# Magdaléna két élete

By Ferenc Herczeg.

"Magdaléna két élete" by Ferenc Herczeg is a novel written in the early 20th century. Set in the Austro‑Hungarian world, it interweaves psychological drama, social comedy, and crime around Videczky Flóris, a proud Temesvár patrician and amateur criminologist, and Csákó Magdaléna, a mysterious woman whose loyalty and lies collide. Themes of chance, class, and moral responsibility drive the plot from an old inheritance to a modern scandal. Readers who enjoy character‑driven tension and ethical dilemmas will likely be drawn in. The opening of the novel frames fate with an heirloom: an austere matriarch tests two boy cousins with a dropped yarn ball, and the cautious child’s line inherits the Grál fortune. Fifty years later her beneficiary’s descendant, the wealthy Videczky Flóris, broods over “perfect crime” scenarios when a rain‑soaked stranger, Csákó Magdaléna, slips into his rooms, pledging silent devotion and staying near his small son. Suspicions rise; a search uncovers skeleton keys and a lover’s letter from the adventurer Paulusz Kamilló urging her to steal the family diamonds—already missing. Under martial law, Flóris informs the authorities yet hesitates to intervene when soldiers arrive; another letter then reveals Kamilló has fled abroad with the jewels. A drumhead court condemns Magdaléna, and the auditor’s dossier turns to her “first life”: an orphaned girl in Pozsony, briefly infatuated with a jurist, nearly married off to a dour confectioner before fleeing, then swept to Vienna by the persuasive Paulusz—who quickly shows himself to be a practiced con man. (Summary by Project Gutenberg, written by machine.)

- Language: Hungarian
- Subjects: Hungarian fiction -- 20th century

[Read it](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/books/gutenberg/77555/read)
[Plain text](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/api/books/gutenberg/77555/text)

From Project Gutenberg. Public domain in the United States.