The Diary of Geza Csath Read online

  Practical priorities

  1 1. The job at the clinic is to be kept. In a year there will be a chance of obtaining the teacher’s assistant post. Resentment with regard to professor not to be shown. Not too much work, but what there is should be visible.

  12. Short stories and articles: ‘Az Ujsag’, ‘Nyugat’, ‘P. M.’, ‘Vasarnapi Ujsag’, ‘Elet’ and ‘XX Szazad’. (“The

  Csath (3rd from right) with the editorial staff of Budapesti Naplo (Budapest Journal) including Lajos Biro (center), Dezso Kosztolanyi (far right)

  News”, “West”, “P. Mt”, “Sunday Paper”, ‘Life’, and 20thCentury.)

  13. Look into other spas. Deploy Schverer for Elopatak.31 14. Greater attention to nurturing of social connections. 15. Take The Horvaths to the Nemzeti.32

  16. Work in freemasonry.

  17. Coitus every other day.

  18. Fixing of teeth.

  19. New morning coat.

  10. Finding outlets for German plays.

  11. Detoxification. (Habituation to one dose per day, no

  matter the amount of suffering.)

  12. Energetic search for a contract position at a newspaper.

  31. A spa at Valcele 32. National Theatre.

  1 0 J A N U A R Y , 1 1 P . M .

  I promised Dezso, Sandor, Gyula and myself that I would say goodbye to unproductive, indulgent living, that I would cut out using the narcotic poisons, namely M and P, and be a respectable working person again. I truly feel the time has come: this is the last hour I can still escape unscathed, without consequences. Therefore, I will not revoke my decision. The withdrawal plan is simple. For tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, 0.02 g. P at night, and after that, nothing. Come what will. A hellish 2 x 24 hours await, but after that, a new life and everything that is beautiful and grand, rebirth, joy!

  I will never, never return to these accursed substances. Mainly because it is impossible to enjoy them just once, for one day. To inject M or P once a week is impossible.

  1. A person doesn’t enjoy the first dose.

  2. The side effects appear immediately and accelerate rapidly (headache), making one fall head over heels into the whirlpool.

  Since their prudent and moderated enjoyment is impossible, I must renounce their use forever, reserving them only in the event that great and irreparable misfortune strikes me, and for the joyless days of old age.

  Below, I shall set down (I want to finish this tonight, in eight hours) the story of the vice.

  T H E S T O R Y O F M Y M O R P H I N E A D D I C T I O N

  On 9 April 1910, university professor Dezso Kuthy tapped my diaphragm and spoke thus: ‘A little apicitis on the right side.’ In the dimly lit office smelling of carbolic, I was suddenly assailed by the smell of the crypt. Icy cold ran through me. ‘So, what I was most terrified of has caught up to me after all.’ I pulled myself together. I wanted to hope, and I gathered all my energy. I was a tough young man then. I showed no distress in front of my friends either. But that night I couldn’t sleep at all. Memories of the past welled up in my head, one after another; the beauty of happy times tortured me along with my sins, every wrong I had committed, self-accusations, petty villainies committed against women. Kato, Lyca, Irenke! I took the first dose of bromine at midnight, the second at two, the third at five; and at 5.30 in the morning, in the gorgeous rays of the spring sun, using the needle on my table, I injected the first dose of a solution which was also lying there: .02 M. (In the women’s ward at the time, we were treating a lady tabes33 sufferer addicted to morphine.) I did not feel any unusual effect, I didn’t even get sleepy; all that happened was that the inner agonies abated quickly, surprisingly quickly. I calmed down. A few minutes later Winter came into my room. I asked him for veronal, and told him I had been thinking about injecting

  33. Posterior spinal sclerosis, syphilis.

  morphine. To this he shouted, ‘I’ll give you what for!’ and took the bottle along with the needle. From then on, I did not use the poison. I travelled to Ujtatrafured, collected all my strength and kept only the hypnobromide, with which I struggled at nights against insomnia and disturbances to my general well-being. I did not want to think about my problem, the terrible notions conjured up by the specific illness34 drove me to find a means of escape.

