiatic creeds can
penetrate, and which has long since been closed to Christian divines,
whose doctrines are so permeated with scepticism. According to my
mother's saying, my father must have caught this fever of fanatical
enthusiasm in his early youth. In ordinary life he was diffident and
awkward, and when he came to woo her in her father's house at
Lundenburg, in Moravia, his appearance had caused much secret amusement
to the girls of the Malavan family. But my mother, a beautiful girl of
eighteen, had soon taken a liking to the bashful young scholar, who had
bright eyes and pleasant features to recommend him. She had been brought
up by a stepmother, and from her earliest youth had tasted many a time
from the bitter cup of life. She hoped to find happiness at the side of
an earnest and religious-minded man, and so easily yielded to the
persuasions of her Orthodox father, and left her home and her birthplace
to follow the Talmudist, of whom as yet she knew but little, into
Hungary to the town of St. Georghen, in the Presburger county, where my
father, as a native of the place, hoped to get the appointment of
under-rabbi.
But, as is only too well known, theologians of all times and religions
have always evinced an unconquerable hatred, jealousy, and bitterness
towards men of their own profession, and the darts thrown by the
religious zealot are known to be far more venomous than those of the
hunter after worldly treasures. The Talmudists of St. Georghen, whose
number must of necessity have been very limited, were not exempt from
this vice, and as my father's quiet, modest nature could not cope with
his antagonists, the hope of preferment vanished more and more into the
background, and the darkened horizon of the poor man's future was now
only illumined by the steady glimmer of his enthusiasm for his studies.
While musing and speculating upon the intricacies of the Mishna and
Gemara, the good man quite forgot that the modest dowry which my mother
had brought with her could not last for ever, and was not inexhaustible
like the bottomless discussions and arguments of his favourite study,
and that in order to live one had to look beyond the world of books into
the busy market-place of everyday life. Soon my mother had to rouse him
to the realisation of this cruel necessity. She was fully aware of the
gravity of the situation, and all the ways and means by which the clever
but young and inexperienced woman had tried to ward off the evil day
proved fruitless. At one time she advised her husband to commence a
fruit and corn business, then they tried to keep a public-house, but
when everything failed the pious Talmudist was forced to become a
hawker, and buying the agricultural products from the farmers in the
neighbouring villages to try to sell them again at a small profit. What
terrible martyrdom this must have been to the inspired Talmudist--to
leave his study and his books and to go hawking among the raw Slavonic
peasants of the neighbourhood! What self-sacrifice, to leave the
multi-coloured, visionary fields of "Halacha" and "Hagada," and to
descend to the vulgar occupation of bargaining and bartering for a sack
of beans or peas, a sheep- or a goat-skin. My mother often recalled it
with tears in her eyes, for she was deeply attached to my father. She
shared his enthusiasm for study, she sympathised in his mental
struggles, but the voice of hunger is peremptory; she encouraged and
helped him, and my poor father hardly ever lost his patience. One wet
day in autumn, having bought a cowhide, yet damp, from a butcher at
Ratzersdorf, he flung it over his shoulder on the top of a heavy load he
was carrying. Thus laden he reached home late in the evening, wet
through and tired out after wading through the deep mud. My mother
awaited him with the frugal evening meal, but he, throwing down his load
on the floor, went straight into his little study, where he buried
himself in his books; and when my mother, tired of waiting, came to look
for him, she found him as deep in his studies as if he had been sitting
there the whole day. A man of such habits and tendencies was not likely
to succeed in looking after the temporary needs of his family. It is
therefore not surprising that my mother, with her practical common
sense, at last came to the conclusion that it would be best to leave her
husband to his books, and herself to look after the support of the
family. And so my mother became a business woman. She went out into the
world while my father sat at home in his study and took care of the
house. A sad change of places, which pleased my mother only in so far
as, being a pious Jewess, she thought she was doing a work well pleasing
to God. But the interests of the family suffered greatly, for as she was
inexperienced in the struggle for existence, our poverty increased
rapidly, and when the destroying angel, the cholera, at that time
ravaging Europe, swept over North-West Hungary also, and snatched away
my father, my mother, at the age of twenty-two, was left a widow with
two children in the greatest distress.
This terrible blow, the misery of it, and the feeling of loneliness in a
strange land filled the young, energetic woman with unwonted activity.
She took a young companion from Lundenburg into the house to look after
the children, in order that she might devote herself more entirely to
her business. She laboured without interruption, and in the second year
of her widowhood she had the satisfaction of seeing her cellar stocked
with good wine, her storehouse full of corn, and her inn one of the most
frequented in the little town of St. Georghen. She was getting on very
well indeed, but in order to extend her business she thought a man's
support was necessary, so she married again. Her husband was a young man
of her own age, who came from Duna Szerdahely, and was now to be the
father of the orphans (_i.e._, my sister and myself) and my mother's
protector and companion. Whether my mother was induced to take this step
under the pretext used by all young widows, or whether she really needed
assistance, I cannot and dare not investigate. One thing is certain, she
did not improve her condition, for Mr. Fleischmann, as her second
husband was called, was a kind-hearted, easy-going man, but by no means
industrious or enterprising. He helped to spend the money, but not to
make it. And when, after the first year, my mother upbraided him for his
idleness, he declared that here, among strangers, he should never get
on, but if my mother would go with him to his native town he was sure
that there, surrounded by his relatives and friends, he should be far
better able to attend to his duties as head of the family.
And so it came about that my mother, and we with her, left St. Georghen
and settled at Duna Szerdahely, from which place I date my intellectual
awakening, for I look upon this town, and not the one where I first
beheld the light, as my real birthplace. I must at that time have been
about three years old, and my recollections of my first home are very
vague indeed. But I clearly remember one scene. I was playing about
under the big oblong table of the public room, while on the knobs round
about the table small miniature loaves were strung together, which I ate
one after the other, for even then I was known for my large appetite.
These gastric feats were interrupted by the entrance of several guests,
who playfully blew the froth of their beer glasses down upon me. It gave
me a fright which I remember to this day. Other incidents of my infancy
have also left a vague impression upon my mind. Thus, for instance, I
remember quite distinctly the morning when I got up with a pain in my
foot, and began to limp. Coxalgia had then taken hold of me, and I began
to go lame with my left leg, an affliction for which no cure could be
found, as will be further related in the course of this narrative. I can
slightly remember our move, which was effected on a large waggon, but I
have no distinct recollection of anything during the first two or three
years in Duna Szerdahely, my adopted native town.
Where other children find roses on their path, and the blue sky of
golden youth is for ever smiling down upon them, I found nothing but
thorns, privation, and misery. It soon became evident that our
stepfather, as already mentioned, although a good-hearted man, possessed
none of those qualities which everybody needs in the struggle of life;
how much more, then, a man who has a whole family dependent upon him!
The small capital which my mother had brought with her from St. Georghen
soon dwindled away. Poverty entered the house and peace departed, and
the children had to suffer much through the mother's ever-increasing
despondency. The public-house had to be given up, and we tried a fresh
departure, viz., the sale of leeches. This was a sort of family trade of
the Fleischmanns in Duna Szerdahely, or rather a miserable sort of
hawker's business. The brothers Fleischmann bought from the peasants the
leeches found in abundance in the neighbouring swamps, and after sorting
them they sold them to the apothecaries of Northern Hungary.
At a very early age I was initiated into the details of the trade. The
leeches had to be sorted according to size, and put in linen bags about
40 centimeters long; they were bathed twice in the twenty-four hours, an
operation at which the children assisted, but I had great difficulty in
overcoming a feeling of repugnance when I had to separate the wretched
creatures from the slimy substance. It happened sometimes that the
leeches escaped in the night from the bag, if it had not been securely
enough fastened, and crawled about in the room which served us all as
bedroom. As we children had to sleep on the floor, for lack of a
bedstead, sometimes the one, sometimes the other of us would wake with a
sudden fright, for the hungry animals used to get hold of our toes, or
some other member, and quietly begin to suck. Then, of course, there was
a general commotion; the creatures had to be searched for with a light,
and replaced in the bag. The tragi-comedy of these nocturnal scenes
highly amused us children.
The weal and the woe of the family, which meanwhile had increased from
four to six and seven, depended entirely upon the demand for, and the
price of, leeches. In Hungary, bleeding was still in fashion, but as
medical science in its steady growth began to prohibit all methods for
reducing the blood, the demand for leeches necessarily became less; and
as their value decreased, the poverty in our home increased. The rosy
days of childhood were for me days of suffering and privation and want.
Sometimes the pinch of poverty was terrible to bear, especially when my
stepfather was on one of his hawking tours, which often took weeks.
Then, when the money he had left behind had come to an end, we had to
live on black bread, potatoes cooked in various ways, beans, peas, and
lentils. Coffee and milk were luxuries, and meat we only had in very
small portions on Saturdays and feast-days. Many a time we had not even
bread, and I have a lively recollection of the queer manner in which we
managed to get hold of some. Our house, a poor, dilapidated little place
on a level with the ground, stood at the extreme end of the little town,
on the borders of a willow-grove, and close to the large piece of waste
ground where wandering gipsies used to set up their black tents. Thus at
a very early age I became interested in gipsy life. I distinctly
remember the camp of these brown children of the East. Some of them were
almost naked, others dressed in rags, but never failed to display large
silver buttons on their tattered garments. My first impressions of
nomadic life I received through these people. They belonged to the tribe
known in Hungary as the "Wallachian Gipsies," a remarkable people,
wilder and more lawless than the half-civilised tribes. They lived by
stealing, fortune-telling, and tinkering, and were so hardened that in
the bitterest weather they would camp in the open. The next morning the
children would be packed into a kind of feather-bed, which was slung
over the horse's head, forming bags on either side; and so the journey
was resumed, the mother generally sitting on the horse, the bigger boys
and the men going on foot.
The road leading to the villages situated on the island Schütt, between
Duna Szerdahely and Komorn, went past our house, and as on Fridays all
the beggars of the neighbourhood were allowed to beg for alms of any
description in the market-places, mendicants of all ages and both sexes
might be seen on such days making their way past our house towards those
places. The picture of the horrible, motley caravan of feigned and real
cripples, blind, dumb, and lame folks, of lepers and paralytics, in
their dirty, tattered garments, fills me with dismay even now. The
phantoms of the past are ever before my eyes. And it was with these
miserable, offensive creatures that I had to barter on Friday afternoons
for the bread and other victuals they had collected during the
day--money seldom came their way--in exchange for one or two bottles of
brandy. It was indeed a bitter piece of bread, grudgingly bestowed by
dirty, sickly hands. Nevertheless, it was welcome food to us in our
starving condition. In my earliest youth I made the acquaintance of that
terrible spectre, hunger, and even in subsequent stages of my life he
has often been my companion; my battles with this monster were certainly
not amongst the lightest I have had to fight.
In spite of everything I grew up strong and healthy, and, with the
exception of one illness when I was three years old--and of which I
have some remembrance, because my mother, in obedience to a superstition
prevalent in Hungary, sold me for a few kreuzer to another woman, in the
hope that God would ward off the impending danger, and be moved to
clemency towards the possibly sinless new mother--I have not known a
day's illness in the whole of my life. From early spring till late
autumn I went about generally barefooted and scantily clothed. In the
summer I slept by preference in the yard, under the overhanging roof of
our house, instead of in the close bedroom, and I slept so soundly that
not even a thunderstorm roused me until my naked feet were soaking wet
with the pouring rain. My rosy, chubby cheeks, my bright, black eyes,
and my curly hair found favour with the women folk; and whenever I came
in the market-place the farmers' wives petted and fondled me, and always
made the same remark, "Pity the little Jew is crooked." Personally, I
did not trouble much about this bodily defect. With my crutch tucked
under the left arm, I went about quite happily, and even tried to run
races with my companions. But when I had to give up the race on account
of my lame leg, and came home crying, my mother used to comfort me with
the words: "My child, thou wilt do better than any of thy companions,
but thou must have patience and perseverance."
My bodily affliction, however, was a grievous thorn in my mother's eye.
Her vanity was wounded, and her one aim and object was to rid me of the
evil. What has she not done to effect this? The ways and means by which
she endeavoured to cure me pass all description. The most out-of-the-way
remedies and magic cures were resorted to. I was not only bathed in
various kinds of herbs, rubbed with all possible and imaginable salves
and greases, but the strangest magic charms were tried at my expense.
And when everything failed I was placed at midnight at the crossing of
the road, to fall under the spell of passing old gipsy women. But worst
of all were the experiments of miracle-mongers or quacks. At one time
one such appeared in the shape of a Catholic priest, in the village of
Rudnó, in North Hungary, and no sooner had my mother heard of him than
she left the family in charge of her relatives, and undertook the long,
laborious journey to find him. As there were no railways, we travelled
on foot, a charitable farmer sometimes giving us a lift on his loaded
cart. And so we trudged on for many weary days, until the wretched
little village was reached. My poor destitute mother had to slip a fee
into the hand of the landlady of this clerical charlatan before we could
be admitted, but the gentleman of the black cowl did not waste many
words with his patients. He casually looked at my crooked leg, wrote a
prescription--the apothecary being partner in this holy business--and I
was dismissed with the promise of a speedy recovery. Even to this day I
marvel how my mother, a thoroughly clever, capable woman--although she
could neither read nor write--was so desperately entangled in the meshes
of superstition, and that no amount of disillusion could save her from
falling into the same error again.
The uselessness of the Rudnó prescription was still fresh in our minds,
when the fame of a new Wonder-doctor in the village of Gròb, in the
Neutraer county, was spread abroad, and my mother at once set out again.
The miraculous cure-worker this time was not a priest, but an ordinary,
ignorant peasant who could neither read nor write. We went to see him at
his farm, and when he heard that there was good wine to be had in Duna
Szerdahely, he at once offered to go home with us to effect the cure. A
cure indeed! So barbarously cruel and drastic was the remedy, that no
man with any proper feeling would have subjected an animal to it. For
five days running my leg had to be held over hot vapours every morning
for a certain length of time to soften the sinews and fibres, as the
peasant-doctor explained. Then on the sixth day the great operation took
place. My mother was sent out of the house, and I was made to lie down
on the floor, two strong gipsies acting as assistants, holding me tight,
the one by the shoulders, the other by the feet. Then the peasant threw
himself with all his weight upon the crippled knee, which formed almost
a right angle. A terrible crash--and I knew no more. When I came to
myself again, my poor weeping mother was on her knees beside me. She
caressed me and gave me something to drink. The injured leg was now put
between rough wooden splints and tightly bandaged. Curative measures of
this kind were in vogue in Hungary in 1836, and they are so still, not
only in Hungary, but in other countries of civilised Europe! Of course
the operation was without success. When the splints were removed, and I
could go about again, the old mischief returned, the crutch had again to
be resorted to, and I have gone through life limping, not altogether to
my disadvantage, as the subsequent pages will show.
Apart from this bodily defect I enjoyed good health as a child,
notwithstanding the chary and very primitive nourishment I received, and
in spite of the many miseries to which I was exposed on account of
insufficient clothing. Sometimes I was inclined to envy the better lot
of my schoolfellows and companions, and was unhappy in consequence, but
this early hardening process was the very best training I could have had
for my later career. The sufferings and privations I had later to bear
as Mohammedan mendicant friar seemed to me not much harder nor more
trying than what I had to go through in my youth.
This much as regards my physical bringing up. As for my intellectual
accomplishments, the reader must first be made acquainted with the
literary demands which, to the Orthodox Jew of those days, were
inseparable from a righteous and God-fearing life. Just as the
Mohammedan understands by learning merely religious knowledge, by
erudition merely a thorough acquaintance with the Koran and ritualistic
observances, and sees the ideal of education only in theological
accomplishments, so also the Jew regards a knowledge of the Holy
Scriptures as the only essential thing, and the study of the Talmud is
his chief accomplishment. Young lads, therefore, are first of all taught
to read Hebrew, and when they have become familiar with the letters of
the foreign tongue, they proceed to translate the Hebrew text according
to a very primitive method. They are told a few words here and there,
and have to make out the sense as best they can. Then, as a third stage,
they come to the grammar, the actual study of the language. Schools in
general were conducted much on the same primitive principle. Any Jew
with a sufficient knowledge of the Holy Scriptures was authorised to set
up an educational establishment, and the success of the school depended
in most cases upon the greatest number of successful pupils and on the
smallness of the school fees. The pedagogic talent of the teacher also
carried some weight, _i.e._, whether he made much or little use of the
birch rod; for the schools where stripes and swollen cheeks were not so
frequent were naturally favoured by soft-hearted mothers. I received my
elementary education in a third-rate school; but an inborn brightness
of intellect and good memory enabled me soon to rise above my
schoolfellows, and I was qualified to enter the best-known school of the
place at a much reduced fee. I learned with pleasure and facility, and
had a special liking for learning by heart. I had but to read a Hebrew
text two or three times to be able to say it off by heart without much
prompting. The teacher had noticed this, and of course my mother knew
it, for she used to say, "His father was a great scholar, he is bound to
have plenty of brains."
Nevertheless she kept me rigorously at my lessons, and when I went to
bed I had to put my books, often big folios, under my pillow, "for,"
said my mother, "knowledge will get into thine head over night, right
through the bolster," which I believed literally. Yes, my mother was a
remarkable woman. Blind superstition and rare common sense alternated in
her. She had a most extraordinary energy, and was a type of the Jewess
of the Middle Ages, full of ancient principles and maxims, sometimes
showing themselves in a tenacious clinging to the old faith, sometimes
conforming to existing circumstances. If there was a thunderstorm in the
night she would quickly make a light, open the Bible at the Creation
story, and exclaim, "Behold, O God, Thou hast created the world, destroy
not Thine own handiwork." Her memory was marvellous. She could remember
the smallest details of her early childhood, and told me often what her
mother had said to her about the Frenchmen after the battle of
Austerlitz. How they overran the country in the neighbourhood of
Lundenburg, and how the grenadiers forced their way into the houses,
crying for "_Café! Café, sacré nom de Dieu!_" I think I must have
inherited my memory from my mother.
My knowledge up to my eighth year consisted chiefly of the Pentateuch
with commentary, the Prophets, and other Biblical stories, besides
Hungarian and German, reading and writing. I felt quite at home in the
five books of Moses, and in the Prophets I was sufficiently versed to
recite and translate long passages from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Treassar, and
other Holy Scriptures. These accomplishments gave me a certain standing
among my schoolfellows, and the teacher used to bring me forward as a
kind of specimen of his teaching; for whenever a father came to the
school to introduce his promising offspring, I was called up and
examined to prove by my answers the zeal and skill of the teacher.
To be thus gazed at in one's youth has its dangers, for it is apt to
make one somewhat vain, and it might easily have grown into self-conceit
if my mother's warning words had not from time to time acted like a
shower-bath on the fire of my youthful imagination. "Thou art nothing
yet, thou knowest nothing yet," said she; "the son of my first husband
must be the first of all the boys." And what my mother meant by _the
first_ was not confined to the Jewish schools at Duna Szerdahely. For
she intended me to excel not only in Jewish but also in Christian
learning. Devout and God-fearing though she was, she seems soon to have
come to the conclusion that the study of Thora and Talmud may be all
very well to open the gates of Paradise, but that they are of little use
to help one on in the world, and that under the altered conditions of
the time the disposition which reduced my father to beggary would be of
still less use to me. In short, my mother had made up her mind that I
was to relinquish the study of Jewish religion and direct my attention
to a worldly career, and that the son of the Rabbi and Talmudist was to
become a universal scholar. The boldness of this plan can only be fully
appreciated by those who have known some of the aspirations of the life,
the ways of thinking, and the horrible fanaticism of the Jews of those
days.
