Bart István - Elemér street three - Erzsébetvárosi stories

Blind pal, blind pal...
On a forty-six yellow tram...
Ten minutes is a long time, Elemér...

this age has remained as a magical whole only in literature. Or in the cinema of old times, where the show started with the Rákóczi-induló, referred to exclusively as "Vak pali".

István Bart's fragments of novels from Erzsébetváros are mirrors from the recent past: they recall the everyday life of the decade after the Second World War, the author's childhood, sensual experiences - and events that are difficult for a small boy to interpret. The period when the dead still came back, and no one was surprised by that, since being dead is obviously a bad thing, otherwise why would they want to come back. The dead are "strange people". Even the living! The soldier coming from the Keleti railway station, whom everyone knows is not actually on his way home from the nearby railway station, but from the very far Far East, Mr. Lukács, who is a comrade in certain situations, the ávós - "which is so military officer" - suitor, doctor Kolozsi , then the janitor, the viciné, the bum, Józsikam, Elek or Rózsika.
Elemér Street has since been renamed. There is no longer a beer cart, soda, or ice cream, nor the yellow tram number 46. There's no horse lemon, no twisting. Today we live to different music, at a different pace.
And today we can easily say that it was beautiful. Ten minutes is a long time, sixty - or seventy - years is even longer, Elemér...