AVANT LE DELUGE.
BY COUNTESS KAROLYI.
[We may remind our readers that Countess Karolyi, the writer a the following article, is the wife of Count Michael Karolyi, the ex-President of the short-lived Hungarian Republic of 1918.—ED. Speclalor.[ QINCE I have been in England I have repeatedly heard people say how like are English and Hungarian habits and customs ; but this likeness is only superficial. There is certainly a thin stratum in aristo- cratic society where English customs prevail and in which to look and seem English is the chief ambition. The Englishman coming to Hungary gets into touch with this small set, who can entertain him because they are rich and speak English. But this is not Hungarian society in the broader sense. If you go among those who have not been anglicized, especially among the aristocracy -of Transylvania, you will find instead Balkan ways and manners—maids running bare-footed, houses filled with unkempt-looking domestics, huge bare rooms badly kept, beautiful bits of old furniture mixed with terrible plush, excellent wine in doubtful glasses, unpolished silver and quantities of over-rich food. There will be no bath- rooms, and over the sanitary conditions I had better draw a veil. What strikes us Central Europeans in England is that here we find real hygiene and comfort, not as in Hungary as the privilege of the- few, but as the normal standard of the majority, a -standard which is claimed as a right and as a necessity. Very few of our richest aristocrats lead so elegant a life as do English gentlefolk of moderate means. A life very much resembling that of an English country gentleman was led by the so-called " Angloman " before the War. Sports, such as hunting, shooting, riding and golf, were certainly the exclusive enjoyment of the smart set, but those who went in for those sports outdid the Englishman in enthusiasm. What much greater fun it is to do what others are una'lle to do ! It is this exclusiveness that makes sports attractive in Hungary, The chief topic of conversation in England after an open-air day is-boringly centred around the sport itself—how--such-and such a hound stood up to the scent,' the length of the run; how many brace of grouse were shot ; but in Hungary round the blazing woodfire in the Renaissance fireplace; while the genuine English butler handed round the Ceylon. tea and hot English muffins, exciting debates took -place about what one can or cannot wear in England—if at Melton the latest fashion is the broad or narrow brim ; and the champion golf player of the day was not the man who made the finest drive, but the one whose breeches were made at Hammonds. The scent and handicaps were quite forgotten in those fiery debates ! How often did I hear them sigh, "Only English people know how to live." But I must say these Hungarians also knew how to live, although the. Puszta is far, far away from Melton, Bond Street, and Sandwich.
But if they lived like the British, they amused them- selves like Hungarians. In Hungary the wine has more flavour ; the roaring of the huge stags in the virgin forest is far more thrilling than of those on the Scottish moors ; the women are beautiful, and the little extrava- gances of manner and dress which characterized them added to their charm. Both sexes had a peculiar mixture of Oriental and Western civilization. Although the men had irreproachable manners towards good-looking women, they only regarded them from a point of view of sex. Women were their chief occupation and preoccupation, though always from the Oriental and egoistic standpoint. The average plain woman, even if intelligent and talented, had no chance of success. This is more or less the same in every country, but in Hungary men did not even try to screen it, and with the delightful frankness of an ingenu, they gave way to their every feeling. I remember when I first came out a relation of the maculine sex explained to me with great earnestness how success in society was based on three- principles : (1) Never to discuss any serious question, whether in art, literature, or politics (only small talk) ; (2) To appear intellectually inferior to the man you wished to please; (3) Never to make enemies by criticizing the looks of other women. I faithfully promised to endeavour to live up to it.
Our mothers and grandmothers were saturated with the French eighteenth-century culture. The women, thickly veiled and carefully gloved, protected from sun and wind, produced smelling salts and fainting-fits as part of their stock in trade. Outdoor life was practically unknown. Lying on their bearskin divans,- they would read the memoirs of Madame Campan and the thrilling novels of Dumas. It was the epoch of La femme in- comprise created by the French novel throughout the world. Even the happiest wives and mothers had to pretend to be misunderstood : even if not felt it had to be said, for it belonged to the bon ton, and distinguished the "upper ten" from the uninteresting contentment of the • bourgeoisie. The French chef was as much a part of the milieu as Bourget and the husband's young friend sighing with his hopeless love to the chatelaine. Up to 1890 it was quite improper for a society lady to dine in a restaurant, or to go shopping in a cab -instead of in her own Victoria. Later, when the strictness of custom relaxed, the groom would accompany her ladyship on the box of a cab. It would have been most shocking for a lady of society to have shown herself anywhere but in a box at a theatre. A typical anecdote of those days is of a Countess who at a charity ball (the only occasion when she mixed with the ordinary mortal) in order to avoid the humilita.ting moment when she would be forced in the graude chaine to give her gloved and aristocratic fingers to an "unknown," held the end of her laced handkerchief to the bewildered man, who, however, rose to the occasion, took the handkerchief, blew his plebeian nose, and returned it with murmured thanks. Gradually a great change came. In my generation the nursery was ruled by white aproned and capped young English nurses. We ate porridge for breakfast and were brought up to the tune of Jack and Jill. We were washed with Pears' Soap, and wore braided sailor suits from Swears and Wells. I remember the French Manezelle grumbling because she was forced to .take a back seat behind the "Miss." The boys also lost their .French Abbes, who were replaced by -white-flannelled and pipe-smoking University coaches. Gradually the classical education lost ground. Games and sports took up all our time, and it became smart to appear more familiar with Jorrocks than with Shakespeare ; Laurence Hope and Elinor Glyn replaced Balzac and Bourget ; and occasionally one might see an uncut volume of Carlylc's Heroes and Hero-Worshippers left in a prominent position pour epater le bourgeois. And, of course, the flappers wrote their diaries and secret correspondence in English.
