The Most Interesting Event of My Life

Of the many interesting events, there can truly only be one However, let’s look deep into our hearts, upon a lifelong event which we can firmly lay the foundations of our lives on. Afterall, does life not revolve around issues of the heart? The big event happened forty years ago. The tale is about how and where I found, with great difficulty, after twenty-five years of searching, my dear lifelong partner. Those who know, say that I already cried her name in the cradle. It all started when I enrolled in an art school forty years ago. I did so sadly and sickly, almost hopelessly; for it would have been time for me to get married and I could not find the bride I imagined for myself, whom I would put on a pedestal and worship as befits a good wife. Because how does a young man in love imagine his ideal, his life partner? Such things may exist only in heaven, though who would not prefer true love on earth instead? I couldn’t find my beloved angel, and therefore I wandered hopelessly, sick and sad, and my heart ached terribly, for time was running out, and I would be too late to enter the paradise of marriage. Yet the scriptures teach us that there stands the apple tree of happiness, full of red apples signifying thejoys of life. It is from this tree that our mother Eve tore the apple when she was a only a girl, and handed it over, along with herself, to her fiancé and later wedded husband, Adam. It is this happiness for which I yearned, but could not achieve, yet I still clain: I have no doubt that only marriage is worth living for in this world. Well, in retrospect, a bit for art as well. And that’s when the miracle happened, forty years ago, at the artist school where young boys and girls study together. The great artist Bertalan Székely was our master. We were waiting for class to start. I stood there at the door of the classroom, at the turn of the stairs. Our master would have come from above, but I was looking downward, like I was carrying sorrow in my heart. "As I look down the stairs, my soul flashes." My eyes open wide from admiration. A beautiful girl is coming up... I’ve got it! The voice rumbles silently in me. I’ve got it! This is what I'm looking for. Such may have been the angel of the Lord, whose brightness struck the Roman soldier to the ground at resurrection.- I stepped aside. The miracle passed me. She sat down on the bench among her companions, waiting for the master like all other twenty students. She flipped through her papers, on which she also drew the compositional task. My heart pounded as I watched this earthly miracle. Her hair was so black, almost blue. I was fascinated. I knew she was the one I was looking for. I found the treasure. But how do I get started? How do I obtain this treasure that God has shown me. I couldn't wait for the next lessons, when Bertalan Székely would again judge our work. - He helped with the conquest. He appreciated the work of both of us. We also received rewards. He basically brought us together. He loved this little girl very much. He dealt with her separately in his studio with a couple of her companions /: they were the duennas :! . On one occasion, he said, touched:"No wonder we cling to each other; we're both orphans." And that was literally true. - He painted her. We still have the painting as a precious relic. He paternally guarded her, explaining to her which of the boys was worth looking at. I was the lucky recommended one. By then, our hearts had already been bound by the holy covenant. The Old Man found out, he was always serious, sorrowful and bitter, for his teaching was little understood, or maybe they didn't want to understand it; but then he smiled and said to me, "There's a spirit in this girl. She would make a good artist if she didn't get married. But you do it wisely, sir. That's how the race is perfected.” - We haven't seen perfection yet -not much!- but maybe in our grandchildren. There are already six of them. Forty years later, and she is still resting here next to me. Forty years! And I’ve been explaining in marble, bronze, pictures, drawing, poetry since then — what she was like, and what she is like because she is still flourishing. But these artworks barely approach her true physical and spiritual beauty. I already gave up on succeeding. As wonderful as these works are, they are all just a shadow of living reality. "Or is it just my happy bias?" I try everything to show her beauty, that which time wants to destroy. The paintings and statues mentioned above are all there in Bory Castle because the whole castle was built for her. There are the poems engraved in marble and granite. Wasn't it worth spending wenty-five years looking for her? I don’t want to believe that everything that is beautiful, good or true, is mourning to end - so much beauty and goodness cannot go away. Budapest. April 23, 1944