Provaznyik was the doctor’s name and his impromptu appearance, while unheralded, did not surprise Eszter one bit, but not for the simple reason that he lived nearby, but because it seemed to be an unmistakable sign that his most terrifying fears and apprehensions were justified; it justified his notions of what he was about to see and perfectly fitted into the picture in which a doctor’s presence needed no explanation, for, after all, what else would he be doing other than the round of the streets with the soldiers, separating the wounded from those whom Mrs Harrer had earlier referred to as the victims. ‘If I were you,’ Provaznyik shook his head once they had attained what he judged to be a reasonable distance between themselves and the others and he had stopped, ‘I wouldn’t bother to look. Such sights are not for people like you, believe me …’ he stated with all the objective authority of an expert who knows that the less the layman understands of such spectacles the more hysterically he tends to react, though experience told him that the most kindly intended warning often elicited the most directly contrary behaviour. And this was precisely the case here, for Eszter was by no means deterred by his well-meant advice, quite the opposite in fact, for if there had remained in him the merest capacity for self-control, the last two sentences obliterated it and he tried to wrench himself free of the doctor’s grip so as to rush directly over to the crowd and, if necessary, break through the ring by force, but since Provaznyik was not prepared to relinquish his grip quite so easily, he made a few more puny efforts to free himself then suddenly gave up the struggle, bowed his head, and asked only, ‘What happened?’ ‘I can’t tell you anything for certain yet,’ the doctor answered gravely after taking a little thought, ‘strangulation seems likely, or that at least is what the immediate evidence seems to indicate. The poor victim,’ he relaxed his grip, and threw his arms wide in indignation, ‘obviously cried out and the murderers had to stop the noise.’ But Eszter was beyond hearing the end of his speech and had set out towards the crowd again, so Provaznyik, satisfied that the other had calmed down a little, no longer tried to prevent him but merely gave a wave of resignation and followed him, while Eszter, though not entirely calm, was certainly not the impetuous force he had been; he did not run and, having reached the ring, did not push anyone out of the way, but merely touched the shoulders of a few of them so that he and the doctor might be let through. People turned and drew silently aside, immediately forming a corridor he could pass down through the tight ring which immediately closed about him leaving no way out, imprisoning him like a trap, so he was forced to look at the body lying spread-eagled on the ground, its arms flung wide, the mouth open, the eyes starting from their sockets as the head lolled over the edge of the pavement into the gutter, and was obliged to meet that frightened fixed stare which was no longer in any position to betray the perpetrator of the deed, the head that could no longer speak but would appear merely to be listening, having turned to stone, like his own that could no longer tell what it found most shocking: to see and understand the significance of ‘someone’s life leaving the body for ever’ in such a terrible way, or — though at this particular moment the thing he saw before him was more than familiar — to discover that it wasn’t what he expected to find. The corpse did not have a coat, only a flannel suit and a green sweater that had become completely twisted, and, since it was impossible to know how long it had lain here, it seemed very likely that it would soon be frozen if it wasn’t so already, a matter only Provaznyik was competent to judge, and he, having avoided Eszter, was already engaged in his presumably interrupted examination, and the crowd drew closer, following the doctor’s every movement, and began to mumble speculatively about whether the leg or the wrist or the neck might break if it were lifted — as if the most important question was whether the body could be transported or not. As a consequence the space in the middle shrank even further and the guardians of the corpse, two soldiers engaged in an attempt to talk to a woman who appeared incapable of speech, interrupted their interrogation and called on the bystanders to step back, or else, they warned, ‘they would be made to disperse’ and by the time people had grudgingly retreated, they themselves had given up trying to elicit a few inarticulate words from the witness, whose face, in any case, was almost wholly covered by the handkerchief she was sobbing into, and had also started watching Provaznyik as he gently flexed the dead one’s jaw and then proceeded tenderly down the limbs. Eszter was aware of none of this, all his energy being absorbed in the effort of wrenching his eyes from the other’s horrific gaze, though he could only avoid this petrifying image of death when the doctor, as he moved around the body, interposed his own form between them for a couple of minutes; from that moment on no one existed for him except Provaznyik; his eyes were practically glued to him so he shouldn’t have to confront that image again, not for an instant, and because he was sure that this ad hoc coroner had not so much misunderstood as deliberately misled him before, he skirted the corpse with him and once the other got down on his haunches in order to continue the examination, he stood behind him and bellowed, ‘Valuska, doctor! Tell me, have you found Valuska?!’ At mention of his name the crowd suddenly stopped their mumbling, the woman cast a panicky glance at the soldiers and they glanced at each other as if this precisely had been their topic of conversation, and, while the doctor, who didn’t even glance up at Eszter, shook his head (then whispered to him by way of warning, ‘But from what I hear it’s not a good idea to talk about that now …’), one of them took out a sheet of paper and ran his finger down the lines of writing, stabbing at it at one point, and showed it to his colleague, who then fixed his eyes on Eszter and boomed at him, ‘János Valuska?’ Yes,’ Eszter turned to them, ‘he’s the one I mean, the very man,’ at which they called on him to tell them everything he knew of the ‘individual in question’, and since he understood from this that the two soldiers would supply the information just now denied him by Provaznyik, he replied by asking them a question (‘What I want to know is, is he alive?’), then launched into his prepared speech of complicated explanations in defence of Valuska, but didn’t get very far. They quickly let him know that he should stop right now, as, in the first place, they were the ones asking the questions round here, and, in the second place, they were not interested in ‘angelic beings, postmen’s cloaks or pots’, and if he meant to divert the attention of the authorities he was not helping himself ‘by rambling on like this’, all they wanted to know was Valuska’s whereabouts, where he was, but Eszter, misunderstanding them, replied that they could rest assured, there was no better place for the person they were seeking than his own house, at which point they lost patience, looked at each other furiously, and Eszter could see he was not likely to find an answer here either. They might note, he assured them, that his own position more or less accorded with theirs; he too thought that one had to take the greatest pains to ensure that any decision made was one that served the interests of people at large, they could certainly count on him there, but they should also understand that in order to be able to help them he should be told the truth about Valuska, and, since he could see that they were not going to say anything about this matter of such central importance to him (although it was their duty to do so) they should not be surprised that, until he received a direct answer to his question, he was not going to answer any more of theirs. The soldiers did not respond to this, they just looked at each other, then one of them nodded and said, ‘Right then, I’ll stay here,’ and his companion seized Eszter by the arm with no more than a, ‘Let’s go, old man!’ and, pushing him ahead, led him through the wall of staring faces. Eszter made no protest as he thought that this sudden turn of events meant they had bowed to his demands and accepted his ultimatum, and since his rough treatment did not change the nub of the matter he didn’t mind that it resembled the treatment meted out to prisoners; so they went some thirty or forty yards until the soldier shouted at him to turn left and he was obliged to leave Karácsony Street and head in the direction of the canal, and though he had no idea where they were going, he was happy to obey