Kabdebo, Thomas: Attila József. Can you take on this awesome life? (Budapest, 1997)
5. Socialism of a personal kind
Sept. 13 1928: 'I am listening to the wasp which lost its way and think of you with the white of the sea: you seem unreal, like the pole-star through the clouds.. Since you left the milk chum is cooler and the milk too, and the handle of the axe... 'My darling, don't be cross with me, the reason I cannot love you more is because that would be humanly impossible.' (Attila) Sept. 28 1928: 'The way I am: It hurts that I have to love you whether I want to or not, and I am glad that it is you I love: ich muss dich, aber kann dich, it is better in French: je te dois, mais je te sais etje te рейх... During the day I am trying to put your library, this little mansion of the mind, into order.' (Attila) Sept. 30 1928: ...'I spoke with Illyés today whose beautiful poem will soon be published in The West... inside it hurts me terribly [lately he was neglected by The West] ...and I would have long been dead and buried, had I not developed my self-esteem. What lacks in the outside world one ought to build up inside, or one would perish.' (Attila) Oct. 11928: In the devil's bum, in the flash of nought I will bite into God's tongue of dawn My love is still healthy in this world * 'Lucie [Jolán] and Herr Doctor [Makai] are getting divorced...' (Attila) Oct. 2 1928: 'What's happening in the University [of London]? Would you not come home and start working with me in the bank, you doing English, me French correspondences?' (Attila) Oct. 5-6 1928: 'So far I have received only three letters from you, ten pages in total... My little one, my dove, do you understand that my life is left in yours like a smiling Jesus under Mary's heart? I am an egret whose flight is the circulation of your bloodstream... Tell me if you had discovered that Social Work is fraud because it cannot remedy any of the social illnesses, it only distracts one's attention from them...' (Attila) Oct. 10 1928: 'My little love, my golden treasure, I received both of your telegrams... Happiness is teeming in me Sunlight cannot penetrate it... I do not believe in psychology, nor anything else of that ilk, the whole lot is like your trade: it proffers help but devalues the worth of its practitioner. Reform and revolution differ from one another only as much as one feeds one aspirin to the somnambulant, the other makes him drink 82