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hair-pieces hanging from a length of string.
    Beside the door in the darkest corner of the room, facing north, hung Skylark's mirror.
    Everything was engulfed in silence.
    “How empty it all seems,” sighed Mother, gesturing with an open hand.
    Ákos did not know what to say. As if, over the long years of their marriage, he had lost the power to initiate conversation, he simply repeated:
    “How empty.”
    They went back into the dining room.
    There on the sideboard sparkled their treasures–“Souvenirs of Lake Velence,” “Souvenirs of Lake Balaton,” “Glasses from Karlsbad'–accumulated over many years and preserved with unconscious piety. All kinds of other odds and ends glittered alongside them, worthless merchandise now utterly useless and inappropriate: fancy bazaar jugs, tiny china dogs, silver-plated goblets, gold-plated angels, all the ghastly icons of provincial life, dusted every day and assembled on small shelves in rows above the back of the sofa. They trembled when anyone sat down, and toppled on to the chest of anyone who unsuspectingly lay down on the sofa beneath them. And then the pictures; how painfully they too stared back at the old couple now. Dobozy, the Hungarian hero, fleeing from the Turks, clasping his wife around her naked breast; the first Hungarian cabinet; and the baldheaded Batthyány, down on his knees with his arms flung wide, waiting for the murderous bullet of his Austrian executioners.
    “Let's go into the garden,” the woman proposed.
    “Yes, the garden,” echoed Ákos.
    They went into the garden. Sweltering, yellow heat greeted them outside. Delicate white kittens pranced across the emerald lawn. A large bowl of water stood beside the well, the sunlight making the colours of the rainbow through the glasses inside. A sunflower on a crooked stem lifted its sun-worshipping head to the blazing west. Horse-chestnut trees, acacias and sumachs rose up behind. And still farther back, by the garden wall, a Virginia pokeweed showed off its dark, ripe berries.
    On Skylark's crochet bench they sat down side by side.
    “Poor thing,” said Mother, “at least it'll be a rest. And perhaps...” She did not continue.
    “Perhaps what?'
    “Perhaps someone might...turn up.”
    “What kind of someone?'
    “Someone,” Mother repeated timidly, “some...good fortune,” she added with an affecting, womanly boldness.
    Father looked away in irritation, ashamed to hear what he had so often heard in vain, had so often thought himself, yet knew would only ever lead to more humiliating fiascos and bitter disappointments. There was something vulgar about his wife's remark. He shrugged. Then, almost inaudibly, he muttered:
    “Absurd.”
    He reached for his pocket watch.
    “What time did he say?” he asked.
    “Who?'
    “Him,” the old man barked, and his wife immediately knew he was referring to Géza Cifra.
    “Five twenty.”
    “It's half past five,” said Father. “She'll have just got in.”
    The thought consoled them both a little. They rose from the bench and strolled among the lilac bushes where a stone dwarf stood on guard. At about this time they usually set off on their walks with Skylark, through the empty streets to the calvary cross and back. But not today. They walked around the garden several times, side by side, their pace quickening as they went. Ákos hoped the horses hadn't bolted on the plain and that Tiger hadn't bitten the girl. Mother ambled along beside him, sharing, and thus lightening, the burden of his thoughts. It felt as if that awful week–a week they'd have to spend alone–had already begun badly, very badly indeed. It all seemed so endless, hopeless and bleak.
    Skylark had promised to wire home the moment she arrived. They had written out the message in advance, so all she had to do was send it off. All it said was:
    “Arrived safely.”
    Dusk fell slowly. For a while they waited for the postman out in the garden, but unable to settle they went inside,