"If you could only hear how splendidly she plays the fiddle."
"Fiddle, do you say? Then don't give yourself up to her either! You know there are three things in this world that I hate—horse-radish with milk, the critics, and after that, music." (He could never be persuaded to listen to an opera.)
"But Tony Várady also plays the fiddle!" (I should explain that this young lawyer shared Petöfi's room with him.)
"He fiddles, it is true, but it is useful to me."
"How so?"
"In our neighbourhood dwells a rascally card-player, who comes home every night between two and three, and begins to sing. I immediately wake Tony and say to him, 'Rise, and fiddle away at that fellow there!' Then he begins to fiddle in a way that makes your hair stand on end, and your blood run cold, and in ten minutes our neighbour, falling upon his knees, sobs for mercy, and declares that he will leave off singing. However, from to-day I live no longer with Tony."
"Have you quarrelled?"
"On the contrary, we are the best of friends. But I'll tell you about that later on; let us now talk about serious things. What have you been doing since I last saw you?"
I showed him the MS. of "Hétköznapok."[19] It was just ready.
[19] "Every-day Days." One of the best, if not the best, of Jókai's earlier works.