The most beautiful comet I ever saw was the comet of 1858. It was visible in the sky for a whole fortnight, from October 1st to 15th, and all the time the weather was as fine as could be, not a cloud in the sky. And meanwhile the comet drew steadily nearer to the earth, growing bigger and bigger, and in shape it exactly resembled a Turkish scimitar; at last it was quite visible in broad daylight.
I had very good cause for remembering this comet so well. In September of the same year I was seized with hæmorrhage of the lungs, an alarming symptom in a young man. Our doctor, Sebastian Andrew Kovacs of blessed memory, said that it was not medicine that I wanted, but change of air.
I submitted to his directions, and at the beginning of the autumn I undertook an audacious expedition—to visit the Western Carpathian Alps on horseback. Our good old friend Gabriel Török (he had been a Government Commissioner during the Revolution) and his two sons were my guides, for they had been all through those beautiful regions[103] before. Five to six hours in the saddle every day for a fortnight, through pathless forests, up and down steep rocky precipices, wading through streams and mountain torrents, dancing of an evening at the balls frequently given in our honour, in the big-heeled boots that we had worn on horseback during the day, gobbling bacon as we stopped to rest on the fresh grass, and washing it down with a gurgling drink out of our brandy-flasks—that is what I call a radical cure for inflammation of the lungs.
[103] Jókai has immortalized these wonderful landscapes in Az Erdelyi arány Kóra, perhaps his best descriptive romance.
It cured me, anyhow.
With my suite, which gradually swelled into ten strong, I visited Bihar, and found out the rocky grave beneath which reposes my good friend Paul Vasváry, who died such a heroic death.[104] I also saw the Hungarian California, the gold-diggings of Abrudbanya and Verespatak. I painted that marvellous basalt hill Detonátá, than which it is impossible to imagine a more interesting formation. I was in Csetátye Máré, that overwhelming relic of the Roman power, a gigantic gold-producing hill entirely hollowed out by the slavish hands of a subjugated race. When they would have dug still deeper, the top of the scooped-out mountain fell in and buried beneath it both slaves and slave-holders. And there it stands now, a gaping chasm, like one of the circular Mountains of the Moon.
[104] One of the victims of the Revolution.
I love to look back on this delightful tour; and the lovely comet accompanied me in the sky all the time.
The result of my journey was that I returned home with perfectly healthy lungs. From the comet, moreover, I borrowed the idea of starting a weekly comic paper under the title of Ustökös.[105] And this paper gave me something to do for the next fifteen years. During all that time it had great influence. With a preliminary and a supplementary censureship to deal with, it was only possible to say a word of truth or a word of encouragement in verse or by way of anecdote. Sometimes a printer's error served our turn instead. For instance, to the question, "What shall a Hungarian man do now?" the answer was, "Várjon és türjön" ("Wait and suffer"); but by a printer's error the "türjön" became "türr jön," which the reader, in his own mind, would read as "Türr jön" ("Let Türr come"), and associate it at once with the popular ballad sung from one end of the kingdom to the other, and which begins, "Hoz Türr Pizta puskát!" ("Pizta Türr he brings his musket!")
[105] This comic paper still exists, but M. Jókai is no longer its editor.