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looking up.
    If only Miklós could have been there.

INTERLUDE
    O NCE THERE WAS A POOR MAN WHO LIVED IN THE Grimwall Mountains and worked in the mines. He had about three hundred children, so you can imagine that he was pretty poor. Well, the youngest was a lad named Mózes, who was the handsomest youth you have ever seen.
    One day, the poor man hears that the King is looking for a handsome youth to be the husband for his daughter, who is just getting to marriageable age. So he says, “Mózes, you must go to the city and become the husband of the King’s daughter, or else your old father and all of your brothers and sisters will starve to death.” So, being a dutiful son, he went off.
    He hadn’t been traveling more than a week and a day when he saw a calf lying by the side of the road, and there were two dzur just about to pounce on it. Well, Mózes felt sorry for the calf, so he walked right up to it, past the dzur, and carried it away. (Well, he was strong, too.)
    He was walking along with the calf, when suddenly the cow comes up to him. “Ho there,” it says, “that is my calf you have there!”
    “Well then, mother,” he says, “you may have it back, for I have just saved it from two dzur.”
    And the cow says, “If that is true, I will help you as best I may, but if you have lied to me and were taking my calf to be slaughtered, I will gore you to death.” (In those days cows had horns.) So she asks the calf, and the calf tells her that what Mózes said was true. “Very well, young Mózes,” she said. “How should I help you?”
    “Oh, mother,” says Mózes, “I am to try to marry the King’s daughter so my father and my brothers and sisters won’t starve to death. How can I do this?”
    “Well,” says the cow, “you are handsome enough. But the King will never see you dressed as you are.” And, quick as thought, she made him beautiful garments of silver. He thanked her, and went on his way to the city.
    He got there and was sent in to see the King, who said, “You are handsome enough,” so he introduced him to his daughter, whose name was Rózsa. Well, Rózsa was the prettiest girl who ever lived on either side of any mountain. She looked at him, and he looked at her, and bells rang, and everything else you can imagine. You can bet they were as much in love as anyone ever was!
    So it was all set, except the King said, “Who is your father, Mózes, so we can invite him to the wedding?” And when Mózes said, “He is a poor man who works in the mines and has three hundred children,” the King was mad as a Fásbot bull and tore out his beard.
    When he had calmed down just a little, he said, “All right, Mózes, if you want to marry my daughter, you must do three things for me. First, you must make the River flow backward. Come to me when you have done that.”
    Right away, Mózes went to see Rózsa and told her what her father had said. “Leave it to me, handsome Mózes,” she said. And
she went over to her window and hummed a song that sounded like a flock of bluejays. Pretty soon a tall lady comes into the room. “What do you want, pretty Rózsa?” she says. “Oh, Demon Goddess, I want to marry Mózes, but my father won’t consent until he turns the River backward.” So the lady says, “Well, Mózes, how tall am I?”
    Mózes says, “Why, you are twice as tall as I am.”
    And the lady says, “You are a clever lad!” and has her demons jump into the River and kick up such waves that it seems to run backward.
    Well, the next day, Mózes goes to the King, and he says, “I see you have done what I told you to. Now let us see if you can make the stars shine during the day.”
    Well, Mózes runs up to see Rózsa and tells her about it. She just says, “Leave it to me, handsome Mózes.” Then she goes to the window and hums a song that sounds like a flock of sparrows. Pretty soon an old lady comes to the window and says, “What do you want, pretty Rózsa?” “Oh, Demon Goddess,”