Sunday at Eörs, c. 1900
"Usually I wasn’t allowed beyond the garden hedge alone. But Sunday was different. There were no carts, no horses or oxen about..."
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From When I Was a Girl in Hungary by Elizabeth Pongracz Jacobi, 1930.
“Before you drive to the station, Szatay, stop at the butcher’s. Bring the meat I ordered yesterday. And, Szatay, don’t forget to call at the grocer’s for the parcels. Tell your wife to be here by eleven. She must help with the cooking. And if you see the gardener tell him to hurry up with the vegetables. And when you call for the mail tell the postmistress to send round three dozen eggs. We haven’t enough, and hers are bigger than any others in the village. And tell Beke to send up five litres more milk.”
Sarineni would have given Uncle Szatay a dozen more orders, had he not looked at his watch, and said, “I shall be late for the train, gracious lady.” He gathered up the reins, and told the horses,
“Come on, children.” That was enough for them to start at a smart trot. They were off to the station, to fetch Papa and the boys and as many other guests as the landau would hold.
Sunday morning at Eörs was all excitement and expectation. Everybody was busy with preparations. After Fraulein had dressed me “decently, for once,” she said, I was left to my own devices until the carriage should return with the visitors.
Usually I wasn’t allowed beyond the garden hedge alone. But Sunday was different. There were no carts, no horses or oxen about. I ventured along the walnut avenue and down to the farmyard, on the plea of “going to meet the carriage.”
The usually busy farmyard was calm and peaceful on Sundays. The whirr of the threshing-machine was silent. The chiming of the church bells from the neighboring village could be heard through the clear air. It was too far for us to go every Sunday, but a good many of the farm hands and harvesters tramped over, and I loved to watch them start in all their finery.
The men had exchanged the cool, loose white linen shirts and trousers for the close-fitting dark blue cloth suit which they wore, summer and winter, for Sunday best. Black braiding, silver buttons, and shiny top-boots made them look very dignified. The young men wore posies and gay streamers on their black hats, and the louder the top-boots creaked, the smarter they considered themselves.
The women and girls looked as gay as peacocks in their bright-patterned, richly gathered skirts. They often wore as many as a dozen stiffly starched petticoats underneath. Tight-laced bodices, snowy blouses, and silk aprons were all embroidered, rows of beads encircled the girls’ necks, and ribbons were plaited into their long tresses. The married women wore head-dresses trimmed with gold lace, or silk shawls.
Marcsa and her brother Peti came running to meet me. They were dressed exactly like grown-ups. Marcsa strutted about like a little turkey to show off the swishing of her skirts. But Peti wasn’t careful of his best suit. He slipped off his boots, and squirmed up the mulberry- tree to get a good lookout on the Bicske road.
“They are coming, Missie! They will be round the corner in a minute!”
I turned and raced up the avenue, with the horses clattering behind me, and I was on the doorstep when the carriage came to a standstill. What a surprise! Not only had Papa and the big brothers come, but a friend of Victor’s and a cousin of my own age, one of the three sisters who were the favorite playmates of my childhood.
We could hardly wait until breakfast In their Sunday Best. Marcsa and her little cousin, was over to get away into the garden. I had to show Cousin Terus my favorite haunts, my apple-tree and storeroom, the best currant and raspberry bushes, and introduce her to the pigeons and the horses and Marcsa and Peti.
Presently Papa joined us. He never interfered with our games and talks; he would pretend not even to be listening. He would just start talking to himself very quietly, or pick up some little object which would begin to look interesting in his hands. He would make a long-eared rabbit out of his handkerchief, or murmur, “When I was a little boy...” And presently the children would drift towards him, irresistibly drawn by his story, to listen, or watch the fascinating toy being made.
I have never known any one else who loved children as my father did, or could make them love him as he could.
On this particular Sunday, he was pacing along the garden hedge, apparently quite forgetting our existence. We could hear him murmur: “No, there is none here—perhaps down by the brook.” And he made for the back gate.
The whole lot of us were after him like a flash.
“What are you looking for, Papa?”
“Oh, are you here, too? Well, I just thought I might find some hemlock to make myself a water-gun to play with.”
“Oh, please make me one, too! And one for me, Bacsi, please! Show me how to make one!” we clamored.
“I know of some hemlock by the brook,” Peti said, “I’ll show you.”
“Very well, we will manufacture guns for you—but mind: none of you may pick hemlock if I am not there, for it is a poisonous plant.”
Peti showed the way. Papa cut nice straight pieces from the thick hollow stem
of the hemlock plant, and bored a small hole at the end of each where rings grow like those on a bamboo cane. Then he selected straight sticks slightly longer than the hemlock pipes, and wrapped a bit of rag round the end of each. When the hemlock pipe was filled with water and the stick pushed into it, the water spouted out in a lovely jet through the hole bored in the thick ring part.