The type of the boyish sporting girl developed slowly, and while they- walked for miles through the vast estates of their fathers, they only needed their golf clubs for the sake of appearances. In town again, the life of the girl fell back to the one of the strictest convention. The Danube divides Buda and -Pest—Pest being the business part of the town—the town of joys, theatres and restaurants. Well-brought-up girls were strictly forbidden to walk in that frivolous street which is the Piccadilly of Pest, where men were supposed to look at one (and did). I remember at the age of eighteen, when my mother was in Paris, I had to buy a present for a Catholic priest, and not one of my governesses dared face the dangers of Pest. So I had to wire to Paris to get permission to pass the bridge. Girls even when grown up were supposed to believe in the story of the stork. Any books we read were carefully censored, and the pages containing the word " lover " were sewn together by the diligent hands of our mothers, arousing a most unsatisfied curiosity. All this was necessary in order to acquire an aristocratic husband, which would have been difficult for a girl with a normal knowledge of life. To dance a cotillon twice with the same man before marriage was considered worse than to have two lovers after marriage, unless one got engaged to the said man—who if he did not come to the parents and formally ask their daughter's hand in marriage ran the risk of a duel. One had little opportunity of getting to know one's life partner, except in the country in the oak woods and on the green waters of the rivers, where there were no witnesses, and it was only before God that the girl could be compromised. In our set a girl's only aim in- life was to obtain a husband. " Before marriage nothing, after marriage everything," was their motto. Ayres la sainte ceremonie tout est pentis.
To marry an untitled aristocrat and to be called "Mrs." was looked upon as the greatest shame and degradation in that set. The idea of an aristocrat marrying his daughter to a famous doctor or lawyer would have been regarded as preposterous ; but an uncle marrying his niece in order to enlarge the family property (after buying a dispensation from the church) was quite normal. I knew a young countess who married a medical student. Her parents disinherited her, and never forgave her. The only exception to this rule was marriage to a rich American heiress, where no one was anxious to know the pedigree. On the other hand, there were families who had their property entailed in such a way that they could only marry those who had sixteen quarterings of the highest nobility. An example of the mentality of the official class is shown by the following example. Countess Erdodj, the wife of Louis Karolyi, Ambassador in Berlin and later in London, was extremely beautiful and much feted in all Court circles except her own, in which she could not appear because she had not the requisite number of quarterings. The only possible careers for a man of society were diplomacy, politics, soldiering, and the church with a certainty of a bishopric. To be a doctor, lawyer, artist, or business man was ntal vu. A gentleman should not work.
Although their education was all that was most stultifying, the natural wit of Hungarians is apt to creep out in spite of all. The young men of good society could slip through their examinations by generous gifts to the professors from his parents, and at the time of baccalaureate the answers to the written examination were often bought from the Jewish students. In every " society " there are coteries and sets formed more or less on identity of taste and interest, but in Hungary society was formed more in a hierarchical manner with clearly defined ladders in the social scale. Which set a person belonged to could be easily found out. The fashion in ideas was as strictly followed as the fashion in cloth. Nothing was more criticized than originality. One had to admire Bismarck and disapprove of Gladstone. One had to ridicule feminism, just as one could not acknowledge a taste for sweet champagne. One had to distrust Tolstoi, as well as one had to admire shoes made by Thomas, and to call Andre Ady (the Hungarian Verlaine) insane, and have one's portrait painted by Benzur in Hungarian national costume leaning on a pillow draped with red velvet. One had to look down upon the Jews, and believe that all evil came from them and the freemasons. Oh ! How complicated life was made. There were people you could meet in the country, but not in town ; others whom one invited to big receptions, but whom one would never ask for lunch. There were those with whom one could dance but not play golf ; others with whom one golfed, but could not dance. Others whom you could ask to tea but never go to their house. Others, again, whom one only met at charity entertainments (for the Catholic Church) and to whom one had to be very agreeable, for one needed their gifts ; but after they had paid for the pleasure of meeting you, you never saw them n again until the next year's charity ball. Once I did something terrible. I went to the house of a well-known Jewish writer, an extremely wealthy baron, to meet a set of intellectuals. For weeks this eccentricity was the talk of Budapest.
Even the Transylvanian aristocracy was regarded as inferior for their not quite European manners. In fact, they were forgotten, and lost all touch with Western civilization, isolated behind their snow-capped mountains. While the Western Hungarians, by frequent marriages with the foreigners, lost their exclusively Magyar character, the Transylvanian nobility were proud of their Asiatic descent, which thus preserved through inter- marriage had, however, often the disastrous effect of producing insanity. Foreigners, of whatever class, visit- ing Hungary were treated like royalty and entertained lavishly. Hungarian hospitality is well known, but it is limited to foreigners.
We could not gain the real soul of Western civilization, but we lost our national character. It was a little ridiculous to copy the forms and not to see what was behind them.
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