Tadeus Weissberger arranged some kind of amusement for every night of their stay. Either musicians filled the salon with dance music, or a round of cards would be organized for Istvan Stern. Up to this time he had known only the games that could be played with Hungarian cards; here he learned how to play the tarot, and proved exceptionally skillful at the game. After a substantial win Tadeus Weissberger would raise his glass and cry: "Mazel!"

His long-suppressed passion for playing cards came upon Istvan Stern like a bucket of boiling water: he was on fire from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He reveled in getting the better of the others by adopting a wooden, expressionless face. He was much less taken with the notion of winning money. Perhaps, if he had not been so carried away by the game, he might have attended to what the local men were whispering about between the deals, and if he had, he would almost certainly have understood. In the streets of Lemberg young hooligans were looting the shops and coffee houses, throwing all the goods of the Jews out into the street, daubing the walls with the vilest slogans. The cardplayers' consensus was that it was not a good idea to make too much of these events. Such excesses by hot-headed youngsters were likely to wane as suddenly as they had waxed.

Tadeus Weissberger was in the minority. He could not understand how the gentlemen could be so sure of themselves. Once emotions have burst to the surface, no one is really safe. But to the question of what was to be done, he no more had a sensible reply than anyone else. Be prepared, then you won't be scared-that was his motto.

"Very well then, let us be scared," said a voice. "How does that improve matters?"

Istvan Stern meanwhile shuffled the pack and dealt everyone a hand.

"It would be better if we packed and went home!" whispered Eva in his ear at the breakfast table the following morning.

"What's got into you? You were the one keen to travel!"

"I didn't imagine we would end up just where the goyim want to kill us."

"Kill us?" spluttered Istvan Stern, as if surfacing from under water.

Eva told him what she had heard from Agnieska. Istvan Stern could feel his heart beating faster. Have these people gone mad? They destroy the property of others simply because they are of a different faith?

He went running off to Tadeus Weissberger. His host was in the smaller greenhouse, watering his plants. "Why did you not tell me about this before, Weissberger?" he asked in his best German.

"But we talked of nothing else all evening!"

"Should we not start packing?"

"The vandals have never bothered us in this house ... on the other hand, who knows what the morrow may bring?"

Istvan Stern found himself on the horns of a dilemma. One part of him thought it ungallant to flee like a coward, another part of him felt a strong responsibility towards his family, so ... The longer he thought about it, the less he knew what to do. If only Grandfather Aaron were here, or Rabbi Ben Loew.

That afternoon, of the gentlemen invited to play cards only one, Samuel Bratkow, managed to reach the card table. His clothing was torn and, as he explained it, torches had been flung at the roof of his house and his family had fled to Tarnopol. He was heading after them and would be glad to take anyone who wished to go. Tadeus Weissberger hurriedly ordered his daughters, wife, and mother-in-law to take to the carriages. There were Weissbergers in Tarnopol who would look after them. He would follow as soon as he had taken care of the valuables. Alas, the carriage springs were dangerously overstretched and Samuel Bratkow begged their pardon for being unable to take all the ladies. Agnieska volunteered to lighten the load, as, with a little gentle prodding, did her mother. The carriage raced off, to the tearful cries of the Weissberger girls. Istvan Stern at once offered his cart, which Tadeus Weissberger declined with the words: "We have our own carriage; in fact, we have two."

Eva wanted to be off at once, but Istvan Stern first had everything quickly packed up, so it was half an hour before they were embracing their hosts, commending one another to the care of the Almighty. By then the Weissbergers were also ready, and the horses harnessed to the carriages were fairly pawing the ground in their impatience. Let us go while we can, thought Eva. They climbed into the carriage. Istvan Stern lowered the lids of his bloodshot eyes.

The pounding of hoofs, from somewhere in the distance.

Stern was sure it would be Samuel Bratkow, coming back for something he had forgotten. But it was more than two score horsemen, wearing only animal pelts and skins, reminding Istvan Stern of the original Magyars who rode into the Carpathian basin. In the carriage little Aszti gave a sharp little shriek and everyone realized that they were on the brink of catastrophe. The riders had reached them.

Istvan Stern jumped down onto the carriage step and drew his sword, but in vain: he was the first to be speared through the neck by a lance and thrown under the carriage. The noise around him seemed to abate, the outlines of things became hazy. Before he finally lost consciousness he saw fire engulf the entrance of the house and there, falling from the first-floor windows, were the by now familiar white birds. Only later, on his sickbed, did he understand that for a fraction of a second he had witnessed the Weissberger family's justly famous collection of books being consumed by the flames.

