“Vengeance is sweet. Vengeance taken when the vengee isn’t sure who the venger is,
is sweeter still.”—Gary C. Schmidt in The Wednesday Wars
***
One evening at a dinner gathering, a vigorous debate unfolded between British statesman Winston Churchill and a female member of parliament. Concluding the argument, the woman disdainfully remarked, “Mr. Churchill, you are inebriated.”
Churchill responded, “And you, madam, are unattractive. However, I will be sober by tomorrow.”
Revenge or vengeance is characterized by retaliatory actions taken against an individual in response to perceived injustices. While many elements of revenge may mirror the idea of achieving balance, it typically aims for a more harmful rather than constructive outcome. Those who seek vengeance desire to inflict upon others the same suffering they have endured or ensure that the wrongdoer is unable to repeat their actions.
In truth, revenge is misleading – it may appear appealing but is frequently bitter. Allow me to recount a true incident involving Hungarian artist Arpad Sebesy. At one point, Elmer Kelen visited his studio and, upon viewing the portrait, became extremely upset. Before departing, Elmer declared to Arpad: “That portrait is terrible, and I refuse to compensate you for it!”
The artist felt devastated. He had dedicated weeks to this artwork, and now the loss of 500 pengos (the Hungarian currency) loomed in his thoughts. He bitterly remembered that the millionaire had only posed for three sessions, necessitating that the painting be largely created from memory. Nevertheless, he did not believe it was such an unflattering representation.
Prior to the millionaire’s departure from his studio, the artist called out, “One moment. Would you kindly sign this letter indicating that you declined the portrait due to its lack of resemblance to you?” Relieved to escape so easily, Kelen consented.
Several months later, the Society of Hungarian Artists inaugurated its exhibition at the Gallery of Fine Arts in Budapest. Shortly thereafter, Kelen’s phone began to ring. Within thirty minutes, he arrived at the art gallery and made his way to the section where a Sebesy painting was exhibited. It was the very piece he had turned down.
Upon glancing at the title, his face flushed with anger. Bursting into the gallery manager’s office, he insisted that the portrait be taken down immediately. The manager calmly explained that all artworks were bound by contract to remain in the gallery for the entire six-week duration of the exhibition.
Kelen fumed. “This will turn me into a laughingstock in Budapest. It is defamatory! I will take legal action!”
The manager turned to his desk, retrieved the letter Kelen had penned at Sebesy’s request, and stated, “One moment. Since you acknowledge that the painting does not depict you accurately, you have no authority over its disposition.”
In a state of desperation, Kelen proposed to purchase the painting, only to discover that the price had escalated to ten times the original amount. With his reputation on the line, Kelen promptly wrote a check for 5,000 pengos.
Not only did the artist sell the rejected portrait to the man who had originally commissioned it, he also received ten times the first price and achieved his revenge by exhibiting it with the title: “Portrait of a Thief.”
Charles Caleb Colton once said, “Revenge is fever in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is remorse – a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley agrees. “Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavor, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.”
The English author Samuel Johnson is known for his tendency to retaliate against those who sought to take advantage of him. While he was finalizing his dictionary, a London publication released two anonymous “previews” of the work. Although the articles were positive, they lacked depth. Upon discovering that the affluent Earl of Chesterfield was the author, Johnson was incensed.
He had persistently sought the earl’s patronage during the dictionary’s creation, yet the earl had been miserly, providing the struggling writer with a mere ten pounds (approximately US$250). Johnson felt that the earl was now attempting to claim the role of a benefactor. In his dictionary, he described a patron as “generally a scoundrel who supports with arrogance and is compensated with flattery.”
To conclude, here is another anecdote that wraps up this narrative. A cigar enthusiast purchased several hundred premium cigars and insured them against fire. After consuming all of them, he submitted a claim, asserting that the cigars had indeed been lost to fire.
The insurance company denied the claim, prompting the man to take legal action. The judge determined that since the insurance company had consented to insure the cigars against fire, it bore legal responsibility.
The company had no choice but to pay the claim. Then, when the man accepted the money, the company had him arrested for arson.
“Don’t get mad,” Josh Billings suggests. “Get even.”
But Martin Luther King, Jr. reiterates, “That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”
“Live well,” said Francis Bacon. “It is the greatest revenge.”
