The Diary of Geza Csath Read online

  – can read into the writing of other authors. Nevertheless, with iron will, I force myself to write. I must write. Even if writing will never be my life’s work again, at least it should be fun. I must play, even if I can’t enjoy myself, because it’s the only chance I have of ever making a lot of money.

  So, the summer of 1912! Dezso1 and I made the trip together. The boy came back from Szabadka2 very thin and pale. He had a cough. I worried. He slept badly. It brought to mind nights we had spent together long ago when he was in his second year of pharmaceutical studies; then I slept poorly and disturbed him.

  A beautiful summer morning dawned on Wednesday, 29 May. We took care of the luggage, washed quickly,

  1. Dezso Brenner, Csath’s brother 2. Subotica

  Csath as a child in Szabadka, early 1890’s (bottom row center, in white), next to him, brother Dezso

  and within half an hour we were stocked with newspapers and having breakfast at Keleti palyadudvar3. Altogether we had perhaps 300 crowns left of the 1,500 I had withdrawn for the spa venture; the rest had been spent a good while ago.

  We arrived at Stubnya4 on a windy, chilly spring midday. The large restaurant presented an unfriendly picture. We were cold, strangers. I worried about every move I made, and tried to find a way of winning everyone over as easily and stylishly as possible. I was hounded by feelings of depression and anxiety, which I tried to conceal by behaving in a superior yet still modest manner.

  I was broke again.

  *

  In the mornings I usually sat in my office and wrote letters, or worked at arranging the furniture. Then I looked in on the bathing areas. Usually I found Dezso there alone, the bathing attendant massaging him while he groaned and laughed.

  The behaviour of this bathing attendant was the first warning that I needed to be careful. When I came down from Budapest for two days to visit the spa, I was straightforwardly kind to him, offered him my hand, and attempted to charm him. Now, when I arrived for a longer stay, he came to me laughing, but offered his hand first. These sorts of things, to which I have never paid attention before, now prompt me to serious thought. In principle, I have always been contemptuous of people who try to elicit respect from others not by intellectual superiority but by proud, standoffish, arrogant, or reserved behaviour. Now I had to think of employing those silly conventions, which, I had to admit, were effective in regulating contact between people.

  3. Budapest Eastern train station 4. Turcianske Teplice.

  Mrs Braun, too, addressed me entirely differently after I was contracted to work at the spa. Before I signed the contract, she treated me like the spa’s pre-eminent professional, her own superior, and now she treated me like a businessman who had come to live off her and her spa. She clearly tried to sway her daughters against me too. They were not allowed to be kind to me, they could not enter into conversation of any length with me – or, if they did, they spoke as the daughters of a provincial pharmacist would speak to a trainee doctor, or the way a major’s daughter speaks to a cadet. Therefore I stopped concerning myself with them. I showed no signs of being offended, but greeted them in all friendliness, and took no notice of the fact they did not receive this in a manner I had every right to expect, considering my station.

  When Dezso finished his cure, around 11.30, we usually took a long walk that lasted until 12.30. Then we had lunch. After lunch, we chatted with our partners at table, a veterinarian and a county assessor. Both were arrogant provincial fellows who thought themselves distinguished and very fine. Vibritzky, the assessor, had an especially high opinion of his own facial features, his clothes, and the effect he had on women. He never said a word about it, but it was clear just from looking at him. Both of them had dogs which they petted, patted, and fed during lunch, recounting endless idiotic anecdotes proving the intelligence and learning of the animals. Dezso and I couldn’t stand this company for long, and usually after three-quarters of an hour we were in our rooms, reading, washing, and chatting. During this time, I exercised moderation with the poisons. On average, I used .02-.03 of P5 every other day at two in the afternoon, in a single dose. It did not produce harmonious euphoria, but it was necessary to quell sexual desire and allay my constant financial and moral worries. I was rightfully afraid that the saison would never really arrive. I saw no goodwill anywhere, I felt no warmth, no attraction. Only in Nandor Zaborsky, the chief magistrate, did I detect real sympathy.