In my youth the Jewish community of Duna Szerdahely had the reputation
of being the most devout, the most zealous congregation of Hungary, in
no wise tinged with doctrinal innovations; the most devout of all
Europe, in fact, with the exception of a few Russian and Polish
communities, celebrated for their Chasidendon, or zeal. It was a piece
of pure unalloyed mediæval conceit, with all its wildly fanatical
fancies and impossibilities; a pure counterfeit of that religious life
the dark shadow of which in my after life, during my sojourn with the
Moslems of Bokhara, has filled me with horror. In this superabundance of
religious enthusiasm, in this frightful labyrinth of ritualistic
cavilling and grievous superstition, I spent my childhood. Summer and
winter, early in the morning and late at night, I never neglected at the
first sound of the wooden hammer on the door--this replaced the bell
which calls the Jews to worship--to speed towards the synagogue, where
my strong young voice at a very early age was heard above all the
worshippers, and stamped me as a boy of marked Divine favour.
I would rather have died of hunger than have taken a mouthful of food
which had not been prepared according to the established ritual, or than
partake of meat or milk food without observing the necessary interval of
six hours, or, worst of all, than incur pollution by contact with that
most monstrous of all creatures--the swine! For fear of baring my head I
wore my cap right down over my ears, and when some mischievous Christian
lads once forcibly took it from me, I trembled all over like an aspen
leaf, and imagined that I should straightway be committed to the awful
tortures of the Gehenna. In order not to have to say the word _Kreutz_
(cross), I always said _Schmeitzer_ instead of _Kreutzer_. When I passed
a crucifix I always turned my head the other way, and murmured words of
disgust, or secretly spat on the ground. If by chance on Saturday, the
day of absolute rest, I found a copper or silver coin on the ground, I
pushed it along with my foot (as it was a sin to touch it with my hand),
and in holy dread covered it up with dust and dirt, so that I might find
it again next day. A religion which has to instruct its confessors in
these minutest details, which prescribes how he must eat, drink, walk,
stand, sleep, dress, cleanse his body outwardly and inwardly; how to
associate with women and how to comport himself during different natural
occurrences--such a religion necessarily exercises a profound influence
upon the youthful mind, it absorbs him entirely, it captivates his
senses and his thoughts. I found exactly the same thing in after years
among the Moslem youths of Turkey and Persia. There, as here, faith
really manifests itself merely in outward appearances, in a ritual which
is observed with the greatest exactitude, and it is therefore not
surprising that the young Jew, like the Moslem, when in after years he
begins to inquire into things for himself, breaks the fetters and
becomes a freethinker. This total revolution of ideas may be explained
as the natural result when two such widely different elements come into
contact with each other.
The transformation necessarily depends to a great extent upon the
natural tendencies of the individual. As long as I attended the Jewish
school, and all contact with the Christian world was prohibited, there
could of course be no question of scepticism with me. It was really my
mother who gave the initiative; for, as already mentioned, she meant me
to have a secular education. Regardless of the harsh criticism of our
fellow-believers, she removed me from the Jewish school, and placed me
in the elementary school maintained by the Protestant community. Here I
was taught from Christian books, attended the catechising, and received
such elementary notions of geography and natural history as the
extremely primitive school-books then in use in Hungary were able to
furnish. The description of the earth was contained in a little book in
verse, called "Kis tükör," or "Small Mirror." Natural history was
limited to the description of a few animals, and instead of the
Hungarian mother-tongue we were initiated into the elements of Latin. It
was, to say the best of it, very meagre fare which Christian culture
vouchsafed to me, but it was so totally different from my former
studies, which dealt only with events that happened thousands of years
ago, that even these scanty morsels convinced me of the greater
sustaining power and interest of the intellectual food here offered. The
intercourse with Christian companions of my own age also made me freer
and less prejudiced, for I played with them and made friends, without,
however, entering their houses or touching the food and cakes they
offered. This, both my mother and I felt, would be rank apostasy, and
would be going a little too far for the only son of the former rabbi!
But the ice was broken. True, I had not yet dared to climb over the wall
of partition which, on account of my bringing up, separated me from the
outer world, but I began to cast furtive glances over to the other side,
and when my mother, little by little, made me familiar with the idea of
following a secular career and becoming a doctor, the thick clouds of
orthodox religious views soon dispersed, the horizon widened, and with
ecstasy my childish eye roamed over those distant regions of delight.
I may have been about ten years old then. My plans for the future were
made, but the means to carry them out cost my dear mother unspeakable
anxiety. The poverty and misery of the family had now reached a climax.
My elder sister had already gone to service, and in order that I might
not take the bread out of the children's mouths my mother made up her
mind, though with a heavy heart, to send me also out of the house. I
went as apprentice to a lady tailoress, whose son I instructed in the
Hebrew language, in return for which she boarded me and initiated me in
the mysteries of sewing together light cotton and linen materials.
The three hours which I spent in the fulfilment of my pedagogic duties
were pleasant enough. It flattered my vanity to teach a boy of my own
age, but all the more disagreeable was the time which I had to spend
sitting at the round table among my companions and the more advanced
pupils in the tailor's trade. Here I had always to bear mocking remarks
about my clumsiness; they were always finding fault with me, and often
gave me palpable instruction how to hold my needle and thimble, how not
to crush the stuff unnecessarily, and so on. In short, the initiation
into the noble art of tailoring was embittered for me to such an extent
that after the first month had elapsed I complained to my mother with
tears. She realised the mistake she had made, and encouraged me to hold
out at least until the winter was past and she should have secured a
good appointment for me. It cost me much to consent, but my mother's
admonitions and the consciousness that during the bitter winter weather
I should at least have a warm room and tolerable food, whereas I used to
have to go all the way to school scantily dressed and with a few warm
potatoes in my pocket for breakfast, conquered at last. I became
reconciled to my disagreeable lot, until with the awakening of the
spring the hope of improving my condition also awoke in me, and glimmers
of future possibilities rose before my mind's eye.
I had now reached my eleventh year, and made up my mind to leave not
only my home, but also the town in which my mother, the only being who
cared for me, lived.
To set out into the world at eleven years of age, in poverty and
misery, with a crutch as companion, away from a mother's loving
sympathy, henceforth to wander among strangers, and to be subject to
their cold gaze, surely this is a cruel trial and hard to bear for a
young, sensitive child. The thought of it frightened me; it weighed me
down and forced tears from my eyes--tears which flowed the more
abundantly when I saw by my mother's red eyes that she also struggled in
vain to keep them down.
But what was to be done? In my dire distress and utter helplessness
there seemed no other way open to reach that goal to which my natural
propensities appeared to point. My mother encouraged me by saying, "Thou
canst not and darest not be an ordinary man. The spirit of thy learned
father is in thee. Thou must study and become a doctor; and in order to
commence thy studies at the college of St. Georghen, where thy name is
known and they will take an interest in thee, thou must earn a few
florins first, for I can give thee at best only a change of linen and a
suit of clothes for the journey. Yes, my child, thou wilt have much to
bear, many hardships to suffer, but mark what I say--we must not mind
the trouble. _During the first part of the night we must prepare the bed
on which to stretch ourselves during the latter part._"
Such and similar admonitions and encouraging words were oft repeated.
They steeled my courage, and when the appointment of teacher in the
house of the Jewish inn-keeper in the village of Nyék--about two hours'
distant from Duna Szerdahely--was offered to me, I accepted it
gratefully, and accompanied by my mother, with my crutch and a small
bundle on my back, I left the place where I had spent the days of my
childhood, to undertake the office which was to furnish me with the
means to commence my new career.
Leaving the dusty road for a short cut across the fields, we soon
reached Nyék; and when my mother introduced me to my future principal,
the man curiously eyed the insignificant, poorly dressed appearance of
the crippled teacher, and during the low, whispered conversation I
frequently caught the words, "Too young, too small." A Jew from
Szerdahely who knew me happened to be present; he was kind enough to
speak a good word for me by saying, "Never mind the outside; it's the
inside you want. The lad is crammed full of book-learning; he knows the
Prayer-book and the Pentateuch by heart, and if Moritz--that was the
name of my future pupil--has but a spark of intelligence in him, he will
get on well with him."
Meanwhile the mother and the son had also come in, and while the former
gazed with a scarcely concealed smile, as if to say, "He will hardly be
a match for my Moritz," the latter glared at me with open dislike, and
tearing himself away from his mother he ran into the garden. Such a
reception was not calculated to inspire me with courage, or to paint my
future duties as mentor in too rose-coloured a light. I stood there for
some time perplexed and broken-hearted; and it was the more difficult to
collect myself, as the pain of having to part with my dear mother took
all my spirit away. My mother, of course, suffered still more keenly,
but not a trace of her inner struggle did she betray; she remained a
little while longer with me, and, after warmly embracing me, she took
her leave and went with me into the garden. Stepping lightly over the
threshold, and looking back only once or twice she swiftly walked home
the same way we had come. There I stood, broken-hearted, gazing after my
mother as she disappeared in the distance, and overcome with sorrow I
sank down, kissed the threshold which her foot had so lately touched,
and cried bitter tears of despair over the hardness of my lot.
From this prostrate condition I was suddenly roused by a rough touch on
the shoulder, and when I looked round Moritz stood before me. He grinned
and said, "Teacher, come to dinner." Obeying this summary call, I
entered the room where the family was already seated at table, but I
could hardly touch anything, and although some good-natured souls tried
to cheer me up, several days passed before I could get used to the new
condition of things and properly fulfil such duties as were entrusted to
me. For I was not only teacher, but also house-servant and waiter. Four
hours a day I had to instruct "dear Moritz" in writing, reading, and
arithmetic, and in the Pentateuch, but early in the morning and late in
the evening I had to provide the peasants going to or coming back from
the field with wine and brandy, and on Friday afternoons--_i.e._, before
the beginning of the Sabbath--I had to clean the boots of all the family
and brush the clothes. How my master came upon the idea of combining
these various offices, and making me the "boy of all work," as I had
specially been engaged as teacher, is a mystery to me to this day. The
Oriental says, "Man loads the ass as much as he can, but not as he (the
ass) likes," and this proverb the inn-keeper of Nyék seems to have
followed. I performed my duties to the best of my ability; but I soon
noticed that whereas the peasants always found the measure of spirituous
liquor offered to them too small or too deficient, my pupil found the
time of intellectual "dressing" always far too long, and together with
his mother complained to his father that I overburdened his mind. If I
had not made the mistake of treating my pupil, out of school hours, as
my companion and playmate--which seemed so natural because we were of
the same age--I might perhaps have impressed him more, but the anomaly
of attempting to combine in one person playfellow and teacher revenged
itself bitterly upon me; for once when, carried away by my professional
zeal, I upbraided my pupil in rather strong language for his
carelessness and stupidity, the rascal, who was much bigger and stronger
than I, attacked me, threw me on the floor, gave me a terrible
thrashing, and when at last my cries brought his mother on the scene,
she had much difficulty in liberating me from the hands of my
obstreperous pupil. The "dear boy" received a reprimand for the
impropriety of his behaviour, and then things went on as usual. This
first failure of my pedagogic capability was followed by many others. In
my capacity of waiter and shoe-black I could, to a certain extent,
maintain the credit and dignity of my office, but as teacher I was less
fortunate, since occasional fits of playfulness and merriment did not
agree with the gravity of my position as mentor. I soon wearied of my
false position, and counted myself fortunate indeed when the six months
were over and I could return to Szerdahely with my earnings--_eight
florins_ (sixteen shillings)--in my pocket.
Juvenile Struggles
[Illustration: VAMBÉRY IN HIS EIGHTEENTH YEAR.
_To face Page 35._]
CHAPTER II
JUVENILE STRUGGLES
My visit to my home was very pleasant; instead of the cold surroundings
I had been used to among strangers, I now met on all sides loving
glances from my brothers and sisters, and more especially from my
mother, who was proud of the son who had already earned eight bright
silver florins. She entertained the greatest hopes as to the result of
my future studies and saw me in imagination a country doctor sent for by
all the villagers for miles around, handsome fees pouring into his
pockets; in fact, in time a rich man. In one word, the learning
displayed by her first husband was always present to her mind, and she
eagerly sought in me all the qualities and talents he had possessed.
Had it depended upon my mother I should have started for St. Georghen at
once, so as to be able to begin my studies at the Latin school in
October as soon as the term commenced. But it was finally decided that I
was to stay at home till I had passed from childhood to youth, which
takes place in Jewish families at the age of thirteen and is celebrated
by the Feast of Bar Mitzva. So I stayed on, and by degrees got used to
the idea of having to leave home for good in a short time.
On the occasion of this Feast of Bar Mitzva the youth who is to enter
the ranks of the Orthodox Jews must hold a public discourse on some
religious subject, and is admitted to the reading of the Thora in the
synagogue, and this symbolical feast, which marks the period at which he
leaves childhood behind him and enters youth, is very beautiful. An
entertainment is given, to which all his friends of the same age are
invited; in the centre of the table is a large basket made of a kind of
baked dough; this is filled with rods made of pastry, which are
distributed at dessert amongst the boys and eaten by them as a sign that
they will not be needed for the future.
My mother shed tears of joy at this feast, and during my discourse she
imagined she heard my father speaking, and more than once sobbed out,
"He is sure to be happy, for his father is praying for him in Paradise."
Strange to say, the whole ceremony made little impression on me. My one
desire was to give my mother pleasure and win the admiration of my
hearers; but the religious part of the ceremony did not interest me
much, for the influence which the orthodox Jewish faith had on me as a
child had diminished through my having read German books. I was not yet
a sceptic, but the fear of overstepping the ritual laws had disappeared.
Pork and Christian food no longer seemed poison to me, and with the
gradual breaking away of the barriers the sanctuary of my faith was more
exposed to the outward attacks made upon it. The first attack shook it
without destroying it entirely; my peace of mind was hardly disturbed;
not, for instance, like Renan's, who, in his twentieth year, rushed into
the cell of his friend at midnight, exclaiming, "Oh, I have become a
doubter!"
There is only a short path from exaggerated fanaticism to scepticism. A
few days after the feast my knapsack was packed--a very small knapsack,
containing a few clothes and some books--and at dusk I left Duna
Szerdahely, my crutch under my arm and accompanied by my mother. We
hoped to be lucky enough to fall in with some carter taking corn to the
weekly market at Presburg who would give us a lift in return for a drink
or perhaps even from charity. And we were not mistaken, for we were soon
overtaken by some carts, but as they were heavily laden with sacks of
corn and the road was bad, we were given seats in two different carts.
Although my mother placed me as comfortably as possible among the sacks
and begged the man walking beside the cart to look after me, I heard her
call to me several times during the night to hold on tightly so as not
to fall out. Thus I arrived one fresh autumn morning at the toll-gate
of Presburg, and spent a few days in the town, during which time I did
not cease to admire the one-storied houses with their many windows.
We continued our journey to St. Georghen in a cart drawn by four oxen,
which we happened to meet on the way. This unostentatious entry into the
pretty little town at the foot of one of the spurs of the Carpathians
was a fitting beginning for the poverty-stricken existence I was
destined to lead there.
Our first visit was to a certain Hirsh-Tirnau, a man noted for his piety
and a school friend of my father, who, for the sake of his dead friend,
agreed to give me a lodging gratis, though not as willingly as he might
have done, for he would much rather have had me study the Talmud than
devote myself to Christian studies. As for my lodging, I had permission
to spread my mattress of straw in some part of the house at night, and a
pillow and blanket were given me by charitable people. But, after all,
it was something to have a place to sleep in and a roof over my head,
and as soon as my mother was satisfied on this score she went with me to
the Director of the Piarists' (Friars) College and entered my name in
the list of those who were to study in the first Latin class, or the
Parva, as they called it.
Nearly half the money I had earned in Nyék had to be deposited here as
entrance fee; with the other half I had to buy the necessary
school-books, and thus I was left without a penny in my pocket, though
the question of my board had not yet been touched upon.
It was the business of the Jewish commune to arrange for the daily
midday meal for students of the Talmud, and this they did. Charitable,
but mostly poor people offered me one meal a week at their table, and on
Saturdays I was the official guest of the Jewish commune. The cashier
gave me an assignment (or Bolette) on one of the richer members. This I
had to present on Fridays to the lady of the house, and it was often an
unpleasant surprise to her. By this means I got a better meal, which,
however, I ate with the bitter feeling that I was an unwelcome guest.
It was a different thing in the case of the other meals; they were given
freely, were the result of human kindness, or bestowed in memory of my
dead father, and tasted better to me in consequence. This manner of
getting my meals had its comical side too, for it often happened that I
ate the same dish all the week according as it was the dish of the day
at the various houses I visited. But I had at least enough to eat, had
even a piece of bread given me sometimes for my supper, and as long as I
did not lose the favour of one or other of my patrons I was better off
even than at home as far as my board went.
The custom of "boarding," which was willingly carried out by even the
poorest Jews, speaks well for the charity of that community on the one
hand, and on the other for their desire to assist and encourage poor
students in their pursuit of knowledge. The poor, deserted, and
much-oppressed Jew was always glad to share his hardly-earned crust of
bread with those who thirsted for knowledge, and it certainly is a
splendid trait of real humanity and of a noble endeavour to help in the
intellectual struggle.
Being provided with board and lodging, I could now give my undivided
attention to my studies in the Parva. My mother, whom it had cost a
great effort to part from me, had given me much good advice as to my
behaviour when left alone among strangers. She gave me a few pence for
pocket-money and a bag of meal, from which I was to make my soup for
breakfast in the morning, and after embracing me warmly several times
she left me.
This second separation was not as hard as the first one; habit makes
everything easy in time, and when, having made friends with my comrades,
I even took delight in going to school, I was able to overcome and
forget the adversities of my daily life, and real childlike mirth and
gaiety caused the first year of my school life to pass very pleasantly.
There could be no question of over-exertion for me, who had already
learnt by heart and translated whole volumes of Hebrew. The elements of
Latin grammar, delivered, strange to say, in the Latin tongue, the
rudiments of history, geography, and a little arithmetic were the
branches of knowledge with which I was made familiar at the college
conducted by the Piarists at St. Georghen. The greatest stress was laid
upon the acquirement of the Latin tongue, in which we were obliged to
carry on our general conversation after two months' time, and any one
heard speaking his mother-tongue at school, whether Hungarian, German,
or Slav, was condemned to write out the auxiliary verb "_sum, es, est_,"
or some theme ten to twenty times, and to hand it in as a pensum. In
order to control this, there was a regular system of spying at school;
one of the scholars carried the so-called "_Liber asini_" (donkey's
book) hidden on his person, and as _agent provocateur_ began to speak in
his mother-tongue, and if any one answered him in the same he whipped
out the book, exclaiming: "_Inscribas, amice!_" ("Inscribe your name, my
friend"); he left the delinquent no peace until he had entered his name,
and a suitable punishment was meted out to him the following Saturday.
This practice was a remnant of the Middle Ages, and formed a part of the
severe _régime_ of monastic life in vogue at that time in the Hungarian
monasteries. A lively contrast to the spirit of national education which
crept in later, it seems strange to us to-day, when the Hungarian
language is rightly cultivated as the acknowledged language of the
State. Just as severely was Catholic ecclesiastical discipline kept up
in many respects. Lutherans, Calvinists and Jews were obliged to repeat
the "Veni Sancte Spiritus reple tuorum corda fidelium!" ("Come, Holy
Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful"), and also the "Our Father" and
the "Hail Mary"; we were not allowed to quit the room whilst the lesson
in catechism was going on, nor were we permitted to bring meat to school
on Fridays; in fact, there was a sort of silent pressure exercised on
the scholars in the hope of their embracing the Catholic religion--a
pressure exercised without result, it is true, but it had a strange
effect on me, who had been an Orthodox Jew, and would not for the world
have pronounced the word "cross."
