Journey by Moonlight

“It was Éva’s job to think about money. The word was not to be uttered in front of Tamás. Éva took charge. In such matters she was highly inventive. She could find a good price for anything they possessed which might sell. From time to time she would sell off some priceless museum-piece from the house, but this was very risky because of their father, and also Tamás took it badly if some familiar antique went missing. Sometimes she made really surprising loans — from the greengrocer, in the confectionery, in the pharmacy, even from the man collecting the electricity money. And if none of this worked, then she stole. She stole from the cook, she stole with death-defying courage from her father, taking advantage of his drunkenness. This was the surest and in some respects the least reprehensible source of income. But on one occasion she managed to lift ten crowns from the confectioner’s till. She was very proud of that. And no doubt there were other episodes she didn’t mention. She even stole from me. Then, when I found out, and bitterly remonstrated with her, instead of stealing she imposed a regular levy on me. I had to pay a certain sum into the family kitty every week. Tamás was of course never allowed to know of this.”

Erzsi butted in: “Moral insanity.”

“Yes, of course,” continued Mihály. “It’s very comforting to use expressions like that. And to a certain extent it absolves one. ‘Not a thief, but mentally ill’. But Éva was not mentally ill, and not a thief. Only, she lacked moral awareness when it came to money. The pair of them were so cut off from the real world, from the economic and social order, they simply had no idea what were the permitted and what the forbidden ways to raise money. Money for them did not exist. All they knew was the certainty that without those pretty bits of paper and bronze crowns they couldn’t go to the theatre. Money has its own great abstract mythology, the basis of modern man’s religious and moral sensibility. The religious rites of the money-god, honest toil, thrift, profitability and suchlike, were quite unknown to them. Ideas like these everyone is born with but they weren’t; or we learn them at home, as I did. But all they ever learnt at home was what their grandfather taught them about the history of the neighbourhood houses.

“You can’t begin to imagine how out of touch they were, how they shrank from every practical reality. They never held a newspaper in their hands, they had no idea what was happening in the world. There was a world war going on at the time — it didn’t interest them. At school it became obvious once during questions that Tamás had never heard of István Tisza. When Przemysl fell, he thought it was something to do with a Russian general, and politely expressed his pleasure. They nearly thrashed him. Later, when the more intelligent boys discovered Ady and Babits, he thought they were talking about generals, and he actually believed for ages that Ady was a general. The clever boys thought Tamás was stupid, as did his teachers. His real genius, his knowledge of history, went totally unnoticed in the school, which he for his part didn’t mind in the least.

“In every other sense too, they stood outside the common order of life. It would occur to Éva at two in the morning that the week before she had left her French exercise book on Sváb Hill, so they would both get up, get dressed, go to Sváb Hill and wander there till morning. The next day Tamás, with lordly indifference, would absent himself from school. Éva would forge an absence note for him over the signature of the older Ulpius. Éva cut school regularly, and had absolutely nothing to do, but she was as happy as a cat on her own.

“One could call on them at any time. Visitors never bothered them. They just carried on with their own lives as if no-one else was present. Even at night you were made welcome. But while I was still at school I couldn’t visit them at night because of family rules: at the very most, after the theatre and then very briefly, and I dreamed constantly about how wonderful it would be to sleep at their house. Once I’d left school, I often spent the night there.

“Later I read in a famous English essay that the chief characteristic of the Celts was rebellion against the tyranny of facts. Well, in this respect the two of them were true Celts. In fact, as I recall, both Tamás and I were crazy about the Celts, the world of Parsifal and the Holy Grail. Probably the reason why I felt so at home with them was that they were so much like Celts. With them I found my real self. I remember why I always felt so ashamed of myself, so much an outsider, in my parents’ house. Because there, facts were supreme. At the Ulpius house, I was at home. I went there every day, and spent all my free time with them.