Kálmán Mikszáth

“ But all this seemed to produce no impression on old Filcsik. Yet had he been but just to her, he could have helped not only his own lot, but he could have secured forever the prosperity of the noble village itself. ”

“ There is a foolish rumor current all over Csolt, Majornok and Bodok, that the famous fur cloak of old Filcsik is only a figment of his imagination. He speaks constantly of it; he boasts about it; he claims to wear it somewhere, but, as a matter of fact (so it is said) he has no fur cloak, and in all likelihood never had one. ”

“ Well, such is the way of the world. The face of a beautiful woman glorifies the appearance of an entire neighborhood. But it did not beautify Majornok. There it was commonly said that the deputy county engineer, who prepared the maps for the road commissioners from those at the county seat, had intentionally left the place out, and even that the honorable representatives and the electors of the county had offered one hundred and eighty paper gulden to the neighboring county of Hont, if it would claim Majornok as its own, but Hont county would not have the place even for money. ”

“ Majornok is the most impoverished village of the entire country thereabout. Her people are poor and the village itself is neglected. It has not a single paved street—not a bridge, nor a Town Hall to give it dignity.
This is, it is true, in no wise remarkable. None of the county officers had chanced upon a sweetheart in Majornok, and they therefore built the country roads and paved the village streets only in that portion of the county where they frequently went. ”

“ But it is true that he sat very little on his stool, [Pg 3] and he was called for that reason "the bootmaker to God" because he had practically no customers at all. The old fellow was lazy. If he occasionally did make a pair of boots for someone, he acted as though he were doing an act of charity. "What dost thou wish to walk in boots for?" he would ask his customers. "Thou art a peasant and to walk bare-footed is good for thee."
A callous man, he loved nobody, and nothing in this world except that fur cloak. ”

“ Many of the details of his stories are left to the reader's imagination; he touches only the high lights, the shadows must be given form by the reader himself. His humor manifests itself in the most unexpected ways, even in this grim story of the unforgiving cobbler, there are touches of a sly, suggestive humor that brighten the otherwise sombre narrative. ”

“ The cold weather, the bitter wind and the ragged dress are not favorable to such sleep. Only they can sleep as these do, who are exhausted. Their faces, especially that of the child, are already blue from cold and the tiny limbs tremble like frozen jelly. ”

“ She is provided with all that her longing can desire, yet she is the poorest being in the world, for she lacks health, and something else—love.
That love that burned within her for husband is naught to the love that warms the heart, the filial love for parents, and she never felt as cold as now. ”

“ The difficulties of the Magyar tongue have been referred to. It is the one great literary language of Europe that is of non-Aryan origin. It is syllabic agglutinative, that is, the word inflections are made up by adding syllables to the root word that is never lost. The verb is particularly flexible and many of the tenses cannot be rendered adequately in English because they are constructed after a different system. The fine distinctions possible for the Magyar verb can only be felt, and not translated. ”

“ Yet he did have one. The people of Gozon (he moved into our midst from beyond the Bágy) and especially the older ones recollect it well.
It was a long yellow cloak, with a wide collar of black lambskin from the two ends of which two lamb's feet were hung, hoofs and all, in their natural state. It was buckled in front by two beautiful silver clasps and in the corners below each clasp were embroidered two large green tulips. ”

“ It was an almost unheard of indiscretion, but youth is often guilty of much folly. Yet, though all the world condemned her, her father should have been the first to forgive her.
Old Filcsik became ruder and more austere, and when Therese came home to see him and tearfully begged his forgiveness, he turned away and said he did not know the hussy; took his fur cloak from its big nail and left the house and returned only when Therese was gone.
Therese never ventured near him again. She [Pg 4] saw him only on one other occasion, while driving through the village with the County Justice. ”

“ Wherein is evidently shown that no matter howsoever hard a man's heart may be there are times and occasions When, ruled by a Higher Power, he is moved to do a kindly act. Written originally in the Magyar language by Kálmán Mikszáth, and translated by Wm. ”