Articles by Initial Letters

Mikszáth Kálmán (1847–1910) widely reputed Hungarian novelist, journalist, and politician wrote the peasant romance story printed here – in 1893. In the same year, Ferraris Artúr/Arthur von Ferraris – a Hungarian-born artist known for his portraits of society figures of his day and for his "orientalist" paintings – exhibited a painting seemingly portraying a moment in Mikszáth’s story. Or is it the other way around? Did Mikszáth write the story to fit the painting? In any case it is a sweet story of young love in a Hungarian village setting: The boy Matykó drives a horse drawn wagon. The girl Ancsurka does the usual things unmarried girls do at home – peeling potatoes, sewing things for her dowery, etc. She knows the sound of Matykó’s wagon and horses on the road and waits for those sounds. They seem to have had very little actual conversation and are very shy, but they also seem to KNOW they are the ones for each other. One day Matykó stops by and asks Ancsurka if she’ll go to the church with him…so he doesn’t actually ask THE QUESTION...but wants an answer from Ancsurka, to which she says only what she always says to him: “Oh come on, Matykó”. We are left hanging…we don’t know her answer, but one assumes…