  The beginning of June passed slowly. The instruments, the cabinet, the apparatus all arrived. The office was completely ready. I had work from the very first days. At first, the chronically ill of the surrounding villages consulted me. As I had plenty of time, I examined them with great care. In addition to a thorough internal examination I examined the nose, throat, and ears of every patient, although I had as yet little experience in the last two areas. By the time the real spa guests arrived, I was competent. The other advantage was that the patients spread my good reputation throughout the region and sent many new patients my way.

  On the third day, a widow came in with complaints of tubercular toxicosis. I soon put her on iodine-potassium (IP) treatment and fattened her up nicely. Her condition improved surprisingly, and she bade me farewell with overflowing gratitude. That was the first success. I considered it a good omen that my first patient suffered from a disease I had already learned to cure.

  5. Pantopon, a morphine substitute.

  Stubnyafurdo (Turcianske Teplice)

  In the afternoons, at 4.30, we would have a snack. Afterwards, we would take long walks over to the neighbouring villages, play a little piano, or – at the cost of great self-abnegation – we would engage in conversation with Vitvizky, Marovitzky (an addle-brained, bankrupt landowner), and the honorary chief magistrate, all of whom were always idling in the park. At other times, we visited here and there. Of these visits, I preferred chatting or playing billiards with Jakobovics, the hapless railway medic. At least his dry, crude humour was amusing, and I enjoyed the self-important way he described his medical cases.

  We didn’t usually stay up long after dinner. One or two games of billiards and off to sleep we would go. In bed, we read Casanova aloud to each other, spoke about the girls, Olga and Blanky, and recalled the beautiful love affairs we carried on with the young lasses.

  During this time, we slept poorly. Especially on days without P, sexual desire troubled me too. Recent trysts would replay themselves in my imagination with almost painful accuracy. I saw Olga as she walked to and fro in my room, in a shirt, as she bent at the waist, and the flesh of her little legs glowed through the thin black stockings.

  That’s how I came, not long afterwards, faute de mieux, to seduce the hotel chambermaid, named Terez or something of the sort. I banged her hard a few times with a condom, because she had quite a tight vagina. Her virginity had been taken two years before by the spa’s Dr Mahler. This 21-year-old girl with her thin, pale body was not an appetizing morsel, but as soon as her vapid blue eyes grew inflamed by lust, as soon as her face blushed red and she started to make violent counter-thrusts, there was something interesting in that. Dezso tried communing with her as well, but the boy’s penis drooped, and he called off the attack in vexation.

  Terez was naturally not at all satisfying for me, and I soon decided on a trip to Budapest. I only had three or four patients, none of them requiring constant treatment. Thus, at 7.00 a.m. on 12 June, I boarded a train. And at 1.00 p.m., after a long, tiring, and unendurably boring trip, I was finally able to embrace Olga. In the smoky black reflections of Keleti palyaudvar, she first seemed surprisingly fat and strikingly lined. But afterwards I found her lips all the more sweet. Throughout the trip from the station, on the street and in the cab, I embraced her and kissed her greedily. Her kisses sent me into genuine ecstasy. My God, those kisses. What they meant to me. How much joy, suffering, all the complex excitement of a dissonant chord: marriage? career? future? honour? prestige? love? giving up other women?

  Sacrifice? For her, I
felt I could easily give up all the women fate still held in store for me. Crossing at the end of Barcsa utca, we got off at a little restaurant to take some nourishment. Greasy soup. We ate greasy pork or some such thing. I was utterly without appetite, but still I wanted to be over the problem of eating, so that afterwards we could live only for love. I looked at her constantly, I kissed her sweet face, eyes, neck, her soft, cleansmelling little hands, and I caressed her back, her tightly corseted, beautiful big thighs, her ankles through the thin net stockings. Meanwhile I ran over to the café across the way to telephone home and ask the concierge if everything was all right. I had taken .014 P the day before. The effect had completely worn off, so the weak and not unbearable P-hunger dissolved into colossal, harmonious lust. Ezeizer, the concierge, notified me that my bed had been made and my room aired. Now every worry that things might not go smoothly disappeared, and we were home fifteen minutes later. I greeted the pleasant sundrenched room with a feeling of explosive happiness and satisfaction. Both of us undressed as fast as we could. Then I inserted a Vaginol suppository into her sweet little cunt, and five minutes later, mercilessly, with overpowering lust, lifting her little batiste shirt, I penetrated the thick black fur. In hardly more than a half-minute we reached the pinnacle of happiness. We had not even untangled ourselves from the enchanted kisses that followed when the second attack occurred. This we performed in stallion and mare position, lying on our sides. In sweetness it surpassed the first. We lay thus, almost unconscious with happiness, until 5.30 in the evening, kissing, embracing, deluging each other with praise and mutual confessions. The perfection of Olga’s happiness was only reduced by the four Vaginol suppositories which irritated her dear little chalice. In the meantime we had a snack, smoked cigarettes, and I sat down naked at the piano to bring to life music befitting the situation from Wagner and the repertoire of the Budapest music halls. Wotan’s farewell, Paraguay, Pali Palko … etc.

