The Diary of Geza Csath Read Free Page A

spent a good while ago.
    We arrived at Stubnya 4 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 P 5 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,