The Private Tutor
CHAPTER III THE PRIVATE TUTOR
"Docendo discimus" ("by teaching we learn") says the Latin proverb, and according to this I must have had the very best opportunities for acquiring those scientific accomplishments necessary to the attainment of the object I had in view. Nevertheless it was with a heavy heart that I left the school, where I ought to have remained to finish the regular course of my studies, and went out into the world as—a wild student, without discipline, without system, without even the supervision which my age and inexperience demanded. Being on a visit to my uncle at Zsámbokrét, in the county of Neutra, I first made the acquaintance of Mr. von Petrikovich, a small landowner and postmaster. He was a clever, unprejudiced, and worthy man, who had had his eye on me for some time because of my readiness in foreign languages, and he now engaged me as tutor, or rather as teacher of languages, to his two sons. I was to receive full board and a salary of 150 florins, a very modest honorarium, but quite in keeping with the very modest services which I was able to render. For, apart from my knowledge of Hungarian and Latin, my learning was very deficient, and as regards my office of prefect—such was my title—I was rather pupil than master. Mrs. von Petrikovich, a highly-accomplished woman, who had been brought up in very aristocratic surroundings, and thought a great deal of good behaviour, manners and dress, soon found to her grief that the prefect, in spite of his linguistic accomplishments, was a very unpolished individual, who could scarcely be expected to teach her sons drawing-room manners. She therefore undertook the difficult task of first educating the tutor, and the trouble the good lady took to instruct me on all possible points of etiquette, showing me how to handle my serviette, fork and knife at table, how to salute, walk, stand, and sit, was indeed a brilliant proof of her kind-heartedness. I became a totally different being during this, my first sojourn, in a gentleman's family, and I was so much in earnest that I spent whole hours over my toilet, and in practising bows, and the elegant movements of head and hands. I attended fairly well to my duties as tutor, but my own studies suffered considerably under the influence of this training. I became seriously inclined to vanity, and wasted not only my time before the looking-glass and in the drawing-room, but also my substance; and the few florins which I ought to have saved to recommence my studies dwindled away so fast, that at the end of the year I had not even the sixteen florins left, which I owed to the Lutheran Lyceum at Presburg, and without which I could not get my certificate, or rather testimonial of merit. It was indeed unpardonable thoughtlessness which had thus led me into debt, an offence for which I had to suffer many sharp pricks of conscience, and which cost me dear. Was it because for the first time in my life I enjoyed the comfort of living free from care? Was it this that so enthralled my senses and captivated my whole being? Or was it the outcome of some hidden, frivolous trait in my character? I cannot account for it. All I know is that I felt very miserable when, in the autumn of 1851, I went to Pest with Mr. Petrikovich, this worthy man having taken his sons there to attend the public school. Thus I left the quiet haven of the Petrikovich's home, and found myself once more launched on the stormy sea of wretchedness and disappointment.
Pest, now Budapest, the beautiful, flourishing capital of the kingdom of Hungary, boasted at that time nothing of the pomp and grandeur which it now possesses, for the Austrian reign of terror which followed the struggle for independence had left its sorrowful mark upon the city and the people. After taking leave of Mr. Petrikovich, I turned into one of the less frequented back streets in search of inexpensive lodgings, i.e., a bed, eventually half a bed; and the same terrible despondency which had taken hold of me on my first arrival at Presburg came over me again in all its intensity. For half a day I wandered round without success; nobody would take me in without references and part payment in advance. At last I was reluctantly obliged to go to the house of a wealthy relative, who allowed me to remain with him for a few days, and then slipping two florins into my hand, he gave me the paternal advice to try and find something to do, as his wife objected to my presence there. I went straight to some of the coffee-houses to inquire from the tradespeople hanging about if they could help me to a position as teacher of languages. My timid and dejected appearance attracted the attention and called forth the sympathy, of a certain Mr. G. He began to talk to me, and the end of it was that he proposed I should enter his service as tutor to his children in return for board and lodging, to which, of course, I agreed at once. Alas for my studies! Mr. G. lived on the Herminenplatz, a good way from the college of the Piarists, which I wanted to attend. The grand-sounding word quarter (lodging) consisted of a bed in the servants' room, which I shared with the cook, the chambermaid, and one of the children, while the board was so extremely poor and scanty that the memory of the various meals of the day was rather in my thoughts than in my stomach. And yet for this meagre fare I had much to do and to suffer. The untrained children were always worrying me, and when they had gone to bed and I tried to get on with some of my school preparations, or private studies, the cook and the chambermaid began to sing, or to quarrel, or to play tricks upon me, and made it absolutely impossible for me to do any work. In the long run this became unbearable, and hard though it was, I gave notice to leave. As I had not the public certificate, for which I could not pay the necessary sixteen florins to the Lyceum at Presburg, I had only been admitted to the Piarist school for three months as provisional student of the seventh class. For want of the said official certificate from the previously finished classes, I was compelled to leave the school, and I took the bold resolve to turn my back once and for all upon the town and public study, and to find a place in the country as private tutor.