My teacher, a Piarist of twenty, Father Siebenlist by name, a man of
prepossessing exterior and great kindness of heart, seemed to take a
fancy to me from the beginning. He often pinched my cheek in a friendly
way, sometimes gave me an apple, and when, in the depth of winter, I
appeared at school with insufficient clothing, he called me up to his
room, gave me a warm comforter, a waistcoat, and once even a pair of old
trousers; in fact, he did what he could for me in every respect, moved,
I am sure, by pure benevolence.
I certainly always did my duty at school as far as was in my power. I
was considered the second best scholar, but could not attain to the
position of primus, for the simple reason that I studied one subject
less than the others, namely, catechism.
At the examination at the end of the first term I succeeded in gaining
the approval of my teachers and of the visitors who were present; the
praise I earned was sweet to my youthful vanity, but while all my
companions were able to distinguish themselves in the presence of their
parents and relations, it was hard to have no one to share my pleasure.
But this bitter feeling of desertion had all the more effect on my
ambition, and when, in the second term, I was the only scholar who
received for his pensum (a translation from Hungarian into Latin) the
classification "sine," that is _without_ fault, I began to see what my
mother meant when she spoke of "the inheritance of my father," and it
was no wonder I took pleasure in forming hazy pictures of my future.
When I ask myself to-day why, in spite of my bodily misery, I felt the
spur of ambition, and studied with such diligence, I find that the real
reason is to be found, not so much in a disposition favoured by nature,
as in my poverty and forlornness. I had no hope of help or protection
from any side, the possibility of better times in the future depended
entirely on my industry and activity, and that is why I worked so hard.
Though fortune had smiled on me at the beginning of my student's life,
it was less kind to me later in the matter of daily existence, and it
seemed as though I were to be strengthened in my youth by means of hard
struggle for the even harder struggle I was to go through in the future.
On account of my worldly, or rather Christian, studies, I soon lost the
favour of my orthodox Jewish friend who had let me lodge in his house,
and I had to look for another lodging, without having a penny in my
pocket. It was the same with my meals, and for similar reasons I was
reduced to five meals a week, later even to four. Jewish charity was not
compatible with Christian education, and only amongst the more
enlightened of the Orthodox Jews--the mere idea of neologism was then
almost unknown--did real humanity and pity for the starving boy gain the
upper hand. It may, in some cases, have been the result of the altered
circumstances of my kind but mostly poor benefactors, since they needed
every mouthful of food they had for their own increasing families. In
any case, I soon began to suffer the pangs of hunger; the strict diet I
was obliged to keep to, only stimulated my already healthy appetite, and
my feelings as I sat in a corner of the courtyard, learning my lessons
while other boys of my age were dining at their parents' tables, are
indescribable. I feasted with my eyes, and felt as though I could have
disposed of the contents of a baker's shop. The hungry-looking eyes of a
healthy boy, full of life, speak the most eloquent language in the
world. Later on, in my adventurous life, I often came face to face with
the dreadful monster called "hunger." His horrible, grinning features
have impressed themselves indelibly in my memory, for hunger caused me
to suffer equal pangs in my miserable lodging in the large town, or
among the sand-hills of the steppes of Central Asia.
I found another lodging with a childless couple; the man was a
cap-maker, and as his wife wished to have some one to talk to in her
free hours, her choice fell upon me; for even then, in spite of all my
privations and struggles, I was known for my lively manner and untiring
loquacity.
As the lodging of this worthy couple consisted of one room only, I was
given a corner in the kitchen, where I was allowed to spread my straw
mattress every night; during the day I was either at school or in the
court, and in the middle of the day, when there was no school, I either
wandered about in the streets or sat in a corner of our court reading or
learning my lessons.
For a time false pride had gained the day over hunger, and the pieces of
bread I received from my schoolfellows in return for helping them with
their lessons replaced the mid-day meal; but when they noticed that the
colour was gradually leaving my cheeks, and that my liveliness
decreased, their hearts were touched, and I was invited to dinner,
sometimes by one, sometimes by another; so that, at the end of the term,
my position as _protégé_ of the school was assured, and as second in
the class I had gained the love of my schoolmates.
Two of them were specially kind to me in those days. One was a Herr von
Vaymár, later on a distinguished lawyer in Tirnau; the other a Herr
Hieronymi, later Hungarian Minister of Commerce, who recognised me
thirty-five years afterwards in the house of the Director of the
National Museum, Von Pulszky, and was agreeably surprised at the
metamorphosis that had taken place in his former _protégé_.
Now came the delightful holidays, and with them the time for my return
home. The son of a well-to-do peasant from the neighbourhood of
Szerdahely gave me a lift in his cart, and it is impossible to describe
the delightful feeling with which I crossed the threshold of my parent's
door, bearing my certificate, on which my name was written in large
golden letters, and showed this first triumphal result of my work to my
mother.
My heart understood the meaning of her warm maternal kisses and of the
hot tears she shed. Friendly neighbours had managed to explain to her
the meaning of the words "classification" and "eminent" in my
certificate; without being able to read them, she stared at my name,
written in large letters, and kept remarking, "Of course it is quite
natural, for my son Arminius has his dead father's brains, and I am
quite sure he will be a success."
These were the happiest moments of my youth. The delightful "Home,
Sweet Home," the comfortable feeling of being with friends, and the
knowledge that, for a time at least, I was free from the horrible
spectre of hunger, did me a great deal of good. Unfortunately these two
months fled like a midsummer night's dream, and when, at the beginning
of autumn, I started for St. Georghen, my well-mended clothes in my
knapsack, and a few pence in my pocket, the earnest side of life, with
all its struggles, was again before me. I bravely tore myself away from
my mother's embrace, and so, getting a lift now and then, and walking
the rest of the way, I arrived the second time at St. Georghen.
I was now to be in the second class, or Secunda, and rise a step in my
student's life. The worries and troubles as to board and lodging, and
the acquisition of the necessary books had recommenced, and caused me
more than once to blush with shame, and in spite of all my self-denial I
was unable to procure all I needed.
Unfortunately my new professor in the second class was not so kindly
disposed towards me as the dark-haired young priest in the first class
had been, and when I went to enter my name in the list, I was received
with the not very flattering remark, "Well, Moshele" (the name given to
the Jews in general), "why dost thou study? Would it not be better for
thee to become a 'kosher' butcher?" In spite of these remarks, which
were more malicious than witty, I found it desirable to show my last
year's certificate, and to beg him to be kind to me and protect me. This
he promised, smiling, but all the same, during the whole school-year, he
not only mocked and scoffed at me, but in spite of my diligence, always
kept me back in the class, and very often earnestly advised me not to
continue my studies. He was certainly a splendid specimen of a professor
whose business it was to guide the youthful mind through the halls of
knowledge, humanity, and enlightenment.
But unfortunately this was the prevailing tone among the priests who
were entrusted with the school teaching, and roughness and fanaticism
flourished undisturbed in the shadow of semi-education. Exceptions were
very rare, and from his earliest childhood the Jewish boy of that period
received the saddest impressions of the position he was to fill in the
future.
The real Magyars, the ruling element in the country, more chivalrously
inclined and of marked indifference to religious affairs, have always
shown themselves kinder and more tolerant to Jews; but all the more
disgraceful was the behaviour of the Slavs, and in spite of my
reputation as a good scholar, I was often exposed to the wanton
behaviour of passing Christians in the streets of St. Georghen, had
stones thrown at me, and was greeted with the insulting "Shide Makhele!
Hep! Hep! Hep!" and other similar titles.
The second year at St. Georghen was anything but agreeable, and was
full of privations of every kind. Only once or twice a week did I have
sufficient to eat, and oh, the bitterly cold nights in the kitchen of
the cap-maker, with only a miserable counterpane as covering! When my
misery was at its height I received, through the kindness of my last
year's teacher, the employment of "boots" in the monastery, where I had
to make my appearance early in the morning, in order to clean the boots
placed outside the doors of three professors, and sometimes to brush
their clothes. I performed this office in the corridor, by the light of
the fire blazing in the stove, which not only warmed me but gave me
sufficient light to learn my lessons by, and so I always managed to
appear at school with my lessons well prepared. And when I was able to
still my hunger with a piece of bread or some potatoes, I was the
liveliest amongst my comrades, and was even able at times to move my
surly professor to a smile.
My sojourn in St. Georghen gave me the first proof of how much youth can
bear. Hunger, cold, mockery, and insult, I experienced them all in turn;
but the greatest misery was not capable of darkening the serene sky of
youthful mirth for more than a few minutes, and even my healthy colour
returned after a short interval of bodily collapse.
Although I had only just completed my fourteenth year, I had made many
plans for the future, and built many castles in the air. While other
scholars spent their time in games and in sport, I had always indulged
in the delight of reading books about travel, heroic deeds, and
simply-written historical works, and a book was to me not only a friend
and comforter in trouble, but it even drove away hunger; for the fire of
my excited fancy nourished not only my mind but my body too, and
occupied my senses to such an extent that I often forgot both hunger and
sleep.
Extraordinary was the change that took place in me as far as religion
was concerned. There was, of course, not a trace of the excessive ardour
of Jewish orthodoxy left. Fringes and phylacteries had long been done
away with; the law as to ritual food seemed to me childish and
ridiculous, and I had been prevented touching pork only by my aversion
to the unaccustomed taste. The glimpse I had already had into the
various religions, the acquaintance gradually gained with the causes of
certain natural phenomena, which superstition had formerly interpreted
quite differently, and, lastly, the vast difference I found between
principle and action in my Catholic teachers, had nearly upset all my
beliefs; they trembled on their bases.
Of a complete want of religious feeling or of conversion to another
faith there could be no question, but in the ladder that was to lead me
to heaven many rungs were broken, some even missing entirely, and in
the midst of the hard struggle for life I had neither time nor
inclination to soar to the higher regions of metaphysical contemplation.
It was chiefly my experiences during the time I spent in service in the
monastery of the Piarists in St. Georghen which stimulated my
indifference in religious matters. The contrast between the way of
speaking and of acting of these ecclesiastics was often very marked.
They did not seem so very particular as to religious observances, and
when one morning the student who had been ordered to serve at the early
Mass did not appear on the scene, I had to put on the cassock and serve
as though I had been one of the regular acolytes. I knew the catechism
by heart, they said, and was quite like a Catholic: there was no need to
make any difficulty about it. I enjoyed the comedy very much, and this
and similar experiences were a good preparation for my future _rôle_ of
Mohammedan priest. It was towards the end of the second year that the
idea of leaving St. Georghen for the larger provincial town of Presburg,
in the same neighbourhood, took firmer root in my mind; I hoped to find
more opportunities for study there and better means of livelihood. When
I thought of the sufferings and deprivations I had gone through in St.
Georghen at the beginning of my stay there, it was not hard for me to
take up my staff and seek my fortune elsewhere. Only the thought that
my father's grave was in the churchyard of St. Georghen made me waver,
for many a time had I gone out there in moments of bitterness and wept
away my trouble on the grave. And now I was to leave it.
It was during one of these visits that I resolved to do away with the
crutch I had till then carried under my left arm, and which not only
gave rise to many satirical remarks among my schoolfellows, but also
wore out my coat-sleeve. In a fit of vanity I broke the crutch over my
father's gravestone, and with a heavy heart and slow, laborious steps I
returned to the town, hopping most of the way on one foot. At first it
was very hard to walk, but being now in my fifteenth year I was much
stronger, and, aided by my vanity, and with the help of a stick, I was
soon able to overcome all difficulties.
I limped more than I had done, but at least I was rid of my crutch, and
I soon left St. Georghen with my knapsack (no heavy burden) and my
certificate containing the classification "Eminent." By my mother's
advice I was not to spend the next holidays at home but with her
relatives in Moravia, in the town of Lundenburg. The place of my
destination seemed further off than did later the most distant parts of
inner Asia. I had arrived in Presburg, the famous old coronation town,
without a penny in my pocket. After having wandered about helplessly in
the streets, and gazed my fill at the high houses all around me, and
having had a good meal at the expense of an acquaintance from
Szerdahely, whom I met by chance in the town, my attention was attracted
by a cart which was just being laden preparatory to starting for Vienna.
I was told that the cart belonged to a hackney-coachman of the name of
Alexander, a rough but good-natured man, who would perhaps take me with
him to Vienna for nothing, if I could manage to gain his heart.
Trembling, I proffered my request, and having inspected me from head to
foot, he said there was no more room on the box, but if I could make
myself comfortable in the basket of hay strapped on to the back of the
conveyance, he had no objection to taking me with him. In a minute I had
climbed into the basket, and making myself comfortable in the soft hay,
I started for the imperial town of Vienna, undisturbed by the jerks of
the rumbling vehicle.
Arrived in Vienna, I had first to look up a relative, from whom I hoped
to receive the necessary sum to take me to Lundenburg, for in 1845 there
was already a railway between Vienna and that town.
Mr. G., a well-to-do calico manufacturer, received me very kindly, kept
me in his house for two days, and gave me money for a third-class
ticket, besides a few pence for travelling necessaries. Quite delighted,
I started for the Nordbahn. I was to travel by rail for the first time,
and intending to provide myself with plenty of food for the journey, I
bought a quantity of fruit and various dainties, especially my favourite
kind of confectionery, the so-called butter-cake.
But on arriving at the ticket-office I found, to my horror, that I had
spent too much; had, in fact, bought ten or fifteen butter-cakes more
than I should have done. As the Arabic proverb says, "The stomach is the
origin of all troubles," and here was I in a sorry plight! What was to
be done? With a disturbed countenance I told the clerk at the
ticket-office of the plight I was in. He laughed, and advised me to ask
in Latin for the missing sum from some gentlemen who were standing in a
corner of the hall. As it was nearly time to start, I picked up courage
and approached the group of gentlemen, saying in everyday Latin: "Domini
spectabiles, rogo humillime, dignemini mihi dare aliquantos cruciferos
qui iter ferrarium solvendi mihi carent" ("Honoured gentlemen, would you
give me a few pence, as I have not enough to pay for my railway
ticket?"). This Latin speech from a small, lame boy, such as I was, had
its effect, and they soon collected about two shillings for me. So I
took my ticket, and hopping gaily through the waiting-room, got into a
compartment of the train for Lundenburg.
Those who know anything of the bond which draws Jewish families
together, will not be astonished that my uncle, David Malavan, received
the son of his sister, who had emigrated to Hungary years before, with
open arms, and that my other relatives were kindness itself, and did all
they could to make my holidays pleasant for me. They gave me a new suit
of clothes and a few florins to take me home again, and I started just
before the term began, travelling by Vienna to Presburg.
It was not long before I discovered that it was to be my fate in the old
Hungarian coronation town to lead a life of martyrdom. I was never very
much attracted by large towns; the narrow horizon, enclosed between two
rows of high houses, and the hard pavement seemed to me to be in keeping
with the narrow-mindedness and hardness of heart of the inhabitants, and
the more I missed the blue sky the sadder I became inwardly. After many
useless wanderings I came to the conclusion that there could be no
question here of a free lodging, and was very glad when a certain Mr.
Lövy, whose son had failed in his examination in the second class,
offered me shelter in return for helping his son with his lessons. True
it was only half of a folding-bed, which by day was pushed behind a
bench, but I accepted it with delight.
As far as my board was concerned, I was destined by fate to go through
all the torments of Tantalus. Mr. Lövy had a cookshop, and soon after
midday the one room in our small lodging began to fill with poor
students and tailors' journeymen, to whom, for the modest sum of
threepence, a meal was served, consisting of soup, meat, and vegetables,
not in very large quantities, it is true, and showing very primitive
culinary skill, but all the same sufficient to satisfy the heroes of the
thimble and the doctors-to-be. Custom there was plenty, and there would
have been even more had not Mr. Lövy made a rule that any one failing to
pay three times was not to enter the house again. Strangers, the length
of whose purse was as yet unknown, could easily indulge in the luxury of
_one_ dinner, but my destitute state was well known to my landlord, and
so I had no credit even for a single meal. The state of my feelings as I
sat at dinner-time in a corner of the room, trying in vain to keep my
eyes fixed on my book, and feeling all the gnawing pains of hunger, may
well be imagined, and now and then I could not help stealing a glance at
the students and tailors as they sat at table enjoying their meal.
This eager, hungry look of a starving lad seemed sometimes to appeal to
them, for now and then one or other of them would make a sign to me to
finish the vegetables he had left, or some one pressed a piece of bread
into my hand; so that I generally managed to get a trifle to still the
worst pangs of hunger, and partly to satisfy the inner man, which had
already caused me so much trouble in my short life.
The reader will see from this that my position in Presburg was not of
the most brilliant. In school matters I was not much better off. I was
to study in the third class at the college of the Benedictine monks, and
when I went to Father Aloysius Pendl to enter my name in the list, his
fat reverence received me with the following words, "Well, Harshl, so
you want to be a doctor, do you?" The fact that I had formerly been
dubbed "Moshele," and now "Harshl," did not vex me in the least, but it
was unpleasant as proving what treatment I had to expect in the future;
and the three years I went to the college under the archway in Presburg
will never be forgotten by me, recalling as they do endless instances of
stupid priestly animosity and disgraceful intolerance.
Later on in life I again met that amiable director, Father _Pendl_, who
ought to have been used as a _pendulum_ on a village church spire,
rather than have been placed at the head of a college. Our second
meeting was under quite different circumstances. I was then an honoured
traveller in the Monastery of Martinsberg, and although he did not
remember me, I have never forgotten him. Unfortunately the personality
of the teacher is not without influence on the subjects he teaches, and
in the third class, and even more in the fourth, I found that my desire
for study was rapidly decreasing, and that my visits to school partook
more and more of the nature of forced labour, so that I was happiest
when I was able, after having learnt my lessons, to read or study for my
own pleasure, that is, when I could occupy my youthful mind in my own
way, without control from others.
The ease with which I made use of the Latin tongue for general
conversation, and also the fact that when I began my studies I knew four
languages--Hungarian, German, Slav, and Hebrew--was the reason I turned
my attention to the acquirement of other languages. I had heard that a
knowledge of French was necessary in order to be considered _bon ton_,
and that without it no one could pretend to any education worth speaking
of. So I decided to learn the language at once, and bought a small
grammar by a certain La Fosse, which possessed the advantage of giving
the pronunciation of the words in German transcription, thus making the
help of a teacher unnecessary. It was, of course, a miserable
pronunciation, but I worked my way through the book the best way I
could, and, as with the help of the Latin I knew, I was soon able to
understand books written in a simple style, I was, after a few weeks'
time, full of hope that I should soon be able to speak French.
When alone I used to make up sentences or carry on a conversation with
myself, or read the most trivial things, declaiming them with great
pathos; and in the space of a few months I had learnt so much that I had
(especially in the lower class I was in) acquired a reputation for a
much greater knowledge of French than I really had. Whether it was my
own deceptive self-consciousness supported by the ignorance of those
whom I associated with, or my natural talent for languages which was
then beginning to show itself, I do not know; certain it is that I
conversed in French without restraint, and by my volubility surprised
not only myself but all who heard me. It developed to such a mania with
me, that I addressed every one in French--peasants, tradespeople,
merchants, Slavs, Germans, and Hungarians, it was all the same to me,
and great was my delight if they stared at me and admired me for my
learning(?). Such juvenile tricks were the only amusement I had in my
otherwise very hard life. In every other respect I was excessively badly
off, and there is not a stone in the little town on the Danube that
could not tell pitiable tales of my extreme misery and suffering.
