His own humble position and meagre means prevented him from applying for the title of royal and imperial chamberlain, a title upon which, according to his ancestry, he could none the less make every lawful claim. But this never disturbed him in the least. Not a man of outward vanity, he was interested in the principle alone, in itself sufficient to swell his secret self-esteem.

By the time he reached fifty, his work had been complete. He had traced the lineage of every last Vajkay and Bozsó, dead or alive. What remained to be done? Browsing over sheets of paper, onionskin and parchment, he would sit in his study for hours on a creaky couch draped with a Turkish rug, rapidly losing its colour in the stuffy, museumlike air. Here he'd ruminate about the future.

But all the future seemed to hold for certain was the prospect of his approaching death. Of this simple fact he would speak with all the callous indifference and alarming objectivity of an old man, often bringing his wife and daughter to the brink of tears. On the tomb of his long-departed parents he set a stone of dark-brown marble, engraved in gold lettering with the words: The Vajkay Family Vault. He took care of the grave, planted four box shrubs beside it and regularly watered the turf. He even painted the bench where he would sit and muse during his visits to the cemetery.

It was, he announced, his wish to be buried there when the time came, between his mother and father. He should be laid in state in the guest room, the hall should be draped in black and only two priests should perform the funeral. He kept his will in a sealed envelope locked in the bottom drawer of his writing desk, and informed his wife of where it might be found when the time arrived. The last years of his life he spent increasingly in preparation for his death.

The only time he'd betray any anxiety at all was when a member of his funeral society died. Then he'd hurry off to town with his funeral register–his “little book,” as he called it–to pay his society dues. Back at home he'd leaf once more through the register, checking that the fee had been duly entered, and with the yellowing, trembling fingers of a hand on which the hard, calciferous veins stood out blue and swollen, he'd point to the appropriate columns and figures, indicating to his family that all was in order.

Now, pacing along the asphalt, he no longer carried the white striped woollen blanket or water flask he had prepared for his daughter's journey. Yet he seemed to shoulder a far greater burden. His wife walked frailly beside him as if seeking refuge in the shadow of the walls.

School children scurried through the streets, returning from the First of September Book Fair. They had been to exchange their old school books for new ones and were now chattering and laughing about their teachers, especially the two strictest, Mályvády, the maths and physics master, and Szunyogh, the old drunkard. Classes had not yet begun. Today was the first day of term.

It took the elderly couple the best part of half an hour to trudge back to Petőfi Street where the asphalt came to an end and open ditches, overrun with weeds, gaped on either side of the road. Mihály Veres, their stalwart neighbour, sat out in the street, awl and paring knife in his hands. Veres was a cobbler, a struggling grey-haired craftsman who toiled slowly and moodily from dawn till dusk in his dank subterranean workshop, reached by three brick steps down from the pavement. The musty smell of size wafted out into the street and would even infiltrate the Vajkays’ house. The cobbler's horde of rowdy children ran riot in the broad and dirty yard between the pigsties and the empty sheds.

The Vajkay house stood opposite.

This spruce, whitewashed building now slumbered in silence. The five front windows stood shut, the cream lace of the drawn curtains draped over the window cushions which, even in the heat of summer, were never removed.

Ákos rummaged in his pocket for the string of keys he always carried with him and opened the black lattice gate. They passed inside.

He closed the living-room door behind him and carefully replaced the thick wall hanging that was draped, winter and summer, to keep out the draught, from two brass nails on the back of the door.

A hollow interior received them. It was only then they spoke.

“How will we bear it?” said the woman in the narrow hallway, tears already welling in her eyes.

“We'll manage,” Father replied.

“Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” the woman mumbled, as if telling her beads, “then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday–” here she paused to sigh–“then Friday. A week. A whole week, Father. Whatever will we do without her?'

Ákos made no reply.