The story goes far back into the distant past, into those heroic times when democracy broke out in Rátót. Where it came from, who brought it in, it all have beeninvestigated by the epidemiological specialists to this day, but it is a historical fact that all of a sudden it walked on the high street of Rátót. It greeted the people passing by, tried to start conversation with them, it even dropped in the pub and gulped down a grape-skin brandy. But the people in Rátót are not famous for tolerating all sorts of vagabonds. They caught the goddam democracy and got rid of it. But all their efforts were vain. When they put it outside at the lower end of the village, it came back at the upper end. When they put it outside by day, it came back by night. They put it in a sack, threw it in the river, but it came back…