As long as I had half of the folding-bed at Mr. Lövy's I was at least
sure of a shelter, and had only to fight against hunger. But one evening
I had for a bedfellow a young man, just arrived from a foreign country,
and from him I caught an illness which showed itself after some days in
constant irritation of the skin, and in consequence of which I was
immediately sent away by Mr. Lövy. As I owed that good man a few pence
he retained all my personal effects as payment of the debt; so one dull
autumn evening I left the house with my school-books under my arm, and
wandered about in the streets, not daring to apply for shelter for fear
of being turned out again on account of my disease.
It was nine o'clock, when, quite exhausted by hunger and fatigue, I sank
down on a bench in the Promenade. My glance fell upon the windows of the
one-storied houses opposite; I saw children at table having supper,
while farther on there were others playing games and running and jumping
about. I heard a piano being played, thought of home and my mother, and,
seized with a feeling of unutterable loneliness, I began to cry
bitterly.
Having put my boots under my head for a pillow, I had just lain down on
the bench to try to sleep, when I heard the tramp of regular footsteps
approaching from a distance.
"That is the watchman," I thought, "going his nightly round."
Trembling with the fear of being discovered and taken up as a vagabond,
to spend the night in a cell, I crept under the bench and hid there
until the watchman, wrapped in his long cloak, had passed on. He did not
notice me, and thus I was saved from the shame of spending a night in
prison.
Of course there was no further possibility of sleep that night, and with
an anxious heart I peered out from under the bench. The lights in the
windows were extinguished one by one, the watchman passed several times,
but not very near to me, and I lay there, cowering under the bench the
whole of that cold autumn night, till the break of day. I went to
school that day, but gave notice that I was ill, and it was only after a
fortnight's sojourn in the hospital of the Friars of Mercy that, once
more in good health and much stronger, I was able to start again on my
thorny way.
After this sad interval my natural liveliness soon returned. I finished
the third and fourth classes in Presburg at the Benedictine College the
best way I could, but I took far more interest in the progress I was
making in my private studies than in satisfying my professors. This
certainly had no good result, for I had begun to study alone, without
first acquiring the solid foundation of a college education; but on the
other hand it spurred me on to greater industry and perseverance, as,
being free from all control, I was master and pupil in one person.
Like all autodidacts, I had greatly overrated the results of my work,
paying no attention whatever to the difference between reading a thing
superficially and learning it thoroughly. The consequence was I fell
into faults that I have never been able to eradicate. But I learned with
delight and diligence, and being hardened by constant struggles against
Fate, questions of material comfort ceased to trouble me much.
As my circle of acquaintances widened, it was easier for me to gain my
living by teaching. I found shelter with an old bachelor, a usurer,
whose lodging consisted of a single room and a tiny ante-room where I
slept, with the usurer's coat for my covering. This shameful old
Harpagon begrudged me even the crumbs he left, although I filled the
office of man-servant and watch-dog for him; but he was mistaken in
thinking me of much use in the latter capacity, for were I once asleep,
a thief, in fact a whole regiment of thieves, could have rushed over my
prostrate body without awakening me. Oh! golden hours of youth! With
what pleasure I dwell on them to-day, when in my soft, comfortable bed I
have difficulty in stealing a few hours of sleep from friend Morpheus!
In spite of every comfort and convenience I cannot to-day attain to what
I could when I went to bed hungry and slept on the hard, bare boards.
As far as boarding went I was better off just then, for my fame as a
teacher had spread in the lower classes of Jewish society, and it was
chiefly to cooks and housemaids I gave lessons in reading and writing.
In some cases where I had inspired great confidence I was employed to
write billets-doux, and in return for this service of love I received a
good meal, sometimes even dainties.
I always found that cooks were the persons who most indulged in
love-letters; each one seemed to have been crossed in love, and whether
its flame was fanned by proximity to the fire or by other unknown
reasons, certain it is that the ladies who practised the culinary art
were my best customers, and if I was able to commit to paper a sigh, a
longing look, a greeting sweet as sugar, or even a kiss, I was sure of a
rich reward, and could reckon on a good dinner or supper for days to
come.
From cooks and housemaids my reputation spread to the young ladies, or
rather to the lady of the house. One evening at the request of a cook
who was head over ears in love with her boot-maker, I sang the
well-known German song--
"Schöne Minka, ich muss scheiden,
Ach, du fühlest nicht die Leiden!"
("Lovely Minka, I must leave you,
Ah! you cannot guess my sorrow!")
to the accompaniment of a guitar. My sonorous voice (I had, of course,
no idea of singing) seems to have penetrated to the sitting-room, and
made a favourable impression, for the attention of the lady of the house
and her daughters was attracted; I was called into the room, made to
sing some songs, and when the lady smoothed my curls and praised my
voice and my hair, I became aware that I had stumbled upon a _gradus ad
Parnassum_, and that I was in for a good time.
I was not engaged in the house itself, for the aristocratic feelings of
plutocracy revolted against the idea of employing the cook's teacher.
But I was recommended to others, and was soon introduced into the Jewish
society of Presburg (the lines between which and Christian circles were
very distinctly defined in those days) as private teacher of Hungarian,
French, and Latin.
The sum received for these lessons was, of course, in proportion to the
age and position of the teacher, very modest, sometimes not exceeding
two florins a month, which worked out at about one penny an hour. But
when my teaching was attended with great success my salary was raised,
and thus I was enabled, by dint of devoting three hours a day to
teaching, to live pretty comfortably, for things were cheap in Presburg
in those days. I was at all events freed from my greatest care, the
question of daily bread, and was even able now and then to buy some
article of second-hand clothing; and oh! how proud I was when I bought
with my own hard-earned money a tolerably threadbare coat or pair of
trousers!
Unfortunately my success had its bad effects, for after spending eight
hours a day at school and three or four in teaching, there was little
time left for my private studies. Besides, even this small success awoke
in me a desire for the pleasures of life, such as a visit to the theatre
now and then, or a piece of cake; and I was in danger of losing my zeal
in the pursuit of higher aims.
In spite of all I had gone through I was childish and frivolous enough
to allow my head to be turned by the watery ray of sunshine that Fate
had sent me. The knowledge that I was now well fed and tolerably well
clothed would have made me presumptuous had not Divine Providence sent
me a timely warning and roused me from my lethargy.
This warning was conveyed by the War of Independence of 1848, which had
just broken out. At the first approach of the storm the schools were
closed and lectures discontinued. Commerce was stopped, and every one
was anxious as to the result of the storm that was breaking over their
heads. To make matters worse, the mob in Presburg began a regular
persecution of the Jews, plundering the ghetto, breaking into houses and
shops, and destroying hundreds of barrels of wine and spirits in the
cellars.
The maddened and drunken mob then stormed through the Judengasse, on to
the Wödritz, and round the Zuckermandl, and the cries and wailings of
the persecuted Jews rang in every one's ears for some time after. Thus
the busy little colony was cast into poverty and despair.
I was rudely waked from the enjoyment of my imaginary good fortune; but
my chief feeling was one of disgust at the horrible executions of
Hungarian patriots, stigmatised as rebels, which I, in my youthful
curiosity, attended on the so-called Eselsberg, behind the fortress. Two
of these bloody scenes especially took deep root in my memory. One was
the execution of Baron Mednyanszky, the commander of the little fortress
of Leopoldstadt, taken by the Austrians, and of his adjutant, by name
Gruber. Both were young, and, laughing and talking, they walked
arm-in-arm to the scaffold. When I saw how those constables of the
Camarilla treated the corpses of these martyrs for freedom, swinging
them by the feet as they hung on the gallows, I was overcome by a
strange feeling of revenge. I called the Slav soldiers several
opprobrious names, and it would have gone hard with me had I not hurried
away.
The second awful picture I have in my mind's eye is another execution I
witnessed on the same spot, namely, that of a Lutheran clergyman called
Razga, who was condemned to be hanged for preaching a sermon of
Hungarian national tendency. This noble man was accompanied from his
prison to the place of execution by his wife and children. Embracing and
comforting his dear ones, he walked to the gallows with a firm step, and
when the Profos had read the sentence and broken the staves, the heroic
churchman kissed each member of his family, and gave himself into the
hands of his executioners. Mother and children (I do not know how many
there were) knelt on the ground near to the scaffold, their sorrowful
gaze fixed on the condemned husband and father, and several of them
fainted, overcome by sorrow.
This scene brought tears to the eyes even of the soldiers, and the
reader may imagine what an impression it left on a sentimental youth
like me.
The present generation of Hungarians has, for political reasons, drawn
a veil over this and other dreadful scenes; but it can only partially
cover them, for those who were present will always remember them with a
shudder.
My further residence in Presburg had become impossible, and I began to
look about for an engagement in the country. I accepted the offer of a
poor Jew in the village of Marienthal, near Presburg, to spend some
months in his house in the capacity of family preceptor. There, in a
quiet valley of the Carpathians, I could once more devote myself to my
private studies, and when I returned to town with my modest earnings in
my pocket, I decided not to enter the sixth class at the Benedictine
college, but at the Protestant Lyceum, as the professors there were
known to be unprejudiced, humane, and intelligent men, and I was
heartily tired of the everlasting drudgery for the fanatic monks.
At the Lyceum the language spoken was mostly German, and the lectures
were better in every way, so that I might have got on very well there
had not my difficulties in procuring the necessaries of life
recommenced, and partly withdrawn my attention from my studies. At that
time I was eighteen years old, and weary of my eight years' struggle
with all the moods of Fate. My spirit was so broken that I decided to
pause in my studies for a year, and take an engagement as tutor in a
country family, and then, having earned the necessary means, return to
town and take up the thread of my studies again.
The Private Tutor
CHAPTER III
THE PRIVATE TUTOR
"Docendo discimus" ("by teaching we learn") says the Latin proverb, and
according to this I must have had the very best opportunities for
acquiring those scientific accomplishments necessary to the attainment
of the object I had in view. Nevertheless it was with a heavy heart that
I left the school, where I ought to have remained to finish the regular
course of my studies, and went out into the world as--_a wild student_,
without discipline, without system, without even the supervision which
my age and inexperience demanded. Being on a visit to my uncle at
Zsámbokrét, in the county of Neutra, I first made the acquaintance of
Mr. von Petrikovich, a small landowner and postmaster. He was a clever,
unprejudiced, and worthy man, who had had his eye on me for some time
because of my readiness in foreign languages, and he now engaged me as
tutor, or rather as teacher of languages, to his two sons. I was to
receive full board and a salary of 150 florins, a very modest
honorarium, but quite in keeping with the very modest services which I
was able to render. For, apart from my knowledge of Hungarian and Latin,
my learning was very deficient, and as regards my office of
prefect--such was my title--I was rather pupil than master. Mrs. von
Petrikovich, a highly-accomplished woman, who had been brought up in
very aristocratic surroundings, and thought a great deal of good
behaviour, manners and dress, soon found to her grief that the prefect,
in spite of his linguistic accomplishments, was a very unpolished
individual, who could scarcely be expected to teach her sons
drawing-room manners. She therefore undertook the difficult task of
first educating the tutor, and the trouble the good lady took to
instruct me on all possible points of etiquette, showing me how to
handle my serviette, fork and knife at table, how to salute, walk,
stand, and sit, was indeed a brilliant proof of her kind-heartedness. I
became a totally different being during this, my first sojourn, in a
gentleman's family, and I was so much in earnest that I spent whole
hours over my toilet, and in practising bows, and the elegant movements
of head and hands. I attended fairly well to my duties as tutor, but my
own studies suffered considerably under the influence of this training.
I became seriously inclined to vanity, and wasted not only my time
before the looking-glass and in the drawing-room, but also my substance;
and the few florins which I ought to have saved to recommence my
studies dwindled away so fast, that at the end of the year I had not
even the sixteen florins left, which I owed to the Lutheran Lyceum at
Presburg, and without which I could not get my certificate, or rather
testimonial of merit. It was indeed unpardonable thoughtlessness which
had thus led me into debt, an offence for which I had to suffer many
sharp pricks of conscience, and which cost me dear. Was it because for
the first time in my life I enjoyed the comfort of living free from
care? Was it this that so enthralled my senses and captivated my whole
being? Or was it the outcome of some hidden, frivolous trait in my
character? I cannot account for it. All I know is that I felt very
miserable when, in the autumn of 1851, I went to Pest with Mr.
Petrikovich, this worthy man having taken his sons there to attend the
public school. Thus I left the quiet haven of the Petrikovich's home,
and found myself once more launched on the stormy sea of wretchedness
and disappointment.
Pest, now Budapest, the beautiful, flourishing capital of the kingdom of
Hungary, boasted at that time nothing of the pomp and grandeur which it
now possesses, for the Austrian reign of terror which followed the
struggle for independence had left its sorrowful mark upon the city and
the people. After taking leave of Mr. Petrikovich, I turned into one of
the less frequented back streets in search of inexpensive lodgings,
_i.e._, a bed, eventually half a bed; and the same terrible despondency
which had taken hold of me on my first arrival at Presburg came over me
again in all its intensity. For half a day I wandered round without
success; nobody would take me in without references and part payment in
advance. At last I was reluctantly obliged to go to the house of a
wealthy relative, who allowed me to remain with him for a few days, and
then slipping two florins into my hand, he gave me the paternal advice
to try and find something to do, as his wife objected to my presence
there. I went straight to some of the coffee-houses to inquire from the
tradespeople hanging about if they could help me to a position as
teacher of languages. My timid and dejected appearance attracted the
attention and called forth the sympathy, of a certain Mr. G. He began to
talk to me, and the end of it was that he proposed I should enter his
service as tutor to his children in return for board and lodging, to
which, of course, I agreed at once. Alas for my studies! Mr. G. lived on
the Herminenplatz, a good way from the college of the Piarists, which I
wanted to attend. The grand-sounding word _quarter_ (lodging) consisted
of a bed in the servants' room, which I shared with the cook, the
chambermaid, and one of the children, while the board was so extremely
poor and scanty that the memory of the various meals of the day was
rather in my thoughts than in my stomach. And yet for this meagre fare I
had much to do and to suffer. The untrained children were always
worrying me, and when they had gone to bed and I tried to get on with
some of my school preparations, or private studies, the cook and the
chambermaid began to sing, or to quarrel, or to play tricks upon me, and
made it absolutely impossible for me to do any work. In the long run
this became unbearable, and hard though it was, I gave notice to leave.
As I had not the public certificate, for which I could not pay the
necessary sixteen florins to the Lyceum at Presburg, I had only been
admitted to the Piarist school for three months as provisional student
of the seventh class. For want of the said official certificate from the
previously finished classes, I was compelled to leave the school, and I
took the bold resolve to turn my back once and for all upon the town and
public study, and to find a place in the country as private tutor.
I call this a bold resolve, but it was also a very painful one, for
henceforth I had quitted for ever the road which was to lead me to a
definite profession in life, and as I had devoted myself to the aimless
study of foreign languages, I drifted into a road the end of which I did
not know myself, and which I was certainly not led to follow by the
faintest glimmer of future events. The danger of my position gradually
became clear to me, for in the hard struggle of life, now lasting
already for ten years, only the momentary deliverance from suffering and
privation had been before my eyes, and now again this one thought, this
one care filled my mind: Will my plan succeed, shall I find a good place
as private tutor? My fitness for the office consisted in the knowledge
of a few languages, and a slight acquaintance with one or two more. I
could read German, French, and Italian fairly well without the help of a
dictionary; Hebrew and Latin I knew slightly, and of course I could
speak and write my two native tongues, viz., Hungarian and Slav. On the
strength of these accomplishments I had the audacity to advertise myself
as professor of seven languages, and in my arrogance I even pretended to
teach them all.
This was certainly a sufficiently striking signboard and quite in
keeping with the market where I hoped to dispose of my intellectual
wares; for at best I could only expect to take a position in a homely
Jewish family, who, with slight knowledge of philology and pædagogy,
would be perfectly satisfied with my pretentious assertions. Far from
wishing to act under false pretences, I tried to fulfil my office to the
very best of my ability; I taught languages after the method by which I
myself had learned them, viz., the so-called Jacotot method, and in most
cases I had the satisfaction of seeing my pupils so well advanced in any
one language within six months that they could read easy passages and
also speak a little. I was equally successful in other branches of
learning, such as history, geography, and arithmetic, so that without
claiming any pædagogic merit, but simply by honest effort and
perseverance, I managed to fulfil my office as tutor fairly
satisfactorily.
Not without some interest are the different ways and means by which I
secured my appointments as private tutor, and for curiosity's sake, I
will relate them here. Advertising in newspapers was at that time either
not the custom in Hungary or of very little use; besides, for lack of
the necessary means this method was quite closed to me. But there were
professional agents or brokers, as they were commonly called, who
undertook to provide teachers with situations, and also to find tutors
for such country families as could afford the luxury of a private tutor.
These were chiefly merchants or farmers living in the provinces, who
came to Pest every year at the time of the two great general fairs, and
after disposing of their goods--_i.e._, after they had sold their wool,
gall-nuts, corn, skins, &c., proceeded to make the necessary purchases
for their house and farm. The domestic wants were supplied by the
various stores, but to procure a tutor, a "kosher" butcher, or brandy
distiller, there were certain coffee-houses--_i.e._, places where the
brokers in that particular line could be consulted, and the pædagogic
strength at disposal inspected. As educational exchange, the Café Orczy,
on the high-road of Pest, enjoyed in those days a special popularity.
This dirty place, reeking with the smell of various kinds of
tobacco--which even now after forty years has for the most part
preserved its old physiognomy--was then crowded with town and country
Jews of all sorts and descriptions; some sipping their coffee, others
talking and wildly gesticulating, others again bargaining and shouting,
all making a deafening noise. In the afternoon, between two and four,
the crush and the clatter were at their worst in this pædagogic
exchange. At that time everybody of any importance was there, and on a
bench at the side the eligible teachers were seated, anxiously watching
the agent as he extricated himself from the crowd and with the
purchaser, _i.e._, the future principal, stood before the bench,
reviewed the candidates and called up one or the other of them. It was
always a most painful scene, of which I have since often been reminded
when visiting the slave markets in the bazaars of Central Asia, and the
remembrance of it even now makes me shudder whenever I pass the Café
Orczy. With a heavy heart and deeply ashamed I used to sit there for
hours many afternoons together, until at last Mr. Mayer (that was the
name of my agent) came up to me accompanied by a son of Mercury engaged
in agricultural pursuits, told me to rise, and, all the time expatiating
upon my tremendous cleverness, introduced me to the farmer. Of course I
had to support the zealous broker in the glorification of my own
littleness--just as the slave has to prove his muscular strength in the
bazaars of Central Asia by the execution of his _tours de force_--and
after the amount of the annual honorarium had been fixed and I had
presented my references, the farmer paid me the earnest money, the
greater portion of which was claimed by the broker for the trouble he
had taken, while I with the shabby remainder had to cover the cost of my
equipment, and eventually my travelling expenses.
This was the regular routine of business on such occasions, and both
buyer and seller benefited by it. I have always been struck by the great
desire for culture evinced even by the most illiterate Jewish merchant.
He spares no pains and no trouble to give his children a better
education than he himself enjoyed; for in spite of his strong
materialistic tendencies he has higher ideals in his mind for the future
of his children.
