Chairs above the Danube Poem by Szabolcs Várady

Those two chairs were not really
all that ugly. Too bad the springs
protruded from them and the upholstery
was so hopelessly filthy.
But chairs they were, all the same. And right for that apartment.
So we carried them, mostly on our heads,
from Orlay Street, across the former
Francis Joseph, now Liberty, Bridge, to Number 2 Ráday Street where P. lived
at the time (as some of his poems will show.)

A chair, not to say two, has
many uses. 'Two Poets on a Bridge
with Chairs on their Heads'—one can imagine
a painting so entitled. I hope it would be
a down-to-earth painting and not one of those
transfigurations. Those two chairs—¬
and it's important to make this clear—were by no means
just halos around our heads. About halfway across the bridge¬—
and not for the purpose of proving anything—¬
we sat down on them. The springs protruded more prominently from
one—I don't recall which of us
got it. Doesn't matter, since what happened later
can hardly be explained by that. It was a pleasant
summer evening. We lit cigarettes,
enjoying this one might say
unusual' form of coziness.
The chairs later served
nicely for a while: at the P.s' they
were the chairs. But man wants something better
than what is: the chairs were sent to an upholsterer. Then the P.s
moved also, the first time, because they had to, the second,
because they hated their apartment. Nowadays
we meet less often at their place. Several things
brought this about: G. left A.
(P.'s wife) and then M. (B.'s wife)
broke off with me, and the other M. (G.'s wife)
divorced G. and married me (while the B.s
also separated) and P. attempted suicide and
has been living more or less in a sanatorium ever since,
not to mention the changes in the world situation,
so anyway: there's nothing left to sit on.

Translated by William Jay Smith