Notes for an Unpublishable Diary

Moments in a Playwright's Conscious and Unconscious Which Refuse to be Forgotten

FERENC MOLNAR

§1

A Horrible Dream: I dreamed that I invented ordinary breakfast coffee. But I was the only one in the world who drank coffee for breakfast because I had just invented it. I was convinced that if humankind became acquainted with this new invention of mine, coffee would not only be the most popular breakfast drink but that hundreds of millions of men would drink it even several times a day. So I hurried to a great bank that made a practice of financing all sorts of industrial enterprises and new inventions and gained entrance to the office of the president. I told him that I had invented a new drink which, I was absolutely certain, would soon become immensely popular. The president asked me to tell him about it. I told him briefly this:

"Send men to the other side of the globe where a certain tropical shrub grows and gather the ripe seeds of this plant. Put these seeds into an iron pot and heat them—don't burn them—until they turn black and spread a peculiar stinking odor of roast."

The president eyed me suspiciously.

"Then", I continued, "grind these halfburnt seeds. But we shall not eat the resultant powder, nor cook it. We'll construct a special type of kettle, in the lower part of which water is boiling, and put the black powder into this kettle but not into the water. The steam will go through the black sand, will segregate from it a blackish liquid which will have to be collected in a separate pot. This blackish liquid is a little bitter and not very palatable."

The president stared at me.

"Then", I went on, "we go and select from among the many species of mammals one certain kind, but only their female. From this animal, we shall forcibly, by a process akin to torture, take away the white liquid with which she feeds her young. We shall heat this liquid until it reaches its boiling point, then cool it down, but not completely, only to a degree when it will no longer burn one's mouth. Then we pour this white animal fluid into the black vegetable liquid."

"Fie!" exclaimed the president.

"Then", I continued unswerving, "in order to make this mixture palatable, we go and plant a certain herb with a very thick root. We shall not need the flower of this plant, nor its leaves, nor its seeds. Only its root. When the root grows very thick, we'll pull it out of the soil, cut it to pieces, and soak it in a tub until we gain a grayish, nauseously sweet solution. Then we throw the root away. The dirty liquid will evaporate until only small crystals of uncertain color will be left behind. We pound these filthy-looking crystals, bleach them by a special process, change them into very small crystals which will stick together and form an amorphous mass. We cut this mass into small squares and put two or three of them into the aforesaid black-white, animal-vegetable mixture of liquids. Wait until the squares dissolve and then drink the whole compound."

"Horrible!" said the president. "I'm afraid you are quite mad, my friend."

I record this dream merely because every time I think of it I shiver at the thought of how an inventor, who discovered what is now the world's favourite drink, would have to fight to convince his fellow citizens that this complicated mixture is not bad at all and that one day it would become immensely popular.

§2

Brandy:—To drink brandy! You think it is simple. It is not. My friend, Gilbert Miller, tells me that when once he was sitting with a famous French author at the Restaurant Larue, a well-known American banker at the next table ordered brandy to go with his black coffee. The waiter gave him the wine-card and the banker selected for himself the most expensive brand of brandy available. One glass of that drink cost one hundred francs. In a few minutes, the silver-necklaced sommelier appeared, bringing with him a dirty, muddy bottle in a basket. At his side, there marched his assistant, a young waiter, carrying, on a silver tray, a large glass. They put down the glass in front of the banker and the sommelier carefully poured out a little brandy. The banker took the glass and was about to put it to his lips when the French author with Miller leaped to his feet and hurried to the stranger.

"Monsieur", he said indignantly, "I cannot tolerate this. What are you doing?"

The banker put down his glass.

"I want to drink this brandy."

"What colossal barbarism!", exclaimed the author. "You shouldn't do that."

The banker smiled:

"What should I do?"

And then the author told him, explained to him what the classic French attitude toward good brandy is. In the first place: heat the thin and large glass containing this noble drink in the palms of your hands. For the natural flavor of the brandy is at its best when the drink's temperature is that of the human body's. Secondly: smell the drink in the glass for a long time. Thirdly: lift the glass, hold it against the light, enjoy its beautiful color and its translucency. Fourthly: put down the glass carefully. Fifthly: talk about it.

"And then?" asked the banker.

"The rest doesn't interest me", replied the Frenchman and returned to his table.

§3

A Good Man:—A few weeks after the declaration of the late war, the first wounded and disabled soldiers arrived in Budapest. A great crowd gathered at the terminals to gaze, for the first time, at the horrible sight (they got accustomed to it later on) : wagonloads of bloody men treated as mere freight. One night, we went out to one of the stations because we were informed that a transport of wounded Russian prisoners of war was about to arrive. By the time we reached the station, the Russians' stretchers were already lined up in a

long row. Doctors were busy bandaging and treating the moaning Russians by the light of torches. My friend, K., was the one most deeply affected. This gentle and kind man went pale at the sight of so much suffering and stared with deep sympathy at a huge Russian as we stopped in front of his stretcher. The doctor at his side could understand a little of Russian. My friend, K., asked him:

"Why does this poor man howl so terribly?"

"His superiors told him", answered the physician, "that we, Hungarians, execute all of our prisoners of war."

"How terrible!" ejaculated K. "We'll have to calm the poor fellow! Let's be kind to him."

He stepped to him, smiled at him benevolently and patted him on the shoulder. The Russian answered this friendly overture with loud yells. The bullet that had wounded him was lodged in that very shoulder.

Moral: It is not sufficient to be good; one must be lucky, too.

§4

Bad Money:—I can't spend bad money. There are two reasons for this. I either know that I give out bad money or I don't. If I do know it, even a child can notice my embarrassment for I am an unskilled criminal. If I don't know it, bad luck pursues me: I invariably find a sharp-eyed merchant who mercilessly returns to me the money at once. When I was a student, necessity compelled me to invent something against this curse. I was eighteen, all alone in Paris, and my money was less than very little. In those days, it was the custom—it seems as if it has gone out of vogue now—to present every foreigner during the first twelve hours of his stay in Paris with enough counterfeit money and coins withdrawn from circulation to last for a lifetime. They instinctively felt who was an absolute stranger and who was not. They were especially generous with the so-called Helvetia assise, a Swiss unit. The curious thing about these coins was that those with the standing Helvetia stamped upon them were all right, and only those with the sitting Helvetia were no good. God knows why—but thus it was. Well, in the first hour I got a sitting Helvetia. I put it aside and I dared not try to spend it for weeks. But one day I discovered that I had very little money left and I needed all my Helvetias. So I invented the following device: as I had, beside the sitting lady, a twentyfranc gold piece, I changed the gold into twenty good silver francs—all of them were good—and put them all in my trousers! pocket. I had twenty-one silver francs, twenty good ones and one bad one. I decided to live on that pocket and, no matter what happened, to spend the francs without looking at them. I hoped that the bad Helvetia assise would somehow slip out. The money dwindled and dwindled. Finally, there was but one single silver franc left in my pocket. I couldn't resist the temptation to see which one it was. It is unnecessary to relate that it was the bad one.