The Sterns pretended that they had gathered purely for a pleasant family meal-the usual jokes were heard, the usual toasts and good wishes. They tasted the firm’s finest wines, the cheeks of the men quickly turned rosy pink, white collars were unbuttoned. The fire in the hearth increased the perspiration whose penetrating odor could not be blotted out by that of the food, even as the number of courses inexorably increased to eight. When they had drunk the sorbet, the men moved over to the library to smoke cigars. In the room there was no trace of either books or of shelves; the carpenters had still a great deal to do here. The cigars and pipe-lighters had been prepared on the green baize card-table, in front of the seven-branched gold candlestick. For a while only satisfied noises of puffing and gentle wheezing could be heard.

Then Móricz Stern rose to speak. “Now that we are all of us here, every mature and responsible male in the Stern clan, let us consider how we can maintain ourselves and our families intact during the coming disaster.”

“What kind of disaster?” asked Mendel Berda-Stern.

Indulgent smiles all around by way of reply.

Móricz Stern placed his palm on his neck; Mendel Berda-Stern could feel the serious tremor in his fingers. “You cannot yet know. Perhaps up your way, in the north, there is still peace. But here the dam of mindless passions has been breached, since they voted into law our equality of rights.”

“Who voted?”

“Parliament! Where have you been living, young man? Since December 17th last, the inhabitants of Hungary of the Israelite faith have been declared entitled to exercise the same civic and political rights as the Christians. But this has not pleased all.”

Mendel Berda-Stern seemed to recall having heard something about this, but had immediately forgotten whatever it was. His life was spent in casinos, by card-tables: the intervening days were to him as other people’s nighttime rest. Suddenly he was seized by the same excitement as the others. Intimations of a negative kind had troubled him sometimes, but as he could not understand why, he took them to refer to himself and his betting. Now he learned how individual members of the Stern family had been attacked by riff-raff in various towns. Again and again the frightening word from the past came to people’s lips: “pogrom.” The image of smashed-up shops was painted in bright colors. The emporium in Tokay, too, had suffered such an attack a week earlier. Fortunately, neither here nor elsewhere had the members of the family suffered physically. “For the time being!” said Móricz Stern with a meaningful intonation.

The council of the heads of families decided that something must be done in the interests of their safety. This is what they wanted to think through today, this is why he, too, had been invited. “You, my dear boy, are undoubtedly one of us!” Móricz Stern added.

Mendel Berda-Stern was sweating profusely. He did not have the courage to say that he was a gambler, not a Jew. The Pohl family did not adhere to the traditions of the Israelites, as the practicing Jews were now called, and he did not live with Eleonora in a Jewish manner. Nonetheless he felt at home in this unpretentious room, where everything was reassuringly familiar, from the clouds of smoke to the hoarseness of the voices.

“It is a privilege of our first-born to know our history, looking back into the past, and sometimes into the future,” Móricz Stern continued. “We are members of one family. Let us join together into a common asset, without keeping anything back, what we each of us own separately!” and he looked at Mendel Berda-Stern.

There was silence, only the crackling of the burning logs of wood could be heard in the fireplace of uncarved stone, and the sound of breathing, and the little sucking noises on the cigars. Minutes passed before Mendel Berda-Stern realized that all eyes were on him. That was why he had been invited, to make public what he knew. He cleared his throat: “With your permission, it is difficult…” and he fell silent. He would have to review what he had seen or thought he had seen, and what conclusion was to be drawn from the various images. He remembered his computations based on the position of the stars and the signs obtained from the reading of the tarot, and the prophecies of the king of the prophets.

“Speak, even if what you have to say is of the most terrifying kind,” said Móricz Stern.

Mendel Berda-Stern blew his nose. “This is too great a burden for me. But I know, for example, that on the fourteenth day of November a boy will be born to us, to whom we shall give the name Sigmund, though he will prefer to call himself Sándor. This young child will, moreover, be born in Nagyvárad, though we have never been there and have no other business there…”

Móricz Stern was seized by visible excitement when he heard these words. “Nagyvárad?” he repeated with emphasis.

It became clear that Móricz Stern was contemplating whether it would be sensible for the family to collect all its valuables and emigrate, to a region where the Jews would be undisturbed. It was unclear though where such a region might be. Opposed to his view was that of the highly respected Lipót Stern. Lipót Stern, son of Mihály Stern, had become a famous Rabbi. Over on the far side of the country at Beremend he had been appointed deputy Rabbi and preacher of the community which, in view of his youthful age and limited experience, was regarded as a great honor. His first act had been to propose the building of a new school, whose syllabus he had himself devised, which was later accepted as a model by the Jewish communities of many nearby areas.

Lipót Stern’s view was that it was no use fleeing. The problem was that one section of the Jews of Hungary was alienated from its traditions, another part shrouded itself in them. These extreme modes of behavior give rise to justified negative feelings. “Let us rather approach with a pure heart the spirit of the homeland, and accept the threefold tendency: we are human beings, Hungarians, and Jews all in one. I quote the words of Rabbi Löw: ‘Emancipation and reform are intimately linked, those who want the first cannot reject the second.’ We must accept as our own the national ideals. Let us speak Hungarian in the synagogue, so that everyone can understand our words. If they can see what our intentions are, tempers will no longer flare.”

“Only by that time our houses and shops will have been destroyed, and it is by no means certain we shall survive the assaults of the people on the street!” countered Móricz Stern.

“We can in no way avoid our fate.”

“And if something happens to us, who will bring up our children?”

“Who will bring up the lilies of the field and the trees of the forests?”

The debate became more and more heated, and to Lipót Stern’s Talmudic arguments Móricz Stern gave practical answers, which made the Rabbi increasingly angry. His voice sharpened into shrillness, his elongated skull began to tremble violently. Foam came to his lips, his words halted, and he fell in a fit on the floor. Dr. Márton Stern, the surgeon, threw himself onto his body, forced his jaw open with the blade of a knife, pulled out his tongue, and through the space between the teeth poured in some medication from a flat little flask. This scared only Mendel Berda-Stern; the family had often witnessed such a scene. In a few minutes the Rabbi was back to his old self, his eyes clear, the lines on his face smoothed out, and the fit had no aftereffects of any kind. “Where was I?” he asked calmly.

“The parable of wine and honey,” said Dr. Márton Stern.

“Ah, yes. So you are all thoroughly conversant with my view. The Jews of Hungary must join together, whether they be of the orthodox or the neologue persuasion. We must go to the conference in Nagyvárad, where the formation of a national organization of Israelites must be the main item on the agenda.”