Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/209

 ALEXAN DER PETŐ FI I95 sought shelter, for the weather was terrible. The shrieking wind drove the icy- cold rain into my face. The tears forced from my eyes by the cold and the thought of my misery, froze on my cheeks. After a week's painful journeying I arríved at Pest. There I stood then, at the last gasp. Th e courage of despair entered my heart and I went to see one of the greatest men of Hungary, with a feeling n ot unlike that of a gambler who stakes his last coin, knowing that the result means either life or death." The great man to whom he refers was the immortal V ö­ rösmarty, who succeeded in finding a publisher for Petőfi The year 1844 was the tuming point in Petőfi's life. His wanderings ceased, his poems appeared, and he bade a final farewell to the stage . Petőfi certainly had some talent for acting, or he would scarcely have clung to it so long, seeing how m uch he was drawn towards a literary career. He rapidly rose to fame. Th e surprising o rigi­ nality and freshness of his poetry carr ied ali before them . In a short time he carne to be reckoned amongst the most renowned men of Hungary. For some time he worked as a sub-editor. I t was during this period, at the heginning of 1845, when he was twenty-two years of age, that he experienced his great love sorrow. The daughter of a friend, a charming being, half woman, half child, died, and th e poet wreathed her tomb with his Cyp ress Branches, a series of poems written _ in her memory. It was partly to escape from his grief that he travelled for some months in the north of H un­ gary, the first journey on which he was not driven by n ecessity nor harassed by privations. In the autumn he returned to the capital, his sp irit healed, his heart full of courage and inspiration, and confident in hímself and his future.