The debate became more and more heated, and to Lipot Stern's Talmudic arguments Moricz Stern gave practical answers, which made the Rabbi increasingly angry. His voice sharpened into shrillness, his elongated skull began to tremble violently. Foam came to his lips, his words halted, and he fell in a fit on the floor. Dr. Marton Stern, the surgeon, threw himself onto his body, forced his jaw open with the blade of a knife, pulled out his tongue, and through the space between the teeth poured in some medication from a flat little flask. This scared only Mendel Berda-Stern; the family had often witnessed such a scene. In a few minutes the Rabbi was back to his old self, his eyes clear, the lines on his face smoothed out, and the fit had no aftereffects of any kind. "Where was I?" he asked calmly.

"The parable of wine and honey," said Dr. Marton Stern.

"Ah, yes. So you are all thoroughly conversant with my view. The Jews of Hungary must join together, whether they be of the orthodox or the neologue persuasion. We must go to the conference in Nagyvarad, where the formation of a national organization of Israelites must be the main item on the agenda."

There was silence again, and Mendel Berda-Stern was once again the object of every pair of eyes. He blew his nose again-he must have caught a chill on his way here-and then said very quietly: "I shall say something that I have been pondering for a long time, in the hope that perhaps your intellects can divine its essence, which has remained a mystery to me. The great Nostradamus, the king of prophets, wrote a prophecy that will not let me rest. This is how it goes: Whence we await starvation, Thence welcome we repletion: The sea with the greedy dog's eyes With oil and corn shall us surprise.

"Once more, if you don't mind," said Lipot Stern.

He repeated the doggerel.

There was a lengthy pause in the conversation. Leopold Stern removed his pince-nez and wiped it on the edge of his smoking jacket. "This is a tough nut for me to crack," he muttered.

For me too, thought Mendel Berda-Stern. We are not living in a barbarous age when people put others to the sword for no reason and raze people's property to the ground. Now a lawful order reigns in society and if a bandit should upset it, the authorities will take the necessary steps.

The Rabbi went over to the window, his hands folded behind his back, and stared out for a while, then solemnly declared: "Within minutes it will be Shabbos. We must postpone our deliberations for twenty-four hours."

The candles were left to burn all night in every house, since extinguishing them counted as work, as was their lighting. Food was brought in by Slovak servant girls. For the duration of Shabbos Moricz Stern thought it best not even to emerge from his bedroom, thinking it was most appropriate if the day He designated for rest was spent by man in sleep. No wonder that his belly had swollen into a watermelon and was testing his trouser belt to its limits.

Mendel Berda-Stern, Eleonora, and Hami were allocated two rooms on the ground floor of Moricz Stern's residence. Their staff were lodged in the servants' quarters. Mendel Berda-Stern gave an account of the discussion only to Hami, desiring to spare his expectant wife such unnecessary excitements. Hami did not understand: "Mendi, my dear, does that mean we should now be afraid?"

"Ach, stuff and nonsense. Every county has its handful of youngsters who have a drop or two too many and go on the rampage a bit. There's no point in getting too worked up about that. Don't you worry at all, my sweet."

He himself, however, was not at all convinced that the fears of the Stern family were entirely without foundation. That night he set about completing his own computations on the basis of Morin de Villefranche's methods, focused on a given geographical location and a specified period of time, on the basis of the ephemerides. When taken together with his own horoscope, the results had in the past often helped him to considerable winnings in the casinos. He knew that in this wise he could glean some indication of the direction of the future, only he was never certain whether it referred to the week, month, or year to come. Whether this way or that, the position of the stars boded no good. In the twelve houses the eight astrological bodies were rather unpropitiously arrayed: the Moon, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. Especially Saturn, which formed a horrific quincunx with Mars, and all this in the twelfth house ... O woe! If he were now on one of his money-raising trips, he would give the gambling dens a wide berth.