Thinking that he was dead, the attackers let him be. Night had already fallen when he came to. Some local peasants provided him with shelter and care. Richard also turned up, wandering among the pine trees of the park, as was little Aszti, whose crazed screeches drove Istvan Stern out of his wits, so that several times he took aim at the creature. Richard always protected it.

In a foreign land, without acquaintances and helping hands, lacking the language and money, Istvan Stern was unable to discover where his wife's and two sons' final resting places-if they indeed had such-might be found. Grandfather Aaron lambasted him with hate-filled letters, cursing him forever for not taking proper care of his daughter and two grandsons. Had Richard not been with him, Istvan Stern would have thrust his dagger into his heart.

The Sterns never forgave him. Disowned first by one lot, then by the other.

In the end he took himself off with Richard and little Aszti and, abandoning his property at Hegyhat, asked permission to live in the five-pointed turret. The Sternovszkys tolerated their presence but never fully accepted them. No day passed but he toyed with the idea that he would end his days of suffering in this world. So burdened was he by the weight of his conscience that he was virtually bent double. In the years that remained to him he gave few signs of being alive. He passed his time mainly playing cards. His right hand played his left; they fought battles of life and death. He was unwilling to play with anyone else.

When the Sternovszky family's influence secured him a seat in the county assembly, he would sometimes attend the sessions, but he rarely made a speech. It was thus a surprise to all when he objected to the burning of the documents and papers relating to the abolition of the decrees of His Majesty Joseph II. It needed six people to hold him down, such was the passion this had ignited in him. He raved as he bellowed: "Papers and books must not be thrown into the fire!"

They locked him in an office in the assembly building. As soon as the key turned creakily in the lock, Istvan Stern calmed down and his face once again wore the indifferent expression it generally had. The guards who looked in through the peephole reported this to the alispan alispan, who ordered him to be set free.

Istvan Stern walked home. That night he wrote in The Book of Fathers: Audi, vide, tace, si vis vivere in pace Audi, vide, tace, si vis vivere in pace. He kept his word in the Book, and died quietly a year later. There was no surprise in the turret: they were used to the heads of families saying little or nothing as they took their leave of this world.

IV.

EVEN ON NORTH-FACING CLIFFS HITHERTO BARE, SIGNS of life, ruffs of green. The fruit-trees' boughs sweep the ground, so swollen are they with their crop. Few whoops or cries from the fowl of the air; hens are busy brooding on the nest. Water lilies carpet the surface of the lakes. The tillers of the soil rejoice: there will be a rich harvest. Those short of food and drink are spurned less often now by those who are not. At times even in daylight an ever-waxing, ever more yellow moon rises in the sky. of life, ruffs of green. The fruit-trees' boughs sweep the ground, so swollen are they with their crop. Few whoops or cries from the fowl of the air; hens are busy brooding on the nest. Water lilies carpet the surface of the lakes. The tillers of the soil rejoice: there will be a rich harvest. Those short of food and drink are spurned less often now by those who are not. At times even in daylight an ever-waxing, ever more yellow moon rises in the sky.

They will have their work cut out to gather in this harvest, thought Richard Stern. He raised himself to the iron bars of the cell and let himself dangle as long as his strength allowed, in part by way of exercise, in part to see something of the world outside. Ever since being brought here from Spielberg he had prayed for a cell in the far corner of the tower, whence he might observe the slope that, his cartographic studies led him to deduce, would have a crescent shape.

Already, despite the distance, he was able to identify some of the local farmers and their lads. When all's said and done, better a cell giving onto a hill in the fortress at Munkacs, under the Carpathians, than any cell in that Austrian eyrie, Kufstein; at least Munkacs was in Hungary. The horrors they told of the hell of Kufstein! Inmates in irons day and night, no letters in or out, and up to six months without being allowed a turn in the yard. To cap it all, consumption was rife, scores took to the bare boards they had for beds, and the bodies were not released to the family but tossed into the moat in sacks with hardly a sprink ling of lime, let alone a decent spadeful of soil.

Richard Stern never expected a pardon; he thought he knew that the thread of his life, though it might be spun out for quite a long time, would finally be cut in the prison of the fortress of Munkacs. So he could work only with what he had. Whenever his eyes could bear it, he spent his time writing; otherwise he hung from the window's iron bars and feasted them, so that he might take not the bleak cell but the world outside, the summer cavalcade of nature, with him to the bourn whence no earthly traveler returns. He knew in his bones that the heavenly ones would never admit him. As a child he had been brought up in the faith of the Jews, but nowadays he would strain his memory in vain for their word for "devil" or "salvation." Did the Jews have devils and angels at all? It hardly matters now ... It makes not a bean's worth of difference.

