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