We watched, breathlessly.
“Now remember,” Papa said, when all four guns were finished, “these guns are for play, not for mischief. Don’t splash each other, but go and fight that bed of stocks in the garden. See what an army of them there is! That tall purple one is the general. Shoot them! ”
We had a merry water-battle with the purple and white stocks. It was rather one-sided, for they couldn’t shoot back, but they were all the better for the sousing we gave them.
“Boske, Terus!” Fraulein was calling.
“Don’t forget there is some work for you to do. You must pick the raspberries for dinner—Uncle Gardener is busy!”
That was work we both liked to do. Soon our basket was filling up. Close by, at the edge of the raspberry thicket, Victor and his friend sat chatting and working. Victor was studying music, with a keener interest than he had for school work. He was covering the ruled paper on his knees with black-headed notes. The other boy, who had a gift for drawing, sketched a group of trees with the house in the background.
Peti and Marcsa watched, shy but fascinated.
“Well, which do you like the better, Peti?” asked Victor, who liked to tease. “This which I am doing, or that which the ifiur is painting?”
Peti fidgeted and shifted from one foot to the other.
“Well?”
“Please, ifiur, I like yours better.”
“But why? Look, you can make nothing of this. It’s just black dots on ruled paper. The ifiur has painted a pretty picture—why do you like mine better? ”
“Please, ifiur—only because we’ve known you such a long time! ”
By our shout of laughter Peti knew he had said something silly. He and Marcsa ran as for dear life, and wouldn’t show their faces again until the visitor had left.
The midday heat of the puszta was growing too oppressive to stay outdoors. Everybody assembled in the cool tiled passage. I sat on Elemer’s lap and told him what I had been doing all the week.
Elemer was like my father in many ways. We children were tremendously fond of him and consulted him in all our troubles.
“I have written a poem,” I confided to him. “ Do you think Papa will buy it?”
“That depends,” he replied gravely. “If it is very good, and not too expensive, perhaps he will.”
“It is beautiful,” I said, modestly. “I have printed it on pink paper, and drawn a picture of a cat and a tree on it. It costs five coppers. I want the money because there is a fair in Bicske on Wednesday, and I want to buy a cat in the bag for everybody.”
I had not yet learned to write, only to print in capital letters, and my “poem,” I suppose, lacked all rhyme and reason. But Papa gave me ten coppers for it, and Elemer ordered a duplicate copy. That made me quite rich. Papa always kept my literary efforts, and valued them more highly than any one else has valued anything I have ever written since!
Afternoon brought more visitors, neighbors who drove over to call. The gentlemen played cards in the summer-house, and Etel hurried to and fro with bottles of iced beer and plates of salami. At five o’clock, afternoon coffee was spread under the chestnut-trees. It did start with coffee, topped by mountains of whipped cream, and garnished with cakes, bread-and-butter, cold ham and sausage. But Sari neni prided herself on her housekeeping, and wasn’t content with just that.
Presently the maids appeared bearing dishes heaped with fried chicken. Grandmamma and the aunts kept piling new helpings on everybody’s plate.
“Just another little wing, Neighbor Detre—and you must taste the salad, our own family recipe! ”
“Thank you, gracious lady—I really can’t! It’s delicious—but I have had three helpings already! ”
It would have been a disgrace for the Eörs household if the guests had departed without having eaten as much as they possibly could. Uncle Lajos and the boys went round the table, filling wine-glasses.
“This little wine lets itself be drunk, Lajos,” one of the visitors said appreciatively. “May God let live our hostess.”
Grandmamma, too, raised her wine-glass and returned:
“May God let live our dear guests!”
Then came ice-cream and tarts, retes pastry with various fillings: the ladies preferred apples and cherries, but the gentlemen were all for the savory cabbage filling.
“Could I have the recipe for this curd tart, my dear? It is ever so much tastier than the way we make it,” purred one of the ladies.
“Maria will write it down for you,” Sari neni said, with a wink that meant that there would be a slight change in the copy of the recipe. Family recipes were kept a strict secret.
The baskets of fruit and the luscious melons which came next were taken away untouched. No one could eat any more.
A little exercise was needed after this tiring meal. The “big ones” went to play tennis, while Papa paced the avenue, murmuring to himself, “When I was a little boy…”
“What happened, Papa?”
“Oh, are you here, too? Well, when I was a little boy, away back in Transylvania...”
And he launched upon one of the stories I loved. Up and down the avenue, while the sun went down behind the trees, and a cool breeze rose after that hot and eventful day.
“Do take me to Transylvania, Papa. I want to see all the places you went to when you were little,” I begged.
“I hope I can take you one day, when you are older—that is, if you are a very good little girl,” he said, and I had to be content with that.
Jacobi, Elizabeth Pongracz. When I Was a Girl in Hungary. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1930.
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