The Story of My Wife

Milan Füst

THE STORY OF MY WIFE

(A feleségem története)

The Reminiscences of Captain Störr

translated from the Hungarian by Ivan Sanders

and with a Preface by George Konrad

First published in Great Britain 1989 by Jonathan Cape Ltd

Originally published in Hungarian under the title

A feleségem története
by Magveto Konyvkiado,

© Füst Milanne 1957

A Novel of Jealousy

One

Two

Three

Four

A Novel of Jealousy

by
George Konrad

THE STORY OF MY WIFE
IS ACTUALLY THE HUSBAND'S STORY-the story of a Dutch sea captain named Störr whose presence in
the novel is substantial indeed: his weight alone is well over 200
pounds. Milan Füst, no weakling himself, was similarly hefty and broad-shouldered. But his hero is an even more splendid specimen,
and like big men in general, he views other people with good-
natured equanimity, a bit condescendingly perhaps, with childish
wonder at times, but always with some indifference.

Unlike the author, who was compared by friends to Michel
angelo's painting of the prophet Joel. He flew into wild rages, was quite the tyrant: a true seer one minute and a great actor playing the
seer the next. Meek like Captain Störr he definitely wasn't. He
wallowed in his mordant humor and could also cry beautifully,
breaking into sobs at the drop of a hat. He was awe-inspiring and
shockingly rude. Anyone uttering the name of Marcel Proust or
Thomas Mann admiringly in his house was promptly shown the
door. You either paid tribute or left. Tolstoy, yes, Shakespeare, too,
a couple of younger friends, perhaps, but no one else. Milan Füst
was not one to squander his encomiums.

In this novel the husband is very masculine and the wife is very
feminine. About her we know only as much as he is willing to tell us, and he writes far more copiously about himself than about his
wife. This wife, Lizzy, is petite, shapely, a little on the plump side, full of frills and fancies—and utterly unpredictable. She knows
something her oaf of a husband does not but is desperate to find out.
This blunderhead would have us believe that he is unfeeling and
oblivious to everything, yet he is quite perceptive, quite sensitive. The man is full of subtle, narcissistic observations about himself, about his fleeting sensations and moods, and about the most crucial
question of all: Is there such a thing as inspiration?

He is also quick to imagine, quick to suspect; from tiny scraps he
constructs a whole long narrative which, when all pieced together,
seems plausible enough; and its underlying message is clear, too:
this dainty and unruly little woman may not just toy with other
men, she may also fall for them.

On the strength of past experience and his own formidable
prowess, Captain Störr tends to make light of other people. So when at a mature age he falls in love, he pays for his nonchalance with the torments of jealousy. The seamier side of love preoccupies him as
much as its wonders, and in time it grows into an uncontrollable obsession. In the literature about jealousy, Milan Füst's novel is a
basic text.

The inevitable, monumental passion unfolds rather majestically.
When a large, bear-like man begins to see ghosts, we are somehow
more intrigued than when a puny little chap grapples with phan
toms. We might all agree with Füst in saying that to fall in love is to suffer the pangs of jealousy. A lover wants to be all alone with his
beloved, though he knows this is impossible, for we all want more,
even jealous husbands do.

People tend to like Captain Störr, and when they show it, he feels
good about himself. After all, they've invested tender emotions in
him, and these investments are bound to pay off. The object of affec
tion inspires affection; whoever is loved by many is wanted by
everybody. Captain Störr becomes radiant, he is besieged by women.

There is a prim and proper English miss, and a more sophisticated
black enchantress, who happens to be the lover of his friend and
employer. The impetuous captain kisses both of them passionately, but we are told that nothing else happens. He nevertheless feels he
has cheated on his wife, though for a man smitten with remorse, he
holds up rather well.

He would go as far as killing his wife, but doesn't of course. He'd
like to get rid of her, actually—to expose her. And after exposing her, either kill her or spare her, but in any case, leave her. The best
thing would be to prove that she is a thief, too, or looks like one the
moment she is discovered. It would be that much easier to leave her then, to shake off this creature who has so discombobulated the captain, not even his appetite is what it used to be.

The truth of the matter is that this old sea lion is afraid of women. Women to him are sweet, charming, adorable playthings. He him
self is a mountain of flesh, so what he would really like is to play
house with these little dolls. Of course he loves frisky kittens, too,
who try to scratch his hand or bite his neck. Feminists heap terrible
abuses on such men and then jump into bed with them . . . Even
they like their warmth. But in novels about great love and great jealousy this is the kind of hero we must have.

What else could its author, an unemployed Hungarian Jewish school master past his prime, write about—and write with un
relenting diligence, for seven long years, from 1935 to 1942, shut
ting himself in the study of his pleasant Budapest villa? Füst was known for a long time only as a poet; his writer friends used words
like universal and cosmic to describe his single slim volume, and later generations looked upon him as the larger-than-life originator
of dramatically innovative poetic forms. This prematurely old
master, this genuine professional, who spent twenty years studying
Tolstoy's silences and who explored the secrets of prose fiction as in
tently as painters and composers scrutinize the materials of their own craft, did not set foot outside his house for years on end.

Growing up, Füst was a poor boy; he lived with his mother in a
cramped cold-water flat and began writing at the kitchen table. He first came alive in the literary cafés of his youth. After studying law, he became a school teacher and published his books at his own ex
pense. But then he married a wealthy, business-minded former stu
dent of his, who was devoted to him, idolized him, and supported
him. Their house was furnished with choice antiques, fine paintings
hung on the wall—there was no reason to go outside, no need to leave the garden.