  Dressed, I escorted my Olga to Kalvin ter6. We agreed that I would not go up to her place, so as not to put the delights of the following morning at the slightest risk, or provoke her father’s suspicions. We bade each other goodbye, and I went to the chemist to buy perfume,

  6. Calvin Place.

  I escorted my Olga to Kalvin ter. We agreed that I would not go up to her place, so as not to put the delights of the following morning at the slightest risk, or provoke her father’s suspicions.

  which I intended to present to the dear girl: Coty’s ‘Chypre’. I also had a little job to take care of at the repair man’s. Nor did I forget the red carrot7. I would certainly need that at the sanatorium.

  After I had thus taken care of everything, in a pleasant swoon, like a London gentleman down from his Yorkshire estate to spend a beautiful afternoon with his Agnes, I took a coach home in the warm dusty red and black evening. Gyula and Sandor were waiting for me, and we improvised a terrific dinner on the roof, engaging in lively talk. Their kindliness, honest sympathy, devotion, and delight at my happiness made my satisfaction complete, and under the beautiful starry sky, in the mild evening which made me think of nights in Algiers, feelings of youth, love and health filled my heart. Without any poison, I slept wonderfully well. The following morning, we had breakfast. I made a splendid déjeuner. In the beautiful sunny morning, the weariness I felt as the natural consequence of yesterday’s encounters became a special source of joy to me.

  Around 10.30, my little Olga arrived. I soon undressed her. Her batiste shirt again bewitched me, so a sacrifice followed soon thereafter, in equine position. After that I dressed and went down to the ward to pay my respects to the professor. I chatted with him a little longer than I expected, so I was only back in my dear one’s arms at 11.45. On this occasion too, I had an enormous erection, but ejaculation – after Sandor’s telephone call disturbed us – was late. The sweet girl must have had all the more pleasure in it, as in the hen’s position, she gave the

  7. Almost certainly a personal code for morphine.

  sweetest proof of all her love, devotion, and kindness. In this manner, I emptied the chalice of delights six times in twenty-four hours. Afterwards, perfectly satisfied, we slowly dressed. Rebekka set the table and we had lunch. We didn’t have the greatest of appetites – our pleasures had passed the boundary of not disturbing the other functions – still, the food tasted good. We drank not much wine, and Olga became sick. I gave her an injection of Pantopon or Dionin powder, and she soon announced that she was well. The weather had turned bad in the meantime, and when we drove to the station, it had begun to drizzle a little.

  Pouting and tearful, my poor little Olga waved goodbye. I entered a coupé with my newspapers, took .02 P and began to read peacefully. In this manner, the trip passed quickly. Much more quickly than the trip to Budapest. At any rate, I was under the influence of the divine visit for weeks, and in enchanted letters both of us returned again and again to the joys we had experienced.

  For eleven days thereafter I was able to prevent sexual desire from overwhelming me. At that point, however, one morning, thinking of Olga, I committed onania (already the fourth time that year.) The next time, I took Terez off her feet again, because I was sure Olga would be more likely to agree to that than to my practising the ugliness of onanism, even thinking of her. The sexual feelings were slight, but still they produced tranquility and a better attitude toward work.