I call this a bold resolve, but it was also a very painful one, for henceforth I had quitted for ever the road which was to lead me to a definite profession in life, and as I had devoted myself to the aimless study of foreign languages, I drifted into a road the end of which I did not know myself, and which I was certainly not led to follow by the faintest glimmer of future events. The danger of my position gradually became clear to me, for in the hard struggle of life, now lasting already for ten years, only the momentary deliverance from suffering and privation had been before my eyes, and now again this one thought, this one care filled my mind: Will my plan succeed, shall I find a good place as private tutor? My fitness for the office consisted in the knowledge of a few languages, and a slight acquaintance with one or two more. I could read German, French, and Italian fairly well without the help of a dictionary; Hebrew and Latin I knew slightly, and of course I could speak and write my two native tongues, viz., Hungarian and Slav. On the strength of these accomplishments I had the audacity to advertise myself as professor of seven languages, and in my arrogance I even pretended to teach them all.
This was certainly a sufficiently striking signboard and quite in keeping with the market where I hoped to dispose of my intellectual wares; for at best I could only expect to take a position in a homely Jewish family, who, with slight knowledge of philology and pædagogy, would be perfectly satisfied with my pretentious assertions. Far from wishing to act under false pretences, I tried to fulfil my office to the very best of my ability; I taught languages after the method by which I myself had learned them, viz., the so-called Jacotot method, and in most cases I had the satisfaction of seeing my pupils so well advanced in any one language within six months that they could read easy passages and also speak a little. I was equally successful in other branches of learning, such as history, geography, and arithmetic, so that without claiming any pædagogic merit, but simply by honest effort and perseverance, I managed to fulfil my office as tutor fairly satisfactorily.
Not without some interest are the different ways and means by which I secured my appointments as private tutor, and for curiosity's sake, I will relate them here. Advertising in newspapers was at that time either not the custom in Hungary or of very little use; besides, for lack of the necessary means this method was quite closed to me. But there were professional agents or brokers, as they were commonly called, who undertook to provide teachers with situations, and also to find tutors for such country families as could afford the luxury of a private tutor. These were chiefly merchants or farmers living in the provinces, who came to Pest every year at the time of the two great general fairs, and after disposing of their goods—i.e., after they had sold their wool, gall-nuts, corn, skins, &c., proceeded to make the necessary purchases for their house and farm. The domestic wants were supplied by the various stores, but to procure a tutor, a "kosher" butcher, or brandy distiller, there were certain coffee-houses—i.e., places where the brokers in that particular line could be consulted, and the pædagogic strength at disposal inspected. As educational exchange, the Café Orczy, on the high-road of Pest, enjoyed in those days a special popularity. This dirty place, reeking with the smell of various kinds of tobacco—which even now after forty years has for the most part preserved its old physiognomy—was then crowded with town and country Jews of all sorts and descriptions; some sipping their coffee, others talking and wildly gesticulating, others again bargaining and shouting, all making a deafening noise. In the afternoon, between two and four, the crush and the clatter were at their worst in this pædagogic exchange. At that time everybody of any importance was there, and on a bench at the side the eligible teachers were seated, anxiously watching the agent as he extricated himself from the crowd and with the purchaser, i.e., the future principal, stood before the bench, reviewed the candidates and called up one or the other of them. It was always a most painful scene, of which I have since often been reminded when visiting the slave markets in the bazaars of Central Asia, and the remembrance of it even now makes me shudder whenever I pass the Café Orczy. With a heavy heart and deeply ashamed I used to sit there for hours many afternoons together, until at last Mr. Mayer (that was the name of my agent) came up to me accompanied by a son of Mercury engaged in agricultural pursuits, told me to rise, and, all the time expatiating upon my tremendous cleverness, introduced me to the farmer. Of course I had to support the zealous broker in the glorification of my own littleness—just as the slave has to prove his muscular strength in the bazaars of Central Asia by the execution of his tours de force—and after the amount of the annual honorarium had been fixed and I had presented my references, the farmer paid me the earnest money, the greater portion of which was claimed by the broker for the trouble he had taken, while I with the shabby remainder had to cover the cost of my equipment, and eventually my travelling expenses.
This was the regular routine of business on such occasions, and both buyer and seller benefited by it. I have always been struck by the great desire for culture evinced even by the most illiterate Jewish merchant. He spares no pains and no trouble to give his children a better education than he himself enjoyed; for in spite of his strong materialistic tendencies he has higher ideals in his mind for the future of his children.