‘György Harag, when directing Chekhov plays in the Theatre of Novi Sad,
once visited me with Lajos Soltis and tactfully inquired about plays.
And I… – Oh, God, how could I be such a goof! – I couldn’t present a
piece, and to conceal my embarrassment, I started reading out poems as
usual, trembling and gasping.’
(Ottó Tolnai)
‘I was just admiring how blue changes from cobalt to ultramarine. Even
the sea captain praised this transition. Once he told me that the
hardest thing to bear even on high seas is the purple of dusk and the
ultramarine of dawn. Nights and dog-days amaze you, but the purple of
dusk and the ultramarine of dawn tear your heart out by the roots…
And I’m telling you, we flew to Heaven. I was frightened whether it
would be more difficult, or we would miss it and land in Hell. Or we
would get stuck in between, this was what I feared most: we would get
stuck in between the two, in the grimy nothing… I knew that there
existed somewhere such waxy bodies…’
(Ottó Tolnai, Könyökkanyar/Elbow Curve) |