  At Ujtatrafured, towards the end of May, I was tortured by strong intestinal pains and stomach ache. I took 25 drops of opium toward morning. It helped. This was my second encounter with the toxin.

  At the beginning of June my boss, Szontagh, went away for 14 days. During this time I felt quite ill. Too much work, the assorted haemoptysis of the many difficult patients, and having to act the strong, experienced, healthy doctor exhausted me. The exhaustion was spiritual, because I thought every day, every hour I spent working was causing irreparable damage. During this time, on a beautiful afternoon before office hours, I injected a centigram from the phials lying there already prepared. I vomited immediately, then euphoria flooded me. I felt a sweet warmth in my abdomen, spreading through the sympathetic nervous system like a warm tide. I conducted my visits with pleasure. I was not restless and sat with my patient, Mrs Heinrich, for a long time, talking with her. In the meantime I looked at the landscape, the sky. Everything made an exceptionally harmonious, favourable impression on me. That day I slept wonderfully without hypnobromide. The next day I didn’t give a thought to

  34. Tuberculosis.

  the whole affair. Repetition of the pleasure didn’t even occur to me. I quickly put on weight, became stronger, my appetite increased admirably. By the end of June I had gone from 75 (April) to 80 kg.

  At the beginning of July, however, my attraction to Jolan began to cause greater and greater fluctuations. While I trembled for her, the woman did not want to show that she loved me too. Besides that, in the afternoons the swings in my general well-being became much wider than before. Either the toxin sensitivity had grown, or (more likely) I had caught a new infection, or I was suffering from the increased and enormous flow of matter, those unparalleled pig-like meals! To combat the cold/warm feelings and paraestheses after lunch, every other day or every third day I used .006 M on average. Until the time that Jolan too confessed her love, especially on the horrible rainy days preceding it, I divided the .01 g dose into quarters. At 10.00, 3.00, and 6.00, I took .0025 g, always injected into the lower left arm. At that time, its effect was like that produced today by .01. After Jolan’s departure, I again stopped using the poison. Olga was next, in August. I began to live sweet days without being conscious of how happy I was. I always read the distant woman’s letters a hundred times, however, and employed all my wiles to make Mrs H, her friend who had stayed at the spa, speak of her with me. Sometimes the news concerning her was bad. At these times, I would take .01-.007 grams without delay.

  I only acquired the habit of taking two or three doses a week in September and October. After lunch, I usually took some and went over to Olga’s to lie down. I used the excuse that I was better able to rest this way, and the damage I was doing amounted to less than the benefit. Sometimes however, instead of M, I would take 10-20 drops of opium, and its effect proved one to two times longer-lasting. Slowly this small dose gave me less and less pleasure, while I became prey to restlessness and headache along with a certain lassitude. Then on the afternoons without M, deep depression and taciturnity seized me; all of Olga’s kindness and skill couldn’t put me in a good mood. I did not stop using sleeping potions either. I combined codeine with paraldehyde and bromide, with a bined codeine with paraldehyde and bromide, with a .02 g codeine, intensified by .05 g veronal. If I woke between 3 and 5 a.m., which was quite often, I repeated the dose. Until the effect took hold, I read Nyugat – I was especially partial to Imre Halasz’s political reminiscences. The combination was unique and unforgettable. Night in the Tatra mountains. An open window, thick fog outside. Gurgling water all around. Under electric lamps, tucked in up to my neck, I read; on the wall, shadows of decay and doom swirled.<
br />
  On returning to Budapest, I did not increase the dose, but stayed at .07-.08 g, taken regularly between 2 and 6 in the afternoon. My better nature protected me from increasing the dosage. Under the effect of the euphoria I was able to write and work well, then I would sleep one or two hours and dress only at 5 or 6 to go into town, or to walk with Olga, or to go to her place to hug and perform frottage, or to the Vilag, a concert, etc. In this manner, I arranged my life pleasantly and earned an average of 300-400 crowns. This money, however, Dezso and I spent in short order, because I had taken on the boy’s case personally; to my delight, we succeeded in achieving excellent results within a short period of time.