He let go of the iron bars and dropped down onto the rough-hewn stone floor; a twinge of pain shot through his kneecaps. The warmth of the month of July had brought little relief for his aching limbs. He could no longer bend his arms and legs without stabs of pain. It has not taken me long to wear them out, he thought. But that, too, hardly matters now; I expect them to perform little in the way of service to me. He sat down at the rough and splintery table that served two of the functions that mattered to him most: writing and eating. The third was met by the wooden bucket in the corner, whose ill-fitting lid ensured the constant companionship of noisome smells.

He opened The Book of Fathers, of which no more than thirteen folios remained blank. Richard Stern was an industrious diarist, filling more pages of the book by himself than all his ancestors combined. And this was despite his cells, especially the one in Spielberg, being severely deprived of light; sometimes he thought the goose-quill found its own way in the dark. He was given a single candle every other day and learned how to be sparing with it.

Earlier in his life it had not occurred to him that he might himself write in the pages of The Book of Fathers, even though in his younger days he had turned to it more often than even the Bible.

"This is another of the sins of the Sterns: that you don't even go to the synagogue! Mark my words, the Creator will punish you for this!" came his grandmother's refrain; she would have preferred him to revert to Sternovszky as his surname.

Richard Stern was not in the least inclined to do this. "Please, Grandma Borbala, spare me these reproaches and rest content with the first half of my name. I owe it to my poor brothers and my mother, and my father, too."

"Leave your father out of this!" cackled Borbala, who had by this time come to resemble the witches of the fairytales. Her huge bulk could hardly be eased through a normal doorway. True enough, this was rarely required, for she would spend days on end in her round-backed armchair, specially made for her by the turret's overseer Andras, who was something of a jack-of-all-trades. Richard Stern loved his grandmother, little good though she did him. Whenever he had the chance, he asked her to sing. When Borbala fully unleashed her voice, the song would carry a long way indeed: The way before me weeps, the trail before me grieves The way before me weeps, the trail before me grieves ... Richard Stern's eyes at once clouded with tears when his grandmother began to sing; all the songs she knew were melancholy ones and he, her grandson, was at such times able quite clearly to conjure up the face of his late mother, which had otherwise quite faded. The images of Robert and Rudolf were lost even more deeply in the mists of time. ... Richard Stern's eyes at once clouded with tears when his grandmother began to sing; all the songs she knew were melancholy ones and he, her grandson, was at such times able quite clearly to conjure up the face of his late mother, which had otherwise quite faded. The images of Robert and Rudolf were lost even more deeply in the mists of time.

I have no need of fine words; I will have only words that are true!

With these words Richard Stern began his chapter in The Book of Fathers. He was especially prodigal in the period following his arrest, even in the temporary prison, while awaiting trial. He was fortunate to have it delivered to him at his request, with other books.

There being no looking-glass at my disposal, I am employing my fingers to examine my face for the ravages of time. Since I have been imprisoned I have not shaved off the hair of my face, which thus covers up the random scars left by the childhood pox, of which I was then, as now, very much ashamed. Because of it I was unwilling to show my face to others and always preferred the comfort afforded by solitude. The hair of my head is falling out in clumps and is now very thin. On my chest growth continues apace, even as, here and there, it is turning white.When I was arrested I was still a young buck, but here one grows old more quickly, since there is little else to do. The angle of my nose is more pronounced, my brow is furrowed much like the rind of muscat melon. I am lanky in build, yet the little flesh that remains has nonetheless begun to droop, especially at my hips and also under my chin, where there has developed a dewlap resembling the collar of a cape, which I find so repulsive that several times a day I claw at it with my nails until I draw blood. Even less am I able to endure the two somewhat feminine little mounds that have developed on my chest, which, especially when I sit, fold themselves onto the upper half of my stomach. Compared with the proportions of my other parts, my hand is on the small side and my left thumb is missing, a victim of the quack after our tragedy at Lemberg: he claimed that gangrene would have set in after the sword cut and that, had he not removed root as well as branch, it might have cost me my hand, my arm, or even my life quack after our tragedy at Lemberg: he claimed that gangrene would have set in after the sword cut and that, had he not removed root as well as branch, it might have cost me my hand, my arm, or even my life.

Whenever he thought of his lost thumb, he relived the pain of its loss; a more agonizing experience he had never endured, though his interrogators had tortured him mercilessly with prickings and brandings that pained him still and that perhaps his body would not get over until his dying day. At seven years of age, he had awakened to see two men armed to the teeth ripping off the carriage door. His mother was dragged away by her hair, shrieking; his brothers were sliced up with scimitars, his brother Robert's head flying off his body like a tossed ball and Rudolf's bloody guts spilling onto the carriage step and flooding Richard's only escape route. By then the other door of the carriage had opened and from that side a blade pierced his back even as it seemed also to strike his neck and left hand. In his final glint of consciousness he saw a series of images: a very familiar-looking young man, in irons, in a prison.

