Péter Esterházy
J’Accuse
Setting it Straight
From time to time I set the world straight. In German newspapers, for instance, I routinely reverse one of world history’s great scandals—the defeat suffered at the 1954 Soccer World Cup—by pointing out that it was we Hungarians who had won that fateful final, three to two, against the poor Germans. First they thought I’d made a slip, then they thought I was joking, finally they decided I must be crazy. But Petoýfi’s people, I reminded them, do not stand for any nonsense. That settled it.
The trial of Alfred Dreyfus took place a little over a hundred years ago, and in this trial the part played by a Captain Esterházy can only be called lamentable. Many people associate this name almost exclusively with the Dreyfus affair.
As the family’s watchdog and succour, I looked into the matter and in a piece called "J’accuse" (might as well go all the way), I told Paris exactly what I thought. Set things straight once again.
Well, maybe "J’Accuse" it wasn’t, but I just had to get it off my chest. The French nation—from this far, from Bucharest almost—appears as a lover of truth. Here’s a good dose then. When I take a look at my family, I see it’s big; big and rich, and its members come in all varieties to suit every taste—extra large, double-hung, triple-ply, royalist, democrat, patriot, traitor. And that is as it should be, I always thought.
But I was wrong. It’s clear to me now that the Esterházys are all outstanding men, from top to toe, every last one of them (sometimes they are ladies, though the real esterházy europaeus is eminently male or, at worst, hermaphroditic); and if they are not outstanding, they sooner or later turn out to be not Esterházy at all.
The devil, they say—or E. in this case—is in the details, so let’s take
a look at those details. My grand-
father’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandson’s younger sister, Marianne (according to sources cited by Professor László Berényi) was born on October 9, 1741, which in itself is no cause for alarm. Neither is the fact that twenty-five years later, a no longer young uncle of hers, a certain Marquis de Ginestous, out of boredom, it would appear, began an affair with his fatherless relative, which led to tangible results.
"Mon Dieu, what a swelling!" exclaimed Marianne’s mother, though the more worldly uncle (a cousin, actually) calmed her down and summoned his own physician, who said it was an oedema and (prompted by his master) immediately proposed to take the patient to a spa for a quickie cure , after which she would surely improve. Just what kind of improvement he meant we have no way of knowing; in any case, a few months later Marianne gave birth to a boy, and returned in good health to her mother, who was very happy to see that the unsightly swelling was gone. Not long thereafter, the family physician, Doctor Valsin, introduced his adopted son, Jean-Marie August. It was this pseudo-Valsin’s grandson who became the discredited major or captain or whatever in the Dreyfus affair.
Nothing terrible had happened up to this point, nothing that’s not part of life. And the French Revolution, which had broken out in the meantime, was not only not terrible—it was a dazzling peak of world history. As a result, the royal family was, alas, beheaded, and my aunt Marianne—for being on fairly good terms with said family—was locked up in the Temple. Still not a tragedy, though certainly unpleasant.
The trouble began in prison, after dark, when things quieted down and one of the guards not yet imbued with the proper revolutionary spirit slipped a piece of paper into the still soft hand of the woman prisoner, who had been languishing there for several months. The note said: "Madame, do not fear, I will deliver you from captivity." This became the root of the problem, this act of kindness. For who was the liberator? None other than her own illegitimate son, the bastard whom we thought we had luckily gotten rid of. The mother was so moved by the man’s kindness that on September 22, 1795, in Nimes, before the notary public M. Fouquet, she acknowledged him as her natural son and promptly adopted him, and he just as promptly assumed the name Valsin (Walsin)-Esterházy.
And that’s how we got involved in this mess. Of course, when the Dreyfus scandal broke, we promptly sued, demanding that he desist from using the E. name—he obviously couldn’t be allowed to drag it through the mud; besides, a real gentleman is never anti-Semitic. But the French courts only forbade him to use the
title count (a start, don’t knock it); citing something from the Code Napoleon, they permitted him to keep the name. They were dedicated now to the rule of law.
In sum, the ignoble colonel is an Esterházy, though barely. Un peu, to put it more fittingly. But if that’s the case, everybody can be an Esterházy: you, me, the whole world. That is: a Walsin. So remember: Walsin is the name, never mind Esterházy. Practice it at home: Walsin, Walsin, Walsin. In another hundred years I’m giving a quiz. §
Translated by Ivan Sanders
Péter Esterházy’s
works that have appeared in English
translation include Down the Danube, New York, Grove Weidenfeld, 1993, Helping Verbs of the Heart, London, Quartet Books, 1993
A Little Hungarian Pornography 1992, Evanston, Ill. Northwestern University Press, 1995 and she loves me, London, Quartet Books,1997.