The first engagement I obtained in this manner was with Mr. Rosenberg,
in Kutyevo, a village in Slavonia. He was the eldest son of the family,
only a few years my senior, who had to do some business for his father
at the St. Joseph fair, and amongst other things had also to find a
teacher for his younger brothers and sisters. The young man had looked
at me, somewhat abashed, but I began to talk to him in fluent French, of
which he had some faint notion, and this had its effect; he took a
liking to me, engaged me, and a few days later I went with him by
steamer to Eszegg, and from there by carriage to the village of Kutyevo
in a charming valley of the Slavonic mountains. My reception at Mr.
Rosenberg's house was just as unfortunate as when I first came to
Nyék--that is to say, they thought I looked too young, that my cheeks
were too red, and that with such attributes I should probably lack the
dignity and gravity so indispensable to a teacher. The principal cause
of this fear seems to have been Miss Emily, the eldest daughter of the
house, a charming girl of sixteen, who also was to refresh herself at
the fountain of my wisdom, and according to the mother's judgment the
small difference in age between teacher and pupil might lead to grave
consequences. As things turned out the good lady was not far wrong in
this. Otherwise they were all very kind to me. I had a good room,
excellent food, and as I had to teach only six hours a day, I had time
enough to devote myself with all my might to philological studies. It
was here that I first began to give my studies a definite direction, for
after acquiring a so-called knowledge of several European languages I
passed on to Turkish, and therewith turned my attention to Oriental
studies. The consciousness of having missed the help of regular
schooling, and the formal discharge in the ordinary course, caused me
many pangs of conscience, for I knew it was all through my own
unpardonable recklessness, namely, in neglecting twice over to save the
sixteen florins wherewith to redeem the school certificate. I reproached
myself most unmercifully, called myself a good-for-nothing, and
determined henceforth to work with unremitting zeal, to make use of
every moment, and by increased diligence to redeem the past. In my
excessive remorse I even went so far as to write in Turkish
characters--so as not to be read by any one else--on my books, on my
writing-table, on the walls of my room, such words as "Persevere!" "Be
ashamed of yourself!" "Work!" These were to act as a stimulant and
constant warning not to fall again into the same error.
I could the more easily keep this firm resolve to myself, as my
linguistic studies had now carried me beyond the mere mechanical
committing of passages to memory, and enabled me to enjoy the more
intellectual pleasure of reading the classical works of foreign lands.
This filled my leisure hours with exquisite delight. Was it the
loneliness of village life which made work such a recreation to me, or
was it the glorious feeling of being able to read these master-works of
other nations in the original tongue? Enough, my pleasure in reading was
unbounded; every thought seemed divine, every metaphor a veritable gem
of poesy; and my reading, or more often reciting, was constantly
interrupted by exclamations of surprise and admiration, and the margins
of the various texts were covered with notes and comments expressive of
my rapturous appreciation. The works which at that time especially took
my fancy were: The _Seasons_, by Thomson; the _Henriade_, by Voltaire;
the _Sonnets_ of Petrarch; and above all the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ of
Tasso. For hours together I could sit spellbound by the simple and
beautiful account of the heroic deeds of love, or drink in with delight
the exquisite description of the changing seasons. The noble battle
before the walls of Jerusalem or the charming disquisitions of Thomson,
all had the same magic charm for me. The precursors of awakening spring
or the glories of an English summer landscape filled my cup of delight
to the very brim, and the winter picture of the homely company gathered
round the crackling cottage fire brought me into an equally enthusiastic
frame of mind. When reading the _Henriade_ I was particularly fascinated
by the heroic figure of Henry IV.; while the Sonnets of Petrarch were
the silent interpreters of my awakening passion for the daughter of the
house, and I would gladly have substituted the name of Emily for that of
Laura, if the rhythm and the Argus eye of "Mamma" had not prevented me.
Tasso's immortal epic exercised a truly magic charm upon my youthful
imagination. I liked best to read out of doors, far from all human
sounds; it seemed to suit my imaginative fancy; and as long as the
weather was fit my favourite spot used to be on a hill just outside the
village, overshadowed by a large cherry-tree, and close to a gently
murmuring stream. There in the early morning hours, and in the evenings
between five and eight I used to while away my time in the company of
my favourite poets. There I repeated the sonnets of Petrarch, with my
eyes fixed upon the house where Emily dwelt. There I recited my Tasso
with wild enthusiasm, and it was there that one afternoon I was so
absorbed in that wonderful passage where the poet compares the battle of
the Saracens before Jerusalem to claps of thunder and flashes of
lightning, that I had never noticed the gathering thunderstorm over my
own head; I did not hear the peals of thunder and heeded not the
lightning, until I was rudely awakened from my trance by the rain coming
down in torrents, and wetting me to the skin. Often I was so oblivious
of everything, that I held long discourses with birds or flowers or
grass-blades, and never stopped until some passer-by interrupted the
current of my thoughts. Thus it came about that at a very early age
Mother Nature had become so dear to me; and a fine morning not only put
me in good trim for the whole day, but for many days after. I always
chose the most secluded spots for my favourite studies--places where I
could be safe from sudden interruptions; and so, living in a world of
flowery imagery, and burning with the fire of enthusiasm and fantasy, I
began to build my airy castles for the future. To the seven languages I
knew I had gradually added Spanish, Danish, and Swedish, all of which I
learnt in a comparatively short time, sufficiently at any rate to
appreciate the literary productions of these various countries. I
revelled in the poetry of Calderon, Garcilazo de la Vega, Andersen,
Tégnér, and Atterbon, but at the same time I made steady progress in
Turkish, for in my passion for learning, strengthened by an ever-growing
power of retention, I had indeed accomplished wonders. Whenever in my
readings I came upon words that I did not know the meaning of, I wrote
them down and committed them to memory, at first from ten to twenty per
day, but gradually I managed to learn as many as eighty or even a
hundred, and to remember them also. With a determined will, a young man
in the vigour of youth can do almost anything. True, I made many
mistakes, and often had to unlearn again what I had learnt; many a time
I found myself on the wrong track, but there was always satisfaction in
the consciousness that I had not wasted my time, that I had not
squandered the precious years of my youth. In this consciousness I
boldly faced the future with all the disappointments which possibly
might await me in the thorny path of life, whether owing to accident or
to my own fault.
The happiness of my idyllic rest and careless existence in the beautiful
valley of the Slavonic mountains came abruptly to an end; and after a
sojourn of eighteen months in Kutyevo, my fair, smiling sky was once
more darkened by gathering clouds. As teacher I had fulfilled my duty;
as pedagogue Mr. Rosenfeld was satisfied with me, but as man, _i.e._,
young man, my conduct was considered objectionable and detrimental to
the reputation of the young lady, who was expected to make a good match.
As already noted, my eyes were rather too frequently fixed upon the
shining orbs of the charming Miss Emily; and although the latter, more
from plutocratic pride than innate prudishness, took good care not to
give the poor, lame tutor the slightest encouragement, the parents
nevertheless thought it necessary to guard against such an eventuality,
and decided to dismiss me. The actual cause which hastened this decision
was, as far as I can remember, a lesson in writing. For when I noticed
that Miss Emily did not form some of her letters quite correctly, I took
hold of her hand to guide it. The contact with the white, plump little
hand--although at first I managed to guide it mechanically--soon sent
the fire of passion tingling into my finger-tips, and when a gentle
pressure revealed the fact that not mere caligraphic zeal but another
motive stirred within me, the young lady jumped up, gave me an angry
look, and left the room. This decided my fate, and I was dismissed.
The announcement was grievous, even painful to me, not so much because I
had to leave my quiet haven of rest, and the beacon of my first and only
love, but because here, as in Zsámbokrét, I had proved to be a very bad
financier. Of the considerable salary of 600 florins per annum, I had
spent most on books and clothes, and only saved enough to take me to
Pest, and on to Duna Szerdahely, where at my mother's special request I
had decided to go, as she had a great desire to see me after an absence
of several years. The parting from this quiet spot, where I had spent
the happiest eighteen months of my life, was very hard indeed, and when
I took leave of the old cherry-tree, under whose shade I had spent so
many blissful hours with the intellectual heroes of Italy, England,
France and Spain, I cried for hours, and with good reason, for never
again in all my life have I had moments of such pure enjoyment.
It goes without saying that during my stay in Slavonia I made myself
thoroughly acquainted with the Illyric, _i.e._, South-Slavonic language,
both written and conversational. Well stocked with knowledge, but poor
in purse, I now had to face my mother, in whose eyes the material side
of life had most value. A few new clothes in my knapsack and a silver
watch in my pocket could not satisfy her; she upbraided me with lack of
practical common sense, and always wanted to know whither the knowledge
of so many languages would lead me, and whether, considering all the
time spent in study, I could not get a regular position or appointment
of some kind. Higher aims were beyond the ken of the good, practical
woman, and although always full of affection for me, she could not help
now and then expressing her anxiety as to my future, and hinted that I
should have done better to follow the regular course of study, take my
degree at the University, and become a doctor of medicine. I tried once
or twice to explain to her that the knowledge of so many, and especially
of Oriental, languages might one day make me famous; that I might become
interpreter at one of the embassies; but she was quite unable to take
this in. The uncertainty of my future troubled her much, and it grieved
me deeply not to be able to make her see it in a different and better
light. After a short visit I again took leave of her, once more to throw
myself into the world's turmoil.
As my self-conceit had grown with the acquisition of so many languages,
and the stimulus of praise, which up to now had only been vouchsafed to
me by the lower classes of society, had puffed me up with egotism, I
fancied myself worthy of something better than the humble position of
tutor in a Jewish family. I even imagined that my capacities and
learning ought to secure me a position under Government, and for this
purpose I travelled to Vienna, where I hoped to obtain from the Minister
of Foreign Affairs an appointment as interpreter. Of course I failed;
for in the first place I was a perfect stranger and had no
introductions, and in the second place I was absolutely ignorant of the
preliminary steps that had to be taken; of the pedantic and tortuous
passages of Austrian bureaucracy. Realising the fruitlessness of my
efforts, I endeavoured to get private lessons. I advertised in the
Vienna newspapers; but the high-flown announcements of my mezzofantic
perfections remained without the slightest result, and the worthy
ladies' tailor, in whose house on the high-road I had hired a bed on the
fourth story, was much wiser than I, for he advised me to leave Vienna
and go back to Pest, as long as I still had a few books and some clothes
to dispose of to defray the travelling expenses; otherwise, he said, I
should fare badly.
I was bound to acknowledge that the tailor had more common sense than I,
and the only reason that I did not immediately act upon his suggestion
was that I had still a lingering hope that the acquaintances I had made
in Vienna might yet shed a little brightness over the horizon of my
future career. I had had the good fortune of making the personal
acquaintance of some linguistic celebrities. In the hotel "The Wild Man"
in Kärthner Street I had met the great Orientalist Baron Hammer
Purgstall, who had introduced me to the young Baron Schlechta, and
encouraged me to persevere in the study of Turkology. The old gentleman
spoke to me of my very learned countrymen in Turkology, Gévay and
Huszár, and was of opinion that we Hungarians had most exceptional
advantages for the study of Oriental languages. I also came into contact
with the great Servian poet and writer, Vuk Karacic. Under his
humble roof on the Haymarket I was urged to take up the study of the
South-Slavonic tongue; and his daughter, a highly cultured lady, took a
special interest in my destiny, and was much surprised when I recited
with pathos long passages from Davoria, viz., _Heroic Songs_. Mr.
Rayewski, the priest of the Russian Embassy, also received me kindly.
The good man wanted to win me for Russian literature, perhaps also for
its orthodoxy, for he gave me Russian books, and advised me to make a
journey to St. Petersburg, whereas I afterwards took my way in quite a
different direction. There certainly was no want of good advice,
friendly hints and encouragements, but a beautiful lack of practical
help.
It was well for me that I turned my back on the beautiful Imperial city
of the Danube to try my fortune once again in Pest, where, as Hungarian,
I felt more at home. I alighted at a house in the street of the Three
Drums, No. 7. It was a house on the level, with a long court, and
inhabited for the greater part by poor people who could only pay their
rent by letting one or two beds to third parties and sharing their one
living room with several others. I lived at door No. 5 with Madame
Schönfeld, a certificated nurse, who had but little practice, and an
invalid husband into the bargain. Therefore she had four beds for hire
put up in her room, in which eight persons, _i.e._, two in each bed,
were accommodated. Poor artisans who spent their days in the workshop
had here their night-quarters, and I, a special favourite of the
childless Madame Schönfeld, had the privilege of receiving for my
bedfellow a thin tailor-lad, who, because of his lanky proportions, did
not take up quite so much room in the bed, and so allowed me a certain
amount of comfort; for although we lay in bed sardine fashion it
happened sometimes that the more corpulent and stronger bedfellow kicked
his mate out of bed in the night. In these surroundings, which cannot
exactly be called regal, I awaited the favourable moment at which that
friend of my fortunes (Mr. Mayer, already mentioned) should provide me
with another appointment as tutor. Weeks and months passed by, during
which time I had to subsist on the scanty remuneration given for private
lessons. The more I advanced in my studies the more painful it was to
teach French or English for two or three florins per month; but my
poverty-stricken appearance denied me entrance into the better circles
of the capital, and as I had no friends I hesitated to approach any one
who might possibly have lent me a helping hand. The remembrance of house
No. 7 in the street of the Three Drums recalls a series of privations
and sufferings in which hunger, that bitter enemy of my younger days,
plays a principal part. As long as this terrible tyrant plagued me I was
rather spiritless and depressed, and it was only in my books that I
could find comfort against the gnawing pain; for although the Latin
proverb rightly says, "_Plenus venter non studet libenter_," I
nevertheless have experienced that with an empty or half-satisfied
stomach my intellectual elasticity has been greater and my memory
intensified so that I was able to accomplish extraordinary things.
I am not exaggerating when I say that during this interval of my
professional duties I devoted daily ten or twelve hours assiduously to
linguistic studies. To the Romanic and Germanic languages I had added
the study of the Slavonic dialects. The Slovak dialect I had learned
conversationally at St. Georghen and Zsámbokrét; Illyric at Kutyevo; I
had also studied the literatures of these languages. I now applied
myself to learn Russian, which of course was a comparatively easy
matter, and I revelled in the works of Pushkin, Lermontoff, Batyushka,
Dershavin, and other northern writers. I particularly enjoyed changing
about from one poet to another, wandering from north to south, from east
to west. Now I read a few pages from the _Orlando Furioso_, then again a
few verses from the _Fountain in Bagtcheseraj_ of Pushkin, and from the
_Prisoner of the Caucasus_. Here an Andalusian picture unrolled itself
before my eyes--a charming scene on the glorious Ebro, with its pastoral
groups, from Galatea or Estrée. Next I admired a northern sea-fight from
the _Frithiof Sága_, or amused myself with Andersen's Fairy Tales, or
the simple popular songs of _Gusle_ by Vuk Karacic. My joy and my
delight were boundless; my eyes shone, my cheeks were flushed. Every
fibre in my body tingled with the excitement of the lyric or epic
contents of these various works. One can only read with such thorough
appreciation, such deep feeling, in one's early twenties, when the
knowledge of the language has been acquired with much trouble and alone
and when abhorring and despising the mundane character of one's
surroundings, and carried away on the wings of one's heated imagination,
one roams about in higher spheres. The contrast of my own enthusiastic
imagination and the life of the people with whom I associated was about
as great as one can well conceive. Bartering Jews of the most prosaic
type, artisans, day-labourers, and shop-assistants, their only thought
how to earn a few coppers, and to spend them again straight away;
menders and cleaners of old clothes, poor women and pedlars--such were
the people I associated with, and who, looking upon me as half demented,
sometimes pitied and sometimes mocked me. In the winter-time it was very
hard, for then I had to suffer from cold as well as hunger, especially
when the public reading-room of the University was closed, and I was
reduced to sit in Madame Schönfeld's parlour in the Three Drums Street,
where no fire was provided in the daytime. In broad daylight it was not
so bad, for I could jump up and run up and down to get warm. But when it
grew dark I was obliged to go to the Café Szégedin round the corner of
the Three Drums Street; and there, huddled up in a corner of the room,
I read my books by the light of a flickering lamp, regardless of the
frantic noise of the gambling, laughing, bartering crowd. As I could not
pay an entrance fee I had to go home before the gate was locked.
Generally I found all in bed, and continued my studies by the light of a
tallow candle stuck in a broken candlestick, while the sleeping inmates
of the room accompanied my recital--for I always read aloud--with a
snoring duet or terzet, without my interfering with their sleep or they
with my reading. I allowed myself but very little sleep at that time,
for in the early morning I had to give a lesson next door to the son of
Mr. Rosner, the owner of a coffee-house, for which I received every day
a mug of coffee and two little rolls. Two rolls, and my ferocious
hunger! What a contrast! I could easily have demolished half a dozen,
and I had earned them too; but man, whether the owner of a coffee-shop
or of a rich gold-mine, always seeks to make all he can out of the
wretchedness of his fellow-creatures, and this sad truth I had to
realise very early.
At last the weary time of waiting came to an end and I was released from
my uncomfortable position. After several afternoons spent on the rack at
the Café Orczy, my deliverer, the agent Mayer, succeeded in getting me
an appointment with the wealthy Schweiger family in Kecskemét, where I
was well paid, well cared for, but was also hard worked. Here I spent a
year profitably. I had to teach for eight or nine hours daily; two or
three hours were spent over toilet and meals, and when I add that my
private studies occupied at least six hours a day, one sees how little
time I could afford to give to rest, and how very few were the pleasures
in which, at that period of the never-returning spring of life, I was
able to indulge. And yet I am told that in those days I was always
bright and merry, sometimes even quite reckless and extravagant in my
mirth--a characteristic which did not agree well with my position of
tutor. My pupils, who were only three or four years younger than myself,
made good progress in their studies, but their education left much to be
desired. In Kecskemét, where I had more money at my disposal than ever
before, and where I was able to procure the expensive books necessary
for the study of Oriental languages, I made Turkish and Arabic my chief
objects of study. At that time Professor Ballagi lived in that
neighbourhood, and he lent me Arabic books. Thus I was able, assisted by
my knowledge of Hebrew, to make rapid progress in the second Semitic
language, and by the help of Arabic also to perfect myself in Turkish.
The strange characters, the difficulty of learning to read, and the want
of dictionaries, which were too expensive for me to buy, were terrible
obstacles in my way; often I was almost driven to distraction, and the
hours spent in the shady little Protestant churchyard of Kecskemét,
where I loved to linger near the grave of two lovers, will ever remain
in my memory.