  I did not go home for Christmas. On Christmas Eve I ambled back from the Valeria with .02 g under my skin, and with dignified, misanthropic insensitivity, I slipped into bed.

  In the winter months I went to Hultl’s. My body was quite well on the whole, but in the mornings weak subfebrility caused a laziness close to collapse. I couldn’t abide the great heat in the operating room, the standing, the washing. I became very fatigued during anaesthesia.

  Not having had intercourse for months was a big problem. Kuthy did not prohibit it, but the thought made me incapable of sexual enthusiasm with a puella publica. I worried about whether or not I would succeed, and thus the attempts were unsuccessful. Besides this, all sorts of complications arose. Jealousy interfered with my attraction to O. The M consoled me. In March, I abandoned it anyway. I eschewed it for an entire month. When I took it again, it caused great nausea: in the WC at Olga’s I disgorged my whole Sunday dinner. In May I realized for the first time how good the morning dose felt and how easy it made starting the day. At that time I took .015 g per morning, and in bed I read Siklos’s textbook on music arrangement. I felt a queer, unproductive enjoyment whose precise analysis would need more time. The Magyar Szinhaz35 was rehearsing my play Janika. During the tiring rehearsal period my daily dose became .04-.05, and even so it barely brought about euphoria. On the other hand, it caused perspiration, fatigue, and lack of

  35. Hungarian Theatre

  appetite. Still, by opening night I was back on form; if I remember well, that day I easily refrained until the evening, before leaving for the theatre, when I took .01 g.

  I spent the summer at Stosz. In June at the spa, I wrote The Psychic Mechanism of Mental Illness, working on the book continuously for four weeks. During this time I increased my dose right up to .2 g. In the morning, on waking I usually took .04 g. I breakfasted, lit a King or a Shepheards, then worked until 7.45. I washed and went to work from 8.30 to 11. An hour of writing followed. Lunch. Afterwards .03 g. I wrote until 3. From 3 to 4.30 galvanofaradization again. Work from 5 to 7. At 5, another .03. After supper, 0.03 to .05. In this manner, the work proceeded wonderfully. I wrote with patience and enjoyment. The only big problem was the emergence of strong heart pains and constipation. For the former I employed ether and caffeine, for the latter, enemas.

  On the 11th of this month I visited Jolan at Ujfured. Seeing her again was a great disappointment. It was clear to me that the woman was incapable of the great Isoldelike devotion I had anticipated. She was constantly afraid that a professional seducer of women lurked within me, and the belief that she could become the victim of an enterprise undertaken out of bravado distorted her attraction. It was only at night, when she hugged me in a light open-necked silk blouse and I could feel that she was wearing neither drawers nor petticoats, only then did her desperate and ardent kiss make me realize she wanted to be mine. But I no longer needed her. I wanted to leave. I had neither inclination, desire, impulse, nor condom.

  I worried that I would cause her irreparable harm, and she would no longer be able to remain with her family. Today I still feel I did the right thing in not coiting36 her.

  At the beginning of June, Dezso arrived. I was deathly pale by then from the poison. We began withdrawal immediately. I also discovered that Pantopon was a terrific substitute for the original substance. In a few days the dose was .06, then .05, half P and half M. In a few weeks I was down to .04 P. Had it not occurred to me then to take a tuberculin cure, which significantly disturbed my general well-being, I might have withdrawn completely. But my obsessive jealousy and feelings of helplessness also prevented it. At the end of the summer I was still on .03 P.

  Then here at home, in Budapest, I succeeded in resolving completely the question of impotence. I copulated with Szidi and Olga both, with success and complete pleasure. My joy knew no bounds. I was overcome by feelings of fortune and happiness. Even half a year later, I was seized by great joy when I thought back to that night, when with will, skill, persistence and ingenuity, I resolved the apparently irresolvable. In my great joy, I injected again. Truly, joy and pain are equally unbearable to a real morphinist.