The candles gave off sooty eddies in the direction of the wooden inlaid ceilings. It was first light outside. Mendel Berda-Stern felt totally exhausted, but suspected he wouldn't be able to fall asleep. He took out the thicker of the two Books of Fathers, and read a page or two here and there, though to be honest he knew most of the text by heart.

He had a sudden hunch, which further multiplications and divisions seemed to support. He realized of a sudden that it could not be an accident that the ability to read the stars had fallen to him. He knew that his astrological sign was Libra, and his father's, Szilard Berda-Stern's, was Virgo. Regarding the determination of the point where the ecliptic intersects the eastern horizon, that is to say, in determining the ascendant, he was also well versed. His was Scorpio, his father's Libra.

It began to dawn on him that his ancestors' zodiacal signs followed the pattern of the Ptolemaic duodecimal system: Otto Stern was Leo, Richard Stern was Cancer, and so forth. But while he was able to calculate the ascendants, these too followed in the ancient order of astrology, always one sign further on from the birth sign. That is why his ascendant had been Scorpio, and his father's Libra. Following this rhythm his grandfather's must have been Virgo. If that is so, that of any of the ancestors could be worked out mechanically, following the sequence of the zodiacal signs. So for example Kornel Csillag's star sign could be only Aries, and his ascendant Taurus. It was not possible to support this by casting a horoscope, since only his father's and grandfather's exact moment of birth was known to him.

In the light of this, it is striking that his vision of the future is exactly right: his child, Sigmund Berda-Stern, will arrive on November 14, not by chance but in compliance with this mysterious rule, for the sign of Scorpio was the next one, which the astrologers of olden times still called Eagle. A Scorpio is a man of extremes, either very good or very bad, but at all events passionate, unreflecting, at war with his instincts-we shall have our hands full with him. At the same time, accepting the above, it is beyond question that his ascendant is Sagittarius, which can exercise a great deal of moderation on the qualities of a Scorpio.

He could scarcely wait to bring all this to the attention of the assembled males. His convoluted explanation of the unpropitious angles of light was not received as he had expected. He did not get even as far as the horoscope of the ancestors. Dumbfounded faces verging on the hostile stared back at him. Lipot Stern was the least impressed: "Are you seriously suggesting that instead of our ancient faith we should believe in the patterns that the stars form into in the sky?"

"It is not my suggestion, but astrology has for millennia looked on matters this way."

"Do you not think that the matters of the sky are also moved by the Everlasting, and His will is not so easily divined?"

Mendel Berda-Stern had no answer to this.

"Our topic is different just now," said Moricz Stern in a conciliatory tone. "Let us discuss what we should do!"

Mendel Berda-Stern was not prepared to say another word, so offended was he. I told them the truth and they have sealed up my lips with mud, he thought. When the Rabbi again brought up the issue of family participation in the conference, he volunteered to join him. He had firmly decided that independently of the gathering of Hungary's reform Jewry, he would certainly pack his bags and take the cart to Nagyvarad with his wife. No harm can come of that. He thought it natural that Hami would go with them. It was the end of October when they finally departed for Nagyvarad.

In Nagyvarad it was rain and shine together. The languid rays of the sun were bathed in heavy sleet.

Despite strenuous efforts by Lipot Stern, the conference came to no significant conclusion. The majority of the representatives of the Jewish communities feared that whatever organization they established, they would bring down upon themselves the wrath of the authorities and of the monarch. Better to keep quiet and lie low.

"Shall we just resign ourselves," said Lipot Stern, "to the fact that from time to time we shall be struck by those who hate us? To the fact that despite the clear import of the letter of the law we shall never feel we have equal status in our homeland? To the fact that we shall have to be afraid forever because of our origins?"

"Better reined in than rained on!" shouted Simon Schwab, the Rabbi of the Jews of Pecs, who had long had it in for Lipot Stern. He suspected that for Stern his position at Beremend was merely a stepping-stone to his own, much better-paid post.