As he grew up, he gradually understood that provided he bore the suffering that accompanied his memories of the past, he would be given some taste of the future awaiting him. Once he divined that the young man was himself, he was certain there was no escaping the bitter fate of imprisonment. He was a student at the Sarospatak Collegium when his visions first gave him access to even more curious sights. He could see his own marriage feast, then his wedding night and the birth of his six children, all of them boys. If this prophecy was to be believed, his bride would be a lady who spoke an alien language, with skin the color of honey, hair as black as night, and a triangular birthmark on her breastbone. Though fearful of his visions, yet he trusted them.

As a young man he resisted stubbornly all Borbala's aggressive efforts and machinations at matchmaking. He stood his ground at her litany of the most incredible dowries and socially most desirable matches and told his grandmother: "You will see that there will come someone who is finer and more lovely; someone right for me."

At the Sarospatak Collegium there were two subjects-geography and grammar-at which, in his teachers' opinion, he surpassed even the best of the students. He found that his extraordinary memory was particularly useful. By his third year at the college he had already mastered eight tongues. His favorite teacher, a Frenchman called de la Motte, urged him to try his fortune in the outside world. He wrote for him a letter of recommendation to Academician Carmillac, the distinguished French linguist at the University of Paris, who replied by return that if the Hungarian student had no more than half the talent that de la Motte claimed for him, he was assured of a place in his seminar. Thus did Richard reach the French capital despite the fulminations of Borbala.

"If you go, you must not count on our support!"

"I wouldn't dream of being a parasite."

No question, I had no idea how I would keep myself in the city of Paris. Professor de la Motte strongly supported my visit and his parting words to me were: Dieu choisit le courageux! Dieu choisit le courageux! Or as we would say in Hungarian: Fortune favors the brave. I did not feel very brave however when I stood in front of the famous cathedral of Lutetia, Notre Dame, without a sou in my pocket. Fortune did favor me shortly, however, when I secured some students to tutor, three in Latin and two for Greek grammar Or as we would say in Hungarian: Fortune favors the brave. I did not feel very brave however when I stood in front of the famous cathedral of Lutetia, Notre Dame, without a sou in my pocket. Fortune did favor me shortly, however, when I secured some students to tutor, three in Latin and two for Greek grammar.

Richard Stern-Risharre, as the French had it-continued his spectacular progress at the University of Paris and was able to join as early as the second term the comparative grammar seminars of Academician Carmillac. Carmillac, whose academic status at the university entitled him to be addressed as Maistre, was engaged in a project to demonstrate that the evolution of the French language was closely linked to the general condition of particular regions. He had selected three regions that he deemed most advanced from the point of view of handicrafts, agriculture, and cultural matters; three that he thought the most underdeveloped in these respects; and a further three that he considered middling. His thesis was that those parts where the network of highways and travel is most advanced, where the wells and other buildings rise highest, where more people purchase newspapers and almanacs and admission to entertainments-these are likely to be the places where people's usage of the sacred French language, in the Maistre's view the eighth wonder of the world, will be the most cultivated. Richard Stern concurred, though he was able to make comparisons with only seven other languages, whereas Academician Carmillac could boast knowledge of fifteen, including such rare birds as Basque and Breton-the latter admittedly the Maistre's grandmother-tongue. The end of March found Richard Stern in the village of Francaroutier, at the foot of the Pyrenees. On the Maistre's lists, Francaroutier very much brought up the rear.

"Risharre, you will collect the data down there by yourself. Make sure you follow my instructions."

Richard Stern had made himself a copy of the shorter catechism of Academician Carmillac: seventy-seven numbered points. The size of four folios, he slipped this into The Book of Fathers, in consequence of which he was able to read it often even in the hard years of his imprisonment. In Munkacs it prompted him to reflect thus: What arrant nonsense! To imagine that where they dig more wells, the use of the past subjunctive is more subtle! Knowing what I do today it is well-nigh impossible to understand why I failed to point out that my Maistre's theory of comparison lacked any solid foundation! Doubtless the unquestioned respect I had for him prompted me to suppress my commonsensical view, fearing that my arguments would be crushed by the weight of his vast erudition and that I would be humiliated. The lesson is that one must speak up if one is convinced something is right, whatever the cost, because not standing by one's beliefs is also a defeat and the thought of it will gnaw as much thereafter.