He only saw people who came to see him, he chose inner ex
ile—into Flaubertian exactitude and thoroughness. A learned
aesthete, a great poet was writing a novel at fifty. Misunderstood, unappreciated, a most unlikely candidate for commercial success,
Füst was at leisure to create a masterpiece.

When published, the novel was barely noticed; even discrimina
ting readers were slow to appreciate its unique features. The real
breakthrough came only twenty years later when the novel began to
appear in foreign translations: first in France, then in Germany, in
Italy, and just about everywhere in Central Europe. It is said that in
1967—Füst was seventy-nine at the time—he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature; death, however, proved quicker than
the Swedish Academy.

During the years when he immersed himself in this novel, Füst
must have, now and then, skimmed the papers, he must have gotten wind that anti-Jewish laws were being passed, World War II was in
the making—the pressure all around kept mounting.

But the solitary giant averted his eyes. He defended himself
against the scandal by ignoring it. By creating a world of true feel
ings in place of the real world. He simply had to protect literature
from politics; from the deadly abstractions of both the right and the left. Yet the man who vowed to do this was also the man who in his philosophical-meditative diaries loved to slip into the realm of pure
abstractions, wanting desperately to hold on to what was still un
sullied, and genuinely human, in this world.

In so doing, Milan Füst, ironically enough, hit upon jealousy, this
abstract passion, which has its victim search for tangible evidence
but which forces him to chase phantoms in the end, making him an
ticipate assiduously the expulsion from the Garden.

What we are all up against is a state of helplessness: we do not
know the person whom, in the Biblical sense, we
have
come to
know; so we keep getting reacquainted. But as far as this husband is
concerned, his wife is inscrutable, impenetrable. He knows that just
as every man must die, love, too, will die. But if it must, then let it
(fie now, let's get it over with. Man yearns for order, for well-
rounded stories—he wants to conclude his own, too, give it a proper ending, aesthetic balance, if nothing else.

The more you love, the more you want that love to end. Just so
that you won't be so vulnerable. The jealous sea captain suffers from being in love, from being imprisoned. On the high seas, where there
are no girlies to bother with, where he must do his job and stay
alive—out there is the real world. On land, in Paris and London, in secluded flats, in tiny love nests, there is no reality—there he strays into a world of dubious fantasies; he may be a tough character, but
this world will break him for sure, he must pay dearly for all that
heavenly bliss.

You have a big, foolish man, then, with a good little wife—except he doesn't think she is so good. All this is worked out ever so subtly in the book. It's quite possible that our Lizzy
is
a tiny bit unfaithful,
and also that she isn't. Captain Störr, on the other hand, imagines
her at times to be scandalously unfaithful. And so cunning that she can gloss over her wildest flings by sitting at home. It all depends on how you look at it. The captain can't help noting that for each view
point there is another scenario, and each one is equally valid, and
equally deceptive. Such is the master novelist's sense of humor, his amusing and terrifying relativism.

Milan Füst didn't know how to deal with the hopeless quagmire
that was Hungary in the thirties, he couldn't deal with his own
situation in that murky mess. He longed to be in Paris or in London
—in a normal, civilized city. London especially seemed attractive to
Jews in Hungary at the time. America was too far away, Paris, too
close. In the end most of them stayed in Budapest.

When the world around him is about to crumble into dust, a
Hungarian Jewish poet decides to create something solid and shape
ly; he wants to lift his handiwork, his novel, out of the formless,
viscous rubble. At least on paper he finds a place where only art mat
ters, where evil fate does not force his hand, where an ideally
suitable artistic task presents itself: to develop a grand theme in four
movements, with disturbing fluctuations and digressions, naturally.

Milan Füst couldn't think of anything better to do, so he emigrated to his novel. In a filthy age he wanted to write pure fic
tion. And he succeeded—
The Story of My Wife is
pure, honest fic
tion. For seven years the author could dwell in this work. But then he had to finish it. Maybe he overdid it a little. He knew so much
about the obsessions of an egomaniac, he became suspicious himself
—and couldn't wait to be provoked. Like a lion that first gives an angry snort and then waits for his chance to roar and lash out with his lion's paw in earnest.

Milan Füst never went to Holland; he was never in Paris or Lon
don, either. Yet the hero of his novel is a Dutch seaman, and the ac
tion takes place in Paris and London. Then again, we don't find out much about life in Holland, or about Paris and London. What the
novel is really concerned with is whether a temporarily unemployed
sea captain's wife cheats on her husband or not. The captain is past
forty, by no means a virgin, and when he falls in love, he marries the woman on the spot.

What he is is a middle-aged beginner; his knowledge is not deeply
ingrained, he is not blase about the world. On the contrary, he is
forever seized with wonder, he delves into things, in his leisurely
manner he ponders the mysteries of everyday life. Wild fantasies
alternate with sensible admonitions. Does my wife really want to kill
me? Nonsense! Hogwash! And on and on in this vein. Füst has a
knack for creating uncertainty. He has very little to say about cities
and backgrounds; husband and wife have time to observe each other
closely; the author places his two characters (actually, one: his Ac
tive self) in a much-reduced, laboratory-like setting.