Mendel Berda-Stern sat through the conference patiently. He had time; they were still four days short of the 11th of November. He had ordered for that day to their corner suite in the Three Roses Hotel not just the town's most highly reputed midwife, but also a professor of medicine. Hami was also present at the birth-it was she who swaddled the baby and held it up to the mother, with bloodshot eyes, swimming in sweat.

My son, Sigmund Berda-Stern, was born after three and a half hours of labor and left the womb in a caul, which I took to be a more propitious sign than any of the astrological ones, though the professor of medicine and the midwife, perhaps getting in each other's way, had difficulty in divesting the child of it. I beg all the higher powers, honored by all religions, and even those not nameable, who are the rulers of the Universe, who have created heaven and earth, to bless and protect my son, give him and all of us health, plenty, and peace.

Nagyvarad, which means approximately "Great Castle," proved worthy of its name; Homonna by comparison was a dusty little one-horse town. Mendel Berda-Stern greatly enjoyed strolling in the main square, drinking beer and coffee in the cafes, imagining how pleasant might be the spring and the summer here, when the round tables are moved out onto the pavements and gardens, and striped awnings are unrolled above the public's head, shielding them from the strength of the sun's rays. It took him no great effort to find the secret cardplaying halls, of which he at once became a regular. Thanks to the stars and his own skill, he lightened substantially the pockets of those who tried their luck with him over the green baize tables.

He felt little inclination to return home, sending evasive replies to the letters of Leopold Pohl urging him to return. His father-in-law, however, grew tired of writing and turned up in town. He reproached them before he greeted them: "Why are you wasting time and money here instead of packing? What are you waiting for?"

"Calm down. Obviously you have been raring for a fight!" Mendel Berda-Stern kept pouring the kosher plum brandy.

Leopold Pohl downed the drink. "Has something happened?"

"Everything is absolutely fine. Little Sigmund is hale and hearty, just like his mother. The only thing is ... we feel so good in this town."

These words did nothing to dispel the suspicions of Leopold Pohl. Like a bloodhound on the trail he sniffed around, interrogating his daughter, the servants, examining his grandson, and searching every nook and cranny in the three interconnecting rooms that they occupied. "Will you please tell me how long you intend to stay here?"

"Until little Sigmund builds up his strength!" said Eleonora.

That afternoon Mendel Berda-Stern revealed to his father-in-law all that he had come to understand in connection with his ancestors' horoscopes. Leopold Pohl became feverishly excited: "Perhaps it is like this in every family. That is, if I am Aquarius, my daughter ... no, no, it doesn't work, Eleonora's sign is Gemini ... and as far as the ascend ant is concerned ... it progressed in this double series only in your family ..."

Why fate determined that we should come to Nagyvarad I have never understood to this day. In that town I played with a lucky hand and won a large amount of money. I don't know how I might take it away with me safely: the forests are crawling with thieves who regularly pounce on carriages and caravans of carts. I have sworn that if I am attacked I shall resist to the last drop of my blood. I have carefully obtained the revolvers and the ammunition I need for this purpose. In one of the clearings in the Old Forest I have trained suitably both of my man-servants in the arts of warfare and tactics. While the stars foretell no danger to us in the present period, there is never harm in being careful.

Leopold Pohl soon traveled back to Homonna, together with Hami. Mendel Berda-Stern and his wife stayed in Nagyvarad. Eleonora found herself once more expecting a child.

Soon came news from Tokay, that the Stern family's properties had been ravaged by hooligans and part of their vineyards also burned down, as a result of arson. Moricz Stern's weak heart found the stress too much and gave out.

Mendel Berda-Stern set off for the funeral in a fringed surrey accompanied by a manservant. The first ravages of the bleak winter swept floes of ice down the River Tisza; the ferrymen would not cross the troubled river that day and like it or not Mendel Berda-Stern was obliged to send the surrey back to Nagyvarad. In the company of a few lambskin-coated merchants he tried to pay five suitably inebriated lads to take them over on the big boat which in suitable weather plied to and fro between the banks as an auxiliary means of transport. They were Swabians from the Slovak Highlands and spoke poor Hungarian.

