Kornel Esti
Page 25
“I heaved a sigh. I stared through the frosted window, but all that I could see were lampposts, dirty snow, and darkly hostile closed gates.
“I sighed once more, then yawned. I consoled myself as best I could. I decided that I had ‘fought a good fight.’ I had achieved what I could. Who can achieve more on a tram than a comfortable window seat? I reflected and thought back almost contentedly over certain scenes in my terrible battle, the initial charge with which I had taken hold of the tram, the agonies of the step, the fisticuffs on the platform, the unbearable atmosphere and spirit inside the car, and I reproached myself for my lack of faith in all but losing heart and nearly retreating. I looked at the buttons missing from my coat as a warrior contemplates his wounds. ‘Everyone gets their turn,’ I repeated with the mellow experience of a philosopher, ‘you just have to wait.’ Rewards are not lightly bestowed on this earth, but nevertheless we receive them in the end.
“Now the desire came over me to enjoy my triumph. I was about to stretch out my cramped legs, finally to rest and relax, at last to breathe freely and happily, when the conductor came up to my window, turned round the destination board. and called out, ‘Terminus.’
“I smiled and slowly got off.”
Copyright © 1933 by Dezsó Kosztolányi
Translation copyright © 2011 by Bernard Adams
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Grateful acknowledgment to the Hungarian Book
Foundation, which supported the translation of this book.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada, Ltd.
New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper.
First published as a New Directions Paperbook Original (NDP1194) in 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kosztolányi, Dezso, 1885–1936.
[Esti Kornél. English]
Kornél Esti / Dezso Kosztolányi ; translated by Bernard Adams.
p. cm.
eISBN 978-0-8112-1958-7
1. Self-perception--Fiction. 2. Doppelgängers--Fiction.
3. Authorship--Fiction. 4. Psychological fiction.
I. Adams, Bernard. II. Title.
PH3281.K85E6713 2011
894'.51133--dc22 2010048874
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011
Also by Dezsó Kosztolányi
from New Directions
Anna Edes