life, the wearisome struggle to do his duty in a professional career whereto he had been called without its being chosen by him; weightier still the fact that he was in the hands of a couple of usurers on account of his generous share of the deficit in a foolish brother officer's finances, to the extent of some thousands of florins.... these were not trifles for Imre's private meditations. I could quite well understand his remarking... "I have tried to cultivate cheerfulness on just about the same principle that when a man hasn't a korona in his pocket he does well to dress himself in his best clothes and swagger in the Officers' Casino as if he were a millionaire. For the time, he forgets that he isn't one... poor devil!"
But I am belated, I see, in alluding to two traits in our acquaintance, ab initio, which are of significance in my outline of Imre's personality while new to me: and more than trifles in their weight. There were two subjects as to which remarkably little was said between us during the first ten days of my going-about so much with him. "Remarkably little" I say,
