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future. Kornél lay on his back, clasped his two dirt-stained little hands together in prayer, but the words that once he could say even in his sleep would not come, and all he could utter was: woof-woof …
    In the sky that rapidly turned dark, the corona of the light-ball of the sun darkened by degrees, as if another, black sun were thrusting itself across it, each lilac-blue flame a tiny javelin stabbing the little boy in the eyes, which he then shut, as did the dog. It was the end, they both thought. Under Kornél’s eyelids were rings of fire, behind them shades of images from the past that he had never seen but that still seemed somehow familiar. Had he the time, he might be able to unravel their meaning, but thick and fast there came the throb of nothingness.
    The doctor with the goatee washed his hands and proclaimed the verdict:
    “The end is nigh!”
    Mrs. Sternovszky buried her face in her kerchief. “What will become of us if … ?” She did not finish the sentence. Her sister embraced her tightly, as if afraid that she might crumble into small pieces.
    She drew away. “Doctor, how much longer …”
    “I cannot foretell the future, but … not very long.”
    “But how long … Days?”
    “Days or hours. Who knows? I’ll be back at nightfall,” he said, and left. His fee was handed to him in a buff envelope by the maid in the entrance hall where the flowers for the patient were arrayed in vases of various size, their fragrance lying heavy upon the air.
    The dying man was gasping for air. His wound had not healed one jot, though the doctor had doused it thoroughly with some yellow powder for the inflammation. He could see no reason to apply a bandage, but he did so nonetheless, just to comfort the relatives. In any case, it was better if they did not see the wound itself. The blade had penetrated just above the rib cage and below the collarbone, at an unfortunate angle, so that it pierced the lungs and very likely reached the pericardium. At this stage science can do no more, and all is in the hands of the heavenly powers.
    Mrs. Sternovszky returned to her husband’s room and leaned over his bed. “My dear husband is thirsty perhaps? Some fresh lemon juice? Should I have the maid squeeze you some?”
    He shook his head.
    “A bite or two to eat? A light soup, perhaps?”
    Another shake of the head.
    “Does my dear husband have any other wish?”
    A smile formed across the sunken cheeks: “Thank you, no.” And he closed his eyes. If only they would leave him alone in the throes of his death, he thought. There is no hope. If his misfortune were not the result of his own stupidity, it would perhaps be easier to accept. What will happen to the glassworks once he offers up his soul to his Maker? Will his wife be able to look after it and make it prosper? He heard news that the smelting ovens were not working, and this distressed him. Just because I’m dying there is no reason to let the fire go out! But the masterglassmaker, Imre Farkas junior, who should have had charge of production in the glassworks, was then sitting in irons, in prison, because he had attacked the inspector. This Imre Farkas had been a difficult man from the start, too quick to anger and too quick to act.
    A painful sigh rent his throat. His wife was once again trying to tempt him with food and drink and kind words. Once again he did not tell her to go. It is the right of one’s wife to be there when … yes. He tried to work out what day it was, the twentieth or the twenty-first of March, but he was confused about the time and the day. All his life he had been acutely sensitive to the year, the season, the week, even the day and the hour. He often amazed his wife and children by his accurate recall of, say, the date of the great fall of snow in Felvincz: the nineteenth day of January in the year of our lord 1738, and he even knew they had been snowed in until the twenty-eighth.
    The memorable days of his life he was wont to recall