In Francaroutier Richard Stern's careful budgeting had made it possible for him to employ two young men as clerks: one to note down random dialogues in the village marketplace, the other to scour the notices in the village and in the inns and taverns and wherever else he found any writing, noting down both correct and incorrect examples of sentences, as instructed. They would have looked at the local newspaper, too, but in this case there was none. Richard Stern visited in turn the mayor, the notary, the doctor, the fire chief, and other officials, putting to them the questions devised by Academician Carmillac. Of the answers, he had to record only those that were outstandingly good or quite imperfect.

There being no hostelry in Francaroutier, he accepted the hospitality of the cure, who offered not only lodging but also evening meals, in return for suitable payment to the thickset woman who appeared to be his housekeeper. She lived on the far side of the church with her husband and three children and presumably had her hands full with her house, the vegetable garden, and the chicken run, but seemed to spend a deal of her time, from a very early hour, around the rectory. Sometimes even late at night, when the scholar came home from his labors, he could hear the rapid gabble of the good lady, of which at first he could not pick out a single word. The cure enlightened him: "Do not be concerned, Domine, this woman broke her jaw as a child, hence her distorted speech; one gets used to it after a time."

During one of his endless reveries in the cell it dawned on him that the "housekeeper" was no doubt the cure's lover. At that time it did not occur to him for a moment. He was a complete innocent in these matters. If during the humid nights he was troubled by wet dreams, he would keep a voluntary fast for several days, thinking that he might thus cleanse himself. Women he merely admired, always and incurably in hopes that he would come across that woman who spoke no Hungarian-honey-colored skin, hair as dark as night, a triangular birthmark above her breastbone-and who would bring him the blessing of six boys. These were his dreams as he lay on the musty-smelling sack of straw on the guest-bed of the parish cure, tolerating alta pace alta pace the bites of the cockroaches (these sleep-preventing creatures were somewhat smaller than their Hungarian cousins, but all the more hungry for blood). the bites of the cockroaches (these sleep-preventing creatures were somewhat smaller than their Hungarian cousins, but all the more hungry for blood).

The inhabitants of Francaroutier looked forward with especially keen anticipation to the first Sunday after Easter, when there was traditionally an open-air entertainment, the biggest for many miles around, on the field in front of the Grotta. The Grotta was an opening into the depths of the cliff-face above the village. It was so narrow that a grown man could scarcely penetrate it if he crawled into it slowly-if he dared. In the dark crevices of the Grotta lurked evil spirits whose appeasement was secured at this time of the year by means of sacrifices, prayers conducted by the parish cure, and a torchlight procession followed by dancing until dawn. It was whispered that in the old days even newborn babes were sacrificed, but not even the oldest inhabitants could confirm this; these days a ram roasted but still blood-red would be cast into the crack, with two round loaves, a few bottles of the local wine and fruit brandy, all crowned by wreaths of water lilies.

As the two assistants had categorically refused to work on the festival day, Richard Stern was at a loss as to what to do on this day of general jollity; he felt he had not been sent there to enjoy himself. But he was unlikely to find himself a sober companion to converse with. In the milling crowds of the fair, though, he was likely to hear turns of phrase not heard elsewhere. With his notebook in his satchel, goose-quills and inkpot secured to his belt, he set off behind the red-cheeked locals on their way to the Grotta. As he arrived in the field, the ball-throwing competition was well under way. Boys and young men in rolled-up sleeves stood by the white lime line drawn on the grass, to throw the iron balls as close as they could to the red-painted stake. Anyone whose ball was hit and rolled too far was out of the competition, as were those whose balls went in the wrong direction.

By the edge of the forest the butchers were roasting an ox. One could buy honey cake, Spanish tapas, freshly baked pot-loaf, and the delightful dark maroon nectar of the nearby vineyards. Music played as women in clogs swung into the jumping dance with lads in black waistcoats and curly-brimmed felt hats. The spectacle held no interest for Richard Stern, and he pushed his way through the crowd to the mouth of the Grotta. He delayed his meal until later-he liked to save up his pleasures, always leaving the tastiest morsel to the last-so for himself he took only half a pint of wine.

The basalt blocks had been scoured rough by wind, rain, and snow. They looked like untanned hides. The opening had already been garlanded with lilies; Richard Stern's nose was irritated by the heavy smell of the flowers. He felt a sudden wave of homesickness wash over him, for he knew, not only from The Book of Fathers but from the streams of his own memory, that back home the turret had similarly been built at the site of a cavern; indeed, the builders had used fragments of rock from the explosion. He saw before him Borbala, draped on her deckchair. Next came the famous copper mortar found by his grandfather Balint Sternovszky after he cleared the bushes away: it was now used by Borbala, since the doctor forbade her sweetmeats, as a container to hide her delicacies. She had a particular fondness for those egg-shaped lumps of starch sugar.