The reason of my being only one year with the family Schweiger I cannot
quite remember. Enough to say that I returned again to Pest, that I once
more occupied the seat of disgrace in the Café Orczy, and went from
there to the Puszta Csev, not far from Monor, to a Mr. Schauengel,
where I stayed only six months, fortunately in the spring and summer;
for life in a lonely house on the Puszta (Heath), notwithstanding my
love of solitude, soon became too much for me, and the terrible monotony
of the scenery made me almost melancholy. Here I had the first foretaste
of the Steppe regions of Central Asia, afterwards to be the scenes of my
adventurous travels. On the Puszta itself no tree was to be seen for
miles round, and when in the afternoons I wanted to read out of doors,
the only shade I could find against the scorching sun of the hot summer
months was under a haycock or straw-rick. Exhausted with the hard study
of the Orientalia, I used to indulge here in my favourite reading of the
Odyssey, for I had meanwhile also learned Greek. Stretched out on the
grass I recited aloud the glorious scenes and wonderful stories, and
never noticed the shepherd who was grazing his flock in the
neighbourhood, standing before me, both hands leaning on his staff, and
listening in breathless attention to the strange sounds, half admiring,
half pitying me; for on the Puszta they all thought I was possessed of
the devil--a man who had learned far too much, lost his reason, and now
talked nonsense. When in my lonely walks I stood still and gazed into
the far distance, these simple children of nature used to look at me
with a kind of reverence and awe; sometimes they avoided me, and only
the most daring of them ventured to approach and question me as to a
lost head of cattle or about the weather. My fame as an eccentric spread
over the whole neighbourhood, and to this I owed my invitation to the
house of Mr. Karl Balla, the owner of the neighbouring Puszta
Pot-Haraszt, and late director of the prison of the Pest county. Herr
Balla, an elderly, humane, and amiable man, a passionate meteorologist,
who had on his Puszta erected high poles with weathercocks, had also the
reputation of being an eccentric. Like seeks like; a mutual friendship
grew up between us, and when he proposed to me to come and spend the
winter at his house and instruct his son Zádor in French and English, I
gladly accepted, the more so as Mr. Schauengel intended to send his
children to town for the winter, and I should therefore again have been
out of a place.
As far as the personality of my principal was concerned, my residence at
Pot-Haraszti promised to be very pleasant indeed. I had a quiet, large
room looking into the garden, the food was excellent, my teaching duties
only occupied a few hours of the day, and I had plenty of time and
leisure to devote to the study of the Oriental languages, more
especially Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. The latter had a particularly
magic influence upon me at that time, and the literary treasures which I
found in a Chrestomathy of Vullers filled me with an ecstasy of delight.
Sadi, Jámí, and Khakani were ideals to which I gladly sacrificed many a
night's sleep and many a drive. Unfortunately the family of Herr Balla
had not attained to the same degree of culture as the paterfamilias. The
lady of the house could never bear the idea that a Jew was occupying the
position of prefect in her house, and her constant sneering at my origin
and my want of gentlemanly manners necessarily undermined my authority
over my pupils; there were unpleasant scenes every day, and when these
gave rise to family quarrels--for the old gentleman always firmly took
my side--I made up my mind, though with a heavy heart, to leave this
spot so favourable to my studies, and went to Pest, where, after waiting
six months, I obtained an equally good position at Csetény, in the
county of Veszprém, with Mr. Grünfeld, who rented the place.
This was my last position as private tutor in Hungary, and the kind
treatment which I received from the generous and noble-minded Grünfeld
family has also left the most vivid and pleasant recollections of my
varied and sometimes very difficult pedagogic career. Only one sad
circumstance is connected with my sojourn in this quiet village in the
Bakony, and it has left its ineffaceable traces on my memory. It was on
the 11th of November, 1856, on a rainy evening that, after remaining in
the family circle in pleasant conversation till ten o'clock, I was just
about to retire to my room, which was outside in the court. As I opened
the front door I saw to my horror a number of masked people before me,
one of whom took me by the chest and threw me with force back into the
room, while the others stormed in after him, each of them taking hold of
a member of the panic-stricken family, threatening to kill any one who
dared to utter a sound. It was a band of robbers who had come over from
the neighbouring Bakony Forest. They had watched their opportunity to
attack Mr. Grünfeld, who had returned the day before with a considerable
sum of money from the Pest Market. Lying on the floor with one of those
ruffians kneeling on my chest and the barrel of the pistol wet with the
rain pressed to my forehead, I gradually recovered my senses. The sight
of that dim, lamplighted scene, with the ghastly faces of the
terror-stricken family, has stamped itself for ever on my memory like
some dreadful dream.
Still more terrible scenes followed. We were dragged from one room to
the other, and while the servants of the house stood bound outside,
sighing and groaning, Mr. Grünfeld was requested to give up all his
effects and money. He was robbed of about 20,000 florins; but as this
did not satisfy the rapacity of those wild fellows, and one of them
pointed the barrel of his gun to the breast of the father of the family,
I lost all patience, jumped up, and placing the weapon on my own breast
I cried, "If you must kill, kill me; I have neither wife nor child, it
is better that I should die." These words seemed to make an impression
on the leader of the band, probably a political fugitive who had retired
into the forest to escape the vengeance of the Austrian Government, for
at a sign from him his accomplices refrained from shedding blood. They
collected all the money and valuables, and after searching my room also,
but only depriving me of some volumes of Hungarian classics, they went
away, leaving us all locked up in the dark room.
This ghastly nocturnal scene might have had serious consequences for me,
for the police of the district of Zircz, to which Csetény belonged, came
upon the bright idea of suspecting me--who even at that time as a
Hungarian scholar was in touch with the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences--to be a secret accomplice of this robber band of fugitive
rebels; and they were strengthened in their suspicion by the fact that I
had opened the door, and, with the exception of the books, had escaped
without loss. A zealous anti-Magyar even went so far as to suggest that
it would be wise to take me into custody, and await my trial. I should
certainly have been locked up and treated for months like any common
criminal, if my good friend Mr. Grünfeld had not answered for me and
affirmed my innocence. Instead of going to the sunny Levant, I might
have been shut up in prison without any fault of mine.
This sojourn with the Grünfeld family concluded my career as private
tutor. All my thoughts were now fixed upon the idea of accomplishing
something definite, something more in keeping with all my previous
studies, and no longer running wildly after chimeras. I therefore made
up my mind to go to the East at once, and though it cost me much to
leave the peaceful haven of rest and comfort, I took the necessary steps
to set out on my travels. The last link with the land of my birth was
broken, for my mother, whom I dearly loved, died shortly before my
departure. My name was the last word that passed her lips, and her death
left me absolutely alone, with no one to care for me in all the world.
Before concluding this chapter of my career as private tutor, I must not
forget to mention that these six years were the most productive of all
my life and formed the nucleus of all my future actions. Looking back
upon the many vicissitudes of my early life, the long chain of
incredible privations, and the insatiable desire for knowledge, I must
confess with sorrow that my labour would have been far more profitable
and beneficial if I had not been led astray by my rare power of memory
and an innate talent for languages and conversation; if, instead of
blindly rushing forward regardless of obstacles, I had worked more
quietly, more leisurely, and more thoroughly. I had an immense number of
foreign languages in my head. I could say by heart long passages from
the Parnasso Italiano, Byron, Pushkin, Tegner, and Saadi. I could speak
fluently and write moderately well in several of these languages; yet my
learning was absolutely without system or method, and it was not until I
had had actual intercourse with the various nations and had paid the
penalty of my many shortcomings and erroneous notions, that I could
rejoice in having attained a certain degree of perfection. It is chiefly
due to this haste and eagerness to get on that in the course of my later
studies I always preferred a wide field of action to great depth, and
always set my mind rather on expansion than on penetration.
Nor will I hide the fact that, in spite of want and distress, in spite
of poverty and loneliness, a great longing for the pleasures and
dissipations of youth often possessed me, and that in order to avoid
useless waste of time I had to keep a very strict watch, and often had
to reprimand and punish myself. For many years I used to spend New
Year's Eve in solitude to give an account to myself of all I had done
in the past twelve months, and to write out and seal the programme for
the new year; and when I opened this on the following 31st of December
and saw that some one or other point had remained unaccomplished, I
wrote bitter reproaches on the margin as reminders, and was out of sorts
for days. Besides this, I had my daily calendar, marked with the rubrics
for different subjects of study, which had to be attended to before
going to sleep. If by chance one or other of these rubrics had not been
filled in, I tried to make up for it the next day, and when I could not
manage that I punished myself by absenting myself from the table under
the pretext of a headache or indigestion. With my healthy appetite this
was the severest punishment I could think of, and the irritating clatter
of plates and knives and forks from the adjoining dining-room was indeed
a sore temptation.
Now I can smile over this self-chastisement; but he who has to fight by
himself the battle of youthful folly may easily fall a victim to
thoughtlessness. The eye becomes dazzled by the rosy, smiling picture of
the present, and gets weary of looking into the future.
My young readers, who enter the school of life guided by the admonitions
of parents or teachers, do not realise perhaps how beneficial and useful
these disagreeable-sounding corrections may be some day. They are the
stars that twinkle in the perilous darkness of youthful eagerness. I
missed these helps, and I must call myself fortunate that a kind
Providence spared me the sad consequences of this want.
My First Journey to the East
CHAPTER IV
MY FIRST JOURNEY TO THE EAST
From the little foretaste which my theoretical studies had given me of
the immense depths of delight contained in Oriental literature, it had
become quite clear to me that in order fully to understand and
appreciate this strange and wonderful world it would be absolutely
necessary to have a more intimate knowledge of the land and its bizarre
inhabitants. When I was still in Kecskemét I had been planning a journey
to the East, and since that time the enchanting pictures which the
Oriental poets conjured up had ever been before my eyes. But how could
I, devoid of all means, and scarcely able to procure the bare
necessaries of life--how could I possibly dream of undertaking a journey
which at that time was very expensive? I pondered in vain. But now I had
saved 120 florins from my last salary as tutor. I was thoroughly weary
of teaching, and possessed by a wild desire for adventure. The time
seemed come at last to carry out my ambitious plans. I determined to
start for Constantinople _viâ_ Galatz as soon as ever I could get ready.
The means at my disposal would cover only half of my travelling
expenses, and arrived in Constantinople I should be penniless, without
recommendation, without friends, an utter stranger, with nothing but
starvation before me. But none of these things troubled me, nor did I
worry myself about the possible issue of my hazardous scheme. The
glorious Bosporus, the Golden Horn, the slender minarets, the stately
cupolas of the mosques, the turbaned Turks, and closely veiled Turkish
women, and many other marvels which I was about to behold, had entirely
captivated my imagination, and I had no thought left for the prosaic
details of travelling preparations and expenses, and the care for daily
food. "I shall manage somehow," I said to myself, and the only thing
that caused me some uneasiness was how to get a passport from the
Austrian authorities. Just then they were always very suspicious of any
one going to Turkey, for it was the favourite resort of Hungarian
emigrants, and it was thought in Vienna that rebellious schemes were
being hatched there. Without protection I could do nothing, and by good
fortune the Baron Joseph Eötvös came to my rescue. I had made the
acquaintance of this noble-minded, highly-cultured countryman of mine
some little time before. He, the distinguished and kind-hearted author
and scientist, having accidentally heard of me, had expressed a wish to
make my personal acquaintance. I was then in great want and distress.
My foot covering was in a very dilapidated condition, the soles of my
shoes were in holes, and as I did not like to come into the room from
the dirty street in the rags which covered my feet I tied pasteboard
soles under my shoes. In spite of this precaution my feet left
unmistakable traces on the carpet, much to the annoyance of the
servants, no doubt, but the noble baron only smiled at my discomfiture;
he set me at my ease and questioned me as to what had induced me to take
up the study of philology. He promised me his protection and also gave
me an introduction to the Academy library, so that I could borrow books,
which was of great service to me in my studies. When I spoke to him
about the passport he managed, not without a good deal of trouble, to
influence in my favour the then Governor, a man highly esteemed in
Government circles. The noble baron even went so far as to start a
collection for my benefit, but this failed, and when I took leave of
him, although not rich himself, he gave me some money and clothes,
requesting me to let him have news of me from time to time.
Provided with the necessary legal documents, I soon after packed up my
dictionaries, a few favourite authors, and some underclothes, and was
ready to start. Again at the recommendation of Baron Eötvös I was
provided with a ticket to Galatz at half price, and I went on board one
fine morning in the month of May, 1857, to enter the "land of romance,"
as Wieland calls it in his _Oberon_, with no one to see me off, no one
to weep, no one to grieve over me. The reader will easily imagine the
joyful exultation and rapturous delight which filled my whole being. As
my little stock of ready money had considerably diminished during the
prolonged delay, I had only taken a second-class ticket. All day I
remained on deck, entering into conversation with my fellow-travellers,
old and young, great and small, and of many different nationalities; and
as I could address them all in their mother-tongue my versatility called
forth much admiration, which sometimes expressed itself in the offer of
a drink, sometimes in an invitation to share a modest repast, which I
always gladly accepted. After a good meal my hilarity generally rose a
few degrees, and in this agreeable state of mind I was always pleased to
recite some beautiful passage or other from one of my favourite authors,
and especially from Petrarch's _Sonnets_. It was with the "Hermit of
Vaucluse" that I first gained the favour of the Italian ship's cook, who
invited me to sit down by his kitchen door, and while I was gaily
declaiming outside, the poetically inclined cook inside stirred his pans
with all the more vigour, and an occasional bravo! or _ben fatto!_ for
my benefit. Of course the practical tokens of his favour were not
wanting, for Mr. Cook handed me from time to time a plateful of the best
food his kitchen could produce. Thus I lived in plenty and comfort, and
often had to confess to myself that my adventurous sail to the East had
with this passage of the Danube commenced under the very best auspices.
I was particularly fascinated by the variety of nationalities around me.
For the first time in my life the narrow limits of a ship afforded me
the opportunity of conversing with representatives of so many different
nations, that I could now at pleasure put into practice my theoretical
and letter knowledge; and although my queer pronunciation and faulty
accentuation often made it difficult for the foreigners to understand
me, I very soon learned to understand them, and after a while I was
surprised to find how smoothly and fluently the conversation went along.
When at Widdin I first saw real live Turks, and my surprise and
astonishment knew no bounds. My first acquaintance with a Mussulman was
of special interest. It was evening, the sun was going down, and its
last rays shone on the deck swarming with natives from Servia,
Wallachia, Bulgaria, and Turkey. A venerable follower of the Prophet
stepped forth, spread his carpet in a corner of the deck, and began to
perform his "Akhsham Namazi," _i.e._, evening devotions. The sight of
this old man prostrating himself in all humility and contrition of
heart, with his head bent low, and arms limply stretched out in front of
him, made a deep impression upon me. I never took my eyes off him, and
when he rose from his prayers and rolled up his carpet, I came forward
and addressed him. I was pleased to find that he was willing to talk to
me; he told me that his name was Mehemed Aga and that he came from
Lofcha. He was now on his way to Stambul to visit his son Djewdet
Effendi, who was studying there, and who afterwards became known as
Historiographer and Minister of Justice. From Stambul he intended to go
on to Mecca. The name "Madjar" (Hungarian) stood at that time in good
repute with the Turks, who had interested themselves for the emigrating
Hungarians; and when I had shown the dear old man my Turkish reading
book, a religious work entitled _Kyrk Sual_ (the Forty Questions), and
had read something aloud out of it, his confidence increased, he invited
me to supper, and throughout the voyage proved himself a good, kind
friend to me.
Other acquaintances of a similar nature helped to clear away the black
clouds which darkened the horizon of my future in the strange land. The
sail up the Danube as far as Galatz soon came to an end, and I was
fortunate enough to secure a half deck-ticket on one of the Lloyd
steamers. I was supremely happy, as now for the first time in my life I
should see the briny ocean, so familiar to me from the descriptions of
Byron and Tegner and other master poets; and when I beheld its mighty
grandeur I was almost giddy with delight and admiration. In order to
watch the motion of the waves more closely I stationed myself, with
permission of the sailors, on a projection near to the bowsprit, and I
imagined I was riding a dolphin, with the salt waves splashing round me.
Thus I accomplished the first few miles on the dark waters of the Pontus
Euxinus. I literally bathed in a sea of delight. I sang, I shouted in my
exultation, and until far into the night my voice vied with the seagulls
and the clamour of the ship's crew behind me. At last, nearly soaked
through with the spray, I left my perch and retired to a corner of the
deck which the Turks had taken possession of, and soon fell fast asleep.
About midnight I was roused by the jerky motion of the ship, and got up.
The howling of the wind, the creaking of the planks, the jolting and
bumping of the vessel, the sighs and groans of the passengers, and
especially of the Turkish women, soon made me realise that I was to have
the good fortune of witnessing the terrible majesty of the Euxine in a
real storm. Regardless of the consternation round me, the fright, the
lamentations, the cries, and the general confusion, I steered my way
along the pitch-dark deck, and was beside myself with joy when an
occasional flash of lightning gave me a sight of the awful spectacle
around, and the black waves towering high above us. Oh! the horror and
the delight of it! My dearest wishes were realised, and as I stood
leaning against the railing which separated our quarter from the deck of
the first-class passengers, and in my rapturous excitement began to
declaim a few stanzas from the _Henriade_, I noticed that a traveller,
pacing up and down on the other side, occasionally stopped to listen;
and after a while he shouted to me in French, "Who are you; what makes
you think of the _Henriade_ just now?" After a little conversation I
found that I was talking to the Secretary of the Belgian Legation at
Constantinople. The next morning he talked for a long time with me, and
finally asked me to come and see him at Pera.
Needless to say I was deeply impressed by the entrance of the Bosporus,
and it was not until the ship had cast anchor at the Golden Horn
opposite Galata, and the passengers crowding into the boats had gone
ashore, that I awoke from my dreams and began to realise my critical
position. I had only just enough money in my pocket to pay for the
ferryboat, without the slightest idea where to go or what to do. There I
stood, penniless, in an utterly strange town. As far as I can remember I
was about two hours climbing up the steep incline between Galata and
Pera. I was so fascinated by the absolute grotesqueness of the life
around me, the chaos of languages, gaudy costumes and strange
physiognomies, that I was obliged to stop every few minutes, rooted, as
it were, to the spot. Pushed on all sides, I felt myself suddenly seized
by the shoulder, and some one addressed me first in Italian and then in
Hungarian. I stood face to face with Mr. Püspöki, my countryman and an
emigrant. My Hungarian hat with the flying ribbons had attracted his
attention, and he began to question me as to the aim and object of my
journey. "Ah, perhaps you are the philologer of whose journey to the
East we have read in the Hungarian papers?" "Yes," I answered; "and
since you are the first countryman I have met, you must help me to find
a lodging and work to do." The good man looked at me with surprise; he
seemed to have guessed the emptiness of my pocket, and in order not to
raise my hopes too high he told me that he was not doing very well
himself, and that just at present he was looking for a cook's place, and
would gladly share his modest quarters with me. Talking about the
beloved fatherland, the absolutism of the Austrians, and the miserable
condition of Turkey, he led me through a labyrinth of dirty, narrow
passages to his abode behind the wall of the English Embassy. This
dwelling consisted of one bare room, with broken windows, and as its
only furniture a long, torn, Turkish divan, which he pulled forward,
inviting me to sit down. "Half of it is mine, and the other yours," said
kind-hearted Mr. Püspöki; "and as for food, I will show you a locanda
(eating-house), where, if you happen to have cash, you can get a good
meal very reasonably." He took me to a basement place in what is now the
Grande Rue de Pera, and which bore the pompous title of "Café Flamm de
Vienne." They sold café-au-lait and Vienna rolls, quite a novelty for
the East in those days. Here I found other compatriots lounging about,
some in Turkish military uniform, some in threadbare clothes. The
majority gave me a hearty welcome, but a few eyed me suspiciously, for
just then the emigrants dreaded to find in every fresh arrival from
Hungary an Austrian spy, sent over to report about them to the
authorities. However, the harmlessness of my personality soon reassured
them, and all suspicions were allayed when they found that I could read
Turkish and speak it a little as well. Some of them invited me to
breakfast straight away, to which meal I did full justice.
