Sunflower by Gyula Krudy Page A

superannuated watchdog. There were chairs that limped like grandfather himself. The cupboard had a vertiginous stance, prone to fainting spells like a fat old lady. The lamps gave a tired light, the walls were crumbling, windowpanes cracked without being touched, the carpets shed knots like hair falling from a head and the chimney emitted laborious puffs of smoke, as if tired of life. Everyone and everything was getting ready to leave the place like rovers at a tavern when the wine gets tiresome after the dreams of ecstasy wear thin. The portraits on the wall, once viewed with such youthful pride, had yellowed to the point of unrecognizability. The ideals carried in the heart, the colorful chords, solitary caterwaulings and songs hummed by one’s lonesome self had all turned into a meditation unrolled like some rare, treasured rug in the quiet hours around midnight. The wisdom of books, the dust of sunsets, the puppylike energy of the morning hours, had all faded away like the used-up toys of childhood.
    Such reclusiveness, if intruded upon, comes charging out of its cave brandishing a club, like a hermit aroused from his dreams. One’s mood reaches the freezing point, and becomes bearish, like a black cloud over the woods. At night the wind howls like some terrible hellhound immune to ordinary bullets. The furniture, as a rule so obedient, now turns obtrusive so that the room’s inhabitant bumps knees and elbows against fiendishly protruding edges. The mirror’s reflection grows faint, or perhaps the face itself does, taking on an acrid, fastidious look like that of a cobwebbed old daguerreotype set by sentimental hands on a headstone. In the pupil of the eye tiny, swimming dots appear: they are rowboats steered by melancholy boatmen conveying luggage and traveler—departing life—from the shore to the vast old bark awaiting.
    At times like these the quiet man opted to die.
    By way of the violin’s melodies he took his leave of all that was pleasing and dear to him. Friendly faces cropped up in the hedgerows of miniscule black musical notes. Green mansions, porches wreathed in wild grape, stretching greyhounds, loud, friendly greetings, merry eyes and fancy bow ties. Men, companions who raised their glasses in a toast to homeland or womanhood. White table linen, cool arbors, fine, lingering autumns, frost-nipped leaves, orchard scents and places where he had been happy without being aware of his happiness. Years that yawned leisurely, poplar-bordered walking paths, rippling waterways, playfully curling chimney smoke, distant creaking of the well windlass, brown gateways and bedsteads that promised wonderful, untroubled dreams. The odor of fur on a winter’s journey, a tavern room redolent with marjoram, a lady’s name traced on a frosty windowpane, and a lingering pause over a small footprint in the freshly fallen snow. Women, glowing white under Christmas trees, indolent women whose soft flesh was made for embraces, romantic girls who tied their garters with fancy ribbons, reddish streaks in blonde hair and rings on slender fingers whose touch meant happiness once upon a time. Prayerbooks full of devotions, crucifixes at crossroads, high masses complete with kettledrum celebrated in childhood, playful strolls on the castle hill, girls with firm calves, and tiny earlobes that he could no longer place. Illnesses that were so good to recover from, convalescence like a breath of spring air, the buzz of the alarm clock signaling frozen dawns that smelled of the crypt, the coachmen’s ample capes exuding the scents of the road, and the mysterious bearing of the lady who happens to be your fellow passenger. Memorable hounds and majestic trees in the corner of a courtyard, strange old men, red autumnal twilights, birds’ cries and storytelling old women...All of life swept by during the violin’s play. Now Mr. Álmos-Dreamer was ready to die. He sat in the armchair, wrapped a rosary