Richard Stern was reminded of the egg-shaped timepiece he had received on leaving Magyarland, as a good-luck charm.

The ornate timepiece was found by my great-great-grandfather, when he lived like a wild dog on the clearing known as Bull Meadow. When it came into my grandfather's possession, he had it repaired. From him it passed to my father, Istvan Stern, who had to repair it himself on a number of occasions, so that it could once more show the day, the month, and even the year. Now it is mine. But it remains a temperamental little creature, as if it were not a timepiece but a traveler adrift in time. It loses a month or two now and then; on occasion it can be a decade in error.

At the edge of the stalls set up at dawn, a whey-faced peasant was selling quiche lorraine from under an awning fixed to his cart. Tied up nearby were his two little shepherd dogs, their fur trimmed back to an unnatural shortness. Richard Stern was unsure if he should try the quiche lorraine. He often had trouble with his stomach and had just had a bad night, perhaps the result of the previous evening's bouillabaisse, liberally doused with the homemade wine of the parish cure's housekeeper. Richard Stern by no means disdained the fruit of the sea and enjoyed everything that grew or bred in salty water, even if this black fish soup from the south of France contained many varieties of crab and shellfish, to say nothing of some edible algae too.

The smell of the fresh-baked quiche lorraine overcame that of the lilies and Richard Stern began to lick his lips. Perhaps they might give him half a slice? As he was hesitating, the crowd behind him fell silent and parted to let through a black-fringed carriage, driven by a grim-faced liveried coachman in charge of plumed horses. The road turned toward the valley at the point where the whey-faced quiche-seller had parked his cart. The carriage slowed to take the turn. From the carriage window there looked out a veiled lady of noble bearing. The moment she saw the two bald dogs she let out a cry: "What immodesty! Drive on, quickly!"

The coachman applied his whip to the horses, which suddenly quickened their pace, giving the carriage a mighty jolt. The front wheels lost their grip on the road and began to slide in the direction of the chasm. The liveried coachman bellowed at the rearing horses, but they were unable to check the momentum of the carriage as it veered sideways. Richard Stern jumped in front of the carriage and would have pushed it back on the road, but he could feel his strength ebbing away as the carriage careered towards him, its passenger compartment listing dangerously. A ghastly rattle rose from his throat as he flexed his body against the wooden spokes, as if he were being broken on the wheel; the lady's terrified screams were accompanied by the cracking of his bones.

According to eyewitnesses I fell under the carriage wheels, the carriage rolled over me, and it was my chest with its broken ribs that prevented the carriage and its noble occupant from plunging into the chasm. Everyone who saw it assumed I had died on the spot. A catastrophe was averted only by a hair's breadth. It seemed little short of a miracle when only a short while later I was able to stand up, despite appalling pains. Thus were we both reborn, I and the Marquise des Reaux: we were married at year's end the spot. A catastrophe was averted only by a hair's breadth. It seemed little short of a miracle when only a short while later I was able to stand up, despite appalling pains. Thus were we both reborn, I and the Marquise des Reaux: we were married at year's end.

The Marquise des Reaux was the eldest daughter of an impoverished baron; her excessive piety was the subject of gossip even several counties away. Richard Stern knew nothing of this. The veiled lady jumped out of the carriage and leaning above him asked, greatly agitated: "Sir, are you alive?"

Richard Stern said only: "At last."

The Marquise did not understand. "A doctor! Send for a doctor!" she shouted, and fortunately there was a barber-surgeon in the crowd. Richard Stern closed his eyes but saw still the lady's honey-colored skin, her hair dark as night, and the triangular birthmark on her breastbone. He shed tears of joy, whereupon the barber-surgeon made him drink a pain-killing decoction.

As soon as his broken ribs were healed he sought out the Marquise des Reaux on her estate and delicately inquired whom he might ask for her hand.

"Me, Monseigneur; I am an orphan in this world."

In the end there did appear a portly uncle, one Jean-Baptiste des Reaux, who was her guardian until she came of an age to inherit the little that remained after the gambling losses of her late father. The uncle readily gave his blessing to the union, he and the rest of the family having been privately concerned that she might be left on the shelf. The last barrier to the marriage-the des Reaux were Catholics-was surmounted when the husband tobe agreed in the marriage contract to convert as well as to permit any offspring to be brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. Even if he had started life as a Jew, he reflected, what reason was there now to cling to his grandparents' faith?

They were already engaged when Richard Stern inquired: "Mademoiselle, may I ask what you found so immodest in the quiche-seller when we first met?"

