Old man, old tree (Ferenc Móra)

I loved sitting under the old walnut tree the most as a child, and I'm still not sure why. No nuts grew on it any more, a golden shower of yellow leaves was already sprouting in midsummer, and no songbirds rested on its mossy, lichened branches. There was a place for them to fly, our yard was full of fruit trees blessed with flowering bushes.

Well, I don't say I was not angry with the apple tree either, and I especially liked to make friends with the Emperor pear trees, but my tree was the old walnut tree. I think I liked it because I was so small and he was so big. The biggest in the whole garden.

I thought at the time that this was the tallest tree in the whole world, and that from this mountain you could see into heaven.

I also had all kinds of crab apples carved into the waist of the old tree, and I used to look at them a lot. There were girbegurba letters, like big papier-mâché caterpillars, blackened on the bark of the tree, and my father knew a story about each one. He lifted me in his arms when he was in a good mood, and sometimes he would cry, sometimes laugh, and point out the strange incisions.

- I cut this heart into it when I was a big deacon. I broke my knife in it. That one was carved by your brother Pista, and this one by your Aunt Agneska. Do you see this star? My grandfather's father carved it when I was your age. Look, there's a broken sword carved into the wood, with handcuffs on the hilt. Grandfather threw it in when he was in hiding after the War of Independence, as a military officer.

My father always had tears in his eyes, and I always laughed.

- I don't think so - I shook my head.

- What, you?

- That grandfather would have done that drawing. Because that's the highest one. Grandpa wouldn't reach that high on a ladder. He's as small as I am.

- You're a little ignorant - my father put a peach on my head.

But I knew I was talking very cleverly, because Grandpa was very small and frail. He couldn't walk any other way but with a cane. He didn't walk much, he just sat in the big armchair. In fine weather he would bask on the porch, on windy, rainy days by the stove. As long as I can remember, I never saw him work.

He just let out the smoke from the big cheese pipe and looked at all sorts of old books with fancy papers stuck in them. They were called Kossuth-bankos, and Grandpa loved to stroke them. His eyes always lit up when he did this, although he was usually tired and sad to look at. I once heard him sigh after dinner:

- God of rest, when wilt thou make my bed?

And then I was amazed that my father and my mother would fall on Grandpa in tears and kiss his hand until Grandpa smiled.

- Why are they so dominant? - I wondered to myself.

I could not understand why this grandfather was such a great gentleman. The biggest in the house. They always ask him what to have for lunch. Everybody kisses his hand. When he falls asleep, everyone has to tiptoe. And I always get only half of the marrow, the other half is put on grandfather's toast.

I couldn't get it into my head, and one day, when my father asked me what I wanted to be when I went for a walk, I said what I wanted to be:

- I want to be a grandfather.

- Why should that be?" my father smiled.

- It is because it does not work for anything, yet everyone is looking to please it.

My father looked at me with a serious expression.

- And you think that's not right?

- "I don't know," I said, a little startled. - You used to say that people who don't work shouldn't eat.

- "You may be right," my father turned away, and soon we finished our walk.

At noon there were only three of us at the table. Grandpa had gone for a drive to visit an old friend.

- "Now I'll have the whole marrow," I said, and only then did I realise that I wasn't being served. My little plate of roses and my cute little glass were not on the table.

- What about me? - I asked, surprised.

- 'You're not getting any lunch now, fair Matthias,' my father spooned the soup. - "He who does not work should not eat.

- "But I can't work yet," I slumped on the table, heartbroken.

- And Grandpa can't work anymore," my father stroked my hair. - Do you realize now, my dear, what you have said?

I was ashamed of myself, and now I didn't like lunch, no matter how much I was urged. I couldn't wait to kiss Grandpa's hand. I asked him when he was coming home.

- By the time we cut down the old walnut tree, it will be home.

Perhaps I haven't felt the pain since then.

- I won't let go, I won't let go of the old tree! - I fell down in front of my father.

- Why, my boy? Its leaves are falling anyway, its branches are drying. For a hundred years it has borne fruit by the thousands, and now it bears none. An old tree is no use.

- "He should be appreciated for his old age," I bowed my head.

By the time I lifted him up, Grandfather was standing behind me, and as he embraced me to his heart, I saw him beautiful, big, stately, and towering, like the old walnut tree.