Around My Stony Cradle
Illyes did not like Budapest — of course, he lived in Budapest at the time and not where he said the worthwhile people lived. For my part, cruising these streets some fifty years is like living with a woman you don't know, precisely because you know her all too well.. . Love has always been adept at contradictions; I've seen so many towns, I'm dripping with them, but only one have I seen in ruins: that's her, her uncombed hair of grey smoke straggling over her brow, And under her torn furs the tanks creeping like lice .. . I'll never forget, while I live, how she shook herself, Spring of '45, the small-time whore in her skirt of light. Hope lures the future to her foul mattress and winks: You corning, kid?
Otto Orban
(translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes)
Previous page