  In October and November my dosage was .05 g. I took .016 of a 2% solution of P and M in bed in the morning, the second dose followed lunch or coitus, and after coitus or between 5 and 6 in the evening came the third. Now and again I would inject a fourth .012 around 9 in the evening. During this time I never emerged from the toxified state, hardly enjoyed anything, and was obliged to

  36. word coined by the author.

  use heart stimulants to counterbalance my collaptoid condition. Finally, one night, 27 November, at the New York Café, I greatly worsened my already poor condition with a superfluous little dose, and felt exceptionally discouraged. I sensed disparagement in Osvath’s37 remarks. The young writers looked at me as if I were a person past his prime, since I had written nothing in months. On going home, I spat at myself in the mirror and, almost weeping, I abused myself mercilessly.

  The next morning, for the first time in a long time, I went to work without poison. On that day, I injected only .02 g Pantopon at around 5.30 in the evening. It caused a wonderful euphoria and satisfied me for twentyfour hours. The next day and the third day I proceeded in the same way. The main principle was one dose per day. By the second night, I couldn’t sleep. Through the skilful combination of alcohol, bromide, aspirin, cold water and warm baths, and by maintaining a strong and unremitting resolve, I succeeded in withdrawing from the poison completely. On 5 December, I injected the last dose of that year. The nights were the hardest. If I awoke, terrible heart pains tortured me. I endured them. I bathed for hours, then did 50-100 cold heart-washes, and only after all this did I inject .01 P in 1% solution. By these means, my sleep soon returned to normal. I did not take much bromide in the evenings.

  In January and February 1912, in March, April, right throught to 5 May, for five whole months I lived without poison. Only every two weeks on average, I took five or six drops of a 2% solution in Gyula’s room (it corre

  37. Erno Osvath, editor of Nyugat

  Erno Osvath

  sponded to only .005-.006). This small dose took effect within five minutes, almost like an injection. I needed the foregoing especially because Olga’s brother had been brought back to Pest terminally ill, making free and unconstrained sexual relations impossible, and more than once, an injection was the only way I could stop myself from committing onanism. Today, I still believe that of the two evils, M is the lesser. The other theme of these small regressions was cigarettes. If tobacco didn’t taste good, I always thought of the M euphorias, during which smoking is a great and incomparable pleasure.

  On 5 May, when I decided I would go to Stubnya, I returned to the poison again. During the trip I took .015 P. It enabled me to remain sitting in one place, and I was capable of making use of the time, applying it to reading, etc. I was reading Cagliostro’s life at the time, but the pleasure it gave me didn’t approach the enjoyment I got from Casanova’s writings, which made March, of the Mfree months, unforgettable. In the morning following a bath, with a washed heart, drinking coffee and smoking a great Luxor or Gianaclid, I drank in those lively, charming, and wise volumes, which doubled my appetite for life, and reduced my jealousy as well as my bent for causing sexual complications. During this period I had i
ntercourse with incomparable pleasures, but without any spiritual dimension, and starting from 5 December, I fortunately made the girl pregnant every month.

  In May, the travelling drove me to use the poison again. On average, I took it every third day, in the afternoon or morning, but only once did I inject .02g P.

  I proceeded similarly in June. The boredom at the empty spa on the one hand, worry about success and my medical career, and the desire to attain a confident, calm demeanour all kept me from stopping. To produce the substance, I used the pastilles I had brought myself, dissolving them in boiled water with glycerine and 100% alcohol, then purifying the mixture using the funnel of the urine filter. In this manner, I took 1-2 to 3-4 cm3 of 3% solution.

  In the month of July too, I used the poison only every other day. It completely satisfied me, and I was easily able to complete much work I couldn’t otherwise have borne. There were patients whose treatment irritated me. The faradization of Mrs Daisy Kovacs for example, because of the woman’s exaggerated modesty, her advanced age, kindness, and deafness. I took the first dose before breakfast, in the form of .01 M. Getting dressed and starting work became excruciating, even detestable acts.

  Depression was much greater in the morning than at any other time. I arranged things so that I would not inject again until evening or late afternoon, but here at home, after supper, I would employ two or even three doses at short intervals. The strength of today’s dose is clearly justified by my influenza, because while on the preceding days I took .03-.04 M, today .045 P and .013 M were necessary. What shall I do? This week is the last, the one on which I pin all my hopes.