You’re always after success, my child.
But it’s impossible to note the many things you asked me to, all at the same time, and to remember them.
Stop sniveling. Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help a bit.
If every single day you warmed up your voice by practicing scales several times, you can be sure you’d find it.
If only she could at last sing freely, instead of this eternal practicing of scales.
Maybe if you didn’t make me stop so often I could sing.
After so much uncontrolled shouting, I can’t be expected to have a voice, she thought, very content with her exhausted and naked body. As if in her great self-satisfaction she were saying, all right, so I’m not talented; no matter how much I may blame Médike I’m a complete antitalent, irresponsible, and the laziest person in the world; and it’s true I don’t practice enough, and anyway I imagine I’m a great natural talent who doesn’t need all this practicing. I’ve got a great body and I don’t lose my musicality even when fucking, nobody can doubt that; and this time this guy really fucked me but good, I think in this great fucking session I finally found my match.
No matter how much I rail against him or he pretends he doesn’t want me.
For him, at least, I am one hot female.
You undress them and right away see what you can expect. That’s good for the woman, she can see by looking at their briefs.
And now he’s fucked my brains out and I’ve screamed my voice to pieces because of him. And Jesus, did I ever try to hold myself back. Not to harm his delicate ears, such a gentleman. He was screaming too, like an animal; no wonder I’ve gone deaf.
She felt she did not love this man either, no, not really; she felt only contempt for him. And this stupid feeling was frustrating her intentions. That’s why she does not like what she nevertheless wants so much from him.
If we keep this up much longer, I’ll lose my hearing, not just my voice.
A strong smell of catnip pervaded the warm summer night air trapped in Mrs. Szemző’s rooms.
Now of course he’s fallen asleep exhausted, my sweet, my darling, in his own good smell, oh my God, look at him.
If she could, she’d have run back to be with him on the bed in the maid’s room, this wonderful man who caused her those insane climaxes and whom not one of her nerves could get enough of. No, she couldn’t get enough of him. She encouraged her nerve endings: tomorrow, later, in a minute, next week, everything will come true, ripen, and she is very grateful to him for this, for this promising future. Everything she needed for singing, her heart, her mind, her lungs were full of him, her head and her chest almost exploded with the memory of his fabulous fragrance now emanating mostly from her own skin, her short-cropped hair and her dark, rich pubic hair.
A great singer should be more careful with such unbridled screaming sessions.
Good thing I’m not a great singer yet, she said to herself, and until I am I can fuck to my heart’s content.
As if she had a terrible, strong suspicion that she’d have to squeeze all her stupid artistry into this woeful world so as not to be just a coarse female, a stupid little bitch who doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life.
She wouldn’t even need men. That’s why she should reach the pinnacle of the art of singing, so she wouldn’t need them anymore.
Stay on the hilltop, Gyöngyvér, sweetheart, if you can’t climb Mount Everest, and you can see for yourself you can’t. No backsliding, no constant tripping up on little stupidities.
I’m not Médike’s sweetheart.
Except for her ambition, though, she has nothing; she can’t give up her ambition just because she lacks the necessary technical skills.
And the ugly old beast never tired of enumerating just how many skills she lacked. Once in Gyöngyvér’s presence she called somebody else a born dilettante, and Gyöngyvér was afraid that one fine day Médi would brand that on her skin too. I would never have thought this of you, Gyöngyvér, but you are a born dilettante.
And she had to have such an old fart for her singing teacher.
This was another reason she wouldn’t have dared disturb the merciless silence of the universe with practicing scales. She’d be found out as a born dilettante, born dilettante, it echoed in her head, born dilettante. But she did not go back to him either, to the bed in the maid’s room. She’d had enough of all those maid’s rooms and of men. Going back meant waking the poor man, whom she had brought up to the apartment despite Mrs. Szemző’s many bashful requests, and then they’d go back to doing it. Go ahead, sweetheart, rest; I’ll guard your sleep. They had no place else to go. They didn’t know how not to continue; they didn’t even have to touch each other for it. She felt as if they were still doing it. During those four days they had been to their family vacation house, to Visegrád, to the apartment of the man’s friend with the funny name in Ó Street, but no matter where they went every move of theirs was directed toward the same goal. The worst that can happen is that Mrs. Szemző will kick her out. I’ll just go somewhere else, a place with no piano, of course. One can’t go to bed only with men who have their own apartments. She didn’t go back to bed, because the other person would have crushed her ambition if they’d continued. She hadn’t acquired nice mink coats yet, I won’t be able to put together enough for a rotten little apartment, and with this constant fucking he will deprive her of her never-acquired jewelry.
I can’t ruin myself because of him.
The two-story villa, the villa with a sunny garden, the successive waves of applause from the balconies, along with insane cheering and frenzied ovations — she would have to give it all up in exchange.
She had better pay attention to developing her art.
Every previous occurrence had been arrested and stuck in the stale air within these dreary walls. She neither imagined nor fantasized but literally felt and lived through the entirety of past events, in the most minute detail, and all over her naked, shuddering body. While thinking she was daydreaming of her future or her opportunities, and it was not she but her audience who should be screaming with gratification.
Because occasionally, seriously and very quietly, Médike did reveal the secrets of singing.
And they will scream and carry on; Médike has nothing to worry about.
She was thinking about what this Médike demanded of her.
This is a very peculiar thing, Gyöngyvér, because you have to lead them to where you are headed, but you can get there only together with them. You don’t know them and it’s not advisable to get to know them.
Perhaps it’s not such a big problem, then, that men cannot satisfy her properly.
If only knowing this could satisfy her for once: that it’s not that important, nothing is that important, only her singing.
For all she knew they could go further, the two of them; this was the peculiar and painful feeling that was always on the surface.
And in this early morning hour it was clear to her that just as she didn’t love him, the man didn’t love her, but she would have been loathe to imagine that she hadn’t satisfied him, even though they had fucked so well together. She could not think of this, because at least in this she should feel herself to be perfect, in this big fuckfest.
Your audience must hear, my child, that even your highest notes are not strained, just as you can’t choke on the lowest ones.
She should sound as if she could go on, further, higher, so you shouldn’t be the one to strain, they should, because they are clambering after her last notes in a fashion that will take their breath away.
And she knew well where the final limit was.