"Out of the question, just look at the water and the floes!" said one boatman.

"We can wait till it calms down and then cross quickly!" said Mendel Berda-Stern. He switched to German: "I really must cross."

"What did he say, what did he say?" the merchants asked.

"Wartnbisschen!" Mendel Berda-Stern turned to the boatman he thought keenest on the money. He offered the sum as he was accustomed to doing at the green baize table, on behalf of the merchants too. The sum on offer eventually grew so that three of the Swabians were now willing to make the trip. The travelers had difficulty stepping from the wooden planks of the shore onto the creaking and groaning wave-tossed boat. Two lads tried as best they could to keep it level somehow and the third grabbed and pulled them on. "Lie on your back if you value your lives!"

Pressed to the footboard, the backs of their necks kept bumping against planking wet with spray. As soon as the lads cast off and the boat was left at the mercy of the waves, it stood up almost vertical. They all rolled to one end. Mendel Berda-Stern ended up at the bottom of the heap, in a close intimacy with his manservant that he wittingly permitted only to his wife. He was now regretting that he had undertaken the crossing, though he was the only one who suspected that it was bound to succeed, as quite a long period of life awaited him-at least, that is how he saw his own prospects. But at that moment he found it difficult to believe: he was soaked to his bones in the freezing water, the cold wind stabbing him in the eye.

The Swabian boatmen wrestled with the stormy river and the ice floes, which arrived pell-mell. At this point the Tisza took a wide turn, and the locals knew that the most treacherous eddies were on this side of the water; once the craft survived the halfway mark, it was virtually certain that the far bank could be safely managed. This time, too, the waters were stilled as if by command, once they had got to the imaginary halfway line. At the same time, the ice floes appeared to come thicker and faster; one of the boatmen was no longer rowing but spent his time fending them off with his oar. The roar of the river grew more and more painful to the ear, and despite every effort some of the blocks of ice thumped into the sides of the boat. The lads shouted warnings at each other to try to avoid disaster, but so many floes were adrift in the stormy waves that the boat could scarcely get through them unscathed. One rather weighty triangular slab of ice hit the boat so loudly that pea-sized particles of the caulking strayed onto the footboard. Two of the merchants gabbled prayers in their mother tongue, from which Mendel Berda-Stern realized that these were not Magyars after all, but Ruthenians.

By then the boat lay in the tight embrace of the ice floes, and in vain did the lads try to prize them loose with oars and boathooks: they would not move an inch. The mournful creaking of the timbers rose higher, as did the Swabian cries of the boatmen-the entire wooden structure could be snapped in two by the power of the floes.

"Lullei, Lullei! Nochinmal! Lullei!" cried the Swabians.

Mendel Berda-Stern did not understand what they wanted, but the merchants did, and linking arms, in the rhythm of the Lullei! swung their hips to the left and then to the right, thus making the boat rock from side to side and thus-to the great surprise of them all-the boat slid out from the ice floes' murderous grip.

Whereupon the Swabian lads managed to use their oars to get them to the shore. Despite the stinging cold they were all bathed in sweat. Mendel Berda-Stern at once headed for the post station, but at this late hour could secure neither a horse nor a carriage. He spent the night in the lodge opposite the post station. The following morning he woke to find the countryside knee-deep in snow and it was neither advisable nor possible to set off. He was quite certain that by no stretch of the imagination could he be in time for the funeral. From the lumpy sack of straw he rose only to attend to the call of nature; otherwise he lay staring at the ceiling, ordering boiling hot coffee with butterfroth. He even ate his meals in bed. His window looked out on the swollen Tisza, its caravan of ice-floes relentlessly drifting south.

"My dear good sir, should we not be going back?" asked his manservant.

