“The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
I was in Budapest when I heard about the mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. One of the worst things about this horror is how quickly it slips from the news and people’s minds. Only the families suffer now. It takes something broken in the human heart to execute such cruelty. We have a natural inhibition against destroying life. In WWI, conscripts, pulled from peacetime roles such as clerks, postmasters, and railway workers would aim and shoot in the air, rather than fire at enemy soldiers. There are records of recruits being unable to bayonet an enemy in combat. It’s not easy to pull a trigger and watch life ebb away. Most of us dislike even the sound of gunfire.
Depressed for the families affected, I walked past the famous used bookshops along the Múzeum körút. Rare in many cities, Hungarians clearly respect the works of the giants who came before us. These antiquarian shops carry a vast range of the books of the masters, many in foreign languages. This interest reflects a rich intellectual tradition which helps distinguish between a passing fad and indisputable truths – such as the distinction between good and evil. An awareness of history warns us, as Conrad says, of the ‘heart of darkness.’ Expressions such as ‘history repeats’ are truisms precisely because it does – and its study gives a better understanding of the present. Evil needs study so it can be recognized.
In one window I caught sight of a picture of the Hebrew slaves in Verdi’s opera Nabucco. That stirring chorus soars and inspires:
“…Arpa d’or dei fatidici vati, perché muta dal salice pendi?”
(Golden harp of prophets, why hang/You quiet on the willow’s bough?)
What kind of an Ironist are You?
Throughout history music has restored hope and reduced stress. It proves we are not alone.
Like music, beautiful buildings are uplifting. I was on my way to write in the grand reading room of the University Library, Budapest – its yellow sandstone being refreshingly different from the great buildings around it. But if Tumbler Ridge were not bad enough, the cover-up and lies of the Epstein files were also clouding my mind. This miasma is another form of evil. Murderers are easily known, but what of the perpetrators, the elites and the powerful, who have impunity from their victims in these crimes? Paedophiles have been always with us, just as the rich have. What is galling about the elites is they promote restraint, sustainability, responsibility and yet practice indulgence and decadence. It seems as if their boredom encourages perverse acts. There are no consequences for the governing class. They are the deplorables.
It is normal – and appropriate – to have anger at those that misrule – and we feel helpless. When will they answer for their crimes?
I walked past the library to the Central Grand Café; it was going to be too hard to concentrate there. The café is nestled on the ground floor of a five-story turreted building, and its high ceiling, high windows and glorious archway have drawn in thousands since its opening in 1887.
There is an elegance to the Old World that we cannot recreate in the New. As I entered, the house musician was playing from Gerald Finzi’s cello concerto. I walked into another world. Muted colours; hanging, hooded, brass lights; the patterned ceiling work; the wall borders, the mouldings – even old books on the nearby shelves…it’s warm, it’s nice.
I sat down and looked at my neighbours. You watch them, think about them, and start to imagine their conversations. There’s the mother with her small child; there a large-eyed woman, intently leaning forward to listen to a coworker; behind me are clearly pleased lovers holding hands; beside them, a solitary gentleman scrolling on his telephone, a beer and his glasses are on the table. They appear absorbed in the beauty of the mundane. So nice.
Should I order a chocolate butter-cream Esterházy torte, or my favourite trifle, a Somlói Galuska – with walnut, vanilla and cocoa sponge cakes, a rum-chocolate sauce, whipped cream, egg custard, lemon zest & apricot preserves? I order a Pisztáciás Fehércsokoládés (pistachio and white chocolate – I must repeat the unintelligible Hungarian!) Cappuccino, which arrives with a glass of water and a biscuit. A divine flight of fancy.
And I have already forgotten the evil around us.
But let’s not forget. Vienna’s equivalent is the even more ornate Café Central. Underneath those grand arches not only the innocents met. In 1913, Leon Trotsky met Joseph Stalin here. At the same time, outside, in the cold, an unemployed and failed art student Adolf Hitler sold postcards.
