Szőcs Péter Levente (szerk.): Complexul Memorial Ady Endre. Ghid (Satu Mare, 2020)
Our little mansion
family who has abandoned the Latin schools. This is why he remained a fearless, honest, natural, ancient and despotic Hungarian spirit. Taming this old man was and would probably be late impossible and useless: my father should remain himself, the same man who destroyed and brightened our life. The little house we are living in is a newer one. I didn’t dare to present you our old house, from the back yard, where I was born. There are still too many people who attack me, who dislike me and accuse me of showing my respect too quickly towards the great poets who are no longer among us. But this little mansion of ours is not such a bad place. It is situated in the middle of an almost three hectares large parcel, among trees and flowers, oriented towards the south. The way it looks reflects once again, my mother’s wishes, who knew that she could get what she wanted if she pretended to be against it. I go to Mecenţiu when my mother asks me to come, or when I get bored of the Sanatoriums and the hotels, or when I feel myself persecuted, depressed or humiliated. Maybe now I am just flirting with the old age, but this old age has already found its place in myjoints i and I’m afraid one of these days I will be once again friends with the village, with Mecenţiu. And ifin a moment of madness I get married and my urban solitude becomes a fiction, I will go back to Mecenţiu. For the time being, especially in the summer time, I am often here, at home, it has become a general rule. What’s more, my younger brother, my only brother, the teacher is oh, what a happy man!-he gets holidays just like a student, and our old parents want to see us together and to take care of us. Dear editor, I could tell you the rest of the story, only if you visited my little village. I have invited you over so many times! You could see then that it is the only place I could originate from, where during the summer time I read and write in the pavilion, and declare war against the mosquitoes in my room, just like during the old times in Pest and elsewhere in the country. You could see then a little boy who, at the age of thirty-five, almost thirty-six, has no fear of Tisza István, but pays close attention to his father who encourages him to get married and tells him about the uselessness of being a poet. The old man suffers greatly because he has no grandchildren and it would be useless to explain him that the thousands of written poems, readers, followers really do matter - he would never believe me. In our culture poets have a really insecure faith (and now I’m showing off). But it’s still possible that I will soon stop writing and living and return to our little mansion. For that matter, my father found a nice spot at the back of the house, where the Adys from Dioşod, descendants of Mecenţiu will have their modest and quiet burial places. I send you all my best wishes, dear editor, and may God keep this thoughts away from you.” Ady Endre: Our Little mansion. Az Érdekes Újság. 28 September 1913.
