A Trip to the other World

A Trip to the other World

Koloman Mikszáth's story opens with an aside on the people of the narrator's country, who dislike travel because the high blue mountains enclosing them shut out the wider world, and even the rich and influential share this view. Only one man, Franz Nagy, who lived a century or more earlier, had ever traveled at all—he went almost to Prague, and thereafter all his relations were called "the Prague Nagys." If one man had gotten almost to Prague, hundreds had never even reached the next village, among them Paul Rediki. Once, when an important lawsuit on which all his property depended required him to appear in Vienna, he declared he would rather lose everything than travel there, and he kept his word, becoming a kind of popular hero for it. Word of this reached the Administration, and King Ferdinand V himself invited Rediki to Vienna by letter, "ad audiendum verbum regium." Rediki wrote a dignified refusal, explaining he had just sworn never to go to Vienna and hoping His Majesty would pardon his inability to come. Years later, Vienna in effect drew nearer: a railroad was built through the great blue mountains, and the green meadows were laid with iron rails. Rediki supported the railroad enthusiastically, arguing it would bring money, prosperity, and value to the region's harvests. He was absent for the arrival of the first train, however, lying ill in a hospital by doctor's order. On the great day the whole countryside gathered to see the marvel. Skeptics like the cobbler Martin Saki and Mathias Kozka mocked the idea that the machine could move without horses, and Gabor Kovacz offered to lie on the track, though the village watchman stopped him. When the train started moving, belching smoke and roaring, Kovacz crossed himself and called it the devil's work; Istvan Tot countered that horses must be hidden inside the cars, a theory the crowd found convincing. At the banquet celebrating the railroad, just as the guests raised their glasses to toast the absent Rediki, a telegram arrived announcing his death, at the very hour the train had entered his village—so that, it was said, his soul departed with it. A violent storm broke out afterward, uprooting trees, unroofing houses, and striking apart the great bell in the tower, while reapers reported seeing bloody raindrops on the grass, taken as a sign of divine anger at man's presumption. Rediki's funeral was arranged with great pomp for the third day, with clergy, gentry, and students from Selmezlanya invited from the surrounding country, though only the small bell could be used since the large one had been destroyed. At the appointed hour, however, the coffin failed to arrive; his brother-in-law Carl Petroczig, who had organized the ceremony, was left to explain that the body had been delayed, to the crowd's astonishment and the family's dismay. Pastor Mukuczek remarked bitterly on how people change once dead, given how punctual Rediki had always been in life. The mourners dispersed, and repeated telegrams failed to locate the body for days. After a week, the coffin was found in Vienna: through some mishap the funeral wagon had been sent to the wrong station and attached to the Vienna train, so that Paul Rediki, who had sworn never to enter that city, was carried there and then traveled the length and breadth of Austria for a full week after his death. The narrator closes by observing that it is better to die at home—but better still not to die at all.

By Edna Worthley Underwood · First published 1919 · Genre: Satire, Magical Realism, Dark Humor · 2,232 words

First lines

KOLOMAN MIKSZÁTH

KOLOMAN MIKSZÁTH _(born in Sklebonya in 1849) is without doubt the best loved writer of Hungary. Why should he not be? He has something of the witty descriptive powers of Heine, the fluent unforced narrative of Dumas, and a peculiar charm which is all his own. He is a painter of inimitable miniatures, glowing with color, truthful in action, a veritable Meissonier of the pen._

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Hungarian literature · realist fiction · satire · short story · supernatural · fantasy · allegory · social commentary · humorous · ironic · otherworldly · Eastern European literature

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A Trip to the other World is listed on Textopian as a short story by Edna Worthley Underwood, dated 1919 CE.

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