"My dear Monseigneur, do you not think it immodest to shear dogs naked? Nakedness sullies the mind!"

The Marquise des Reaux was a precieuse precieuse through and through. She forbade all discussion in her presence of male undergarments, of any aspect of the workings of the gut, or of any similarly scandalous topic. She did not tolerate Richard Stern eating in her company, nor would she dine at the same table as her husband-to-be. In accordance with the Marquise's wishes, their wedding was held in Nimes cathedral, the bishop officiating. For the ceremony Borbala arrived in the company of several dozen distant relatives, in a caravan of carts that seemed never to end. When it was announced that the Mademoiselle would henceforth be known as the Marquise de Stern-mar-keys do storn-from the direction of Borbala there could be heard a full-throated gurgle of Hungarian laughter. through and through. She forbade all discussion in her presence of male undergarments, of any aspect of the workings of the gut, or of any similarly scandalous topic. She did not tolerate Richard Stern eating in her company, nor would she dine at the same table as her husband-to-be. In accordance with the Marquise's wishes, their wedding was held in Nimes cathedral, the bishop officiating. For the ceremony Borbala arrived in the company of several dozen distant relatives, in a caravan of carts that seemed never to end. When it was announced that the Mademoiselle would henceforth be known as the Marquise de Stern-mar-keys do storn-from the direction of Borbala there could be heard a full-throated gurgle of Hungarian laughter.

There was but one matter in which Richard Stern would not submit to his wife's demands: he felt not the slightest inclination to lead the life of the minor gentry in the south of France. Ideally he would have liked to return home to Magyarland, but he saw no possibility of the Marquise accompanying him there. But if it had to be Francaroutier, well, it would be through his own skills and efforts that he would support himself and the six sons that he promised, to general applause, to the well-wishers gathered at the wedding breakfast. He wanted to continue his grammatical studies irrespective of whether they brought home the bacon, for a real man does not live by bacon alone. To the chiding of the Marquise he responded with a bon mot from the Paris salons: Do you expect me to sacrifice Holland for the Netherlands? As the lady showed puzzlement, he was obliged to explain the euphemistic wordplay: Holland referred to expensive lace fripperies, while the Pays-Bas stood for the body's nether regions. The women of the streets offer the latter for the former.

In addition to his grammatical projects, he also had more lucrative plans, based on an account by one of his Dutch fellow students. The lad described how in Holland there were countless windmills, used not only to grind corn but also to generate some kind of electricity that made possible their use to drive machinery and to produce lighting; in places it had wholly replaced the manual labor of the weavers. Richard Stern did not hold out much hope for the support of this project in Francaroutier; the select few to whom he confided these ideas had burst out laughing. Undaunted he decided to build, beside the hundred-year-old watermill on the des Reaux estate, another, with sails to catch the wind. He had the books needed for the design brought over from Holland; in order to read them he managed in the space of six weeks to become passably proficient in Flemish. He then bought the necessary materials and stood daylong instructing a select few of the more intelligent laborers on the estate in the construction of the sails. He imagined that the New Mill-it was so christened by the villagers as soon as the foundations were dug-would be used alternately for grinding and for generating electricity, by means of an ingenious switchgear of his own devising.

To this day I fail to understand how I came to be so humiliated. My machinery was incapable of even beginning to harness the force of the winds, even though I had spent many hours beforehand carefully considering the matter and working everything out with the precision for which I am known, checking all the calculations several times over. I became the object of general mockery, which the Marquise was never to forgive me object of general mockery, which the Marquise was never to forgive me.

Richard Stern kept up a lively correspondence with Academician Carmillac and other distinguished scholars that he had met at the University of Paris, as well as with his contacts at the Sarospatak Collegium, particularly Balint Csokonya, who had gained his laurels as a poet while still at the school. It was from the latter that Richard Stern learned of the dire straits in which the Collegium now found itself. Never had the governors of this prestigious school had to face such a difficult situation: not only books but even writing paper and ink were becoming barely affordable. The field of Hungarian culture is a fallow field visited by drought, he wrote; no one considers it of any importance; the intellectual elite of our country read in German, if indeed they read at all; it would seem that they are loath even to speak Hungarian. The few with the talent and means to cultivate our sciences or our arts prefer to pass their time abroad. The character of the nation is fading fast.

