hose one-hour-long excursion had, under Valuska’s intense protection, left such a strong mark on the town that no mass of mere buildings could obscure him. Everything pointed to the fact that he had passed that way, and wherever Valuska looked, the knowledge that he was still near conjured the other’s presence — so much so that after the actual parting he spent a few minutes in a kind of reverie as the effect of this extraordinary event began to fade, slowing the process down and enabling him mentally to escort his master back to the house in Wenckheim Avenue, when he could breathe again and be assured that the walk, Mr Eszter’s unexpected and wonderful foray into the world, ‘though not without its element of sadness’, had nevertheless been conducted to good effect. To have stood beside him as he left the room, to have been present as he took his first few steps in the hall, to have followed him like a shadow knowing what a tremendous advance this was in the much-desired and long-hoped-for healing process, to have watched him proceed from lounge to outside gate was cause for joy and conferred great honour on him as the proud witness of all this activity; on the other hand, simply to regard the excursion as something ‘not without its element of sadness’ now was to fail to convey the full quality of the experience, since his belated recognition of the fact that his elderly friend found every step an ordeal had, even during the walk, rather clouded the delight of being a ‘proud witness’, leaving only a suffocating air of sadness. He had believed that the moment the invalid had risen for the first time and finally left his curtained room heralded a recovery, a resurrection of his appetite for life, but within a few steps he had had to confront the possibility that the afternoon would bring no amelioration but only reveal the true seriousness of his condition, and the frightening likelihood that his public reappearance in the cause of social renewal was not the way back into the world but, more probably, a last farewell and resignation from it, an act of ultimate rejection, and this — for the first time in all their acquaintance — filled Valuska with the deepest anxiety. Feeling ill at the first breath of fresh air was a bad sign, though, since Eszter had hardly ventured from the house for as long as he could remember and certainly not in the last two months, it was not altogether unexpected, but nothing had prepared him to accept the extent of Eszter’s physical deterioration or the sad condition of the town itself, its nervous tension and exhaustion, and his own lack of vigilance left him with a terrible sense of guilt. Guilt for his lack of awareness, for having blinded himself to the truth and vainly hoped-for improvement in the short term; guilt because if any harm had come to his companion on this most trying walk he would have felt entirely to blame; and more than guilt, shame, confusion and the keenest mental torture, that instead of exhibiting a dignified and brilliant intellect to the town he could produce only a feeble old man whose best option, that of going straight back home, had been made unavailable by virtue of the promise he had made to Mrs Eszter. So they had had to go, and, unable to disguise his dependency, Mr Eszter had, without a word, taken him by the arm, and since this was a sign that his dependency was a form of delegation, Valuska had felt that if this was how things stood there was nothing for him to do but to try and divert his friend’s attention, and so he had begun to talk about the news he had been so happy to bring to his attention at two o’clock. He spoke about sunrise, he spoke about the town, about how each and every part of it had woken to a distinct and separate life as the light touched it at dawn, he had talked and kept talking but the words lacked conviction because he himself was hardly paying attention to them. He was forced to look on the world through his friend’s eyes, constantly to follow Eszter’s gaze and realize, ever more helplessly, that whatever his eyes lit on bore witness not to his own liberating convictions but to the latter’s sombre outlook. In the first moments he had believed that, freed from the close confines of his room, it would be the most natural thing for his friend to recover his strength and desire for life, that he might be persuaded to direct his attention ‘to the totality of things, not to specific details’, but by the time they reached the Komló it had become obvious that, once Eszter had laid eyes on them, these details could not be subsumed under ever more hollow-sounding words, so he had decided to keep quiet, his most valuable contribution to the trials and tribulations of their journey being to give support through honest acceptance and dumb assent. But this resolution had come to nothing, and when he left the hotel the words seemed to rush from his lips with, if such a thing were possible, even greater desperation, for standing in the food line he had heard some terrifying news that had thrown him into utter confusion. To be precise, it was not so much the terrifying news conveyed by people in the kitchen to the effect that ‘the crowd in the market square was in fact a criminal gang of vandals’ which, shortly after twelve o’clock, had robbed and would, like hooligans, have wrecked the entire drinks-dispensing facility of the Komló, for this he simply didn’t believe, discounting it as ‘fears produced by the imagination’, one of the depressingly common signs of ‘infectious