The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1983 (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1983-07-01 / 7. szám

Page 6

THE EIGHTH HUNGARIAN TRIBE

July, 1983

Gyula Illyés

ONE SENTENCE ON TYRANNY

Where tyranny is, there tyranny is not only in gun-barrels, not only in dungeons,

not only in interrogation rooms, not only in the voices of guards calling at night, there tyranny is

not only in the flaming smoke-dark speech for the prosecution, in admission, in confession, in the wall-tapping of captives

not only in the judge’s cool verdict: guilty! there tyranny is not only in martially

crackling “Ready!” —

“Fire!” — in drum-rolling, in the way the body is dragged into the ditch,

not only in the news whispered fearfully

through doors stealthily opened a crack,

in fingers dropped before lips to say “shh!” — there tyranny is not only in features

put on as rigidly as bars — inside, the thrashing, wordless shriek, the torrent

of dumb tears, enhancing to the silence — in empty, staring eyes —

there tyranny is

not only in the cheers,

hurrahs, songs bleated

standing straight-backed, where tyranny is, there tyranny is not only in unflagging palms clapping,

in the bugle, the opera, in stones of statues singing lies just as loudly, in colours, in picture galleries,

in each and every frame, before that, in the brush; not only in the motor’s purr soft-gliding in the night,

and in its

sudden stop at the doorway;

where tyranny is,

there it is omnipresent

in all things, as your very God was not

in days gone by

there tyranny is in the nursery schools, in the father’s advice, the mother’s smile,

in children’s answers to strangers;

not only in barbed wire, in slogans in lines of print, more than barbed wire dulling the brain;

it is in

the farewell kiss, as the wife says,

“When will you be home, dear?”

in the how-are-you’s exchanged every day in the street, in the suddenly looser grip of a handshake,

as all at once your love’s face freezes, it is there in all trysts,

not only in grilling but in the declaration in the sweet ecstasy of words, like a fly in your wine,

because not even in your dreams are you alone,

it is there in the nuptial bed; before that, in desire,

for beautiful to you is only thinking you were love making, what it has once possessed with it you lay

in plate and glass, it’s in your nose and mouth, in the cold and the dark, outdoors and in your room,

as if, through open windows, the stench of carrion rushed in, as if, somewhere in the house, a gas-pipe leaked;

when you talk to yourself, it poses the questions, not even your imagination is sovereign;