Gróf Károlyi Gábor följegyzései (2. kötet)

In this vivid memoir, a Hungarian noble recounts a desperate summer of 1879 when financial ruin forces him to travel from Paris to Genoa in search of a loan. He encounters Signore Gout, a notorious yet oddly jovial usurer, whose cramped shop of cheap neckties becomes an uneasy sanctuary for exhausted travelers. The narrator’s reluctant dealings with Gout reveal both the harsh economics of the era and the colourful characters that populate the Italian port.

Returning to the Hungarian political scene, he is summoned by Governor Kossuth Tivadár and drawn into a brisk meeting with the officials of the Athenaeum publishing house. There he meets figures like Vérei József, the sharp‑witted director, and the younger Urváry Lajos, whose nervous gestures betray deeper ambitions. The first volume ends with a detailed contract dated October 15, 1879, hinting at an ambitious ten‑volume project that will test the elder statesman's stamina and resolve.