Pansy

The naturalistic novel of human cruelty is Árvácska, a heart-wrenching work by Zsigmond Móricz. The fate of Állami Árvácska, an orphan girl who wanders into the Great Plains farm world of the 1920s and 30s and suffers with the families who adopt her, is a parable of the vulnerability of innocence, purity and goodness. A disturbing read about human evil, sadism, envy, physical and mental violence, humiliation of the weaker and poorer, and even a heartlessness that does not shy away from murder.