Mendel Berda-Stern did not bat an eyelid. His murderous glance froze the words on his servant's lips. On the third day he sent the boy for paper, pen, and inkhorn. He doodled and did calculations, sighing ever more loudly. Later he recalled this thus in The Book of Fathers.

For six days and six nights I was slumped in the rundown lodge, where they did not hesitate, because of the vileness of the weather, to put strangers together in the same room. It cost me a tidy sum to be given my own room. In the hours of doing nothing, which felt as if they would never end, I had an opportunity to think everything through. In the course of my life hitherto, I do not detect any mistakes: my lucky star has protected me faithfully, and never left me in the lurch. I have secured sufficient funds at the card and roulette tables to ensure that neither I nor my descendants will suffer want of anything. But true wealth does not manifest itself in financial terms.Woe is me! According to my astrological calculations and even more the future according to the tarot, my cloudless sky will soon cloud over. I received the prognostication of the stars with dread: I shall have two more sons, Bendeguz and Jozsef, but both will be stillborn. Even more horrendous: Jozsef 's death will entail that of his mother. All this will happen within the next two years. If only I could doubt! If only I could make our fate do otherwise! If only the heavenly bodies could err just this once! will soon cloud over. I received the prognostication of the stars with dread: I shall have two more sons, Bendeguz and Jozsef, but both will be stillborn. Even more horrendous: Jozsef 's death will entail that of his mother. All this will happen within the next two years. If only I could doubt! If only I could make our fate do otherwise! If only the heavenly bodies could err just this once!

Somehow or other liberated from the prison of the weather, as soon as he could he reached Nagyvarad. There he checked his diagrams and calculations again, with great care. The result remained the same. He wondered how he was to bear the burden of this dreadful secret. "My dear! We are off on a journey!" he said to his wife.

"When? Where to?"

"Now, straightaway, home to Homonna."

"Is there something wrong?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but did not have the strength to utter the heavy words. He mumbled something about business.

At home, he thought, it must be easier to take every imaginable step to safeguard ourselves. Perhaps we can somehow wrest ourselves from the clutches of fate. But how? It is difficult to win a battle against the dispensation of providence.

Leopold Pohl and Hami received them with tears of joy. Mendel Berda-Stern feared that he should open up before them the bundle of the future; perhaps more of them would see more. He worked himself up to it a hundred times, but he was unable to go on.

"What woes of care afflict my husband?" asked Eleonora.

"I am just thinking about things," replied Mendel Berda-Stern, forcing a smile upon his lips.

"Why have you been sitting around on my skirt hems lately? Have you given up chasing fortune?"

"I haven't given up, I'm just pausing ... so I can spend more time with my loved ones."

His wife knew that this was not the whole truth, but also knew that wild horses would not drag the latter out of him. As the days and the weeks passed, Mendel Berda-Stern watched Eleonora's swelling belly with increasing concern. Despite the woman's protests he had learned medical professors from Pecs and Karslbad examine her. He personally supervised the diet they prescribed; the herbal teas he portioned out himself on the apothecary's balance he had bought for this purpose, and infused the herbal mixtures himself. Eleonora found this overzealous protectiveness distressing, but her husband proved the more determined.

Despite every precaution little Bendeguz was born bluish-red, with the umbilical cord fatally twisted around his tiny neck. Eleonora is keeping her spirits up, but my father-in-law is inconsolable; he has aged ten years. I would do anything to prevent the next tragedy from occurring.

Once his wife's health had recovered somewhat, Mendel Berda-Stern went off to Pest-Buda with great suddenness, taking a room in the Queen of England Hotel. That evening in the restaurant he recognized, from lithographs in the newspapers, at the next table, the statesman Ferenc Deak. He was smoking his usual Cubanos. He conversed with him briefly.

"In Pest, March is the most dangerous month, November the saddest," said the sage of the homeland. It was the beginning of April.