After the conclusion of the Crimean War this Café Flamm had become the
favourite haunt of disillusioned adventurers, officers out of employ,
bankrupt merchants, despairing emigrants, political enthusiasts, and
heroes of all trades and nationalities. To judge from the conversation
of these almost always hungry gentlemen, the fate of Europe and of
Turkey was to be decided in this dingy, smoky parlour; they played ball
with Sovereigns and Ministers of State to their hearts' content; they
all had their own plans and views for the amelioration of the world, and
each of them secretly believed that it was merely a question of time for
him to get to the head of affairs in Turkey. The modern Argonaut
expedition of united Europe to the northern banks of the Euxine had
created during and since the Crimean War quite a marvellous host of
knights of the Golden Fleece, and had opened the romantic East to the
romantic children of the West. The tailor's apprentice is in this
"Foreign Legion" suddenly promoted to be a first lieutenant or captain;
hotel waiters become secretaries and interpreters; journalists blossom
forth as great strategists, financiers, and diplomatists; ensigns are
for the nonce colonels and generals; and when, after the violent attack
on the Malakoff, the angel of peace appeared on the banks of the Seine,
vanished was the glitter of the golden existence in the Golden Horn; the
heroes, one and all, subsided into their former insignificance, and met
at the Café Flamm to sweeten the bitter bread of sad reality by the
concoction of still more high-flown plans for the future. The various
types I saw in this coffee-house and the hours spent there will ever
remain fresh in my memory.
In this manner the first days of my sojourn in Pera passed away. I
traversed in all directions both the European and the Turkish quarters
of the town, and always liked to enter into conversation with the Turks
lounging in the coffee-houses; I read aloud from the Turkish books I
always carried about with me, and noticed that the Mohammedans, easily
influenced and affable folks, were impressed by my knowledge of Turkish
and Persian, and regarded me as a kind of prodigy who, having arrived in
Stambul only a day or two ago, already spoke Turkish like an Effendi.
On account of the great difference between the language of the educated
classes and of the people, those who speak the former are always treated
with a certain amount of respect, especially if they are unbelievers;
and as at that time the sympathies of the Turks for the Hungarians had
reached their height, the kindness of these good Osmanli seemed quite
natural to me; and when in any of the coffee-houses I read aloud
passages from "Ashik Garib" ("The Amorous Foreigner"), or from another
popular poem, with the right accentuation and modulation, I generally
reaped a rich harvest of bread, cheese, and coffee, sometimes even Kebab
(roast beef) or Pilaf and Pastirma (dry, smoked meat). At night I
availed myself of Mr. Püspöki's hospitality, and slept excellently on my
miserable couch, in spite of the fiendish noise of the rats racing about
in the room. Their presence was at first rather objectionable to me, as
they gnawed my boots and my clothes, but afterwards, when the necessary
precautions had been taken, I did not trouble any more about them.
Favoured by fine weather, in the charm of novelty the first six weeks of
my stay in Constantinople passed away pleasantly. I never knew in the
morning where I should eat in the evening: the future did not trouble me
in the least; and as I had now changed my hat for a fez, and looked
shabby enough to pass for a wandering lecturer, I spent my days enjoying
to the full my vagabond life.
The mixed nationalities that I came into contact with on the banks of
the Bosporus, were exactly what I needed to complete my theoretical
knowledge of their languages, and ear and memory stood each other in
good stead. I soon acquired the correct accent and construction; and
imitating the different languages as closely as I could in tone and
sound, many took me for a native, and the jokes and jests caused by this
muddle of languages gave me many a delicious moment. Unfortunately my
happiness was somewhat marred by the sudden departure of Mr. Püspöki,
who had found employment as cook on one of the steamers of the
Messageries Impériales, for this made me lose my night quarters, and I
had to hunt about for a long time, until at last the secretary of the
Hungarian Association--Magyar Egylet--proposed that I should take up my
quarters in the council-room of the Society, which was likely soon to be
dissolved. In this large, empty hall I found an old sofa, on which I
stretched myself, but the evenings were cool and I could not sleep. So I
begged Mr. Frecskay, which was the secretary's name, to give me a wrap
of some kind. The good-hearted man appeared presently with a torn
tricolor in his hand, handed it to me with grave pathos, and said, "I
have nothing but this precious memento of our glorious struggle. This
flag has sent the fire of enthusiasm into the lines of our fighters for
justice and freedom; cover yourself with it, it will warm you also." Of
course I could not continue to sleep there, so I set off once more in
search of a bed, and soon found help in the person of another
compatriot, Major E. This man had unfortunately lost his watchdog, and
as his wife would not be left alone in the lonely house near Hassköi, he
invited me to take up my abode there while he was away on business in
the provinces, and until he had procured another watchdog. So I was to
occupy the vacant position of watchdog! It was not particularly
inviting; but turned out rather better than I expected. Instead of a
dog-kennel I had a comfortable room, and plenty of coffee and bread for
breakfast. So I contented myself with the exchange, and continued my old
Bohemian life.
The mornings were chiefly devoted to reading Turkish books, then I
cleaned out the yard and fetched water from the well some little
distance off, and towards evening I repaired to different coffee-houses
to gain a piaster or two by reciting familiar love-poems. No sooner was
I seated there on a high stool surrounded by Turks and Armenians, and
had begun to recite in a nasal sing-song tone, when the conversation
gradually dropped, and the rattling of the nargiles began to subside.
They listened to the love-sick lamentations of Wamik and Esra, of
Khossru and Shirin, where the sad fate of the lovers is recounted. My
readings and recitations were generally attended by the manifestations
of violent emotion or admiration on the part of my audience. In my
subsequent travels in Persia I have often experienced the same thing;
and even now, when I think of those times, the spell of the scene comes
over me again, and I revel in the memory of those early days, when I
could gain the ear of those regular Orientals and keep the crowds
spellbound. Truly speech, the spoken word, is a mighty instrument! By it
mountains are levelled and hearts hard as rock are softened. Differences
of faith and nationality vanish before it; and as I had the good fortune
to experience all this at the very outset of my adventurous career in
Asia, many dark outlines of the far-off future were smoothed away.
Thus the days passed swiftly until the approach of autumn, when I began
to realise the seriousness of my condition, and once more I made up my
mind to try to get lessons or a permanent appointment as private tutor,
in order to make a decent living. In the East bombastic speeches and
high-flown announcements are not at all a rarity; nevertheless the
advertisement which I had fixed up in all the booksellers' shops in
Pera, and in which I offered myself as teacher of a whole string of
Western and Eastern languages, attracted much attention. Bizarre,
absurd, and fantastic as my advertisement was, it did not fail in its
object, for before long I was summoned by a Turk in Scutari, and a Mr.
von Hübsch, General-Consul of Denmark. The former had just come in for a
large sum of money, and in order to do justice to his position of
modern dandy wanted to be able to talk a little French. He wished to
take French lessons from me, while the latter, an Easterling by birth,
wanted to learn Danish, not so much for conversation, he thought, but
rather to be able to read the Danish Court circular and newspapers. Here
was a singular and rather perplexing demand upon my Scandinavian
studies; in my wildest dreams it had never entered my brain that I might
be called upon to teach a representative of Denmark the language of that
country! And yet such was the case. For eighteen months Mr. v. Hübsch
continued my pupil, and when, at the end of that time, we had finished
Andersen's novel _Kun a Spilleman_ ("Only a Fiddler"), and he could
read the _Berlinske Tidninger_, I came to the conclusion that there is
nothing impossible in this world, and that an adventurous career
certainly brings the oddest experiences. I did not get on so well with
my Turkish scholar. As a man of fashion his object was merely to have a
French _maître_ coming to the house, but he was lazy and frivolous, and
all the learning that was done was on my side; for in his house at
Chamlidjia, on the hill above Scutari, he always entertained a company
of Effendis and Porte officials in the evenings, with whom I conversed
for hours, and made rapid progress both in Turkish society manners and
customs, and in the elegancies of the Osmanli speech. The distance
between the landing-stage at Scutari and Chamlidjia was a weary journey
to accomplish every day on foot, but it was a _gradus ad Parnassum_, and
after being in office for three months I could act the Effendi not only
in outward appearance, manners, and gesticulations, but I could hold a
conversation in Turkish with all the necessary elegance, and was well on
the way to becoming a perfect Effendi.
The Turks of the upper classes are very pleasant people, especially when
one humours their peculiarities, and takes the trouble to learn their
language, one of the most difficult in the world. No wonder, therefore,
that my circle of acquaintances perceptibly increased, and that I had
constantly fresh applications and fresh invitations as teacher of
languages. Thus far I had made Pera my headquarters, but when, through
the intervention of my countryman, Ismail Pasha (General Kmetty), I was
offered the position of private tutor in the Konak of the Hussain Daim
Pasha, in the town-quarter of Kabatash, I accepted at once, adjourned to
the Turkish quarter, and henceforth became a regular Turk. Only the name
was wanting now, and this was given me by my principal, a worthy
Cherkess, who had been educated at the court of Sultan Mahmud; he
ordered his household henceforth to address me as _Reshid_, _i.e._, the
valiant, the honest one; and on the strength of my linguistic skill to
give me the title of Effendi. So Reshid Effendi was my official name,
but neither the Pasha nor myself had ever thought of a regular
Islamising. The former, a Mohammedan of the purest water, who
afterwards became involved in an anti-reform conspiracy, thought no
doubt that my conversion would follow as a matter of course, and that,
when fully convinced of the material advantages to be derived from
joining the ruling class altogether, I should give up all idea of
returning to the West. As for myself, the very idea of conversion was
far from me. I had long been a confirmed freethinker, and Islam seemed
to open a religious world which, because of its sound foundation and
rational dogmas, was all the more dangerous to the free soaring upward
of the spirit; but with my declared animosity against positive religions
in general, it was altogether beyond me to embrace it. At the same time
I must admit that the forbearance of the upper classes in the Turkish
metropolis was most praiseworthy; for most of them saw perfectly well
through the hypocritical nature not only of my Moslemism but of that of
other European renegades, and did not pin the slightest faith to the
conversion of Europeans; they never in any way, however, disapproved of
this incognito, or resented the mere external acknowledgment of the
newly adopted faith. In this the better classes of Turkey have always
advantageously distinguished themselves from the _soi-disant_ cultured
classes of European society; for while these latter high-born gentlemen,
brought up in the trammels of prejudice, short-sightedness, and
hypocrisy, presuppose in their converts the same lack of inner
persuasion, and consider conversion to their views quite a possible
thing, the cultured Turk, be he ever so religious, recognises in Islam a
world of thought, born and bred in the blood, dependent upon education
and mental development, and absolutely impossible of adoption by a man
of Western training. They called me Reshid Effendi, they permitted me to
be present at and to join in their religious ceremonies, they discussed
in my presence frankly and unreservedly the most abstruse religious
questions, they even brought me in contact with the friars, and laughed
when I joined in the recitation of hymns, or took part in their
disputes; but the question whether I really intended to become a
Mohammedan, to marry, and to live the life of a regular Moslem, nobody
ever thought of asking; that question has been put to me only by the
uneducated.
In this manner I was enabled to move in Turkish society as Reshid
Effendi without in any way binding myself. The more I became familiar
with their social customs, and steeped in the Oriental ways of living
and thinking, the larger grew my circle of acquaintances, and the more
unreservedly all doors were opened to me, not merely of lower officials
but of the higher and even the very highest dignitaries. Turkey knows no
aristocracy of birth; the man of obscure origin can suddenly become
Marshal and Grand-Vizier; and since most of them, as self-made men,
have no genealogical scruples, so also in the foreigner they do not so
much consider his antecedents as his personal capabilities; and as my
fame as professor of the Turkish language spread, I found the doors of
the highest society open to me, and in a year's time, I was, with the
exception of Murad Effendi (Werner), who lived in the house of Kibrisli
Pasha, the only European who, without formally going over to Islam, had
become an Effendi and a _protégé_ of the Porte circle. Easy as this
transformation had been, because of the tolerance of the better classes
of Stambul, so much the greater had been the sacrifices which the lower
classes demanded from me. Servants play an important part in Turkish
households; they are looked upon as members of the family, and in the
patriarchal organisation of the house they have a considerable influence
upon the Effendi and Pasha, and especially upon the children. These
servants, transported from the interior of European and Asiatic Turkey
to the banks of the Bosporus, are generally in the very lowest stage of
education; they are extremely fanatical and suspicious as regards
Europeans, and the higher I rose in the favour of the master of the
house the higher rose their jealousy and animosity. They could not
understand that, notwithstanding my literary and religious knowledge, I
did not become a pious Moslem, and why the Pasha, Bey, or Effendi should
show me, the disguised Giaour, so much attention. In spite of all that
both religion and national custom prescribe as to the kind treatment of
guests, for the Koran says, "Ekremu ed dhaifun ve lau kana kafirun,"
_i.e._, "Honour the guest, even if he be an unbeliever," I had much
unkindness to bear, and had to put up with many a humiliation. What
amused me most was the conduct of the older house-servants; they even
played the Mentor towards the governor, his wife, and his children, and
often instructed me in rules of etiquette and general views of life. In
the eyes of these people infidel Europe was a barbarian wilderness,
rejecting the civilising influences of Islam, and it was an act of
condescension on the part of the old-stock Turk, brought up within the
small Stambul circle, to put me right, and to instruct me in the correct
way of sitting, walking, eating, talking, and general comportment.
Others, again, were malevolent and fanatical, made me the butt of their
ill-chosen jokes, worried me, and once it even happened that a
scoundrel, who had risen to be the tyrant of the house, threw his boot
at my head because I had not polished it enough to his liking. I had to
take all this into the bargain; it was a new school--the school of
Oriental life--which I had to pass through, and the fee had to be paid.
After the servants it was the harem, _i.e._, the Turkish female world,
which caused me a good deal of trouble. Turkish women, the fair sex in
general, are distinctly conservative, and they could not understand how
the Pasha or Effendi could tolerate the presence of a Giaour in the
Selamlik, _i.e._, in close proximity to the harem, and above all, how he
could have come upon the idea of entrusting the education of his
children to an infidel. Even now Turkish ladies are much more fanatical
than the men; but at that time, the beginning of the reform period, they
evinced an ungovernable hatred and aversion against everything
Christian. They showed me their dislike in all sorts of teasing ways.
Communication between the harem and the outer world is carried on by
means of the Dolab, a round, revolving sort of cupboard. Everything
intended for the Selamlik is placed in this Dolab, and when the women
want to speak with any one outside they do so through the Dolab. When I
heard the sound of a woman's voice, and shouted the customary "Buyurun"
("At your service") into the Dolab, I either received no answer at all
or else some rude rejoinder; and it was not till later, when I had
trained myself to make exquisitely polite speeches and poetic
compliments, that they vouchsafed to give me a short answer. After
months of effort I succeeded at last in breaking the ice. My youthful
fire could not fail to take effect, and the ladies, most of them very
beautiful Circassians, who were much neglected by the old invalid master
of the house, gradually began to praise my willingness to oblige them
and my linguistic proficiency, and proofs of their favour were also
forthcoming. In six months' time the Böyük Hanim (chief wife) entrusted
me with the charge of one of the Odalisks, long past the spring of life,
who suffered from severe toothache, and had to be taken to a dentist at
Pera. The long and difficult road up the steep incline to Pera
necessitated a rest midway, and with the afflicted lady I stopped at the
house of a Hungarian countryman of mine. The kind hospitality she met
with seemed to have pleased the Turkish woman extremely, for soon
afterwards more ladies of the harem, some of them quite young, were
suddenly seized with toothache, and I had to take them in turns to Pera
for dental operations. My intercourse with the inmates of the harem was
very strained; it was so difficult to keep to the strict rules of
etiquette. I could not accustom myself to cast down my eyes when in the
presence of a lady, as Turkish custom demands. It is no small matter at
twenty-four to tear one's gaze away from the fiery orbs of a beautiful
Circassian. There were other difficulties which it cost me much trouble
to overcome.
But, true to my principle to persevere and to bear all things, and
hardened by early sufferings, I found strength to pursue the end I had
in view. Rising, step by step, I first came into the house of the Chief
Chancellor of the Imperial Divan, Afif Bey, whose son-in-law, Kiamil
Bey, I taught for about twelve months, and where I had daily intercourse
with the _élite_ of Porte society. Our house, opposite the mausoleum of
Sultan Mahmud II., not far from the High Porte, was the rendezvous of
men of wit and genius, celebrated authors, and high society generally.
Here I made the acquaintance of Midhat Pasha, afterwards celebrated in
Europe as the father of the Turkish constitution. He was then Midhat
Effendi, and occupied the position of secretary to my Pasha. Midhat was
a lively young man of a restless and fanciful turn of mind; he was
studying French at that time, and as he had not the patience, while
reading, to look up words in the dictionary, he began to read with me
for a few hours every day, in return for which he helped me to decipher
difficult Turkish texts, as, for instance, in the historical works of
Saaddesdin of Kemalpashazade, or he corrected my compositions and
introduced me into the Medrissa (college) for Osmanlis, where I was
allowed to attend the lectures of celebrated exegetists, grammarians,
and lawyers of the time, in company with the Softas (students of
divinity). Here, crouching before the Rahle (Koran-desk) at the feet of
the thickly turbaned Khodjas (teachers), I was introduced into the
practical knowledge of Islam, and the instruction which my
fellow-students accepted with religious enthusiasm was to me all the
more interesting as, rising higher and higher in the estimation of the
Turks in general, I gained possession of the talisman which has been my
guide in all my subsequent journeys and wanderings. Amongst the many
Europeans who have formally gone over to Islam, I was the first to be
educated at a Medresse (university), and the study seemed the easier to
me as the ruling spirit here strongly reminded me of the Orthodox Jewish
schools. Here, as there, discussions and disputations are carried on
with great religious zeal; they go carefully into the minutest details
of ritualistic ordinances, they criticise and speak for and against; and
whoever can hold out longest with his arguments is reckoned to be the
best scholar. As Muhtedi, _i.e._, One brought to the truth, or properly,
converted, they were particularly obliging to me, and all my remarks
were applauded.
In the year 1859 I could take part in single disputes, and as my name
was often mentioned in society, I soon received an appointment at the
house of Rifaat Pasha, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, as
teacher of history, geography, and French. This house not only ranked as
the richest in the Turkish capital at that time, but it was also the
rendezvous of Turkish _literati_, who, as fanatical adherents to old
Asiatic culture, always gave the preference to Turkish compositions and
literature; and when the young master of the house, Reouf Bey, gathered
round him in the evening the celebrated Kiatibs (writers) and led the
conversation to selections of Turkish authors, I literally revelled in
the enjoyment of the marvellous metaphors and gems of oratory in the
Osmanli language. History, philosophy, and similar themes were not
introduced into this circle, and as for politics the conversation was
limited to the discussion of some elevation to a higher rank, or some
official grant, on which occasions the high dignitaries then in office
were always sharply criticised, for every one endeavoured to show up
their faults by witty epigrams, or to prove their unfitness, corruption,
and injustice in elaborate flowery language. So far the decorous evening
assemblies. As for the merry gatherings, the so-called pot-evenings, of
which I have spoken at large in my _Sketches of the East_, under the
title of "Drinking Bouts," they were always objectionable and abominable
to me, for I have never had a liking for spirituous drinks, and I have
often had to sit for hours with an empty stomach, waiting until the
grand gentlemen had finished intoxicating themselves with their Mastika
(a kind of brandy) before the evening meal was served. The conversation
on these occasions was coarse and vile in the extreme, and things were
discussed freely and openly before young people which would have brought
a flush of shame to the cheek in the most degraded of European society.
