d cook’s words and the conversation in front of the White Collar Club, and since the sounds of dissatisfaction had still not abated, he had a momentary intimation that the apparently needless fears of the local population might not be so needless after all. He couldn’t, however, afford to wait until the rumblings of disappointment died away, nor for the reasons for it to become apparent; unfortunately he had to leave without properly understanding it. Even after having pushed his way through the crowd to the opening of Honvéd Square he couldn’t quite understand it. And in any case … along the pavement on the way to Mrs Eszter’s dwelling … walking down those empty streets … his mind grew a little confused, one or other of the day’s events flashing before him, and he couldn’t see the meaning of any of them. On the one hand, memories of the day’s excursion with Mr Eszter filled him with sadness; thoughts of the town and the square, on the other, caused him to suffer acute pangs of guilt for having wasted his time: he alternated so rapidly between these two states of mind, both conditions so remote from his usual experience (being cast into other people’s lives, as it were, rather than marooned in his own), that he was utterly disorientated by the dizzying succession of images to the extent that nothing remained in his mind except indecision and incomprehension and an ever more desperate desire to ignore both indecision and incomprehension. On top of that, opening the garden gate he felt an all-surpassing terror sweep over him as he realized that it was long past four o’clock and that Mrs Eszter, with her implacable nature, would certainly not forgive him. But forgive him she did — not only that but it looked as if the presence of guests had diminished the importance of his mission, since she seemed hardly to be listening to his account, simply nodding irritably, leaving Valuska standing at the threshold, preparing to give details of the successful commencement of their campaign then forestalling him by announcing that ‘in view of the current serious circumstances, the whole matter had, for the moment, lost its importance’, then pointing to a stool and indicating strictly that he should remain silent. It was only then that Valuska realized he had mistimed his arrival and that there was some possibly vital conference in progress, and as he didn’t understand his role in all this, nor why the woman — her business with him being over — did not simply send him away, he sat down and clutched his knees tightly, fearful of making the slightest sound. If this was really the case and he had in fact blundered into an important meeting the committee certainly presented a strange spectacle. The mayor was dashing about the room, shaking his head in the most grief-stricken manner, then, having taken two or three such turns about the room, cried out (‘To have come to this, that a leading official should have to lurk in the bushes in people’s gardens …!!’) and, purple with rage, first tightened then loosened the knot of his tie. There was not much you could say about the chief of police since he was lying, red-faced, a damp handkerchief spread across his forehead, wearing his uniform overcoat, perfectly immobile and staring stiffly at the ceiling, on the bed, which exuded a strong stench of alcohol. But it was Mrs Ezter herself who was behaving the most strangely for she wasn’t saying anything but was obviously lost in deep thought (she kept biting her lips), now glancing at her watch, now looking significantly in the direction of the door. Valuska was overawed and sat in his place, and though, if for no other reason than his obligation to Mr Eszter, he should certainly have gone, he did not dare move a muscle in case he disturbed the tense proceedings. However, nothing happened for a long time and the mayor must have covered a good furlong walking up and down, when Mrs Eszter stood up, cleared her throat and announced that, since there was no point in waiting any longer, she had a valuable suggestion to make. ‘We should send him,’ she said, pointing to Valuska, ‘so that, while we are waiting for Harrer to arrive, we should have a clear view of the situation.’ ‘The difficult situation! The difficult situation, if you please!’ the mayor cut in, stopping dead in his tracks, with a most bitter expression, then, shaking his head again, he said he doubted that ‘this otherwise commendable young man’ was up to the task. She, however (‘I, however …!’), did not and gave him a brief, superior smile that did not invite dissent, then, turning to Valuska with the utmost solemnity, Mrs Eszter explained to him that all that was required of him was that he should go to Kossuth Square and, ‘in the interest of us all’, should carefully observe what was happening there and bring report of it back to ‘this crisis committee, in the simplest possible terms’. ‘Delighted to oblige!’ Valuska rose from his stool, having immediately understood that ‘the interest of us all’ concerned his friend, and that was why the committee had met, then, uncertainly, not knowing whether he was doing the right thing, stood to attention and announced that he was all the more prepared to offer his services since Kossuth Square was where he had just come from, and he felt obliged to clarify a point or two, specifically relating to the strange mood of the crowd. ‘Strange mood?!’ The chief of police sat up for a moment on hearing this, then collapsed back on to the bed. In a faint voice he asked Mrs Eszter to dampen the handkerchief on his brow again and to bring him paper and pencil so that he should be able to make proper notes, since he could see that this was a matter that bore heavily on his official duties as a policeman and that he should ‘assume command of the situation’. The woman looked at the mayor and he looked back at her in quiet agreement that — the invalid being supplied with another damp handkerchief in the meantime — it would be ‘best to preserve calm’, so they beckoned Valuska over and Mrs Eszter sat down beside the bed, paper and pencil in her hand. ‘So little time!’ the chief sighed in anguish, and when the woman retorted, ‘There’s enough,’ a wave of anger ran over him and, in a condescending manner, like a professional among amateurs, he asked methodically, ‘More-of-what?’ ‘Enough time, enough place. I’ve written it all down,’ Mrs Eszter responded, irritated. ‘I was asking him,’ the chief nodded bitterly in the direction of Valuska, ‘What time? What place? Where? When? Note down his answer, not mine.’ The woman turned her head away in fury, clearly in a state of extraordinary tension, unwilling to say a word for the moment, then, recovering a little, she gave the perpetually moving mayor a meaningful look then glanced over to Valuska and gestured that he should ‘simply get on with it’. Valuska shifted from foot to foot, not understanding what precisely he was being expected to do, and, afraid that the invalid’s anger might at any moment be turned against him, attempted to inform the company ‘in the simplest possible terms’ of what he had seen in the square, but after a few sentences, when he reached the part about his new acquaintance, he felt he had made a mistake, and indeed the others stopped him there. ‘Don’t go rattling on about about your impressions, what you thought or heard or imagined,’ the chief cast his melancholy red-eyes at him, ‘stick to objective facts! The colour of his eyes …? How old he was …? How tall …? Outstanding characteristics …? I won’t even bother,’ he waved in resignation, ‘to ask you for his mother’s name.’ Valuska was forced to confess that he was indeed rather uncertain about precise data of that kind, excusing himself with the plea that it was getting dark just at that time, and though he announced that he would gather all his wits and concentrate harder in case he should remember anything else, however he tried even his friend’s image seemed to consist of nothing but a hat and a grey overcoat. To general relief, but particularly his, the invalid was at that point overtaken by the healing powers of sleep, so the volley of ever more dissatisfied and ever more difficult questions came to a sudden end, and since the pedantic and impersonal level of enquiry to which he felt unequal was clearly no longer to be enforced, despite his anxiety he succeeded in concluding his account and clearing things up a little. He described the appearance of the director from the cigar through to the elegant fur coat and repeated his memorable words of farewell; he described the circumstances of the man’s departure and how this was received by the crowd; and, since he was convinced that the committee before him would interpret the foregoing events in this light, he admitted that, owing to the conditions in the market square and the town generally, he was quite at a loss what to do as far as Mr Eszter was concerned. If this outstanding scholar were to recover his health and retain his powers of creation, he needed, above all, conditions of absolute calm, calm, repeated Valuska, and not that ever more intense, and to him wholly incomprehensible, sense of agitation he had unavoidably (‘though I did everything I could to avoid it …!’) encountered this afternoon on finally leaving his house. Everyone knew that for a man blessed with such a high degree of sensitivity even the most insignificant signs of disorder were likely to be harmful and depressing, and because of this, Valuska confessed, especially because he had seen how the universal anxiety had communicated itself to the crowd in the market square, his every thought was for Mr Eszter. He understood perfectly that his own role and significance in the business in hand, compared to that of Mrs Eszter and the committee, amounted to little short of nothing, nevertheless he begged them to place their trust in him, to be assured that they could rely on him to do whatever they demanded of him. He would have liked to add that for him personally Mr Eszter’s good was of paramount importance, and, having got so far, to state how greatly he himself was reassured by the fact that the fate of the town (and therefore of his master) was in the hands of something as impressive as the committee he saw before him, but unfortunately he was unable to express either sentiment, for the woman silenced him with a single stern gesture, saying, ‘Very good, indeed you are perfectly right, we can’t sit round chattering, we must do something.’ They made him repeat what he was to do, and he, excitedly, like a child reciting his tables, went through all the salient points — which were to note ‘the size of the crowd … the atmosphere … and the appearance, should it appear, of a certain monster’; then, once they had given up the idea of explaining this last admonition and made him solemnly promise to be both thorough and quick, he promised to return in a matter of minutes and left the committee room on tiptoe lest he should wake the occupant of the bed, who, just at that moment, groaned in his sleep. Wholly immersing himself in the dignity of having been trusted by the committee, or rather in the sense of relief that an entire ‘crisis committee’ was supporting Mr Eszter through his trials and tribulations, he carried on tiptoeing through the courtyard and only remembered to assume his normal gait once he had reached the street and closed the rickety old gate behind him. He couldn’t positively state that the visit to Mrs Eszter was exactly reassuring but at least the woman’s decisiveness had exercised a healing power which drove away anxiety and uncertainty, and though he hadn’t received an answer to any of his questions, he felt that here, at last, was someone to whom he could safely entrust his affairs. Unlike the earlier situation, where he — the unworldly innocent — had to understand and decide things by himself, he was now entrusted with a single unambiguous task, to accomplish that which he had been asked to do, and this wouldn’t, after all, be so terribly difficult, he thought. He mentally ran through the various elements of that task — ten times at least — and, before long, felt lighter in his mind concerning the matter of the unspecified ‘monster’ (having worked out that he was supposed to be looking at the whale again); he felt lighter, and, remembering the calm gaze of the woman, felt the once-disturbing fog of confusion concerning his entire mission lifting at the same time, and so, when he practically collided with Mr Harrer at the entrance to the square, the latter having addressed him in passing (‘Everything will be all right now, but it would be much better if a young man like you were not hanging about in the street …!’), he simply smiled back and vanished into the multitude though he would have been all too happy to explain his presence (‘… no, you’re mistaken, Mr Harrer, this is precisely where I should be …!’). The square was now lit by hundreds of little fires, and here and there groups of twenty or thirty freezing bodies were warming themselves at the flames, which leapt higher and higher, and since this made it easier to pass through them and to see everything a little more clearly, it took Valuska only a few unobstructed minutes to take stock of the scene before him. A few minutes without obstruction perhaps, but this ‘thorough examination’ brought no immediate enlightenment as to the sheer size of the crowd (what detail was he supposed to look out for if everything was as before?) and observing these apparently peaceful groups loitering about the fires, rubbing their hands, he felt there was nothing particularly threatening here, not even in ‘the atmosphere’. ‘No one is moving, the mood seems fine,’ he tried the words out, but they rang ever more false, and as they did so, the nature of his mission appeared ever more painful. Observing these people in secret, walking among them as if he were some enemy, suspecting them of unnamed felonies and murders, taking their most innocent gestures as evidence of an evil intent — Valuska immediately realized that he was incapable of carrying this programme through. If, in his previous state of fright, he had found the woman’s sobering power a source of strength, then a few minutes among these people gathered around the friendly warmth of bonfires — resulting in a curious and sudden sense of domesticity — relieved him of the minor but embarrassing burden of misunderstanding, a misunderstanding shared by the head cook, Nadabán and his friends and Mrs Eszter herself, implying that the cure for ‘anxiety induced by a need for a rational explanation’ (and indeed his anxiety concerning Mr Eszter too) might be found in the circus and its long-suffering audience. The undoubtedly mysterious circus and the mysteriously loyal audience, the entire mystery, Valuska admitted to himself as the vision grew clearer, might have a simple and perfectly obvious explanation. He joined a group by one of the fires but the silence of his companions as they hung their heads staring at the flames or occasionally stole a glance in the direction of the circus wagon no longer perturbed him because he clearly understood that the mystery consisted of nothing but the whale, the first sight of the whale that he himself had seen and experienced that very morning. Was it so strange, he thought as he gazed about him with a smile on his face — and he would happily have hugged every single one of them in his relief — that everyone here had been as captivated as he was by the extraordinary creature? Was it any wonder that, deep down inside themselves, they believed it might be worth waiting on some extraordinary event in its proximity? He was so delighted to feel ‘the scales falling from his eyes’, he wanted to share the experience, and therefore declared in conspiratorial tones to those around him that he found ‘the endless wealth of nature’ overwhelming, quite overwhelming, he said, adding that such a sign, on a day like this, pointed to ‘the apparently lost unity of things’—then, not waiting for a reply, he waved goodbye to the others and continued on his way among the crowd. His first impulse was to rush back with the news, but according to his instructions he was to survey the whale too (‘The monster …!’ he smiled at the fearful epithet), and so, in order that his account to the committee should be as full as possible, he determined to steal another quick glance at ‘the Emissary of the One