Viaszfigurák

Viaszfigurák by Cécile Tormay is a collection of short stories written in the early 20th century. The book weaves parable-like, symbolist tales about desire, fate, sacrifice, and the price of happiness, following shifting figures such as a merciless shopkeeper who deals in human destinies, mountain shepherds trapped by a blizzard, the famed courtesan Lais and her proud suitor, and a coastal village facing the sea’s peril. The opening of Viaszfigurák presents four vivid tableaux. In “Időtlen bolt,” a timeless shopkeeper—an avatar of Fate—sells “happiness” for terrible prices as customers pay with youth, honor, freedom, or love; only a mother buying joy for her child offers her own happiness, which the shopkeeper coldly accepts. “Fehér halál” shows a family snowbound on the Karst, where Ilia fells a hilltop cross for firewood to save them, and is left morally isolated by those he preserved. “A fuvola” reimagines Corinth: Lais recounts how a broken flute led her toward glitter and loss; Dorion takes her, scorns her with a single drachma “for the flute,” then later burns with longing as, behind closed doors, only a flute’s sob answers him. “A veszély” sets a storm-lashed harbor where women and old sailors watch the heaving sea for returning boats, the tension mounting as the first sails struggle home.

Summary written by Project Gutenberg, by machine.