Imre: A Memorandum

by Edward Prime-Stevenson

We walked down an alley in silence. Neither of us had ever been in this sort of a mood till this afternoon. The atmosphere was a trifle electric! Imre drew his sword and began giving slashes at trees and weeds, an undesirable habit that he had, as we strolled onward. Thought I, "A pleasing couple of hours truly we are likely to pass!" I felt that I would better have stayed at home; to start my packing-up for London. Then I pulled myself together. I found myself all at once possessed of a decent stock of pride, if not "philosophy". I undertook to meet Imre's manner, if not to match his sentiments. I began to talk suavely of trifles, then of more serious topics... of wholly general interests. I smiled much and laughed a little. I referred to my leaving Szent-Istvánhely and him... more to the former necessity... in precisely the neatest measure of tranquility and even of humour. Imre's responsiveness to this delicate return for his own indifference at once showed me that I had taken the right course not to "spoil this last afternoon together".... probably the last such in our lives!....

On one topic, most personal to Imre, I could speak with him at any time without danger of its being talk-worn between us; could argue with him about it even to forgetting any other matter in hand; if, alas! Imre was ever satirical, or placidly unresponsive toward it. That topic was his temperamental, obstinate indifference to making the most of himself in his profession; to "going-on" in it, with all natural energies or assumed ones. He was, as I have mentioned, a perfectly satisfactory officer. But there it ended. He seemed to think that he had done his duty, and must await such vague event as would carry him, motu proprio, further toward efficiency and distinction. Or else, of all things foolish, not to say discreditable, he declared he still would "keep his eyes open for a chance to enter civil life"... would give himself up to some more or less aesthetic calling, especially of a musical connection... become "free from this farce of playing soldier." He excused his plan by saying that his position now was "disgracefully insincere." Insincere, yes; but not disgraceful; and he was resting on his oars with the idea that he ought not to try to row on, just when such conduct was fatal. A man can remedy a good deal that he feels is an "insincere" attitude toward daily life. And what is more, any worthy, any elevating profession, and in the case of the soldier the sense of himself as a prop and moral element in the State must not be insulted! The army-life even if chosen merely from duty, and led in times of peace, is a good deal like the marriage of respect. The man may never have loved the wife to whom he is bound, he may never be able to love her, he may find her presence lamentably unsympathisch. But mere self-respect and the outward duty to her, and duty to those who are concerned in her honour as in his, in her welfare as in his.... there comes in the unavoidable and just demand! Honour and country are eloquent for a soldier, always. It was on the indispensable, unwelcome, ever-postponed Hadiskolai course that, once more, this afternoon, I found myself voluble with Imre. If I could not well speak of myself, I could of him, in a parting appeal.

"You must go on! You have no right to falter now. For God's sake, N.....! put by all these miserable dreams of quitting the service. What in the world could you do out of it? You have plenty of time for entertaining yourself with strumming and singing, and what not. Everything is in your own hands. Oh, yes, I know perfectly well that special help is needed to push one along fast... friends at court. But you are not wholly without them. For your father's sake and yours!.... You have shown already what you can do! If you will only work a bit harder! The War-School, Imre, the War-School! That must come. If you care for your own credit, success... stop, I forbid you to sneer... get into the School, hate it as much as you will!"

"I hate it! I hate it all, I tell you! I am sick of pretending to like it. Especially just lately... more so than ever!"

"Very possibly. But what of that? Is there anything else in the wide world that you feel you can do any better?... beginning such an experiment at twenty-five years of age.... with no training for so much as digging a ditch? Do you wish to become a dance-music strummer in the Városliget? Or a second-class acrobat in the Circus Wulff? Or will you throw off your uniform, to take flight to America... Australia... to be a riding-master or a waiter in a restaurant, or a vagabond, like some of the Habsburg arch-dukes? Imre, Imre! Instead be... a man! A man in this, as in all else. You trifle with your certainty of a career. Be a man in this matter!"

He sighed. Then softly, with a strange despair of life in his tone:

"Be a man? In this, as in all? God! how I wish I could be so."

"Wish you could be so! I don't know what you mean. A manlier fellow one need not be! Only this damnable neglect of your career! You surely wish to succeed in life?"

"I wish. But I cannot will..... Do not talk any more about it just now. You can... teremtette! you will write me quite enough about it. You are exactly like Karvaly, once that topic comes into your mind! Yes, like him to half-a-word... and I certainly am no match for either of you."

"I should think," returned I, coldly, "that if you possess any earnest, definite regard for such a zealous friend as Herr Karvaly, or for any true friend, you would prove it by just this very effort to make the most of yourself... for their sakes if not for your own."