Magyar Egyház, 1965 (44. évfolyam, 2-12. szám)
1965-10-01 / 10. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 11 GYULA ILLYÉS: A SENTENCE ON TYRANNY Where there’s tyranny there’s tyranny, not only in the gun-barrel, not only in the prison-cell. not only in the torture-rooms, not only in the nights, in the voice of the shouting guard; there’s tyranny not only in the speech of the prosecutor, pouring like dark smoke, in the confessions, in the wall-tapping of prisoners. not only in the judge’s passionless sentence: ‘Guilty!’ there’s tyranny not only in the martially curt ‘Attention!’ and ‘Fire!’ and in the drum rolls, and in the way the corpse is thrust into a hole, not only in the secretly half-opened door, in fearfully whispered news. in the finger, dropping in front of the lips, cautioning ‘Hush!’ there is tyranny not only in the facial expression firmly set like iron bars, and in the stillborn tormented cry of pain within these bars, in the shower of silent tears adding to this silence, in a glazed eyeball, there is tyranny not only in the cheers of men upstanding who cry ‘Hurrah!’ and sing, where there’s tyranny there’s tyranny not only in the tirelessly clapping palms, in orchestras, in operas, in the braggart statues of tyrants just as mendaciously loud, in colours, in picture galleries, in each embracing frame, even in the painter’s brush, not only in the sound of the car gliding softly in the night and in the way it stops at the doorway, where there's tyranny, it’s there in actual presence in everything, in the way not even your god was in olden times; there’s tyranny in the nursery schools, in paternal advice, in the mother’s smile, in the way a child replies to a stranger; not only in the barbed wire, not only on the bookseller’s stands, more than barbed wire in the hypnotic slogans; it is there in the goodbye kiss, in the way the wife says: when will you be home dear?’ in the ‘how are you’s?’ repeated so automatically in the street, in the loosening of the grip to give a nonchalant handshake, in the way suddenly your lover’s face becomes frozen, because tyranny is there in the amorous trysts, not only in the questioning, it is there in the declaration of love, in the sweet drunkenness of words, like a fly in the wine, for not even in your dreams are you alone, it is there in the bridal bed, and before it, in the dawning desire, because you only believe beautiful what once has already belonged to the tyrant; you have slept with him when you thought you were makinglove to another; in plate and in glass, it is there, in your nose, your mouth, in coldness and dimness, out of doors and n your room, as if the windows were open and the stink of corruption flooded in. as if in the house there was a smell of leaking gas; if you talk to yourself, il is tyranny that questions you, even in your imagination you are not free of it, above you the Milky Way’s different, too: a frontier zone where the light seeps, a minefield, and the star is a spy-hole; the crowded heavenly tent —is a single forced-labour camp; for tyranny speaks out of fever, out of the sound of bells. out of the priest in the confessional, from the sermon, church, parliament, torture-chamber are all only a stage; you open and close your eyes, only this looks at you; like an illness, it accompanies you like memory; in the train’s wheels you can hear it, you’re prisoner, you’re prisoner, that’s what it repeats; on a mountain or beside the ocean, this is what you breathe; the lightning flashes, it is this that’s present in every unexpected noise and light, in the missing heart beat; in tranquillity, in the boredom of the shackles, in the whisper of the rain. in the bars that reach to the sky; in the falling of the snow white like the prison wall, it looks at you out of your dog’s eyes, and because it’s there in every ambition, it is in your tomorrow, in your thought, in every one of your gestures; like a river in its bed you follow it and you create it; you spy out of this circle? it looks at you from the mirror, it watches you, you would run in vain, you’re prisoner and warder at the same time; into the tang of your tobacco, into the fabric of your clothes, it seeps in, etches like acid down to your marrow, you would like to think yet no idea but it comes into your mind you would like to look but you see only what it creates like magic in front of you, and already there is a circle of fire, a forest-fire made out of match sticks, because when you dropped one, you didn’t crush it, and thus it guards you now, in the factory, in the field, in l lie house; and you no longer feel the meaning of life, what is meat and bread, what it is to love, to desire wih wide-open arms, thus the slave himself forges and bears his own shackles; when you eat you nourish it, you beget your child for it, where there’s tyranny everyone is a link in the chain; it stinks and pours out of you, you are tyranny yourself; like moles in the sunshine, we walk in the dark, we fidget in our chaml>er as if it were the Sahara; because where there’s tyranny all is in vain, even the song, however faithful, whatever the work you achieve. for it stands, in advance at your grave, it tells you who you have been, even your dust serves tyranny.
