Release date is 2026-01-19

Időtlen bolt -- Fehér halál -- A fuvola -- A veszély -- Boldogasszony Arkádiában -- Az egyiptomi aranykígyó -- Ő volt -- Te csak dolgozzál -- A mesekönyv kis hercegnője -- Az apostol -- Aeterna Hungaria -- Viaszfigurák.

Albert László from page images generously made available by the Hungarian Electronic Library

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. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Budapest: Singer és Wolfner, 1920