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Authors: Sándor Marai
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peninsula, with the Malays.”
“They say,” said the General, raising his glass of absinthe to the light in the gesture of a welcoming toast, “that the tropics use people up and make them old.”
“They’re terrible,” said Konrad. “They take ten years off a man’s life.”
“But it doesn’t show. Welcome!”
They emptied their glasses and sat down.
“Really not?” asked the guest as he settled himself in the armchair beside the fire, under the clock. The General watched his movements with care. Now that his friend had chosen to sit in the armchair—exactly where he had last sat forty-one years ago, as if he were involuntarily obeying the local magic—the General blinked in relief. He felt the way a hunter feels when he finally sees the game in the position it has been carefully avoiding. Now everything had fallen into place.
“The tropics are terrible,” Konrad said again. “People like us cannot tolerate them. They use up the body and destroy the constitution. They kill some part of you.”
“Is that why you went?” asked the General almost as an aside, giving no particular emphasis to the words. “To kill something in yourself?”
His tone was polite and conversational, and he took his seat facing the fireplace in the old armchair known in the family as the “Florentine Chair,” where he had sat in the evenings forty-one years ago talking with Krisztina and Konrad. Now the two of them glanced at the third chair, upholstered in French silk, and empty.
“Yes,” said Konrad calmly.
“And were you successful?”
“I am already old,” said Konrad, looking into the fire, not answering the question.
They both sat in silence, watching the flames, until the manservant came to announce dinner.
11
It’s like this,” said Konrad after the trout. “At first you think you can get used to it.” He was speaking of the tropics. “I was still young when I arrived, thirty-two, you remember. I went straight out into the swamps. You live out there in little huts with tin roofs. I had no money—everything was paid by the Colonial Company. At night you lie in bed and it is like lying in a warm mist. By day the mist is thicker and scalding hot. Soon you become quite apathetic. Everyone drinks, everyone’s eyes are bloodshot. In the first year, you think you will die. In the third year, you realize that you are no longer the person you were, and that the rhythm of life has changed. You live faster, something inside you burns, your heart beats differently and at the same time, you become indifferent to everything. Absolutely everything, for months at a time. Then there comes a moment when you no longer have any idea what is happening either inside you or around you. Sometimes that takes five years, sometimes it happens in the first few months. That’s when the rage comes. A lot of people become murderous, others kill themselves.”
“Even the English?”
“Less often. But even they get infected with this fever of rage, as if it were a bacillus, though it isn’t. And yet I’m convinced it is a form of illness. It’s just that no one has found the cause yet. Maybe it comes from the water. Or the plants. Or love affairs. You cannot get used to Malaysian women. Some of them are extraordinarily beautiful. They smile, their skin is so smooth, their bodies are so supple when they serve you at table or in bed . . . and yet you cannot get used to them. The English know how to defend themselves. They arrive with England in their suitcases. Their courteous arrogance. Their reserve. Their golf courses and their tennis courts. Their whisky. Their evening dress, that they change into every night in their tin-roofed houses out in the middle of the swamps. Not all of them, of course. That’s just a legend. Most of them turn brutal after four or five years just like the others, the Belgians, the French, the Dutch. The tropics eat away their college manners the way leprosy eats away skin. Oxford and
“They say,” said the General, raising his glass of absinthe to the light in the gesture of a welcoming toast, “that the tropics use people up and make them old.”
“They’re terrible,” said Konrad. “They take ten years off a man’s life.”
“But it doesn’t show. Welcome!”
They emptied their glasses and sat down.
“Really not?” asked the guest as he settled himself in the armchair beside the fire, under the clock. The General watched his movements with care. Now that his friend had chosen to sit in the armchair—exactly where he had last sat forty-one years ago, as if he were involuntarily obeying the local magic—the General blinked in relief. He felt the way a hunter feels when he finally sees the game in the position it has been carefully avoiding. Now everything had fallen into place.
“The tropics are terrible,” Konrad said again. “People like us cannot tolerate them. They use up the body and destroy the constitution. They kill some part of you.”
“Is that why you went?” asked the General almost as an aside, giving no particular emphasis to the words. “To kill something in yourself?”
His tone was polite and conversational, and he took his seat facing the fireplace in the old armchair known in the family as the “Florentine Chair,” where he had sat in the evenings forty-one years ago talking with Krisztina and Konrad. Now the two of them glanced at the third chair, upholstered in French silk, and empty.
“Yes,” said Konrad calmly.
“And were you successful?”
“I am already old,” said Konrad, looking into the fire, not answering the question.
They both sat in silence, watching the flames, until the manservant came to announce dinner.
11
It’s like this,” said Konrad after the trout. “At first you think you can get used to it.” He was speaking of the tropics. “I was still young when I arrived, thirty-two, you remember. I went straight out into the swamps. You live out there in little huts with tin roofs. I had no money—everything was paid by the Colonial Company. At night you lie in bed and it is like lying in a warm mist. By day the mist is thicker and scalding hot. Soon you become quite apathetic. Everyone drinks, everyone’s eyes are bloodshot. In the first year, you think you will die. In the third year, you realize that you are no longer the person you were, and that the rhythm of life has changed. You live faster, something inside you burns, your heart beats differently and at the same time, you become indifferent to everything. Absolutely everything, for months at a time. Then there comes a moment when you no longer have any idea what is happening either inside you or around you. Sometimes that takes five years, sometimes it happens in the first few months. That’s when the rage comes. A lot of people become murderous, others kill themselves.”
“Even the English?”
“Less often. But even they get infected with this fever of rage, as if it were a bacillus, though it isn’t. And yet I’m convinced it is a form of illness. It’s just that no one has found the cause yet. Maybe it comes from the water. Or the plants. Or love affairs. You cannot get used to Malaysian women. Some of them are extraordinarily beautiful. They smile, their skin is so smooth, their bodies are so supple when they serve you at table or in bed . . . and yet you cannot get used to them. The English know how to defend themselves. They arrive with England in their suitcases. Their courteous arrogance. Their reserve. Their golf courses and their tennis courts. Their whisky. Their evening dress, that they change into every night in their tin-roofed houses out in the middle of the swamps. Not all of them, of course. That’s just a legend. Most of them turn brutal after four or five years just like the others, the Belgians, the French, the Dutch. The tropics eat away their college manners the way leprosy eats away skin. Oxford and
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