Journey by Moonlight

“The second attempt came when we were twenty. I actually took part in it. Don’t worry, you can see I’m still alive.

“At that time I was in utter despair, mainly because of my father. When I matriculated I enrolled as a philosophy student at the university. My father asked me several times what I wanted to be, and I told him a religious historian. ‘And how do you propose to earn your living?’ he would ask. I couldn’t answer that, and I didn’t want to think about it. I knew he wanted me to work in the firm. He had no real objection to my university studies because he thought it would simply give status to the firm if one of the partners had a doctorate. For my part, I looked on university, in the last analysis, as a few years’ delay. To gain a bit of time, before becoming an adult.

“Joie de vivre wasn’t my strong point during that time. The feeling of mortality, of transience, grew stronger in me, and by then my Catholicism was no longer a consolation. In fact it increased my sense of weakness. I wasn’t a role-player by nature, and by that stage I could clearly see that my life and being fell hopelessly short of the Catholic ideal.

“I was the first of us to abandon our shared Catholicism. One of my many acts of betrayal.

“But to be brief. One afternoon I called at the Ulpius house and invited Tamás to come for a walk. It was a fine afternoon in spring. We went as far as Old Buda and sat in an empty little bar under the statue of St Flórián. I had a lot to drink, and moaned about my father, my prospects, the whole horrible misery of youth.

“‘Why do you drink so much?’ he asked.

“‘Well, it’s fun.’

“‘You like the dizzy feeling?’

“‘Of course.’

“‘And the loss of consciousness?’

“‘Of course. It’s the one thing I really do like.’

“‘Well then, I really don’t understand you. Imagine how much better it would be to die properly.’

I conceded this. We think much more logically when we are drunk. The only problem was, I have a horror of any form of pain or violence. I had no wish to hang or stab myself or jump into the freezing Danube.

“‘No need,’ said Tamás. ‘I’ve got thirty centigrams of morphine here. I reckon it would do for the two of us, though it’s really just enough for one. The fact is, the time has come. I’m going to do it in the next few days. If you come with me then so much the better. Naturally I don’t want to influence you. It’s just as I say: only if you feel like it.’

“‘How did you get the morphine?’

“‘From Éva. She got it from the doctor — said she could not sleep.’

“For both of us it was fatally significant that the poison came from Éva. This was all part of the world of our dramatics, those sick little plays which we had had to change so much after Ervin and János arrived. The thrill was always in the fact that we died for Éva, or because of her. The fact that she had provided the poison finally convinced me that I should take it. And that’s what happened.

“I can’t begin to describe how simple and natural it was just then to commit suicide. I was drunk, and at that age drink always produced the feeling in me that nothing mattered. And that afternoon it freed in me the chained demon that lures a man towards death, the demon that sleeps, I believe, in the depths of everyone’s consciousness. Just think, dying is so much more easy and natural than staying alive … ”

“Do get on with the story,” said Erzsi impatiently.

“We paid for our wine and went for a walk, in a blaze of happy emotion. We declared how much we loved each other, and how our friendship was the finest thing in the world. We sat for a while beside the Danube, somewhere in Old Buda, beside the tramlines. Dusk was falling on the river. And we waited for it to take effect. At first I felt absolutely nothing.

“Suddenly I experienced an overwhelming sense of grief that I was leaving Éva. Tamás at first didn’t want to hear about it, but then he too succumbed to his feelings for her. We took a tram, then ran up the little stairway to Castle Hill.

“I realise now that the moment I wanted to see Éva I had already betrayed Tamás and his suicide attempt. I had unconsciously calculated that if we went back among people they would somehow rescue us. Subconsciously I had no real wish to die. I was weary to death, as weary as only a twenty-year-old can be, and indeed I yearned for the secret of death, longed for the dark delirium. But when the feeling of mortality inspired by the wine began to wear off, I didn’t actually want to die.

“In the Ulpius house we found Ervin and János in their usual chairs. I gaily announced the fact that we had each taken fifteen centigrams of morphine and would soon be dead, but first we wanted to say goodbye. Tamás was already white as a sheet and staggering. I just looked as if I had had a glass too many, and I had the thick speech of a drunk. János instantly rushed out and phoned Casualty to tell them there were two youths who had each taken fifteen centigrams of morphine.

“‘Are they still alive?’ he was asked.