ST. STEPHEN’S CROWN
(THE HOLY HUNGARIAN CROWN).
And I seemed to see again the mystic dusk of the Coronation Church, its pillars and arches, and there in front of the altar, set on purple velvet, the pale gold of the Crown.... I see the gray head of an aged peasant whose sharp Turanian features seem as if cut out with a chisel from the gloom of the church; the head bows, and his horny hand makes the sign of the cross on his breast.
November 25th.
My mother brought a porcelain figure into the room to-day. “It is broken,” she said, and put the Sévres shepherd and his tiny broken hand on the table. Its beauty filled me for a moment with extraordinary rapture: doubtless it appeared so lovely to me because nowadays everything we see is so very ugly and depressing.
“Of course I know it’s going to stay here with you for the winter,” my mother said with a slight reproach in her voice, reminding me of the many small commissions I forgot from time to time.
“I’ll take it at once ...” I said.
“There is no need for that; there is plenty of time if you are otherwise engaged.”
At that moment I felt I had no other task in the whole world but her little porcelain figure. I said goodbye and went.