Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Victor (Gyozo) Hatar

print this page

The Habitual Terror

“Bringing disgrace upon the nation and on religion, betraying the country, lèse majesté; a long list of betrayals, you have heard the principal charges. You must know quite well you are condemned to die. What last word can you find in your defence? Why are you grinning?”

“Excuse me, I am not grinning, it’s just the way my face is put together, my physiognomy.”

“Call it your mug and have done with it. Say what you have to say, you have the right to speak before we string you up.”

“Very well. As concerns the charge of lèse majesté, since it is our apostolic emperor Franz Joseph who is the plaintiff he should be present in court but I do not see him. As concerns the betrayal of the country, there was no formal contract to be broken, but if we are to regard the permanent social contract between us as constituting such a thing, the number of times the country has broken it is equal to the number of unwritten clauses that the contract contains. It is not so much a matter of me betraying the country, far more of the country vilely betraying me. I ask you to have the country summoned to the court and put in the dock.”

      [GSz]

Hatar has said: “What with spending several years in Fascist and Communist prisons and nearly half a century in emigration, I have had a chequered life. Yet studies, travels, and experiences never make a polymath unless one has that bent towards contemplation, which turns one into a philosopher – in the original, Pythagorean sense of the word.”

Translated by George Szirtes

Page(s) 159

Back to top