Házasodik az uram

A lantern-lit Budapest drawing room, velvet drapes twitching like nervous eyelids, witnesses the farcical implosion of a betrothal. The bridegroom, a pompous civil servant whose self-regard inflates faster than the Danube in flood, has advertised for a spouse with the same detachment he once reserved for railway timetables. Enter the candidate: a quick-witted milliner whose dowry consists of a sewing needle, a barbed tongue, and the certainty that marriage is merely another garment to be altered. Over one delirious night, disguises proliferate—mustaches slip, wigs whirl, a supposedly deceased aunt revives to sing czardas from behind a japanned screen—until every assumed identity collapses into a heap of brocade and bruised egos. When dawn leaks through the shutters, the wedding contract lies in shreds; what remains is a couple dizzyingly aware that the only vows worth exchanging are those scribbled in the margins of a joke they have not yet finished telling.