On his suggestion Mendel Berda-Stern ordered roast lamb and was not disappointed. He thought he would go out on the razzle, seeking out the card dens of the city, and concentrate on the number 7. But he did not in the least feel like it. He no longer needed any money, so why should he squander his life on further battles on the green baize, where winning was not guaranteed?

He sought and gained entrance to the salons of distant acquaintances. His name cards, though curled up at the edges, opened doors carved in the urban style. Amongst others he met the industrialist Mor Wahrmann, to whom he was very distantly related through the Sterns. Mor Wahrmann was pleased to meet him and immediately launched into a disquisition on the unavoidable necessity of uniting Pest and Buda. Mendel Berda-Stern adopted these views. The enthusiastic relative filled his head with so much information that he ended up donating five hundred crowns to the city's poor.

"Which city's poor?" asked Mor Wahrmann.

Mendel Berda-Stern opted for Pest.

Eleonora sent fresh messages urging him to return home, where he was sorely missed. The letters were also signed by Hami. Then a purple wax-sealed envelope arrived from Leopold Pohl, asking him kindly to return home to Homonna.

I miss dearly our substantial afternoon discussions about the future, the fate of the world, about Nostradamus, and the rest. Why are you dallying by the Danube?

Mendel Berda-Stern replied curtly declaring that urgent matters kept him in Pest-Buda. But Leopold Pohl was made of sterner stuff and would not be satisfied with this response. Mendel Berda-Stern was bombarded with letters every third day, each more formal than the previous one.

My dear son-in-law,Your whimsical change of residence has visited upon all of us suffering and uncertainty. It is time you heeded your husbandly duties before it is too late!

He received this threat apathetically. Nostradamus, the king of prophets, taught the ruler to follow the path of least resistance.

Summer in Pest was hotter than in Homonna or Vienna, as the newspapers kept reiterating. Mendel Berda-Stern had just dismissed his current manservant, because he was unable to serve him his coffee as prescribed. Mendel Berda-Stern suffered more from boredom than from the heat. He could never have imagined that it was possible to lose interest in one's fellow human beings. Perhaps it was Hami that he missed most, when he was having his lonely evening meal.

He spent most of his time reading. He immersed himself in the study of the stars. He made a primitive telescope, which he kept tinkering away at. He worked his way through every book on the subject that he could get hold of. He would regularly visit the observatory on top of the Harmashatarhegy, at first for conversation, later to pursue scholarly work.

One evening in the foyer of the hotel he was met by Hami, who flew into his arms. Mendel Berda-Stern became livelier. He introduced her to everyone and made a thousand plans as to where to take his beloved sister. He wanted to show her every one of the city's sights and would have dragged her along to all the salons he knew. In the hotel the rumor spread that she was not his sister but his lover-they were often to be seen holding hands.

On the very first evening he admitted to Hami what was keeping him away from home. The girl was open-mouthed. "How on earth can you believe in that stuff?" Mendel Berda-Stern listed his most serious evidence, from the birth of Sigmund in Nagyvarad to the death of Bendeguz. Then he told her of the fabulous amounts of money he had won at roulette and baccarat and on other fortune-hunting expeditions, which he more or less calculated in advance. May God take it not as a sin, but he could not be wrong this time.

Hami broke down in tears. "So we shall never see you at home again?"

"Of course you will. Just this dangerous year I have to spend away from Eleonora because ... you understand."

"So why do you not explain this to her?"

"Do you think she would believe me? I'm sure you don't."

His sister left, mission unaccomplished.

The letters from Homonna dried up. Mendel Berda-Stern was not troubled by this, though he would gladly have read of the physical and mental development of his little Sigmund. He continued his uneventful inactivity in the capital. Peragit tranquilla potestas, quae violentia nequit Peragit tranquilla potestas, quae violentia nequit. Quiet strength achieves what violence cannot.

He had less time ahead of him than behind him when he had news from his father-in-law. Leopold Pohl in formed him as delicately as possible that Eleonora was once again pregnant. Do not ask who the father is-she is not prepared to tell me. You have no one to blame but yourself!

