The place: a tavern/restaurant called the Old Vienna, on Király Street in the Sixth District of Budapest, the time: a winter afternoon in the early 1920's, after the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A table company of eight, including the Chairman, the Deacon, the Editor, the Captain and others, arrives to top off an all-night bender. At another table sit three mysterious foreign visitors, the "Prince", the "General", and the "King". The proprietors, Mrs and Mr Weisz, do their best to accommodate these guests. A rooster is hypnotized by the Captain, a Porter fetches a bottle of kosher brandy, an insolent Barber is ostracized by the assembled company, and an itinerant Vendor is relieved of his wares. Nothing much happens, and everything happens: The World Goes On... Krúdy's art consists of observing, noting, and annotating these seemingly trivial occurrences, and arranging them into a composition that compares in scope and texture the corresponding chapters of Joyce's Ulysses.
"Open any of his books and let your awareness be permeated by this ceaselessly flowing music that resounds unabated from a hidden workshop where memory meets consciousness... I know of no other writer who sensed reality with such unerring certainty while at the same time consciously denying the validity of the laws of reality in the realms of imagination, memory and desire - those deeper reaches of life. ... Krúdy's oeuvre will emerge in time as a timeless monument carved of some mysterious material... A magician lived among us, who could see through walls."
Sándor Márai
