The story of my struggles: the memoirs of Arminius Vambéry, Volume 1

by Ármin Vámbéry

Two of them were specially kind to me in those days. One was a Herr von Vaymár, later on a distinguished lawyer in Tirnau; the other a Herr Hieronymi, later Hungarian Minister of Commerce, who recognised me thirty-five years afterwards in the house of the Director of the National Museum, Von Pulszky, and was agreeably surprised at the metamorphosis that had taken place in his former protégé.

Now came the delightful holidays, and with them the time for my return home. The son of a well-to-do peasant from the neighbourhood of Szerdahely gave me a lift in his cart, and it is impossible to describe the delightful feeling with which I crossed the threshold of my parent's door, bearing my certificate, on which my name was written in large golden letters, and showed this first triumphal result of my work to my mother.

My heart understood the meaning of her warm maternal kisses and of the hot tears she shed. Friendly neighbours had managed to explain to her the meaning of the words "classification" and "eminent" in my certificate; without being able to read them, she stared at my name, written in large letters, and kept remarking, "Of course it is quite natural, for my son Arminius has his dead father's brains, and I am quite sure he will be a success."

These were the happiest moments of my youth. The delightful "Home, Sweet Home," the comfortable feeling of being with friends, and the knowledge that, for a time at least, I was free from the horrible spectre of hunger, did me a great deal of good. Unfortunately these two months fled like a midsummer night's dream, and when, at the beginning of autumn, I started for St. Georghen, my well-mended clothes in my knapsack, and a few pence in my pocket, the earnest side of life, with all its struggles, was again before me. I bravely tore myself away from my mother's embrace, and so, getting a lift now and then, and walking the rest of the way, I arrived the second time at St. Georghen.

I was now to be in the second class, or Secunda, and rise a step in my student's life. The worries and troubles as to board and lodging, and the acquisition of the necessary books had recommenced, and caused me more than once to blush with shame, and in spite of all my self-denial I was unable to procure all I needed.

Unfortunately my new professor in the second class was not so kindly disposed towards me as the dark-haired young priest in the first class had been, and when I went to enter my name in the list, I was received with the not very flattering remark, "Well, Moshele" (the name given to the Jews in general), "why dost thou study? Would it not be better for thee to become a 'kosher' butcher?" In spite of these remarks, which were more malicious than witty, I found it desirable to show my last year's certificate, and to beg him to be kind to me and protect me. This he promised, smiling, but all the same, during the whole school-year, he not only mocked and scoffed at me, but in spite of my diligence, always kept me back in the class, and very often earnestly advised me not to continue my studies. He was certainly a splendid specimen of a professor whose business it was to guide the youthful mind through the halls of knowledge, humanity, and enlightenment.

But unfortunately this was the prevailing tone among the priests who were entrusted with the school teaching, and roughness and fanaticism flourished undisturbed in the shadow of semi-education. Exceptions were very rare, and from his earliest childhood the Jewish boy of that period received the saddest impressions of the position he was to fill in the future.

The real Magyars, the ruling element in the country, more chivalrously inclined and of marked indifference to religious affairs, have always shown themselves kinder and more tolerant to Jews; but all the more disgraceful was the behaviour of the Slavs, and in spite of my reputation as a good scholar, I was often exposed to the wanton behaviour of passing Christians in the streets of St. Georghen, had stones thrown at me, and was greeted with the insulting "Shide Makhele! Hep! Hep! Hep!" and other similar titles.

The second year at St. Georghen was anything but agreeable, and was full of privations of every kind. Only once or twice a week did I have sufficient to eat, and oh, the bitterly cold nights in the kitchen of the cap-maker, with only a miserable counterpane as covering! When my misery was at its height I received, through the kindness of my last year's teacher, the employment of "boots" in the monastery, where I had to make my appearance early in the morning, in order to clean the boots placed outside the doors of three professors, and sometimes to brush their clothes. I performed this office in the corridor, by the light of the fire blazing in the stove, which not only warmed me but gave me sufficient light to learn my lessons by, and so I always managed to appear at school with my lessons well prepared. And when I was able to still my hunger with a piece of bread or some potatoes, I was the liveliest amongst my comrades, and was even able at times to move my surly professor to a smile.