Tag #141799 - Interview #102477 (Zsuzsanna G. )

In those days my father had a social circle who really loved – what they called at the time – ‘mulatni’ [Hungarian: having fun]. They went with their friends to small pubs. We were still in Bakats Street, and there was a little pub in Liliom Street, probably called the ‘Liliom’. Mother went with them to have fun. My father couldn’t dance, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke but he was a ‘mokamester’ [Hungarian: life of the party, master of ceremonies]. That he didn’t play cards was natural, because my grandmother made her children vow never to take cards in their hands. He was a born ‘mokamester’, who radiated joviality. He was a terribly popular person in the group. My grandmother disapproved of this kind of fun. Her puritanicalism was in that. Aside from that, she was extremely intelligent – she read a lot, but only what was extremely conservative. It’s likely she never knew love, the loving joy of a being in a marriage, the kind of love my parents had, and that’s why these kinds of life’s pleasures were untouchable to her.