  Around this time, on a Sunday, Paula, the daughter of a midwife from Skleno, came to my office. I had treated her earlier, but this was the first time she sought me out alone. I examined her. She smiled at me coquettishly. Her hard, pink little nipples almost poked through her thick peasant’s shirt. Apart from that, she had full red lips and hen-like blue-green eyes with lids a little swollen. When I listened at her naked, snow-white back, I found myself suddenly kissing it, then her breasts, and finally her mouth. She embraced me voraciously and returned my kisses. That day I was angry with Olga, for she had played an unpleasant, petty trick on me in a letter. It bothered me that after so much work, I still had not been able to teach her what not to say, which womanly tricks not to use with me. – Thus my conscience didn’t bother me. I spent a good one to one-and-one-half hours with Paula, hugging and kissing. I was able to ascertain that the girl was a virgin, but I only made a weak attack against her virtue, and when she resisted, I declined to use greater cunning or force. As often, I was shocked by how swiftly a girl could be ruined and turned into a woman, at least in spirit.

  After I had had enough of the amusement, and my office hours were close at hand, I ordered the girl to get dressed. Her eyes burned, her lips gasped, her head ached when she staggered out of the room – as for me, I opened a window.

  In the first half of July, I frequented Terez again a couple of times, but then, with the multiplying of my affairs, I felt less and less need for genital amusements. Slowly, fortunately, I lost the habit of them. One day, however, a surprising young girl aroused my attention in the ground floor hallway of the Erzsebet Hotel. A little girl with noblewoman’s clothes and the face of a prostitute, a fine, tender little chick-shaped, pink face, full, blood-red lips, and brownish-yellow cat’s eyes. All in all, a phenomenon resembling Mandy B., a little suspicious, but attractive at

  Otatrafured (Stary Smokovec), where Csath worked as a spa doctor in the Summer of 1908 and met his future wife, Olga Jonas

  the first moment. The girl showed overall the stamp of premature physical decline, but of having the calling, too. I saw her several times over the course of the day; she always smiled languidly, indifferently. I doubted the thing would go easily with her, because I was certain the chambermaid, that jealous old slut, would watch her. But I succeeded in making her mine the first night. While she was making the bed, I went up to the room. It was already dark, I embraced her, she curled against me. In a second I had laid her down, pulled on a condom and accompanied by her languid protest, I penetrated. During coitus she embraced me softly, looked at the ceiling, and quietly whispered: ‘Hateful, hate
ful, how hateful.’ Only in her honest moment of ecstasy did she fall silent. When we finished she carried on making the bed. I washed my hands, and put on a clean collar and perfume. Finally, I gave her a gift of ten crowns. She asked me not to tell the chambermaid, because then she would have to give half the honorarium to her. I promised, on condition that she received no others, and reserved her chalice for me at the spa. The next evening she came to me after everyone had retired. She wore a surprisingly pretty slip, of good batiste, and she was exceptionally well washed. We communed only once this time as well because I took her temperature and found it was 38.3 C. In despair, I told myself: this cursed illness pursues me everywhere.

  The first half of July was also given to a courtship ‘by the book’. There was a superb Jewess at the spa, Zelma B. She was taller than average, with a wide Venus-like figure, sweet, full little mouth, a straight silly little nose (of the Iren Varsanyi type) along with shapely hands and feet. At first she behaved quite wildly. She saw only her older sister, the wife of a lawyer from Stubnya, and her brotherin-law. The director of the sanatorium, Dicker – who later left with sixty crowns of mine without saying goodbye – besieged her vigorously from the start. But the little lady was savage and distrustful. As her refinement was slight, she openly confessed that she saw what the Director was after, but declared that he was greatly mistaken, because she was a respectable woman, etc.

  As far as I my own case was concerned, I was her mute admirer for a week, and tried in vain to win even a glance from her. In the mornings, she sat beside her coffee in a light violet wool dressing gown and a full-length white madeira apron, which made her hips even wider and more impressive. One would have pictured this woman’s face attached to a thin (Lyca-like) body, but with her large, incomparably beautiful, and nobly formed buttocks, she could be attractive and bewitching. She lacked intelligence, however, the knowledge that makes my little Olga a woman of breeding and without peer. Olga can see her body at every moment, and feel its effect, almost unconsciously, but perfectly and constantly.