terrors and anxieties’; what did, however, surprise him as he was carrying the filled lunch-box back to the waiting Eszter was something he had so far entirely failed to notice: the fact that the corridor and the forecourt and the pavement in front of the hotel were indeed covered in shards of broken flasks and bottles which people were forced to negotiate. He had felt confused and answered his companion’s perfectly understandable questions with a momentary show of hesitancy, quickly going on to talk about the whale, and later — the business with Mr Mádai having been successfully concluded — attempting to allay fears associated with the whale, fears that, to tell the truth, he himself now was prey to, for while he was certain that one sober gesture towards the heavens would ensure a rational return to life as he knew it, he was unable to forget what he had heard in the kitchen (particularly the head cook’s remark that, ‘Anyone wandering about the streets at night is risking his life!’). It was clearly a mistake to think that the ‘friendly obliging people’ with whom he had spent hours waiting in front of the circus vehicle that morning were vandals or bandits, but it was the kind of mistake, Valuska reflected, which, if only because the frightening rumours had spread so far, might leave even a man like Mr Nadabán shaking in his boots; it was therefore up to him to clear up this matter immediately, once and for all, and so, as in his imagination he was escorting Mr Eszter home, and had progressed from Városház Street to the market square, his first instinct on arriving in the midst of the still immobile waiting crowd was to pick out an individual and discuss the matter with him, the memory of the head cook’s irresponsible claim mingling and conflicting with his own more optimistic conviction (… one sober gesture … one cool intervention …). He informed the man what was being said about them, that people in town were wont to jump to conclusions; he told him about Mr Eszter’s condition, and stated his conviction that everyone should be acquainted with that great scholar; he confessed his own fears for him, proclaimed that he knew perfectly well where his duty lay, and finally begged to be excused his slight inarticulacy, but, he quickly added, he was already certain, even after these few minutes, that he was talking to a friendly spirit and that he was absolutely sure that his new friend understood him perfectly. The man he addressed made no reply to any of this but simply gave him a long hard stare from head to toe, then, perhaps noticing Valuska’s startled expression, smiled, slapped him on the back, pulled a bottle of cheap spirits from his pocket and offered it to him in amiable fashion. Relieved to see the relaxed smile on the man’s face after the stern silence of the preliminary inspection, Valuska felt he couldn’t properly refuse the offer as a token of goodwill and, striving to put the seal on his new friendship, took the bottle in his stiff fingers, unscrewed the cap, and, in order to win the other man’s confidence and convince him of ‘the spirit of mutual sympathy’ that existed between them, did not merely take a formal sip of the contents but indulged in one great gulp. He immediately paid for his lack of caution, for the poisonously potent liquid sent him into such a terrible fit of coughing he thought he would choke, and a full half-minute later, having recovered and trying with an apologetic smile to beg pardon for his weakness, he found his words drowned out time and again by yet another fit. He was deeply embarrassed and feared that he had ruined his chances of establishing friendly relations with his new acquaintance; indeed, so real and acute was his suffering that, at the height of his agony, he unconsciously gripped the man he was talking to, and this provided a source of mild amusement not only to the latter, but to those standing in the near vicinity. Recovering his breath in the somewhat more relaxed atmosphere, he explained how Mr Eszter, for all his denials, was busy with a great work, and how, if for no other reason than this, he felt it was incumbent on all of them to restore calm in the house in Wenckheim Avenue — then, turning to his new friend, he confessed that this talk had done him considerable good, thanked the man once more for the goodwill that had been extended to his own person and apologized for the fact that he had to go, promising that next time he would explain his reasons (which were ‘interesting, believe me!’). He had to go, and attempted to take his leave, shaking the man’s hand, but the other would not release it (‘Tell me the reason now, I’d like to hear it’), so Valuska was forced to repeat what he had just said. He had to go — he tried to free his hand from the unexpected grip — but he trusted they would meet again soon, and if this was not the case he could be sought at the Peafeffer, at Mr Hagelmayer’s, or — he stared about him uncomprehendingly, not a little frightened — ask anyone at all, since the name János Valuska was known to everybody. He couldn’t imagine what the other man wanted from him or what this tug of war signified, nor why it suddenly ended when his friend abruptly let go of his hand and the assembled hundreds in the square all turned to face the truck with looks of great anxiety. Seizing the opportunity, still shocked by the strange manner of his detaining, he quickly said goodbye and walked into the thick of the crowd, and only once that crowd had swallowed him after a few