I had just arrived at the American University in which I was supposed to spend a few years. I was invited to a party, just to get familiar with the environment. We were all post-docs and graduate students. I was among the youngest. The center of attention was a Hungarian gentleman, a post-doc in mathematics, who was a few years older than me. He was elegant and with a good presence, spoke excellent English and had a bunch of admirers, especially of the female kind.

Almost immediately, as a “conversation piece,” he began to make fun of my bad English, underlining the mistakes I made at every sentence, and elegantly mimicking my pronunciation. His admirers were ecstatic. After the game had lasted enough, I was utterly humiliated, and I retired into a corner to munch on peanuts. I did not dare to speak anymore. The Hungarian still made some general remarks in which, for my benefit, he had moved the focus on Italy in general, repeating a series of well-known clichés in a humorous key, and finally changed the subject.

Here one of the admirers told him: "I do not know the Hungarian language, but I have heard that it is really beautiful." The Hungarian was very proud of his language, like all those whose mother tongue is hardly studied outside of their country. He explained with a pinch of pompousness that, besides being an interesting language, very different from English, Hungarian was a clear sounding and harmonious language, and so on and on. The adoring girl insisted, "Can you give us an idea of how it sounds? For example, could you tell us some verses of a poem?”

The Hungarian was only too happy to please her and began: "Még nyílnak a völgyben a kerti virágok, ..." It so happened that when I was fifteen my interest in languages pushed me to borrow a Hungarian grammar and to copy it from cover to cover in my best writing, in a notebook, which is still in my possession. There was also a small anthology of poems, and I had learned the incipits of some of them, no more than two or three verses for each poem. Of course, there was also the poetry quoted from my persecutor, as it is one of the best-known poems of Hungarian literature.

From my corner, I timidly said, with my bad English: "I think I know the poem: it is ‘Szeptember vegen,’ the end of September. And the next line must be 'Még zöldel a nyárfa az ablak előtt' ... It seems to me that the author is Kisfaludy ... " I knew that the author was Petőfi, and not Kisfaludy, but my answer contained a second message: it meant that I knew a little of Hungarian literature, as Kisfaludy is less known than Petőfi. Now I was curious to see how the story would end: I almost felt like I was at the theater and not really involved in the drama. The Hungarian was stunned as if he had been struck by lightning. He looked at me with the expression of one who would have preferred a punch in the face. Then he nodded his head and said, in a serious and almost sad tone: "It's not from Kisfaludy, it's from Petőfi ... But that's alright". He, who had been leading the conversation until then, remained silent for a short time, to the amazement of those present.

Then he kindly turned to me: "May I ask how did you come to learn that poem?" I explained. I had no Hungarian relatives, I had never been to Hungary. He appeared to be strongly moved. Then he pulled himself together, and said to the bystanders, in his gentlemanly way: "You see, all of us Europeans love our common culture, so vast and so diverse. "

From that night we were friends for the whole year we were together in that University. He gave me the impression that he did not know what to do to show me his friendship.

By now I no longer know a word or a verse of a poem in Hungarian, but, evidently, it was not to learn Hungarian that I had copied that grammar. Still, I always thought that, after all, it had been worth it.