In this it becomes apparent to the stranger of Western lands how
beneficial is the influence of women on society in general, and that
social amenity is incompatible with the rigorous separation of the
sexes, as it is in the East, and must ultimately lead to moral
corruption. To be nailed to one's chair for hours together, without
daring to move--for to show any restlessness is a breach of good
manners--and to be obliged to listen to all sorts of disgusting stories,
generally bearing upon sexual intercourse, and to trivial, childish, and
absurd conversations, is of all things about the most terrible penance
which can be inflicted upon a young, enthusiastic European striving
after higher ideals. As long as the language still offered fresh charms,
this torture was bearable, but afterwards these gatherings became a
veritable infernal pain to me, and I was glad indeed when the winter was
over and we adjourned to the summer residence on the banks of the
Bosphorus, in the villa of Kanlidjia, where, at any rate, I was able to
escape from the smoke-filled room and enjoy to my heart's content the
fresh summer evening air on the Bosphorus, the loveliest spot on all the
earth.
A prominent feature of the Oriental character is an extraordinary
serenity and an easy-going, contemplative turn of mind. This same
feature also evinces itself in family life. Being a stranger, I had
access only to the Selamlik, _i.e._, the men's part of the house, and I
often felt very lonely in the daytime, and had plenty of time and
leisure for my studies. The four years I spent in Turkish households
were in many respects like life in a monastery, and it was not till
later, when I had become acquainted with many prominent members of high
society, that I could break the monotony by making frequent calls, and
bring some variety into my studies. Always welcome in one house as
teacher, in another as friend and guest, I often used to spend two or
three days a week outside the family where I really belonged. I had in
these various houses my own Gedjelik, or night requisites; also a bed at
my disposal, consisting of a cover and bolster and the use of a divan;
and when I arrived anywhere at night it was taken for granted that I
stayed the night and shared the evening meal. The hospitality of the
Orientals, and especially of the Turks, is unbounded, and it is to them
not only a pleasure but also a means of fulfilling one of the most
sacred duties of their religion. Whether one or two more people sit down
at his table makes very little difference to him, for there is always
plenty to satisfy a few unexpected guests, and whether he be rich or
poor, the Turk is always supremely happy when he has plenty of company
at his table. But what struck me especially was the total absence of
aristocratic pride and class distinction in social life. Vizier,
marshal, minister, or son-in-law of the Sultan, all gave me an equally
hearty reception, nobody asked after my antecedents, nobody inquired as
to my circumstances, and I, who at home in the mother country had been
an obscure Jewish teacher, living in absolute retirement, became now in
the very short time of two years the confidential friend of the most
distinguished and wealthiest dignitaries. As friend and guest initiated
into all the mysteries of private and official concerns, I soon became
as learned and knowing as any Effendi born in Stambul and brought up
under the Porte. Of necessity this privileged position in Turkish
society brought me often in contact with European intelligence and the
diplomatic circle at Pera. Besides the Austrian internunciature, where
Baron Schlechta, whom I knew at Vienna, introduced me, I came into
contact with the Prussian, Italian, and English Embassies. At the
Prussian legation I taught Turkish to Count Kayserling, and at the hotel
of the English Embassy I was introduced by Count Pisani, the first
interpreter, to the then powerful Lord Stratford Canning, and I often
acted as interpreter to him when he paid private calls at the house of
Mahmud Nedim Pasha at Bebek. This man of the iron mien was not a little
astonished when he heard me, the supposed Effendi, talk English
fluently. My Turkish appearance, and the fame I enjoyed among the Turks
of a thorough knowledge of their language, soon became the talk of the
diplomatic circles at Pera. I was invited to _soirées_ and public
dinners, and thus received the first impressions of the social life of
the West, the rigorous etiquette and stiffness of which was, honestly
speaking, very objectionable to me at first.
The free access I had to all circles of Turkish society, where even
native Armenians and Greeks comported themselves with a certain amount
of restraint, gave me a deeper insight into the political and social
condition of Turkey in the fifties than perhaps any other European. And
this was the more interesting as it revealed the first stage of the
transformation from Eastern to Western civilisation. In the house, in
the school, in the harem, in religion, and in government, everywhere a
partly spontaneous, partly forced change became apparent, and, alas! it
was this very first phase of the transformation which gave the
thoughtful spectator but little hope as to the ultimate result of the
metamorphosis, the assimilation of the East of Western ways. There was
no sound basis to work upon, and the introduction of modern civilisation
was forced on far too hastily, for the evident purpose of satisfying the
craving impatience of the West. Wherever one looked, the eye met the
deceptive, forced, and unreal evidences of the reform movement; it was
merely obedience to the word spoken from high places; and even there,
where the necessity of assimilation was acknowledged, a transition from
East to West would eventually have failed. In my constant intercourse
with the leading men of this movement I have often touched upon this
theme, and, pointing out the tremendous difference between Asiatic and
European civilisation, I have always advocated the necessity of a
gradual progress, based on historical, religious and social
developments.
But I was always met with the answer, "We are forcibly pushed on; they
despise our centuries of old Oriental culture, they want to change us,
like a _Deus ex machinâ_, into Europeans; if they would only give us
time, our transformation would be slower, but more effectual in the
end."
And now, in view of recent events in Japan, these words are explained as
a mere pretext for the laziness and the spirit of procrastination of the
Moslem East. The fact is lost sight of that the Shinto faith of the
Japanese, never at any time prudish like Islam, has never resisted the
influences of European civilisation in the same degree as the triumphant
doctrine of Mohammed has done. And what is more, one cannot or will not
see that the intensely autocratic government of Moslem sovereigns
hinders the work of modernisation as much as the liberal institutions of
Japan further it.
When I think of those nightly assemblies at the house of my Pasha, where
the most varied arguments were brought forward, for and against the new
movement, I am particularly struck with the struggle which was going on
between self-abnegation and the forcible ignoring of all the glorious
past, which was inevitably connected with an acknowledgment of the
advantages of Western civilisation. No nation likes to acknowledge of
itself, "All that we have is bad, and all that others have is good." The
number of Turks familiar with our languages and sciences was far too
small to turn the scale in favour of a more correct view of the matter,
and among the few who, on account of their modern culture, were capable
of a better opinion, personal ambition and rivalry frustrated many a
good proposal. Reshid Pasha, who stood at the head, was a thoroughly
well-bred, fair, and patriotic man; a statesman full of energy and
perseverance, not hindered or hampered by any prejudices or
prepossessions, honoured with the full confidence of his sovereign, and
one who could have accomplished great things if his own pupils and
assistants had not secretly opposed him, and thus frustrated many of his
plans. The very able Ali Pasha, of whom Mr. Thouvenel, the ambassador of
Napoleon III., said that he wrote better French than many a French
diplomatist, was the paragon of Oriental intriguers and dissimulators.
He was a small, weakly-looking man, with a disproportionately large
head: hence his stooping posture; and in slow, hardly audible words he
used to fling out the hardest criticisms against the politics of his
master and patron, without being able to improve matters. When I was of
the company, either at table or in the drawing-room, he used to steal
furtive glances at me, and only after he had made quite sure of my
discretion and considered me harmless, used he to speak somewhat louder
to those immediately around him; but not until I had borrowed some
Tchagataic books from his well-stocked library did he express himself
without any restraint in my presence, in the full conviction that I, the
philologist, took no interest whatever in politics. Yes, the hours
spent in the villa of Kanlidjia, with the more than once Grand-Vizier
and Minister of the Exterior, were most instructive to me; they gave me
the first insight into the reform movement and the life and aspirations
of the officials of the higher Porte in those days.
After Ali Pasha the personality of Fuad Pasha interested me especially.
This tall, stately man, with refined, thoroughly European manners, who,
with his sparkling wit and humorous _aperçus_, was more like a Frenchman
than a Turk, and, as was generally known, had risen from being a simple
military doctor to the highest State dignity, was now one of the three
first reformers. Although fair and patriotic, he does not appear to have
taken his position very much in earnest. He was complacency itself, but
his sarcasm did not even spare the sacred person of his sovereign; and
once, on the occasion of an illumination, when I happened to be in his
suite, I heard him say, "Yes, it is light everywhere; darkness only
reigns in our State cassa."
Many of his _bon-mots_ are still in circulation; as, for instance, his
remark to an inquisitive diplomatist, who, in going through the house,
wanted to open the door of the harem: "Monsieur, vous n'êtes accredité
qu'à a Porte--au delà vous n'avez pas de droit." It is told of him that
when he was Ambassador Extraordinary at Madrid, and sat at table next to
the Queen, who drew his attention to the emblem of friendship displayed
on the Spanish-Turkish flag on the ham, he said, "Madame! je reconnais
volontièrement l'emblème de l'amitié--mais comme Musulman, je ne peux
pas reconnaître la neutralité du terrain." In those days I managed to
make quite a collection of his Turkish and French _aperçus_ and poems,
for he had inherited the poetic vein from his father, the celebrated
Tzzet-Molla, who had had the audacity to write a satire against Sultan
Mahmud, and for punishment had been banished to Köchük Tchekmedje. There
he wrote his beautiful poem, "Mihnetkeshan" ("The Sorrowful"), in which
the affectionate father recommends his two sons with rhyming names, Fuad
and Reshad, to God's special protection. Fuad also gave his sons names
that rhyme, for they were called Nazim and Kiazim. Fuad remained the
lifelong, faithful friend of Ali, whose intellectual superiority he
gladly acknowledged, without, however, altogether sparing him the darts
of his sarcasm. Towards me Fuad Pasha was always most gracious, only he
thought that my thirst for knowledge, without showing any practical
results, rather resembled the craving of a hungry man for a glass of
water, and he often quoted to me the Persian lines:
"Kushishi bi faide, vesme ber abrui kur,"
(_I.e._, "It is vain labour to adorn the eye of the blind.")
Besides this trio of reformers--Reshid, Ali, Fuad--only very few have
distinguished themselves since that time in the field of home and
foreign politics. The only exceptions are Mehemmed Kibrizli Pasha and
Mehemmed Rushdi Pasha. The former, a Cypriote by birth, who had long
been ambassador in London, was as enthusiastic about England as the
latter was about France. Kibrizli's wife was an Englishwoman, and it
would seem that he concluded this marriage anticipating the future
annexation of his native island by the British Empire. In his politics
he has given many proofs of independence, and was not nearly so amenable
at court as his successor in the Grand-Vizierate. Rushdi Pasha,
generally called Müterdjim (the interpreter), showed himself a Liberal
even in my days, and afterwards, in concert with Midhat Pasha, took a
prominent part in the dethronement of Sultan Aziz. I had access to the
Konak of both, but because of my frequent attendance at the houses of
Fuad and Ali they observed a certain degree of reserve with regard to
me, without, however, being able to hide the tendency of the ruling
spirit there. Of some importance were, even at that time, Aarifi
Effendi, Safvet Effendi, and Server Effendi, who properly belonged to
Ali's clique, and afterwards attained to the highest dignities. They
were all zealous adherents of the reform party, fairly well advanced in
Western civilisation, but none of them made of the stuff of which
political leaders are formed. To the political amphibia belonged the
then Minister of Finance, Hassib Pasha--a blind tool of the court
faction who allowed Sultan Abdul Medjid large sums of money far beyond
the fixed Civil List; and when Fuad Pasha called him to book about this
he replied, "The bank-note press was just in operation, and I thought a
few millions more or less would make no difference." Then there was the
War Minister, Riza Pasha, I might say, next to Fethi Pasha, the Grand
Master of Artillery, the most powerful and influential man of his time,
as he was related to the court, and moreover extremely rich, for he is
said to have purloined enormous sums of money. Last, but not least,
there was Mahmud Nedim Pasha, afterwards called Nedimoff because of his
Russian sympathies. In his house I occupied for two years the position
of French master to his son-in-law, slept there three nights a week, and
even in those days took a dislike to this man who afterwards caused such
harm to Turkey. He was a genuine specimen of the true Oriental, minus
the goodly qualities which characterise the Turks. During his
drinking-bouts, which lasted till long after midnight, he practised
composing Sharkis (love-songs), and while he wrote down his verses under
the inspiration of the Castalian Raki, his Mewlewi-Dervish had to play a
suitable accompaniment on the flute. These songs were afterwards much
liked by the ladies of the Imperial harem, and have probably contributed
to his later influential position. As a politician he was nowhere, for
his ignorance of Western affairs was boundless; and when once I had to
be interpreter on the occasion of a visit from Lord Stratford Canning to
the villa at Bebek, where he was acting as substitute for the Minister
of Foreign Affairs, I positively blushed when I had to translate his
ignorant geographical remarks about the Suez Canal--the point under
discussion. No wonder that Ignatieff could afterwards so easily gain
this monster over to assist Russia in the overthrow of Modern Turkey.
Besides the above, I enjoyed the confidence and hospitality of Damad
Kiamil Pasha, a worthy Turk of the old stamp, immensely rich, who,
notwithstanding his hesitation between West and East, applied himself in
his advanced age to the study of French, and was fond of me because in
his attempts to translate Fénelon's _Télémaque_ I had served him instead
of a dictionary. He led a contemplative life in his villa on the bay of
Bebek, and took great delight in my recitations of Turkish poems.
It would lead me too far to mention all the Turkish statesmen with whom
I had personal intercourse and whose friendship I enjoyed. I had also
made the acquaintance of the _literati_ of the day--the historians
Shinassi Effendi, Djevdet Effendi, and Khairullah Effendi, who very
kindly assisted me, perhaps not so much on my own account as because of
the high repute which the house of Rifat Pasha, and, later, of his son
Reouf Bey, of which I was then a member, enjoyed with the Porte. I love
to think of those days. In spite of the threatening clouds of State
bankruptcy and the general impoverishment, chiefly caused by the last
Turko-Russian war, the Turkey of the fifties enjoyed a certain
reputation in Europe; and as in our financial world the youngest member
in the European Concert had received loan upon loan, Turkish society was
rich, and on the strength of foreign money luxury grew apace. It was a
period of childish carelessness and abandonment, in which both nation
and ruler were plunged. Sultan Abdul Medjid, the true prototype of those
days, was a kindly monarch, who gladly relinquished the cares of the
State to his dignitaries, while he himself enjoyed all the pleasures of
court life, and was a willing tool in the hands of the reform trio
already mentioned, honestly trying, in outward form at any rate, to copy
the European sovereigns. When at diplomatic dinners he handed his
Havannah cigars to the European ambassadors, or offered his arm to a
European princess who happened to be his guest, or when at solemn
audiences he shook hands with the foreign representatives, he did so
with all the grace of a perfect gentleman, and one could scarcely credit
that only two generations ago the European ambassadors entered the
audience chamber clad in a long kaftan, with a servant walking at each
side of them holding their hands. His father, Sultan Mahmud, still wore
on State occasions a richly braided coat of Hungarian make, such as may
still be seen among the costumes in the treasure-house. But Sultan Abdul
Medjid dressed in a simple black suit made by Dusetoy in Paris, and when
he appeared on horseback in the streets of the city, graciously
acknowledging the greetings of the multitude with his white-gloved hand,
no one would have recognised in him the earthly representative of
Mohammed, the Khalif of all true believers, and the mighty autocrat of
an empire still extending over three continents. In spite of all his
refined manners, however, he remained the Oriental despot and autocrat.
Whenever he showed himself in this light before Fuad or Ali Pasha the
two statesmen made private comments about it in their own intimate
circle. The Sultan's angry outbursts were faithfully reported, and once
Fuad Pasha told how, when he had gently remonstrated with him in regard
to advances from the public exchequer, the Sultan had accosted him with,
"Am I not the true Osmanli ruler of this land, and owner of all its
possessions?" Of course foreigners had not to fear such
outbursts--towards strangers Abdul Medjid was always most courteous, and
I like to remember the audience I once attended when, by order of the
Grand-Vizier, Kibrizli Pasha, I acted as interpreter to an Englishman
and an Italian, who came to offer for sale a supposed autograph letter
of the Prophet, which had been found in Upper Egypt, and for which
questionable relic they received a large sum of money. The Sultan was
seated at about five feet distance; he spoke in a low voice, and asked
me whether all Hungarians could speak Turkish so easily. Most touching
was his intercourse with Lord Stratford. He called him Baba (father),
and was always willing to follow his advice.
A detailed narrative of all my experiences in Constantinople would fill
several volumes. Suffice it to say that I had the satisfaction of
knowing that in the diplomatic circles of Pera I was recognised as the
only foreigner familiarly acquainted with the Porte and with Turkish
family life. So I might well be satisfied with my lot. My income had
considerably increased, and after the everlasting struggle with poverty,
misery, and loneliness I had a proportionate degree of wealth, comfort,
and fame; but, strange to say, I could not make up my mind as to my
future career, and did not know in which direction I really wanted to
go. For some time it had been my great desire to be an interpreter at
one of the European embassies: to be an interpreter like those whom I
saw honoured and feared at the Porte, riding on a high horse attended by
servitors, and enjoying a certain amount of distinction in the Pera
circles. But I never tried very hard to realise this ambition, for I
knew that such a position could only be obtained through official
connections with the Governments concerned. It would have been far
easier for me to get an appointment with the Porte itself, especially as
I had been employed for some considerable time in the translation bureau
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and through my connection with the
highest dignitaries might have accomplished something, like, for
instance, my former colleague, Murad Effendi (Werner), who, as is well
known, ended his career as Ottoman ambassador at the Hague. I cannot
tell why, but an official career in Turkey, an appointment in a State
which was merely tolerated in Europe, had no attractions whatever for
me. State officials are irregularly paid there, and absolutely dependent
upon the whims of their superiors; advancement is not in any way
dependent upon personal merit, and altogether such State service had no
charm for me.
Possibly similar motives would have made me object to service in Europe
also, for we too suffer from the same disease which has thrown Turkey on
its deathbed; but because of my origin and lack of means I had never
dared to think of any diplomatic appointment at home; and besides, I
should probably soon have tired of even the greatest success in this
department, for in the first place my unbounded sense of freedom could
not in the long run have brooked any interference or subordination, and
in the second place I was, and ever shall be, an incorrigible enthusiast
and visionary, only delighting in the extraordinary; a man who, running
helter-skelter after empty phantoms, does not come to his senses and
never knows what he really wants or can do. Perhaps some will say that
these are the very people called upon to accomplish extraordinary
things, and that with more reflection I might have shrunk back from many
a mad enterprise. True; but one must not overlook the faults and
mistakes of such ill-weighed, badly arranged steps; and the effects of
these faults and mistakes I have often experienced during my travels and
during my after-life!
The only consolation and refuge in all my complicated ambitions and
aimless endeavours was, and remained always, a steady progress in my
studies and the conviction that, true to my principle, accepted in early
life, "Nulla dies sine linea," I had not one lost day to record. While I
was perfecting myself in the acquisition of certain peculiar linguistic
niceties, which only practice on the spot and constant intercourse can
teach, and thus gradually becoming an accomplished Effendi, I had from
the very commencement of my sojourn in Turkish houses set myself to the
reading of Turkish manuscripts, and I had thus overcome the great
difficulty of deciphering such manuscripts and also made rapid progress
in the knowledge of Ottoman history. I had access to the libraries, and
in the historical works which formerly I knew only by name I found so
much that had reference to the history of Hungary that I intended to
begin my literary career by translating these. Besides this I made a
study of the conversational language, and a Germano-Turkish pocket
dictionary containing about 14,000 words, which was published in Pera,
1858, by Georg Köhler, was the first work with which I appeared before
the public. It was also the first German book printed in Constantinople.
To this purely scientific occupation I soon added public writing, as my
constant and intimate intercourse with the political circles of the high
Porte enabled me to obtain accurate information about the political
questions of the day. Stambul, although only separated from Pera by the
Golden Horn, is quite cut off from this centre of European life on
account of the strong line of demarcation between the Turkish circles
and Pera; and when on my daily visits to the European quarter I came
into contact with
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