Mendel Berda-Stern knew he was right. He spent a few days sorting out his financial affairs, then traveled to a little village in the back of beyond where he sought admission to the Piarist Order. The good will shown towards him by the order he repaid with a substantial gift of money. His whereabouts were revealed only to Hami, whom he asked to keep it a secret. His sister bowed to his wishes. Once in a blue moon she visited him. It was she who brought the news that Eleonora had had a second stillborn child, Jozsef, and had died giving birth.

"Never come here again. I have finished with the outside world!"

As his sister sped away in tears, the person who was once called Mendel Berda-Stern hanged himself on the window catch. He used the rope that served as the belt of his habit. The catch being a little low, he was successful only at the second attempt. In his death throes his last words cursed the stars.

VIII.

BY DAWN THE BARE BRANCHES ARE WREATHED IN HOAR frost. The surface of the puddles thickens as the frost bites deep into the soil. Even the watchdogs would fain curl up with the cattle or the horses for the night, seeking the warmth of their larger bodies' exudations. Breath steams from mouths like pipe smoke. The birds wintering here at home are already ashiver, as are the four-legged beasts sleeping through the freezing months. Out in the country, life almost comes to a halt. In town, too, there is less activity, people shut themselves in. The city sentries, known popularly as frost. The surface of the puddles thickens as the frost bites deep into the soil. Even the watchdogs would fain curl up with the cattle or the horses for the night, seeking the warmth of their larger bodies' exudations. Breath steams from mouths like pipe smoke. The birds wintering here at home are already ashiver, as are the four-legged beasts sleeping through the freezing months. Out in the country, life almost comes to a halt. In town, too, there is less activity, people shut themselves in. The city sentries, known popularly as bakters bakters, patrol the city's better streets with urgent steps at night, their lanterns repeatedly extinguished by the beard-tousling wind.

Sandor Csillag awaited the end of the 1800s with excitement verging on hysteria. He had lived to see as many years as he had white teeth, and all of them were intact. Only from his mother could he have inherited such a magnificent array of ivory teeth, for his father had had many problems with his teeth, especially in his later years. Of such matters Sandor Csillag had no direct knowledge; only from Hami had he heard stories of his parents, who had both died relatively young. In his wakeful dreams he saw their faces and figures with as much clarity as if he were looking at lifelike paintings in oils. Why had Father not had any pictures painted of themselves?

Hami was of the view that the boy she had been left to bring up required the strictest possible education, for he exhibited from his earliest years a wild and untrammeled nature. He was still in nappies when he set fire to the kennel of the dog Berta, by means of a lantern he managed to carry there. The shed and the woodpile also went up in flames. The dog, chained up, was saved from being burned alive only thanks to the neighbors. Hami never worked out how little Sigmund had managed to climb from the chair onto the table, whence he could reach and unhook the lantern. Aged six, he could not be left alone with girls of his age, since their undergarments were of intense interest to him.

Lower school he completed in three years; that was because in Homonna and the districts surrounding it, that was the number of years of primary school available. And Hami did not have the heart to send such a little lad away to board. She planned to do that in later years. But Sigmund again put a spoke in Hami's wheel. Before she could be told of his very poor third-year results, which barred progression to the upper school, he left home in his school uniform. His foster mother had no news of him for two weeks, during which her hair fell out in clumps.

A postcard covered in laboriously articulated letters arrived some weeks later, in a red envelope, from the city of Miskolc. Sent by one Tihamer Vastagh, tapster and coffee merchant, it respectfully informed Madame Hanna Berda-Stern that the young man Sandor Csillag had sought and entered his employ as an assistant in his trade. He had claimed that he was an orphan, who had been cared for hitherto by the addressee.

"Who is this Sandor Csillag?" asked Hami out loud, though she suspected the answer. She at once had herself conveyed to Miskolc by cart.