The reproach he read between the lines prompted Richard Stern to think of returning, sooner rather than later, to the land of his birth. He sought out by the most delicately circuitous means the views of Academician Carmillac. The Maistre urged him by all means to visit Magyarland and to travel the length and breadth of the country. While doing so he might usefully take advantage of the opportunity to collect data to see if the Carmillac theory also stood the test in a backward land such as his. This sentence stung the patriotic sentiments of Richard Stern. What French arrogance ... and in any event we have not yet proven that the Carmillac theory is applicable anywhere at all. He would gladly have shared his dilemma with the Marquise, but the lady had, since the ignominious affair of the windmill, taken pains to avoid his presence and indeed in recent weeks had denied him access to her bedchamber. Richard Stern was not excessively troubled by this; even in better times his wife permitted only one means of amorous dalliance: through a carefully placed slit in her nightwear.

On the eve of their wedding anniversary Richard Stern was called on by Jean-Baptiste des Reaux, who with a great deal of circumlocutory hemming and hawing finally let it be known that his wedded wife had against him a gravamen that was indeed grave.

"The Marquise? Mon Dieu Mon Dieu, not that blessed windmill business still?"

"Oh no, my dear sir, it is a matter much more serious. The Marquise desires a congress ... Vous comprenez? Vous comprenez?"

"I certainly do not!"

"Monsieur Storn knows not what means this congress? I tried in vain to dissuade her, but she will not listen to me; she will lead us all into the vipers' nest of gossip. I have told her: be patient, the good Lord will assurement assurement bless you with child ..." bless you with child ..."

"Is that the problem? That she has not yet conceived by me?"

"Exactement. She has taken it into her head that she wants a proof of her husband's impotentia impotentia. Whoever heard of such a thing? We are having no congress here for almost fifty years! I know what you are feeling now, Monsieur Storn. Perhaps she will think better of it."

Richard Stern reeled off in one uninterrupted sequence every curse he knew in the French language. He knew he was mired in the deepest trouble. The Marquise had never in her life been known to change her mind. Since he knew little of Hungarian law and even less of French, he needed help, in the form of good advice. He chose as confidant the reverend cure, who explained to him that in essence a congress was the ordering by the ecclesiastical court of an act of coition to be held in the presence of expert witnesses.

"If that is all she wants from me, she can have it!" swore Richard Stern, blushing crimson. They were on their second bottle of wine. Alas, his confidant did not keep his confidence. By the next day the whole village knew that the Magyar Monsieur was soft in the organ. Sniggers dogged his every step. He affected a lofty indifference in the face of his misfortune.

The Marquise de Stern had indeed petitioned the ecclesiastical court. So convinced was she of the justice of her case that in her application, instead of the statutory four experts, she begged for "ten doctors of medicine and mid-wives with expertise in such matters." Richard Stern would have liked to discuss the matters, but his wife barricaded herself in her wing of the building. Richard Stern composed a lengthy letter in which he eloquently pointed out that the Marquise could not be in the right, if only because, until she denied him her favors, normal coitus had taken place on no fewer than twenty-four occasions.

The chambermaid returned his letter in shreds. "Madame protests that she will not be the recipient of such immodest remarks."

"She did not even read it?"

"No."

"Then how does she know the remarks are immodest?"

Stern wrote her another letter, which also came back in shreds. On the back of one scrap were the words: "LET THE LAW DECIDE!"

The preliminary examination of the Marquise took place in one of the bathhouses of Nimes. The conclusion of the medical experts was unanimous that the Marquise had "without a shadow of doubt been deprived of her virginity." Richard Stern was jubilant. His jubilation was, however, short-lived. The Marquise de Stern claimed that what the doctors of medicine had observed was merely the "result of a rapprochement rapprochement by her husband that was vulgar and incompetent and not in the manner deemed appropriate." The taverns of Francaroutier rang that night with the latest news: "The Magyar can only dig with his digit!" by her husband that was vulgar and incompetent and not in the manner deemed appropriate." The taverns of Francaroutier rang that night with the latest news: "The Magyar can only dig with his digit!"

The congress had the couple summoned to that same bathhouse. On the advice of Academician Carmillac, Richard Stern submitted a particular request: "Ensure that my wife is bathed thoroughly. It may not be beneath her to employ one of those cramping tools employed by the women of the streets."

Wonder of wonders, the Marquise consented to bathe before the witnesses, fully covered from top to toe, but remarked to her husband: "Monsieur appears to be rather well informed regarding the habits of street women!"

Richard Stern downed the yolks of four new-laid eggs before turning to the Marquise on the bed, whose curtains the court bailiffs had discreetly drawn. "I will make her a boy, the first of the six," he swore, clenching his fists. Sweat poured off his body, but down below there was no sign of movement. "Impossible! I'm going to have six male offspring! Six boys! Six boys!" he said, in his mother tongue, panicking.

"Your summons here was not for prayer!" hissed the Marquise.

Time went on. One of the shriveled little midwives peeked behind the curtains from time to time and reported to the assembly: "Nothing, not a thing."