HUNGARY: National Jest

Belated days of sunshine quickened all Hungary last week, speeding the Danube with tumbling freshets, warming Budapest to humorous appreciation of the first spring diablerie of Sari Fedak. Her name, the name of Hungary’s most irrepressible actress, rang merrily across innumerable little tables. Women spoke of her tolerantly (a high compliment) as they sat at Gerbeaud’s tasting his famed sherbets, sucking and licking off dainty fingers the thick, pasty sweets of Hungary. Old men, taking their mud baths at the St. Gellert, quaked in merriment over the trial of Sari Fedak, quaked until reproving attendantshad to plaster more hot mud upon their midriffs. Everywhere, from the promenades of Pest to the baths of Buda, every-one knew that Sari Fedak was being sued for applying the expression “That low down little Budapest cat!” to a rival actress, Vilma Banky, at present flickering in a U. S. cinema-drama, A Night of Love.

Since Mlle. Banky now resides in Hollywood, the suit for libel was brought by her father, who almost escaped notice last week when DefendantSari Fedak swept into court, clad in a black gown tight as snakeskin, looking perhaps half her 43 years.

Dialogue ensued between the Court and Sari, while a packed courtroom chuckled its own interpretations :

The Court (after rattling off the usual questions to establish the defendant’sidentity) : “And have you a husband?”

That question seemed unnecessary. Sari Fedak was divorced (1925) from Hungary’s most successful playwright, smug Ferenc Molnar, after he had accused her of intimacy with 42 gentlemen, and she had replied in kind with a list of 142 ladies. The sensation, at the time, was international, if not cosmic. Yet the Court asked last week: “Have you a hus-band?” Sari Fedak (shrugging a black, snaky shoulder): “Thank God, no!” The Court: “Have you any physical defects?” Sari Fedak (relaxing in her chair, replying in a sultry tone): “Certainly not—unless in my brain.” Ah, reflected the auditors, more than one brain had been turned by Sari Fedak. Does not Count Emerich Dagenfeldt, now an old man, dwell locked in a wing of his castle, preparing incessantly gifts and toys for the two non-existent children whom he believes are his by Sari Fedak? Such things happen in Hungary, where certain ancient family strains have achieved notable degeneration. Perhaps it was by mere chance that Count Emerich Dagenfeldt went mad soon after Sari Fedak became mistress and then (after some six years) wife to Ferenc Molnar. Another question: The Court: “Did you really call the plaintiff ‘that low down little Budapest cat’?” Sari Fedak: “I hardly know her well enough to call her that, but whatever I said, I said.” The Court: “It is suggested by the plaintiff that you may wish to apologize.” Sari Fedak: “What? Certainly not! Why, if I read that I had apologized to Vilma Banky in tomorrow’s papers I would die of apoplexy!” When counsel had presented their arguments, the Court declared: “No witness has been produced who actually heard the imputed words uttered by the defendant. . . . The case is dismissed. … I will add my personal conviction that between two great actresses, each such an adornment to the national stage, there could have passed no phrase so wanting in dignity as: ‘That low down little Budapest cat.'”