Word: aladar
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Aladar, the man in the story, comes as reluctantly to love as the girl. Nearing 40, insulated in the creature comforts of habit, he has reached that safe harbor where the winds of memory can no longer wound. He can think without wincing of his failure as a painter, of his wife's deserting him for another man. Now Aladar is a successful businessman who does not seek adventures. On meeting Lalla, he methodically notes that she is a peroxide blonde, pretty, somewhat common, a compulsive liar, but all the same, rather appealing...
...treatment and embarks on projects to prepare her for the outside world she must face when she is cured. He teaches her French because her only knack seems to be a gift for languages, brings her albums of great paintings, tries to broaden her knowledge of the world. But Aladar is the pupil, not Lalla. He meets two of her fellow patients-strangely charming Franciska, gently maternal Kati. He dotes on the three girls like a fond parent, becomes absorbed in the hothouse flush of the sanatorium where almost everyone seems young and beautiful because so few live long enough...
...cannot last. Kati dies; Franciska goes away. Aladar throws the whole weight of his personality on Lalla, heaps her with presents and promises. In the end she blurts out a tortured "Leave me alone," and escapes to Germany and the real world. Aladar grimly sees that he had "adored her, bossed her and sentimentalized her, until she could bear it no longer...
...most men's lives, the girl who was never attainable although all circumstances seemed just right for attainment. The supple dialogue is loaded with surprise and revelation; everything that is said has shape and texture and reverberates with hidden meaning. There are self-contained moments of extraordinary power: Aladar's Christmas holiday with his family is a devastating snapshot of what life was for him without Lalla. Most memorable of all, perhaps, is the scene when a cured girl leaves the sanatorium while those left behind crowd the windows to cry over and over...