"Have you read the poems of Petofi?"[12]
[Footnote 12: The Burns of Hungary.]
"Oh, at our house we read nothing."
"Why not?"
"Because those who come to see us bring no books with them."
"Then don"t you get any newspaper?"
"Oh, yes, the _Journal des Demoiselles_; but it"s a frightful bore."
"A Hungarian paper would be better, the _Pesti Divatlap_, for instance."
"I"ll tell my mother to order it. You write for it sometimes, don"t you?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"The description of a desert island among the sedges."
"Have you ever been on this desert island?"
"No; I only imagine it."
"What"s the good of that?"
"It"s part of a romance I"m working at."
"Ah, so you write romances! Will you put us into them?"
"Oh, no! Romance writing does not consist in merely copying down all that one sees and hears about one."
"I should like to know how you set about it?"
"First of all I think out the end of the story."
"What, you begin at the end?"
"Yes. Then I create the characters of the story. Then I deal out to these characters the parts they must play, and the vicissitudes they must go through down to the very end of the story."
"Then, according to that, none of it is true?"
"It is not real, perhaps, but it may be true, for all that."
"I don"t understand. And how much time do you take to write a story? I suppose it will come out?"
"Certainly."
"Ah, yes, "tis an easy thing for you to do! You have a rich aunt at o Gyalla, and you"ve only got to say a word to her and she"ll get your book printed for you. I suppose you"ve only got to ask her?"
"I shall not tell my rich aunt a word about it."
"Then you"ll get your book printed at Fani Weinmuller"s, I suppose. Now listen, that won"t do at all. I knew an author who published his own book and went from village to village, and persuaded every landed proprietor to buy a copy from him. That is a rugged path."
"My romance will not be one of those which the author himself has to carry from door to door; it will be one of those for which the publisher pays the author an honorarium."
She absolutely laughed in my face.
And after all, when you come to think about it, surely it is somewhat comical when a person comes forward and barefacedly says, "Here, I"ve written something in which there is not one word of truth, and nevertheless I insist upon people reading it, and paying me for writing it."
"Do you fancy, Miss Bessy, that Petofi was not paid for his poems? He got two hundred florins for "Love"s Pearls.""
""Love"s Pearls"! And pray what are they?"
"Lovely poems to a beautiful girl."
"And did he get the girl?"
"No, he did not."
"Well, now, that _is_ a nice thing. A fellow courts a girl, puts his feelings into verse, finally gets a basket[13] from her, and then demands that this basket should be filled for him with silver pieces."
[Footnote 13: The Hungarian "Kosarat kapni," like the German "einen Korb bekommen" (to get a basket), is the equivalent of our "to get a flea in one"s ear," _i.e._, "a rejection."]
The same day I sent her Petofi"s "Love"s Pearls," and his "Cypress Leaves" also.
I resumed my portrait painting three days afterwards, and immediately asked her whether she had taken up "Love"s Pearls."
"Oh, yes; I took them up to dry flowers in them."
"But I suppose you"ve just dipped into the "Cypress Leaves"?"
"I don"t like such things. I always burst into tears; and then my nose gets quite red."
I did not pursue the subject further.
Miss Bessy hastened, however, to sweeten my bitter disappointment with the delightful intelligence that, at my suggestion, mamma had at once subscribed to the _Pesti Divatlap_, and for six months, too.
I was there when the postman brought the first four copies of the paper.
In those days every paper had to be sent through the post in an envelope, postage stamps had not yet been invented....
After the solemnity of breaking open the envelope, the a.s.sembled womankind naturally looked to see if there were any pictures, especially pictures of the fashions.
Was it not called "Divatlap"?[14] And a fashionable journal it really was. That worthy, high-souled patriot, Emericus Vahot, was labouring with iron determination to make fashion a national affair.