Mészáros Tibor (szerk.): Once I lived, I, Sándor Márai. Patterns from a globetrotting Hungarian's life (Budapest, 2004)

Once I lived, I, Sándor Márai

(From 1940 until this day the book has been published with those passages either omitted or present in their 'refined' forms.)

His father died in October 1934, which was a great blow to Márai. In a letter from his youth he had written of his father:

"A man who really got to grips with life, who expects nothing further from people or from his home. Maybe he expects something more from me, maybe just a little more joy...A man respected by many, but liked by few. A man who has never sought validation from outside, who never had a home. Perhaps this is what bonds us within our scattered family, this homelessness...I was at the point (and to some extent I still am) where 1 shall break from everything and everyone."

Divorce ín Buda was published in 1935. This is in some senses a continuation of the Confessions. It concerns the loss of individuality, of getting lost in the crowds, the tightness of human bonds. The work faithfully reflects the writer's thinking: the

system of values which are preserved within him can only be saved by doing ones duty. These are values that can only be realized in a very closed world.

When Thomas Mann visited Budapest in January, Máraí was one of those who accompanied the great writer through Buda Castle and who attended the

evening held by Lajos Hatvány in honour of the great writer. The column he wrote in welcome of the German master was mentioned by Mann in his diary from 1935. "Welcoming articles in the papers. The Újság says that Sándor Márai's is the best."

In November 1936 he finally had a church wedding with Lola, after thirteen years of civic marriage and living together. In December he left his newspaper, the Újság, and moved to the more right-wing Pesti Hírlap. His decision attracted much attention, with most understanding it as a political move. People thought that he "had made the right move at the right time" - few of his critics noted that in the new paper he would be able to take the place of his deceased friend and neighbour, the Prince of Literature, Dezső Kosztolányi.

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