steps did he look back, when he was struck by the dreadful thought that he had been mistaken, quite stupid, that he had immediately and shamefully to admit to himself that the powerful force employed against him in such a harmless fashion was no cause for suspicion, that even to suspect such was an act of rudeness on his part. What bothered him most was that by unforgivably misinterpreting the well-meant gesture he had left it unreciprocated, the shame he felt on account of his boorish behaviour being mitigated to some degree only by the knowledge that he was capable of responding to it in more sober fashion very soon after. He really didn’t understand what he had just done (the other man’s patience and sympathy merited gratitude not an irrational panic) and so — his mission to Mrs Eszter not allowing him the time to clear the matter up immediately by seeking out the man in the crowd again — he firmly determined, though he took some time to arrive at a clear explanation for the universal attentiveness, that he would most certainly make amends for his error the next time they met. It was quite dark by this time, only the streetlamps were flickering and some light was filtering through the circus back door, and since the director was not there but at the front of the wagon, only his bare faint silhouette could be picked out. ‘It’s him!’ Valuska stopped dead in his tracks; it was undoubtedly him, even in shadow form his unmistakable great girth gave him away, the often remarked extraordinary extent of him, and indeed the fact of him corresponded in every detail to the rumour. Forgetting his urgent mission for a moment, forgetting all that had just happened, Valuska wormed his way through the crowd, which had clearly grown more agitated since the director’s appearance, in order to get a better look at him, then, once he was close enough, stood on tiptoe in his curiosity and held his breath so as not to miss a single word. The director was holding a cigar between his fingers and was wearing a full-length fur coat, and this, taken together with his gigantic belly, the unusually wide brim of his hat and the vast row of chins collapsing over his carefully tied silk scarf, immediately earned Valuska’s deepest respect. At the same time it was obvious that the awe in which he was held in every part of the square was not due simply to his imposing size, but also to the fact — a fact that no one could forget, not even for a minute — that he was the proprietor of the centre of attention. The otherworldly character of his exhibit lent a peculiar weight to his person, and Valuska gazed at him as if he himself were an extraordinary sight, a man who exercised calm control over that which others looked on in fear and wonder. With the cigar that he was now holding stiffly at some distance he was clearly in absolute command of all he surveyed, and, strange as it may sound, it was impossible to watch anything but that fat cigar in Kossuth Square, for it seemed to belong to someone who, wherever he went, would stand in the shadow of a whale that was the wonder of the world. He looked tired, exhausted even, but it was as if this were the specific thing that had exhausted him, not ordinary everyday matters but one single all-consuming care; it was obviously a fatigue born out of decades of vigilance, exhaustion owing to the knowledge that any moment he might be killed by that immeasurable weight of fat. He said nothing for some time, probably waiting for perfect silence, then, once you could have heard a pin drop, he glanced round him and relit the dead cigar. As he screwed up his face against the rising smoke, taking the whole crowd in through those narrow rodent eyes of his, his expression completely threw Valuska, for this face, that look, though there can have been no more than three or four yards between them, appeared to be situated at some enormous distance from him. ‘Well then,’ he pronounced at long last, but in a manner that suggested that he had already finished speaking, or that he was preparing them for the fact that he was not about to make a great speech. ‘The show is over for the day,’ his deep voice rang out. ‘Until the ticket office reopens tomorrow we wish everyone well and are sincerely grateful for your attention. Allow me to commend our company to you once again. You have been a marvellous audience, but we must now take our leave.’ Holding his cigar away from him as before, slowly, and with some difficulty, he retreated into the crowd that obediently made way for him, climbed up on to the wagon and disappeared from view. He had said only a few words but Valuska felt they were ample proof of the director’s rare eloquence and the uniqueness of the circus (… ‘that a director should take such a fond farewell from his audience …!’), furthermore, from the crescendo of murmuring that immediately followed he concluded — a little frightened perhaps — that he was not alone in appreciating such a marvel. Immediately, that is to say, because the rumble grew louder as it passed across the square, and as it did so he wished the director would return to offer a few commonplace explicatory remarks on the fantastic monster or about the company itself so as to lighten the air of mystery that had gathered about them. He stood there in the dark, not comprehending what people around him were saying, nervously adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, waiting for the commotion, because that was what it had become, to stop. He suddenly remembered the hea