"Very nice! And your wife?"
"She will join me."
"And you seriously think so? You think she'll come and settle down with you in a hut with a clay floor and a straw roof, like the one you are living in now."
"It's a palace compared with what we lived in in our Debreczin days. When my wife did the cooking—for we had no servant—we loved each other better than ever. In a little house loving hearts are nearer to each other than in a large palace."
"It was possible then, no doubt. I have experienced the same thing. But this is quite different. When a man has such brilliant hopes, want is no affliction. It will be over soon, he thinks. But to enter upon misery with the knowledge that it will last till death, is beyond the power of resignation. And particularly with a woman! Believe me, I know my own sex. Your wife, who now stands at the summit of her artistic fame, cannot quit her brilliant career. No! If you were an angel she could not."
I could not defend my point of view against her. Stern reality was on her side; on my side were only faith and imagination.
"I believe in my wife's promise to deliver me out of my difficult position."
"I can't imagine how. She cannot do what I can do for Bálványossi—in other words, accuse herself and say: 'It was not he who proclaimed freedom on March 15th. It was not he who wrote those heart-stirring articles to the nation. It was not he who edited those newspapers; not he who went to battle with the armies; not he who inspired the Honveds at the siege of Buda: but I.' Your wife cannot take your fault on her shoulders."
I couldn't help laughing.
"I would not let her."